with kristin thompson - rock your talk · with kristin thompson . welcome! this is session 1 of...

with Kristin Thompson

Welcome! This is Session 1 of Command Any Room. This is like me on Christmas! I’m so excited to have you and get to dive into the content that will absolutely change the way that you consider speaking, and absolutely the way you utilize speaking, in your business. This is the kick-off of Command Any Room!

I recommend you start a Command Any Room notebook or folder so everything is in one place, so we can serve you at the highest level possible going forward.

We added coaching and support calls for as you’re implementing and you have questions about how to customize it. There’s an element to this that is the mindset, the fear that might come up, the procrastination that might come up. That can hang you up as much as figuring out how to apply the systems and strategies and really customize them. Any type of question around mindset or applying the strategy to your business, you want to bring to the coaching calls. You have a wonderful support system as we go through the entire Command Any Room system.

We start today with “Plan It!” This is where it all begins. We’re making some really simple decisions, but they will be game changers in making sure that you get results.

1 Transcript by Lainie Cotell, www.MagiScript.com

In Session 2, we talk about getting the gigs and add those lead-generating, income-generating opportunities on your calendar. How do you do it in one hot conversation? We want to just get it done. We don’t want to do weeks and weeks of follow up.

In Session 3 “Craft It!” we’re going to talk about how you put together your talk. Piece by piece, step-by-step, you’ll know exactly how to open your talk, how to grab people’s attention, the right story to tell. We’ll talk about how to handle your main points in the right way so that you don’t over-deliver or under-deliver, on how to slide all the way into your close. It’s very simple. We’re going to give you the template to do it. You’re going to love Session 3. It’s a big game-changer for those of you who are right now getting compliments on your speaking, but no cash.

“Rock It!” is where we talk about what happens when you’re in front of the room. Once we have your plan, we have the gigs and we’ve worked on your talk, you’ve got to deliver that talk – and in a way that’s engaging people and creating that connection, which helps support your close at the end of your talk. It’s all part of the bigger hole.

In Session 5, it’s cash in and repeat it! We’re going to be covering every part of the close all the way down to showing you sample order forms, what they look like, why, dos and don’ts – stuff that can literally mean adding a couple more pieces of business after your talk…or you lose a couple pieces of business. There are a lot of little details that can either help you profit more and close more business or actually erode those sales or cause you to lose sales.

There’s lots of stuff that I’ve learned along the way – mishaps and stuff that works. I share with you only the stuff that works, as you can imagine. You’re going to really benefit from that. We’ve got tons of content. If you have friends or colleagues who have been through this program, then you already know what you’re in for – which is a very simple easy-to-understand step-by-step formula. We get compliments all the time that it’s the clearest program, it’s the easiest to understand, and you actually understand with the “how”. You’re going to know that. And, it’s going to be simple to implement. It also gives you the greatest amount of support for your dollar.

First I want to congratulate you for investing in yourself and taking the time and energy to take this program. I know it takes a lot to trust somebody. Maybe this is the first time we’ve met for some of you. You are in good hands. While I’m a highly imperfect person, I’m absolutely dedicated to making sure you get the most out of this program.

What is this program? Why am I doing this? Why am I here?

It’s really about commanding the room. What does that mean? It means giving you the right system so that you know from now on how to solve the many, many challenges that entrepreneurs are generally struggling from.


You might be in that position right now where you’re trying to figure out how to get some leads. How do I get that pipeline coming into my business?

I remember when I was starting out one of my greatest frustrations was feeling like I’m pretty sure I could serve people if I could figure out how to find people. How do you find the people? It’s really important to figure out how to fill that pipeline. That’s a huge part of Command Any Room. I think it’s one of the greatest parts. You will understand how to generate those leads whenever you want them.

After Command Any Room, there is no excuse for saying, “I don’t understand how to go get more leads. How do I get more people in my pipeline?” This is the answer.

For those of you who are struggling with cash flow, this is the solution as well. If you are where I was a couple of years ago, I was having very erratic cash flow. I kind of understood a portion of how to use speaking to grow business, but my business model back then was really a one-legged stool. It wasn’t very funny at the time, but at the time I would just give workshops and that was it. That was the beginning and the end of that story.

I would go out and give a free talk. At the end of the talk, I would make an offer to go to my workshop. I shared the story of the very first time I did that for myself at a networking group at Quality Inn. I made the offer for them to come back to the workshop, and 30 of them did and I made $3,000. That was amazing!

But there’s a problem with that business model and I will never teach any of my coaching clients or at the Rise live event. You’ll see at Rise. You’ll see it with my mastermind clients that we absolutely do not promote or suggest that you build the business just around speaking and feeding people into workshops. I tried that model. The problem with it is if you get sick, if you lose your voice, if your family member gets ill and you have to stay home, you don’t make money that day. Because if you don’t speak, then you don’t walk out with cash; and if you don’t walk out with cash, if that’s the only way you make money, you’re not making money that month.

That’s a very long-winded way of saying that we want to give you a model that gives you steady cash flow. We’re going to talk about how to do that. You can have even cash flow throughout the year, not those big erratic highs and lows.

