Branding & Promotion Lab: Boston, MA

Schedule

Friday, May 2

1:00pm – 2:15pm
Badge/Meeting Materials Pick-Up

2:15pm – 2:30pm
Welcome

2:30pm – 3:45pm

Successful Business Models for Speakers and How I Get One to Five Free Leads Daily With Promotion on the Internet (Search Engine Optimization)

Mary Sandro

Mary says, “Branding is a combination of perception and memory. Marketing creates perception. Delivering on the promise creates memory. Marketing gives us the opportunity to deliver on the promise, so it better be good.” Mary will explain how she has used web-based promotion techniques to attract a never-ending stream of inbound leads–-without ever making a cold call! Learn how her branding and promotion attracted clients such as: Comcast Cable, FBI, Pfizer, City of Chicago, Dun and Bradstreet and Travelers Insurance. Every attendee will receive Mary’s handout of tips, techniques and recommended vendors to replicate Mary’s online marketing success once you return to your office.

3:45pm – 4:00pm
Break

4:00pm – 4:45pm
Branding Basics in 2008 Even Experienced Businesspeople Need to Know
Don Zihlman

Each and every speaker is an independent business, and you have to market yourselves just like you are. That means creating an identity, promoting your identity, offering a value proposition to your potential customer and then get your message out to those who will buy your services. A successful speaker must be a marketing machine who provides speaking services, and will create a brand-identity to differentiate yourself from all the other choices. The brand has to tell the buyer who you are and what you have to offer.

4:45pm – 5:15pm

Protecting Your Brand–-What Every Speaker Needs to Know About Trademarks and Copyrights
Gwen Roos & Don Zihlman
What good is a great brand if everyone else can copy it? Learn from an intellectual property attorney on how to protect your brand and other intellectual property. Learn how the federal trademark registation process works, how long it takes and what it costs. Then, hear first-hand from a speaker who went throught the process successfully himself.

5:15pm - 5:30pm

Break

5:30pm – 6:00pm

We’ll choose by random drawing a lucky winner who will be assigned a team of Logoworks designers to work on a totally new logo design–-or rework an existing logo. The final result will be unveiled to the group Sunday morning. Throughout the weekend, we’ll all be getting tips on logos and design from the Logoworks team. It’s not every weekend you can see the birth of a logo.

6:00pm - 6:15pm

Closing Comments

6:15pm – 7:15pm
Reception

Saturday, May 3

8:00am – 8:45am
Continental Breakfast

8:45am – 10:15am

What We Know Now About Branding & Promotion That We Wish We Knew Then!
Bill Cates, CSP & Rick Segel, CSP
Two of the most successful members of NSA share their branding and promotion journeys.

Branding is a shortcut to where you want to go. Good brands create an image in the mind of your customer. When done right they create trust and trust is the sweet spot in raising, maintaining or negotiating your fee. Buyers can justify spending more than they intended when the element of trust is present. When your branding is focused and clear, it’s easier to bring your business to higher levels of revenue and profitability. This session is both inspiring and practical, and designed to challenge the way you look at your business.  You will learn the myths about branding and promotion–-learned the hard way; the value of staying highly focused when branding and promoting; the elements of creating a power brand; how to take your area of expertise and leverage it in a target market; the importance of branding repetition and alignment; and the biggest branding mistakes and how you can avoid them.

10:15am – 10:30am
Break

10:30am – Noon

Promoting on the Internet I: Sites and Blogs

Rick Segel, CSP

Rick started his blog almost three years ago in May 2005. He’s a highly successful speaker who doesn’t stick with marketing ideas unless they work–-so you know that the advice from this seasoned blogger will be immediately useful. Rick says that his blog has transformed his branding and promotion, and he’ll share his tips and his philosophy to turn blogging into more business.

Noon – 12:45pm
Lunch

12:45pm – 1:45pm
Promoting on the Internet II: Pay-Per-Click Strategies and Demo
Patrick O’Malley

Pay per click (PPC) promotion is a technology speakers can’t afford to ignore. You can advertise on Google much more cheaply than you think. If you speak about German Shepherds, you can create an ad on Google so that if someone searches for “professional speaker on dogs”, your ad will show up on the right hand side of the results. Surprisingly, that’s free! You only pay if the user clicks on the ad, which only costs about $1.00, and the user goes right to your web page. You are selling what they’re buying, so it’s a match made in money heaven. You can run the ad just in certain geographic locations.

1:45pm – 2:15pm
Q&A with Internet presenters

2:15pm – 2:30pm
Break

2:30pm – 4:00pm

Building Your Brand Into Your Sales Pitch
Colleen Stanley
Are you guilty of “do-ing” your prospects’ to death? We do team building, we do branding, we do leadership. If you are still talking about what you do, chances are you are looking and sounding like all you competitors who do similar work. It’s time to break from the pack and create an image of difference in a crowded market. You'll learn how to create a value proposition that differentiates you from the 500 other competitors; ‘quantify’ the problem or opportunity to eliminate price objections; learn powerful impact questions that qualify or disqualify prospects before spending hours on a proposal and close more deals at full speaking and training fees.

4:00pm – 5:00pm
How To Find and Work With National Media to Become Their Favorite Expert Source
Dan Janal

Learn how to use PR leads effectively, write effective messages that get quoted verbatim in national media and turn any news event into an interview opportunity. Dan will explain what he calls his Magic Hammer Theory of Publicity–-the one sound bite that can be adapted to fit 99% of all questions reporters ask.  Attendees will write and share their own Magic Hammer Theory and share their work with others in small groups.

5:00pm – 5:15pm
Update on Logo Re-design

5:15pm – 5:30pm
Closing Comments

Sunday, May 4

8:00am – 8:45am
Continental Breakfast

8:45am – 10:00am
How I Became A Celebrity in My Niche on Dozens of National TV Shows and How You Can Use Similar Strategies to Get More Full-fee Speeches
Robert Siciliano

Learn exactly what Robert did to go from obscurity to consistently being on national television. Straight talk about what publicists do and what they can’t do, and how you can do it yourself if you want to. Robert dominates his topic in traditional and social media, and it has made him the go-to guys for meeting planners and for more media! Learn exactly what to do to build your own celebrity without a marketing staff.

10:00am – 10:15am
Break

10:15am – 11:15am

Branding Your Company to Catch the Attention of Corporate Decision Makers

Jill Konrath

If you're an expert who speaks, throw out those one-sheets and cutesy elevator speeches right now.  They don't work.  You'll learn how to leverage new branding strategies to reel in the big ones and become the go-to resource in your field.  Jill will discuss what corporate decision makers are interested in and what they have no time for; why self-promoting puffery–-motivating, inspirational, dynamic–-creates obstacles; why thought leadership is your strongest branding strategy in the corporate market; how to get your expertise in front of potential buyers; and how to extend your branding with strategic alliances.

11:15am – 11:45am

Unveiling of New Logo

11:45am – Noon
Closing Comments

Click here to download a brief video of one of the many subjects you'll learn during the Lab.