Category: David

As I said last time, even if you’ve never spoken publicly before, you can start making sales with speaking right off the bat.

Before I get into the steps for crafting your speech to make those sales, I want to give you five things you need to consider in order to set yourself up for success.

5 Ways to Set the Stage for Prosperous Presentations

1. Consider Speaking for Free
If you don’t have an established speaking career, I definitely encourage you to consider speaking for free. Your real money is not going to come from a speaking fee anyway. It’s going to come from back-of-the-room sales.

In fact, many speakers I know make a lot more from sales than they’d ever make in speaking fees or keynotes alone.

Yes, it is sometimes possible to both get paid to speak and make sales. However, there are a lot more opportunities to speak if you’re willing to do so for free. Numerous organizations in your own community would be happy to have you.

2. Is Your Objective Leads or Sales?
Sometimes, even when you’re speaking for free, a particular venue will not let you sell. That’s not necessarily a reason to turn down the opportunity, because you can still make the event very profitable by getting leads. Leads are the names and contact information for attendees that you can contact later to offer your products and services.

You just have to make sure that you collect those leads in a way that doesn’t upset your promoter. I’ll tell you all about that later in the series.

3. Build Your Talk Around Your Product or Service
You want the subject of your talk to be directly related to what you’re selling. This may sound obvious, but some people miss that point.

For instance, if you’re offering financial consulting packages, you might do a talk on what to invest in during a down (or up) economy or how to save a bundle on your taxes.

That way, your package or program expands upon what you teach the audience during your talk.

4. Learn About the Room
You have to know something about the people you’re speaking to so that you can tailor your content or delivery somewhat. You don’t have to know everything, but you should know their background, the promoter’s background and the primary reason they’re in the room.

I’ll get into this more next time and tell you how I learned this lesson myself—painfully.

5. Get the Ratio Right
Your speech can be as long or short as you like, but ideally it’s about 90 minutes. That gives you time to follow all of the eight steps, create value and sell your product.

80% of that time should be devoted to teaching them something that they can apply in their life or business, and 20% should be devoted to the close, to overtly selling your product or service.

If you devote more than 80% to providing value, you won’t have time to do an effective close. If you close for more than 20% of the time you’re onstage, your audience might feel gypped or misled.

You’re actually selling the whole way through, but during the value portion, the selling is subtle and embedded in what you’re teaching.

The goal is that by the end of your speech, your audience wants what you have.

You don’t have to sell them anything.

They’ve already sold themselves.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost
program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.

The quickest way to make sales and build your business is through public speaking. That’s because people make a real connection with you when you’re up there telling your story.

However, not just any style of public speaking will earn you sales. You have to craft your speech for that purpose, and that’s what I’m going to show you how to do in this new series.

Even if you’ve never done any public speaking before, you can make sales right off the bat.

Would You Rather Get a Standing Ovation or Sales?
The first thing to understand is that most of the speaker training out there is completely irrelevant when it comes to making sales through speaking.

Sure, there are tried-and-true techniques that can teach you how to get an audience’s attention and garner applause. You may even get a standing ovation. That’s desirable when you’re doing a keynote.

But applause, alone, does not necessarily lead to sales. In fact, it rarely does.

If you don’t craft your speech for the purpose of sales, you’re unlikely to make any.

Speaking for Teaching Versus Sales
There is also a big difference between speaking for the purpose of teaching versus the purpose of sales.

When you’re doing a workshop or a seminar, you would not use the 8-step, crafted speech I’m teaching you in this series.

That doesn’t mean you can’t sell. You just do it in a different way.

Selling in a teaching environment is a softer sell. You give them a ton of great information and value, but you leave out the next step so that they have to acquire your product or service to learn it.

In this series, I’m teaching you how to make a 90-minute presentation that you can take to a local community or professional organization and start making sales right away.

These Steps Work
When you’re speaking for the purpose of sales, one of the primary ways to gauge your success is by calculating what percentage of the buying units in the room bought what you were selling. This is called your closing rate.

The number of buying units is not necessarily the same as the headcount. A couple would count as one buying unit because they’re only going to buy one of your program.

