Competing in Non-Competitive Environments Case study: “I Got Them to Give Me as A Gift”

 

After a year of unsuccessfully trying to get a bank to hire me to speak to employees, I tried another idea. I convinced the bank to hire me to speak about marketing to their best commercial customers. I convinced them that if their customers were more successful, they’d be more successful through increased bank deposits, good will, referrals etc.

 

Knowing I wouldn’t have to compete against other speakers for this opportunity, I had control or influence over much of the seminar including marketing, location, agenda etc. In fact, one of the ways I was able to get the business was offering to write and design the brochure, run the marketing campaign, choose the meeting location, menu etc. This relived the bank of responsibilities they hadn’t planned for AND gave me control of key elements that affect success.

Because I handled the brochure, I included elements that would eventually help me get add-on business – testimonials, book cover graphics, my bio with other speech topics etc. Running the marketing campaign allowed me to use my pre-speech marketing and conditioning techniques that set-up the audience for favorable post-speech follow-up. All of this was transparent to the audience member who appreciated the bank “giving me as a gift” to them. The bank appreciated MY efforts enough to hire me to do a second seminar for customers several months later—at my full fee.

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