We want to show you how to get highly visible. The worst thing when you’re starting out or even for those of you who have been in business for a long time, you might not have that level of visibility you really deserve that’s commensurate with your abilities. There is nothing more frustrating than knowing you’re really good at something, seeing somebody else who’s maybe


less qualified than you and watching them pass you by because they’re marketing better. That is a real bugaboo. We’re going to solve that.

We want to talk about how this help you position yourself, because it does. When you’re the person at the front of the room whether it’s at the local Chamber, at a business association or at a big high-level conference or event, either way it’s such fabulous positioning to be the person at the front of the room. It immediately says – when done well – being the person at the front of the room is instant credibility. It’s instant authority. If you want to build an expert business, meaning an information-based business, a coaching business or you’re an author, positioning is absolutely critical.

This is going to be the solution if you want to promote a book or fill a live event. A lot of people don’t understand how to fill live events. Speaking is a fabulous way to do that. It gives you the ability to have leveraged growth – that one-to-many model – and absolutely fill your products and programs.

It really is the cure-all. It is the number one way that I’ve been able to catapult my own business from zero, from really just being a big fat nobody baby mama in Portland, Oregon now leaping up into now multiple six figures. We’re on track this year to have over a $300,000 year. I still work Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Pretty freaking amazing in my book! It absolutely has blown my mind. It’s why I share it with you. Let’s get to talking about you!

Why create a plan? Why are we starting with a plan?

You’re all professionals and you already know if you don’t have a target, you can’t hit a target. If you don’t know where you’re going, then you are going to wander, possibly in circles. This, as simple as it may sound, is the number one stumbling block I see for people who want to use speaking. They just say it. It’s fun to say it! You go to some event and someone tells you speaking is a great way to grow your business and you go, “Yeah!” You write it down as one of your top ways, and then that’s where it sits. That is not going to help you grow your business. You can’t hit a target if there’s no target.

So, what do you need to do instead? We need to have you make some very specific decisions on today’s training, which we’re going to do. They’re simple decisions, but they will make the difference between you hitting your goals, adding revenue or not. It really starts with you thinking about the right topic. We do need to begin with the end in mind.

Please jot this down: begin with the end in mind. Another way of saying that is: where are you leading people? Where are you taking them?


One of the number one questions I get is: what topic should my talk be on? Because I could talk about so many things. I have ten different choices. I always want to shout, “No!!!!” Because you don’t. You don’t really have so many choices. I totally get how it feels that way, but the great news is you don’t really have that many choices. The topic of your talk is not just randomly picked from the multitude of things that you know. That’s where it starts to feel overwhelming. You’re just trying to think of everything you could possibly talk about on Earth, and that’s not actually how we want to go about approaching this.

We want to think about the fact that the talk you’re going to give, ideally if you’re going to be using it to build your business, is leading to an offer of some kind. It’s leading to an offer. We want it to be an entry-level offer. If this is the first time you’ve met these people and you’re speaking for 30 minutes to an hour, it’s your entry level offer.

When you think about that, we start to see where your topic is and what we’re pointing at, because we’re really pointing at your offer. Think of your talk as an introductory version of the paid program.

If you recall back to the webinar that introduced you to this program – that caused you to purchase this program – it literally was a very introductory version of this program. It gave you excerpts. It gave you highlights. It gave you learning nuggets and ahas. It just didn’t give you everything, mainly because of the time limit.

Philosophically, in terms of how you view it, your talk is an introductory version of what people are going to buy at the end of your talk. Do you see how that automatically pushes all the millions of topics out of the way? Boom! We laser it right in.

For instance, for Command Any Room, we know that there are five steps in the paid program. We know I’m going to cover those five steps, so the talk that sells this program covers those same five steps. It just covers them in a much higher level. In Session 3, I tell you exactly how we piece that together.

Do you see how I didn’t have a choice of any topic? It really was lasered in on the topics we cover in the paid program. I hope that makes sense, because I get a huge number of questions about topic and it’s really much simpler than we make it out to be.

Take a moment and choose your topic based on where you want to funnel people. Are you going to feed them into a workshop, a series like this, a live event, some sort of home study program? What is your entry level offer? Based on that, that’s going to point you towards the right topic. So take a moment and choose your topic.


If you’re still struggling a little bit, I want to give you some extra pointers on topic based on what your offer. Your initial offer should really focus in on your specialty or strength. The core of what you teach is probably based on your signature system. If you don’t have a signature system, that’s something worth developing. Your own signature system gives you something to really help you stand out and something that clearly articulates how you help people. It has to solve a problem.

The program that you’re selling, and therefore the talk that you give, has to solve a problem in the marketplace. More importantly, it has to solve a problem that people want to solve. If your offer is broccoli and your audience does not broccoli – it wants gummy bears – you can’t sell them broccoli. You can’t force people to buy something they don’t want to buy.

You really need to think about what you’re great at. What’s the core of how you want to serve people? What do you want to teach? Develop a signature system around it. For me, these five steps are the signature system that make up Command Any Room. This program you’re going through right now solves a problem in the marketplace. How do I get more leads? How do I get more cash? How do I get more visible? It solves that problem, and it’s a problem that everybody wants to solve. They’re excited to solve it. That’s exactly what you need as well.

