Improve Your Speaking for Ad Agency New Business

speaking for ad agency new business

Having the opportunity to speak in front of a highly targeted, interested group of prospects is a very effective form of lead generation.

Be honest, be authentic, and speak from your passion … that’s the advice from Mark Hurst, entrepreneur and writer. Mark says,

“People at events are hungry for authenticity.”

Presentation skills are “learnable”. Mark provides the following exercise for anyone who wants to genuinely connect with their audience:

  1. A few weeks out, write out everything you spend your time doing – professional work, side projects at home, everything.
  2. Now pick the one thing you’re most excited about.
  3. Now consider: why is that so important to you?
  4. Design your talk from that point, as if you started by saying, “My name is X, and I’m passionate about XYZ because…Build the talk around your passion.” The rest of your talk should fall into place easily enough.

The final measure of your success as a speaker:

  • Did you change something?
  • Are attendees leaving with a new idea?
  • Did you provide them with some new inspiration?
  • Did you give them a renewed commitment to their work or to the world?

The above was taken from Mark’s contribution to Seth Godin’s ebook, “What Matters Now” (PDF download) – it appears on page 18 – one of 75 contributions.

The great motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar, often says,

“You can have everything you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

Give your audience what they want … authenticity for ad agency new business.

My appreciation to Margaret Molly, SR VP, Marketing at Gerson Lehrman Group, for initially sharing this article. I recently met Margaret in person at the Mirren New Business Conference in NYC.

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About Michael Gass

Consultant | Trainer | Author | Speaker

Since 2007, he has been pioneering the use of social media, inbound and content marketing strategies specifically for agency new business.

He is the founder of Fuel Lines Business Development, LLC, a firm which provides business development training and consulting services to advertising, digital, media and PR agencies.

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