' Nobody cares about you until you show that you understand their problem, their situation, and you care about them.'
As a former international speaker bureau owner, Maria Franzoni knows exactly what it takes to become a highly sought-after (and well-paid) speaker.
In this week’s conversation, she reveals what speaker bookers are really looking for, and you might be surprised to discover that how well you speak is only one factor in her brilliant Bookability Formula.
We talk about the interplay and overlap between being a speaker and being an author, and the way in which books support speaking so beautifully, and vice versa. (But it has to be the right book - Maria spent months of her life writing the wrong one so you don’t have to.)
If you want to land more speaking gigs, if you’re not afraid to hear what that takes, and if you want to write the right book to support all of that, you probably shouldn’t miss this.
'You need to kind of kick off this persuasive chain reaction and enlist people to the cause of your book.'
In the book trade, James Spackman is known as 'The Pitch Doctor'. From an illustrious start to his career in the post room at Bloomsbury to sales, marketing and agency roles at Hachette, Osprey and now The bks Agency, his passion has always been to communicate a passion for books.
As he explains, the success of a book depends in large part of a 'chain of enthusiasm' that has to begin with the author and ultimately - hopefully - reaches the reader through a complex ecosystem of agents, editors, sales reps, marketers and booksellers. This is the art of the pitch, and because it ends with the reader, that's where the crafting of it must begin too.
In this week's conversation we discuss the fact that publishing is 'a business of persuasion rather than a meritocracy of texts', and what that means for authors. We also talk about the extraordinary route that James took to publish his own book, why measures of success are deeply personal, and why doing things your way is so damn rewarding.
When she started her first job reporting on farming, trying to work out how to move into interior design, Sally Percy had no idea she'd forge such an extraordinarily successful careeer as a business journalist and author. But the lessons she learned in her earliest days - how to write so a five-year-old child could understand, how to write to word count, the sanctity of deadlines, and perhaps most importantly how to ask questions without embarrassment - have stood her in good stead.
That kind of unashamed questioning is a trait also shared by many of the leaders she interviewed for her latest book 'The Disruptors', shortlisted for the Business Book Awards.
In this conversation she shares her hard-won lessons for writers, and also reflects on how business and business writing has changed over recent years and where the opportunities for those writing in the space can be found.
People who write business books - at least, business books worth reading - tend to think a little differently. This ‘Best Bits’ episode features a formidable line-up of disruptors, each of whom brings a very personal toolkit for unsettling the status quo, in work and in life.
Challenging the system often starts by asking awkward questions and you'll find lots of those here. What you WON'T find are excuses. Think you’re not creative or confident enough to be an author? This is for you.
Listen, enjoy, but don’t expect to leave with your assumptions undisturbed.
Hear from:
Let's keep shaking things up, brilliantly.