Competing in Non-Competitive Environments--Intro

There are thousands of professional speakers who want to speak to the same audiences I want to speak to. There are over 4,000 members of the National Speakers Association alone. The last thing I want to do is constantly compete with all of them by submitting my credentials to a meeting planner/sponsor who will make a decision among five or ten of them. The law of averages says I’ll lose most of the time. I hate to lose, and worse, I hate to waste valuable resources of time and materials chasing situations over which I have no control and little chance of success.

I prefer to work in non-competitive environments, those in which the decision of the client is to hire me or not, instead of hire me or hire another speaker. I know that I can be more successful when I can create my own opportunities. Over the years, at least 75 % of my speaking and consulting work has come from through my own initiative rather than responding to RFP’s or entering “beauty” contests. It’s more rewarding to produce my own business and it’s been a whole lot more profitable. It’s more effective and profitable to create your own business opportunities instead of waiting for business to come to you.

Two main strategies for getting business in non-competitive environments:

1) looking for problems people have before they even know they have them

2) creating your own business opportunities and leveraging successful client ideas and programs by marketing them to similar clients.