Make it part of your weekly To Do list to look for any opportunity to get in front of audiences to speak, teach, and demonstrate your art. My personal record is 52 demos in 30 days.
I’ve done demos in bank lobbies, in cinema in front of the screen, and at parties where I stood up on a chair and asked everyone to quiet down so they could enjoy our demo. They did and I scored at least 3 long-term students out of that gig. One of them actually bought my school two-years later when I created NAPMA.
Last Friday, I taught two-hour a seminar on Presentation Skills to a group of estate planning attorneys.
When you teach a special class, appear on a media program, or even do a demo, always ask for a testimonial from the host. To make it easier on that person, write the testimonial for him or her.
Here is what I wrote to the host attorney. “Would you be so kind as to provide me with a testimonial? To make it easy for you, I thought something like this might work…” I followed with a testimonial from him that I wrote. What I submitted is in lower-case below. He added the ALL CAPS test himself.
“John Graden’s presentation skills workshop was excellent. I loved it as did the other attendees I spoke with. He made learning fun with a great mixture of education and entertainment. I HAVE ATTENDED OTHER SUCH WORKSHOPS, AND HAVE RECEIVED ONE-ON-ONE COACHING, BUT JOHN’S WORKSHOP ADDED MUCH TO MY CONFIDENCE AND FUTURE ENJOYMENT OF SPEAKING, AND INTERACTING WITH OTHERS. I MORE THAN HIGHLY recommend it for any professional.” Alan Gassman, P.A.
When you write a testimonial to submit, go easy on the adjectives. After the event, the host sent me a note saying, “Great job! I loved it and so did the others. Come back and do an NLP seminar next time.”
Because, he used the words, “loved it” and “great” I was comfortable feeding them back in his testimonial. Had he not used used those words, I would have not included them.
Another martial arts business leader who uses demos and community outreach to grow schools is Greg Silva. He has special strategies to recruit new students on the spot at these events.
This is all part of his Pillars of Marketing program and it works. Listen to Greg explain it here:
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