As an Internet Marketing Speaker, I have told thousands of people about free and low cost Internet tools for generating leads.  It is wonderful what you can do in Internet Marketing for free if you just know which tools to use.

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.  Unforunately, 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.

 It would be great if I could tell you just one way to get paid speaking opportunities.  However, there are a lot of different markets for speakers and this means there are a lot of ways to generate speaking engagements for yourself.

The first thing you need to do is commit to the long term.  This rarely happens over night.  It is a continuous improvement effort that includes always improving your speaker marketing materials, your speaker website and the speeches themselves.

Often the best source of speaking engagements are the people that have just seen you speak or hired you in the past.  If someone in the audience really likes it and they are involved in putting on other events, this can result in great speaking opportunities.  Also, if your presentation gets good results then you have a good chance to be invited back in the future.

It is also not very difficult to build a speaker lead generation website that will rank high in search engines when meeting planners are out doing research for the meetings they are preparing to do.  While these are easy to set up, they do take regular writing and a commitment to improvement over time.

Another good source is to work with other speakers that compliment your topic.  Then when there is a bigger event that you get to speak at, you can close the opportunity and then ask the planner if they need any suggestions on other speakers.  When you share these kinds of speaking opportunities with a small group of professional speakers you will all increase your business.

You will find that the web and referrals from past audience members and event planners is the best source of speaking opportunities for Small Business Speakers that I get.  Speaking engagement opportunities for Marketing Speakers are surprisingly easy to come by with a good speaker lead generation engine, for example.

The ultimate key is that a paid speaking business is a slow growth effort unless you manage to get incredible PR and exposure.  You need to be comfortable promoting yourself or have a great speaking agent to quickly make money speaking.  For many people, slow growth with referrals and targeted web efforts will provide a steady supply to work with.  Then continue to grow from there.

It looks like I am going to get another chance to be a marketing speaker in Las Vegas.

I will have the details for you some time soon, but I have been booked to speak at the New York, New York hotel in Las Vegas in September 2010.

This is not my first time speaking in Las Vegas.  But this is the first time I am going back feeling like I really know the city and can get out and have some fun a bit more.

I will be presenting on lead generation and buzz marketing -  I will be covering it in an interesting way.  We will be putting together a program that will combine helping people find you when they are out looking for what you have to offer, and combining that with creating an internal buzz and excitement for people already involved with people’s organizations.

Should be a lot of fun and I like the combination of topics, which are all things I have done training and speaking on before.

Two weeks ago I finished teaching my first 3 credit hour Internet Marketing class at a large university.

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.

Next week I am thrilled to be teaching a 3 credit hour course on Internet Marketing at Kent State University.

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.

Lately I have changed my small business blog speech to a presentation on how to use blogs to build your own lead generation engine.

If you are looking for sales and marketing speakers you really might want to give me a call.  This blog speech is totally different and gives people a real, step by step process to generate more leads for them for a very small cost.

I have some client making a lot more money after they built a blog lead generation engine and stuck to it for a few months.  The system is simple, but does take consistent effort.  However, if you see the value in increasing leads, it is a no brainer and can be completely outsourced if you do not have time to do it yourself.

The two biggest roadblocks to building a lead generation engine are:

1. Not enough profit in your product – if you have very low margins, the effort may not pay for itself.
2. Saturated marketplace – if you are too broad in an already competitive environment, you will take too long to see any results, usually resulting in people giving up before it ever becomes successful.

However, if you know how to focus and have a good product, building a lead generation engine is one of the best investments you can make.  Call me to discuss having this lead generation blog speech presented at your next event.

I have an odd set of skills.  I am decent at technology, a good speaker, astute marketer and passionate educator.

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.

I had a great time last week speaking at the Cleveland AMA (American Marketing Association)

It was my second visit in three years.

Normally in the past I was a social media speaker, and that was how they advertised the event.  Buzz Marketing and Social Media training.  However, that topic has become so common and over done that I have become more of a lead generation speaker to give my audience more value.  In the beginning of the presentation I asked if anyone would be upset if I did not spend much time on social media and instead focused on how to generate leads from the Internet.  There was actually a sense of relief.    The fact is, most people are tired of hearing about Facebook and Linkedin.  The presentation on using the web to build a sales and lead generation process was really well received.

Wednesday I am giving a Buzz Marketing speech at the Cleveland AMA.  This is my second time speaking there, and it is an excellent group to go talk to.

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.

For a long time I have not taken LinkedIn very seriously for event promotion.  The fact is, I think Facebook is good for event promotion.  I think twitter is the easiest, but also the noisiest.

However, I am seeing more and more events being promoted by people forwarding them to me on LinkedIn and I am taking notice.  I would actually say it is a toss up how I find events I attend.  25% Blogs – 25% Facebook – 25% LinkedIn and 25% Word of Mouth.

