436: Speaker Fulfillment Services: Avoid the Usual Mistakes Authors Make and Discover the ABCs of Selling Physical Products at Live Events with Bret Ridgway

Robert Plank 0:00 Marketer of the day number 436, Speaker fulfillment services avoid the usual mistakes authors make and discover the ABCs of selling physical products at live events with Brett Ridgway. Hey everyone, and thanks for listening, and we're talking right now with Brett Ridgway. And Brett is the co founder of speaker fulfillment services, which is a company that works for speakers, authors and information marketers, and his unique behind the scenes perspective allows him to see what is working and not working in the industry. Now, Brett is the author of five books in this niche, including the Amazon bestseller mistake authors make, and most recently, the ABCs of speaking. So Mr. Britt, how the heck are you?

Bret Ridgway 0:42 I am doing fantastic, Robert. I'm really excited to be here with you and your folks today. Can we help them? How can we help them best?

Robert Plank 0:50 Well, how? I don't know You tell me. So what I know about you is you do all that, that fulfillment stuff, right? The getting the boxes made, putting out the DVDs, putting out the books for those speakers and stuff like that, but that's pretty much all I know. So I mean, what the heck do we need to know? Let me tell

Bret Ridgway 1:07 you a little bit of the backstory first, because it'll illustrate a point that I think is really important for everybody to understand. And way back in 1992 so we're talking 25 years ago now, there was a little storm that rolled through South Florida called Hurricane Andrew. And a late, great copywriter named Gary Howard decided to put on a a benefit seminar, essentially to raise funds for hurricane victims. They caught the Hurricane Andrew seminar. I went down and attended that event with a colleague, and at that event, I happened to meet a guy named Carl Galletti, and that was about we're talking so 1992 so about 1995 Carl called me up and we did a joint venture where we took over his old hard to find marketing books catalog. And that joint venture or relationship, led to when Carl did his first Internet Marketing Super conference in 1999 out in Las Vegas, he called me up and asked me if I wanted to handle the back sales table for him. Well, I didn't even know what back room sales meant at that time, frankly, Robert, but I hadn't been to Las Vegas before, so it sounded good to me, so I went out there and handled the back sales table. And that's out of animated guy named Alex mondos Ian and obviously people who put on events or speak at events often put on events themselves. And so putting in or handling the back sales table for various internet and information marketing conferences kind of became one of our businesses. And so I was getting to meet more and more people, and know a lot of the people who are the movers and shakers in the industry, and one of those people cornered me at an event in like 2002 a guy named Jim Edwards, who, I'm sure you know, yeah, and we were simultaneous to starting to do the back room stuff way back in 1990 Gosh, I'm getting old now, 595, or 96 I actually put up the First portal website in the plant engineering and maintenance industry. It was called maintenance resources. And so we were selling books and video tapes and cassettes back in those days, aimed at that particular niche. And so we were doing product fulfillment to the tune of half a million to a million dollars year worth of product. And Jim corner me at one of Carl's events in 2002 and said, Hey, will you take over some fulfillment for me? I know you've been doing it for yourself, and we've been thinking about it for a long while, because it was kind of a natural algorithm all the people I had gotten to know in the industry. So we said, what to get? What the heck? Let's put speaker fulfillment service together and see what we can do with it. So here, 15 years later, we are still handling the behind the scenes product fulfillment for a lot of the big names in the industry. And so it kind of gives us a unique perspective as to what's working and what's not working in the whole space, how it's changed over the last few years. And the main point that I the story is to illustrate is it's really all about relationships, Robert, I mean, the people you know, when you get out to live events and meeting all that, you just never know where it's gonna lead. And that chance encounter with Carl glady in 1992 is, frankly, why I'm sitting here talking with you today. So

Robert Plank 4:08 super great. And just one thing led to the next, the next. And it's interesting how, how you saw all this, you saw all these people out there making money, and you were like, well, how do I fill the gap? How do I help them out? And so why is there a particular reason why you did the fulfill, the product fulfillment for these people? Like, was that something you had done before? Like, how did you go from I'm attending this event to I'm going to be doing product fulfillment for some of these other speakers? Well, we

