by Angella Johnson | Oct 22, 2018 | Biz Tips, Events and Workshops, Free Resources, Resources and Invitations, Speaking and Events |
Did you catch the intro, part 1 about Speakers and part 2 about selling in this series? Part 3: Hosting Yes, there are speakers who don’t care and their focus is to get as many sales as possible, whether it’s a fit for someone or not. I’ve been behind the scenes at enough multi-day events to hear the conversations about how to GET as many sales from people and it doesn’t matter who the person is, what they really need, or if what they’re being sold is actually a fit for them. In my experience, there are a LOT more people who actually care then don’t care. Remember in the very beginning of this article series and I shared that one of my events called THRIVE was more salesy than I was comfortable with? How did I let that happen? Why did I let that happen? The answer is simple: I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do. Fear or Out of Alignment? When I expressed my concern that it was too salesy to my mentor, I was met with “Oh that’s just your fear talking. I promise this will work.” That was one of the many experiences I’ve had that taught me the difference between being out of alignment and fear. At the time, I was experiencing both fear and that something was WAY off for me. I didn’t know how to discern it and I was paying people lots of money to tell me what to do and no one was asking me what was true for me. I now make very different choices when...
by Angella Johnson | Oct 22, 2018 | Events and Workshops, Resources and Invitations, Speaking and Events |
If you missed the intro to this article series, check it out here. Part 1 about speakers is here. Part 2: Selling at Events At one of my conferences, I allowed my speakers to sell something less than $200 and they could use the last five minutes of their 50-minute presentation to “pitch.” A friend of mine later told me that she “heard” my event was just a big sales pitch. Clearly, they had never been to a true pitch fest. I was happy to let my speakers sell and felt confident that they were focused on providing value. Even though that was my experience, some people felt that was just too salesy. I share this because I learned that I can never make 100% of the participants happy. One person will criticize the event or speaker while the next person is elated with joy. Is victimizing event participants the solution to putting more value and integrity into events? The real problem with these pitch fests isn’t the pitch itself, it’s the participants. How could I possibly say something so absurd??? After attempting to change the way events hosts were hosting and speakers were selling to be more authentic and getting nowhere, I realized that I cannot change events from the top down. I gave event hosts feedback. I asked= my coaches about their strategies that were more pitch fests than events and was met with a nice pat on the head. It was clear my feedback wasn’t going to change the way these events were being done. I had to go from the bottom up and from the...
by Angella Johnson | Oct 22, 2018 | Biz Tips, Events and Workshops, Speaking and Events |
If you missed the intro of this series, go here. Part 1: The Speakers In 2009, my vision of hosting transformational women’s conferences came to fruition with my first Ignite Your Spark conference. Since then I’ve had over 100 speakers on my stages and many more on my virtual stages for telesummits and podcast. Why am I mentioning this? Speakers vary and while there are speakers out there like Leonie’s article mentions, there are amazing speakers too. Unfortunately, I’ve seen the ugly side of speakers at events. Speakers who… … threw a tantrum (literal tantrum) because I didn’t have the right kind of tea in the speaker break room. … flat out lied on how much they sold so they didn’t have to pay me my percentage… … at the last minute changed their offer to a $20 offer from the stage so they only had to pay me my 25% of the sales and then quickly upsold people to their higher-priced programs but since the upsells weren’t technically sold at the event, I didn’t receive a commission on those sales. I’ve seen the absolute delight and integrity by speakers too, which is what I experience most of the time. The difference between the dramatic and the delightful? There is a big difference between speakers who want to speak to my audience to GET something vs speakers who genuinely desire to contribute value and CO-CREATE something with me. Get vs co-create. Do you get the difference there? Guess which speakers I have on my stage? Tip: when speakers ask me what my vision is for the event and how they can contribute...
by Angella Johnson | Oct 22, 2018 | Events and Workshops, Marketing Tips, Mindset, Resources and Invitations, Speaking and Events |
What inspired this article series: Leonie Dawson, a woman I’ve authentically admired for years, posted a fantastic and brutally honest blog about attending a 1-day Gary Vaynerchuk event that you can read here. A friend of mine shared her blog on Faceboook and I commented: It’s why I started teaching how to do events differently. This is not just Gary but I can name dozens of events I’ve been to like this. I started hosting my events with more of a sales focus as this was ALL I saw where people actually made money. But I changed things. You can make great money by hosting events and they don’t have to be a pitch fest! And my hope is that consumers wake up and powerfully choose what’s aligned for them. No one forces anyone to use their credit card and it can feel that people have “no choice” and have buyer’s remorse. But we’ve got to speak up and choose what works for us! It’s the second paragraph that I want to emphasize here. Is anyone truly forced to buy something? While it’s great to educate people that events like what Leonie describes actually happen, I feel that it’s important to empower people to exercise their intuition and to learn how to say no. This goes far beyond being slimed or “forced” into buying something. No one is forced. Convinced? Yes. Coerced? Yes. Shamed? Yes. Persuaded? Yes. But actually forced, as in someone MADE them pull out their credit card? No. It can sure feel forced though, can’t it? Am I preaching to the choir? I think sharing experiences like Leonie...
by Angella Johnson | May 21, 2018 | Biz Tips, Marketing Tips, Speaking and Events |
Here is the mother of speaking tips for those folks who want to do more speaking, either on stage at events or on radio shows/podcasts. Speaking Tip #1. Have your bio, photo, talk titles, talk summaries, and CTA ready. Don’t wait until you get the opportunity to create all of that stuff. The universe has a fun way of showing up for you when you have this stuff ready to rock ‘n roll! When you get invited to be a guest, respond and book your spot sooner than later. If you take weeks to book for whatever reason, show hosts may take that as you’re not interested. With so many people looking for speaking gigs, personally, I will move on to other invites and you may miss your shot of being on my show (or at my live events). Put your topic(s) (talk titles) and bullet points (talk summary) of, along with your most recent bio, a link to your headshot, and links for all of your social media platforms in one Google Doc so you and your team can easily find it from anywhere. *If the topic requires customization, then I’ll provide the updated topic and key takeaways and my team can do the rest with ease. Speaking Tip #2. Be real! On my podcast, I tell people that this is NOT your signature talk with a pitch. This is a real conversation. I’ve turned people away who give me the scripted questions they want me to ask, which ultimately means the same talk after talk everywhere they are. And personally, I don’t want to hear your highlight...
by Angella Johnson | Feb 23, 2017 | Create, Inspiration, Mindset, Speaking and Events |
I will be sharing the stage with Elizabeth Gilbert next month in Seattle at an event called Connect: Transform What Really Matters hosted by Darla LeDoux. My eyes leak a little when I really think about this. I’m delighted, honored, and so excited to share my message about Courage. This book has changed my life. I’ve recommended it to hundreds of people and bought for close to a dozen people. Listening to it is my favorite – it’s just Liz and I doing the dishes or running errands. One of my favorite parts of the book is when she says if you aren’t creating something, you are destroying something. Our creative energy has to go somewhere and what I know is that when I’m not using that energy to create what I desire, I create a whole lotta drama and struggle in my life. When I’m not in the flow of my own life, then I am destroying part of my truth in order to live the lie that I can’t have what I really desire. When I don’t create, I justify my limitations. I have to “think” about things instead of choose IN and move. I stall out. I delay my dreams. And then I judge the hell out of myself for falling into that trap again. Damn am I grateful I do this far less often as I used to! When I’m not in the flow of my own life, I am destroying part of my truth in order to live the lie that I can’t have what I really desire. I’ve been a little obsessed with...
