September 19, 2024 • 51 mins
Ready to unlock the secrets of building an eight-figure speaking business? Join us as we sit down with Josh Shipp, an inspiring former at-risk foster kid turned celebrated youth advocate and speaker. With his incredible journey from adversity to success, Josh shares his expert insights on everything from booking speaking gigs and refining your presentation skills to scaling your business to monumental heights. You'll hear about his career milestones, including viral video success and major media appearances, and learn why some common myths, like the necessity of media kits, might not hold you back as much as you think.
Ever wondered what makes a demo video truly stand out? We'll guide you through the process of crafting the perfect demo video, spotlighting its crucial structure and elements. Discover why a strong introduction with a credibility montage, showcasing your best content, and authoritative testimonials are essential. Plus, we'll provide valuable advice on creating a compelling speech with a clear, impactful message, perfect for authors and speakers aiming to book more gigs and refine their presentations. This episode is packed with practical tools to help you elevate your speaking business.
Scaling your speaking business is no small feat, but Josh breaks it down with advanced strategies for securing referrals, rebooking engagements, and engaging with decision-makers effectively. Learn the importance of audience reactions, client feedback, and post-event surveys in measuring success and maximizing opportunities. We'll also discuss the benefits of partnering with reputable speaker bureaus and the significance of building an internal team for managing leads. Plus, elevate your speech presentation skills by drawing inspiration from renowned preachers. Tune in for actionable advice and inspiration from Josh Shipp to transform your speaking career.
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Here are some links that might come in handy:
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Must-watch episodes:
- SPS 044: Using A Free + Shipping Book Funnel with Anik Singal
- SPS 115: Using Atomic Habits To Write & Publish A Book with James Clear
- SPS 127: Traditional vs. Self Publishing: Which You Should Choose with Ruth Soukup
- SPS 095: The Five Love Languages: Selling 15 Million Copies with Gary Chapman
- SPS 056: How I Sold 46M Copies of My Self Published Book with Robert Kiyosaki
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, chandler Wohl.
Here and joining me today is MrJosh Shipp.
Josh is a personal friend.
He's one of the funniest peopleI've ever met in my life.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
And I'm not just saying that.
Here we go.
If you're not familiar with him, you may remember him back from
episode 27, if you can believehim, where we talked about
writing a timeless book thatsells over half a million copies
.
That is not what we're going tobe talking about today.
If you've never met Josh, he'sa former at-risk foster kid,
turned youth advocate andspeaker.
(00:38):
He's spoken over 2 millionpeople live.
He's got a viral video withover 50 million views which I
think my mom occasionally textsto me when she sees it.
That's sweet.
It's an awesome, awesome talk.
He's written multiple books,obviously, one of which we
talked about last time on theinterview.
He's been on Oprah.
(00:58):
He creates, I mean, greatcompanies.
He's created an incrediblecompany, multiple top U speakers
and U Speaker University.
He was kind enough to be, Ithink, if I'm not mistaken, the
first ever person to book me tospeak at an event.
Oh, here we go.
I mean so.
(01:19):
Always a place in my heart.
If it wasn't the first gig, itwas the first paid gig.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Oh, we're going to do a full net promoter score
breakdown of that performance.
I actually have the livefootage prepared.
Okay, let me share my screenChandler, Give me the control of
this Zoom I am taking over.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
It was tough.
It was tough, it was a learningexperience.
So the people said it went well.
I thought it went pretty poorly, I'm not going to lie, but hey,
you learn, you get out there.
And I thought it went prettypoorly, I'm not going to lie,
but hey, you learn, you get outthere and you improve.
So, josh, welcome, great tohave you here.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Thank you, good sir.
Thank you, it's great to bewith you.
Episode 26, huh.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
How many are we on now?
Oh my gosh, See you got to comeprepared.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Chandler, you know I do these gotcha questions.
You've got to come prepared.
What are you doing?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
We're like 270.
It looks like you're going tobe 278.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Okay, fantastic, I love it.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
A lot of episodes.
So, hey guys, today we're goingto be talking about booking
speaking gigs, growing as aspeaker and building an
eight-figure speaking business.
I'm going to go a little bit.
We're going to lay somegroundwork, some frameworks, et
cetera.
Obviously, we've talked aboutbooking speaking gigs a lot on
the podcast, so today I reallywant to go advanced and this is
(02:30):
a speaker 201 kind ofmasterclass.
So buckle up.
If you want to speak, if you'realready speaking or you want to
scale your speaking, this isthe guy and hopefully we can
learn a lot in this next littlebit.
So I guess I'll start a littlebit generic and broad, but then
we'll quickly ratchet it in here.
Josh Sounds good.
First off, why, speaking fromyour vantage point, why is it
(02:52):
something that authors should doand that entrepreneurs should
do to either sell more books orgrow their business?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, this is something I've been on both
sides of, both as a speakermyself and now as someone who's
a speaker agent.
I run a speaker agency.
So, as you mentioned my forayinto speaking you know I was a
foster kid to success story kindof went around sharing that
story to different schools andyouth organizations and
educators.
I did my postgrad in publicspeaking at Harvard and so the
(03:23):
first 10 years of my career wasbeing front of stage, did over
1,200 speaking gigs.
Books the book now sold over amillion copies on a bunch of
fancy media did a majortelevision show that was
executive produced by Oprah.
So everything that I sort ofwould hope and dream that would
happen from speaking happened,that I sort of would hope and
(03:47):
dream that would happen fromspeaking happened.
And then I sort of pivoted tobooking gigs for upcoming
speakers, for upcoming talent.
I looked this morning beforeour conversation.
We have booked today 5,170 paidspeaking gigs.
Now something I always want tobe very candid sort of overly
candid on where my expertiselies and where it doesn't.
(04:09):
So my expertise is booking gigsin front of audiences that are
either students or adults thatwork with students.
So some of these things that Iwill share I would say would be,
say, 70%, applicable to acorporate audience, to a
business audience.
You're going to need to do alittle bit of contextualization.
(04:31):
Not everything I say will be afair copy and paste, but I can
tell you speaking is such anaccelerant to getting your
message out there, to bookingmore gigs, to raising your
platform.
However, you've got to be verythoughtful and strategic.
Just like you teach about books, you've got to be very
(04:53):
strategic and thoughtful aboutevery single element that makes
up the speech the speech itself,the demo video of the speech,
and then how you go aboutbooking the gigs themselves.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So let's just jump straight into that.
This is one of the questions Ihad is media kits and speaker
demos.
I think there's two sides ofthe aisle.
Some people are like totallyworthless, just get in front of
a decision maker.
And some people would say, hey,this is the most important
thing you can do and this is howyou get in front of a decision
maker.
Where do you lie on that?
How important is it and how doyou make a good one?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Okay, so a media kit for booking speaking gigs.
My professional opinion, again,having booked 5,170 of them
that is the specific numbercompletely worthless, completely
waste of your time, distraction.
Now, if you're wanting to bookmedia appearances, podcast
(05:48):
appearances not my lane ofexpertise, but I would guess
that in that avenue, quitehelpful.
Our team, our agency, we did asurvey of over 1,000 decision
makers and we asked them one ofthe questions was how do you end
up making the decision on whichspeaker that you hire?
(06:08):
Now, over 60% of them answeredwith one of the following three
responses Either I saw themspeak in person, someone I trust
saw them speak and then emailedme, texted me, gave me a phone
call, said hey, you got to havethem at your event, at your
school, at your organization, orI saw a video of them speaking.
(06:32):
Now, I know at the onset yousaid this is a bit more of a 201
conversation, but let'sacknowledge the challenge.
If you're in a 101 situation,in the 101 situation, two out of
the three of thatdecision-making rubric you're
probably not going to have thebenefit of, you're not yet going
to be out there enough speakingwhere you can benefit from.
(06:54):
Either there's a decision-makersitting in your audience or
that decision-maker is one phonecall away from the
decision-maker, which then meansall the more even important for
the 101 or the 201, which isabsolutely nailing what I would
call a demo video, which isessentially sort of a movie
(07:15):
trailer of your speech.
Chandler, am I able to share myscreen?
I have a storyboard I'dactually like to show you.
I'd like to kind of break downwhat I would call sort of a
storyboard of a perfect demovideo.
So I'm going to paint whatwould be the ideal situation and
(07:38):
, of course, do the best withwhat you can.
But you just heard it in theevidence that and even with that
second category of person wesaid you know their one decision
, their one phone call away fromthe decision maker, even that
person is going to need to watchyour video.
Okay, so let me just give a realword example.
(07:58):
Let's say I'm sitting in anaudience watching Chandler speak
and I don't know him.
Now, if I'm the decision maker,I can sit in that audience, be
like hey, that was a greatmessage, it was practical.
I have an event, I am the soledecision maker, I can walk up to
him, introduce myself, get hisinformation and I have the
authority to book him from A toZ.
Now, if I'm one person away,that means I got to call my boss
(08:23):
and I got to say, hey, boss, Isaw this guy, I think he'd be
great for our people and theboss is going to go okay.
For the most part I trust Josh,but at the end of the day I'm
risking my reputation.
Listen to me very carefullyOver 5,000 gigs booked.
