Speaking at Invest in Property Show

Last Friday (13th!), Saturday and Sunday I hauled myself up to London each day to speak at the Invest in Property Show at Earl's Court. Unfortunately for the show, it fell on the hottest weekend of the year so far which meant it wasn't as well attended as it could have been but I was over-the-moon that all three of my talks were packed out. This was especially satisfying since the guy who was on before me on the Sunday (a particularly quiet day at the show) didn't even bother speaking as nobody showed up!

I do enjoy speaking at shows like this for many reasons, which I've listed here because I would urge anyone in business to get out there and get speaking engagements at events that fall into their niche. Here's why I do it:

- it raises my profile and looks great when I can list these events on my promo materials;
- every time I speak, even though I've been doing it for many years, I feel I'm improving my presentation skills;
- I love the appreciation I get from audience members when I share my knowledge;
- you never know who is in the audience and what other business can come from the contacts you make;
- the great questions from the audience make you work and exercise your intelligence muscles (if you want to learn something more deeply, teach someone else);
- it's a great opportunity to actually sell.

On the last item, I've already now booked up 3 property mentorships with me on the back of these talks, so it was certainly worth the train fare and my time getting up to London.

The one downside was that I didn't have my book available to sell. This is a book entitled "The Advantages of Real Estate" to which I've contributed a chapter, along with 10 or 11 other authors. My chapter is entitled "The Myths & Misconceptions of Real Estate".

The book was due out a couple of months ago but it's been severely delayed due to two of the authors being late with their submissions. This is particulary irritating because the whole reason I decided to contribute a chapter was so that I'd have a deadline on which others were relying. That way, I thought it would force me to get it done, as I've found the hardest part of writing is getting motivated if there's no external deadline. My thinking was that I wouldn't want to let the other authors down by being late.

Unfortunately, not everyone has the same qualms as these two authors, by being late with their chapters, delayed the entire project. At this point I've already missed two ideal sales opportunities, one at the Homebuyers at Excel where I spoke last month and the one this weekend at Invest in Property.

The thing is, if I'd disciplined myself, I probably could have had my own book done by now, if I'd have kept going after writing that chapter! Ho hum! We live and learn. Guess what I'm off to continue doing now...