3 HUGE lies about marketing yourself

Hey, it’s Grant—

Now here’s a word that terrifies many new speakers:

MARKETING

Promoting yourself as a speaker *does* seem scary and overwhelming.

On one hand, the thought that you might come across like a sleazy snake oil salesman makes you want to puke…

And even if you can overcome that gag reflex, it’s just so hard to know where to even start.

Over the last four years, I’ve worked with dozens of private coaching clients and 150+ students in my professional speaking master class… and I’ve noticed a pattern.

The reason self-promotion seems both overwhelming and revolting is that they’ve bought into 3 MAJOR lies about marketing yourself as a speaker.

If you let them, these lies will paralyze you and kill your career before it ever gets off the ground.

I want to help you avoid getting derailed like that, so here they are:

Lie #1 – You must have a platform first.

This seems so logical.

You look around at the successful speakers you admire and see that they all have huge blogs… and podcasts… and half a dozen books… and thousands of fans that drive 500 miles to hear them speak.

But you don’t have any of that.

How in the world can you hope to land speaking gigs without a massive platform like this?

Here’s the deal…

Those guys and gals are the top-tier speakers. Many of them command fees of $10,000, $50,000 or even more.

But most event planners can’t afford to bring in a top-shelf headliner.

That means there are thousands of opportunities every year for competent speakers who haven’t yet reached the elite level.

These gigs pay generously—and since there’s a lot less competition, you don’t need a huge following to get booked.

I had zilch when I got started. No blog. No podcast. No fancy credentials. And NO major speaking experience.

And my coaching clients and students have also landed gigs from $500 to $2,800 on their first try—no platform required.

Lie #2 – You need to join a speakers’ bureau.

There’s a weird chicken-and-egg scenario when you’re talking to speakers’ bureaus, agents and publicists.

A lot of speakers want to wait around and hope that a bureau will pick them up and start sending them free gigs and free money.

But here’s the truth: The only time you’ll actually get a speakers’ bureau to represent you is when you don’t need them.

If you can’t get bookings yourself, why would they want to take you on as a client?

It’s better to invest the time to put your own marketing system in place.

Lie #3 – Promoting yourself means harassing people.

If you’re worried that the only way to get yourself booked is cold calling dozens of meeting planners over and over until they either hire you or file a restraining order…

Well, I’ve got great news.

There are so many great ways to market yourself—you never have to do anything that makes your skin crawl.

Early in my career, I got many of my gigs just by mailing out copies of my book (which I published myself) and asking my fellow speakers for referrals.

Since then I’ve found something that’s even easier when you’re starting out, and it’s what I teach my coaching clients and master class students:

A simple system for getting booked using friendly, low-pressure emails.

One of my clients, Justin Gentry, tried it out and had this to say:

“If you’re looking for an effective way to connect with meeting planners and get booked, then use Grant’s proven email system. Following his advice, I contacted one meeting planner and two days later, I was booked to speak at their statewide leadership conference.”

Another student used this system and had a paid gig within 24 hours.

There’s a lot more to this system—and this whole thorny topic of marketing yourself—than I have room to go into here.

But in my next email I’m going to show you how to get access to everything I’ve discovered about this over the last 8+ years.

I want to you to have all of it—the word-for-word emails I use to contact event coordinators… the plan I use to follow up without becoming an obnoxious pest… the scripts I use when talking to potential clients…

This is the system I used to grow my own speaking business to $400K in revenue last year.

More on that very soon—so keep a sharp eye on your inbox.

But first… What are you thinking about all of this?

Have any of these 3 lies tripped you up?

Is there something else about this whole marketing thing that has you mystified or anxious?

Let me know what’s on your mind in the comments below.

I’ll field your questions and comments as they come in, so don’t be a stranger!

You’re awesome,

Grant