This has been a big unorthodoxepiphany that I've had, which is
(08:43):
, I used to think event plannerswere risking a check and sure,
to a certain part they are, butthey're really risking their
reputation.
I think about you, chandler.
You recently had the I forgetexactly what you call your event
, but the event where you bringtogether folks around
self-publishing.
Think about the reputationaldamage not only you would face
(09:05):
but also your brand would faceIf someone came in.
They were oversellsy or theyjust didn't really deliver much
value or they didn't stay onmessage.
So I imagine, even for you,chandler even maybe you wouldn't
articulate it that way you arebeing thoughtful and careful
about your brand's reputationand your own personal reputation
(09:26):
.
Do you think that's a fair casethat I'm making Very fair, yep,
okay.
So now let's circle back.
If I got to say to my boss, myboss, the first thing he's going
to do is Google the speaker Imentioned and want to see a
video.
Because if I come to him andsay and want to see a video,
because if I come to him and sayChandler was incredible, he's
(09:54):
going to want to see in thatvideo, oh, I agree, chandler
seems incredible.
Okay.
So even in that category ofdecision, kind of branching,
it's important.
So if you're watching onYouTube, you can probably see
this.
If not, I'll kind of JohnMadden it and talk you through
this.
So we're going to talk about,kind of the ideal setup for your
demo video.
(10:16):
Now, a couple of things aboutfilming your demo video that I
see 99% of speakerswell-intended get wrong.
Number one you need to micyourself.
Duh, you know that.
You also need to mic youraudience.
Okay, if you watch any comedyspecial and you pause certain
(10:37):
moments, you will notice thatthey have what are known as
shotgun mics pointing at theaudience, have what are known as
shotgun mics pointing at theaudience, and that is so that
they can have a separate feed.
That's capturing laughter,applause breaks, let's say it's
like a comedian that works dirty, those groans that you get from
an audience.
(10:57):
It's kind of quite satisfyingpart of the back and forth of
the comedian.
This is so crucial for you as aspeaker because, as a decision
maker watching that, I want toknow okay, if he tells a joke,
do I see that audience, justlike right there with him?
(11:18):
If she makes a key point, do Ihear that?
So that is really key becauseotherwise you'll have those key
moments you don't hear it fromthe audience and as a decision
maker, I go oh, they thinkthey're funny, the audience
doesn't.
Oh, they think they're clever,the audience doesn't.
All right, so that's anunorthodox thing, easy to miss.
(11:38):
Another one know in advancewhere you're going to film, what
the background will be andtherefore what sort of clothing
you're going to wear.
I've seen a lot of speakers.
They're in front of a bluestage, they wear a blue shirt,
difficult to see them.
You're so excited to film thevideo, you hired a videographer.
(11:59):
Don't screw it up with that.
Two other things here don'tscrew it up with that.
Two other things here Any keystatements you have in your
speech if the day of yourfilming, you fumble upon these
words.
So, for example, if I wasfilming a talk, I speak to
(12:25):
adults that work with students.
One of my key lines is everykid is one caring adult.
Away from being a success story, let's say I accidentally kind
of flubbed a line.
Well, that is such a key line Iknow needs to be in my video,
though it would be a bit awkwardin front of the live audience,
I'm just going to pause and,almost out of emphasis, I'm
going to repeat it again so Iget a clean take.
(12:46):
It'll be slightly awkward forthe in-person audience.
You can kind of play it off asI need to hammer this into your
head, but it's crucial for yourvideo.
And then, lastly, before we getinto the storyboard, let me
paint the ideal scenario ofwhere to capture your talk.
Ideal scenario this is the wishlist In an auditorium or
(13:15):
theater, like a nice venue,where the capacity is quite full
, meaning 300 seat auditorium,300 bodies in the room, not a
300 seat auditorium with 85people in the room.
Not a 300-seat auditorium with85 people in the room, because
(13:53):
if again, your perceptiondetermines your reception.
So if I'm a decision makerwatching that video and I see
tons of empty seats that's goingto 3% kind of ding you in my
mind of like, oh there's, theremust not be something
particularly compelling abouther content, about this
individual's message, and,ideally, if you can do two
back-to-back speeches.
So, for example, you know again, I work with schools, so I
often have this luxury settingup one of my speakers hey, it's
an 800 person, 800 studentschool, 400 person auditorium.
We're going to do twoback-to-back, we're going to do
grades 9 and 12, then 11 and 12,because then you get two takes
(14:13):
of everything.
Okay, so those are someunorthodox things that are
pretty easy to miss.
Now let's go through thestoryboard.
You've filmed your full hourkeynote.
Go through this storyboard.
You've filmed your full hourkeynote.
How do you direct your editor?
(14:34):
I see so many speakers go well,I need a higher quality
videographer.
You do, and then I'm just goingto trust them with the edit.
You are an idiot.
Don't do that.
Do not do that.
You are the director of thisfilm.
The videographer is yourdirector of photography, that's
it.
Their job is to make it lookgood.
The video sound good, the audiosound good.
(14:55):
You know your audience.
You know your decision makers,you know your message.
You are not going to leave itup to chance for them to control
your trailer.
You need to.
So four components.
I would say the ideal lengthand, chandler, feel free to jump
in here, interrupt me any ofthat, troll me, whatever you
(15:16):
need to do, okay, the idealvideo, I'd say, is about five
minutes in length.
In the introduction, 15 seconds.
This is where you can have amontage of things to build
credibility.
So if you've been on GoodMorning America or whatever you
could have again, just spend 15seconds a montage of those clips
(15:39):
.
She's been everywhere.
Look at the authority, thecredibility, look at all these
still images of different typesof stages and groups she's
speaking in front of.
And then component two you needthree to four minutes, very
lightly edited, of your mostA-plus, phenomenal content.
(16:02):
This is the key and the mostimportant part of your video.
Again, they're risking theirreputation.
You need to show me the thunder, you need to bring the heat
immediately.
So literally starting at minute16.
(16:24):
As a decision maker, I should befreaking, inspired, taking
notes, emotionally, moved bywhat I am seeing in front of me
your very, very best content.
Now you might you knowskepticisms I hear here.
Well, if I put the best stuff,why are they going to book me?
This is not your audiencewatching this video.
(16:47):
This is that decision maker,that sole person backstage
somewhere that has the authorityto put you in front of the 500.
This isn't going to spoil yourspeech.
This isn't you know.
So you need your best stuff inhere.
It doesn't have to bechronological, it doesn't have
to be a logical through line.
(17:08):
We've seen movies, trailers andyou go oh, that part in the
trailer.
It seemed like it was the startof the film, but actually
that's towards the end cuts.
Otherwise, they think that youcan't hold the audience for long
periods of time uninterruptedand keep them engaged.
Uh, you know.
(17:29):
So now we're sitting at aboutthree minutes and 15 seconds to
four minutes and 15 seconds inyour five minute video.
Next movement we're going topull in some testimonials.
Now, your, your instinct heremight be let me interview people
in the audience.
No, okay, remember you mic theaudience.
(17:50):
Remember you have B-roll of theaudience.
So I see them laughing.
I heard them clapping.
I see them clapping.
I get that they were bought in.
Okay, what I need to hear fromis another person like me, the
decision maker, who risked theirreputation, the impact of their
event and that check to bringyou in and that it was a
(18:13):
phenomenal experience.
So we want to hear directlyfrom that person.
That is a sort of archetyped Ithink would be the right word of
the typical person that booksyou.
Okay, so let's take it back tomy world.
A lot of our speakers work withK through 12 schools.
(18:34):
So I don't want to hear fromthe 11th grader that he thought
it was hilarious or moving, andI don't even want to hear from
the English teacher, though nodoubt she's terrific.
I want to hear from thesuperintendent, the principal or
the assistant principal.
That is largely our decisionmaker, our customer.
(18:55):
I want to hear from that ladywith the PhD and the suit, and I
want to hear her get hyperbolicand say I've been in education
for 20 years, we've had a lot offolks, but let me tell you,
okay.
And then lastly and this is justkind of a 15 second bookend,
just a conclusion of this couldbe kind of shaking hands,
(19:20):
kissing babies, signing books,these sorts of things, and then,
just, you know, I like to havea clear tagline here of who you,
of your name and what it isthat you do.
So, for example, it might besomething like you know, I'm
Josh Shipp and I inspire adultsto understand the power of one
caring adult, something likethat.
So that's kind of thestoryboard and the breakdown of
(19:41):
an ideal demo video.
Chandler, maybe any questionsyou have about contextualizing.
I'm more coming from theeducation world.
You're more so coming from thebusiness world.
Is there anything in here youwould push back on or you would
go?
Maybe that doesn't work in abusiness context, or any
question you might have of howto contextualize it to a
(20:01):
business context.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
No, I like it a lot.
I think this is really good.
I'm taking notes over here forhow I level up my demo video.
So let's maybe go.
Let's go.
I see we've got this other taband I'm sure this is a question
You're getting distracted withmy open tabs.
my man, yeah the open tab, thespeech template.
I want to maybe take 30 secondson the structure of the speech
(20:26):
itself, and then I want to gointo booking gigs, both first
gigs for authors and then beyondthat, and we'll do a little
case study.
