Vickie Sullivan
Since 1987, Vickie Sullivan has been helping consultants, experts, and industry leaders use public speaking as a marketing tool. She is a professional speaker, speaker-marketing specialist, and the author of Springboard Marketing™, Speak to Sell, Speaking in the Strike Zone, and Get Those Bookings.
Sullivan’s articles have appeared in national publications, such as Professional Speaker magazine and Lawyers Weekly. She also publishes a newsletter, and is active in the National Speakers Association and the Institute of Management Consultants.
In this wide-ranging interview, we pick Sullivan’s brain on everything from speaking skills and topic selection to the use of speakers’ bureaus.
McLaughlin: For most of us, the fear of public speaking ranks right up there with IRS audits and death. Any tips on how a speaker can conquer that fear?
Sullivan: The number one fear about speaking in front of others is that of rejection. We are afraid of being wrong, that the audience will not like or understand what we are saying, or that listeners will not get what they want from the presentation. But, in reality, the audience wants to accept us.Vickie Sullivan
So, re-frame the situation, and see it from the point of view of your audience. People in the audience want to get useful information, and they want you to succeed in giving it to them. To de-escalate the fear, the first thing is to know that the audience is pulling for you and wants you to do well.
To improve speaking skills, I also advise the use of outside help. Groups like Toastmasters offer opportunities for practice, and will help you with nervousness and get the ums and ahs out of your speaking. Also, go to any chapter meeting of the National Speakers Association and look for the humorists. They usually have ancillary services to help punch up a story, and they charge very reasonable fees. Thinking with humor relaxes the mind, which helps alleviate fear.
A lot of actors use breathing exercises to relax, and athletes use visualization. You can’t really be present if you are scared, so it’s all about getting rid of the fear.
McLaughlin: Would you agree that some amount of anxiety, or butterflies, is normal?
Sullivan: Butterflies show that you care about doing a good job, and you won’t ever get rid of them completely. We have an old saying in speaking: you will always have butterflies in your stomach; just make sure they’re flying in formation. It’s a question of degree. Does the caring debilitate you? If so, it’s no longer caring, it’s fear. Good speakers will use that energy for an adrenaline rush, to be fully present, alive and out there, connecting with people.
A lot of people get scared because they don’t feel confident in the spotlight. Speakers raise their confidence level by being sure of their content, practicing and getting outside help. It’s magic when a speaker is fully present. The audience will forgive a multitude of sins when that happens.
McLaughlin: What advice would you give consultants about selecting speech topics?
Sullivan: To get results from speaking, consultants have to do something that isn’t natural for them: they have to take a stand. They have to put a flag in the ground and stand for something. Generalists are reluctant to do that because they don’t want to drive away business. However, in the world according to Vickie, taking a stand is a great way to avoid business you don’t want.
The flag in the ground is the speaker’s topic “hub,” because that stance can be applied to a variety of topics. For example, a speaker whose message is that success is about results, not process, would weave that message into every speaking topic.
Another key to topic selection is to have a unique twist. Too many consultants who speak do not differentiate themselves. And because they don’t differentiate themselves, the audience does not accept them as a resource. It’s fine to speak about change, for example, but you must have something to say about change that is new and different. In Fast Company magazine, you can see this in action. Their “gurus” do one of three things with conventional wisdom: they disagree with it, twist it, or go beyond it.
McLaughlin: Can you give us an example of a speaker who has a unique twist?
Sullivan: Sure. Cheryl Stearns, who holds thirty world records in skydiving, speaks on the subject of fear. Now, a lot of people talk about fear but, as you can imagine, she has a unique twist on how it applies to her own identity and background.
She also underlines another key element for consultants to keep in mind: speakers have to prove they are worthy of the audience’s time; they have to earn the right to speak. With her experience in skydiving, she has proven that audiences should listen because they can learn from her.
You have to make clear what gives you the right to speak, and apply your experience in a way that will help people see how unique you are. Then, you focus on critical beliefs, those little nuggets of wisdom that make the audience say, whoa, that’s right, or I have never thought about that, or I need to keep in touch with this person and read her newsletter.
