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I was asked recently, “How did you do it?  How did you just decide to quit smoking?  Quit drinking?  Quit eating meat?”

I know there are a lot of answers I could give to those three questions, but the underlying truth to all of them is simply this:  I made a decision to live.  This simple inner declaration helped me overcome many fears and obstacles, and continues to help me through each day.  Because if I’m not saying “yes” to life, then I’m basically going the other direction.

Some may say this is an oversimplification, and it is.  I can make this declaration, however, because I was in the other place for a period in my life.  I saw the depths of despair, loss and failure.  I made their acquaintance and hung around with them for several years.  It wasn’t until I was there that I had the courage to look up and say “yes” to living.  Now, whatever I do in my life has purpose and meaning.

Not all of us need to plummet to despair to find our true purpose. Unfortunately, I discovered this in my early 40’s. Some may find this out sooner. Others may use those of us who have seen the depths as examples. That is the beauty of it. As human beings we get the chance to create our existence every day, with every thought. Some people I know struggle with overeating, and they have asked me to “tell them the secret.” Well, it is just that. Make your choices as you go, little by little, one thought at a time.

All the most influential people in my life thus far (excluding my father and a man named John Dellarocco) have been women. Shari Sklar Jacobson was the first person to hire me out of film school in Boston to work as a video producer at Lyons Group Management for a club called Metro, back in 1986. We have remained friends to this day. A woman named Donna Wong hired me to edit the magazine for the Boston Film/Video Foundation around the same time. My boss at Arnold Worldwide, Lenora Cushing, saw something in me I could not even see myself. Not only that, but she had my back during one the darkest periods of my life. Lenora was the first person who saw in me the entrepreneurial spirit.

This realization about women has struck me during a period in my life where I am experiencing huge personal growth. Today, I am touched by the amazing gifts I have received from of a group of three women who help keep me grounded:

• Karen McCullough, my mentor and office mate, has taught me the invaluable lessons of perseverance, reinvention and self reliance. In addition to that, she has kept me on an even course with her incredible and endless energy.
• My friend and colleague, Tracey Rubio, has shown a collaborative spirit and generosity to me by offering me the use of her photo studio and all of her equipment, as well as her expertise in the field of photography and her incredible gift for exhaustive research.
• Sharon Ferranti has trusted me enough to take a risk and let me in to her world of film making. Sharon is a genius in a field that hypnotizes me. I love film making, and Sharon has shown me that I can do this for a living. She has shared with me her experience and her knowledge with such generosity that I almost feel unworthy of such an honor.

The sweet realization of the influence of these women in my life comes at a most opportune time: the release of a book that explores the talents of women from two cross-generational viewpoints. The Seven Women Project by Karen and Meredith McCullough beautifully illustrates and explains the unique and varied perspectives of the seven different “personalities” that are a part of every woman, and how women have the ability to tap into these different talents throughout their lives. I was lucky enough to help with the design of this book, and I can honestly say that it is a work of truth.
I say “thank you” to the many women in my life.

This past week, Tiger Woods made a public statement about how he compromised his core values. It made me think about my core values…I know I live by some, but I hadn’t defined them in quite a while. What are your core values, and do you live by them?

Reflecting back over my year has reminded me of something I learned in one of my own workshops. What’s the “One Thing” that makes you different?

Recently, my colleague Karen McCullough and I gave a workshop on how to market yourself as a public speaker.  It was a day of giving away all the things that worked for Karen in her career as a public speaker, some of which I helped her with, and all the things that did not. The workshop ended up being very interactive, with most of the participants adding extremely valuable information and experiences to the mix.

One of the most notable people there was Julie Haralson, the Marketing Director at Texas Children’s Hospital and a marketing consultant.  She shared a piece of information that has helped me immensely in the area of Personal Branding.  It was the concept of “The One Thing”.   Julie posed that very question to us, and it really clarified the crux of personal branding.  In a world where we’re all trying to stand out and be noticed, very few of us can easily identify that One Thing that defines us.  Julie reminded us of the movie City Slickers and this important scene where Curly learns about the secret to success and happiness.

Take a moment to think about that one thing that makes you different?  It’s not an easy question to answer.  I’m still working on it.

This time of year always elicits from me an attitude of reflection.  Today I am thinking about some of the things I’ve learned about my business, in my role as an entrepreneur, and some of the changes I’d like to make in my work and career.