Okay, you're going to have totase me.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
if you're talking about 30 seconds to the ideal
speech, all right, I'm going tofirst give a quick soapbox
sermon and then you start this30-second clock.
If you start the 30-secondclock now, I will punch you.
Okay, chandler, don't start iton me.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Is this going to be a screen share, or can we
unscreen share for this?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Here's the big takeaway.
Let me give you the top fivemost important things in order
to building a successfulspeaking business Ready.
Number one your speech.
Number two your speech.
Number three, your speech.
Number four, the demo video ofyour speech.
And number five, your leadgeneration to decision makers.
Listen, there are a lot.
It is way easier and there area lot of courses and programs
and gurus that are incentivizedto get you to focus on the
marketing aspect a bit too early.
And there are a lot of greatcourses out there, but some of
them you might want to questionwhy they're getting you to do
that a little prematurely or, asa speaker, why they're getting
(21:47):
you to do that a littleprematurely.
Or as a speaker, it is athousand times psychologically
easier for me to send a coldemail or heck, even, a cold
phone call than to do theinternal excruciating creative
work, and sometimes you bringpersonal baggage on stage.
So you're trying to beinspiring but your bitterness is
leaking out.
I'm telling you the top threemost important parts are getting
(22:12):
your speech right, because Itold you, the number four is the
demo video, but the better yourspeech is, the better your demo
video is going to be.
So then when you start doinglead generation and you say, hey
, could I speak at your event?
Take a look at this video, thenthat video that they see is
going to be all the much betterbecause you did the
excruciatingly horrific,terrible work of making your
(22:37):
speech phenomenal.
Now we start the 30-secondclock.
Here's to me kind of theelements of a phenomenal speech.
I always like to number one, bevery clear about who my audience
is, what my topic is and whatis my message in one sentence.
So again, for me it'd be everykid is one caring adult away
from being a success story.
(22:58):
Then I have that as a NorthStar to make sure.
Does my introduction point tothat?
Do my main points point to that?
Does my conclusion point tothat?
In the introduction, this canbe about 10% of your speech.
I like to think of this as me,we, you, me first grabbing their
attention.
This is often self-deprecatingor throwing yourself under the
(23:19):
bus for the good of youraudience, telling them how this
was a challenge for you.
You figured something out, yourturning point, okay.
Next, we it's important.
I see so many folks.
You know I go around.
When I spoke to students I wentaround telling my kind of foster
kid story.
Well, if I'm speaking to 500kids, not every kid is a foster
(23:40):
kid.
So this we moment.
You have to shift and show themhow is my really specific story
also relevant to you, even ifyou're not in foster care and
you don't know anybody in fostercare.
And with this you need to proveit with data, not more
anecdotes.
So you need to say you knowwhat this percentage of people
(24:02):
blah, blah, blah.
You know either maybe theyhaven't been abandoned by their
parents, like I was, but theyfeel abandoned and alone.
And then you start shiftingtowards you and this is where
you kind of tease what your mainpoints are.
Hey, here's what I'm going towalk you through today, because
this is not just about my soppyfoster kid story.
I'm going to tell you one, twoand three.
(24:23):
Those become mile markers forthe audience so that they know
where they are in your message.
Imagine when you pull up GoogleMaps and you type in a
destination.
At first.
It gives you that overhead view.
You see the line.
It kind of gives you anestimation of the length of time
.
You see the bird's eye view ofwhere you're headed.
That's what that is.
So before you hit start, you getinto the depth, the turn by
(24:45):
turn of the message.
I want to know where I am inyour message at all times, and
so you do that by just teasing.
In one sentence we're going totalk about watermelon,
strawberries and grapes.
First, let's get intowatermelon, okay, and now you
get into your main points.
This is 70 80 percent of yourspeech.
Uh, here I just think problem,here's the story.
(25:09):
Solution, here's what I figuredout.
Advice here's the advicevalidated by research, don't
just be anecdotal.
And then action here'ssomething you can specifically,
uh, pragmatically do toimplement the advice that I gave
you.
All right, so you wash andrepeat that for your main points
.
The conclusion quicklysummarize the main points you
(25:32):
visualize.
Imagine what's going to happenif you do what I say or don't do
what I say.
So you can cast the optimisticpoint of view.
Or in some points, you need tokind of sober the audience.
Or in some points you need tokind of sober the audience and
kind of spook them and scarethem a little bit.
Right here I like to thank theperson that hired me and then if
I have something to pitch Idon't always in my context I'm
(25:55):
going to pitch it right there.
You know, if I've got an hourspeech, I'm doing a pitch at the
55 minute point Because by thatpoint I've just blown their
minds for 55 minutes.
So I have absolute authorityand credibility.
I don't got to do any NLPnonsense or trickery to get them
to buy whatever it is that Iwant them to buy, because I've
(26:15):
delivered honest to goodnessvalue and whatever I'm going to
pitch is incredibly on pointwith whatever my message was.
But I don't end with the pitch.
Then I need, like I like, toend with like sort of an
uplifting, heartwarming story sothat I know that was 30 seconds
, Chandler.
I know it was Maybeinflationary and an inflationary
(26:37):
30.
We are in an inflationaryenvironment.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
That's good.
I love this.
This is super josh.
Um, uh, if you don't mind,unshare your screen.
Yep, guys, if you're watching,um, if you're listening to this
on the podcast, obviously, um,you can see this on the podcast
or you're just going to hear it.
But if you want to see thevideo version, go to the youtube
channel.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
You can see all the visuals and the chat and you
want to see chandler's smile,this, the smile club direct
model that he is.
You want to see that okaythat's also on the youtube
channel that is.
I mean, come on, get yourmoney's worth.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
People so we got our demo, we got our speaking
structure, uh, so that we'redelivering a great talk.
Let's talk about booking yourfirst gigs, especially so for
our authors out there who arelooking to book their first gigs
, or even non-authors, and Iwant to zero in on that for just
a second.
But then I want to go advancedand go really scaling.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yeah.
So if you're a newbie, yourfirst 50 gigs are going to be a
thousand times harder to bookthan your next 500, because you
don't have word of mouth.
Almost no one's seen you speakin person, you don't have any of
that spinoff.
You probably don't have a videoyet because you don't got a
venue to pitch it in.
(27:52):
So two things to do to bookyour first handful of gigs.
I mean first you should do somepractice gigs at like stuff
that you can get up and speakfor free in your local community
.
So Toastmasters, local church,like hey, can I speak to your
youth?
If the message is appropriate,anything free where there's a
gathering of 10 or more peopledoesn't matter.
(28:14):
I would argue you could even golive on social media to begin
to kind of work out the kinks ofyour message.
So you're ready to eventuallyfilm a thing, those first 10
gigs.
Two things.
Number one it needs to be.
You don't have speakingcredibility yet, but you
probably have reputationalcredibility.
So your first 10 gigs have tobe most likely someone local and
(28:37):
someone that already knows,likes and trusts you.
So that's the pond you'refishing out of.
It's admittedly going to bequite a small pond, but that is
the only pond you should befishing out of for your first 10
gigs.
If you try to go wide tooquickly, you're going to be
discouraged and you're going togo to folks prematurely when you
should have waited until youhad your ducks in a row.
(28:58):
Now what do you send thosefolks?
Just because I know Chandler andI don't yet have a video
doesn't mean I should be sloppyabout the way that I approach
him and say hey, could I be onyour podcast or your next author
event?
In lieu of a demo video, Iwould put together a beautiful,
thoughtful one page PDF.
(29:19):
That is a bit of an outline ofa message I'm thinking about.
That's hyper contextualized tohis audience.
You know like hey, I know youhave an author event, I know you
got great folks on this.
Here's a very specific aspectof kind of the speaking industry
that I could cover.
Here would be my main points.
You know, actually, here's sortof a resource I've doodled up
(29:41):
for folks and pitch it hypercontextualized.
So this is not a one page.
I'm blasting out to a bunch ofdifferent people and kind of
hoping and praying that it works.
I'm going to, you know, doesthis person know me?
Do they like me, do they trustme?
And then can I have athoughtful overture.
Speaking is all aboutpersuasion, right, because
(30:04):
Chandler risks his reputationand a check.
If he was paying me.
You're not going to get paidthe first 10 gigs before he
knows if I'm any good.
Right, he would book me for hisevent today, september, but his
event might not be happeninguntil January, so he's not going
to know until January whetheror not he made a good decision.
So anything I can do throughthis PDF to be like bro, I'm
(30:25):
coming in hot, the oven ispreheated.
I have thought through exactlyhow I'm going to deliver value.
I'm not just being sloppy andsay, hey, you know me, like, put
me on your stage, like, look, Ihave done the work.
Here's what I want to share toyour people that even by reading
that PDF, you're going to go.
Oh yeah, yeah, this is a gap inour conference and I think this
(30:47):
would deliver value.
You do that.
You do that well, you can bookyour first 10 gigs.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
That's really good, super solid advice.
Now let's fast forward.
Hey, we've got our first gigsbooked.
I'd love to ask about.
Well, actually, first I'll aska specific question on referrals
yes, any thoughts on?