This does not include those that I am acting as a marketing speaker at, as that is an entirely different thing.

I know this is not very scientific, but it is worth hearing from time to time how people are choosing the events they attend and if you see trends, you need to pay attention to the medium.  The interesting thing about all the ones I mentioned is none of them have to cost money – but they do take time to build an audience.

A good business to business marketing speaker is going to have some characteristics.

1. They are going to work in both small businesses, large businesses, different industries and at different levels.
2. They will have worked in business to business sales successfully.
3. A good Business to business marketing speaker will understand quality lead generation.
4. Business to Business Speakers better understand trends in Internet Marketing and social media.

If you need someone with all of these traits, give me a call.  After all, we help companies around the world, both big and small, build Internet Marketing Business to Business Lead Generation sites and people that learn that, end up with many more hot, targeted leads.

Speaker pricing is a tricky thing. I am a huge fan of having standard pricing and a package that is easy to talk about. As an SEO speaker and lead generation specialist I know that I can teach people to create millions of dollars in new leads, so in theory charging $300,000 for a two hour training session to 25 people would seem like a fair price.

No, I have not done any of those yet.

The reality of speaking fees is that many speakers are flexible but you cannot expect them to be always flexible. For example, they may be paying a commision to an agent or agency. They may be very busy and not do discount speeches. They may also be very selective about who they speak for.

For me, I try to do local free and low cost speeches if I am avalable and if the group is generally the kinds of people that stand a chance to buy from me.

I have even travelled across the country at cost to address the right groups. One I did last year has produced a huge number of clients and sales.

Why am I writing about this? Because if you are shopping for a marketing speaker and you are not sure who you can afford, you should just call and ask. But have a budget in mind, know what your audience will look like and if the speaker is not in the Baal park or just foes not seem interested, then move on and find another.

Good Sales and Marketing Speakers are not going to just hope to motivate a sales and marketing team for a few days.  Of course, the presentation should be like a jump start, but if you are bringing in a sales and marketing speaker you should also try to bring someone in that will give the team at least one new tool that will impact the bottom line.

For example, I teach people how to build lead generation engines.  This is a simple technique to use content, targeted keyword research and clear calls to action to attract the right people and encourage them to contact the client.  Sounds hard to someone that does not like technology, but I assure you that anyone can do this if they simply stick to it past the first couple of months were you need to build the momentum.

Speakers on sales and marketing may also teach your group how to use LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter or Blogs to attract more leads.  Just having an account with these things is rarely going to yield results.  You have to learn how to work the tools.

Regardless of the tools of the Sales and Marketing Speakers that you consider, make sure you bring in someone that will teach a new skill.  Even if the speaker only helps your team add 5% to the number of leads they are getting, that can be significant over time and that is a whole lot better than a little motivation that fades in one week.

I am a marketing speaker and I try to help the event planners as much as I can with events.  Sometimes that means showing up on time and keeping out of the way, and sometimes it includes some serious consulting on how to promote the event better.

It currently looks like I will be speaking on Internet Marketing in Chicago on Halloween weekend.  It kind of makes me sad because I have a 4 year old and I do not want to miss trick or treat.  However, if I can find out some good info, we can always go do it in Chicago.

But the reason I am writing this is that the event planner and I were discussing how much Halloween would effect event attendance.  Personally, since I have young kids I am 100% sure I would not go to the event, just as an attendee.  However, that will not effect people local to Chicago nor people that do not have young kids.  So I am just not sure how big of an impact it will have.

What do you think?  Leave a comment.  Would you go to a seminar on Halloween?  How much do you think it will effect attendance?

If you are looking for a Social Media Speaker and you want to get a great speaker and a great value for your audience, make sure that you are not booking a Social Media Speaker that is only going to talk about free internet traffic sources.

Free Internet Traffic from social media sites is great, but if your website or blog has not been optimized to convert visitors to leads, you are really wasting your time.  High traffic does not matter if your conversion rate is zero.

Here are some questions to ask your potential Social Media Speaker:

1. How do you make money with social media?  Does the speaker’s answers fit with your audience and industry focus?
2. How many different social media topics will you cover in one hour.  Hint: more is not better – anyone can give you a laundry list.  Far better to go into greater depth with fewer social media tools.
3. How do you capture leads from social media?  If they talk about relationships and do not talk about particular lead capture tools, then you are not talking to an expert.
4. Lastly, ask how much your Social Media Speaker makes in a given year from social media.  If they do not know, then they are not marketing speakers at all – marketing speakers know they have to measure results.  And if they are not making much money, then they do not really know what they are talking about.

Interview your potential Social Media Speaker for your Social Marketing Workshop or event.  Make sure they are not just covering the basics that almost everyone knows by now.