Info and opinion for the lecture community

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12/29/13

Creatives – are you ready to hit the ground marketing for 2014? Do yourself a favor and read Seth Godin, if you haven’t already. A master of marketing, Seth provides simple, easily digestible pearls of information that are any marketers dream – and creatives, like it or not, you ARE a marketer! One of his works, Tribes, is the blueprint for Beyonce’s record breaking sales achievement of the past week, so his musings definitely work for the creative community. Our gift to you is a handy dandy list of 7 actionable thoughts you can ponder as you kickstart your marketing plan for 2014. You can read over a dozen more by clicking the Good Reads link. Best of 2014 to ya!

Tribes Quotes

 
“A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. For millions of years, human beings have been part of one tribe or another. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.”

“An individual artist needs only a thousand true fans in her tribe. It’s enough.”

“The secret of leadership is simple: Do what you believe in. Paint a picture of the future. Go there. People will follow.”

“Leaders lead when they take positions, when they connect with their tribes, and when they help the tribe connect to itself.”

“Yes, I think it’s okay to abandon the big, established, stuck tribe. It’s okay to say to them, “You’re not going where I need to go, and there’s no way I’m going to persuade all of you to follow me. So rather than standing here watching the opportunities fade away, I’m heading off. I’m betting some of you, the best of you, will follow me.”

“Remarkable visions and genuine insights are always met with resistance. And when you start to make progress, your efforts are met with even more resistance. Products, services, career paths – whatever it is, the forces for mediocrity will align to stop you, forgiving no errors and never backing down until it’s over. If it were any other way, it would be easy. And if it were any other way, everyone would do it and your work would ultimately be devalued. The yin and yang are clear: without people pushing against your quest to do something worth talking about, it’s unlikely to be worth the journey. Persist.”

“Successful heretics create their own religions….You can recognize the need for faith in your idea, you can find the tribe you need to support you, and yes, you can create a new religion around your faith. Steve Jobs did it on purpose at Apple and Phil Knight is famous for doing it at Nike.”

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12/1/13

Creatives, you are a small business owner and as such need to keep your eye on the business side of your art.  Art and commerce must mix.  As December is a great month for business setup, it’s a fantastic time to review your marketing strategy.

Howz it goin’??!

Below are a few ‘best practices’ that should help entertainers and lecturers get in shape for 2014 and beyond!

Look back over the past year’s efforts – what promotions worked, what didn’t.  Search to find the correlations in style, wording, location or any other specifics the promotion highlighted.  Make a list of the ‘winning’ items and repeat them in subsequent promotions.

Build new territory by developing your ‘winning’ list further.  Determine your most popular territory targets and find similar outlets that would be receptive to your program.

Have you been keeping up with your email contact list all year?  If so, you’re in great shape, if not, time to get busy.  December is a good time to send a holiday message, to test your lists and make sure everyone’s current and accounted for.  Make a follow up call to any bounce-backs to verify the information or get the current contact.  (Everyone’s just a little more talkative during the holiday season, so use the festive mood to your sales advantage!)

Pay particular attention to any past clients and send a special year-end message to them.  That message might trigger a rebooking or a referral!

Plan your approach for your territory and start the year on a winning note!

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11/2/13

I’ve heard this time and time again from artists/lecturers:  “How do I get a venue/company to pay me what I’m worth?”  Worth is a speculative item at best and disregarded at worst, so this essay will advance some information and opinion.  And keep in mind my opinion comes from the ‘man on the street’ perspective – I’m the one who knocks, as Breaking Bad’s Walter White says, and I knock on the door of the buyer who’s evaluating your program.  So listen up.