My closing rate is 30% and higher. Sometimes it’s MUCH higher – 80% is not uncommon. Only on very rare occasions has it been lower.

That means, when I speak, at least 3 out of 10 of the buying units in the room buy what I’m selling.

That is a conversion rate I know I can count on.

I’ll take some of the credit for that, but much of it belongs to the 8 steps in this series. They’ve been proven to work over decades of application.

I’ve got to tell you, there really is no faster way to build your business than getting this thing down.

As one of my clients said to me, “You can make bucket loads of money!”

I’ll start showing you how to fill your own buckets next time.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost
program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost
program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost
program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.

Over the past several months, I’ve shown you the steps for manifesting cash in your life. In this final article of the series, I’m giving you all of the main steps again to get you started on creating financial freedom.

As I’ve said, financial freedom is not about how much money you have. It’s an awareness of being able to create any amount of money you need, whenever you need it.

Here are those 10 crucial steps:

1. Change Your Evaluation of Money
Many people see money as a necessary evil, when the truth is, money is an idea from the Universe that has allowed us to create amazing things. We’re not supposed to worship money but neither are we supposed to vilify it. We’re supposed to master it as a tool for pursuing our dreams and fulfilling our purpose.

2. Recognize that Money Is an Effect and You Are the Cause
Money follows the Law of Cause and Effect, which states that every cause has an effect, and every effect has a cause.

Money (or the lack of it) in your life is an effect that you cause to happen. It’s a direct result of what you’re doing or not doing.

Change what you’re doing, and you will get a different effect.

3. Embrace The Law of Polarity
The Law of Polarity states that if you have a need or a desire, the opportunity to fulfill that need or desire exists in your life as well. If you embrace that truth, really embrace it, you’ll keep looking until you find the opportunity.

4. Identify Your Need
Your “need” is simply the amount to the penny of your monthly bills. So pull out your checkbook or accounting software and do the calculation. If you’re already meeting your need every month, what do you want? What is your financial goal?

5. Identify Why You Need It
Why do you have those particular bills?

You need what you need for a reason. You created the circumstances in your life that you need that money for.

Chances are that situation is a repeating story in your life. Once you’re aware of the story you can take responsibility for it and, in the process, empower yourself to change.

6. Adjust Your Set Point
Most of us have a set point, an internal sense determined by our subconscious of how much money we’re “supposed” to have. If we’re thrust into sudden wealth, such as by winning the lottery, our subconscious kicks up a fuss to bring us back, like a thermostat, to where we’re “supposed” to be.

To adjust your set point, begin to reject any ideas that reinforce lack and also nurture your faith in abundance.

Two simple ways to do that is to stop using coupons and waiting for sales. If you want something now, and you have the money for it now, buy it.

7. What Is Your “Why”?
In order to keep moving forward despite difficulties or fear, you must have a compelling reason, a “why” that motivates and drives you.

Why do you want more money? What is your compelling reason for upleveling your life?

8. Become Aware of the Opportunity to Get What You Need.
The opportuntity to get what you need and want is around you right now. The problem is, the opportunity may be disguised as something unappealing, something you don’t want to do.

Below is an exercise to unmask your opportunity so that you can see its potential for you.

Step 1.
Brainstorm. Make a list of every opportunity that comes to mind that could help you meet your need or want. Don’t censor, write everything down.

Step 2.
Every opportunity has at least one challenge associated with it ~ something that makes you think the opportunity would be difficult or impossible to pull off.

Write down the challenges that arise as you think about each opportunity.

Step 3.
Now, what opportunities are those challenges presenting for you?

Each challenge you wrote down is another opportunity in disguise. It’s an opportunity for you to overcome that challenge and grow past it.

So for each of the challenges you listed in Step 2, write down the opportunity for growth that it holds for you.

9. Choose the “Right” Opportunity for You
You now have a list of unmasked opportunities. One or two of those opportunities will take you closer to your goal, while others will not. As you may have seen when you did Step 3 above, your subconscious can make opportunities seem fortunate when they’re not or unfortunate when they’re the perfect one for you.