Bret Ridgway 4:35 were doing the product fulfillment for our own websites, so we were shipping it out, a lot of stuff, and work. Got around to these speakers at these events, said, Hey, these guys are doing product fulfillment. It isn't really something that's a good use of my time. I mean, so why should I do it myself, if these guys can do it? And so they started contracting with us to do the duplication and fulfillment of their information products, whether it be DVDs. CDs, printed manuals. I even remember back when we first started, we actually did some audio cassettes for a guy once. So, I mean, we go back a ways in terms of the technology in the industry, and it's changed a lot over the over the years. But it really is fascinating to see players come into the market, players leave the market, how the methods of delivery have changed. I mean, I kind of put what we do at Ken Robert to like the guy who, he's the one that stole the blue jeans with the picks and shovels to the gold miners, all these speakers and authors of the gold miners worse, you know, we're doing the dirty behind the scenes, stuff, supporting them, but making it easier on them, and helping, helping keep things moving forward. Heck yeah, keep

Robert Plank 5:43 them the money roll and keep the trains going. So you mentioned a couple of times that things have changed in the speaking space and the physical product space, especially in the last few years. So what the heck has changed? What's happened?

Bret Ridgway 5:57 Well, the biggest changes that I've seen about, oh gosh, it's been eight, 910, years ago, we actually went out and exhibited at a National Speakers Association event in San Diego. And the speaking industry is primarily made up of two major types, as I would define them, keynote speakers who are paid a, you know, a flat fee to come and deliver their presentation, or speakers that rely on their back room sales so they're not paid a fee to show up. In most cases, they just split 5050 with the promoter, whatever they're able to sell on the back of the room. And you're very familiar with those models, of course. And when we exhibit lit the NSA event back in 2007 2008 somewhere around there, the whole notion of backroom sales was totally foreign to the people who belong to the National Speakers Association. It was like they wouldn't Sully themselves to stoop so low as to actually sell product when they were getting paid to speak at an event. Well, that mindset has changed drastically, and you certainly see more and more people relying on the back room sales as a primary way to get paid, because a good seller can make a lot more money selling in the back of the room than they can getting paid for a keynote speak. I mean, the Bill Clinton's in the normal short cost of the world are few and far between. Our good friend Armand MORN has sold as much as like $995,000 at one event in the back of the room. So pretty good payday, even after you split 5050 with the promoter. Well, that's one of the major changes. I think there's been much more acceptance by the keynote world to do back of the room products. The second thing is, the media has changed drastically the the day of the big box package where you have, you know, 10 DVDs, 10 CDs, two big managers and all that is by and large gone. So a lot of people obviously went to the digital world of delivery when the Internet became popular, and a lot of them are starting to come back and recognize that going fully digital is not the way to go, because they saw their membership drop. Consider being all that because people had been trained and used to seeing something physical. What we seen the industry shift to Robert is rather than the big box package where there's all these massive components and it's literally, you know, a 14 by 14 by 14 boxes stuff. They've slimmed down the product, converted a lot of the content to delivery via membership site, so digital delivery on a good portion. But they recognize the value of having some physical component to buy shelf space with your client and keep front and center in their mind as a valuable resource for them. So the size of the products essentially has shifted down. So instead of the big, massive manuals and all that, you might have a spiral bound manual and a couple DVDs, flash drives have become fairly popular. The biggest thing you had to watch out with on flash drives is the whole out of sight, out of mind, thing, and the question to perceive value. Because if somebody spent several 100 or a couple $1,000 or more to buy your product and you hand them a little, you know, chintzy looking flash drive, there's a disconnect in their mind. The perceived value isn't there. So if you go to a delivery mechanism such as a USB drive, you got to dress it up some you got to put in a little fancier package, and you got to make and you got to make it look part. I mean, you and I understand the values of the content and all that, but still, you've got to deal with this whole mindset of perceived value, and so you've got to think about how you're packaging anything that you're doing. The third thing I think that's made been a pretty major shift in the industry, is people are recognizing the differences in learning modalities that exist out there. I mean, some people love to read, other people are visual learners, other people are audio learners, and yet there are kinesthetic learners. People like to attend live event and get their hands on and so the recognition that a mix of all those modalities. Is necessary to reach a wider audience is something that people certainly have been taking note of and trying to address. So should you, for example, have a book? Absolutely. But is the book The only way you should deliver your content to your prospective audience? No way know how. So those are some of the major things that I've seen shift over the last few years, super

