April 29, 2025 • 28 mins
Are you ready to turn your speaking talent into a thriving business? In this episode of Scaling Up Success, Marty Dickinson joins Ryan Van Ornum to break down how speakers can build momentum and attract clients by leveraging their unique expertise. With nearly three decades of experience, Marty introduces his mascot “Action” — a symbol for moving past procrastination — and explains why true growth demands more than just activity. It's about taking the right actions in the right order, a methodical strategy that’s become his trademark for helping others simplify complex goals and make steady progress.
From adapting to an ever-changing speaking landscape to discovering your personal "Genuine Expert Method" (GEM), Marty shares game-changing insights that shift the way you approach your business. He emphasizes that clients don’t just want results — they want the process only you can deliver. Marty also dives into practical strategies for networking at events, using tech tools like AI, and building communities that support your growth. Whether you're just starting or looking to scale, this episode is your guide to turning your method into a movement.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
What's up everybody.
I'm Ryan Van Ornam and we areback for another edition of
Scaling Up Success with one ofmy good friends, marty Dickinson
.
Marty, how are you today, sir?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Terrific.
How are you doing, Ryan?
Great to be with you.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Thanks for coming on.
We really appreciate it.
Man, you are a man of manytalents and I'm so excited to be
able to jump into some of thisstuff.
First of all, I love the storybehind it and it kind of goes
into what your business is aboutwith Speak or Speak Live.
But tell me a little bit aboutAction.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
That is a great place to start, because I always
start with my presentationsintroducing my mascot.
And there he is, right.
There, that is action.
You know, I started actionbecause when I started speaking,
I came up with my very firstbook called Winning the Internet
Dogfight, and I went around andwatched a lot of speakers and
(01:06):
started giving workshops myself,teaching internet marketing
strategies and SEO andconverting more visitors to
sales on your website, all thatkind of stuff.
And I saw every speaker wouldget on stage and he'd say
remember, you need to takeaction.
Everything I've just taught youwill go to waste If you don't
take action.
You got to take action and Iwas like who is this action
(01:27):
person and why do I have to doanything?
He says where do I take them?
So so I finally put a name to aface and I've been using that
as my action.
So I'll stand in front of theroom and I'll hold this big
poster board and I'll sayremember this face next time you
find yourself procrastinatingand take action.
(01:49):
And I mean, that's where themoney is.
You got to take some kind ofaction or nothing happens.
And so I even put action on hisown money.
So action is a picture right inthe middle of a $1 million bill
in the middle of a $1 millionbill.
So my clients have these tapedto their computers so that they
(02:09):
always see action every singleday and they know that they have
to do something.
That's my way of being people'sthumb in the back to actually
get them to do things.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
I love that and really that's what it comes down
to and in most businessventures is how much action are
you taking?
Because, like I found, I wouldrather make mistakes with action
than trying to be likeparalysis analysis by paralysis
by analysis.
(02:37):
Like you know, I can't evenspeak it out, but you get what
the drift of it is Right.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And you bring up a really good point too, because I
mean, if you know anythingabout this particular kind of
dog, he just runs everywhere,he's chasing his tail, he's
going in circles, he's just acrazy thing.
He's full of energy, he'staking action, all right.
But the real secret is what youjust said, because action is
nothing without a sequence.
You've got to have a sequenceof steps, you've got to do the
(03:05):
right thing at the right time,in the right sequence, or you're
just going to be chasing yourtail all over the place and
making all kinds of mistakes.
Of course you're going to makemistakes, but if you follow
things in a proven sequence asmuch as you can and experiment
and test, then at least you havea better chance of that action
that you take actually turninginto something productive and
(03:27):
meaningful and getting thedesired result.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
What's your thoughts on?
And we'll just continue downthis road a little bit.
A lot of people they find whatworks for them, but they don't
write it down like procedures orstandard operating procedures,
that kind of stuff.
So the stuff that goes wellcontinues to go well because you
kind of stuff.
So you like the stuff that goeswell continues to go well
because you kind of have like aguidebook that you built
(03:50):
yourself.
Is that something that you workwith your clients about?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Well, a little secret for you, ryan I am a September
baby, so I am a Virgo throughand through, and one of our
traits as a Virgo is that we arehopelessly disorganized if we
do not write things down.
So, but you bring up the ideaof writing things down.
I have so many procedureswritten in Google spreadsheets I
(04:17):
mean they're endless for everysingle topic and even subtopics,
and that way I can share thosewith my team and say, here, just
follow this.
I mean it cuts training down tominutes instead of what would
normally take a whole day oftraining.
Just follow these steps and itmakes life so much easier.
(04:38):
But the other thing is thatthese evolve.
I mean you can't just make onestandard operating procedure and
it's there forever, because thewhole concept of working on the
internet to build your businessis that things change every 10
minutes.
I mean it's not.
We used to say, oh, thingschange every year, then it was
every month and then every week,and now it's just like I mean
(05:00):
you could try something now and10 minutes later it's not the
best way to do it anymore.
You've discovered somethingelse that's going to take its
place in that part of theprocess.
It's continuously fluidMarketing.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
you know, when people say, oh, that's so 2015 to
market that way, or whatever itis, you know, I find it it's
like what didn't work last yearor what did work last year may
not work this year.
Now it's moving so fast evensix months ago.
You know, I find that veryinteresting that point, because
(05:34):
the way that social media haschanged the way that people are
marketing, it's kind of similarto, like, the attention spans of
people.
Would you agree?
Like?
You know, like, oh, we're goingto market this way and that
works great, and then, all of asudden, three months later, you
know it's off into the waste binand then something else is
(05:55):
coming up, that's a newmarketing piece.
