Make Yourself
Easy to Book

Transcript from the episode recording, with speaker names added and paragraphs formatted for readability. Automated transcription may contain errors; the audio is the original record.

Brad Hauck 00:14

Welcome to the Experts Journey. Well, today we're going to have a look at how to make yourself easy to book. There's so many things that we can be doing to improve our businesses, but one of the most important things we can do is make it easy for people to find us, to understand what we do, and to book us. And often we do make that difficult because we put so much information out there that it's hard for people to find the process to follow to book us. So we're going to break that down today and give you some ideas to help you make yourself more easy to book.

Good morning, Dixie.

Dixie Carlton 00:47

Good morning, Brad. How are you today? Surviving winter okay?

Brad Hauck 00:52

Yes, surviving just.

Dixie Carlton 00:55

For our listeners, Brad is in Australia on the Gold Coast, and I am currently in New Zealand, but heading back to Bali very shortly, and we frequently discuss the trials and tribulations of living in the climates that we both live in. So well, it's a great topic that we're going to talk about today because making yourself easy to book is something that most of us don't think about beyond, well, I've written the book or I've created a speaker one sheet or I've done all of these things with my content, but how do I make that meaningful?

How do I get leverage on my content? And that's what we're going to talk about.

Brad Hauck 01:31

Absolutely. So before we'd start off with looking at our books, if someone reads our book and wants to invite us to speak, is it immediately clear what topics you speak on? Because we put out our books across a whole range of topics. And sometimes they're a very specific niche of what we talk about. So how do we make our book better to indicate to people that we are available speak and we do talk on different topics?

Dixie Carlton 01:58

Well, one of the things that I like to do with authors that I work with is ensure that we breadcrumb the concept. Like Hansel and Gretel dropping breadcrumbs through the forest. You want to make sure that you breadcrumb throughout your book little snippets of information that tell the reader clearly, I'm a speaker, or when I was doing this workshop, or here's a case study to explain how this works when I do this kind of work. So you want to put yourself fully into your book and your content. That's the first thing. And then you also want to lead them very carefully, and I've talked about this a number of times on this series, you want to lead the reader very carefully to the end of the book where there is the link to go to the website page where all of the magic really happens after the book.

Brad Hauck 02:43

Absolutely. Breadcrumbing is really important. And there's lots of different ways to breadcrumb. To give you an example, when I first started speaking, I was talking about search engine optimization. And one of the things I used to do during my speech was use a live example of a client. And the funny thing was, even though I was showing results of a client and what would happen if you did SEO for your business, I was in fact saying, by the way, I take clients. And I think when you have a book and you put case studies and stories in there, you're off you are breadcrumbing, but you're building it into the structure.

So it's not like, hey, by the way, you can book me.

Dixie Carlton 03:22

And sometimes it's also necessary or highly recommended, not in all cases, but in many, when you're doing a book that is really closely aligned to a specific presentation or workshop that you do, to actually be very clear at various points throughout the book. Put a piece in there that says, by the way, if you want me to come and present this topic to your group or organization, or if you require this additional level of help, you can get this. Please just click through to page X and there's where you can get all that information. So sometimes it's good to be blatantly obvious about your intent to connect with your readers beyond the book.

And I don't think it there's such a thing as over-self-promoting. But if you are smart in how you do this, you can actually get some really good quality engagement beyond the book. And I think that's a really good reason to write the book.

Brad Hauck 04:18

Absolutely. And there's other places you can breadcrumb too. So for example, on the back of your colour, you might have a picture of you speaking, or you might have some pictures in the book because your book has illustrations, and one of them is you on stage, or something like says, speaking at the such-and-such conference, very subtly weave this stuff in. It's almost a psychological trick, not trick is not the right word, but a psychological way of approaching it. And so that it's not being blatant, which a lot of people don't like to do, even though it is important to be blatant to some extent.

You can build it in through your content as you go if you're thinking about it and coming up with some ideas. So yeah.