Robert Plank 10:21 cool. So lots of stuff to chew on. There lots to think about. As far as like we it sounds like we should still have that physical package, but not a huge, big box of stuff. And definitely not like, I definitely remember those days when you'd open up like a big, huge, like binder thing, and there'd be all the cassette tapes kind of spaced out to make as much room as possible. And like, the print, printed, written manual would have like, tons and tons of margin space. So that way you'd have like, 10 big, thick things to kind of take up space in the box. But then looking back at thinking back to that kind of thing that seems like that was super silly, because it was like, we were just piling stuff in a huge box just to have that thud factor. And like, you said now, like, now kind of you need to have something, and maybe you have that USB stick, but you still kind of have it be somewhat impressive. So that way it's like, okay, well, it's not the hugest thing, but it still has all that, that great stuff in the package.

Bret Ridgway 11:13 Yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly. And I actually had a guy who'd called me, like, a week or so ago and still had in his mind that some value was what it's all about. And he wanted to do a package with like, 80 CDs and DVDs in it. And I said, Don't do it. I mean, figured out how you can hone it down to 20 maybe, which is still a pretty big product, frankly, because what you're dealing with, Robert is the whole issue of overwhelm. And if somebody gets your big package and looks at it and said, Oh my God, where the hell do I even start? Then they're not going to start. They're not going to consume your product. And consumption is what it's all about, is you can't get them to read your book or watch your video or listen to your podcast. The chance of them coming back to you for other products and services that you may have is almost nil. So you got to think how you can get them to consume your product and piling on things 80 feet deep because it looks impressive, is definitely not the way to go anymore,

Robert Plank 12:04 right? Well, I agree. And so speaking of things changing and stuff like that, you mentioned that it took a while for some of these other niches, these industries, to kind of get the the idea of back of the room sales. And I'm wondering how that kind of thing is still working, because, like, you see a lot of events. And, I mean, it's like hard to tell, because some a lot of us only go to events in our own space, but it seems like a lot of these events are having a like, less of the pitch fest stuff, more of the sponsorships, and more of like, wanting speakers to maybe make some contacts and then close them on coaching later, as opposed to selling something at an event, but that's just what I see. Have you been seeing, like any, any kind of changes happening in these last, like, five years or so? Yeah,

Bret Ridgway 12:47 I definitely have seen some of the things that you are mentioning there. I think that the the organizers of the events are recognizing that if you have speaker after speaker who's selling something, it becomes overwhelming. The whole concept. He said their pitch fest comes to mind. So they're recognizing the value of spacing out their selling speakers with content only people. So you see more and more people mixing content only sessions versus pitch pitching sessions. And you also see the prices that which product are sold at live events has really drastically come down over the years. I mean, when the industry started and these events were first popping up, back in 2002 345, even up into six and seven, you saw typically price points of 2020 $500 or more at live events. And when the, you know, the whole industry and the economy crashed in 2008 ish, then the price points that product would be sold at live events came down significantly. I mean, you still see a few people at the $2,000 level or whatever, but now the prices are typically more 500 700 under 1000 and so it's really a challenge for speakers to determine what events are worth their while, because if you're splitting that 5050 with promoter, and your price point is only $500 well that's only $250 to you. And by the time you typically pay your own travel and expenses to go to an event, you got to decide if it is it worthwhile or not. So it really has created some challenges for speakers. So the price point dropping down is definitely a big thing that I've seen happen. We also saw, as I mentioned, you know, the shift to the digital world in terms of product being sold. And that also was true for live events and certainly the smart person who is selling something, whether it's coaching or whether it's a membership site or something at a live event, they need to recognize the value having something tangible, something physical, to give to the attendees at the event, whether it's a quick start, CD, DVD, a manual book or whatever. If people are laying out several 100 or $1,000 or more. Or and they essentially walk away with nothing from the event, because it's all digital. Again, you're creating a little bit of disconnect there. And so you need to figure out what you're going to do to make them feel warm and fuzzy. And I recommend something physical that you can give to them at the event so they walk away with something they get some started.