Consultants often make their identity too general. A consultant might say, “I’ve done X for the past twenty-five years.” Well, news flash: if you’ve been working for the past twenty-five years, you’ve done something, and that statement doesn’t cut it. What results did you produce in those years? What cool clients worked with you? Have you had any great media coverage?
McLaughlin: Based on your experience with speakers, what is the most common area for improvement you usually identify?
Sullivan: Consultants mess up in three areas. The first, failing to differentiate their message, we have already covered. Second, their content is terrible. Their stories ramble on with too many details, and often the stories are self-aggrandizing rather than making a point about their topic. Also, too many consultants do data dumps, just giving fact after fact with no context and no breather for the audience to digest the information. The third area for improvement is that consultants don’t leverage the opportunity. They put out all this effort and they get nothing back.
McLaughlin: What can consultants do to make better use of the opportunity?
Sullivan: They can change their mindset about the speech, and realize that a speech is not the end point, but a focal point for other marketing activity. Consultants often do not do anything before a speech, for example, to pack the house. Whenever you are speaking, especially if it’s a local thing, find out how many guests passes you can get. Approach clients or potential clients, and tell them you want to highlight them in your speech as a great example of how to do X. This is an excellent opportunity to cement a current relationship or to get attention from a prospective client.
If you know the speech is going to be taped, make sure you get copies to distribute. If the sponsoring group doesn’t tape the speech, you can tape it yourself for about $250. You can buy a gismo to put in your suit pocket that will digitally record your speech. Later, you can upload the speech to your computer and edit it yourself. This takes extra effort, but it’s worth it as a marketing tool, because you will have an audiotape or a CD that you can provide to clients. You want as many people as possible to hear about your uniqueness from you.
Otherwise, you have wasted your time to get applause and nothing else. Too many consultants view speaking as sweat equity, something they have to do to be visible, so it’s okay that they don’t get any real business out of it. That’s not true.
Given the time and effort involved in travel, giving the speech and the preparation, the return on investment should be high. People settle for less because they don’t leverage the potential by using a speech as a focal point, instead of an end in itself.
McLaughlin: What speaking topics are hot these days?
Sullivan: It’s not hot topics, but hot people. The demand is for people with a perspective, for people who have done something cool and are living to tell the tale. I think what we need from consultants is riveting information about the marketplace issues their clients face and how to deal with those challenges. Business leaders look to consultants to find out what they don’t know about their industry, or how they can improve their processes and results.
But, information is not enough to draw business to a consultant. Consultants should include diagnostics in their presentations. Let the audience experience the magic of that consultant applying knowledge and experience to a specific audience member’s problem. You want the others in the audience to feel that if you did it for that person, you can do it for them. So,deliver information, but also give the audience an experience that provides something tangible. Generally, this works best in the concurrent session format.
McLaughlin: Do you think consultants would have to significantly improve their speaking skills to compete in the keynote market?
Sullivan: Yes, because it’s a performance. And, the less cool you are, the more it is about performance. If you are rich and famous, you can read from the telephone book and it doesn’t matter. People will work harder to hear what you have to say.
Keynote speakers need to be a draw for a large audience and, unfortunately, most consultants don’t have that kind of visibility. So, they are not in the cool people category, but in the cool data category. Until they understand that, consultants will never crack into the keynote market in a big way.
So, unless you are famous or humorous, which most consultants are not, you have to work on performance. That means you must have a stellar opening, which is not a stale joke but a real story. And, the punch line of that opening has to set the overall tone of the speech.Consultants who are serious about getting into the keynote market should consider improvisational acting classes, or story telling classes, and definitely get outside help. Do not try this at home alone.
Good keynote speakers make it look effortless, but it’s not. They didn’t come out of a box that way; they worked really hard at it. Consultants are educators, and they don’t get the performance part of speaking.
McLaughlin: You created a concept called Springboard Marketing™. What is it, and how can consultants use it?
Sullivan: Generally, consultants do not approach speaking in a systemized way; they are haphazard about it. Springboard Marketing builds a platform for public speaking that consultants can use as an entry point to get more benefits for their business. Public speaking is a diving board, hence the name, for you to penetrate new markets, re-brand yourself in existing markets and generate leads.