Dixie Carlton 05:02

You can be obvious and inspiring towards someone taking action without being blatantly self-promoting, which can be a real turn off, obviously. But being obvious and inspiring, that's gently taking your reader or your audience member by the hand and saying, come with me on a journey. This is where we'll go next. And that's an easy thing to do. So really essentially you want to be thinking about when the reader finishes reading your book, that you have a call to action page that they will go directly to from the end of the book where you might have them download some extra resources, sign up for whatever, obviously go directly to or see more of you speaking on stage or some examples of when you are presenting.

So making that easy for them to find rather than only send them to sending them to your website where they still have to do lots of navigating. So your call to action page helps with that navigation process. But then you also want to make sure that you've got your bio and your topic titles and some video clips as points of action on that page. So you don't want to leave a lot of that to guesswork either. So that landing page that you're sending readers to at the end of your book should be very clear. This is me on stage.

These are my topics. Download my speaker one sheet. Here's where you can go to my workshop page or my speaker page. So again, take them gently by the hand and lead them to exactly where you want them to go so they don't have to apply any guesswork. And that way you'll also build some fan base because people like to be treated gently.

Brad Hauck 06:41

Absolutely. And I work a lot with speakers on their websites. And one of the key things I'll say to people is what's your most wanted response? Sometimes they want someone to download something, sometimes they want them to get their one sheet, whatever. But if they don't have anything, I always push towards a button that says book Brad to Speak or something like that. And that always goes in the top right-hand corner because that's the first entry point for 99% of people's mice when they enter onto a web page. And so it's the easiest thing to click.

And then also I spread those throughout the page and throughout the website because people often make the mistake. They have too many choices there for people to do. When in fact, the whole goal of a speaker site is actually to get booked. Yes. The other goals are really secondary. They're there to back up your speaker. And so it's really important that you have these calls to action on a regular basis so that it is obvious to people what they should do.

Dixie Carlton 07:43

And the other thing is on that call to action page, or on your speaker page as well, and your call to action page will probably direct people to the more in-depth page. One of the things that you want to be most focused on is ensuring that whether it's your speaker page or your call to action page that leads to your speaker page, that it looks easy, that you also look like you are mitigating any risk factor for them to book you. So by that I mean like I on my page, for example, I have it very clearly.

This is what you can expect from me before I speak. This is what you can expect from me while I'm on the stage, and this is what you can expect from me after I've presented. And that might be things like I promise to not swear at the audience, but obviously, I promise to be there on time early and to make sure that I do a debrief with you before and after you've booked me, that you will find that I'm dressed appropriately, that I'm willing to that I won't sell off on the stage, or that I have and that I will have an understanding of your industry, and that I would then do a follow-up or that I will wait after the presentation.

So various things that are your particular rules of engagement, putting them on your speaker page is a really good idea because that takes away all the risk factor. If someone can see that you've put that amount of thought into what you are doing as a presenter, you're going to stand out ahead of just about everybody else that they might be looking at anyway. So it's looking at you as a professional.

Brad Hauck 09:15

Yeah. Also, one of the things to think about too is also have your profile other than your own webpage. So for example, if you put your profile onto eSpeakers, it feeds a lot of other sites automatically. So make sure you go and check those sites that the feed looks good, that what you've put on to say eSpeakers as an example is good, is up to date, is interesting, isn't just boring because you never know where they are feeding, and then they get indexed by search engines as well. So, yes, getting your website's important, but also do a search for your name and the word speaker or author, whatever, and find out all the other places you are, and then go through all of those and check all those as well.

Some of them you may be able to edit and bring up to date because they may be really old because they haven't updated in years. Others you may not be able to touch, but try and find where they get their feed from. You'll quickly work it out because they all have the same word. But it's important to go and check yourself out.

Dixie Carlton 10:15

Absolutely. You want to know that if someone's Googling you or looking you up, that what they're seeing is current and relevant to them. And that you're making it look like you have thought about your levels of professionalism and what it is that you're offering so that they don't have to apply all the guest work. And if you need to, make sure that you've got testimonials on those pages. Ensure that you've got good feedback and people doing direct-to-camera pieces after they've seen you speak is also a really good idea. You want to make sure that your professionalism is unquestionable and that you are not a newbie in this industry.

