So You Want to Lecture

Hey all,

Hope you are having a good week.

Today, I want to talk to you all about what is going on in my life. It’s all about the lecture stuff. I think it is kind of fun, so I thought I would share it. Keep in mind that I am basically reinventing the wheel here because there is no one to tell me how to do this thing. There is not a pamphlet on how to start a lecture.

Let me start from the beginning. If you have a lecture, you have to put together something to send to the meetings to promote yourself. You have to send something to meeting planners or to the people that make decisions on who they are going to have in for their annual meeting.

In the past, I made a speaker’s packet.[Let me explain myself: I did do some lecturing about 7 years ago. I spoke to young dentists on "What You Need to Know about the First Five Years of Practice." So, I have some history.]This packet would include a speaker bio, a lecture synopsis, magazine articles that I had written, all paper. I put it all in a neat folder and sent it out. This time I am going to do the same thing, but to be cutting-edge, I am going digital.

I woke in the middle of the night with this awesome idea of presenting all my information like a DVD menu. You know, having a title screen and having a menu. And the menu would have all the choices.

Speaker Bio
Lecture Synopsis
Author’s articles
Before and After photos
Contact information

Meeting planners will click on the menu screen and the information will come up. Then they go back to the menu and choose another topic. Cool huh?

Did you know that with a Mac you can make a DVD? Well, I began that process. And let me tell you: it ain’t easy. I wanted to put a document in a DVD, but you have to change formats. Basically take a picture of a document and then put it in. Changing a document to a JPG file is easy, but the transition makes the words illegible. It took months to make this DVD, but I think I have finished.

Knowing that I was close to finishing, I thought it was time to call someone for advice. I called the Florida Dental Association. I asked to speak to the person in charge of the annual meeting. I told her what I have in mind and I asked her about the process. Basically, she said that they are all booked up for the 2012 meeting and are almost already done for 2013.

WHAT?!!!

I am making all this so I can get on the docket for the 2014 meeting? Wow. This is very disheartening, to say the least. How can you make a lecture that is current when you know you are not going to be delivering the material for another 2 and a half years?

She said that it is all about money. She said budgets are down and there isn't a lot of money to pay for speakers. I asked if it would be another story if I came with sponsors. “Absolutely.” That means, if I can be paid by a company to do a lecture, I can get in a lot faster.

To be honest with you, my lecture is only about half done, knowing there is a lag between getting the job and the actual lecture date. So now I have a couple things to do: get this DVD out, try to get sponsors, finish the lecture.

Now that I have the info for the DVD, I have to figure out how to mail it. I looked it up online and found all these cool ideas for packaging a DVD. I decided to put the DVD in a tri-fold package with information on all sides. There will be photos of my work all over it, testimonials. I hired a graphic artist. I know you are thinking this is crazy. Yep, it is. And all to get my first gig in 2014.

The graphic artist told me he will have the first draft sometime TODAY (I'm excited). I’m hoping I will be able to get these things out in a couple of weeks. They cost about $2 a piece just to make. The artist and all that are going to be about $500, so there is some upfront cost. But this part of the puzzle is almost done.

Now sponsors. This is what I have been doing with all of my NO spare time. I have just started asking companies. Not just any companies, but companies whose products I use. It is cold calling, basically. (I guess you can call it cold emailing).

The first company I thought about was Triodent. They make the V3 ring that I use for contacts. I sent an email to the general email address. I spelled out what I wanted to do and put in a couple of photos of my work. Much to my surprise, I got an email back from someone in the company saying she was intrigued. We sent a couple of emails back and forth (keep in mind they are in New Zealand), and finally talked on the phone. She wanted to sponsor me.

WHAT!?!

I was thrilled. Now, don't get all excited. They could be a partial sponsor for about a quarter of my fee. Speaking of fees, what do you think a lecturer makes? Have you ever thought of that? Me neither. I can tell you that when I sent my first speaker packet out 10 years ago, I thought it would be cool if I made $750 per lecture.

They all laughed at me. Speakers are asking at least $3000 per nowadays. Not only do they get the speaking fee, the meeting flies them up and puts them up as well and oh yeah, a per diem for food. Wow! I ove to do this stuff and probably would do it for free, but don't tell anyone.

I basically put in my DVD that I would like somewhere in the range of $2000-$3,500(depending on our arrangement). I know it sounds crazy, but this is the going rate. I have sent out a couple more cold emails, but haven’t gotten anywhere, so I am still working on another sponsor.

When all this other stuff is over and the DVDs are out, I will be able to start to really work on my lecture and its content. I have to tell you, there have been so many road blocks. So many things that have made mestop and say, "I don't think I am cut out for this. Maybe I am not the guy.”

We have all seen CE courses that totally sucked. I just don't want to be that guy. I don't want to suck. But then there are days that I think I am really good at this and it is going to be AWESOME. I think that if I am somewhere in between SUCKING and AWESOME, this thing might just work out.

I will keep you posted.

In the meantime, if you are a money manager of a corporation or a major player in a company that does composite restoration, call me please.

Have a great Wednesday,
john