Really focus in on that and get clear about how you serve, what you want to offer, and then therefore what your topic is. It makes a big difference and gives you a lot more clarity as we’re moving forward through this program.

Once you figure out your topic, you just need that one talk. When I say your topic focuses on your specialty or strength, it doesn’t mean that you don’t teach anything else. Command Any Room is not the only thing that I teach. I have other programs.

My coaching programs, for instance, go way broader than just speaking. My coaching programs and mastermind is really about building your business through your message. How do you build a coaching business, a consulting business, an expert business using your message as the core way that you’re going to market and sell? I have people who want to do workshops, launch series, do business online and off. My coaching programs go way broader than just here’s how you speak to grow your business. They’re really sales and marketing business growth programs.

But at the core of all of that and the core of what I love is still speaking. All of my clients generally want to use speaking at some level. They want to lead tele-classes. They want to lead webinars. They probably want to teach a workshop and maybe do a big live event. Those are on their agenda. Command Any Room is the core. It’s not everything, but it is at the core. That’s what you want to find for yourself.


Let’s move forward and talk about what you’re going to do with this talk once we have it mapped out in Session 3. I want you to be thinking ahead and realizing you can repurpose this one talk we’re going to create all over town all year round.

The thing that makes me crazy is people are spending so much time and energy generating all of these different talks on all of these different topics working way too hard and not making enough money. I’ve had so many peers who I’ve surpassed in revenue and surpassed in visibility, even though I work part-time and they work full-time who were mystified. “How did you do that?” People come up to me and ask me all the time, “How did that happen?”

It’s not voo-doo. It’s not black magic. I really simplify everything because I want to work three days a week. I want to hang out with Gavin on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and on the weekend because I do not want to spend my life on the road and most of my clients don’t either.

You have to be smart and strategic about the way you build your business. This is a lot of what we cover in our coaching programs. It is as important to me as speaking that you build your business around your lifestyle. Because of that, I’m really big on repurposing things and being very streamlined.

This one talk we’re going to create, you can give as a free talk. Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, a free talk is you’re going to go out to, let’s say, a Chamber of Commerce or a business association. For those of you who serve corporate clients, you can go in and speak at a sales meeting if you serve sales teams. I have coaching clients who do leadership training and conflict management, so they go into management meetings in corporations and give their talk.

It’s free in that you don’t charge them for the talk. That talk might be 30-60 minutes. At the end of the talk, you’re going to make an offer. Then when the person buys that offer, that’s how you get paid. It’s a great way to make money. I would say probably 80% of what I generate is off of free talks.

You can take that same free talk and pull the offer off. Just take the content part – the beginning, the aha, the attention-getter, your story, your main points and leave of the offer – and now you can get paid to deliver that talk as a keynote. If you give free talks well, you will get offers for paid keynotes. That’s how I get them. I don’t even really promote myself as a keynote speaker. It’s not really what fires me up. I make way more money speaking for free and paying to play, which we’ll talk about in a minute. For those of you who that’s a goal, being really great at giving free talks will lead to paid keynote speaker.

The same talk you can take out in a pay to play situation. I would say the other 20% of the money that I make has been from paying to play. That’s a situation where you might pay and sponsor an event. Every sponsorship is structured so differently. It’s like becoming the Wild


West. I do have a program called Event Profit Machine. I’m not saying this to pitch that; I’m just saying besides that program, seriously ask me or ask somebody else before you buy a big sponsorship. They are extremely expensive. Sometimes it’s worthwhile and sometimes it’s not. There are so many factors that go into making a successful sponsorship or not.

You pay to get in front of somebody else’s audience. They’ve gathered the room. They’ve rented the space. It’s really their event, but they’re going to give you an opportunity to step up on the stage and give a talk to their audience.

Keynote speakers completely come unhinged at this idea. They’re like, “What are you talking about!? I pay them for me to speak? This is an outrage!” They completely freak out. I get that it goes against what the National Speaker Association promotes. But there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

The average paid keynote speaker who is a member of the National Speakers Association the last I checked, which I believe were 2012 numbers, make about $3000 a keynote. Now, I have paid to speak at events where my talk generated $50,000 and $60,000. Do you see a little bit of difference there? You can make a lot of money – and a lot more money – speaking for free and paying to play, but do not ever pay to speak to an audience until you know your closing ratio. We’re going to talk about that in a minute.

Until you really know how to nail a free talk and you consistently close rooms, never pay a penny to speak to a group and never do it without having that sponsorship reviewed by people who have experience so that you get every penny back and more. We want to make sure you get a great return on your investment.

Those are three different ways to make money through speaking:

1. You have the free talk with an offer 2. You take the offer off and you just give a paid keynote 3. You pay somebody to get in front of their audience and make an offer

You can lead tele-classes or webinars. It’s the same talk. Now you’re leading it on the phone or adding slides. You can turn it into questions and answers and it becomes an interview. You can take a video of you giving the talk and chop it up into sections and have tons of marketing videos.

