In this episode, Arvee Robinson master speaker/training explains why you need a speaking system, and gives you usable tips to help you sell your book and get more clients from the stage both in person and virtually.

Resources mentioned

Book: Speak Up, Get Clients, How to use Public, Speaking to Market Yourself and Get High-Paying Clients.

Million Dollar Speaker Summit

3 Key Points

You need a roadmap to get results from speaking.

Always show a copy of your book.

Read from your book or in a small group, have participants read from your book. Once you give them the book, most will want to buy it.

Transcript

Ellen: Hi everybody and welcome to Episode 62. Today my guest is Arvee Robinson. Arvee is the master speaker trainer international speaker, author of Speak up, Get Clients, and she teaches business owners and entrepreneurs how to be a better business speaker and use public speaking as a marketing strategy so they can attract more clients, generate unlimited leads, grow their business with their words.

She’s trained over 5,000 individuals given over 3,500 speeches around the world and has shared the stage with speaking giants, such as Mark Victor Hansen, Tommy Hopkins, and many more. And today, we’ll be talking about how to sell more books from the stage, both live and virtual. So, Arvee, welcome to the call.

[1:39] Arvee: Thank you, Ellen. Thank you so much. It’s so fun to be here with you. Well,

Ellen: I don’t know this, but ARVEE and I have known each other a very long time. And it was so funny because we had never met, and then we were both at a conference. Do you remember that?

Arvee:  Yes.

[1:59] Ellen: And you were with Lee Pound and I was with my husband, and I saw you and I said, “You look familiar,” and you said, “Yeah, you look familiar too.”

And then, we figured out who we were and they were like, “Oh, I know you,” It was a long time ago, long time ago.

Ellen: And then, I kept hearing about you from Eric Lofholm because you’re one of his star students.

Arvee: Right, right.

Ellen:  And so, I kept hearing your story. And I remember one day I was talking to Eric and I go,” I want what Arvee has.”

[01:45] Arvee: : And what did he say to that?

Ellen: He said, “ I can help you.”

[01:48] Arvee: Okay, good.

Ellen: Yeah, no, but he was saying I guess he was saying how, you’d bought a house and all this, and we had a house before, but we lost it in the recession in 2008. So, I was like, “I want what she has.”

[01:56] Arvee: Oh, well, guess what? I bought mine in 2007.

Ellen: Oh, God.

Arvee: But I’m in it today, so that’s the good news.

Ellen: Yeah. So anyway, and then you know, we all get busy and we’re living our lives and everything. And then, we were both at the Driven Live Event this past couple of months ago, and we reconnected and here we are,

[3:11]: Arvee: That’s right. And you and I have been in our businesses for a very, very long time; we’re veterans.

Ellen: Yes we are.

Arvee:  That’s what we’re doing and just, leading the way and trailblazing.

Ellen: Trailblazing. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So, for people who don’t know you, why don’t you tell a little bit about your story and how you became the master speaker-trainer/

[3:38] Arvee:  I would love to. Thank you so much. Well, I didn’t set out to be a master speaker/trainer. As a matter of fact, my degree is in information systems. I‘m half geek, a little bit geek, and I went to work at a college for a company by the name of Deloitte, Deloitte Haskins in sale, back in the eighties. And my job was not as the CPA, but because I had a system’s degree, they hired me to set up financial accounting systems and teach a small to midsize company how to automate their accounting, because up until then only large companies could afford computers that took up the size of a room.

Ellen: Right.

[4:19] Arvee: So, this is really revolutionary. So, my boss came to me one day and he said, “Arvee, I want you to get out there and start speaking to tell people that we’re offering this new service.”

And I thought to myself, ‘Well, I took one speech class in college.” I was good to go. I knew everything there was to know about public speaking, or so I thought. Well, doors open wide, Ellen, for a speaking engagement. That wasn’t a problem. I would speak in front of hundreds of people. But the problem was, I didn’t know what I was doing, and I wasn’t getting any clients. I was getting projects, nothing. So, I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. And then, one day a woman came up to me, and she looked me in the eye, and she said, “Honey, I hate to tell you this, but do you know that after every sentence you say, okay?” And in that moment, I got it. That just because I could flat my job, didn’t make me a public speaker.

