What They Will NEVER Teach You at NSA

Larry Chiang is an instructive humorist. If you liked “9 Things They Don’t Teach You at Business School “, “Man Charm a Room“, “10 Lies Told at NSA” and and “Scandalous Tid-Bits from NSA’s National Convention in Orlando“

Photo credit Vinh Chung Larry Chiang NSA Nat'l Convention Concurrent Session

You’ll love his newest post: What They Will NEVER Teach You at NSA

No other blogger promotes his last blog (GigaOm) or his mentor (Mark McCormack) more that his current gig at Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

By Larry Chiang

I got booked to speak at NSA without anyone ever having seen me speak.

Let me repeat that.

Before speaking at NSA, I do not believe any NSA member had ever seen me on stage. I say this not to impress you, but rather to show that my techniques work. The techniques I’m talking about center around granular strategies to get an NSA speaker paid speaking gigs.

I share these with you at my peril. In no way do I financially benefit from revealing, “What They Will NEVER Teach at NSA”. Enjoy and profit from these tips and text me/ email me your thoughts.

-1- Book Yourself at a Conference You’re Not Speaking At

There’s a saying that I’m making up: People that love you, tend to book you.

An event planner loves luvs loves meeting a speaker before they book them. In person sales calls are awkward. Getting them to travel to see you speak is a stretch.

My answer is to ask for an invite to attend a conference they’re producing so they get to see you live. I’d also offer to be a back-up speaker

-2- Be More Entrepreneurial Getting Leads to Speak

I pay 50% commission.
I pay $5k cash on the spot.

We don’t need to sign a speaker bureau contract to pay 50% comm as a one time cash reward.

We don’t need just one speaker bureau, we can have many.

We don’t just lead generate via the one speaker bureau, we can have the entire speaker community be our speaker bureau.

Without one speaker bureau exclusive contract…, I pay 50% commission.
I pay $5k cash on the spot.

-3- Crash Conferences, Network Event Planners

There is nothing more complimentary for an event planner than for a potential speaker to want to come to your event.

Use discretion and prep your target meeting planner.

-4- Be a BackUp Speaker

To continue on the “90% of life is showing up” mantra, I offer to attend as a back-up speaker.

Some of my “reach gigs” have been because I’m a back-up speaker. A reach gig is a booking that you do not quite deserve. A reach gig also takes you to the next level.

-5- Produce an AfterParty

I love keynote speakers that don’t just fly in, speak and fly out.

The quantity of time I spend is just as important as the quality of time. A method to get credit for staying far after you speak, is to produce the afterparty.

Remember that as a speaker, you don’t have to be the speaker in order to speak at your afterparty. An example is when you host an afterparty, you can produce a fireside chat. Produce a video like this one and people think you were a speaker too.

-6- Producing Workshops and Make Money Giving Away Tickets

Here is my secret workshop formula.

It solves the problem of
– selling tix to a gig you’re speaking at
– selling tickets to an event that no one wants to come to
– selling tickets in a time when some are going to want to come free

Here is my secret trademark maneuver workshop formula.

I find a venue, time and location that jives, meshes and integrates into the environment from which I give birth to an event. Now to the point… you can make money giving away tickets.

I “sell” two batches of tickets. For example, an event with capacity of 120. I have the 1st batch of tickets at $65, but offer a 100% rebate. If you show up, you get your $65 back. If you blog the event, you get your $65 back.

Then after 60, $65 tickets are sold (on EventBrite) then I sell $75 tickets. These tickets don’t have a refund

My mentor, Mark McCormack, who wrote the book, “What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School“.

-7- Do the Rebate Model vs a Free Book

I apply the same rebate model to my book.

Here are the devilish details…
– Juice the Amazon presales by rebating. I offer a full rebate if you email me back ONE thing you did based on my book.
– I also put my email and cell phone on every other page. I place it at the bottom as a call to action… err as a call to call or call to email.

Text me if u need me

650-283-8008

If you see a typo, email it to me larry @larrychiang dot com with your cell in the subject line

I’m giving away 10 copies of Laura Stack’s book, “Super Competent” http://amzn.to/a3pdP5 to #nsa10 attendees. 1st 10 to RT the article of mine u like best WILL win See this on Twitter

Larry Chiang is the founder of Duck9, which educates college students on how to establish and maintain a FICO score over 750. He has testified before Congress and World Bank on credit.

He is a frequent contributor to Business Week’s blog on “What They Don’t Teach You at Business School“. For fun, writes in a journal, cooks on a hot plate and plays basketball on college campuses across