You can have that talk and/or video transcribed. It could become a product. It could become a freebie that you give away at talks or off your website – all kinds of fun things. It could become content for your newsletter, your blog, social media. Transcribing a great talk is a very good idea. I have a great transcriptionist by the way, as well.


Your Profit Plan

Your Profit Plan is one of the handouts in the membership area under “Session 1: Plan It!” There are a couple of things you want to think about as you’re creating your plan to make money from speaking.

1. How much more money do you want to make each month?

If you could add an extra X amount of dollars to your monthly income, what would make you happy? For some of you, maybe it’s $1000. Maybe it’s $10,000. It could be anything in between, or more or less. But pick a number that would get you jazzed if we could add that to your income. Jot that down in your notes or fill in the blank on your handout.

“I’d be thrilled if I could add an extra $______ to my monthly income.”

2. What is the price point of your entry level offer?

We talked about this on the preview call. When we got to the last point about cashing in, we talked about your offer being right-sized. We don’t want to ask anybody to marry us on the first date. What’s a nice entry-level price point, assuming that this is the first time you’ve ever spoken to this group?

For some of you, that might be $200. For some of you, it’s $500. There is no right or wrong answer. If you don’t have one, pick one. What is the entry-level price for your entry-level offer?

“The price of my entry-level service/product/package is $________.”

3. How many times a month do you want to speak?

This is a lifestyle/business type question. There are a couple of things about this. The more often you speak, the less pressure there is on any one talk. I learned in the beginning. The more talks you have on your calendar, the more money you make for lots of reasons. Obviously you have more at-bats. The more ups you have, the more times you have up at the front of the room, statistically we reach more people. We have more numbers. You’re going to make much more.

The other thing I like about having more opportunities is it kind of takes the pressure off a little bit. If you only have one speaking gig a quarter – every three months – you had one speaking gig to a huge audience, that would actually freak me out more than if you told me, “I have one a week every week. I’m going to talk to 20 people, 50 people, 40 people, 100 people,” and you were steadily giving up and giving talks and making offers.


Not only are you going to get better at it faster – big aha – but it takes the pressure off so that any one gig doesn’t hold too much power. If you only have that one opportunity, it feels like this golden egg. If you’re like me and many of my clients, you start putting a lot of pressure on yourself – “God, I’ve got to close this room, man, because if I don’t make money, if I don’t walk out with $5000, my month is screwed.” I don’t want you feeling that way.

I want you feeling abundantly full with speaking opportunities, so you say, “I’m just going to rock my talk and walk out with money or not. But I have another speaking gig next week, so no sweat.” That is a nice powerful position to be in. It allows you to be detached from the results. We’ll talk about that more in this program.

Detaching from the results is not the same thing as not caring about how you deliver. I want you to care a whole lot about how you deliver. But I want you to be detached from the results so you can really stay in a great mindset, very open about anything that happens. You’ll always close more business when you are not desperately clawing at people to close them, when you’re just standing in your power and letting it all flow.

When you think about how often you want to speak each month, it’s really a combination of how much padding you want to have so there’s not too much pressure on any one gig, but also what’s going to fit in your lifestyle. Let’s think about live and virtual. It’s a blend.

I speak several times a month, but not live several times a month. I really make sure I can be home with my family a lot. I have strategically placed local speaking gigs. I do maybe four out of town speaking gigs. Last year, it got really crazy. It got a little bit kooky. I think I went over four. This year I’m making more money. I’m doubling my income this year, but I’m actually holding back how much I’m traveling. You can, too.

That’s a strategy you want to devise. How many times do you want to speak? Specifically for those of you who want to really watch how much you travel, be sure you write down if it’s once a quarter or once a month. How often do you want to travel to speak or not?

4. “My closing ratio when I speak to groups is _____.”

Your closing ratio means how many people out of the number of people in the room did you actually turn into a customer and they said yes to whatever your offer was. If you’ve never given a talk before or if you haven’t been tracking this, you likely don’t know your closing ratio. 20% is a nice good closing ratio. That’s not crazy. It’s not over the top. Use 20% if you’re not sure. If you know your closing ratio, plug it in.

For those of you who don’t know or haven’t been tracking it or you’re just getting started, one of your bonuses is the Speaker Tracker. If you use the Speaker Tracker, you will be able to see


your closing ratio and see how much you generate on a regular basis when you do a speaking gig.

If you do 10 gigs a month and you generated $10,000, then we know your per speech average is $1,000, meaning on average given how much you generated that month and how many talks you gave, you can see that every time you give a talk, in general you’re walking out with $1,000.

That’s really helpful information. I am not going to go over the Speaker Tracker in this training. There is a video up in the Bonus section with your tracker that explains exactly how to use it. It is extremely valuable for two reasons.

It has you tracking what’s going on with your phone calls when you’re reaching out to get speaking gigs. There is a complete video that will walk you through it. The numbers that you plug in on how many times you picked up the phone and how many times you spoke to somebody about a speaking gig gives you great information about how you’re presenting on the phone. If you follow that information, you very quickly see what’s working and what’s not.