[5:13]: So, I decided that I was going to respect public speaking and get trained. And that’s what I did. That just changed the course of my whole career because once I got trained, and I did everything I could to get trained, I went to seminars, I read books, everything, I did to master it. Then, I started teaching my colleagues because they started seeing that I was getting a full practice. I was getting clients as a result of it. And then, I used it for upward mobility within my firm to get promotions and raises. And then I, I reached the very top after twenty-three years. And the industry was saturated with, of course, new consultants, and new software,  and all this stuff. And I realized that I was just a middle manager pushing around papers and making evaluations and reviewing staff. And it wasn’t what I set out to do.

[6:04] : So, I knew it it’s time to make a change, but I didn’t know what it was. So, I prayed about it, and God said, “Teach others what I’ve taught you.” And I knew what he meant, go out and teach public speaking. Now that was seventeen years ago that I left corporate America,  seventeen years ago, and everything we did had an offer. And since that time, I’ve been solely training business owners on how to use it as a marketing strategy, so they too can get clients, generate leads, get their message out to the world, make that huge impact,  and become visible, gain that kind of visibility that they deserve. So again, seventeen, I’m celebrating my 17th year, this October.

Ellen: Well, congratulations,

Arvee: Thank you.

Ellen: You know, it’s funny that you said that. Cause I remember when I started editing these podcasts and I heard certain things that I say or do over and over.

Arvee: Yes.

Ellen: I said, “Oh, I got to work on that.”

Arvee: That’s fun.

[7:07] Ellen: Why do you think some people are so afraid to speak?

Arvee: Well, I would say, after working with them for years and years and years, it is because they don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t have a system. People will say, “Go out and speak,” and yet they go out, they’re untrained, so it’s like, as if I said, “Okay, Ellen, I’m in the Inland Empire, come and see me.” And I didn’t give you an address. I didn’t give you a clue. I didn’t even give you some markers to go by. You know you get in your car and you go, “You know what? This is ridiculous. Arvee said, “Follow the sun. I’m not going to do it.” So, it’s the unknown, not knowing where you’re going, not knowing what to do, what to say, what to say when. When  I came out of this systems world into this public-speaking world, even though I was in it, but when I became a trainer in it, I was looking for system.

And the closest thing I could find was have a beginning, middle, and end, but no one told you what to put in them. So, I went to work immediately and started developing systems for not only the persuasive speech that you need, your signature talk, that some people call it that elevator speech that self-introduction, that speaker introduction, everything you need the script for getting speaking engagements. So, I went to work for several months in the beginning, just putting systems together that I could teach, so that others could get the proven results that they needed. So, once you learn, once you’re trained, you gain that competence, you have your roadmap, you get in your car, and now you can start fueling your car with speeches and get anywhere you want to go. But without that roadmap, without that address, people get scared. And so, they stay on, they don’t do anything.

[8:53] Ellen: You know, that is so true with everything. Because when I first started, when I wanted to write a book, and I went looking for somebody with a system, and there wasn’t anybody.  I ended up hiring a regular coach with no system, and I kept making mistakes, and then, he’d tell me what to do. It was costly and time-consuming. And that’s when I said, “I’m going to create a system.” And that’s what I did, and then I taught it to hundreds of people around the world. So, I know exactly what you’re saying. Everything is easier when you have a system, There’s just no doubt about it.

Arvee: Right. Absolutely.

[9:28] Ellen: Yeah. So, how do people sell books from the stage? Is that any different from selling anything else from the stage?

Arvee: Absolutely. So, I’ll give you a technique that I’ve taught thousands and thousands of my clients that are authors, speakers and authors. And that is when you have a book, and I’m going to demonstrate it. Okay. So, this is a copy of my book that I’m showing, which is Speak Up, Get Clients, How to use Public, Speaking to Market Yourself and Get High-Paying Clients. So, one of the things you want to do when you’re from the stage, a book is one of the easiest things to sell because it’s one of the less expensive.

