A little while back, Google did some weird thing where they upgraded my account, built me a new gmail account and linked everything to it – all with the accidental click of one button.

I used to get emails when Google docs were updated, and this let me follow up on speaking leads right away.  Unfortunately, this thing that happened made the emails go to the new gmail account I was not using.

It took me several weeks to realize that I was not getting notified of leads that came in from those websites.  Unfortunately, one of the leads was big, close to my home and a great opportunity.  Since I was several weeks late following up I lost the opportunity.

Now I do not want to blame Google here – because I have had similar problems with other services both free and paid.

The moral of the story is that you need to test your lead generation tools every week.  If it seems like it has been a while, maybe something is not working and you are losing leads.

I also had an Internet Marketing client that I started working with recently.  They were paying nearly $1,000 a month for a service to capture and generate leads for them.  He complained that they had not gotten one lead in over 9 months.  I asked a few questions and within 24 hours we found that the leads were being sent to an old email that no one checked anymore.

Problems can occur with any system.  It is the sales manager’s job to keep an eye on these things.  One lost lead can cost you many thousands of dollars.  That is indeed the situation for me with that Internet Marketing Speaker opportunity I got.  Now I am testing thing much more frequently.

As an Internet Marketing Speaker, I am used to speaking about Internet Marketing for an hour or two.  Sometimes I even do a half day Internet Marketing Workshop.  But I was a bit worried about teaching 40 hours of Internet Marketing lecture.

I should not have been worried.  Never before in my life have I ever been so keenly aware of what 17 years of Internet marketing experience has done for me.  40 hours only scratched the surface – those poor kids.  I had to take important things out to avoid burying them under far too much information.

If you are looking for an Internet Marketing Speaker, give me a call.  I can craft the kind of Internet marketing focus that will be custom and best for your audience.  What you will NOT get from me is a general summary of social media marketing strategies, as I think this is too common and many people are tired of hearing it.  I prefer to focus on using Internet Marketing for lead generation.  This is what people really value and enjoy learning, because it can change your life in a big sort of way.

It is more work and more time for lower pay when you compare it to a normal 1-2 hour Internet Marketing Speaker gig, but it is really interesting to have the chance to spend 40 hours with a small group on students that are hungry for this kind of information.

If you are a speaker and have never done a big workshop that is longer than the normal speech you might do, here is what I learned.  Break it down into 30-60 minute speeches.  So 40 hours is basically 30 smaller speeches and some time for activities, project work, Q&A, live demos and more.

The Internet Marketing class I have designed and am going to teach is not “how to do Internet Marketing.”  It is actually how to work with different kinds of clients, assess their needs and propose the best Internet Marketing strategies and solutions to meet their goals within their budget.

Of course, I will be working with students to teach them the basics of Internet Marketing as well, but more in line with improving their ability to talk about it and plan for it.  A very valuable skill, if you don’t mind me saying.

I am probably not great at any of these things.  I know better technology people.  I have seen better speakers that make me keenly aware of what the next level looks like.  I make an ok living with Internet Marketing, but not like the big Internet Gurus.  And in education, where I am most passionate, I do not do enough.

Starting in January I will be teaching at my second university.  But ultimately, what I really want to do is not teach – but transform.  I would like to transform learning in ways that make it about the students.  Few people know that when I quit my job at Ernst and Young many years ago, it was to form an education company.  Then we started doing consulting to pay the bills and lost site of what I originally wanted to achieve.  Just starting to explore that topic again.  I will continue to pay the bills as an Internet marketing speaker, SEO expert and consultant, but I am really looking forward to getting back into the area of education again.

They are billing me as a buzz marketing speaker but I tend to think of myself as an Internet marketing speaker – or a client generation speaker.  I am kind of tired of everyone jumping on the social media bandwagon and talking about the advantages of connecting with the audience with social networking sites.

Instead, I now talk about how to build sites and strategies to attract the right kind of people – potential buyers – and how to encourage them to take action.

The tricky thing about the AMA presentation is that I will be discussing Buzz Marketing given that that is how they promoted me.  The good news is that customer generation is all about launching a content and sales funnel, and Buzz Marketing still helps you attract more people into the top of the sales funnel.  So it is still relevant.

I just hope that people do not come ready for more of a PR and Buzz Marketing spin.  They could be disappointed with the emphasis put on measuring and tracking Return on Investment on content and web marketing strategies.  However, my gut tells me that what I am doing now is much more valuable – and so does my pocketbook.

When selecting a speaker for you internet marketing seminar it is best to consider first the topic of your marketing seminar. The second thing to consider is the type of audience that is expected to attend. If these two important considerations are neglected then you risk the possibility of not matching the right internet marketing speaker to your topic and audience.

Most people have a mindset of selecting the most popular marketing speaker available. This is understandable because most, if not all, famous internet marketing speakers will have their own website, so when someone searches the internet for a speaker, the website of the famous speakers appears first. Hiring a well-known internet marketing speaker will always draw a large number of people, but they also cost more.

Fortunately, there are plenty of suitable internet marketing speakers to be the keynote speaker of your internet marketing seminar. The well-known speakers are the quickest and easiest to find, but with a little more searching on the internet you will surely find speakers that are not so well known but are equally qualified and knowledgeable as the famous ones. Hiring a lesser known internet marketing speaker may not draw as much people, but they cost less and can even tailor-fit their message to your specific web marketing seminar topic which will be more beneficial to your targeted audience.