Robert Plank 15:18 Super great. And sort of along those lines. So that whole concept of, even if you sell a digital package, give them something physical to walk away with. Are there any other like, favorite techniques from seeing what happens in the back of the room, anything like that? You really like that you're seeing that you think is a good idea?

Bret Ridgway 15:38 Well, I think one thing that is a definitely good idea, and it allows speakers to up their price point. Some is to figure out what you can do without overburden yourself, to give people more direct access or personal touches with you. I mean, you may have product you can sell for a couple, three, 400 $500 but if you can bundle in some coaching or some personal one on one sessions with you, ability to reach out to you, then that allows you to price your product a little bit higher, because people value the potential access. Now if, like Robert and I both, both know that most people don't take advantage of that access. Very few people will call you, will email you, and all that, so it doesn't turn out to be a big burden in most cases, but the more personal or personalization you can wrap in any bachelor offering in terms of contact with you, whether it be follow up, webinars, tele seminars, one on one, coaching calls, whatever, then the higher price point you can sell, and the more value in the mind of the customer that what you're selling at the event has. So I think that's the biggest thing I would point out, super

Robert Plank 16:41 great. And that's, that's a great point that you made there, that when we don't have those extra coaching bonuses, the extra kind of time we offer, then we might hesitate and be like, Oh, but if I sell, you know, 100 copies, I'm going to be fully booked and have all this time. But that's great that you mentioned right in there, that not first of all, having all that those things filled up is a good problem to have because it means you made sales at the event. But also, I mean, like so few people take take us up on the kind of thing, like 1020, 30% of people even follow up with us about that, those extra coaching and things like that. So there's no harm in adding it in there. And so those are things that you've seen that are great ideas or things that were great but in but we also noticed that you have that book called mistakes authors make. So I'm sure you've seen a lot of like, really bad mistakes happen at some of these speaking engagements. So what kind of like mistakes do you see happening lately that we definitely need to stay away from?

Bret Ridgway 17:37 Well, a couple things that I would jump on initially, number one, if you're writing the book, you got to figure out what part in your entire marketing puzzle. That piece is, because a book, by and large, I mean, it's great to get royalties and have lots of sales and all that. But that isn't typical for a book. The book is a credibility builder. A lot of people say it, you know, it's your fancy business card. And so you've got to figure out what you're going to going to do with that book to turn it into a marketing machine for you. What can you do to drive them from that book to other products or services that you have? And a lot of a mistake a lot of people make, frankly, Robert is there. So actually, get the book done. To get it done, put it out there. And they don't have any what we call bounce backs in the book that drives them to the website to build their list of they can then sell those other products and services. I mean, let's face it, if somebody buys your book on Amazon or barsto or at a bookstore, you know that bookstore doesn't pick you up on the phone and call you and say, Hey, Brett, Frankie fish bought your book. And here's the contact information so you can try to sell in more stuff. So you've got to use that book as a marketing device and include those bounce backs in there. Maybe it's, you know, come to my website for a free video or a free interview or a free audio, a special report, a checklist, whatever it may be that they have to opt in to get that extra thing, and then you can get them on your list and begin to market other things to them. So most people, a big mistake they make is not making that book as much of a marketing tool as it needs to be. I mean, related to that, frankly, Robert is not having those back end products or services in place because you're so active to get the book out there, you're not fully ready to go. So if that marketing, if that book is just one piece of your puzzle, and it's designed to lead people to other things that you have to offer, we better make those things, other things are ready to go. There was one, a author several years ago. What was his name? Chet Holmes. I think he had an excellent book on the Ultimate Sales Machine or whatever, and he has some bounce backs in there to go get other things on his website, and then you go to the website, and if the website was broken, it wouldn't work or whatever, and it just pissed you off, frankly. And so it didn't build a warm and fuzzy whatsoever. So make that book a marketing tool. Recognize that it is primarily to build credibility for you. And designed to lead them to other things that you have, and not just a standalone thing that you're going to sell, that you know you hope to make a bunch of royalties off of. Will some people do that? Yeah, that's fantastic. That's great. But the Brendon Burchard of the world are few and far between, right? I