On the speaking side, when you see certain industries are really profitable and some haven’t been, or you’re doing really well in front of large crowds and not so hot in front of small crowds. As you look at the numbers on the speaking side, you’re going to learn really valuable information that can actually affect your performance. Besides just giving you the numbers, they give you training information as well. If you don’t know your closing ratio, use 20%.

Sample Profit Plan Your Sample Profit Plan has a blank for you to plug in the number of gigs you want to give each month. You want to put in the average number of people in your audience. If you’re not sure, you can guesstimate. It’s probably somewhere between 20-50 people. That gives you a total number of people that you speak to on that monthly basis. You’re going to multiply that by your closing ratio. You’re going to multiply that by the price of your offer (the investment, the price you charge for your entry-level offer). That equals how much cold hard cash you walked out with that month.

Here’s a sample equation for you:


Let’s assume you had four speaking gigs (1 a week). It may be some are virtual and some are live. We don’t care. We just want speaking opportunities. On average, there were 40 people in your audience. Some were larger and some were smaller, but there were 40 people on average. That gave you 160 people that you spoke to over the course of that month total.

We multiply that by your closing ratio. Of that 160 people, you closed 20% of them. I am not good at math, but I do know that is expressed as .20. You multiply your 160 people times .20 (20% closing ratio). We multiply that times the price of your entry-level product. We set that here as $500. And that generated $16,000. Boom! Isn’t that fun!?

Play with those numbers on your own. Do you want to speak more? Is your product less money? Are you terrified that you’re never going to close anybody and you want to make that closing ratio 10%?

This is the short-term profit. This is just the amount of money you’re walking out of in the speaking gigs. In a moment, we’re going to look at the more long tail.

Four gigs on average. You spoke to 40 people. That gave you 160 people total over the course of the month that you spoke to. You closed 20% of them into a $500 program. You just generated $16,000!

Ways You Can Quickly Boost Your Income

• Speak more often

We already talked about speaking more often. If that was five gigs instead of four gigs, guess what? You make more money.

• Speak to bigger groups (sort of)

A bigger group doesn’t always mean more money. I have gone out and spoken to small groups. In January, I flew out and spoke to a friend’s mastermind. There were six people there and I closed five VIP days. That’s a nice day. That’s a lot of money in one talk to a small group of very targeted people. It’s not always about the size, but with more people, the statistics can start to tip in your favor.

• Get better at closing the room

We’re going to help you with that in this program. That helps you boost your closing ratio. Instead of .20, if it’s .30, you make more money.

• Different price points


If you only have $100 as your entry-level product, consider making it two payments of whatever it is you’re charging now. In other words, if you’re normally charging $97, say it’s two payments of $97. That feels the same from a purchasing standpoint. “It’s $97 out of my budget this month.”

So instead of just charging $97 once, just make it two payments. You double your money. Boom! It’s such a simple tip. I hope somebody is freaking out right now. I tested this over and over again. Don’t ever charge $97. It’s better to do two payments of $97. You double your money and you get to charge what you’re worth. From a buying standpoint, it really feels like the same thing. It’s the same amount of money coming out of this month’s paycheck, so why not do it?

Post Your statement where you can see it!

When you play with this equation and you figure out exactly how much money your goal is to add to your income and you know about how many times you want to speak to accomplish that, put that into a power statement:

“I will add $16,000 to my income every month by speaking four times a month.” (Whatever the numbers are for you.)

When we get clear and specific about what we want, that is when we get it. We know that to be true.

This is just the short tail of profitability. You gave those four talks and you made the offer. That’s how much money you walked out with right then and there in that moment. That’s what you closed right then and there in that moment.

But you can profit beyond that. I referenced the $50k payday in the preview webinar. The roadmap to a $50k payday plays into this equation. We’re going to play out just a little bit farther. It’s still not really the full long tail on profit. This is looking at a 6-month-ish plan. You can start to see how it’s not the initial cashing in on that one talk. There are other layers and levels that come after that.


Roadmap to a $50k Payday

Marta uploaded the Roadmap to a $50k Payday to the membership site so you can print it out and play with it. We start at the top left-hand side with the purple-blue stars. It says “Rock Your Talk to 100 People.”

Let’s imagine you were going to your local Chamber, business association or conference and you get to speak to 100 people. Follow that roadmap forward. You make your entry-level offer. It’s likely going to be a workshop, training series, or home-study program. That’s a $500 offer.

We’re right in the middle now. We’re using 30% as a solid closing ratio, being pretty conservative in your profit plan. Of your 100 people, we get 30 people to say yes. It’s a $500 offer, which is $15,000 generated off that talk.


We’re staying on that main road, going into the yellow circle with the gold stars and you deliver what you sold. Let’s say it’s a workshop. You deliver your workshop to the 30 people who said yes. At your workshop, you’re going to make another offer.

You’re going to say, “If you loved this workshop (6-week series or whatever the thing is), here’s the next step to graduate into.” That might be a 6-month group coaching program. Let’s say 30% of the people at your workshop say yes. Now we’re talking about nine people. They say yes to a $350/month group training program. Over the course of six months, that generates about $19,000.

