“Speaking to sell” and “selling from the stage” sound like they’re the same thing, but there are some key differences.

Selling from the stage means highlighting a particular product or program that you’re selling that day and looking to get a commitment for the audience to buy it. The most typical of these is the “I’m so great- buy my stuff” type of speech.

But you don’t have to sell from the stage, when you’re speaking to sell.
You can still speak to sell, but have a much softer approach.

You get up and you do a talk that’s high quality, entertaining and provides radical insight, just like a keynote. At the end you have a call to action.

That call to action can be a freebie that gets people on your mailing list, but what works even better is offering some free time slots for your hot leads to speak with you one-on-one after the event.

So basically you’re booking sales calls with people.

So it’s really a two step sales process and if you do this type of talk right, two things happen.
1. You wow the audience, which means the event person will want to have you back.
2. You get a whole bunch of people in your sales funnel and likely a bunch of new sales from that event.

This is the type of talk that I like the most because it provides value to so many people, including the speaker. And doing it is easy once you have a great talk. I’ve had clients totally new to speaking that have made tens of thousands of dollars from exactly this type of model.

Here’s the challenge though. Since the sales process is much more subtle, you really have to know what you’re doing to get good results. Many entrepreneurs try this model and wonder why it doesn’t work for them.

You have to create the entire talk with the offer in mind. Connect with your audience’s problems, give them big picture insights, lower their objections, and gently, but persistently lead them to do one thing…. take advantage of your call to action.

The good news is that this is a craft you can learn. If you’re interested in learning more give me a call or book a free clarity session.

Performing music with other musicians is an experience like no other. Part of that experience is the mindset you need to get into to truly perform and connect to your bandmates and the audience.  It’s a mindset that taught me a lot about speaking on stage.

The following is a transcript of my thoughts on how playing live music can improve your speaking skills. It was part of a recent episode of the Speaking for Profit Podcast.

For those of you who would like to listen to the podcast you can do so by clicking play on the audio player below. Or you can skip the audio and simply read the essay.

I got into music late in life. I was nearing 40 and worked as a TV producer at the time. I did a lot of shift work and had more free time than most people my age, so I decided to learn electric guitar.

I was self taught, often practicing at 3a.m. (unplugged of course) because I was doing crazy night shift work. After a year of practice I approached some guys at work who had a band, but didn’t play that much, and got them out a couple times a month to jam.

I knew they’d eventually get bored with simply jamming so I started booking gigs for the band which got everyone really excited and obviously gave us an opportunity to play more often.

Now the first thing I learned from playing in a band was this. When it comes to performing music there’s a huge difference between knowing the notes and actually playing them.

Knowing the notes to a song is not the same as playing music.

When I first started playing with these more experienced musicians, I soon realized I stood out like a sore thumb because I wasn’t playing music I was just memorizing notes.

I came to realize there are really two levels of practice when you’re performing something. The first is when you’re learning the notes – or, if you’re speaking, learning the words to your talk.

But here’s the important part – it doesn’t end there. Because once you internalize those notes or those words, only then can you practice the performance.

These two types of practice are totally different experiences. Learning the notes or or the words is very conscious. When I’m practicing that way, I’m constantly thinking about what to do next.

But when I practice performing, I try not to use my logical brain at all – I try to totally be in the moment and really feel what I’m dong, rather than think it. Because I realized, particularly in music, if you’re not present and in the moment, you’re not going to connect to the other musicians and you’re not going to be playing anything musical.

And, if you’re not present and in the moment during your talk, you’re not going to connect with your audience.

Sometimes when I’m working with someone on performing their talk, I realize that they’re still in their head and haven’t internalized what to say. This makes it hard to get them to the next level which requires them to be more in the moment.

It takes a lot of practice saying the same things over and over to really internalize your talk to the point where you’re no longer in your head.

But once you do that you can start  feeling the words rather than simply saying them. Your audience will notice the difference.

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