Ellen: Right.

Arvee: …Of a lot of coaching and things. So, what you want to do is you need to make it up and sell hundreds of them from the stage. So it’s a thing that I have learned as a couple and taught, is there’s a couple techniques. So, number one, you want to be speaking your book, number one. So, that should be the title. So, if you’re going to speak your book, and if I’m going to speak my book, it’s going to be called my title, my speech is going to be called, Speak Up, Get Clients. The biggest, one of the biggest mistakes that I see people make is they will talk about,

Let’s say, I talk about networking techniques to grow your business. And then, I say, “Oh, here’s my book. Speak up and Grow your Business.” There’s a disconnect. So, if you’re speaking and want to sell your book, you’ve got to title it, and it’s got to be information from your book. So, that’s number one. Number two, you want to, if it’s a small group, you want to hand out a book to every person in there. So, let’s say it’s twenty people.

[11:02]: So, you hand out twenty books, right? You’re not giving them to them, mind you, you’re just putting them in their hand. Then, what you do is you tell them to turn to a certain page in the book and read, and you can have a person, each person, two or three people read. So, one of the things I wanted to read from my book is one of the chapters that would never have been in the book had I got it out a lot sooner. As you know, Ellen, I shared with you, it took me nine years out because I’m a speaker, not a writer. I had to learn how to write. I had to get a coach. And so, it took some time. But one of the chapters that is in there that wouldn’t have been, it didn’t take me that long was what I call the biggest lie.

The biggest lie. And this is what you would have someone read for you. Or, you could read it yourself. If you have hundreds of people, then you’re going to read it. If you have twenty people, you’re going to give them a book. They’re going to read it. That’s a big difference. So, attend one speech class and get paid thousands of dollars, lie, lie, lie. You will be lucky to even speak for free anywhere. No program chair wants a speaker with no experience or reputation to make them look bad, right? So, it’s a simple technique. Twenty people get them to read it. And it’s because of this because possession right is nine-tenths of the law we’ve heard. So, they possess it. Then, what you want to do is say, “Okay, you can either buy the book for $20, you know? Just pass up the money to my assistant and keep the book or pass up the book. Nine times out of ten, they’re going keep the book because they’ve touched it. They’ve opened it. They’ve read it.

[12:47] Ellen: So, now they’re ready. So, they’re going to buy it there is what you’re saying?

Arvee: Right there. If you have hundreds of people, then you just keep reading from the book, and you show them graphs in the book. Like one of the things that I share with people is my system is in the back of the book.

Ellen: Oh, nice.

Arvee:  My six-step system,  which I’ve developed over the years. In the beginning, it was a more simple system seventeen years ago. Now, it is a proven, persuasive speaking system that will help you to close anything from the platform.

[13:23] Ellen: And this works live and virtual?

Arvee: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, virtually you can’t hand out the book.

Ellen: Right.

Arvee: So, you would have to read it, or what you can do is send people a chapter, or we may send them a file…

Ellen: Oh, nice.

Arvee:  …in a box because you can actually send a file of a chapter,  and then you can have them read it there. It works very, very well as long as you have people that know how to download that file from the chat room, then it works great.

[13:54] Ellen: That is awesome. I have to get the book.

Arvee: (Laugh)

Ellen: So, where can people get the book?

Arvee: Well, you can get it on Amazon. So, you could go to amazon.com, Speak Up, Get Clients. But if you want an autographed book, then you go to www.speakupgetclientsbook.com. That will come to me as an order. I will personally autograph it and ship it off to you personally. So, I will touch it. I will send it with love back to you.

Ellen: Oh, that is great. So, some of the things that you’ve just done here, like all of a sudden, just going off in my brain going, “Oh my God, I never hold up my book when I speak.” I mean, I’ve been on tons of podcasts. I never show my books!