Uh, once you know, once you'vestarted doing your first gigs, I
would assume that referrals arecause I love that framework
(31:14):
earlier.
Uh, you know, 60% of folks saidI saw them speak, someone I
trust saw them speak or I saw avideo of them speaking.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
So it seems like referrals.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
speaking actually getting out there and speak and
then the demo video are thethree big ways to book, so I
would assume that that's thebest way to scale up from the
start.
Any tips on getting referralsto other meeting planners or
people who can book you?
Speaker 2 (31:37):
So when you say referrals, do you mean kind of
shaking the tree from theaudience of 500 people or
circling back to that singledecision maker and trying to get
them to introduce you to two orthree others?
Which specifically are youasking about?
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Circling back to that decision maker.
I'm assuming that's mosteffective, but correct me if I'm
wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah Well, two things .
The audience that's going totake care of itself.
Again, if, if you crush it andyou know how how do you know?
If you're crushing it?
You know, I would say like astanding ovation tends to be
sort of false evidence.
That tends to be more aboutyour ability to kind of
emotionally regulate a rollercoaster of a crescendo towards
(32:19):
the end of your speech.
You know, if your client useshyperbolic language best ever
been doing this for 10 yearspeople were hounding me about
how amazing you were.
Do you have offers on site?
Do you have people chasing youdown on site, giving you their
business card, their information, telling you about their event?
That's when you know in the netpromoter score, you know seven
(32:44):
or eight, right, they don't moveBelow seven.
They spread bad informationabout you.
Nine to 10, they, on yourbehalf, spread the word.
This is how you know that.
And then also, do you have theBeatles effect?
Do you have a line of peoplewanting to buy your book, get
you to sign the book, take aselfie, ask you a question?
If you have those sorts ofthings happening, you know
(33:06):
you're crushing it.
Now, getting that referralspecifically from the person
Well, I'm sorry.
Let me say one more thing aboutthe audience.
I would say at that 55-minutemark.
So if your goal at an event isto get more gigs not necessarily
to sell a book, but if it isspecifically to get more gigs,
at that 55-minute mark I wouldsay, hey.
(33:28):
I imagine there are a handfulof you in here who have the
authority or are planning yourown event.
That's one of my goals.
If that's something that wouldbe helpful to you, this message,
come forward With these folks.
I don't like to do the QR code,scan this, fill out a form.
Again, they're risking theirreputation.
You're going to be workingintimately with them anyway.
(33:49):
I want them to come forward,give me their information and I
will kind of track them down.
Now, circling back to thatdecision maker, it's next to
impossible to do this on thefront end of the booking Because
, again, the event hasn'thappened.
They don't know if you're goingto blow their mind or not.
So what we do at this is a scaleso this is a bit more 201, is
(34:13):
that we have a four questionsurvey that goes out the day
after the event.
So timing is very importantBecause if that person is on a
high from your talk.
They're going to be on a highvery quickly after that event.
So a survey goes out and if onthat survey they rate the speech
(34:35):
a nine or a 10, we do twothings.
Number one, we generate adiscount code to book another
speech within the next sixmonths with either the same
speaker or one of our otherspeakers.
And then secondly, we ask foran introduction at that point.
(34:56):
Okay, so if someone rates nineor 10, the goal there is get
more business.
If they rate seven or eight,our goal is not to try to get
more business, it's to learnwhat didn't go well.
What kind of underwhelmed you.
So I'm not trying to resellthat person.
If it's a six or under and outof our 1,200 gigs a year, I
would say we have five or six ofthese we refund them, we give
(35:19):
them the money back.
We say we wanted this to beyour best speaker ever.
That didn't happen from yourperspective.
Here's your money back.
I hope you trust us again inthe future.
Okay, so that's kind of thethree categories of people and
that's based on the data and theevidence within the net
promoter score.
Now a bit more analog you willnotice, if you murder on stage,
(35:42):
that person that brought you.
They're going to chase you downwithin a half hour of your
speech.
And then I go oh my gosh, thatyou know.
We thought you were going to begood, but that, my goodness, at
that point you start going hey,that means the world to me.
How often do you guys have thisevent?
Is it always the same?
Then you can start to.
(36:03):
Then they are basically sayingwell, for the love of God, would
you please resell me?
Would you please resell me?
So if that happens, I try tobegin to seed that conversation
Again.
That's not being manipulative.
It's like they risked theirreputation I murdered.
Now they're circling back andsaying please, how can we engage
(36:25):
you more?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Cool man, so good, I got about 40 questions left.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Perfect, no problem, we're running low on time 40
questions, 30 seconds.
You selfish, son of a gun.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
I'm going to go a quick case study because I got
to get this in.
Yeah, so we've talked some inprivate about, you know, scaling
up our speaking.
Yes, you probably speak at, Idon't know, 30 to 40 gigs a year
, maybe a little bit more as anorganization.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
How many speakers is that total that would do those
30 to 40 gigs a year, maybe alittle bit more as an
organization.
How many speakers is that totalthat would do those 30 to 40?
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I'd say about five, okay, and so 10 or 15 of those
are me, and then the rest arespread out across our speaking
team.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
I'm going to interrupt you frequently here.
Do you determine who goes towhich gig or certain gigs are
like we don't want Chandler Jr,we just want Chandler.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
We determine it typically.
Yeah, there will certainly besome events like that.
I would say most frequently wedetermine it though, roger that,
and so I guess my big questionwould be, if you were us and
I've got a bunch of specificquestions around this, I doubt
we have time to get to most ofthem but how would you approach
(37:39):
scaling up those gigs?
Both I I look at thisseparately maybe.
Maybe that's the wrong way tolook at it, but okay, because I
feel like I was doing maybe 20,30, 40 gigs a year.
I'm like, all right, I want tonarrow that way back, but now
I'm at a point where, okay, I'mI'm down to do a lot more for
bigger audiences, which I thinkthose opportunities are there,
but I haven't been superstrategic about all the stuff
(38:02):
you're saying and reallypositioning myself as a speaker.
So it's almost like doing alittle bit of a reset.
So, anyways, back to thequestion how would you look at
me booking more gigs for mespecifically and booking more
gigs for our speaking team?
Like?
What would your approach be?
What would you focus on thatsort of thing?
Speaker 2 (38:19):
How many gigs a year would be ideal for you to do?
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I would say probably 10 to 15,.
Well, maybe, maybe up to 15 or20.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, if they're the right gigs.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Unlimited if they're in the Texas area or like Austin
, dallas, houston.
So like I've got kind of likethat localized event approach
that my team's kind of workingUnderstood Obviously the big
national events.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Understood, okay.
So if your answer to thatquestion was you know 30, 40, 50
or more, then I would branchyou towards.
Your goal should be getting onwith different speakers bureaus,
okay, and I'm going partiallydown this road because I imagine
there are a few people that arethinking, yeah, I would like to
(39:03):
do 30 to 40 to 50.
So with those folks, instead ofyou trying to pitch yourself to
the indecision maker, your goalshould be to pitch yourself to
the two dozen reputable speakersbureaus out there.
Close a certain percentage ofthe reputable ones, be picky
there.
There are some shady ones outthere.
If you're not intimidated bythe other speakers on the bureau
(39:24):
, then you should probably justexit that website and look
elsewhere, but thoughtfully tryto get them on board.
Because when we talk about thatreputational risk, particularly
in the corporate and businessworld now this is anecdotal
Again, I'm not an expert in thecorporate space, so only trust
what I'm about to say 70%.
But my understanding there isthat in the corporate world,
(39:48):
bigger budgets, even higher riskreputationally, I would argue
they're often less open toindividual speakers, pitching
them or kind of pursuingindividual speakers, and instead
they have a handful of bureausthey work with.
They've had longstandingrelationships with and they just
go.
Hey, the last folks you sent us, you know, michelle Poehler,
(40:08):
kyle Shealy they killed it forus.
Who should we have this year?
You know, give us a half dozennames and we'll choose a few.
So, chandler, if your answerwas 24 more gigs, then I would
say you need to go the bureauroute, earn those folks' trust.
And if you go that route, itcan't be what I understand the
(40:29):
current model is, which, to you,the importance is getting
self-publishing out there, doinga pitch, these sorts of things.
That's not how those bureausare paid.
That's not how those agents atbureaus are paid For them.
It's about the check at the gig.
So, even though that's not yourpriority, you would need to
(40:50):
make that your priority for atleast booking that gig Now,
because it's a hired gig.
Not all of those gigs wouldallow you to pitch and again,
that could be something you sayhey, I need to know in advance,
because you're the $20,000 check.
I mean I'll take it, but Ireally want to be able to
appropriately pitch at the eventand if they're not going to
allow it, then I'll just bow outahead of time.
(41:13):
Now for your situation.
You said 15 or so I would sayyou need to set up teams and
processes of probably one to twopeople to do this in-house,
because 15 gigs a year andyou're going to need to be kind
of picky, like turning down the$20,000 check because they won't
(41:35):
let you pitch, that's going toirritate a bureau.
Bureaus aren't going to be onboard for that, even if they're.
Like.
This guy does a good job.
