How I ended up giving 5 speeches at the Content Marketing Conference this April

I never planned on speaking five times at the Content Marketing Conference. Because that’s just nuts.

The conference is in Boston on 16-19 April. This will be my fourth time speaking there; Byron White of WriterAccess curates a great collection of speakers and it’s always a blast. Honestly, I go to a lot of conferences, and his conference staff combines value, efficiency, and kindness in ways that continue to impress me, so I keep going back.

Anyway, Byron always asks me to run my 3-hour Writing Without Bullshit interactive workshop on the morning of the first day (this time it’s Tuesday 16 April). I was amazed last year when they managed to cram in 75 paying participants — it was the event’s most popular workshop. (We throw in a signed copy of the book, of course.)

Byron asked me to do a shorter speech on the same topic the next morning. Sure, I agreed, that’s fine.

Then he asked me to do a funnier version of the same speech at the Comedy Marketing day on Friday. “Are you sure?” I asked. Yes, he said, we tend to get a different audience for the comedy marketing piece.

That’s all great, but like all authors and speakers I have new content I’m working on, content that I really wanted a chance to try that out at the conference. It’s specifically for business book authors. But Byron was adamant that we include the Writing Without Bullshit speeches, because they’re always popular. After going back and forth, we arrived at a solution — I’d do both. I’d give the speeches and workshop on writing as he asked, but also do a talk on How (and Why) to Write a Business Book on Thursday 18 April.

So now I’m talking on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. That ought to be enough, right?

Well, almost.

Last year, this conference added a Comedy Marketing segment. I attended and I was amazed — when you ask marketers to be funny, some of them are pretty damned good. Long, long ago, I did standup, and jokes are always a part of my speeches — jokes that help you remember the key points. So along with the rest of the speeches, I’ve now got a ten-minute slot in their comedy showcase.

It’s incredibly hard to put together 10 minutes of funny. And these other performers like Nadja Khoja and Sarah Cooper set the bar high — I saw that last year. But I’m working on it.

I’m working my ass off on these speeches. And of course, there are eight other workshops and dozens of other speakers and keynotes from the likes of Ron Tite and David Meerman Scott. You don’t want to hear me speak five times, but if any of that appeals to you and you can be in Boston from 16-19 April, check it out.

How much? Look, I don’t set the prices.

But when I do my workshop for companies it’s typically $4,000. If you sign up just for the workshops at CMC, it’s $949 and you get a second workshop from another speaker in the afternoon on brand messaging, skimmable content, conversion rates, LinkedIn, or video marketing.

Or, if you pay $1499 you can get the workshops plus both conferences (and hear me try to do comedy).

I’m not a hard-sell type, but I should mention they gave me this code. If you enter “JOSHB20” when you register they give you 20% off. So that’s means the workshops are $759 or both whole conferences are $1199. For four days of content, that’s a fair deal

This is my home town. I’ll be hanging around the event pretty much the whole time — if I’m not watching (or giving) a session just stop by the speaker room and let’s talk.

Five speeches. Whew. I’m sure this will be like NASCAR. I’ll probably just be going round and round very fast, but I might just crash and burn and you’ll get to see it.