You know, on your speaking sideof stuff, you probably have to
change up your speeches quite abit now.
Is that?
Is that something that you do?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
oh, all the time, I mean honestly every.
Every time I get in front of anaudience, it's a custom job,
because not only does thecontent change itself, but the
audience has changed too.
So, depending on what audienceyou're speaking to, you have to
alter your presentation.
So those are just calledmodules.
You have a core of presentationthat everybody's going to
(06:30):
receive, that's what you'reknown for, that's what they're
bringing you in for, and thenyou just bring in this piece oh,
it's a customer servicedepartment, oh, it's a bunch of
internet marketing experts.
I mean, you have all thesedifferent modules that you bring
in, depending on who youraudience is man.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
That's phenomenal stuff right there, hey, one of
the things that I see about youyou're known nationwide and
worldwide for your speaking.
One of the things that I see is, like how did you get to that
place, man?
That doesn't start overnight.
What kind of little nuggets canyou drop for somebody that is
like man?
I really feel like I have agift for this, but I just don't
(07:10):
know how to take it from like Iwant to speak in front of people
.
To like I want to get paid.
To like I want to make this mycareer.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I think you do have tohave something about you that
you want to use.
There are a lot of skills thatwe're born with and we're raised
with and we come up with whenwe're kids and we recognize them
and develop them.
But there are some of thoseskills that people just kind of
push under the rug.
(07:39):
They don't use those skills andone of the things that I've had
my entire life that I didn'thave to learn was that I really
need to know the minute detailsof anything that I do, like
swinging a baseball bat, forexample.
I was a competitive baseballand softball coach for a number
(08:03):
of years when my kids weregrowing up and everything.
I had no idea how to hit a ball.
I mean, I remember when I was akid I had to swing a bat and
everything, but I had toactually dissect it into five
specific steps and analyze andwhat are all the nuances.
I do that with everything I doand I think that's a that's a
trait that I bring, because Ican go to any conference where
(08:25):
they're talking about some kindof a marketing strategy and
somebody will elbow me next tome and they'll say do you have
any idea what he said?
Because it seems like there's alot of holes in that process.
Yeah, here, let me show you howit works.
Here's step one two, three,four, five, six.
Wow, why aren't you on stage?
Is is I find out what all thelittle bitty steps are, and I
(09:10):
chaperone people through those.
Even when I'm on stage speaking, I'm chaperoning.
I'm not really giving apresentation in its traditional
sense.
I'm having my audience do whatthey've come to do.
So, right in the moment they'relike well, marty, I see I'm
supposed to do that on my cellphone, but I can't figure that
out.
Can you help me?
So I walk over to the personand we actually do it.
(09:31):
So this is experientiallearning.
That's the kind of presentingthat I work because, coming back
to your original question, I'vebeen doing that my whole life
is just dissecting every littleminute detail and going through
the actual steps.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Man, I love that.
One of the things that like andwe've been in several different
rooms together over the lastyear and one of the things that
I know when I come into likedifferent conferences or
different seminars is I don'treally know what unexpected
opportunities may come out ofthese things.
(10:06):
So can you give a couple ofcool examples that maybe one or
two that you've had in the pastjust by being in a room that you
didn't expect anything to comefrom it?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Absolutely.
Right now I'm really excitedabout an organization I joined
called Achieve Systems, andthey're based in Denver.
Actually, I've been here for along time and it just took a
long time for somebody tofinally convince me to go to the
conference.
But I finally did, and I wentto a second conference.
I had not joined theorganization yet, and then I
(10:40):
finally did, and once I did, Istarted getting introduced to
not just one person or a couple,but to many, and I think that's
really the key.
I'm going to Toronto in a coupleof weeks to speak on a stage.
I've never been to Toronto, butI'm going to be speaking on a
stage at a conference of someoneI met at Achieve.
(11:00):
So that's awesome.
I mean, that's how these thingswork.
Is you need to approach theconferences that you go to
thinking, who do I need to meet?
And in the case of a conference, if you are a speaker, the one
person you need to meet at everyconference you go to is the
person who's who planned theconference, who put it together,
(11:21):
who organized it.
And that's exactly what I did,because this person was
organizing this conference inCanada.
So I met that person and nowwe're.
You know, there's a whole bunchof magic that is happening based
on that relationship that juststarted a few months ago.
So it's real exciting how fastthings can happen like that.
(11:41):
But know who you need to meetwhen you go to a conference and
find the person that canintroduce you like.
But know who you need to meetwhen you go to a conference and
find the person that canintroduce you like you know I go
to conferences.
That's who I look for is who isthat one person that I can walk
up to that person and say Ineed to be introduced to a
person that does this.
Who should I talk to?
And then all of a sudden, thatconference organizer oh yeah, go
(12:04):
here, go here, go here, go here.
And all of a sudden your entireinvestment in that conference
is made back two, three, four orfive times in a matter of
minutes because you've beenintroduced to the right people.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Absolutely.
That's how we met.
We got I got introduced andthey're like you got to talk to
Marty, and so we we hit it off.
We had a great, greatconversation.
We've ended up having severalconversations since then and I I
just love your energy that youbring to, to what you present
and how you present it.
Uh, you, you're, um, you're,you're making a difference in in
(12:37):
your industry, in your genre,and I love what you're doing,
man well, I appreciate that youare too well, thank you, sir.
Appreciate that amazing mindsthink alike.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
That's how it works and really, ryan, we really need
to to put this message out topeople that it's not just about
how many people you meet.
You need to not just meet eventhe right people.
The key is developing deep,lifelong relationships with
(13:08):
people who are just like you.