I like him, I like his profile,the ink stuff, the business
he's built, but there wouldn'tbe enough meat on the bone for
those bureaus to kind of quotewaste website space or proposal
(41:56):
space pitching you.
So I think you need an internalteam that can go after leads, go
after events, target the idealevents.
And then the good news is, ifyou were working with a bureau
and they didn't want to book you, they're going to book one of
their other reputable speakers.
With your situation, you canuse Chandler as the bait, right?
(42:20):
And then the branching logicbecomes is this a perfect event
for Chandler?
If so, let's move forward withChandler.
If not, let's downsell one ofour other speakers.
But I wouldn't lead with theother speakers because you're
going to have kind of the mostshiny reputation and stuff that
will grab attention.
Um, you know, and then we can.
(42:41):
You can focus just on havingone killer demo video putting
your profile out there and then,if it's not a fit for you, uh
pitching one of the otherspeakers on your team.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Love it.
Uh, last question on this Sorry, I know we're know we're
running right at time here alittle bit over is how, how
would you find events in bothnational and local?
We've got the team that's kindof looking, but it's, I feel
like it's a little bit differentin the corporate and business
space.
They're just kind of huntingfor hey, okay, let's find, let's
(43:14):
find events in Austin, dallas,houston, san Antonio, or let's
find big entrepreneurialconferences which we haven't
been able to find, kind of likean aggregated database for that.
Any tips on that side of things.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah, it's a little.
I mean, sometimes those peoplekind of tuck back their
information because otherwisethey do get hammered and you
know spam from a bunch ofdifferent people you know
wanting them to speak at theevent.
There's a variety of ways, butI think the two that would
probably kind of give you themost fruit is number one look at
speakers with other similarprofiles, messages, and go, okay
(43:50):
, let me, using the WaybackMachine and bracketed Google
queries, let me find a and AI,let me find a list of you know
300 events that these namesmight not be the relevant ones,
but Gary Vaynerchuk has spoke atand Alex Ramosi has spoke at,
so sort of like.
You know folks that are like,okay, I feel like I'm kind of in
(44:13):
that lane, you know.
So that could be one thing.
What events have those folksspoken at?
And you know, I think I wouldbe a good follow-up offer.
So that's a way to go about it,and another way to go about it
would be unfortunately there'sno lookalike generator for a,
you know, for corporate speakinggigs, but you can kind of force
(44:37):
it Meaning, you know, if youthink about the gigs you've done
over the past few years, Iwould.
I would start with a nucleus ofthe 12 perfect events.
So you go, here are the 12events.
Like I loved speaking at it, itbrought in good business.
The the decision maker wassuper happy.
I had a great time.
My goodness, if I could have 15of these a year, I would love
(45:00):
it.
So I would start with thatnucleus and then I would focus
on job title of that decisionmaker and I would start doing
cold database searches of thatindustry.
This job.
Show me more people like thatperson who was the person that
brought me into the event andbegin to kind of whittle from
(45:23):
there.
That will get you like a nicemeaty, sizable database that you
can start to make overtures at.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Killer, incredible Guys hopefully you.
It's probably pretty obvious atthis point why josh has booked
over.
Well, josh and his team hasbooked over 5 000 gigs.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Uh, I mean I only have seven hours more of
material channel.
We're done.
Are we gonna have?
Speaker 1 (45:48):
to have you come back for like a 301 or something.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
I'm just trying to get booked at a gig at your
event.
It's all this was.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
I'm a 9 or 10 right now.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
It's all this was.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
This is good.
Well, final question JoshParting, piece of advice for
people looking to break throughin the speaking world and also
kind of attached to that Where'sthe best place for people to go
to find out more about you to?
You know?
Book either, book your speakers, go through youth speaker
university, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Sure.
So I'll give the pitch thingand then I'll give the parting
words of wisdom.
Our agency we only sign twospeakers a year.
You know, if you're not, ifyou're not in the youth and
education space, we're not agreat fit for you.
If you're not already doing it.
More than a hundred K a year ingigs in the youth and education
space, we're not a great fitfor you.
If you're doing that kind ofthing, reach out, we can triple
(46:42):
your business.
Easy, no problem if you're theright kind of folk.
If you are in the youth andeducation space but you're just
getting started, youth SpeakerUniversity is, as you noticed in
this conversation with Chandler, it's just like I am.
It is neurotic, it is OCD.
It is incredibly methodical andincredibly exhaustive and
(47:04):
step-by-step.
If you're like man students oradults that work with students,
I would say our thing is 100% afit for you and you can kind of
do it yourself until you get tothat level and you need an
agency, or congrats, you don'tneed an agency, you're killing
(47:25):
it on your own.
I'll be happy for you.
Either way, I think my partingwords of wisdom that is contrary
to a lot of what I see kind ofpreached in the speaking space
is like you've got to think ofyourself as a singer, songwriter
in the music business and stepone is you got to get that
speech incredible.
You've got to get that speechincredible.
(47:46):
Be patient with that.
Don't start trying to film thedemo video too soon.
Don't start trying to marketyourself too soon.
Make the product extraordinaryand then start to move forward
Places.
I get inspiration as thecreative side of the speaking
business myself.
I love watching one-man shows,another gentleman's one-man show
(48:19):
.
It's like my mother's Jewish,my father's Italian and I'm in
therapy.
They, for 90 minutes, hold anaudience and take them on an
emotional rollercoaster.
Now, yeah, they don't teach youa thing, but they take you on a
rollercoaster.
Stand-up comedians phenomenalat presenting information, with
all sorts of tones, all sorts ofangles, all sorts of
personality styles.
And then preachers.
(48:40):
Even if you're not religiousman, you watch a preacher.
The visuals will be stunning.
You watch folks like TD Jakes,stephen Furtick, craig Groeschel
.
You will see differentpersonalities, but you will see
engaging presentation, cleartakeaways, stunning visuals that
back up their message.
You know, soak yourself in thatand get your speech in a
phenomenal spot.
(49:00):
That is your product, that iswhat you're selling.
Then, when you go out, you willhave much greater success
because, at the end of the day,folks are risking their
reputation.
So let your speech be worthy ofsomeone risking their
reputation on first.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Drop the mic.
There you go.
I love it.
Guys, give it up for Josh.
Check out Youth Speaker,university or Top Speakers if
you're looking to book a youthspeaker.
This was amazing.
Thank you, josh.
Yes, sir Pleasure.
Hey, chandler Wohl.
Here and joining me today is MrJosh Shipp.
Josh is a personal friend.
He's one of the funniest peopleI've ever met in my life.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
And I'm not just saying that.
Here we go.
If you're not familiar with him, you may remember him back from
episode 27, if you can believehim, where we talked about
writing a timeless book thatsells over half a million copies
.
That is not what we're going tobe talking about today.
If you've never met Josh, he'sa former at-risk foster kid,
turned youth advocate andspeaker.
(00:38):
He's spoken over 2 millionpeople live.
He's got a viral video withover 50 million views which I
think my mom occasionally textsto me when she sees it.
That's sweet.
It's an awesome, awesome talk.
He's written multiple books,obviously, one of which we
talked about last time on theinterview.
He's been on Oprah.
(00:58):
He creates, I mean, greatcompanies.
He's created an incrediblecompany, multiple top U speakers
and U Speaker University.
He was kind enough to be, Ithink, if I'm not mistaken, the
first ever person to book me tospeak at an event.
Oh, here we go.
I mean so.
(01:19):
Always a place in my heart.
If it wasn't the first gig, itwas the first paid gig.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Oh, we're going to do a full net promoter score
breakdown of that performance.
I actually have the livefootage prepared.
Okay, let me share my screenChandler, Give me the control of
this Zoom I am taking over.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
It was tough.
It was tough, it was a learningexperience.
So the people said it went well.
I thought it went pretty poorly, I'm not going to lie, but hey,
you learn, you get out there.
And I thought it went prettypoorly, I'm not going to lie,
but hey, you learn, you get outthere and you improve.
So, josh, welcome, great tohave you here.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Thank you, good sir.
Thank you, it's great to bewith you.
Episode 26, huh.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
How many are we on now?
Oh my gosh, See you got to comeprepared.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Chandler, you know I do these gotcha questions.
You've got to come prepared.
What are you doing?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
We're like 270.
It looks like you're going tobe 278.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Okay, fantastic, I love it.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
A lot of episodes.
So, hey guys, today we're goingto be talking about booking
speaking gigs, growing as aspeaker and building an
eight-figure speaking business.
I'm going to go a little bit.
We're going to lay somegroundwork, some frameworks, et
cetera.
Obviously, we've talked aboutbooking speaking gigs a lot on
the podcast, so today I reallywant to go advanced and this is
(02:30):
a speaker 201 kind ofmasterclass.
So buckle up.
If you want to speak, if you'realready speaking or you want to
scale your speaking, this isthe guy and hopefully we can
learn a lot in this next littlebit.
So I guess I'll start a littlebit generic and broad, but then
we'll quickly ratchet it in here.
Josh Sounds good.
First off, why, speaking fromyour vantage point, why is it
(02:52):
something that authors should doand that entrepreneurs should
do to either sell more books orgrow their business?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, this is something I've been on both
sides of, both as a speakermyself and now as someone who's
a speaker agent.
