Gordon Burgett's Newsletter
June 4, 2011
Changes and must-do’s in the speaking field
I asked my long-time friend, Rebecca Morgan (CSP, CMC), to share her thoughts about what she’d like to know if she was staring in 2011.
Thriving In Today’s Business Climate
By Rebecca Morgan, CSP, CMC
Looking back at my 30 years in the speaking/training/consulting business, I think about what I would like to know if I were starting in the business now. Many things have changed dramatically since that fateful day in 1980 when I gave my very first speech — and got paid for it! I caught the bug, deciding to try my hand at the business full time. The business has changed so much. Many pre-2008 business strategies are now pre-historic. Many practices that worked before aren't working now. You have to embrace technology and new ways of thinking and interacting.
Here’s some wisdom I’ve gleaned which I think are central to having a successful speaking business now.
* "Find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service of others." —Larry Winget. Research what others have to say about your area so you know how your voice/ideas/system is different and why you are unique. How do your background and experience provide a different perspective? Describe your uniqueness in a way that is of benefit to others who want what you have to offer.
* "People will buy hard-to-find, easy-to-apply information." —Gordon Burgett. The Internet provides lots of free information. What do you offer that is different and hard to find? How can you distill it so it's easy to understand and apply? How can you help people apply it?
* Think beyond motivation/information delivery to supporting readers, attendees, or clients in implementation. (You don't have to actually provide hands-on implementation, just support in getting it done.). Coaching (by you or others), certifying others, group phone coaching programs, a series of workshops/webinars, self-study e-learning with feedback from you or your certified coaches, membership site, etc.
* Augment or replace live, in-person delivery. Web-based e-learning, webinars, teleseminars, e-courses delivered by email with you commenting on registrants' work. Many government agencies have hugely cut back their employees attending conferences and seminars. With travel security and flight cancellations getting worse, many people are avoiding unnecessary travel. With so much being able to be delivered virtually, people question taking the time and money to travel to and attend something live.
* Virtual delivery makes your work scalable to as many people as you want, anywhere in the world, and allows you to work anywhere you want. Even small-group meetings are now very effective via Cisco's small group video conferencing which projects life-size participants' images around a table and is as close as we have to feeling like you're in the same room.
* That said, many of the basics that we've abandoned are worth resurrecting with a twist. Business is often done because someone has a relationship with you and trusts you to do a good job. Rekindle those relationships by sending a personalized email, LinkedIn or Facebook message connecting with past clients/contacts. Then set up a coffee, lunch or phone meeting to reconnect real time.
* Think past the one-time sale. You'll burn out selling one-time events or products (speeches, workshops, books). You have to continually find new prospects and sell them. It's easier to sell someone who's already bought from you. What is the next thing that will help them implement or go to the next level in your topic? How could you create an ongoing continuity program (subscription, monthly membership group coaching)?
* Build your mailing list. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, "It's about relationships, stupid." People buy from others who they trust and think have value. Start aggressively building your list. Create an ethical bribe to entice someone to get on your email list, then provide regular value to keep them on the list and contact you when they have a need. A special report, eBook, webinar or teleseminar recording are all perceived as valuable to the recipient so they will give you their email address to get it. Then establish a semi-monthly to quarterly email/ezine/eLetter to stay in contact and keep providing value to them.
I know this seems like a lot to implement. Start with something that you can focus on now. Get moving — the business is moving too quickly to stand still.
Rebecca Morgan, CSP, CMC, is the author of 25 books (two have sold over 250,000 each), international speaker/consultant, has appeared on Oprah, 60 Minutes, NPR, USA Today, as well as other international media. At her colleagues’ request, she’s expanded the ideas above into a Making Money In Your Jammies workshop and webinar series. Details at
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Here are some of the points I think you’d want to share from Mark Coker’s presentation at the BAIPA (Bay Area Independent Publishers Association) May 14 gathering in San Rafael, California. (Mark is the founder of Smashwords, an e-book publishing and distribution platform that will have produced 75,000 books for over 1,700 authors by the end of 2011.)
* There are three big trends facing publishing:
(1) Bookselling is moving online, Webward, because of the price, convenience, and selection. Browsing is better (limitless) and you can often sample parts of the book before buying. Self-published books sit side by side with mainstream books.
(2) Authors are becoming publishers, in part because of the major houses’ policies of rejection, delay, overpricing, and limited distribution. With “ancillary publishing” available, the self-published books are almost free to produce, and royalties are from 60-85% from Smashwords versus 5-17% from mainstream publishers. Also, the access to distribution is democratized: open to any publisher.
