Vickie Sullivan of Sullivan Speaker Services
on Speaking to Promote Your Facility or Fitness Business -
Show #43

Vickie Sullivan is President of Sullivan Speaker Services, Inc. (www.sullivanspeaker.com) and is nationally recognized as the top market strategist for experts on the professional speaking circuit.

She speaks throughout the U.S. and Canada about speaker selection trends in high-fee markets and strategies that position experts for those venues, and is one of the top-ranked speakers at Mark Victor Hansen’s "Mega Speaking" events. Her market intelligence updates are distributed to experts in the U.S. as well as 17 different countries.

Vickie has served twice on the editorial board for Professional Speaker Magazine, and her articles about the speaking market have been published in other publications such as Presentations magazine and the Handbook of Business Strategy. Vickie also has been quoted in mainstream media such as Fortune.com, The New York Times and Investor’s Business Daily.

Her groundbreaking work has earned her an appointment on the Women’s Leadership Board for the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

Vickie answered the following questions:

We get a lot of interest from our listeners about public speaking to promote their facilities. What does the meetings industry look like out there? Are there more or less opportunities out there? What are some of the big trends?

Why is speaking such a valuable marketing tool for our listeners? Are there any scenarios that speaking won’t work for the fitness facility owner?

Which is better – to speak to outside groups or to have workshops inside the facility?

What is the most important thing fitness owners need to do to make speaking work?

How can public speaking drive customers to a fitness facility or business?

What are the top three things our listeners today need to know about how to use public speaking to their best advantage?

How do our listeners find speaking engagements? What kind of tools do they need?

What are speaker selection committees and how do I deal with them?

Once you get known around town as a dynamic speaker, I bet the calls for giving speeches start rolling in. Is it OK to say no? And if so, how?

A lot of folks speak but they rarely get customers. Why does that happen and what can they do to get the biggest bang out of the speaking buck?

What suggestions do you have about developing topics that would effectively promote a facility?

Is there anything a speaker can do before the speech to maximize the opportunity?

You’ve said before that there are three attitudes the audience brings with them to every speech. What are those attitudes and how do they impact speakers?

What are the most common mistakes speakers make in their presentations?

I understand that giving a sales pitch is the kiss of death in any speech. What kind of content really drives interest and sales?

Usually the audience will have some questions. How do you turn the Q&A period into inquiries about hiring you?

Let’s talk about follow up. What are the best ways to follow up with the audience after a speech?

There’s some nationally know fitness gurus out there – what does it take to get on the national speaking circuit?

Public speaking can sound like a lot of work – any ways to make it easier?

If our listeners wanted to get started right away, what would be their next step?

To listen now click here: Fitness Business Radio (55:00 minutes 12.5 MB)