Your 45-Step process to achieve FAME from ground ZERO:

by Certified Speaking Professional, Michael Scott Karpovich

   0.    Decide your niche topic or your niche audience.

1. Find, buy, and read the books that best focus on your niche audience or topic.

2. Make a list of websites that address your audience or topic and visit them often.

3. Find and subscribe to the publications that best address your niche topic or audience.

4. Isolate one filing cabinet drawer and create a filing system with topic or trend files and immediately cut and tear your publications apart – filling those files.

5. Set aside at least an hour each day to read or listen to a tape about your niche topic or audience, and keep a journal about your impressions.

6. Join any and every association that addresses the needs of your topic or audience and get involved.

7. Join any online discussion groups that are addressing your niche on the Internet.

8. Taking into account your research within the previous steps, ask yourself, "What is the one aspect of this topic that I am passionate about that people in this niche need to learn about?"

9. Create a valuable 45 to 90-minute presentation on this "one aspect" of your niche.

10. Do this presentation and (audio or video) tape this program immediately. (This may be at an association event or a local service club – it really doesn't matter. You just need to do it.) Immediately after every presentation, ask everyone / anyone for a letter of recommendation (to whom it may concern) or a letter of endorsement (John, you gotta get this speaker!).

11. Create an in-depth feedback form and aggressively seek out feedback. (You might send a copy of the tape to someone you respect in the niche.) Again, ask for letters.

12. Make copies of your STEP #10 audio or video for product sales. Don’t worry if it isn’t very good… just update it everytime you do the program.

13. Get your bank to give you a credit card account for sales… it is always worth it.

14. Adjust your program appropriately and repeat…eventually expanding length or versions of your presentations. (Do not ever promote more than three presentations.)

15. Get a toll-free number – it is cheaper than you think!

16. Invest in a website – it is the trend that will lead the entire business world.

17. Every time you see something written about your one aspect of your niche in a newspaper or magazine, and you feel you can intelligently contribute, write a letter to the editor.

18. Write and rewrite an article on your topic, and consistently work to get the article published -- ideally in your professional publications. Try to get your photo, brief bio and contact information attached to the article.

19. Create a bio that focuses on what value you offer your audiences. (Test: Everytime you write down something ask yourself, "So what?" Your Ph.D. is meaningless but the fact that your expertise helped a client make more money is valuable! Where you live and who your family is doesn't have value, but the fact that after listening to your presentation someone saved their marriage, is valuable…)

20. Once the first article is published, write one article per month.

21. Create a media press kit! A folder which includes the bio, photo, articles, and clippings from other publications where you have been published. Include a list of any TV shows where you were featured and the dates they aired.

22. Create a promotional press kit! A folder or brochure with many of the same items as the media press kit, but includes a value-focused flyer on your presentation(s).

23. Register with local and national press – let the appropriate people know that you are an expert in your niche. For example, ABC, NBC, CBS & CNN probably have a news office within an hour’s drive from you … CNN has a news bureau in Detroit.

24. If you have an idea for a news story along the lines of the one aspect of your niche, contact the news with a "story idea," giving them ideas of who to interview and what angle (hook) to use. Do not call with an underdeveloped story suggesting only yourself as the person to interview. Sometimes you may not even be featured… but you will become a source!

25. Specifically find contact names and numbers of the leaders in your niche industry or audience – and the corresponding meeting planners. Develop a list which is, at very least, 200 contacts.

26. Prepare at least seven separate mailings at the same time all addressed to your 200 or more contacts. The first should be a letter of introduction, written (signed) by your "assistant" or at least someone with a different last name. The second, a personal follow-up letter by you. The third letter should be written as a letter of endorsement from someone who has heard/experienced you. Continue to vary the letters and mail them at least two weeks apart, perhaps a month or two apart. (HINT: Always sign in blue & always mail in January.) Continue to do this mail campaign each year.

27. Start an audio magazine in the format of a radio show. Host a 30-minute interview of the leaders within your niche industry or niche audience. Seek out other vendors who may be interested in the same "market" you are reaching out to and ask them to "sponsor" the program in exchange for an advertisement in each issue. You can add this to your media kit and mail it to subscribers or to other industry leaders. You may likely finish many of your interviews with great industry (niche) leaders at the professional association conventions you attend. Add a tape of one of these programs to your press kits.

28. Present your radio format audio magazine to local radio stations or see if your sponsors will present them to other radio stations. Expand on this… more stations, other formats, etc.

29. Volunteer for community or association efforts – create as much visibility as you can. Volunteer to help out for PBS telethons, Big Brother/Big Sisters, United Way, Church, PSAM/NSA. Service on a board of groups like these will lead to priceless contacts (and offer a good service). The more people that hear your name, the more they will know who you are.

30. From your research files and your articles, write a book on one aspect of your niche – if publishing is an issue, do not hesitate to self-publish.

31. Add your book to your press kits.

32. Promote your book as often as you can on radio, television, and newspapers – even in paid classified ads!

33. Work as hard as you can to promote yourself nationally or at least outside of your home state to develop momentum. "A prophet in his own town…has no respect…"

34. Put an entry into RADIO TV INTERVIEW SOURCE. It is an inexpensive way to get many interviews.

35. In every Radio & TV interview, promote your book and mention your toll-free number. Although it is easy to do, do not get distracted – you are on this show to share your resources (books/tapes).

36. When you are booked to speak at an event, increase your impact by offering to do other sessions, writing articles for newsletters or publications, or negotiate a booth at big conventions. Offer as much as you can to increase your value to the client.

37. Annually or bi-annually, start a new professional coaching relationship: Acting, Voice, Interviewing Skills, Presenting, Training skills, etc. The professional is never finished learning and bettering him or herself.

38. Develop a one-page quarterly newsletter (and/or an on-line newsletter). HINT: Write all four before you mail the first one. Make sure that it is niche-specific and value-based and that it is something that people will copy and pass around.

39. Create a standard broadcast fax that is titled, "I am coming to your area" and tells when you are speaking in a particular city, state or region. Fax it to all the people in that area… telling them that they now have an opportunity to come and meet with you, preview you or better yet, hire you while you are there!

40. Taking into account the results and comments from your first book and the new research you have done (as well as the articles you have written since that first book), write another book that complements the first one. Ideally, your second book will lead its readers to your first book.

41. Repeat this process and complete a new book every 36 months or less.

42. Do a book signing tour by calling bookstores and letting them know you will be in the area and available for a book signing. Precede this event by doing a radio and / or television interview promoting the book and the book signing.

43. From Tom Winninger, CSP, CPAE: Find / Create / Orchestrate a TRILOGY… i.e., release a book, appear on a TV show, and appear on the news during the same week! Keynote the convention, write articles for the publication and mail a special flyer to all members of the association during the same month. The momentum of three (or more) visible exposures leads people to think "you are everywhere!"

44. From Mark LeBlanc: Of the people that love you and your presentation, develop a list of 25 "advocates" and make contact with them each and every month. An advocate is the sort of person who would go out of their way to promote you. They will call people without any urging on your behalf and tell peers… "You’ve got to hear this person!" To keep in touch with your advocates, mail something every month or call or fax, but make it a personal contact for this priceless advocate. (Send flowers, a postcard, candy, or a coupon for a restaurant…)

45. Find and hire a publicist and share your objectives with them. Do not continue a relationship with a publicist who doesn’t deliver. You may need to go through 3 or 4 publicists before you settle on the perfect match.