I run a speaker agency.
So, as you mentioned my forayinto speaking you know I was a
foster kid to success story kindof went around sharing that
story to different schools andyouth organizations and
educators.
I did my postgrad in publicspeaking at Harvard and so the
(03:23):
first 10 years of my career wasbeing front of stage, did over
1,200 speaking gigs.
Books the book now sold over amillion copies on a bunch of
fancy media did a majortelevision show that was
executive produced by Oprah.
So everything that I sort ofwould hope and dream that would
happen from speaking happened,that I sort of would hope and
(03:47):
dream that would happen fromspeaking happened.
And then I sort of pivoted tobooking gigs for upcoming
speakers, for upcoming talent.
I looked this morning beforeour conversation.
We have booked today 5,170 paidspeaking gigs.
Now something I always want tobe very candid sort of overly
candid on where my expertiselies and where it doesn't.
(04:09):
So my expertise is booking gigsin front of audiences that are
either students or adults thatwork with students.
So some of these things that Iwill share I would say would be,
say, 70%, applicable to acorporate audience, to a
business audience.
You're going to need to do alittle bit of contextualization.
(04:31):
Not everything I say will be afair copy and paste, but I can
tell you speaking is such anaccelerant to getting your
message out there, to bookingmore gigs, to raising your
platform.
However, you've got to be verythoughtful and strategic.
Just like you teach about books, you've got to be very
(04:53):
strategic and thoughtful aboutevery single element that makes
up the speech the speech itself,the demo video of the speech,
and then how you go aboutbooking the gigs themselves.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So let's just jump straight into that.
This is one of the questions Ihad is media kits and speaker
demos.
I think there's two sides ofthe aisle.
Some people are like totallyworthless, just get in front of
a decision maker.
And some people would say, hey,this is the most important
thing you can do and this is howyou get in front of a decision
maker.
Where do you lie on that?
How important is it and how doyou make a good one?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Okay, so a media kit for booking speaking gigs.
My professional opinion, again,having booked 5,170 of them
that is the specific numbercompletely worthless, completely
waste of your time, distraction.
Now, if you're wanting to bookmedia appearances, podcast
(05:48):
appearances not my lane ofexpertise, but I would guess
that in that avenue, quitehelpful.
Our team, our agency, we did asurvey of over 1,000 decision
makers and we asked them one ofthe questions was how do you end
up making the decision on whichspeaker that you hire?
(06:08):
Now, over 60% of them answeredwith one of the following three
responses Either I saw themspeak in person, someone I trust
saw them speak and then emailedme, texted me, gave me a phone
call, said hey, you got to havethem at your event, at your
school, at your organization, orI saw a video of them speaking.
(06:32):
Now, I know at the onset yousaid this is a bit more of a 201
conversation, but let'sacknowledge the challenge.
If you're in a 101 situation,in the 101 situation, two out of
the three of thatdecision-making rubric you're
probably not going to have thebenefit of, you're not yet going
to be out there enough speakingwhere you can benefit from.
(06:54):
Either there's a decision-makersitting in your audience or
that decision-maker is one phonecall away from the
decision-maker, which then meansall the more even important for
the 101 or the 201, which isabsolutely nailing what I would
call a demo video, which isessentially sort of a movie
(07:15):
trailer of your speech.
Chandler, am I able to share myscreen?
I have a storyboard I'dactually like to show you.
I'd like to kind of break downwhat I would call sort of a
storyboard of a perfect demovideo.
So I'm going to paint whatwould be the ideal situation and
(07:38):
, of course, do the best withwhat you can.
But you just heard it in theevidence that and even with that
second category of person wesaid you know their one decision
, their one phone call away fromthe decision maker, even that
person is going to need to watchyour video.
Okay, so let me just give a realword example.
(07:58):
Let's say I'm sitting in anaudience watching Chandler speak
and I don't know him.
Now, if I'm the decision maker,I can sit in that audience, be
like hey, that was a greatmessage, it was practical.
I have an event, I am the soledecision maker, I can walk up to
him, introduce myself, get hisinformation and I have the
authority to book him from A toZ.
Now, if I'm one person away,that means I got to call my boss
(08:23):
and I got to say, hey, boss, Isaw this guy, I think he'd be
great for our people and theboss is going to go okay.
For the most part I trust Josh,but at the end of the day I'm
risking my reputation.
Listen to me very carefullyOver 5,000 gigs booked.
This has been a big unorthodoxepiphany that I've had, which is
(08:43):
, I used to think event plannerswere risking a check and sure,
to a certain part they are, butthey're really risking their
reputation.
I think about you, chandler.
You recently had the I forgetexactly what you call your event
, but the event where you bringtogether folks around
self-publishing.
Think about the reputationaldamage not only you would face
(09:05):
but also your brand would faceIf someone came in.
They were oversellsy or theyjust didn't really deliver much
value or they didn't stay onmessage.
So I imagine, even for you,chandler even maybe you wouldn't
articulate it that way you arebeing thoughtful and careful
about your brand's reputationand your own personal reputation
(09:26):
.
Do you think that's a fair casethat I'm making Very fair, yep,
okay.
So now let's circle back.
If I got to say to my boss, myboss, the first thing he's going
to do is Google the speaker Imentioned and want to see a
video.
Because if I come to him andsay and want to see a video,
because if I come to him and sayChandler was incredible, he's
(09:54):
going to want to see in thatvideo, oh, I agree, chandler
seems incredible.
Okay.
So even in that category ofdecision, kind of branching,
it's important.
So if you're watching onYouTube, you can probably see
this.
If not, I'll kind of JohnMadden it and talk you through
this.
So we're going to talk about,kind of the ideal setup for your
demo video.
(10:16):
Now, a couple of things aboutfilming your demo video that I
see 99% of speakerswell-intended get wrong.
Number one you need to micyourself.
Duh, you know that.
You also need to mic youraudience.
Okay, if you watch any comedyspecial and you pause certain
(10:37):
moments, you will notice thatthey have what are known as
shotgun mics pointing at theaudience, have what are known as
shotgun mics pointing at theaudience, and that is so that
they can have a separate feed.
That's capturing laughter,applause breaks, let's say it's
like a comedian that works dirty, those groans that you get from
an audience.
(10:57):
It's kind of quite satisfyingpart of the back and forth of
the comedian.
This is so crucial for you as aspeaker because, as a decision
maker watching that, I want toknow okay, if he tells a joke,
do I see that audience, justlike right there with him?
(11:18):
If she makes a key point, do Ihear that?
So that is really key becauseotherwise you'll have those key
moments you don't hear it fromthe audience and as a decision
maker, I go oh, they thinkthey're funny, the audience
doesn't.
Oh, they think they're clever,the audience doesn't.
All right, so that's anunorthodox thing, easy to miss.
(11:38):
Another one know in advancewhere you're going to film, what
the background will be andtherefore what sort of clothing
you're going to wear.
I've seen a lot of speakers.
They're in front of a bluestage, they wear a blue shirt,
difficult to see them.
You're so excited to film thevideo, you hired a videographer.
(11:59):
Don't screw it up with that.
Two other things here don'tscrew it up with that.
Two other things here Any keystatements you have in your
speech if the day of yourfilming, you fumble upon these
words.
So, for example, if I wasfilming a talk, I speak to
(12:25):
adults that work with students.
One of my key lines is everykid is one caring adult.
Away from being a success story, let's say I accidentally kind
of flubbed a line.
Well, that is such a key line Iknow needs to be in my video,
though it would be a bit awkwardin front of the live audience,
I'm just going to pause and,almost out of emphasis, I'm
going to repeat it again so Iget a clean take.
(12:46):
It'll be slightly awkward forthe in-person audience.
You can kind of play it off asI need to hammer this into your
head, but it's crucial for yourvideo.
And then, lastly, before we getinto the storyboard, let me
paint the ideal scenario ofwhere to capture your talk.
Ideal scenario this is the wishlist In an auditorium or
(13:15):
theater, like a nice venue,where the capacity is quite full
, meaning 300 seat auditorium,300 bodies in the room, not a
300 seat auditorium with 85people in the room.
Not a 300-seat auditorium with85 people in the room, because
(13:53):
if again, your perceptiondetermines your reception.
So if I'm a decision makerwatching that video and I see
tons of empty seats that's goingto 3% kind of ding you in my
mind of like, oh there's, theremust not be something
particularly compelling abouther content, about this
individual's message, and,ideally, if you can do two
back-to-back speeches.
So, for example, you know again, I work with schools, so I
often have this luxury settingup one of my speakers hey, it's
an 800 person, 800 studentschool, 400 person auditorium.
We're going to do twoback-to-back, we're going to do
grades 9 and 12, then 11 and 12,because then you get two takes
(14:13):
of everything.
Okay, so those are someunorthodox things that are
pretty easy to miss.
Now let's go through thestoryboard.
You've filmed your full hourkeynote.
Go through this storyboard.
You've filmed your full hourkeynote.
How do you direct your editor?
(14:34):
I see so many speakers go well,I need a higher quality
videographer.
