Over the years, I’ve measured the marketing that we do at Appletree (because measuring your marketing is very important!) and I’ve noticed a trend. Every year, about 40% of our new business comes as a result of me speaking in public about marketing. Speaking also works well for many of our clients, so this blog will show you how you can use it for your service business too.

How does Speaking work for Appletree?

In September 2014 I was asked to deliver a 90 minute workshop on marketing to a group of HR professionals in Swindon. I’ve given talks to the group a number of times before and I’ve been booked to deliver another workshop for them in January 2016! The audience is made up mainly of independent HR consultants – people running their own businesses. They are all experts in what they do, so they’re not experts in marketing; in fact, some of them don’t even like doing marketing! With this in mind, I ran an interactive workshop where I took the audience through a 9 stage Marketing Planning process that I’ve created. It’s quite simple to follow and makes marketing easy for everyone running their own business. In these workshops, I share all my marketing know-how, answering whatever questions I’m asked. I do whatever I can to help the people in the room to get to grips with their marketing. I share all my marketing expertise and don’t hold anything back.

I wasn’t paid to deliver the Swindon workshop, but I still treat the delegates just as I treat my paying clients. They can pick my brains as much as they like! The same applies when I give talks to networking groups – whether they are 10 minutes long or 2 hours long.

So how does all this generosity bring me business? One of the delegates who heard me speak at the Swindon workshop recommended me to a business colleague. She phoned and asked for my help in promoting her business. She had heard good things about me and at the end of a phone conversation, she booked me to deliver a one-to-one workshop for her business, at a fee of £1000, plus travel expenses – and she’d never even met me! That is the power of public speaking as a marketing tool.

Be generous in your speaking – share your knowledge and expertise and see how it can bring you new clients too.