I mean, if you are a highachiever, you've got to hang out
with other high achievers thatmight even be a little bit
achieving a little higher thanyou are, even because you're
going to play up at that level,and those are the people that
you want to spend time with.
Take them out to dinner.
Laura from Canada.
(13:29):
She is putting together thisconference.
She was in Denver this pastweek, so I said great, let's get
together.
For the afternoon I drove herdown to Colorado Springs where
she had another meeting.
I took her out for a steakdinner.
I mean, that's the kind ofthings that should be done
between people who are trying tobuild relationships that are
lifelong and can really make animpact in your business.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Oh, I agree a hundred percent and you know it's like
you have I kind of relate it tolike different circles.
You have your very close circleof people that you can trust on
the daily basis of stuff, andthen a little larger are the
people that you probably talk toon like a couple every other
week, maybe every month, maybeevery six weeks, and then maybe
(14:11):
like the people you talk to acouple of times a year.
But even still in those groupspeople can come in and out of
those circles.
But it still makes a real bigimpact on how you're.
You know whether it's justsending a text message and
checking in on them, seeing howthey're doing, because you never
know what can happen just fromthose little messages.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Oh, yeah, and it reminds me of, I mean, even
going back to Think and GrowRich days with Napoleon Hill.
He talks about creating amastermind group.
Right, a mastermind groupdoesn't have to be a lot of
people, it can just be two,three, four people at a time.
To be a lot of people, it canjust be two, three, four people
at a time.
But when you start getting intoa community where you have a
lot of people that are thinkingall in the same alignment, it
(14:53):
really turns into having a giantmastermind group to draw from.
And now imagine that you takethat concept and you start
building your own community orbuild a sub community within the
community that you're in.
I mean, this is the time thatwe're in now and I think this
has been the strongest justsince COVID, when things started
(15:14):
opening up again and werealized how alone we were
during the COVID shutdown.
When things did finally open upagain, we realized how much we
needed people, we neededcommunity.
So the technique now, thestrategy now depending on how
you want to use that word is toeventually build your own
(15:35):
community so that you areleading a cause of your own.
And that's why I startedSpeakers Speak Group, because
speakers need a place where theycan hang out with other
speakers.
I mean, there's nobody in theworld that understands the
speaking business except forother speakers.
You have to do this kind ofwork to actually understand it,
(15:57):
and we all need to hang outtogether.
We need to be able to go toeach other and voice a problem
that we're having, get ideasfrom people, try new material,
and that's where Speakers SpeakLive came into play, because we
all need it.
We all recognize the need forus to be able to keep our chops
up and have a place to practiceand get suggestions from people
(16:18):
for how we can improve, andSpeakers Speak Live was born.
So I think what you'll find is,as you find a community that you
fit in well with and you seehow it's growing, like Achieve,
that's a good example.
What's going to happen isyou're going to start thinking
now, what kind of a communitycould I start building?
And then, what does mycommunity really need that I can
(16:42):
continue to support them with?
It's exactly how SpeakerSpeakGroup and SpeakerSpeak Live came
to be, and now we havesomething new with Achieve
Speakers Live.
So I've brought it full circleand now I'm giving back to that
community for what they'vehelped me to build.
So I just think it all comesback to that community aspect
(17:02):
and it's a real powerfulstrategy going forward for any
business owner.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
That's fantastic, and the thing that it kind of I'm
going to kind of relate this tois like in in speaker and in
speaking, a lot of times whenyou're just getting started,
you're a solopreneur, you'retrying to do everything at one
time in those type ofenvironments.
But what you're building,you're telling and you're
telling our audience, this isyou.
You can almost build your owncultural team behind you to help
(17:31):
you grow, because, uh, so manytimes solopreneurs just get
stuck.
They, they don't have thoseresources or those those people
bounce ideas off of to take itto another level.
So now, what you're buildingthere?
It sounds like you have theability to help people get out
of their own way.
Would you agree on that?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Absolutely.
I mean, you brought up workingalone.
That brings back memoriesbecause I just remember back in
the corporate world.
I mean I was a corporate salesguy.
I was traveling around thecountry selling accounting
software the three things that Inever wanted to do.
I didn't want to be a travelingsalesman.
(18:12):
I didn't want to have anythingto do with accounting, so I
hated accounting in college.
And I certainly didn't want tohave anything to do with
computers, because I'm not atechnical person.
I'm the guy that would hold upour class.
The, the teacher would would,you would give us all these
commands and they'd say, okay,everybody hit the print key and
everybody's project would print,and mine would get stuck
(18:33):
somehow and we'd spent all therest of the class trying to
figure it out.
It.
It was so annoying.
So there I found myself flyingaround the country selling
accounting software of allthings, and I really wanted to
get out of that because, oh,corporate America.
And so I started a business onthe side, and it was just me.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Ooh the holy grail, it was just me.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I was a solopreneur.
Well, that took about a monthto realize that was not the way
to do it.
I needed help.
I needed to start building ateam.
I actually brought in a partnerso that we could put what I was
doing offline onto the internet.
And that is where things gotvery exciting.
And on the day that I wasactually offered a promotion at
(19:18):
work six months later I resignedbecause my website was doing so
well and that became that was1996.
That was a long time ago, butit just goes to show that if you
really want to make progress,it's really difficult to do
everything all alone.
I mean I realized I had to getreally good at like 50 different
(19:38):
things within a week.
And how do you do that?
I mean, I'm not good at maybeone or two things, but
everything else I had to learnand hire people and build a team
with and even get volunteers tohelp with.
So there's a lot of requirementthat has to happen.