You do, and then I'm just goingto trust them with the edit.
You are an idiot.
Don't do that.
Do not do that.
You are the director of thisfilm.
The videographer is yourdirector of photography, that's
it.
Their job is to make it lookgood.
The video sound good, the audiosound good.
(14:55):
You know your audience.
You know your decision makers,you know your message.
You are not going to leave itup to chance for them to control
your trailer.
You need to.
So four components.
I would say the ideal lengthand, chandler, feel free to jump
in here, interrupt me any ofthat, troll me, whatever you
(15:16):
need to do, okay, the idealvideo, I'd say, is about five
minutes in length.
In the introduction, 15 seconds.
This is where you can have amontage of things to build
credibility.
So if you've been on GoodMorning America or whatever you
could have again, just spend 15seconds a montage of those clips
(15:39):
.
She's been everywhere.
Look at the authority, thecredibility, look at all these
still images of different typesof stages and groups she's
speaking in front of.
And then component two you needthree to four minutes, very
lightly edited, of your mostA-plus, phenomenal content.
(16:02):
This is the key and the mostimportant part of your video.
Again, they're risking theirreputation.
You need to show me the thunder, you need to bring the heat
immediately.
So literally starting at minute16.
(16:24):
As a decision maker, I should befreaking, inspired, taking
notes, emotionally, moved bywhat I am seeing in front of me
your very, very best content.
Now you might you knowskepticisms I hear here.
Well, if I put the best stuff,why are they going to book me?
This is not your audiencewatching this video.
(16:47):
This is that decision maker,that sole person backstage
somewhere that has the authorityto put you in front of the 500.
This isn't going to spoil yourspeech.
This isn't you know.
So you need your best stuff inhere.
It doesn't have to bechronological, it doesn't have
to be a logical through line.
(17:08):
We've seen movies, trailers andyou go oh, that part in the
trailer.
It seemed like it was the startof the film, but actually
that's towards the end cuts.
Otherwise, they think that youcan't hold the audience for long
periods of time uninterruptedand keep them engaged.
Uh, you know.
(17:29):
So now we're sitting at aboutthree minutes and 15 seconds to
four minutes and 15 seconds inyour five minute video.
Next movement we're going topull in some testimonials.
Now, your, your instinct heremight be let me interview people
in the audience.
No, okay, remember you mic theaudience.
(17:50):
Remember you have B-roll of theaudience.
So I see them laughing.
I heard them clapping.
I see them clapping.
I get that they were bought in.
Okay, what I need to hear fromis another person like me, the
decision maker, who risked theirreputation, the impact of their
event and that check to bringyou in and that it was a
(18:13):
phenomenal experience.
So we want to hear directlyfrom that person.
That is a sort of archetyped Ithink would be the right word of
the typical person that booksyou.
Okay, so let's take it back tomy world.
A lot of our speakers work withK through 12 schools.
(18:34):
So I don't want to hear fromthe 11th grader that he thought
it was hilarious or moving, andI don't even want to hear from
the English teacher, though nodoubt she's terrific.
I want to hear from thesuperintendent, the principal or
the assistant principal.
That is largely our decisionmaker, our customer.
(18:55):
I want to hear from that ladywith the PhD and the suit, and I
want to hear her get hyperbolicand say I've been in education
for 20 years, we've had a lot offolks, but let me tell you,
okay.
And then lastly and this is justkind of a 15 second bookend,
just a conclusion of this couldbe kind of shaking hands,
(19:20):
kissing babies, signing books,these sorts of things, and then,
just, you know, I like to havea clear tagline here of who you,
of your name and what it isthat you do.
So, for example, it might besomething like you know, I'm
Josh Shipp and I inspire adultsto understand the power of one
caring adult, something likethat.
So that's kind of thestoryboard and the breakdown of
(19:41):
an ideal demo video.
Chandler, maybe any questionsyou have about contextualizing.
I'm more coming from theeducation world.
You're more so coming from thebusiness world.
Is there anything in here youwould push back on or you would
go?
Maybe that doesn't work in abusiness context, or any
question you might have of howto contextualize it to a
(20:01):
business context.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
No, I like it a lot.
I think this is really good.
I'm taking notes over here forhow I level up my demo video.
So let's maybe go.
Let's go.
I see we've got this other taband I'm sure this is a question
You're getting distracted withmy open tabs.
my man, yeah the open tab, thespeech template.
I want to maybe take 30 secondson the structure of the speech
(20:26):
itself, and then I want to gointo booking gigs, both first
gigs for authors and then beyondthat, and we'll do a little
case study.
Okay, you're going to have totase me.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
if you're talking about 30 seconds to the ideal
speech, all right, I'm going tofirst give a quick soapbox
sermon and then you start this30-second clock.
If you start the 30-secondclock now, I will punch you.
Okay, chandler, don't start iton me.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Is this going to be a screen share, or can we
unscreen share for this?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Here's the big takeaway.
Let me give you the top fivemost important things in order
to building a successfulspeaking business Ready.
Number one your speech.
Number two your speech.
Number three, your speech.
Number four, the demo video ofyour speech.
And number five, your leadgeneration to decision makers.
Listen, there are a lot.
It is way easier and there area lot of courses and programs
and gurus that are incentivizedto get you to focus on the
marketing aspect a bit too early.
And there are a lot of greatcourses out there, but some of
them you might want to questionwhy they're getting you to do
that a little prematurely or, asa speaker, why they're getting
(21:47):
you to do that a littleprematurely.
Or as a speaker, it is athousand times psychologically
easier for me to send a coldemail or heck, even, a cold
phone call than to do theinternal excruciating creative
work, and sometimes you bringpersonal baggage on stage.
So you're trying to beinspiring but your bitterness is
leaking out.
I'm telling you the top threemost important parts are getting
(22:12):
your speech right, because Itold you, the number four is the
demo video, but the better yourspeech is, the better your demo
video is going to be.
So then when you start doinglead generation and you say, hey
, could I speak at your event?
Take a look at this video, thenthat video that they see is
going to be all the much betterbecause you did the
excruciatingly horrific,terrible work of making your
(22:37):
speech phenomenal.
Now we start the 30-secondclock.
Here's to me kind of theelements of a phenomenal speech.
I always like to number one, bevery clear about who my audience
is, what my topic is and whatis my message in one sentence.
So again, for me it'd be everykid is one caring adult away
from being a success story.
(22:58):
Then I have that as a NorthStar to make sure.
Does my introduction point tothat?
Do my main points point to that?
Does my conclusion point tothat?
In the introduction, this canbe about 10% of your speech.
I like to think of this as me,we, you, me first grabbing their
attention.
This is often self-deprecatingor throwing yourself under the
(23:19):
bus for the good of youraudience, telling them how this
was a challenge for you.
You figured something out, yourturning point, okay.
Next, we it's important.
I see so many folks.
You know I go around.
When I spoke to students I wentaround telling my kind of foster
kid story.
Well, if I'm speaking to 500kids, not every kid is a foster
(23:40):
kid.
So this we moment.
You have to shift and show themhow is my really specific story
also relevant to you, even ifyou're not in foster care and
you don't know anybody in fostercare.
And with this you need to proveit with data, not more
anecdotes.
So you need to say you knowwhat this percentage of people
(24:02):
blah, blah, blah.
You know either maybe theyhaven't been abandoned by their
parents, like I was, but theyfeel abandoned and alone.
And then you start shiftingtowards you and this is where
you kind of tease what your mainpoints are.
Hey, here's what I'm going towalk you through today, because
this is not just about my soppyfoster kid story.
I'm going to tell you one, twoand three.
(24:23):
Those become mile markers forthe audience so that they know
where they are in your message.
Imagine when you pull up GoogleMaps and you type in a
destination.
At first.
It gives you that overhead view.
You see the line.
It kind of gives you anestimation of the length of time
.
You see the bird's eye view ofwhere you're headed.
That's what that is.
So before you hit start, you getinto the depth, the turn by
(24:45):
turn of the message.
I want to know where I am inyour message at all times, and
so you do that by just teasing.
In one sentence we're going totalk about watermelon,
strawberries and grapes.
First, let's get intowatermelon, okay, and now you
get into your main points.
This is 70 80 percent of yourspeech.
Uh, here I just think problem,here's the story.
(25:09):
Solution, here's what I figuredout.
Advice here's the advicevalidated by research, don't
just be anecdotal.
And then action here'ssomething you can specifically,
uh, pragmatically do toimplement the advice that I gave
you.
All right, so you wash andrepeat that for your main points
.
The conclusion quicklysummarize the main points you
(25:32):
visualize.
Imagine what's going to happenif you do what I say or don't do
what I say.
So you can cast the optimisticpoint of view.
Or in some points, you need tokind of sober the audience.
Or in some points you need tokind of sober the audience and
kind of spook them and scarethem a little bit.
Right here I like to thank theperson that hired me and then if
I have something to pitch Idon't always in my context I'm
(25:55):
going to pitch it right there.
You know, if I've got an hourspeech, I'm doing a pitch at the
55 minute point Because by thatpoint I've just blown their
minds for 55 minutes.
So I have absolute authorityand credibility.