[14:46] Arvee: Oh, absolutely. Because you never know if it’s just audio or if it’s some way video. So yes,  always show your book. Always, of course, then, you know, bring your book wherever you go. I have some in my car. I had it in the back seat one time of my car, sitting up and one of those little couple of ladies in the back;  we were going to a women’s networking meeting. And then, one of the girls  says, “What is this?” And she picks it up,  and then she bought it. It’s like, you just never know.

Ellen: No, you just never know. You want to hear a really funny story. I have a client. I actually did a podcast with where he was driving for Uber.

Arvee: Ahhh

Ellen: And he would have the book with him. Right? And he was doing tax workshops. And when he was driving, he made sure that he got into areas where they were wealthy people. So then, they would see the book. They would start to go, “Oh, what’s this?” And  he would go, “I wrote that book.” And they would buy the book right out of the back of his car.

Arvee: Right. Right. (Laugh)

Ellen: I know that works cause he has sold a lot of books that way just by having the book in the car. But, yeah, obviously he was in touch with a lot more people because he was constantly picking up new people. But still, you just never know.

Arvee: You never know. That’s an interesting strategy to sell more books, become an Uber driver.

[16:16] Ellen: Right. So, do you have any tips for buying books in bulk?

Arvee: For buying books in bulk?

Ellen: Right, because if you’re doing it virtually and they’re going to Amazon,  that’s one thing. But it’s like, if you’re speaking live and you are going to have books, you have to buy bulk books. Right?

Arvee: Right, right.

[16:33] Ellen:  So, how many books do you suggest people buy?

Arvee: At least a hundred at a time.

Ellen:  Okay.

Arvee: Yeah. Anything less than that and you’re not going to get a deal. And again, I teach people how to give away the book, do a free raffle from the stage and give away that book. So, you want to make sure you buy enough books, that the book is only like five bucks or something because you’re giving them away constantly.

And again, you can give them away through virtual as well, just by making sure your book is on a PDF. However, people don’t really like PDFs that much because they’re too hard to read on the computer.

Ellen: Right.

Arvee:  So unless you can turn it into something, but again on Amazon, my books are on Kindle, so Kindle’s a little less expensive. But yeah, if I’m ordering physical books, then I will absolutely order a minimum of a hundred to 200 at a time.

[17:29] Ellen: Do you order them in bulk from Amazon or do you have a printer that you like?

Arvee: Nope. Nope. From Amazon through that Creative Space,

Ellen:  Not anymore. Create Space that doesn’t exist anymore.

Arvee: Yeah. It’s called something else.

Ellen:  It’s KDP.

Arvee: That’s it. Thank you.

Ellen: Yeah. KDP

Arvee: Yeah. That’s it.

[17:53] Ellen: So, do you ever do it where you’re doing a talk like especially virtually where it’s people in other countries?

Arvee: Ah, yes. But again, then I encourage them to go to Amazon and buy their book or Kindle or I can email them a PDF version, even though that’s not ideal.

Ellen: Right. And I want to say the reason that she said that is because it is expensive to sell books and send them overseas. Yeah. I found that out the hard way.

Arvee: Yeah, it’s expensive. They don’t want to pay for it. You don’t want to pay for it.

Ellen: Right.

Arvee: So again, if they really want it, they will print and read the PDF version.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. I was doing a giveaway and they were going to Australia. It was like $23 to mail the book.

Arvee: (Laugh)

Ellen: More than the book. More than the book cost.

Arvee: More than the book costs.

[18:45] Ellen: So, what’s next?

Arvee: What’s next is my Million Dollar Speaker Summit, which is a premier event. I do it every year for the last five years. And it’s truly million dollar. I mean I don’t hold back anything putting on that event. We have flowers, and we have music, and we have great food. And then, all of a sudden, now this year, I need to go virtual. I’m working really hard on putting… I packaged together a million-dollar gift bag that I can send to everybody that’s in the United States to give them a better experience. And this event is all about reaching millions with your message, creating that million-dollar message and making millions, of course, but it’s really about using public speaking to gain visibility in your market, to get your message out there, to make money, to make an impact, to change lives for a living and to really embrace speaking as a tool, as a marketing strategy.