Robert Plank 20:16 agree. Super great advice. So it's like if, if you want to just make $1 per sale for the rest of your life and just be hanging on to a little bit of royalties than just have the book. But if you wanted to connect to other things, if you wanted to connect to other websites and build a list and have high ticket courses and a coaching program and all that stuff, then have those bounce backs right there in the book. Really great advice and so. So having said that, where do you guys fit in with this, like, with Speaker fulfillment services and all that stuff. Like, if someone says, Well, I've been working on a book, are you the person to talk to? Or do you guys only, like, do the printing? What? What do you guys do? Exactly? Yeah,

Bret Ridgway 20:54 we could help them get the printing of their book done. But the main thing we do, frankly, is the back end fulfillment. So what we do is we integrate with our online shopping cart, whether it be Infusionsoft, one shopping cart, red oak cart, click funnels, ClickBank, any other number of them, so that when they get an order, it automatically transmits over to our system, and we, frankly, pick and pack the book, ship it out to their customers, so it's entirely hands off them. So that's a major thing we're providing now. If people were to go beyond the book and do some type of home study or CD or DVD set or flash drives or spiral bound manuals or workbooks or whatever, then we do actual printing and packaging of those particular things and ship them out the door. We have some clutters. We some customers. We do their newsletters for our good friend, Armand more, Robert, as you know, does a monthly magazine for his membership. So we print and mail out that magazine on his behalf. So, you know, it's whatever kind of touches you want to put out there with your particular audience. We can essentially help you with the physical side of that. I mean, we have clients that aren't authors or speakers whatsoever, but you know, fulfillment in a certain standpoint, is fulfillment, and when you have product you need to get into the hands of your customers, that's where we come into play.

Robert Plank 22:06 Super fantastic. So newsletters, magazines, books, DVDs, products, anything physical that they want to sell. You guys can handle it. Is that?

Bret Ridgway 22:16 Right? Yeah, the only thing we stay away from is foods and things like in glass containers, because I don't want to mess with

Robert Plank 22:23 that, right? Who does well? So people say, people say, like, Okay, this is great. This guy, Britt and his speaker fulfillment services company, they sound like they got it going on. I want to go and reach out to them and see what they have. Where can they go to find out more about you guys? Sure,

Bret Ridgway 22:39 a couple major places. So the first our core website is speaker fulfillment services.com and that will give everybody a great overview of all the products and services that we have a couple things that define links to there, if they just need strictly fulfillment only a book, for example, we have a site called shipyourbooks.com and if they just want to do a print on demand, CD or DVD. We have a service called disc deliver.com that's very popular too. So speaker fulfillment services the main one, but the others will help them out in specific niches. Fantastic.

Robert Plank 23:12 So whether you want just that physical product fulfillment, or those books shipped or or discs, DVDs, things like that, then go to the proper website for you and really think about what you can do, like with all the things that Brett said, number one, even with this trend of things move into digital, have some kind of a physical product, whether you're selling something from the stage or selling some stuff online, that way you can ship it to them. Think about that kind of special thing, even though the packages are getting slimmer nowadays, what's that special thing that you can have on there? If you have a book or something like that, make sure that it ties into the other things that you have for sale. That way, you're not just selling the book for a little bit of money, but you're also building a list. You tell people about all your other products, and also just remember that the book is just one of many pieces in the puzzle. It's not all about the book. You need to have a book, but have it connect to other stuff. So lots of things to think about. And so make sure that you check out Brett's website, speaker, fulfillment services.com, disc deliver.com, and then what's the other one? Brett shipyourbooks.com Correct? Super. Great. So shipyourbooks.com if you want to get that book shipped, and so you know, if you want to go and and try to do it yourself and probably fail, then go ahead and do that. But if you want to have these guys who are experts in back of the room sales and getting your book out there and getting anything physical created, then you're going to want to go to Speaker services.com so make sure that you do that right now, whether you're on your computer, on your phone, or just want to jot it down real quick, either way. Speaker fulfillment services.com. Shipyourbooks.com. Disc delivered.com. So thanks so much, Mr. Brett, for stopping by and sharing some of your knowledge about this area where we all need to have these physical books. We all need to have this stuff in place. So thanks for demystifying a lot of that for us and. For sharing what you know today.

Bret Ridgway 25:01 Well. Thank you so much, Robert, it was my pleasure subscribe to us right now,

Robert Plank 25:05 while it's still fresh on your mind at marketer of the day.com/itunes, you.