Let’s do a recap of what that looks like in terms of the equation.

1. You gave a talk to 100 people and 30% said yes at $500. That generated $15,000. 2. You then deliver that program and make another offer for them to step up into a deeper

training, deeper coaching, or deeper certification. That’s 30% of the 30 who said yes (9%). They sign up for a 6-month coaching program that’s $350. That generates about $19,000.

3. Add your $15,000 and $19,000. That’s $34,000 off one talk.


On the roadmap, there are some upsells. It’s a great idea to have some other options for people. This goes all the way back to the initial 100 people you talked to. Maybe one of them says yes to private coaching, and maybe one person from your workshop says yes to private coaching. I’m not making crazy outlandish numbers. That gives you two private coaching clients at $6,000. Let’s say it’s $1,000 a month for six months, or $500 a month for 12 months. And you get a VIP day for $5,000. That’s another $17,000. When you add that to the other money that you already generated, that’s over $50,000. Boom! These are not crazy numbers. Cut them all in half because you’re just getting started. Your coaching is half and your VIP day is half. It’s still a big, fat payday from one rockin’ talk.

This is why this skill is so valuable. It literally can change the course of your business. Let’s make some decisions to help you get started.

What is your entry level product or program that you want to offer people, and what is the price point?

Let’s say it’s “Get Financing For Your Business” and it’s $500. Maybe it’s “Lose 30 Pounds” and it’s $500. Whatever it is, give it an initial name and a price point.

The next thing you want to create is your follow-up program. They come through your initial entry-level program. It could be a series or a workshop. Now you want to give them something to graduate into. They come out of the program after they buy it. Where are they going to go into next?

It’s probably going to be a more in-depth version of what you teach. If you came out of Command Any Room, for instance, and went into the Rock Your Talk group coaching circle. How is Command Any Room going to be implemented in your business? How do you list build? This is the business building that goes with Command Any Room. That could be your follow up. That’s the next level up for us here at Speak Serve Grow. What’s your follow up program to your entry-level program? Start getting some ideas on paper.

What’s the price point? Is it $2,000 like our example? Is it a little more or a little less?

What are your upsells? On our roadmap, we had two upsells. Upsell one was private coaching. Upsell two was a VIP day. Your upsells could be whatever you want them to be. Maybe you’re a spa and an upsell is adding a facial to a massage. Maybe you have a fitness center, and instead of just the monthly membership, we’re adding personal training for upsell one and upsell two is a nutritionist or diet plan or gear that I can buy.


You want your entry-level offer, you want the follow-up program that those people can graduate into after they completed your entry level program, and you want to have a couple of upsells.

There are always going to be those people where you do your initial talk and they don’t need to go up the escalator with you. They don’t need to start at the bottom and do your $97 program, then do your series, then do your group and then do a VIP day. Some people just jump over all of that and – boom! – want a VIP day or coach with you privately. “I’m there. I’m ready. I love you. Let’s go!”

The challenge is if you’re not ready for it, nobody can say yes to something if it doesn’t exist. Just start playing with those offers on paper because it’s really going to give us the ability to allow you to profit from your talk. That’s what we’re all about here at Command Any Room.

What are your action steps?

1. Choose your hot topic

Please make sure you know where you’re focusing in on. What are you great at? What is the core of how you serve and what you love and what people want from you? It solves a problem – and it solves a problem people want to solve. That’s your topic.

2. Complete your initial profit plan

That’s the first handout that has a big purple banner at the top that says “Command Any Room – Turn One Talk Into a Tidal Wave of New Clients and Sales.” We went through the equation with the number of gigs, the average number of people, the total people times your closing ratio, times your price equals some cold hard cash. Play around with that. That’s the initial profit plan off your talk.

3. Roadmap

Take the roadmap and play around with that. Looking at your initial offer, your follow-up offer and your upsells, play around with those numbers and start to wrap your brain around how much you really can generate off one talk, because I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised. It’s pretty amazing what you can do when you have the right strategy and know that’s coming.

We’re going to show you in Session 02 how to get the gigs. We’re going to talk in depth about that. We’re going to talk in Session 03 about exactly how to structure this talk. Those of you who are saying, “This is all well and good, Kristin, but my closing ratio is zero right now,” please


know it’s not going to be zero by the end of this program. We’re going to show you the very common mistakes – the ones you are probably making.

The interesting thing is they’re not big mistakes. They’re just little missteps that really can hamper your results and cause you to walk out empty-handed. But once you know what they are, you won’t do them anymore. Yeah baby! We’ll get you right back on track.

We’re going to fix the structure of your talk. We’re going to make sure that you know how to be really comfortable engaging in front of the room so that you create that connection, interplay, and dance between you and your audience. That’s a big part of what leads people to the close.

In Session 05, we’re literally going to be going through the close step-by-step and really diving into the psychology behind it and different psychological levers you can fill showing you different order forms and how they work. I like to use a certain kind of order form in the local market that is not as practical at bigger events and conferences. I have a couple different options for you.

