3/14/2025
Editors: Rebecca Morgan & Ken Braly
See “About SpeakerNet News” at the end for information on how to submit tips and use this newsletter. Remember, your “dues” for this free ezine are submitting two tips a quarter. Send your best tips to editor@SpeakerNetNews.com.
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From the Editors
Would you like to join the SNN editorial team?
We’re looking for a few people to help source and craft relevant tips. Or add your own tips. Is that you? It would likely take less than an hour every week or two, and you could gather useful info from sources you’re probably already consuming. Plus, what a cool thing to add to your resume that you’re an official part of a nearly 30-year-old industry publication!
If interested, please email us ASAP and we’ll set up a time to go into detail. editor@SpeakerNetNews.com
SNN Webcast Info
Save the date:
- Thurs., March 27 — Pete Weissman will share the tips he learned while coaching presenters to use a teleprompter at a recent national political convention. These apply to in-person presentations where the organizer may insist you use one, but also to your in-studio videos. Details soon.
Miscellaneous Tips
Zoho recommendation — Jamie Champagne
Zoho is not just a CRM, but as part of your Zoho license you get Books (we got rid of QuickBooks), Contract and Sign (so no paying for DocuSign and you can have great contracts and proposal templates), Bookings (no Calendly), task tracking (in the CRM), Surveys (no Survey Monkey subscription needed), Campaigns (no MailChimp required), Sites for websites (not as designer friendly as WordPress, but you can’t beat the one price for the whole suite!). There’s even documents and sheets like MS One Drive. The productivity savings on emails and task management paid for itself in the first month.
Two ways to position a low-cost option — Vickie Sullivan
When you have a low-cost option, you always have concern that buyers will want only that and that it will pull customers away from your premium options. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Consider social media influencer Caryn Marjorie. This 23-year-old is a great example of how to position a low-cost option and scale your popularity.
Marjorie’s backstory: The Snapchat star couldn’t keep up with demand from her fanbase, so she used AI to clone herself and introduced a new service for fans to interact with the digital version.
Marjorie is on track to earn about $5 million per month. Talk about monetizing popularity!
One obvious reason for her success is her popularity among men (98% of her followers are male). Beyond that, though, how Marjorie tells her origin story has lessons for people concerned that their low-cost option will cannibalize premium-priced options.
Here are two ways to apply Marjorie’s strategy for positioning a low-cost option:
Lead with intention: Marjorie expressed regret that she couldn’t interact with everyone who reached out to her. Key quote: “I feel ... bad that I can’t give that individual, one-on-one sort of relationship to every single person. I wish I could, but I just simply can’t.” Describing why you created a low-cost option — how you feel about it — sets up context that accepting less is better than receiving no help at all.
Promote the similarities: The influencer also reassured her followers that this experience would be private and personalized. She uses a key word: immersive. In other words, the AI version will still “cure loneliness from my fanbase.” For B2B folks, this can be a double-edged sword, so be careful to differentiate between your digital alternative and the personal, premium-priced options.
Marjorie’s formula (situation, emotion, intention, and similarities) is a great way to introduce an “almost as good as” solution.
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Are your virtual presentation visuals engaging? Could you add meaningful audience participation? Would you like to learn some nuances that will make your virtual presentations more compelling? Learn about Rebecca Morgan/eSpeakers’ Virtual Master Presenter course sessions. Details. |
Travel Tips
Forward your landline to your cell when traveling — Rebecca Morgan
When you’re traveling abroad, if you have a landline with call forwarding, see if you can forward your landline to your cell phone. When you switch your cell phone to Wifi-only, you should be able to answer your landline without any charges from your landline provider. Check with them to ensure you won’t get additional charges. (I still have a landline as my cell sometimes has bad sound, even at home.)
Topic of the Month (TOTM) — Your Input Wanted
Our TOTM is from Jerry Teplitz: What are positive ways to dispense with unsold (and obsolete) books (or other tangible products), without just recycling them?
Send your brief, pithy responses *that are different from those previously mentioned* to editor@SpeakerNetNews.com. Please put “Topic of the Month” or “TOTM” in the subject line.
Two ideas:
- Prisons are always looking to expand their libraries, especially around topics like starting a business and entrepreneurship in general. Motivation, inspiration, and spirituality books are also in demand, Your unsold books might give an inmate a solid game plan to build a better life when they are released.
- I have had a lot of fun taking books to my local IKEA store where I sneak them in with the other hardcover and paperback displays they have throughout their furniture departments.
About SpeakerNet News and the Editors/Publishers
- Publishers — Rebecca L. Morgan, CSP, CMC, CVP, VMP, and Ken Braly
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