You have to learn a lot andit's very hard to do everything
(20:01):
yourself.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Man and, and that kind of segues a little bit into
this next question, becauseit's like understanding how to
leverage, understanding how todelegate, and there are times
when you definitely need people.
But do you feel like technologyhas helped you with some of
that stuff as well, being ableto, you know, ease the load off
of your plate a little bitutilizing technology?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Well, now that I've forced myself to become
technical?
Yes, because I can actuallystart exploring things that are
more technical than I would haveever looked at before.
But it was such a learningprocess probably three times as
long for me to be able to accepttechnology than most people.
(20:44):
But with AI, the beauty of AIis that for a lot of its
applications, you don't have tobe as technical as you think you
need to be.
What you have to be able to dois create in your mind what you
actually want.
It's kind of like going to adesigner and the designer says
well, what would you like me todesign for you?
(21:06):
And you say, oh, I don't know.
Just go make me a million bucks, just make a great design for
me.
That's not going to get youvery far, but if you flip that
just a little bit and you wantto come up with a book title,
for example, you can use AItools to, say, list 20
(21:27):
best-selling book titles thathave never been used, that
include business ownership andthree steps to do something.
Fill in the blank, so you canenvision in your mind what you
really want for a result andjust plug that in and get all
kinds of ideas to use, andthat's where something
(21:50):
technology-wise has bridged thegap where people like me, who
are genuinely not technical, canstill use technology to move
forward in a very fast andcompetitive way.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
I love that man.
I love that Real quick, as westart to wrap this up a little
bit, what's one piece of wisdomyou wish you knew earlier in
your journey that you know now.
That was kind of like the lightswitch went on.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
That people don't hire you because of the outcome
you're able to provide.
I have been taught that foryears and years and years.
You always hear sell theoutcome, sell the outcome, not
your features.
You try to sell the benefitsright, but the key is that
(22:47):
people buy from you specificallybecause you are the keeper of
the method that brings thatsuccess the keeper of the method
that brings that success.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
That is.
That's some dope stuff rightthere.
I love what you just said, man,that is it really hits home
because a lot of people thatthat they they have to, they
have to believe in themselves,because so many times it's you
that gets you in the door andyou know that they're going to
buy from you, whatever theproduct is.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, I mean, I talk to people at least every week.
I talked to someone that has.
It's a surprise to them when Isay to them so you own this
business, right?
No, yeah, I own this business.
Are you the best in the worldat providing this business,
right?
No, yeah, I own this business.
Are you the best in the worldat providing this business?
Well, I don't know about that.
(23:40):
What do you mean?
You're not.
Of course you are.
Of course you're the best, andnobody does your business
exactly the way that you do it.
Right, you are the keeper of themost amazing method.
I even call it somethingspecific.
I call it your genuine expertmethod.
And if you look at the acronymof that, gem, it's that that
(24:02):
people are willing to pay for tosee you on stage, to buy your
book, to hire you for consulting, for services.
It all comes back to your gem.
So if I was to do somethingdifferent way back in the day, I
would have figured out step onewhat is my process, my genuine
expert method that nobody elsedoes but I do.
(24:25):
Nobody has the stories like Ido, nobody has the experiences
like I do, and the same goes foryou.
Everybody has that genuineexpert method inside them, even
if only that gem is that youhave stayed alive as long as you
have I mean, nobody has livedyour life the way that you have.
(24:47):
You have an expert methodinside you for how you've
survived all the possibilitiesthat could have taken you out,
but no, you are a survivor.
So use that same concept andapply that to your business and
come up with your genuine expertmethod.
It's what people want to buy.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
And I'm telling you guys right now that are watching
this thing, that is worthexponentially so much more than
the free that we're giving itright now.
But Marty is just dropping somegolden nuggets today.
I love this man, marty.
I love the passion that youbring.
You know, it's like anytimethat you walk into a room you
talked about, are you the bestin the world?
(25:29):
Hell, yeah, I am.
I love the way that you operatein that way and you know,
that's the way that I walk intoa room too, and that's the way
that, if you're in business foryourself or running a company,
you have to have a little bit ofthat confidence, that
understanding of like what yourvalue proposition is, like
different than others.
That that's why people want tobe around you, that's why people
(25:50):
want to work with you.
That's the difference, in myopinion.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
And that's what keeps you in business for longevity.
I mean, I've been doing thisalmost 30 years and it's because
of that method that I stillfollow it.
I mean, ryan, I have notchanged that method, it's my
method.
When I bring in a client, I usethe same six steps every single
time, and all the tools havechanged, but the process hasn't
(26:18):
changed at all.
It's really amazing how when youfigure out what that genuine
expert method is.
It is what will give youlongevity in your business and
people will come to you foryears because you are the keeper
of that gem.
I just think it's a lost idea,it's a lost practice for people
to think, huh, I actually dohave a sequence that I take
(26:41):
every client through and that'swhy they're hiring me because
the sequence is so predictablethat it's going to have a
positive outcome.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Man, I would love it.
We could talk for hours, myfriend, but you know, I know
that you have a busy schedule.
We appreciate your time comingon Scaling Up Success today.
Is there anything you want toleave the audience with?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, I think if you are a business owner, you should
be using speaking to build yourbusiness and if you're not,
then I welcome you to joinSpeakers Speak Group on Facebook
.
You can go tospeakersspeakgroupcom.
That'll take you there and ifyou are using speaking to build
your business, great, you shouldjoin the same group and you
should also come to speakersspeak live and you can go to
(27:26):
speakerspeaklivecom to jointhere to be in our weekly zoom
event where we will showcase youas a speaker, and then, once we
see you speak, we can refer youto the stages that we are on.
