My Last Seminar?

When we started Hudson Ink, I had no idea anyone would want me to give a seminar. It just never occurred to me. I figured I’d just write, design and test marketing pieces in hopes someone would eventually buy something. (Take note: this is called a “business plan”.)

Yet someone – who clearly had a recent speaker cancellation – asked me to speak. My first gig. Right after, and before the glow had worn off, a very seasoned consultant named Tom McCart said I’d uttered, “Um,” twenty-two times. I tried to answer him with, “Well, I tried to um…”. He interrupted: “Twenty three,” he said smiling. Never forgot that lesson.

After that, I attempted to improve by investing in all sorts of books, CDs, and webinar training (initially teleseminars from Tom Antion and John Childers, then Alex Mandossian, Fred Gleek, and Dan Kennedy – who helped forge the copywriting training, too. I needed help everywhere!). Yet, I never thought I’d be saying this…

Giving seminars has been THE #1 connection with clients. Seriously, this “dark horse” of a communication became a great client generator.

Often, speaking opened the door for on-site consulting, but this was time-intensive and – to me – far more expensive than expertise I could “package” (videos, CDs, DVDs, bound material, coaching). Plus, the travel schedule ate into time with my children, so I cancelled all on-site consulting in 2008.

And by the way, speaking or consulting without replicatable product or program is NOT a business. It is a media, pure and simple. A business has a ‘tail’, a life after you, something that others – well-trained strangers if need be – can run.

*Note to contractors considering an eventual exit: think momentum that follows you, not extinguishes with you.

Since I only do 3 or 4 seminars per year now (by choice) we had to “rethink” how this valuable media could be leveraged. Hopefully, you’ll find the following interesting and applicable.

In the last few year, 3 big things happened:

1.      Live seminars remained… but changed. I get to meet and greet clients, prospects, families of each sometimes, and generally connect more intensely, with better results. At our recent Associated Equipment and ACCA national seminar, attendees got “compressed learning” (meaning handouts of DVDs, CDs, links to follow up training). Why? Because it is VERY hard to implement all you learn in a 90 minute seminar, so…

2.      Marketing Coaching emerged. Just like we all learn better among peers AND in one-on-one settings, the off-site coaching model has helped us reach hundreds of contractors monthly at a fee that pulverizes any other form of training. The first (and largest) of its kind, members get ongoing nudges, guidance, inspiration, and put up with me in our live group calls.

(*If you’re NOT in a Coaching program, I strongly urge you to consider. I am personally in 4 and consider this ongoing education of the highest order. You’re welcome to test-drive ours here.)

Then the world changed again with –

3.      Videos, Webinars, and YouTube. Now most anyone can have a media channel. We often record for members, put snippets on YouTube, links of same from Facebook, and use the traffic from that to gain more members.

Recently, we launched another training series of videos that 644 contractors signed up for. I couldn’t get that many contractors to a live event if I had nude dancers handing out $100 bills and Jell-O shots.

How this affects today’s ‘retail minded’ contractor

It’s about “positioning”. If you wrote and promoted a book and no other contractors did, you’d have a major positioning advantage. Or, if you were always the “face” of a charity, and others weren’t, you’d get all the feel-good positioning.  Conversely, if you were splashed on Dateline in a sting, you’d have THAT positioning.

Yet, this side of a chance brush with a writing career or publicity, how can you “force” positioning?

Look, I didn’t write books on contractor marketing as positioning, it just happened. Yet those other things above were intentional. (The books proved it.) Today’s media shift means YOU can CHOOSE your position, quite publicly and effectively, and you DO NOT need to do it the old-fashioned or super-slow way.

Too many contractors think “incrementally” in marketing. Such as, “I’ll send out Newsletters to ONLY my Agreement customers.” (Silly, since you presumably WANT all your customers to adopt agreements.) Or “I’ll drop radio and start blogging and social posting.” As if it were a trade-off. One for another.

Yet you can literally choose to move from incremental to exponential increase by creating a powerful “position” in your marketing that FORCES your audience to seek you and listen, as opposed to being “the call that came during dinner” or the “deletable email from some contractor.”

Instead of being a customer of the media, I encourage you to think:

You ARE the Media.

Your business’ social sites are NOT just “chit-chat” and silliness. Lord knows, don’t you dare “sell” on them. They are an awareness position.

YouTube is NOT for others. It’s for you. A series of educational short videos on preventive maintenance (appropriately tagged for your town and trade; call us we’ll explain) that are properly marketing you become your position. You could “own” this vast market in your town.

Email is NOT “just a convenience” for appointment updates and billing. It’s a monthly light tap on the door with something valuable to share, links to your site for more, or checkups on customers that gently ask for a referral. Position.

Reviews are NOT “chance happenings” hoping you won’t get filleted in public for a service mishap. They are events you can CONTROL by asking proper questions at the end of the service call and GENERATING a positive review – the more the merrier. Position.

Local Listing Rank is NOT “luck” that some other idiot who’s been in business for 30 minutes “happened” to outrank you. It was and is nearly formulaic, based on loaded content in your listing that is methodically updated by someone who knows what they’re doing.

I have more, but this is enough for now. (All the videos, emails, review generators have already been created here if you want to try them out.)

My last seminar – unlike seminars of old – didn’t end at curtain close or deposited check. It helped introduce contractors to other forms of training that won’t force them to fly hundreds of miles, sleep on a too-stiff mattress, and have 100% recall and implementation.

All exposure is media. All media is position. All position should be strategic.