Aside from the fame or status of an internet marketing speaker, there are also different types of speakers such as:

Celebrity Personalities

These speakers are famous their stardom in radio, television, or the movies, rather than their knowledge and expertise in internet marketing. Celebrity speakers will always draw a large number of people. As long as you can afford their talent fees and are able to book them in advance, then a celebrity as your main speaker will definitely have people interested in attending your internet marketing seminar.

Educational Speakers

These speakers are the one who have “been there and done that” and are able to share their knowledge and experiences first hand. Educational speaker really have very important information to provide, however, some educational speakers are not able to convey their message without causing the audience to doze off, or cause the audience tune out the speaker midway through the seminar. Think university college professors.

Entertainment Speakers

These types of speakers can certainly hold the attention of the audience; however you will seldom find an entertainment speaker who has in-depth knowledge and can really educate the crowd and entertain them at the same time. Entertainment speakers are great when you have information but do not have the necessary public speaking skills to do it personally, an entertainment speaker can voice that information for you. Simply provide them with your own content and let them speak and entertain your audience at the seminar.

Motivational and Inspirational Speakers

These types of speakers are the ones that make the audience feel good about themselves. However, the one thing to keep in mind about motivational and inspirational speakers is that there are really no qualifications to meet in order to become a motivational speaker. Anyone can claim to be a motivational speaker and of course the audience will enjoy having their self-esteem and self-confidence raised a little bit. One thing to keep in mind when hiring these types of speakers is to make sure that they at least have some understanding and knowledge about internet marketing, and the specific internet marketing topic of your seminar.

Once you have decided on the type of speaker for your internet marketing seminar and have negotiated their rates and ensured that they also comply with your conditions, then you virtually guarantee that your seminar will be a success because you have an internet marketing speaker who will not only educate and entertain your audience, but they will also speak directly about your marketing topic, therefore, making it a worthwhile and beneficial experience to everyone who attends your web marketing seminars.

My favorite Internet Marketing Speaker Topics are:

1. Build your own lead generation engine
2. Internet Marketing Strategy and Overview
3. Employee Brand Ambassadors
4. Business Blogging
5. Social Media and Lead Generation
6. Online Brand Building
7. Word of Mouth and the Web
8. Email as a Relationship Building Tool

Now some Internet Marketing Speaker Topics that I do not do:

1. Pay Per Click Marketing
2. FaceBook for Business Results
3. Online Advertising
4. JV – Joint Venture Strategies

Sure there are more, but those are just some ideas whether you are interested in hiring me as an Internet Marketing Speaker or you are looking for someone else.  Make sure you do not go too broad (Like just Internet Marketing) becauce a broad topic like that will not be of great value to anyone.

In fact, he has engineered his own Lead Generation Software that produces leads every day for a wide range of clients.

But the Internet Marketing presentation is not about the lead generation software.  It is about how to think like your prospect and help them find you and make them a clear offer to encourage the visitor to become a lead for your company.  This powerful strategy has produced millions of dollars of leads only a few months after its release.

The Internet Marketing Presentation will make a great deal of sense to the small business owners that have been struggling with Internet Marketing and assuming that their product just does not sell on the web.  In fact, you need a complete strategy, not just a few web pages.  When business owners understand that, and the value the additional leads can produce, it completely changes the attention and effort that small business owners pay to Internet Marketing and online lead generation.

I am an Internet Marketing Speaker and I always tailor the Marketing Presentation to the audience.  That is sometimes easier said than done – especially if you know that people are going to come in with unrealistic expectations.

I do a lot of Internet Marketing Workshops for Non Profits, and these can be very challenging.  If the audience already thinks that they can use the Internet to drive up fundraising, they are not going to like what they hear.  It is easy to set up a fundraising page and a donation process, but it is much harder to build relationships with people via the web to make them want to give you money.

I sit on the board of several non profits, and in one case, I saw everyone get very excited after another Internet Marketing Speaker talked about the “Tell a Friend” feature on the software he is selling.

That stuff can work, don’t get me wrong, but you have to ask yourself – what percentage of visitors want to forward an email to a friend about mental illness?  It takes more than the tool – it takes a compelling message and a realistic look at how your are developing the relationship.

Internet Marketing Workshops and Training are important and valuable, but don’t go to one and allow yourself to be sold.  Go to the workshop and know in advance what you want to get out of it, and ask yourself if the information fits with the vision of where you want your organization to go.

Think about what you want an Internet Marketing Speaker to speak on:

1. Coding a Website?  HTML?  XML?
2. Video Production?
3. Search Engine Optimization?
4. Viral Marketing?
5. Lead Generation?
6. Blogging?
7. Social Media?  FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter?
8. Wikis?
9. Linking Strategies?
10. How to Attract more Traffic?
11. How to do Google Adwords?
12. Flash?
13. CRM Integration?
14. Email Marketing?
15. EBay?
16. Personal Branding?
17. …. you get the idea ….

This list can get very long.  Remember, just like when you start building a website, you need to start with the exact outcome you want – then you choose the vehicle to get there.  If your case, what do you want your audience to learn or get out of the presentation, THEN choose the Internet Marketing Speaker to get the job done.

If you are looking for an Internet Marketing Speaker that will help people use Social Media and Business Blogging to achieve a HIGH increase in leads on the web, then I am the best Internet Marketing Speaker for you.  You can request more information here.