Helena B Communications

ExpertisePR for Marketers

Helena Bouchez helps marketing thought leaders raise their profiles with prospects and influencers via expertise PR.

An afternoon with Seth Godin

Spent the day at Digital Sandbox, 55 Broad Street NYC, at the Small Business Tech Summit (link is to Twitter hashtags). Seth Godin was the keynoter. I’ve seen dozens of “inspirational” speakers, have read a couple of Seth’s books and was prepared to be mildly entertained and to have heard most of it before. (I think the word for that is “jaded.”) But I digress.

Actually, Seth said many new things. Amazing things. Disturbing things. But really, what makes Seth Godin so completely remarkable is the way in which he says them. Something about the level of his conviction, the down-to-his-bones knowing, the vibe of what he says. It’s so — unvarnished. He’s very good on audio too of course,  but there’s something special about hearing someone like that in person that cannot be duplicated in a recording. Go see him live, if you can. Also check out his new book: “Linchpin: Are you Indispensable?”

There is much more information I want to share with you, but I need some time to integrate it and pull it into a series of coherent posts. Thanks again to @ducttape for the ticket, the event was well worth it and I’m looking forward to attending again next year.

Just in case you’ve missed my Tweets on this or aren’t on Twitter, I’ve got an article on how to get a speaking gig up on Marketingprofs.com and a blog post on presentation trends on MPDailyfix.com! Please share.  By the by, I will be live tweeting and blogging at the Marketingprofs.com B2B event in May and my readers get a discount (click link or on badge below).

Get a Speaking Gig [Interview Outtakes]

Whenever interviewing people for an article, I always end up with way more material than I can use. Over the next few weeks,  I’ll be writing up a few extra nuggets that didn’t make it into today’s Marketingprofs.com article. To make sure you don’t miss any, subscribe to this blog.

Outtake #1 – Marty Fahncke (CCU Learning) Interview
“Attendance at live events is, for most part, down. More and more events are moving to virtual, because you can get more attendees with less overhead. Even some of the biggest names are opting for virtual events, to save money and increase attendance.

There is a definite downside to the virtual event, however, especially in terms of value perception. Whereas someone would be willing to pay $1,000 for a two-day event, they will not pay that for a web based seminar, even if the content is the same. So along with the cost savings, the amount of potential revenue also is decreased.

The other thing that suffers is the back of the room, (i.e. sales of books and recordings) because you – and the product – are not physically there.

As for presenting at a virtual event, my experience is a great speaker from stage will be just “good” virtually. This is because they are working with fewer cues and no visual cues. If am a producer, and I have a choice between someone who is great on the platform but who has never done web, or an okay speaker who has done web or telephone presentations, I will go with the person with the virtual experience every time.

I see lot of aspiring speakers that only want to do live events and they are missing out on the opportunity to expand their fan base, without incurring the extra time and travel expense. And if they’re good at it, it’s another source of revenue that can be generated, without leaving the comfort of home.”

During this interview, Marty also divulged his super secret strategy for becoming a highly sought-after speaker, the details of which he agreed to post on his blog sometime this week. I’ll post the link here and send it out via Twitter as soon as it goes live!

P.S. Be sure to check out the comments at the bottom of the Marketingprof.com article for additional great information. And feel free to add your two pesos. We’re all in this together.