How to book more business and own your niche - a podcast by Ian Griffin

NSA/NC Meeting Report: Saturday March 2, 2013



The Saturday meeting of the Northern California Chapter of the National Speakers Association featured two savvy businesswomen who shared ways professional speakers and information entrepreneurs can book more business and own their niche markets. Stephanie Chandler is a Silicon Valley refugee who left a stressful job on the Peninsula for the life of a successful information entrepreneur. Lois Creamer knows the speaking business. She has worked with the superstars of speaking as both a cheerleader and strategist. She is endorsed by none other than Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE.

Stephanie Chandler: Living the good life after corporate America

Stephanie was inspired by the film Sleepless in Seattle to move to Sacramento, open a bookstore and write novels. Neither worked out for her. She quickly moved on to Plan B, launching herself as a speaker and non-fiction author on the urging of superstar literary agent Mike Larsen.



She launched BusinessInfoGuide.com, her first website, in 2004. Now, six books and a series of websites later, she is in demand as an author, speaker, Forbes blogger, and expert on content marketing, internet marketing, small business growth strategies, and publishing.

8 keys to owning your niche

The importance of speakers owning a niche has been a core lesson taught in NSA/NC Speakers Academy classes for many years. Stephanie walks the walk when it comes to knowing how to do this in the digital age. Heck, she's even written a book on the topic.



She shared eight simple strategies to increase website traffic and own a niche:



Define your target audience. Decide who you want to reach and what challenges you can solve for them.

Tap into the power of community. Figure out where your audience spends their time and engaged them there.

Optimize your website. Incorporate keywords and phrases that your audience would use to find you. Update your site frequently, generate incoming links, and continually add new content.

Implement a blog. This will help build your audience, increase website traffic, generate new clients, create consulting opportunities, and attract media interviews and speaking engagements. It's also the heart of your social media strategy. Stephanie recommends updating it at least twice a week.

Develop a content marketing strategy. Create ebooks, white papers, and special reports that you give away. Distribute articles to websites to reach your target audience or write articles for print publications.

Expand with video and podcasts. Even speakers who hate writing can record their presentations to communicate their message.

Embrace social media. There are great reasons why executives are signing on with social media. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest each have their own unique advantages. You can automate much of the distribution of the content between these different sites.

Commit a little time each day. just as you need to spend time weeding and planting seeds to enjoy a luxuriant garden, so you need to set aside time each day to develop content, engage in social media, and cultivate community. Stephanie advises that a little effort goes a long way in expanding your brand.



More details are available in her slides:





Lois Creamer: Business Strategies for Professional Speakers

Lois's advice starts with the way we say hello. As professional communicators, the worst way to introduce ourselves is by NAME and TOPIC. We need to learn to introduce ourselves in a compelling and interesting way. Much better is an introduction by CONCEPT and OUTCOME. This captures your unique differentiation. She calls this a positioning statement and uses these words whenever she meets someone:

"I work with professional speakers who want to book more business,

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