Killer Closes (From the Go for the Gold Summit)

This is the first time I’ve shared my easy formula for selling from the stage and creating more sales through public speaking.  I only teach this twice a year in my 3-day How to Build Wealth by Putting on Your Own Seminars boot camp. It’s an advanced course for those ready to put on their own money-making seminar. Here are 6 things you can do to market from the stage, including my Killer Close: the Back-of-the-Room Formula.

1. Study Other Speakers.

Go to a multi-speaker event or a multi-trainer event and analyze the close of the speakers. Watch how they’ve reverse-engineered their speech and how they plant seeds from the beginning until they go into the close. Be a professional observer. If you want to hire a mentor, that’s great, but every speech you will observe a pattern. Why? Because the pattern is the formula that works.

2. Use a prepared script.

The formula needs to be put into your script and then you need to PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. Most people practice their speech but forget to practice their close. It’s the close that is going to make you money and help other people.

Remember– it’s not all about sales. Whenever I think sales, I know I have to make those sales to invite people to join me in another program; because that’s the only place I can create transformation in that person’s life. And until they transform, they will never change anything in their lives. It could be an internal or external transformation. But either way, they need a breakthrough to make it happen.

That’s why it’s so important to get good at this, because their business or their life could depend on it. If they don’t work with you, they’ll probably work with someone else and it might not be someone who has their best interest at heart— like you! It’s your obligation to get good at closing sales so you can help more people. So prepare your script.

3. Prepare the room logistics.

You’ve seen speakers with all their products or giveaways already set up in the front of the room. It’s ready for them so they’re not asking for things during their close. When you get into your close, you don’t want anything to interfere. When you start the close, don’t ask for questions or testimonials. Believe me, I’ve made those mistakes! If someone raises their hand to ask a question, just ignore them. It’s that important! Otherwise, it can cost you sales and cost you people you could be helping.

4. Prepare the stage.

If you use a flip-chart or paper board, make sure that’s ready. Make sure the pens you’re going to use are ready. Make sure that you have multiple colors and that they WORK! How many times have you seen a speaker write something on a board and you can’t even see it. Use those big, thick markers that people can see from the back.

5. Prepare any visual offer that you need.

This might be discounts; it might be on your PowerPoint or on a flip-chart. Practice it! If you’re going to write $500 on the board and then cross it out and write $200…practice that! Have it down cold!

6. Your Offer Form.

The offer form is your selling tool. It needs to have what you’re selling and the benefits on it. Up until just recently, order forms were handed out and used as a marketing tool. Speakers no longer do this. They keep the order forms in the back of the room. It’s your words, your offer, your benefits, your value that get people to go to the back of the room to get the order form. That’s what you want. So create order forms and have them available. 

If you’re on someone else’s stage, you need to have NCR 3-part forms. The house (or whose seminar it is) gets the top copy, you get the middle copy, and the customer gets the bottom copy. If you’re doing your own event, you only need a 2-part form. On the order form you must have your cancellation policy (30 days, etc.). If you’re doing a multi-speaker event for someone else, the only contact information is the house’s so things flow into one area and so people aren’t going around canceling or making weird deals without the promoter being involved.

In the speaker or seminar business, what you don’t know can cost you BIG TIME!

I’ve had people call me crying because they put on a workshop and only 2 people came. If you don’t know how to market your workshop, don’t put it on. It’s not like Field of Dreams where you build it and they will come. If promotion is not your strong suit then get a coach to help you. Otherwise, you’ll spend a lot of money and you won’t get any results.

Killer Close: The Back-Of-The-Room Formula

This “back-of-the-room” formula will work whether you’re speaking at an organization, like a Rotary Club, or on the big stage. It works for a $10 item, a $20 book (probably your own) or $2000-$5000 programs. The difference is value. The higher the price, the more benefits and more value you will put into this formula, because people buy value and bonuses. 

Let’s get into this formula. Remember that I talked about reverse engineering your speech. You need to know what you’re going to do at the end before you know what to do in the beginning. I teach this in my 3-day Speaker Training.

Start out with a purpose statement to know where you’re going in your speech and what the endgame is, or what you want at the end. (I’m the only speech trainer who starts out with a purpose statement.) So instead of re-engineering it, I teach people to look at it from the beginning all the way to the end, then back to the beginning.

So I add another step, another piece that holds it all together. I say, “I’m going to sell my 3-day Speaker Training Intensive.” At the beginning of my talk, I mention the training, do a lot of analogies and testimonials from people who came to that program, and then go into the close. I didn’t always do this properly. I used to talk about my other programs and then try to sell my 3-day Speaker Training. My coach said, “Arvee, there’s a disconnect. You’re not connecting your Speaker Training with the people who went through the course.”

This is called seeding; dropping little seeds along the way as you talk, and connecting everything that you talk about to whatever you’re going to sell at the end. It doesn’t mean you’re going to be a broken record. Just drop little seeds here and there.

