Talking can be working, right? Yes!

If you click this link, you’ll hear me talk while you read.
More on what you’re hearing at the end of this post…

If you write for a living, you know it’s work.

Write a space ad for a magazine, that’s work. Write a product description for a catalog. That’s work. Write a batch of emails to keep customers up on events, promotions and such… yep, I’m working here. How about a “live” in-the-flesh presentation to your audience? Try this:

Take your marketing message to heart, and give it out in your own words–let it flow from practical hands-on experience with your product, not spelled out in labor-intensive pitch copy from copious notes. Share your insight with a room full of customers who traveled some distance and time (maybe even paid good money) to hear you. Give them your own deeply-learned understanding of what you have to offer and how each one of them can use it.

Would you be proud of that work?

I have done just that. My employer in the 90s was a B2B retailer of multimedia technologies; audio and video systems for public address plus recording, duplication and mass distribution “solutions.” As we researched our customer’s experience with the product lines, we found that most had a lot to learn about using the technology. I created a new house “service brand” called SoundBasics. I wrote hours of original workshops and hands-on training, and was drafted (happily) as the first live presenter!

After the success of our on-site launch events, I soon divided my time between a desk in the marketing office and regular three-day workshops up and down the east coast. Today, that training program is even more profitably widespread in the very media forms the company sells: audio tapes/CDs and video DVDs.

I’m not ony proud of what I’ve helped my customers build, but thankful for the experience I gained. I’ve learned my own goods so well that I not only preached the features, advantages and benefits… but also mobilized my end users to squeeze maximum value from every resource, big or small, they ever bought from me.

For my efforts, by the way, I saw most of my customers who participated in these workshops grow their value in our database significantly. I’m talking double-digit uptick in sales dollars virtually overnight, and long-term profitability that doubled and tripled… even quadrupled or more. Do you have an ad campaign that created 200-400% growth in a profit curve from your baseline customer? Maybe you could!

Few of us are born to take the stage.  Many (like me) can do pretty well with a bit of preparation, though. If you haven’t at least explored the idea to test a “live workshop” version of your marketing messages, I urge you to consider it. You don’t have to be “the one.” Finding the right spokesperson? That’s a thought for another day.

I bring this up for one simple, selfish reason…

On my professional network profiles, I keep pages filled with portfolio samples from my copywriting and brand marketing work of the past 14 years. No audio files, though. I discovered they won’t accept those.

If you’ve done some professional public speaking, I think it’s every bit a part of your marketing portfolio as the ad copy you write. You should be able to share it with your clients, your potential employers, your business networks, with anyone you like. So I’ve asked the BrightFuse team to let us post them. Until that happens…

I’ve added a note there to link my network visitors to this:

Audio Clips from My Public Speaking Portfolio:

All samples below are hosted on blip.tv and will open in a new window. They are under 1MB each, but may still take a short time to begin playing, depending on your connection…

Clip #1: “Live Informercial” at Philadelphia Conference (6:27)
Excerpted from a customer training workshop I did in Philadelphis, to a room of several hundred attendees, this clip captures an improv “live infomercial” I gave for a new piano technology product I had with me that day. I also had copies of a demo video DVD to give away… Billy Mays, watch your back–I’m gunnin’ for ya. Note: better-sounding, higher-bit copy of this audio file coming soon!

Clip #2: Hands-on Session from Media Technology Workshop (1:55)
Here’s a hands-on session from the three-day SoundBasics audio workshop I created to train customers on our company’s products (and in the process, dramatically raise their short-term and lifetime value as customers). Huge success that was, plus profit from the workshop was pure gravy… nice. This is the same audio clip I linked at the top of the post, so if you played along already you can skip to the next one!

Clip #3: Pro Audio Overview, Wrap-up (2:40)
This clip captures the end of a 1-hour overview session I did on pro audio basics to a standing-room-only auditorium of customers at a big annual on-site conference at the company. I was the hands-down popular speaker that year, which I try to remember when I’m feeling down…