I have to accept that every opportunity to speak in front of an audience gets me excited!
Ten years ago, not even in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought of addressing an audience, leave alone in the various parts of the world.
I usually have a lot to say about any subject (part of my outgoing virtue), which works great when writing, but when I know I have to be on stage, it takes a different kind of practice and mindset.
I don’t see my time on stage as just mine. It is also everyone else’s time. There is an audience that looks forward to learning new things.
For example, in my recent trip to Milan for the Marketing business summit, there were about 500 attendees! I had 30 minutes ⏰ to speak my mind 🧠. Collectively, it was 250 hours of time. So every minute, rather every single word that I expressed in those 30 minutes, needed to have some substance.
How it started
The story behind everything is more surreal than the story itself at times. At the start of November 2018, my friend Andrea asked me if I could make it to Milan for a talk at the Marketing Business Summit.
It was very random, to be honest, but with my belief in the art of surrender, I said yes instead of the obvious no. I enquired about the audience and found out that most of the attendees would be professionals and marketers.
My final decision – you guessed it right – was let’s do it.
The big question
What would I talk about, I thought, every day.
Should I talk about my journey thus far, or talk about something I’m working on – I was bewildered.
However, I felt I was in a unique situation where I could share my blueprints of creating a profitable blog.
Over the past 10 years, I have created two million-dollar blogs, and I could share something on that line, I said to myself.
I knew 25 minutes for the talk and 5 minutes for questions were not going to be enough. But I took this as a challenge.
I knew it would not be easy, but I was ready for this challenge. The last time I addressed an audience this size was in January 2017 at the Affiliate marketing summit in Las Vegas. Needless to say, I was nervous too.
But that fear also instilled a fair bit of desire in me to nail my time on the stage. I was determined to leave an impression.
Every talk needs to have at least one take away – one big take away. I zeroed in one “Making a million dollar blog”. It was not just an idea or theory but something that has worked for me repeatedly.
I applied for the visa and got it within a week.
However, there was a small problem.
I was supposed to travel on November 27, 2018. My approved visa stated I could travel from December 27!
Crazy, right?
When I mentioned this to Andrea, he jokingly said, “At least, you can spend new year in Milan.”
Funny. 🙃
I was on the clock but not losing hope. I sent my passport for the correction. One week before the travel time, there was no news and the weekend was approaching. I was worried.
I had confirmed my availability at the summit — not a good place to be in as a speaker, organizer, or as an attendee.
Luckily, after a few calls to the Italian embassy, and email exchanges, the visa issue was sorted, and me delighted.
It was time to work on my half cooked outline of the talk and polish it to make it worthy of everyone’s time. I had been working day and night thanks to Black Friday and Cyber Monday week. I knew the real challenge had begun.
Million dollar blog
My usual practice for any talk is to first work on the content.
Create an outline and start practicing.
This helps me come up with power words, punch lines, and make the talk meaningful.
The first draft and the final presentation is usually worlds apart and it’s a good thing. I ended up creating five most important things that could help anyone to start a million dollar blogging business.
Here is the 5th part which I later removed from my presentation due to lack of time:
1.1 Hard word over smart work:
I hope this gives you an idea of the direction I wanted to start in. However, the above pointers could be applied to any field of work and was becoming generic. Moreover, the summit itself was on actionable pointers, and this is when I turned the whole presentation and came up with this:
I also mentioned following tools in my talk:
Here is the list of tools was featured today in my talk at #MBSummit
📌 @semrush
📌 Pageoptimizerpro
🗂 @ConvertKit
💸 @convertflow
📡 @PushEngage
🎯 @optinmonster
🔥 @yoast
⚡ @longtailpro
⛄ @mobilemonkey_
🛩 @onesignal
🛥 @ManyChatHQ #blogging @shoutmeloud pic.twitter.com/sfA9nEGs3m— Harsh Agrawal (@denharsh) November 30, 2018
OH! The beginning:
The most exciting part of any presentation is the beginning, and I tried something unique and fresh this time. It was an act, and it actually turned out great – helped me get all the attention in the room. Honestly, it was funny. You can see it in the 3rd slide of this slideshow.
(You might have to open this on the Instagram app to see it).
The talk concluded with questions, smiles, and, well, applause.👏🏻
1st day of #MBSummit #Milan pic.twitter.com/Smzc461kbC
— Harsh Agrawal (@denharsh) November 30, 2018
A #MBSummit @denharsh racconta quanto sia importante considerare mission, vision e branding (design) per realizzare il proprio #blog pic.twitter.com/oACdRQ4QvP
— Barbara Reverberi (@espby) November 30, 2018
How to create a million $ blog with @harshagrawal434 #blog #1million$ #MBSummit #mission #vision #branding #corevalues pic.twitter.com/AZP4lGWYpp
— Rockx (@Roxana77945245) November 30, 2018
Have no idea what topic to cover in your next post? @shoutmeloud recommends to use @semrush keyword search report to find the right one😊 pic.twitter.com/SdO54Hcr0U
— Alexandra Tachalova (@AlexTachalova) November 30, 2018
Thank you, Milan, for being so awesome.
Until next time!
P.S: I will embed the video as soon as it’s available.
Meanwhile, you could check out my earlier appearances below:
- Mindmine Summit 2018; India’s Millennials: Can they Reshape Markets, Society and Governments?
- WordCamp Delhi 2017 Growth Hacking Slide Deck; Photos
- Appearances