I tell people in the beginning that I’m going to talk for an hour on how to use public speaking as a marketing strategy, and at the end of the hour I’m going to offer them a way that they can get more. I’m telling them up front that there’s going to be an offer, or something more. Simple as that. That way, when it comes to my close, they’re not surprised that I’m offering them some sort of coaching program.


Now you’re ready for the close. We’ve done the Q&A – remember we’re not going to physically do a Q&A—this is where you tell them that if they have any questions to see you afterwards at the back of the room.

First Step: The Invite—telling them the name of the program. In the invite stage, you invite them to participate in another one of your programs.

What I’d like to do now is invite you into a one-year mentoring program with me. It’s called Passionately Speaking, my Silver Protégé Program.

Second Step: Who it is for—your target market.

This particular program is for business owners, service professionals, network marketers, coaches, consultants, financial planners, those who are already speaking and those who have never spoken before.

Third Step: The Benefit—highlight what they’re going to learn.

When you come through my 3-day Speaker Training program you’re going to learn the step-by-step, 10 step Persuasive Speaking system that you can use for the rest of your life. You’re going to learn a formula for putting together a self-introduction and elevator speech that will guarantee you get clients in 25 seconds or less. You’re going to learn how to put together a one-sheet that’s going to nail down speaking engagements…

Fourth Step: Key benefits—they’ll learn the system and what it is going to get them.

The benefit is that you’re going to be able to get out there and get clients, close more deals, get sales every time you speak, get referrals, generate unlimited leads (like turning on the faucet!), become a client-magnet.

Whatever it is, you have to paint that dream. You can even say, “How many of you want that?”

Fifth Step: Location—tell them where it is going to take place.

The Speaker Program takes place in Pomona or The Passionately Speaking program takes place every Tuesday at 4:00 Pacific in the comfort of your own home.

If it’s a product you’re going to sell, you would bypass this step. Same with program dates. You want to set dates and do multiple dates. I always give 2 dates. My mentor said that I can later tell them that the second date has a bonus day where you could come or not come. Duh! Nobody minds having a bonus day.

Sixth Step: Investment or Tuition—the price of the product or service, or the price of the event.

I know that we’ve all been to seminars where they have a price and then drop the price. Now, why do people do that? Because it works! Because we all want a bargain. So always look for a second drop (I do this too) because that’s the real deal.

My class now is $3497. I sell it from the stage for $2497. When I’m in the room if I feel good, I’ll drop it to $1997.  It depends how the spirit moves me. Always look for a second drop from speakers, or a tremendous drop. Lately I’ve felt compelled to do so since people are struggling and things have changed. My heart speaks sometimes and says to drop it. I don’t plan it and it’s not on my PowerPoint. It’s how I feel that day with that audience.

You can also use a comparison price. I might compare my training to Les Brown’s which is $25,000 for 5 days, or John Childer’s which is $5000. I usually don’t because I don’t want people thinking about these other programs or speakers. If you’re dealing with something around health, you can talk about the cost of not being in good health. So the comparison can be the opposite or the pain of not having your product or service. You might introduce a family price. Another person can come for free, or another person can come for $500 or $100. It’s usually, of course, reduced – a family discount.

Seventh Step: Bonuses—any bonuses you have to sweeten the deal: DVD sets, books, etc. Always talk about the value of each one. Then give a very special price and say “this price is only for today,” creating a limited offer. If you want to drop it again you drop it after the limitation.

The first price is $497 and the reason I’m dropping it from $997 is because you’re in my room and you’re here, been here all day, and I want to reward you for that. The first 5 people get an action bonus of my CD set. Then I might drop the price again to $397.

Eighth Step: Payment Options—Because of the economy and to help folks out, you can give payment options. At least you can help them instead of them maybe never getting into your program. So payment options are almost a must today, but could come with an extra fee. Make it more attractive for people to pay in full.

The paid-in-full price is $397 so you will get another $100 off if you pay in-full today!

Ninth Step: The Guarantee—offer some sort of 30-day, full-money-back guarantee. You can do more than 30 days or even less than 30 days. I’ve known people who do 3 days. That’s a normal “buyer’s remorse” period. Most business owners are kind of forced to do that because people have dropped out at the last minute.

Tenth Step: The Close—This is where you tell them what to do. This is where you command them to meet you in the back of the room. If you’re going to hand out forms, you can hand out forms now and then command them to go to the back of the room. That’s your call to action; tell them exactly what you want them to do and the ones who are interested will do it. You wait on stage until they get up and start moving to the back of the room. And then you thank them and meet them in the back. It’s that simple.

When you’re selling from the stage, your last words need to be “Thank you” and “I’ll meet you in the back of the room.”

And that is my easy formula for selling from the stage and creating more sales through public speaking!