One of the most important things I’ve gleaned recently is my desire to move towards better clients.  It’s a terribly difficult decision to make to turn down work, or to sever a client relationship that isn’t working, but sometimes it’s the smartest thing to do.  I couldn’t understand this during the first few years of building my business.  I took whatever work came my way.  Some of these clients were struggling themselves, and couldn’t pay the fees I was asking.  So I reduced my fees.  Some of them just pushed me around and didn’t pay me on time…and I let them.

This attitude toward my business and my own value defined the level of work I did for the first stage of my career as an entrepreneur.  I’m calling it a “stage” because I’m ready to move out of it.  By thinking of it as “old” or in the past, I am also signaling to myself to move on.

But then a mentor of mine told me to imagine my life with a better echelon of clientele.  It wasn’t until I saw the damage that was being done to my self-worth that I understood what she meant. I started to value myself more, and visualize a customer that values my talent an is willing to pay for it.  It’s been an uncomfortable thing to do, because I have had to look at the opportunities that will arise instead of the ones I am declining.  This, I was told, is called growth.  But I have faith and I’m taking action to support that faith.  This is called “inspired action”.

“The Law of Attraction formula (and the correct formula in my opinion) is “be/do/have.” In this way, you get to start with Being. Be happy. Be joyful. Be loving. Be appreciative. All of this “being” is what makes you an energetic vibrational match to what you want. Concentrate on who you want to be, then Do what you’re inspired to do (and don’t worry about this part, the inspiration will come as you focus on simply being) and you will Have all that you desire.”

Ruth Hegarty

Public speakers are always improving on their product. In fact, they are the product! Everything they read, learn, experience and do contributes to product development. So, already they are very much themselves like a Mac computer, always getting better.

This thought provoked me to think about how public speakers can borrow a few lessons from the Apple school of marketing. I just read how one of Apple’s former corporate marketing geniuses, Steve Chazin, has come out with a blog and a brief history of the company’s brilliant marketing strategies. He recounts the ways that the marketing team rescued Apple from a slump and made it one of the hottest brands on Earth. Let’s see how they might apply to a speaker (or even a small business).

1. Appeal to their emotions.
2. Figure out what it is that you do better than the competition, and do more of that.
3. Your customers need to be your evangelists.
4. Keep your “story” short and sweet.
5. Create an amazing and unique customer experience (think Apple stores and Apple packaging).

Just thinking about these 5 principles (and there are many others) as they pertain to you, the speaker, can improve your marketing strategy. In what ways are you following these guidelines? Go to Mr. Chazin’s blog to get more in depth marketing ideas: http://www.marketingapple.com/

November is a great time to have a speaker’s workshop. Why? Because December is “down time”, and that’s the best time to work on your stuff… so you can hit the ground running in January.

My favorite speaker (and client) Karen McCullough is ready to share her story so that it can help you. It all started at the end of 2006 when she was encouraged to make changes in how she presented and how she did business. Karen took a leap of faith (with my help and guidance), and the doors of opportunity began to open for her. The direct result of these changes were booked engagements with top national organizations.

Everything has changed since 2007: It’s not just Speaking as Usual.

Karen and I are in the process of creating the Speaker Success Workshop: A New Way of Thinking and Doing. The goal of this workshop is to transform the way you think and do business. Recently I heard a speaker say that everything we did before 2007 is old. We are in the midst of huge changes and challenges (Seth Godin calls this period in time a ‘mammoth revolution’), and if you are thinking and marketing the same way you did a 2 years ago, you’re spinning your wheels. We are offering this one day workshop on November 11 and 21 in Houston, Texas. If you are interested in more information just email me: mikesvat@mac.com

You will learn:

* The New Markets (Where the new $$$ is. It’ll surprise you.)
* What the New Markets are Looking for
* Who’s Buying the Speaker? The NEW Savvy Buyer
* New Marketing Techniques You Should be Using Now
* How to Write Your NEW Copy
* NEW: One-Pagers that Work Today. Snail mail is back! Step-by-Step with a Workbook
* NEW: Techniques in Using PowerPoint that get Audiences Engaged and Excited
* How to Stay Current. Who to Read, What to Watch, What to Listen to
* Why Twitter is Important- How Bureaus are Using it
* Today’s Content Presented in a NEW Way: The Teds Changed the Way we Listen- 20/20

Plus:

* A 28-day template for your new marketing plan that you will use to get you booked in 2010
* A resource book filled with templates for one-pagers, testimonials, letters of agreement, pre-program questionnaire, proposals, and more.