During my day, I talk to a number of buyers – I speak to buyers in the entertainment world, buyers from the corporate sector, buyers from churches, charities, non-profit groups, private event planners, you name it, I’m talking to it.  That’s what I do and it’s actually the fun part of my job – I’m naturally friendly and it’s great to be able to offer a valuable service in assistance to an overworked planner or presenter while at the same time helping a client advance their career.  It’s a twofer and rates high on the ole’ karma counter.  However, the reality of today’s marketplace is – we’re all doing a lot more with a lot less.  No way around that – this economy has dampened a lot of businesses and while they continue to churn along, they have cut back, so the astute service provider is the one who accepts this reality and works with it.

Having a set fee is great and I encourage artists/lecturers to set a standard, which is what I use as a parameter – a guideline.  I duly pitch the fee, no matter what it is, that’s the job, however if you’re telling me you won’t accept a penny less than 5K gross but the gig pays 3,500K net, there’s a decision that needs to be made.  If you accept the fee, which I completely understand because from a business standpoint something’s better than nothing, then what’s the ‘worth’ quotient?  What’s your program really worth?  How about:  it’s worth whatever someone’s willing to pay for it.  And that, my friends is the hard, cold reality.  Accept and move on.

As a marketer that specializes in the entertainment and meeting arena, my job is to uncover and present opportunity for my clients.  It is truly my joy to make that call and say “I have a offer for your program”.  Hell, I’m even known to call clients and tell them “I’ve got interest in your program,” that’s just as joyous because strong interest is the precursor to the engagement; however, when I encounter the adamant performer/lecturer who won’t take a penny less than the specified amount, while I respect the hustle you’re shooting yourself in the foot.  It’s just too easy for a buyer to move on to new talent, regardless if you’re a ‘name’ or someone just starting to build a book of business.  I work with numerous clients, often within the same genre, and as I’m connecting to that buyer and building rapport, their natural follow-up question is “so who else do you have that would fit?”

My fiduciary responsibility as a professional is to present every applicable client to every applicable opportunity and report the results back.  When clients review their activity reports and question a query, they seem very uncomfortable hearing the opportunity went to a colleague client.  But if one client accepts lower rates while others ‘stand firm’ to the stated quote, my obligation is to close the deal.  It’s a bitter pill to swallow and while there will be other opportunities, it always seems like ‘the one that got away’ sticks in the craw.

So, do yourself a favor?  Be flexible.  You’ll open up a world of additional opportunity, you’ll get rid of that funny feeling in the pit of your stomach and you just might find  your book of business steadily increasing.  And isn’t that the real objective anyway?

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9/1/13

I’ve worked for YEARS in marketing, publicity, promotion and sales…okay DECADES, but one thing stands sure after all this time:  You have to connect with buyers in order to make a sale and business, after all, is built one sale at a time.  Incorporating new technology into the standard ‘tried and true’ approach of talking and pitching has always worked wonders for me, and the clients I represent.  I give good phone.

This recent article from the Wall Street Journal “Bosses Say Pick Up The Phone”  talks about the current trend in business development/marketing/sales that I’ve noticed within many of the organizations I’ve supported:  Account Reps who spend their time emailing clients and perspective clients.  Emailing a pitch is not selling.  And it’s the fastest way of getting a firm “NO” from the anonymous person at the other end of cyber-space.  Emailing is great, and social media is fine, but nothing takes the place of good, old-fashioned, in-phone interaction.  Pitching a client shows a command of the product, allows for real-time interaction where inflection and tone can make a difference between a positive and a negative response, builds rapport and quite honestly is an art.  A good pitch followed by a well-crafted written response is the #1 way of advancing business.  Glad to see the Wall Street Journal agrees with me!

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8/31/13

Let’s Face It…

No one will book your program, for free or fee, if they don’t know it exists.
That’s where 7/24 TalentMarketing comes in.

We focus on promoting your show, be it a performance or lecture, directly to buyers.  Our publicity is business-to-business.  We think it’s at least AS important as the all-important media outlets, because let’s face it, media’s not going to give give you a check, but using the power of media can help you secure one.

Want to find out more?  Give us a call – we’d love to hear about your performance program and uncover ways to bring it to the attention of the masses.