So those two things togetherare a great way to get
introduced to me and then,ultimately, we can.
(27:47):
I'd love to get to know anyonethat is ready and willing to
find their gem and use speakingto build their business.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Love it, man, love it .
I can't wait to see you againin person.
My friend, always a pleasuregetting to be able to talk to
you.
Thank you so much for coming onthe Scaling Up Success podcast.
Thanks for having me All right.
Enjoy, have a great one.
What's up everybody.
I'm Ryan Van Ornam and we areback for another edition of
Scaling Up Success with one ofmy good friends, marty Dickinson
.
Marty, how are you today, sir?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Terrific.
How are you doing, Ryan?
Great to be with you.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Thanks for coming on.
We really appreciate it.
Man, you are a man of manytalents and I'm so excited to be
able to jump into some of thisstuff.
First of all, I love the storybehind it and it kind of goes
into what your business is aboutwith Speak or Speak Live.
But tell me a little bit aboutAction.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
That is a great place to start, because I always
start with my presentationsintroducing my mascot.
And there he is, right.
There, that is action.
You know, I started actionbecause when I started speaking,
I came up with my very firstbook called Winning the Internet
Dogfight, and I went around andwatched a lot of speakers and
(01:06):
started giving workshops myself,teaching internet marketing
strategies and SEO andconverting more visitors to
sales on your website, all thatkind of stuff.
And I saw every speaker wouldget on stage and he'd say
remember, you need to takeaction.
Everything I've just taught youwill go to waste If you don't
take action.
You got to take action and Iwas like who is this action
(01:27):
person and why do I have to doanything?
He says where do I take them?
So so I finally put a name to aface and I've been using that
as my action.
So I'll stand in front of theroom and I'll hold this big
poster board and I'll sayremember this face next time you
find yourself procrastinatingand take action.
(01:49):
And I mean, that's where themoney is.
You got to take some kind ofaction or nothing happens.
And so I even put action on hisown money.
So action is a picture right inthe middle of a $1 million bill
in the middle of a $1 millionbill.
So my clients have these tapedto their computers so that they
(02:09):
always see action every singleday and they know that they have
to do something.
That's my way of being people'sthumb in the back to actually
get them to do things.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
I love that and really that's what it comes down
to and in most businessventures is how much action are
you taking?
Because, like I found, I wouldrather make mistakes with action
than trying to be likeparalysis analysis by paralysis
by analysis.
(02:37):
Like you know, I can't evenspeak it out, but you get what
the drift of it is Right.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And you bring up a really good point too, because I
mean, if you know anythingabout this particular kind of
dog, he just runs everywhere,he's chasing his tail, he's
going in circles, he's just acrazy thing.
He's full of energy, he'staking action, all right.
But the real secret is what youjust said, because action is
nothing without a sequence.
You've got to have a sequenceof steps, you've got to do the
(03:05):
right thing at the right time,in the right sequence, or you're
just going to be chasing yourtail all over the place and
making all kinds of mistakes.
Of course you're going to makemistakes, but if you follow
things in a proven sequence asmuch as you can and experiment
and test, then at least you havea better chance of that action
that you take actually turninginto something productive and
(03:27):
meaningful and getting thedesired result.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
What's your thoughts on?
And we'll just continue downthis road a little bit.
A lot of people they find whatworks for them, but they don't
write it down like procedures orstandard operating procedures,
that kind of stuff.
So the stuff that goes wellcontinues to go well because you
kind of stuff.
So you like the stuff that goeswell continues to go well
because you kind of have like aguidebook that you built
(03:50):
yourself.
Is that something that you workwith your clients about?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Well, a little secret for you, ryan I am a September
baby, so I am a Virgo throughand through, and one of our
traits as a Virgo is that we arehopelessly disorganized if we
do not write things down.
So, but you bring up the ideaof writing things down.
I have so many procedureswritten in Google spreadsheets I
(04:17):
mean they're endless for everysingle topic and even subtopics,
and that way I can share thosewith my team and say, here, just
follow this.
I mean it cuts training down tominutes instead of what would
normally take a whole day oftraining.
Just follow these steps and itmakes life so much easier.
(04:38):
But the other thing is thatthese evolve.
I mean you can't just make onestandard operating procedure and
it's there forever, because thewhole concept of working on the
internet to build your businessis that things change every 10
minutes.
I mean it's not.
We used to say, oh, thingschange every year, then it was
every month and then every week,and now it's just like I mean
(05:00):
you could try something now and10 minutes later it's not the
best way to do it anymore.
You've discovered somethingelse that's going to take its
place in that part of theprocess.
It's continuously fluidMarketing.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
you know, when people say, oh, that's so 2015 to
market that way, or whatever itis, you know, I find it it's
like what didn't work last yearor what did work last year may
not work this year.
Now it's moving so fast evensix months ago.
You know, I find that veryinteresting that point, because
(05:34):
the way that social media haschanged the way that people are
marketing, it's kind of similarto, like, the attention spans of
people.
Would you agree?
Like?
You know, like, oh, we're goingto market this way and that
works great, and then, all of asudden, three months later, you
know it's off into the waste binand then something else is
(05:55):
coming up, that's a newmarketing piece.
You know, on your speaking sideof stuff, you probably have to
change up your speeches quite abit now.
Is that?
Is that something that you do?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
oh, all the time, I mean honestly every.
Every time I get in front of anaudience, it's a custom job,
because not only does thecontent change itself, but the
audience has changed too.
So, depending on what audienceyou're speaking to, you have to
alter your presentation.
So those are just calledmodules.
