If you are a professional speaker, back of the room sales are a nice little bonus when you present to large crowds at conferences.
For breakout sessions and even keynoting – being in front of an audience is a great opportunity to promote your products and services even as you deliver a strictly non-promotional speech.
If you do your job well people will want more. And if you have books, CDs or offer professional services alongside your speaking then every person in that room is an opportunity to increase your income.
For most speakers and authors the answer is selling a book or CD at the back of the room and mentioning their website at the end of the presentation.
The thing is that it’s a pain in the ass to hump around the country with a box of books, set up sales stations and actually process payments. Especially if you are doing it all yourself.
And who wants to wait in line to buy a book when they can get it instantly through Amazon anyway?
Nobody. That’s who. And even if they mean to order it later, they probably won’t.
If you have 10 people willing to line up and buy your book, you can bet there a bunch of folks who see the line and decide to move on. And even if you are using Square or some other processing service dodgy wi-fi and internet connections can give you more headaches than actual money.
So how do you make those sales? How do you promote your services?
QR codes to the rescue
It’s often said that QR codes are a technology that was invented before there was actually a good reason to use them.
But for speakers QR codes are a natural extension of sales and marketing.
QR codes are free, simple to create and can link to anything – even an Amazon sales page.
They can also link to pages on your own site. So if you have a service page or survey with a call to action that you want people to see – link to it using a QR code.
If you create a postcard with a couple of QR codes and drop them on the chairs before you speak, everyone on the room will have something to take home with them. Better yet they can quickly order your product, sign up for your newsletter, connect with you on LinkedIn, take a survey….you get the point. Basically as they are playing with their smartphones you can get some benefits.
So next time you are booked to speak in front of a large audience make sure you take advantage of the opportunity to market your products and services more effectively using QR codes.