What is the best way to showcase my knowledge & expertise with so much already being said everyday?

Practice makes perfect! If you have friends, family and/or mentors, practice for them and ask for constructive criticism. If you do it 100+ times and it's all positive feedback, there is no reason not to feel confident. I just went through @INcubes accelerator program - probably practiced my pitch 500+ times for over 100 different people. Everyone had little nuggets of advice that I held on to until the presentation was perfect. I'd be happy to take a call, listen to your presentation, provide some feedback and ask a couple questions to ensure your basis are covered.

Hi, Doing lunch and learns is a great way to get the word out about your business. Here's the catch; who are you selling to? Employees may be very interested in what you have to say but do they get to make decisions on how training budgets are spent? It's a real question. In some businesses maybe yes, maybe no. People who are independent sales reps or commission-based may be more amenable to what you're offering. Think of real estate agents, independent sales reps, etc. They have the mindset of running their own business and may be interested in making an investment if you can demonstrate a return on their investment. If you're chasing corporate business, maybe a lunch and learn in a neutral locale is the answer and invite training managers or HR types from many different businesses to attend. Also, you need to question whether people will want a weekend retreat. In my experience, entrepreneurs and the self-employed like weekend events because it doesn't cut into business time. Employees prefer weekday events because they view the weekend time as their personal time. I hope this helps a little. Dave

I've been into bitcoin since 2011, and here's my brief take on where the opportunity lies. - Mining: Bitcoin mining is too difficult unless you invest a significant amount of money into it, think over $10,000 ... and it only becomes profitable if the price of bitcoin does another 10X (which it may. - Mining: Altcoins may be the quicker path to profits (http://coinmarketcap.com/) ... mine some altcoins and then converting them to bitcoin through one of the exchanges like cryptsy.com - Buying: I am waiting for another price crash before I buy back into bitcon, I'm hoping it will drop to $500. I see it rising back up over $2000 if it does drop, however now that the Chinese are into bitcoin, its a real possibility that the price will just keep rising. - Arbitrage: The price difference between exchanges is massive. You can now buy bitcoin at btc-e for $1000 and sell it instantly at mtgox.com for $1200. If you had $100,000 to arbitrage with, that is a cool $20,000 profit. The probem is that these exchanges may go down at any time and you risk losing your money/bitcoins. -Startup: You could build something with real value, although the competition now is fierce to build a product with real value that has not already been built. VC's are getting hot for bitcoin startups, check out press on Ripple Labs, BTC China, BitInstant, Coinbase, etc. There are some other opportunities, like buying a bitcoin ATM machine from a franchise (Robocoin, Lamassus) or something a little more in the grey area like starting a bitcoin casino. There's lots of opportunity in cryptocurrency if you look hard enough, I feel though that the window of opportunity for massive profits and value creation is narrowing due to the eyeballs looking at the bitcoin world right now. So whatever you want to do, take massive action and do it fast before you lose momentum and first movers advantage.

Hey. :) Craft a joke that's relevant to the situation. Touch on the core essence of why everyone is attending, or make light of something that's happening in current news, preferably in a context that relates to your subject matter. As a backup you can alway open with asking people why they're attending and what they're hoping to get out of the workshop. Hope that was helpful.

Hey there Without knowing the specific industry you're targeting I can only provide general advice. However, my background is in the technology sector with primarily specific experience in the Telco & Transport sectors. So if I draw on my own experience I would work through the following steps. 1 - Brainstorm the top 3 topics you feel you are confident to speak about and could mould around a specific engagement. 2 - Identify the regular speaking opportunities locally and regionally that you could attend without too much trouble. 3 - Reach out to your network. Let people know you are looking for this kind of opportunity 4 - Be totally willing to speak for free to build up experience as well as a name for yourself. Everyone would love to walk straight into a paid speaking gig. The reality is that you have to build up a reputation first and only then will people be willing to pay for your services. Some events, once convinced of your value add, will be willing to pay for your travel costs but not your time. If you can start by getting those you are doing well. Go to the event. Smash it out of the park. Network like crazy. Build a list of other opportunities to pitch for. Once you have done a few 'free' engagements you can use those as a springboard in your marketing to help draw in paid work. Obviously having a strong social media presence with videos of you speaking at events and details of where you have spoken in the past and are due to in the future greatly help. Also look at local business support groups where you can build up a following as a 'go to' guy for your sector. There are a number of approaches you can take and will vary by your background and target audience. I hope that gives you a little bit of a pointer in how to get started. Feel free to schedule a call if you would like to discuss further. Wishing the best for you Regards Saif www.saifsiddiqui.com