There are reasons behind why we’ve structured those order forms the way they are. Not only do you get these templates – these swipe files – that you could just take and use, but you’re really going to understand why they’ve been built the way they are. Then you just make them your own and off you go to make them more money.

Shane is asking: “Is there a way to find the problems that need solutions?”

Shane wants to know how we know the problems our clients have. There are a couple of ways you can find that out. Number one, survey people. Survey whoever you have in your address book right now. Even if you don’t have a big list of contacts, you probably do know people. You can survey people on Facebook. If you don’t know how to do surveys outside of Facebook, there’s something called Survey Monkey. That’s a great way to survey people and ask them, “What is your number challenge around ______.” Fill in your topic (losing weight, growing your business, marketing, giving talks, etc.) Asking people I would say is the number one way. Surveys are great. Picking up the phone is even better.

Another way is looking at the questions you’re already getting on a regular basis. Look at your inbox and the questions your clients are asking you or questions you get on your blog or after talks that you give if you’ve already been up, presenting, and speaking to people. A lot of times whatever you’re good at, people naturally are gravitating to you for advice on that topic already.


Start keeping a log about what people are asking about and what they want most. Those are some great ways to get started to figure out what the problem is and what people want as a solution.

Question: “I have a fitness studio. I’m not sure if my talk should be on weight loss or on self-image and what my entry-level offer is more than my follow-up.”

You always want to go back to what people need most and want most and you love most. If most people who come to your fitness studio come because they want to get fit and lose weight – I’m guessing they do – I’m thinking those two should be together. Your entry level offer should probably be something that addresses self-image, confidence, how to lose weight and how to get fit. I would map that out into a signature system.

Your studio’s signature system for being fit and awesome includes maybe four steps: confidence and self-image, weight loss, nutrition, and fitness. I would map out everything that people want. It’s not always that they only want one thing. Sometimes it’s a package of things that all fall under one umbrella. To me, that’s one umbrella. People want to look good, feel good, and confident. That’s all one offer.

That offer could be an event where everybody comes on one day and get a starter fitness plan and learn a little bit about fitness, a little bit about nutrition, a little bit about confidence and then you sell them into your membership program. Then, off the membership program, you upsell into private training.

Julie: I have been speaking for a long time. What I’ve noticed, especially in the last two or three years, is I have a very erratic closing ratio. I pretty much do the same speech, the same slides, the same offer. In February, I had two events back to back. The first one I closed 2-3 people, and the second one I closed half the room.

First of all, I don’t know how I figure out my closing ratio because of that. I’m sure there must be something I’m doing differently.

Kristin: Without actually hearing or seeing the presentation, it’s a little tough to tell. There are a couple things I’ll point out, though. Number one, because speaking is not something that we can set in stone, there are sometimes changes in the way we’re delivering something that can affect our close. We’re just living breathing beings. Sometimes our energy is a little off, our confidence is a little off and we might say something a little differently. It can affect our results. That’s just the human being factor – being human.

Recording your talks is always a great idea because of that. If you have a drastically different result, like the time you gave the talk and you only had the two people, given your experience


level and your command level, that’s probably not your normal close, that would be a talk where I might listen to it to see if there was something different that happened that day. Recording your talks will tell you tons of information.

The third thing I’ll say is it could very well have to do with the audience that you spoke to. It’s a very interesting thing with speakers and the nature of what we’re doing as coaches, as consultants, as experts. Sometimes we start to take on too much responsibility. It could go either way.

Some people just say, “It wasn’t me; it was the audience.” We probably want to make sure we look at all of what we can control first. I’m really big on personal responsibility, as I’m guessing all of you are too. We don’t get successful by shirking personal responsibility.

That being said, I’m going to go against myself here. There’s a reality that different audiences are different. The same exact price in Portland may feel like a stretch versus New York City. New York is a different town. Incomes are different; expenses are different. The tolerances for price are very different in New York and LA than in Portland or Utah.

Look at your audience. I would guess that was the difference. I don’t know because I wasn’t there with you. Look at the audience and who they were. Were they really ideal? Where was the event, and could that have affected it?

I would listen to the recording, if you have one, where you only closed two. Listen to your close and see if there was something different there. It’s a very interesting and good question.

Leslie: The difference between the training calls and the coaching calls. How do the coaching calls work? Are all of us on the coaching call and we just ask questions?

Kristin: The coaching calls are there to support you. I’m going to open up the lines and be there for all of you. On each training call, be jotting down your questions throughout the week as you think back on the call and techniques and strategies that we shared and you think, “That didn’t sit right with me,” or “I don’t quite get how this is going to work for me.”

That was a great question we had from the gal with the fitness center. It totally makes sense. She’s thinking, “How is this going to work for me?” That’s a perfect question to bring to the coaching and support calls. “How does this work for me?” or “Here’s where I have been stumbling,” or “How could I fix this?”

Bring your questions, stumble blocks, or what’s hanging you up to the coaching and support calls. I will be on the line with my team member, Colleen Sucheki. Colleen is a peak performance expert and mindset expert. She also has a lot of experience coaching people out of anxiety into a calm and empowered state.