You have a core of presentationthat everybody's going to
(06:30):
receive, that's what you'reknown for, that's what they're
bringing you in for, and thenyou just bring in this piece oh,
it's a customer servicedepartment, oh, it's a bunch of
internet marketing experts.
I mean, you have all thesedifferent modules that you bring
in, depending on who youraudience is man.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
That's phenomenal stuff right there, hey, one of
the things that I see about youyou're known nationwide and
worldwide for your speaking.
One of the things that I see is, like how did you get to that
place, man?
That doesn't start overnight.
What kind of little nuggets canyou drop for somebody that is
like man?
I really feel like I have agift for this, but I just don't
(07:10):
know how to take it from like Iwant to speak in front of people
.
To like I want to get paid.
To like I want to make this mycareer.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I think you do have tohave something about you that
you want to use.
There are a lot of skills thatwe're born with and we're raised
with and we come up with whenwe're kids and we recognize them
and develop them.
But there are some of thoseskills that people just kind of
push under the rug.
(07:39):
They don't use those skills andone of the things that I've had
my entire life that I didn'thave to learn was that I really
need to know the minute detailsof anything that I do, like
swinging a baseball bat, forexample.
I was a competitive baseballand softball coach for a number
(08:03):
of years when my kids weregrowing up and everything.
I had no idea how to hit a ball.
I mean, I remember when I was akid I had to swing a bat and
everything, but I had toactually dissect it into five
specific steps and analyze andwhat are all the nuances.
I do that with everything I doand I think that's a that's a
trait that I bring, because Ican go to any conference where
(08:25):
they're talking about some kindof a marketing strategy and
somebody will elbow me next tome and they'll say do you have
any idea what he said?
Because it seems like there's alot of holes in that process.
Yeah, here, let me show you howit works.
Here's step one two, three,four, five, six.
Wow, why aren't you on stage?
Is is I find out what all thelittle bitty steps are, and I
(09:10):
chaperone people through those.
Even when I'm on stage speaking, I'm chaperoning.
I'm not really giving apresentation in its traditional
sense.
I'm having my audience do whatthey've come to do.
So, right in the moment they'relike well, marty, I see I'm
supposed to do that on my cellphone, but I can't figure that
out.
Can you help me?
So I walk over to the personand we actually do it.
(09:31):
So this is experientiallearning.
That's the kind of presentingthat I work because, coming back
to your original question, I'vebeen doing that my whole life
is just dissecting every littleminute detail and going through
the actual steps.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Man, I love that.
One of the things that like andwe've been in several different
rooms together over the lastyear and one of the things that
I know when I come into likedifferent conferences or
different seminars is I don'treally know what unexpected
opportunities may come out ofthese things.
(10:06):
So can you give a couple ofcool examples that maybe one or
two that you've had in the pastjust by being in a room that you
didn't expect anything to comefrom it?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Absolutely.
Right now I'm really excitedabout an organization I joined
called Achieve Systems, andthey're based in Denver.
Actually, I've been here for along time and it just took a
long time for somebody tofinally convince me to go to the
conference.
But I finally did, and I wentto a second conference.
I had not joined theorganization yet, and then I
(10:40):
finally did, and once I did, Istarted getting introduced to
not just one person or a couple,but to many, and I think that's
really the key.
I'm going to Toronto in a coupleof weeks to speak on a stage.
I've never been to Toronto, butI'm going to be speaking on a
stage at a conference of someoneI met at Achieve.
(11:00):
So that's awesome.
I mean, that's how these thingswork.
Is you need to approach theconferences that you go to
thinking, who do I need to meet?
And in the case of a conference, if you are a speaker, the one
person you need to meet at everyconference you go to is the
person who's who planned theconference, who put it together,
(11:21):
who organized it.
And that's exactly what I did,because this person was
organizing this conference inCanada.
So I met that person and nowwe're.
You know, there's a whole bunchof magic that is happening based
on that relationship that juststarted a few months ago.
So it's real exciting how fastthings can happen like that.
(11:41):
But know who you need to meetwhen you go to a conference and
find the person that canintroduce you like.
But know who you need to meetwhen you go to a conference and
find the person that canintroduce you like you know I go
to conferences.
That's who I look for is who isthat one person that I can walk
up to that person and say Ineed to be introduced to a
person that does this.
Who should I talk to?
And then all of a sudden, thatconference organizer oh yeah, go
(12:04):
here, go here, go here, go here.
And all of a sudden your entireinvestment in that conference
is made back two, three, four orfive times in a matter of
minutes because you've beenintroduced to the right people.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Absolutely.
That's how we met.
We got I got introduced andthey're like you got to talk to
Marty, and so we we hit it off.
We had a great, greatconversation.
We've ended up having severalconversations since then and I I
just love your energy that youbring to, to what you present
and how you present it.
Uh, you, you're, um, you're,you're making a difference in in
(12:37):
your industry, in your genre,and I love what you're doing,
man well, I appreciate that youare too well, thank you, sir.
Appreciate that amazing mindsthink alike.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
That's how it works and really, ryan, we really need
to to put this message out topeople that it's not just about
how many people you meet.
You need to not just meet eventhe right people.
The key is developing deep,lifelong relationships with
(13:08):
people who are just like you.
I mean, if you are a highachiever, you've got to hang out
with other high achievers thatmight even be a little bit
achieving a little higher thanyou are, even because you're
going to play up at that level,and those are the people that
you want to spend time with.
Take them out to dinner.
Laura from Canada.
(13:29):
She is putting together thisconference.
She was in Denver this pastweek, so I said great, let's get
together.
For the afternoon I drove herdown to Colorado Springs where
she had another meeting.