To be sure you choose the right opportunity, run each of them through The 4 Questions.

Question 1. Is this opportunity something I want to be, do or have?
If your answer is “yes” move on to Question 2.

If you answered no, move on to your next opportunity. However, to make sure that you’re still seeing the true nature of your opportunity, look at your list of disguised opportunities in the challenges you associated with this opportunity in Step 3 above. Is one or more of those disguised opportunities something you want do, be or have? If you answered no to the opportunity, but yes to the disguised opportunity, move on to Question 2.

For instance, I had an opportunity years ago to leave the loading dock to drive a fuel truck. If I had answered Question 1, I likely would have said, “Hell no, I don’t want to drive a bomb on wheels!” However, when I acknowledged the disguised opportunity to overcome my subconscious fear of fire while doubling my income, I would have said “yes,” and moved on to Question 2.

Question 2. Will the opportunity take me closer to my goal?
If your need is $6K a month and your opportunity is a full-time job for $25/hr., it will not help you meet your goal. Instead, it will further ensnare you where you are.

If your answer is “yes” move on to Question 3.

Question 3. Is the opportunity in harmony with the laws of the universe, the primary law of more life?
“More life” means more freedom, abundance, prosperity, etc. Would the opportunity bring you more life? If your answer is “yes” move on to Question 4.

Question 4. Would this opportunity violate the rights of others?
Would it take away someone else’s choice? You’re looking for the answer “no” to Question 4.

If you get three yeses and a no, the opportunity will move you in the right direction and you can feel confident about taking it.

10. Take Action on the Opportunity.
Once you’ve determined the right opportunity for you, step into it completely, expecting success, and see it all the way through to its conclusion.

That’s it. It really is that simple. When you follow the path that I’ve laid out, doing the inner and outer work, pursuing your opportunity all the way, keeping your “why” before you, you will collect the money you need or want.

It will be there.

And you will experience that sweet taste of financial freedom at last.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost
program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.

In my most recent article, I shared the first of two favorite tactics of the subconscious mind to keep you where you are.

That first tactic is our tendency to look for the magic pill, the easy solution, rather than choosing the option that requires us to change and which, therefore, leads to success.

The second tactic is what I call the rabbit hole of the subconscious mind.

The Rabbit Hole
Often when people get stuck and feel they can’t move forward, they think that a block stemming from a childhood trauma of some kind is holding them back. So they start focusing on what that could be, thinking if they could just remember or figure it out, they’d be able to release the block and start moving again.

The trouble is they’ve just fallen into a trap ~ the rabbit hole of the subconscious mind. They could stay on a therapist’s couch for 20 years, looking for memories, talking about change but not making any, and, therefore, unlikely to make the real growth that leads to the big wins.

It’s Your Excuse
The thing that’s holding you back is your excuse: what you say to yourself in the moment about why you can’t do something that would take you where you want to go.

For instance, when you say, “I can’t go to the event because I don’t have the money or I don’t have the time,” that is in your imagination. You do have the money. The Law of Polarity says that’s true. If you have a desire, the way to fulfill that desire is also around you. And you have 24 hours in every day just like everybody else. You get to decide what to do with it.

Your Excuse Is Perfect for You
But you don’t see it that way, because your subconscious mind knows the perfect way to stop you. The excuse you come up with is totally logical, makes sense emotionally and is tailor made just for you. It’s so perfect, you can’t see any way around it.

And if you don’t bring in some other knowledge or perspective, you never will get around it. It’s another trap. And you will remain stuck.

How to Get Unstuck
You need people in your life, like a coach, to call you on the excuses you use to hinder your growth. You need to become aware of what you say to yourself so that you can stop believing it, and then employ helpful ways to make decisions.

For instance, if you’re considering whether to go to an event or take a class or start a project, ask yourself The 4 Questions I shared with you recently. If you get a green light, your answer is yes. Take advantage of the opportunity.

Stop making excuses and, instead, make the changes you need to make, and along the way you will grow. You will see your path lighted a step at a time before you, leading you toward your goal.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost
program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.