Part of the reason why I chose Colleen to be my support coach in Command Any Room for those coaching and support calls is because there is an element of that, especially for those of you getting started.

Somebody like Julie who has been speaking a while, she has the rewards. Once you start getting the rewards, your confidence goes up and you think, “Yeah! I’m going to walk through that fire. I’m going to get on that stage, because I have the opportunity to walk out with $10,000 (or whatever it is).” That will get you to walk through that fire. But before you have had those rewards, sometimes your mindset can get you stumbled up in the way.

Come to the support calls with your questions, any fears that are hanging you up, steps you don’t understand, or you want to get ideas on how to customize something for you. Colleen and I will be on the line. Together we will make sure that you get the answers and support you need to implement what we’re teaching in the training calls.

Even if you don’t have a question, just listening to other people’s questions will give you clarity, and it might actually prompt a question out of you as well.

Kelly wants her entry-level offer to be $497. That’s fine. If you’re in a room with people just getting started, you might break that up into payments. In New York, $500 is no big deal. In another market, that might feel a little spendy. Having a pay-in-full option and a multiple-payment option can be really helpful, especially on an entry-level product or program. That’s a great price point.

She’s saying her next level up is going to be $600/month for six months. She wants to know if that’s doable. I say it sure is. It’s absolutely doable. That’s a great plan.

Linda says, “Thank you for the response to the fitness question.” Her monthly program is $85/month and private training is $300/month. “How do I price the signature program?”

Your signature program could be something like two payments of $85 or $197. I would say between $100 and $200. I would do a one-day event or a half-day event where people can come to your fitness center and learn a little bit about each of the steps in your signature process. That might be a little bit on mindset and self-worth, and then a little bit on nutrition and a little bit about working out. It may be a little bit about private training and how that’s different than training on your own. That would be a really nice lead-in to then get somebody to sign up for your monthly membership and possibly have the option to up-level into private training.

I would keep it really affordable. You make money off of entry-level programs, but they’re also feeders for the whole rest of your business.


Someone is asking what I think of insurance as a topic. Well, if you are an insurance guy, that’s a great topic. I wouldn’t necessarily say insurance is the topic. I wouldn’t name your talk “Learn About Insurance” but if what you do is provide insurance, then it’s probably about protecting what you love. We need to find a great theme that people are going to connect with. Insurance is about protecting your loved ones and protecting your assets depending upon what kind of insurance you offer. That would really depend on how you spin your topic. What kind of insurance do you offer and what is the problem that it solves?

As we were launching this, we had people on Facebook saying, “I just re-went through Command Any Room,” from people who had bought it two years ago and a year ago and it still works. That’s the great news. Even though I keep updating and doing live versions, it works. We give you access to these recordings. Go back and listen again and again.

Rob is asking, “Given your experience, how many people would you recommend attend a talk for a $675 entry-level product or program?”

There’s not really an answer of “If this is your price point, this is how many people we want in the room.” We really just want the right people in the room. I have given talks to three people before. When I first started speaking, I would sell tickets to workshops. The tickets were $400. I gave a talk to three people once and I sold four tickets to a workshop and I walked out with $16,000 in my hands.

The number of people, while it’s a different type of talk, speaking to three people is much more personal. It’s much less theatrical than, let’s say, talking to a couple hundred people where your arm movements need to be bigger, your energy needs to be bolder and you need to really have a handle on the room. It’s a different kind of talk energetically, but if it’s the right three people or the right six people.

When I went to speak to my friend Kim’s mastermind group in Denver, I flew. I went on a plane to speak to only six people. But it was six of the right people. You have to know your audience. The right people is way more important than the number of people. The number of people will change how we handle week four when we talk about rocking the room. The dynamics change based on the number of people, but not our offer.

Regina says, “I’m doing a teleclass soon I have a basic outline. I’d like to do a great job and integrate my offer while also mentioning my e-book so people buy it. Will I begin to learn that before the date or change the date?”

That’s up to you. The third session is Craft It! You can go into the archives in the Member Center. On your membership website (www.members.commandanyroom.com) in the Menu bar, you can click “Archives” and go back to older versions of Command Any Room. I would not


http://www.members.commandanyroom.com/

recommend everybody do that. It’s much better to learn it live piece by piece, but in your urgent situation, absolutely jump forward. Listen to Session 03. It will absolutely help you out. That way you can stay on track with your date.

Good luck with that, Regina. Let us know how that goes. Thank you, everybody, for your awesome questions.

Say hi on the Facebook group. You can post questions on there in between.

Session 02 is “Book It!” How do you add those lead-generating, profit-generating speaking opportunities on your calendar? We’ll get you rocking and rolling and implementing all of the great stuff that you’re learning.

Let us know how much you love the class on Facebook. Make sure you go through today’s program and do your action steps. Take care of those. And make sure whatever you’re doing, you’re going out there and speaking your mission and message, serving your purpose in a bigger brighter way and growing your business. Make it a great day!


with kristin thompson - rock your talk · with kristin thompson . welcome! this is session 1 of...

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