The PSAUK Spring Convention

HIghlights from the one day spring convention in London

Some of us travelling to the GSS in Holland, stopped off at the PSAUK Spring Convention last weekend and joined 60+ British speakers on aone day power packed event. We enjoyed top speakers, fresh thinking, and great networking opportunties. Here’s a brief overview of the day.

The unofficial theme of the morning’s speakers was all about being niched. Stop working on your weaknesses, and focus on our strengths.  Be great at what you are great at – stop being a generalist.

Susan Friedman started the day talking about the contents of her new book Riches in Niches.  She suggested that we have to find more ways to create product, market our products and expertise to our most specific target markets.

Then high-energy speaker Nigel Risner challenged us to be in the room and get better!  He reminded us that there are speaker bureaus in the room – we are ALL essentially speaker bureaus so that we have to be great at marketing ourselves all the time.  We need to be Great at what we do, ALL the time.  Our referrers are everywhere.

He also talked about focus – we have to get clear on what we do best, drop the excess and be great at the area that you can dominate.

Top tips from Nigel:

• Do what you do best in your ideal geography rather than travel for the sake of it. Instead of getting into new (and not ideal) markets, spend more time developing your products.
• Get statistics on your speaking business – know where and when your work flow works.
• Develop by products from your best speech.  Market them.
• Get rid of the old stuff – testimonials, photos, videos, products – develop new stuff.
  After lunch a quick round-up by all the association chapter representatives allowed some sharing of meeting styles, and when meetings are held around the country.  It was great to hear how some meetings are run, what formats they take and who is speaking there. 

A busy ‘Ask the Experts’ session followed lunch, with 8 tables rotated 3 times to ensure access to everyone, with many questions flowing around the room, and many happy nodding faces absorbing extra high quality information.  Then the final keynote of the day from Rebecca Morgan, who kept us in good spirits, learning how to ‘Make Money in our Jammies’.  Imaginations were going ‘click click’ and I’m sure many business plans will be updated as a result of hearing her words of wisdom around derivative products and the use of social media to get them out to our clients.

A final flurry of goodbyes, cards exchanged and a few hugs, before everyone departed for their various trains and planes.  A few stopped at the bar for a little more social networking and review of the day.  All in all, it was a fantastic day of inspiration. 

A one day conference in the middle of the year which was content-rich and flowed so well, was proven to be an investment in time and resources for the benefit of an association, that I’m sure will be felt for a very long time.  I’m personally so impressed at how much the PSAUK used the day to secure bookings for their general 2-3 day main convention in October 2011, and to introduce a large number of newcomers to PSAUK and many benefits of joining.

You can listen to more ‘Corridor Conversations’ 5 minute interviews here:

Richard McCann - On Making it! Richard_McCann5.wma
Will Kintish - On Linked in strategies for speakers Will_Kintish1.wma
Nigel Risner - On Being the best you can be - locally Nigel_Risner.wma