I took her out for a steakdinner.
I mean, that's the kind ofthings that should be done
between people who are trying tobuild relationships that are
lifelong and can really make animpact in your business.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Oh, I agree a hundred percent and you know it's like
you have I kind of relate it tolike different circles.
You have your very close circleof people that you can trust on
the daily basis of stuff, andthen a little larger are the
people that you probably talk toon like a couple every other
week, maybe every month, maybeevery six weeks, and then maybe
(14:11):
like the people you talk to acouple of times a year.
But even still in those groupspeople can come in and out of
those circles.
But it still makes a real bigimpact on how you're.
You know whether it's justsending a text message and
checking in on them, seeing howthey're doing, because you never
know what can happen just fromthose little messages.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Oh, yeah, and it reminds me of, I mean, even
going back to Think and GrowRich days with Napoleon Hill.
He talks about creating amastermind group.
Right, a mastermind groupdoesn't have to be a lot of
people, it can just be two,three, four people at a time.
To be a lot of people, it canjust be two, three, four people
at a time.
But when you start getting intoa community where you have a
lot of people that are thinkingall in the same alignment, it
(14:53):
really turns into having a giantmastermind group to draw from.
And now imagine that you takethat concept and you start
building your own community orbuild a sub community within the
community that you're in.
I mean, this is the time thatwe're in now and I think this
has been the strongest justsince COVID, when things started
(15:14):
opening up again and werealized how alone we were
during the COVID shutdown.
When things did finally open upagain, we realized how much we
needed people, we neededcommunity.
So the technique now, thestrategy now depending on how
you want to use that word is toeventually build your own
(15:35):
community so that you areleading a cause of your own.
And that's why I startedSpeakers Speak Group, because
speakers need a place where theycan hang out with other
speakers.
I mean, there's nobody in theworld that understands the
speaking business except forother speakers.
You have to do this kind ofwork to actually understand it,
(15:57):
and we all need to hang outtogether.
We need to be able to go toeach other and voice a problem
that we're having, get ideasfrom people, try new material,
and that's where Speakers SpeakLive came into play, because we
all need it.
We all recognize the need forus to be able to keep our chops
up and have a place to practiceand get suggestions from people
(16:18):
for how we can improve, andSpeakers Speak Live was born.
So I think what you'll find is,as you find a community that you
fit in well with and you seehow it's growing, like Achieve,
that's a good example.
What's going to happen isyou're going to start thinking
now, what kind of a communitycould I start building?
And then, what does mycommunity really need that I can
(16:42):
continue to support them with?
It's exactly how SpeakerSpeakGroup and SpeakerSpeak Live came
to be, and now we havesomething new with Achieve
Speakers Live.
So I've brought it full circleand now I'm giving back to that
community for what they'vehelped me to build.
So I just think it all comesback to that community aspect
(17:02):
and it's a real powerfulstrategy going forward for any
business owner.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
That's fantastic, and the thing that it kind of I'm
going to kind of relate this tois like in in speaker and in
speaking, a lot of times whenyou're just getting started,
you're a solopreneur, you'retrying to do everything at one
time in those type ofenvironments.
But what you're building,you're telling and you're
telling our audience, this isyou.
You can almost build your owncultural team behind you to help
(17:31):
you grow, because, uh, so manytimes solopreneurs just get
stuck.
They, they don't have thoseresources or those those people
bounce ideas off of to take itto another level.
So now, what you're buildingthere?
It sounds like you have theability to help people get out
of their own way.
Would you agree on that?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Absolutely.
I mean, you brought up workingalone.
That brings back memoriesbecause I just remember back in
the corporate world.
I mean I was a corporate salesguy.
I was traveling around thecountry selling accounting
software the three things that Inever wanted to do.
I didn't want to be a travelingsalesman.
(18:12):
I didn't want to have anythingto do with accounting, so I
hated accounting in college.
And I certainly didn't want tohave anything to do with
computers, because I'm not atechnical person.
I'm the guy that would hold upour class.
The, the teacher would would,you would give us all these
commands and they'd say, okay,everybody hit the print key and
everybody's project would print,and mine would get stuck
(18:33):
somehow and we'd spent all therest of the class trying to
figure it out.
It.
It was so annoying.
So there I found myself flyingaround the country selling
accounting software of allthings, and I really wanted to
get out of that because, oh,corporate America.
And so I started a business onthe side, and it was just me.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Ooh the holy grail, it was just me.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I was a solopreneur.
Well, that took about a monthto realize that was not the way
to do it.
I needed help.
I needed to start building ateam.
I actually brought in a partnerso that we could put what I was
doing offline onto the internet.
And that is where things gotvery exciting.
And on the day that I wasactually offered a promotion at
(19:18):
work six months later I resignedbecause my website was doing so
well and that became that was1996.
That was a long time ago, butit just goes to show that if you
really want to make progress,it's really difficult to do
everything all alone.
I mean I realized I had to getreally good at like 50 different
(19:38):
things within a week.
And how do you do that?
I mean, I'm not good at maybeone or two things, but
everything else I had to learnand hire people and build a team
with and even get volunteers tohelp with.
So there's a lot of requirementthat has to happen.
You have to learn a lot andit's very hard to do everything
(20:01):
yourself.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Man and, and that kind of segues a little bit into
this next question, becauseit's like understanding how to
leverage, understanding how todelegate, and there are times
when you definitely need people.
But do you feel like technologyhas helped you with some of
that stuff as well, being ableto, you know, ease the load off
of your plate a little bitutilizing technology?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Well, now that I've forced myself to become
technical?
Yes, because I can actuallystart exploring things that are
more technical than I would haveever looked at before.