And so some of what we've just said are very good shortcuts, even if you are relatively new to the industry of speaking. Make sure that you've gone through the process of thinking about it from the person's perspective of who's going to be booking you. And not only that person, but the person's assistant. So, or the company's assistant. Because it might be that the HI manager has said, we need to have this this person, can you check them out? Well, that person's assistant may be someone who's not really very experienced at looking into what kind of speaker you are.

But if you can stand out immediately head and shoulders above everybody else that she may have looked at or he may have looked at, then that gives you an edge.

Brad Hauck 11:36

Absolutely. And you should also be looking at what AI is saying about you these days. So a lot of people starting to use AI to search, or and alternatively, if they use Google to search, often the first part of information that comes up is from Google Gemini, which is the AI for Google. And so you're going to be wanting to show up in there. Now, there's not a lot of things you can do specifically to get indexed, except have your site well indexed on the search engines already, and making sure that you're putting up regular, good quality content that uh uh answers questions that people would ask about your topic.

Because in the end, the AIs are indexing information based on topics and questions, and that's really the best way to get indexed. But it is worth going and checking out the different AIs and seeing what they say about you. But do remember if you're logged into the AI as yourself and it knows your history, it's just going to repeat back to you what you've already told it about yourself. You need to go in anonymously and check.

Dixie Carlton 12:39

And that's a really great point because I was going to ask that as a question. Do you need to just do an incognito window to be able to do that? Or is there another trick to getting a you can go on to do you need to go onto somebody else's computer to do a search about you? Or are there really quick, easy ways to make sure that you've not just tapped into your own feed?

Brad Hauck 13:00

Well, I think the first thing is to make sure that you're logged out of the program. So if you're using AI in any form, you're logged out. So sometimes it can be built in your browser, so be careful. It's sitting in the background there. But that's the first step. The second step is to then maybe go incognito or try using a VPN. So it looks like you're in a different country and running the search so well. You want to make yourself as anonymous as possible. I'm actually doing a little bit of background research on this at the moment for a client.

And in the end, the AI itself just said the best thing you can do is produce good content, make sure you're indexed in the search engines. They don't specifically go looking at websites like search engines do, even though people will tell you they do. So it's a case of making sure you're indexed, you're up there as an expert that people recognize you. Same as we would traditionally do to be found online, then the AI comes looking for you because they want the best information. Now, the problem with that, of course, is they're stealing your information, but you've got to work with what you've got.

Dixie Carlton 14:04

Yeah. One of the things that is often something we should ask ourselves is what is making someone hesitate to contact or to book? What are the things, have you ever actually sat and asked someone who has booked you or has not booked you, or you know you've had a conversation with them and it hasn't resulted in anything? Sometimes you've got to do really direct customer service satisfaction inquiry. What is it that made you hesitate? Was it that the event didn't go ahead, or is it that you had someone else who was better or cheaper or more interesting or more something or less whatever?

Sometimes people will willingly, if you approach it the right way, they will give you the direct information that you need to improve your own marketing. And every now and then it's worth just picking two or three people that you have either engaged with that hadn't resulted in work and just say, what went wrong? What what didn't work for you in terms of was my website navigation too hard? Was it bad timing, a bad vibe? Did someone give me a negative review that I wasn't expecting that you would get? Just look into your own background or even have someone else do that for you if you need to, and just say, Yeah, hey, what's the goal with that?

Brad Hauck 15:16

Yeah, and certainly with websites, it's worth getting other people to put eyes on them. When you have your own website, you're always far too close to your website. You don't see its faults. And I, as I said, have worked in this area since 1996. And so I look at websites very coldly and I look at them as if I've never seen them before, which in many cases I haven't. And I come in and I'm like, okay, what do they do? How can they help me? How do I get them? I'm very simple in how I approach it.

And how hard have you made it for me to do that? And more often than not, websites go out of date very quickly because people leave them for long amounts of time without updating them because they're doing the job, as they say. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't redo them. And it really is worth getting someone external to yourself, especially in the industry, to look at it. And if you're working with an agency or someone like that, get them to look at it as well from their perspective, knowing what clients ask and do. If you're not, go and talk to some other people.

