I did something scary today...and crushed that fear!

I got all dressed up in my "professional attire" to go and give a "lunch and learn" seminar at Wave Accounting Headquarters. Whoa.

This entrepreneurial journey is forcing me to get better at recognizing resources at my disposal and also at asking for things that I want, without fear of judgement or taking it personally when I'm met with a "no". It's been a huge growing experience for me in this regard. This particular event was facilitated by a friend of mine who is an employee at Wave Accounting and has experienced one of my tuning sessions before. I asked her if she thought Wave would be interested in having me in for a seminar or demo day (even though the thought of doing that at the time scared the living daylights out of me), and she said that they'd definitely be into it! She hooked me up with their events coordinator and just like that, a time was set for a half-hour Lunch and Learn session a week later. Yikes.

I've been studying other sound healers who do group events on their social media channels and websites, so I had an idea of what kind of structure to use with my seminar, but it wasn't until I called on more resources (a couple mentors that have taken an interest in what I'm doing - so grateful for these people! ) that I was able to develop a clear strategy for delivering my message and gaining clients from an event like this.

There were a few key things that I gained from these mentor conversations about speaking engagements that I'd like to share:

• Break the talk down into 3 key messages you want your audience to walk away with
• Emphasize the feature, benefits of your service and have a call to action/buying incentive
• It's not about you. It's about what it can do for your potential client.
• Do demos/have interactive elements ( "You are like an exotic dish they've never tasted before!" - @steemcafe hahaha)
• Include a testimonial if possible
• Start high, bring them down, end higher than you started (emotional conditioning)

Here's a look at how I mapped out the 3 key ideas for my talk (sticky notes are one of my secret weapons):

I asked my audience if they felt like they were in a state of chronic stress, emphasized the fact that we know chronic stress leads to disease and then asked them to reflect on a time when they used music to change their state of mind. I emphasized the fact that mainstream music is created for the masses; what I do is create music specifically for the individual. I also used a 2-minute mind-clearing meditation to demonstrate the difference between trying to do it alone (at the beginning) and doing it with sound to guide you (to close the seminar). I did a quick demonstration of the process I go through in a full tuning session, what the benefits are and gave a bit of background about sound healing and the frequencies I use. At the end, I thanked everyone for their attention and offered an buying incentive: if they booked and payed for a session with me right there, I would give them $100 off their initial consultation session. I also informed them that my services are covered by their employee benefits provider.

The result: I had two individuals book with me on the spot and a few more take one of my business cards. I'm pretty damn happy with that. I know that my delivery wasn't absolutely perfect, but it was pretty darn good and I know that the more of these I do, the better I'll get.

I also sent a survey I made for free in Goolge forms to the event coordinator for the participants to fill out afterwards so that I can get more feedback about my session!

Feeling pretty jazzed right now, and excited to keep taking this business to the NEXT LEVEL. Hahaha. Might be a little high on sound at the moment...

Let me know if these tips were helpful for you or if you have additional tips to share!

Stay tuned ;)

Jackie O