But it was such a learningprocess probably three times as
long for me to be able to accepttechnology than most people.
(20:44):
But with AI, the beauty of AIis that for a lot of its
applications, you don't have tobe as technical as you think you
need to be.
What you have to be able to dois create in your mind what you
actually want.
It's kind of like going to adesigner and the designer says
well, what would you like me todesign for you?
(21:06):
And you say, oh, I don't know.
Just go make me a million bucks, just make a great design for
me.
That's not going to get youvery far, but if you flip that
just a little bit and you wantto come up with a book title,
for example, you can use AItools to, say, list 20
(21:27):
best-selling book titles thathave never been used, that
include business ownership andthree steps to do something.
Fill in the blank, so you canenvision in your mind what you
really want for a result andjust plug that in and get all
kinds of ideas to use, andthat's where something
(21:50):
technology-wise has bridged thegap where people like me, who
are genuinely not technical, canstill use technology to move
forward in a very fast andcompetitive way.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
I love that man.
I love that Real quick, as westart to wrap this up a little
bit, what's one piece of wisdomyou wish you knew earlier in
your journey that you know now.
That was kind of like the lightswitch went on.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
That people don't hire you because of the outcome
you're able to provide.
I have been taught that foryears and years and years.
You always hear sell theoutcome, sell the outcome, not
your features.
You try to sell the benefitsright, but the key is that
(22:47):
people buy from you specificallybecause you are the keeper of
the method that brings thatsuccess the keeper of the method
that brings that success.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
That is.
That's some dope stuff rightthere.
I love what you just said, man,that is it really hits home
because a lot of people thatthat they they have to, they
have to believe in themselves,because so many times it's you
that gets you in the door andyou know that they're going to
buy from you, whatever theproduct is.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, I mean, I talk to people at least every week.
I talked to someone that has.
It's a surprise to them when Isay to them so you own this
business, right?
No, yeah, I own this business.
Are you the best in the worldat providing this business,
right?
No, yeah, I own this business.
Are you the best in the worldat providing this business?
Well, I don't know about that.
(23:40):
What do you mean?
You're not.
Of course you are.
Of course you're the best, andnobody does your business
exactly the way that you do it.
Right, you are the keeper of themost amazing method.
I even call it somethingspecific.
I call it your genuine expertmethod.
And if you look at the acronymof that, gem, it's that that
(24:02):
people are willing to pay for tosee you on stage, to buy your
book, to hire you for consulting, for services.
It all comes back to your gem.
So if I was to do somethingdifferent way back in the day, I
would have figured out step onewhat is my process, my genuine
expert method that nobody elsedoes but I do.
(24:25):
Nobody has the stories like Ido, nobody has the experiences
like I do, and the same goes foryou.
Everybody has that genuineexpert method inside them, even
if only that gem is that youhave stayed alive as long as you
have I mean, nobody has livedyour life the way that you have.
(24:47):
You have an expert methodinside you for how you've
survived all the possibilitiesthat could have taken you out,
but no, you are a survivor.
So use that same concept andapply that to your business and
come up with your genuine expertmethod.
It's what people want to buy.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
And I'm telling you guys right now that are watching
this thing, that is worthexponentially so much more than
the free that we're giving itright now.
But Marty is just dropping somegolden nuggets today.
I love this man, marty.
I love the passion that youbring.
You know, it's like anytimethat you walk into a room you
talked about, are you the bestin the world?
(25:29):
Hell, yeah, I am.
I love the way that you operatein that way and you know,
that's the way that I walk intoa room too, and that's the way
that, if you're in business foryourself or running a company,
you have to have a little bit ofthat confidence, that
understanding of like what yourvalue proposition is, like
different than others.
That that's why people want tobe around you, that's why people
(25:50):
want to work with you.
That's the difference, in myopinion.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
And that's what keeps you in business for longevity.
I mean, I've been doing thisalmost 30 years and it's because
of that method that I stillfollow it.
I mean, ryan, I have notchanged that method, it's my
method.
When I bring in a client, I usethe same six steps every single
time, and all the tools havechanged, but the process hasn't
(26:18):
changed at all.
It's really amazing how when youfigure out what that genuine
expert method is.
It is what will give youlongevity in your business and
people will come to you foryears because you are the keeper
of that gem.
I just think it's a lost idea,it's a lost practice for people
to think, huh, I actually dohave a sequence that I take
(26:41):
every client through and that'swhy they're hiring me because
the sequence is so predictablethat it's going to have a
positive outcome.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Man, I would love it.
We could talk for hours, myfriend, but you know, I know
that you have a busy schedule.
We appreciate your time comingon Scaling Up Success today.
Is there anything you want toleave the audience with?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, I think if you are a business owner, you should
be using speaking to build yourbusiness and if you're not,
then I welcome you to joinSpeakers Speak Group on Facebook
.
You can go tospeakersspeakgroupcom.
That'll take you there and ifyou are using speaking to build
your business, great, you shouldjoin the same group and you
should also come to speakersspeak live and you can go to
(27:26):
speakerspeaklivecom to jointhere to be in our weekly zoom
event where we will showcase youas a speaker, and then, once we
see you speak, we can refer youto the stages that we are on.
So those two things togetherare a great way to get
introduced to me and then,ultimately, we can.
(27:47):
I'd love to get to know anyonethat is ready and willing to
find their gem and use speakingto build their business.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Love it, man, love it .
I can't wait to see you againin person.
My friend, always a pleasuregetting to be able to talk to
you.
Thank you so much for coming onthe Scaling Up Success podcast.
Thanks for having me All right.
Enjoy, have a great one.
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