Sometimes it’s good to talk about success: what works and what doesn’t.  Because I work mostly with speakers, I have a certain affinity for them, for their struggle to forge their own path in a strange landscape that has no real road map.  One of the most daunting challenges for a public speaker is to find their target sweet spot.  What audience will respond the most?  Who will continue to hire them?  Where will they find the most gold?  Only then can they truly begin to market themselves.  Until a speaker has this puzzle figured out, the road is dark and uphill.

I work with a talented man by the name of Chris Loomis, and for a few years now, I have watched as he has struggled to find his target sweet spot.  He is a large, imposing man with a booming voice and a likable and aggressive demeanor.  I have worked with him over the years, capturing his talks on video, sitting with him in seminars on branding and watching him get in front of audiences to speak on Leadership, Success and Sales.  As time goes on, and as the challenges become greater, a speaker can get discouraged.  But not Chris.  His determination was attractive.  Chris was always willing to try another way.

There came a moment when Chris decided to reach back to his corporate past and focus his expertise on what he gained as the Marketing Manager for DuPont’s environmental and safety services division. Little did he know that this shift would be the key to his finding his target. The amazing part of this story is that it unfolded so quickly. Chris changed his speaking topic to Safety Education, put up a video on YouTube and on his website, and before he could take a breath, had Exxon Mobil knocking on his door. The Oil and Gas giant has hired Chris to speak to it’s teams all over the globe on Safety. Not only once or twice, but as an ongoing project to last three years.

My own part in this success story was on encouraging Chris to keep recording his presentations on video and getting them up on the web. The right key words and tags got the search engines to find Chris and bring him back to the audiences that really needed to hear his talk. Check out the video.

iPhone Video

My own introduction

Last night I had the opportunity to work with Sharon Ferranti, a filmmaker I greatly respect and also one of my mentors. She asked me to run the boom microphone while she filmed short interviews with party guests at an event at the House of Blues downtown. The idea was that once the guests got comfortable, they would automatically find themselves in this little room with a statue of Budda and freely give a humorous interview to the camera about the guest of honor.

As a filmmaker/video guy, I know how important it is to control your setting: make sure you have sufficient lighting, that the sound levels are balanced, the composition makes sense. Well, Sharon and I did all that we could to make sure this little space was set up for the best possible interview.

The only problem that nobody foresaw, especially the event planner, was that the guests did not want to be on camera. They were just too self-conscious and timid to sit and give an interview, no matter how many drinks they had. (Drunken interviews were not the desired outcome the event planner was looking for, anyway.) We spent a good hour and a half sitting in that room waiting for any guest who had enough nerve to come in. Nobody did. They would poke their heads in to see what the bright lights were all about, but that was as far as they got.

The other problem was that the rest of the club (decorated to look like an Indian temple) was almost pitch dark, except for candles on the tables and very low overhead lighting. It would be impossible to “roam” around the crowded nightclub to get “man-on-the-street” style interviews.

So when the party planner came and announced to us that we were “going mobile!”, the first thing I did in my head was negate the request. “Oh, forget it!” I thought to myself. There’s just no way it’s gonna happen. The look on Sharon’s face said the same. However, I saw Sharon quickly change her expression to one of eager enthusiasm, and she grabbed her camera and headed out into the crowded club.

Although we did not get any usable footage as we “roamed” around the darkness, bumping into guests and getting tangled up in microphone wires, we did create quite a stir. It was as if we made just enough of a commotion to get some of the guests really interested in what we were doing. It also took some coaxing on Sharon’s part, as she practically begged some of the guests to give an on-camera interview, but the effect worked. Within 60 minutes, we had conducted 5 great interviews back in front of the lights in the little room with the Budda.

Sharon once again taught me something. I’m sure I had known it all along, but she really illuminated the concept for me. We have to consider that we might be wrong. Even though all our common sense, all our expertise and training, might scream out that we know best, we have to be able to consider that there might be another way to do something.

As an exercise, try admitting you are wrong about something, even if you know you are right. See what kind of doors this simple act may open up for you. A simple lesson in humility can be one of the greatest things we’ll ever learn.