(3) As reading moves to the screen (mobile phones, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Nook, and the computer), print books will decrease. E-books are growing exponentially. In one year, 1/0-1/11, e-books increased by 169%, print declined by 25%.
Mark’s “Seven Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success” presentation to the IBPA:
Smashwords:
Smashwords Distribution:
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Twitter, how tweet it is...
A bit facetious, really. The whole idea seemed goofy to me but a friend I like and has a lot to say in our field said, no, it was a great way to connect with friends and to find good blogs and news in the tweets themselves, which are 140-character messagesmax.
So I've tweeted and scanned ny listalmost every day for a month and he was right. It's worked both ways. Mostly I've been able to share the crux of my blogs, while others I followusually do the same.
I'm at "GLeeBurgett" and the social network is at Take a look.
My Twitter investment is 10-15 minutes a day, max. Of course I create the newsletter once (rarely, twice) a month. And I've been doing more blogging, about three a week. I share the best blogs (at least the topic)at Twitter and the newsletter too. My daughters love Spacebook but it doesn't seem worth the effort. Probably because I'm a true brick when it comes to chit-chat and tiny talk and that seems to be it's heart. But I do use Linkedin now and then, usually in response to somebody who somehow finds me there.
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You want a preview of the process before you go any farther? At the risk of scaring you away—each of the nine steps that follow will be explained in detail, and they are easily within any computer user’s capacity—here is what you do to get your book published the ancillary way:
1. You write your book.
2. You get it in final, proofed, ready-to-roll format.
3. You slightlytransform the final Word/book manuscript into a Word/digital format—and save both.
4. You also write two descriptions of the book.
5. You either create a cover of the bound edition at the publisher‘s Web site (free) or you have a cover of the book made by your own designer and saved in pdf and .jpg.
6. You save both of the two final Word manuscriptsin PDF—you now have four master files.
7. You send your contents and e-book files plus your cover file to LSIto have them send each book version to their respective distribution markets.
8. You use the contents book file to get your book produced and sold in bound form by Lulu, CreateSpace, or Blurb.
9. And you use your digital contents file to get your book into Lulu, Kindle, Smashwords, and Scribd.
Tag into gb/ap.htm
Take and summarize the four blogs; send readers to them...
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Getting advice from the “ancillary publishers”…
Are you thinking of using one of the “ancillary publishers” for your book? Some of them have newsletters that offer pretty good advice, and often a discount for that month (although I wouldn’t pay for “services” just to get it for less).
The two that contact me regularly are LightningSource.com (mostly with good discounts) and CreateSpace (from Amazon.com), a good little magazine with solid advice plus webinars that are well structured and worth hearing (see CreateSpace<). Smashwords.com sends Mark Coker’s newsletter (worth reading) and has two very good guides at the opening page that you can download free and learn from: Style Guide and Marketing Guide (about half way down in the column on the left).
Right now it’s hard to figure what’s going on at Kindle Direct Publisher (KDP). It looks like most of the support items are “coming soon,” but since it’s an Amazon product they also direct you to CreateSpace. Sometimes they send an email with interesting contents (I just got one telling me they are now selling my books in Germany; I hope the readers read English since I know about five words in German, all from the war movies!). If you just want to see how to send your ebook to them, go to (Their style guide is “coming soon.”)
Maybe Lulu sends info but I have never received it nor could I find it at The same with Blurb (at and Scribd (at ). But all is not lost: many have guidelines at their sites plus rather spotty information about marketing and social networking.
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Send to blogs: Coker, Beren, Marshall, me… + YLFT
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Two excellent books…
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What is this newsletter about?
It’s about making you indispensable through your writing and speaking. About you being accepted and sought as the best fount of knowledge, experience, and advice about the subject or area you claim as your own. About you building your own empire from that indispensability.
In this newsletter we talk about the concept, how you can make it happen, and the many information dissemination means through which you can create true wealth and happiness.
I’ve probably over-focused on publishing lately, in part because of the revolution with e-books and “ancillary publishing” that is happening right in front of us: history in our hands that’s as important as the emergence of the printing press itself. But many of the other means are also flip-flopping so I will look at speaking, newsletters, audio, and the other means in the coming months too…
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Best wishes,
Gordon Burgett
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e-mail: / website: / Twitter: GLeeBurgett
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