Early in my career as a professional speaker I talked with a fellow speaker about my career and he said that I’d need some way to set myself apart from other speakers. I don’t remember what he called this but today I guess you would call it a brand. He had heard me speak and he knew I was writing for some sales magazines, so one day he called and said, “Art, I believe you should become ‘Mr. Lucky of the American Platform’”. I guess I didn’t respond very positively. He went on and started making me a brochure on Mr. Lucky. After awhile I started thinking more about it and how Mr. Lucky would look when he performed. I was working in downtown Detroit at the time so I went to a tuxedo store on Washington Boulevard. I went up some stairs to a room of their warehouse that was full of older style tuxedos. I told the old gent what I was looking for and we both started talking crazy. We were just looking at long racks of tuxes and he said “Mr. Lucky should have lots of money.” First he showed me some elegant black tails and a top hat. Then we agreed that a lot of speakers probably wear black suits or tuxes. “I want them to remember me.” I guess I said, and he pulled out a tux that was green and white plaid with black lapels. “That green will remind people of money.” Then he found me a ruffled shirt and a big bow tie. I put them all on and we had a good laugh.
“Now all I need is a line of chorus girls and a cane,” I said. He lit up and said, “I can find you a cane.”
I got patent leather shoes, two shirts and the whole outfit for thirty bucks.
Next I pulled out a book manuscript that had been rejected. One editor had commented that I had good material but actually had two books, one on sales and another on speaking. If I would just edit it and pull the two apart it might work.
My theme for my talk was to be that most successful people learned that they had to be selling themselves and their ideas. I would have a parade of Lucky Selling Ideas in my book and in my talk. I did a little rewriting, adding the element of luck somehow into each chapter and EUREKA! Out jumped my new book titled Selling Lucky! A Guide to Success and Happiness.
My Mentor, Herb True, PhD, a Notre Dame Professor who managed to give 150 speeches a year as a side-line, suggested I attend the World Meeting Planner’s Conference in Dallas, Texas and sure enough I was approved on what they called their Chitaqua Program introducing new speakers.
I had raised my fee when I did the first Mr. Lucky speeches preparing for this Dallas program and with a few successful presentations under my belt I doubled my fee again and figured that I would learn a lot in Dallas and that I might actually get a booking. I was the closing speaker and the program had about 15 other new speakers. By the time I got on stage it had run an hour overtime. Fortunately it was a patient, understanding audience. With my introduction, I had the theme from an old Mr. Lucky TV Show playing as I walked on stage in my green and white tails and the audience applauded.
Everything went right that day. Everything, and as a result of that performance I booked three speeches and then 3 more came in later. I was off and running. Like one of the strippers in the play and movie “Gypsy” said, “You’ve got to have a gimmick.” Yes…a Brand.
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