But it's really important that you get a perspective that's not your own on your own content because we do, we crowd our websites up, we add too much stuff in, we give people too many choices. All those things have been proven to be bad for selling online.

Dixie Carlton 16:40

And sometimes you just have to get really simple and just say directly from my book, this is the next step, this is the next step, this is the next step. Chart it out on a one single piece of paper and say, This is the pathway. Do I have my pathway from book to booking really clear and as few steps as possible, as few missteps built in there as possible? Yeah.

Brad Hauck 17:05

Yeah. Some of the biggest speakers I work with, who are some of the biggest speakers in the world, they have very small websites, realistically. They're five to ten pages maximum. They're very clear, they're very straightforward. In fact, some of them only have one to two page websites, and they're there purely to focus people down on what they do. It's not their be-all and end all, it's not their company, it's their speaking site.

Dixie Carlton 17:30

Yeah. Like I've got two websites. One is for me, DixieCarlton.com, as the speaker, who also has information and resources, etc., about publishing, but that is specifically my speaking website. I also obviously have the Indie Experts sites. And people often say to me, Well, that's twice as much work. Why don't you just have everything on one site? Well, often it's a matter of making sure that my personal brand and my company brand are well articulated to the market that I'm wanting to serve. Now, not everybody who wants my company services wants to book me as a speaker.

And not everybody who wants to book me as a speaker needs to or wants to know about the other parts of the work that I do. So it gives me better leverage. And yes, it is twice as much work, but at the end of the day, it is worth it to have that clear delineation about what it is that I do, who I do it for, and how it works. And it also makes one website less clunky than it would otherwise be with too much information.

Brad Hauck 18:33

Well, absolutely. It's really hard because you start to do a podcast. And so you add a podcast page and you start to do these extra things. And suddenly, while it is something you do, should it be there? Should it just be a link at the top in the menu that says things I do and it's got your different podcasts? So, for example, The Expert's Journey, or in my case, I have Leadership Mill on a Fire, has a separate website. And it's important because otherwise, you're creating all these pages that water down your brand and lead people off in different directions where you don't want them to go because the whole goal is to invite you to speak.

So that's what you're looking for.

Dixie Carlton 19:12

So one last question before we wrap this, and I'm interested in your thoughts on this. Do you think it's viable to put your fee range on your sales page, on your speaker page so that people understand immediately what sort of investment you're looking at to have you speak or perform, do something?

Brad Hauck 19:30

It's a great question because there's many different ways of thinking about this. For example, when you put yourself up on a speaker site, say a bureau or something, they always have a speaker range there. So you've got that industry on that sort of site, they expect to see a range, which I understand. But you talk to most people and they say, Don't put your speaker price on your page, get the people to contact you, then you can discuss with them what their budget is and what they want to achieve, and try and work with them, if feasible, to make it work for you and for them.

It is a hard question, but on the other hand, there's this side of me that says, Well, I don't want tire kickers calling me who've got a thousand dollars when I'm a ten thousand dollar speaker. That's also the other side. So I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I think for your own personal side, I wouldn't put a range on there. But certainly with e-speakers and bureau sites, yes, you have to choose a range. And I think that's expected there.

Dixie Carlton 20:36

Yeah, that's a great answer. Look, if you have if we've raised some things for you and you're thinking, how can I make this better for myself, then we've got easy-to-use worksheets to actually help you really go through and unpack all of these things that we've been talking about today. So I encourage you to go and have a grab those worksheets and work your way through them because you will find that some of what we've raised today, no matter how long you've been in this industry, it's always good to go back and recheck where you're up to, what you need to be still focusing on.

And yes, it is an endless job marketing yourself as a speaker and as an author. But if you keep on top of it, and these are some of the ways that we want to help you do that, then it is less of a big job further down the line. Keep chipping away at it piece by piece. So go ahead and download those those worksheets. And if you've loved our podcast, please rate it, share it, tell people about it, and give us some feedback. We love to hear what you're thinking of of what we're putting out there.

Brad Hauck 21:36

Absolutely. And if you need help writing a book, please contact Dixie at indiexpertspublishing.com or if you're looking for some help with your online marketing, contact me at bradhauck.com. We look forward to seeing you in the next episode.