HOW DO YOU FIND HOT PROSPECTS FOR YOUR COUNSELING PRACTICE?
(September/October 2003 Issue)

Speeches -- speeches that get people involved, motivated, interested, and in action. The fastest way to get new clients is to talk to people who are "hot" prospects. Hot means they're facing a career issue now! How can you find these people? Give speeches. If you address job-clubs and career-networking events, you've got an audience where 90% are facing some career transition issue. These are "hot." If you talk at Rotary, Kiwanis, trade associations, libraries, etc., you have 30-40% of the audience who are "hot."

You know they're hot because you know that people who attend these events have a choice -- they're not forced to attend. So, if they show up, they must be interested in the topic. For the most part, they already know the topic before they arrive at the meeting. In the case of job-clubs, of course, their whole raison d'etre is to support people in job search -- the highest career-focused "hot" prospects of all. So those participants self-select to come to the meeting. Hence 90% hot prospects. But the other venues, too, self select.

A while ago, I spoke at American Society for Quality (formerly American Quality Control Society) and my topic was, "How to Keep Your Job in Hard Times [Or, how to make sure the 'other guy' gets axed, not you.]" Of the 500 members in the Chicago Area, I got 100 to the meeting. Now, 60 or more of them are "regulars," and they would have attended anyway -- even if the topic was "Statistical Methods for Improving Jell-O Output." But the other 40 came because the speaker's topic that night was important to them. Hence 30 - 40% hot prospects.

So, if closing new business in the nearest possible future is your focus, speeches are the best venue.

Y'all know, by now, how to make the speech pay off four times, not just once. (If you don't, then email me a request for the "Home Run Speeches" article.) The third of those four times involves getting people involved during the speech itself. The way to not get them involved is to lecture. Lecture is the least effective way to leave a positive impression on people.

The best way is to involve them in an exercise or two. For instance, in my "Keep Your Job in Hard Times" speech, I had a couple of exercises to bring home my point. I'll use them to illustrate this topic.

The first point I told them for keeping their job is to "do your job the way your boss wants you to do it." So, I gave them an exercise: Write down what you think of your boss. All the plusses and minuses. Then write down what your boss thinks of you. I had them share these things with a partner. People love to kvetch and gossip -- they'll dive right into an exercise like this. Once I had them engaged with this information I was able to get them to see how important it is to forget list #1 (their judgments about the boss), and remember list #2: it’s what the boss thinks of them that counts.

I had them make plans to have a "how am I doing" conversation with their boss to find out -- really -- what the boss thinks of them. Then they can start doing their job the way their boss wants them to do it. The idea is that I don't just tell them, I let them make a personal plan for change.

[Side note: MY PERSONAL MBTI BASED EXERCISE TIP. Make sure your exercises work for Myers-Briggs Introverts as well as Extroverts. When you have people write things down, Introverts like that; when you have people share with each other, Extroverts like that. So having them write first, and share second, gives the I's a chance to think it through, and E's get a chance to talk it out. Similarly, S's and N's need some attention to their facts-vs-vision learning styles, but it's not as important as the I/E balance. If I's are forced to share without a chance to think it out first the exercise will flop; and E's won't learn well unless they can speak it out loud to someone. The T/F and J/P categories don't influence the exercise structure very much.]

Back to my speech. The second survival technique involved having them increase their visibility and credibility inside and outside the company. For that, they need a "couple minute profile" (BTW, a powerful "couple minute profile" is absolutely the best job hunting arrow in a job hunter's quiver; if you want info on it, email me a request for my "Couple Minute Profile article.") Rather than talk about a couple minute profile, I had them first do their typical old fashioned answer to "tell me about yourself," and then they composed and delivered a (hastily crafted) "couple minute profile." They experienced the difference right then and there; they had a new tool to take with them that was practical and useful.

The point is, the more you involve the audience in the process the more they remember you. It's paradoxical -- the less you say, the more they remember. The more they talk themselves, the more they think you are the smartest bean they've ever met.

The speech, then, becomes 30% lecture, setting the context for the lesson, 30% interaction among the audience -- putting them a little at risk, a little "vulnerable." You'd like them disclosing personal -- but not private -- information about themselves. The exercise should be structured so they cannot fail -- only success, please. Then the last 40% become de-briefing on the exercise. Let the audience tell you what you want them to learn.

For instance, in the "tell me about yourself/couple minute profile" exercise, I said afterwards, "What was your experience of the difference between your first answer to 'Tell me about yourself,' and the 'couple-minute profile' answer?" One person will tell you, then you extemporaneously embellish on their point. Then ask, "Who else has a comment, observation, question?" Embellish on that point.

When an audience makes a point or question, and you don't like where it's going, you get a chance to restate their question or point before going on to embellish it. So, if they say, "This sucks!" You restate their comment as, "You're saying this doesn't work for everybody right? Yes, and here's why...."

30% lecture; 30% exercise; Q&A takes 30% of the time, and the last 10% you wrap up with some principles, plus the 3x5 card to capture names for your database. Finally, garner any "boiling hot" prospects by collecting 3x5 cards with "Call Me" box on it. (cf. Third Base of Home Run Speeches).

So, to boost your practice, I suggest you develop two or three powerful, interactive, experiential workshops, and deliver them wherever you can. (Need a list of speaking venues? Email me a request.) These should energize people and make them hungry for more. Deliver these well and follow up a.s.a.p. with the people who checked "call me" on the "home-run card."

Jack Chapman is author of:
Negotiating Your Salary: How to Make $1000 a Minute
He is a career consultant in private practice and runs ongoing support and training teleconference sessions for career consultants in private practice.
He can be reached at 847-251-4727 or jkchapman@aol.com