Consultants have to keep in mind that the pool of speakers is huge. National associations are reporting three to five proposals for every speaking slot. They get hundreds of proposals from people who want to speak to their groups, including their own members who want to use speaking as a career builder. In some cases, industry vendors are sponsoring conferences and filling the speaking slots with their own people; they are paying to appear.
Then you have the professional speakers and other experts, not only consultants, but also coaches, as well as authors who want to promote their books. The big New York publishers are now saying they won’t publish your book unless you have a speaking schedule. It’s the 21st century version of book signing.
Consultants should approach speaking as they would approach a consulting project, because that’s what it is, a marketing project. The Springboard program provides the tools to turbo-charge speaking to get benefits beyond applause.
McLaughlin: How can speakers avoid the trap of what you call “abundance” in the market?
Sullivan: My abundance theory is that whatever is overstated in the marketplace, and I don’t care how true it is or how much of an achievement it is, has become a commodity. In the speaking market, the price for a commodity is zero, which means no payback for your efforts.
99 percent of my clients have material that is overstated, or abundant, in the marketplace. The key question you need to ask is whether or not the points you want to make, however riveting they seem to you, have already been made. And, the answer “I don’t know” is not good enough. If you are expert enough to speak, you are expert enough to know what is being said in your industry about a certain topic. If you don’t know, then how can you say you are an expert?
It’s not effective for me to tell speakers their material is obsolete, because they aren’t going to hear that. So instead, when I speak to groups about abundance, I have a speaker express one of her nuggets of wisdom to the group. Then, I ask the listeners to raise their hands if they have heard this nugget before. If every hand in the room goes up, the speaker gets the message.
Then, I point out to the speaker that her experience tells me there is more than this nugget in there, and we dig deeper. We go through the process again, and the speaker comes up with a completely different nugget, one the group has not heard before, and this gets applause. It’s hard work, but it pays off.
McLaughlin: How can we make our speeches memorable?
Sullivan: Let’s talk about audience attitudes that you must address to differentiate your material. First, recognize that audience members don’t come to your presentation shopping for a consultant, or even thinking they need one. They paid to attend the conference, and are looking for take-home value now. You have to make sure folks not only receive great information, but recognize that you actually do this for a living and can apply your expertise to their specific issues. Interestingly, unless you are explicit about this, they won’t get it. Of course, you can’t pitch your services from the podium.
The way to be explicit is through your introduction and through stories that show how you have helped a client solve a specific problem. Make the client the star in the story. That gives the audience members a clue that you can work with them and gets them to see themselves in the role of the client in your story.
The second attitude audience members have is that your information or viewpoint does not fit their environment. No matter how competent you sound, they think their business needs are unique and you don’t fit them. You can’t change their minds about that with information; you have to do it with the experiential approach we talked about earlier. You show people with a live exercise what you cannot tell them with words. That way, they see for themselves that you can be a fit for their situations.
McLaughlin: Is a speaker’s bureau a good resource to get speaking engagements?
Sullivan: Traditional speakers’ bureaus don’t represent speakers; they represent clients, for example, program directors, who are looking for speakers. A bureau might have a database with thousands of speakers. They will pitch speakers to clients and try to provide a good fit with what the client wants.
Bureaus deal most often with the market for keynote speakers. So, the first issue for consultants is whether they want to speak for free at concurrent, or breakout sessions, or they want to be paid keynote speakers. If you want to speak for free at concurrent sessions, speakers’ bureaus will not help you. If you want to look for keynote opportunities, it’s worth finding out more about speakers’ bureaus and what they do.
Consultants would do better with a corporate speakers’ bureau if their firm has one. In fact, more consulting firms should consider in-house, corporate speakers’ bureaus as a systematic approach of outreach to get speaking engagements that function strategically. With a corporate speakers’ bureau, the firm controls who the pitch is to, and can make sure that the opportunity is worth the time, preparation and travel it will require. Too often, consultants do not have a systematic approach for deciding which opportunities are good for them and which ones would be a waste of their time. A corporate speakers’ bureau can help with that.
McLaughlin: Thanks for your time.
Visit Vickie Sullivan at www.SullivanSpeaker.com.
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