[19:46]: So, during my live event, when people hear, and it’s just me speaking, I’m teaching the entire time. It’s not a multi-speaker event. I do have a few premier sponsors that speak, but mostly the speakers are a few speakers that are my students, my students that are in my mastermind, my million-dollar mastermind, they get as part of that mastermind, time on my stage. But during the live event, normally people, when they hear a great idea, which there’s a lot of them, they go “millions”, and I do that. I’ll make them money or know, just change their life. They scream out “millions”. Well, obviously we can’t do that in the virtual world. So, I made these paddles, and on one side of the paddle says “millions” so they can hold it up so I can see that.

Ellen: I love that cause that’s what we did in in Suzanne’s (event) and I love this. This was like the most fun part of it was like a “Hell, no” and a “Hell, Yeah”.

Arvee: And then on  the other side of mine, because I always say, “How cool is that? And people go, “That’s cool.”

Ellen: Oh, fun. I’m telling you this seems so silly. But when you get into the aura and you’re doing it, it’s so much fun. It really is. It really brings up the energy.

Arvee: Yeah. So, they get that. And then, so it’s a little gift bag. It’s not a swag bag. I don’t believe in that swag. Swag is another word for junk,  and a million dollar you don’t have junk.

Ellen: Yeah.

Arvee: I have this little, it’s a door knocker, and you put it on the door. And it says “Shhh…in the process of making millions” on the door.

Ellen: How fun.

Arvee:  And, of course,  I’ve got a beautiful little welcome postcard that welcomes them and says that this gift bag is for their enhanced experience. And so, I’ve got a few other things in there, like this crunchy million- dollar bill, and the soft stressors. And you know, there’ll be some, pens and bookmarks, but it’ll all be usable stuff to enhance your experience at the Million Dollar Speaker Summit. And I know it sounds expensive, but because we went virtually, I’ve lowered the price.

It’s only $97 for general admission, $197 for VIP. And we’ve got a magic night on Thursday night, it’s Thursday, Friday, Saturday, September 24th, 25th, 26th, and over a zoom meeting. And we have a magic night, virtual magic, which is a lot of fun. And we’ve got a few sponsor speakers, we got music, we got a DJ, we’ve got an MC, we’ve got everything we need to make it a fun experience. So, to grab your seat, grab your ticket, just go to http://ellenlikes.com/speakup All right, let me say it one more time. http://ellenlikes.com/speakup and grab your very special seat there.

Ellen: Yes. And when they do that, they can also get the video of this.

Arvee: Then, you could get the video of this and the video of all three days if you get the VIP.

Ellen: Okay. So do you have any final tips before we go?

[23:11] Arvee: Yes. I would say for everyone, I want you to take this to heart that you have a message to share that only you can share to people that can only hear it from you. And that message will save someone’s life, someone’s business or even their soul. So, it’s up to you to learn how to speak, and speak right with confidence, so that you can deliver that message with confidence, and that people will hear it and their lives will be changed forever. And that message is your message, nobody else can deliver it. And if you don’t deliver, it will be undelivered for all eternity. And that means people that need to hear your message will go on suffering. So,  learn how to get that message out there. Come to the Million Dollar Speaker Summit, and I will teach you how to be a million-dollar speaker.

[24:00] Ellen: Awesome. So, thank you so much, Arvee. This has been really enlightening. I’ve learned a lot. I hope our listeners have too.

Arvee: Well. Thank you. Thank you, Ellen, for having me.

Ellen: Oh, my pleasure. So that’s it for today. To get the transcript go to www.booksbusinessabundance.com/podcast. You’re also welcome to join our Facebook group. That’s on the podcast page and there’s also the Book Planner Secrets, A Simple 4-Step Guide to Writing a Bestseller. And whether you’ve already written a book or you’ve never written a book, it will help you to do it faster and easier. So, till next time, Bye-bye.

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