I don't got to do any NLPnonsense or trickery to get them
to buy whatever it is that Iwant them to buy, because I've
(26:15):
delivered honest to goodnessvalue and whatever I'm going to
pitch is incredibly on pointwith whatever my message was.
But I don't end with the pitch.
Then I need, like I like, toend with like sort of an
uplifting, heartwarming story sothat I know that was 30 seconds
, Chandler.
I know it was Maybeinflationary and an inflationary
(26:37):
30.
We are in an inflationaryenvironment.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
That's good.
I love this.
This is super josh.
Um, uh, if you don't mind,unshare your screen.
Yep, guys, if you're watching,um, if you're listening to this
on the podcast, obviously, um,you can see this on the podcast
or you're just going to hear it.
But if you want to see thevideo version, go to the youtube
channel.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
You can see all the visuals and the chat and you
want to see chandler's smile,this, the smile club direct
model that he is.
You want to see that okaythat's also on the youtube
channel that is.
I mean, come on, get yourmoney's worth.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
People so we got our demo, we got our speaking
structure, uh, so that we'redelivering a great talk.
Let's talk about booking yourfirst gigs, especially so for
our authors out there who arelooking to book their first gigs
, or even non-authors, and Iwant to zero in on that for just
a second.
But then I want to go advancedand go really scaling.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yeah.
So if you're a newbie, yourfirst 50 gigs are going to be a
thousand times harder to bookthan your next 500, because you
don't have word of mouth.
Almost no one's seen you speakin person, you don't have any of
that spinoff.
You probably don't have a videoyet because you don't got a
venue to pitch it in.
(27:52):
So two things to do to bookyour first handful of gigs.
I mean first you should do somepractice gigs at like stuff
that you can get up and speakfor free in your local community
.
So Toastmasters, local church,like hey, can I speak to your
youth?
If the message is appropriate,anything free where there's a
gathering of 10 or more peopledoesn't matter.
(28:14):
I would argue you could even golive on social media to begin
to kind of work out the kinks ofyour message.
So you're ready to eventuallyfilm a thing, those first 10
gigs.
Two things.
Number one it needs to be.
You don't have speakingcredibility yet, but you
probably have reputationalcredibility.
So your first 10 gigs have tobe most likely someone local and
(28:37):
someone that already knows,likes and trusts you.
So that's the pond you'refishing out of.
It's admittedly going to bequite a small pond, but that is
the only pond you should befishing out of for your first 10
gigs.
If you try to go wide tooquickly, you're going to be
discouraged and you're going togo to folks prematurely when you
should have waited until youhad your ducks in a row.
(28:58):
Now what do you send thosefolks?
Just because I know Chandler andI don't yet have a video
doesn't mean I should be sloppyabout the way that I approach
him and say hey, could I be onyour podcast or your next author
event?
In lieu of a demo video, Iwould put together a beautiful,
thoughtful one page PDF.
(29:19):
That is a bit of an outline ofa message I'm thinking about.
That's hyper contextualized tohis audience.
You know like hey, I know youhave an author event, I know you
got great folks on this.
Here's a very specific aspectof kind of the speaking industry
that I could cover.
Here would be my main points.
You know, actually, here's sortof a resource I've doodled up
(29:41):
for folks and pitch it hypercontextualized.
So this is not a one page.
I'm blasting out to a bunch ofdifferent people and kind of
hoping and praying that it works.
I'm going to, you know, doesthis person know me?
Do they like me, do they trustme?
And then can I have athoughtful overture.
Speaking is all aboutpersuasion, right, because
(30:04):
Chandler risks his reputationand a check.
If he was paying me.
You're not going to get paidthe first 10 gigs before he
knows if I'm any good.
Right, he would book me for hisevent today, september, but his
event might not be happeninguntil January, so he's not going
to know until January whetheror not he made a good decision.
So anything I can do throughthis PDF to be like bro, I'm
(30:25):
coming in hot, the oven ispreheated.
I have thought through exactlyhow I'm going to deliver value.
I'm not just being sloppy andsay, hey, you know me, like, put
me on your stage, like, look, Ihave done the work.
Here's what I want to share toyour people that even by reading
that PDF, you're going to go.
Oh yeah, yeah, this is a gap inour conference and I think this
(30:47):
would deliver value.
You do that.
You do that well, you can bookyour first 10 gigs.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
That's really good, super solid advice.
Now let's fast forward.
Hey, we've got our first gigsbooked.
I'd love to ask about.
Well, actually, first I'll aska specific question on referrals
yes, any thoughts on?
Uh, once you know, once you'vestarted doing your first gigs, I
would assume that referrals arecause I love that framework
(31:14):
earlier.
Uh, you know, 60% of folks saidI saw them speak, someone I
trust saw them speak or I saw avideo of them speaking.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
So it seems like referrals.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
speaking actually getting out there and speak and
then the demo video are thethree big ways to book, so I
would assume that that's thebest way to scale up from the
start.
Any tips on getting referralsto other meeting planners or
people who can book you?
Speaker 2 (31:37):
So when you say referrals, do you mean kind of
shaking the tree from theaudience of 500 people or
circling back to that singledecision maker and trying to get
them to introduce you to two orthree others?
Which specifically are youasking about?
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Circling back to that decision maker.
I'm assuming that's mosteffective, but correct me if I'm
wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah Well, two things .
The audience that's going totake care of itself.
Again, if, if you crush it andyou know how how do you know?
If you're crushing it?
You know, I would say like astanding ovation tends to be
sort of false evidence.
That tends to be more aboutyour ability to kind of
emotionally regulate a rollercoaster of a crescendo towards
(32:19):
the end of your speech.
You know, if your client useshyperbolic language best ever
been doing this for 10 yearspeople were hounding me about
how amazing you were.
Do you have offers on site?
Do you have people chasing youdown on site, giving you their
business card, their information, telling you about their event?
That's when you know in the netpromoter score, you know seven
(32:44):
or eight, right, they don't moveBelow seven.
They spread bad informationabout you.
Nine to 10, they, on yourbehalf, spread the word.
This is how you know that.
And then also, do you have theBeatles effect?
Do you have a line of peoplewanting to buy your book, get
you to sign the book, take aselfie, ask you a question?
If you have those sorts ofthings happening, you know
(33:06):
you're crushing it.
Now, getting that referralspecifically from the person
Well, I'm sorry.
Let me say one more thing aboutthe audience.
I would say at that 55-minutemark.
So if your goal at an event isto get more gigs not necessarily
to sell a book, but if it isspecifically to get more gigs,
at that 55-minute mark I wouldsay, hey.
(33:28):
I imagine there are a handfulof you in here who have the
authority or are planning yourown event.
That's one of my goals.
If that's something that wouldbe helpful to you, this message,
come forward With these folks.
I don't like to do the QR code,scan this, fill out a form.
Again, they're risking theirreputation.
You're going to be workingintimately with them anyway.
(33:49):
I want them to come forward,give me their information and I
will kind of track them down.
Now, circling back to thatdecision maker, it's next to
impossible to do this on thefront end of the booking Because
, again, the event hasn'thappened.
They don't know if you're goingto blow their mind or not.
So what we do at this is a scaleso this is a bit more 201, is
(34:13):
that we have a four questionsurvey that goes out the day
after the event.
So timing is very importantBecause if that person is on a
high from your talk.
They're going to be on a highvery quickly after that event.
So a survey goes out and if onthat survey they rate the speech
(34:35):
a nine or a 10, we do twothings.
Number one, we generate adiscount code to book another
speech within the next sixmonths with either the same
speaker or one of our otherspeakers.
And then secondly, we ask foran introduction at that point.
(34:56):
Okay, so if someone rates nineor 10, the goal there is get
more business.
If they rate seven or eight,our goal is not to try to get
more business, it's to learnwhat didn't go well.
What kind of underwhelmed you.
So I'm not trying to resellthat person.
If it's a six or under and outof our 1,200 gigs a year, I
would say we have five or six ofthese we refund them, we give
(35:19):
them the money back.
We say we wanted this to beyour best speaker ever.
That didn't happen from yourperspective.
Here's your money back.
I hope you trust us again inthe future.
Okay, so that's kind of thethree categories of people and
that's based on the data and theevidence within the net
promoter score.
Now a bit more analog you willnotice, if you murder on stage,
(35:42):
that person that brought you.
They're going to chase you downwithin a half hour of your
speech.
And then I go oh my gosh, thatyou know.
We thought you were going to begood, but that, my goodness, at
that point you start going hey,that means the world to me.
How often do you guys have thisevent?
Is it always the same?
Then you can start to.
(36:03):
Then they are basically sayingwell, for the love of God, would
you please resell me?
Would you please resell me?
So if that happens, I try tobegin to seed that conversation
Again.
That's not being manipulative.
It's like they risked theirreputation I murdered.
Now they're circling back andsaying please, how can we engage
(36:25):
you more?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Cool man, so good, I got about 40 questions left.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Perfect, no problem, we're running low on time 40
questions, 30 seconds.
You selfish, son of a gun.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
I'm going to go a quick case study because I got
to get this in.
Yeah, so we've talked some inprivate about, you know, scaling
up our speaking.
Yes, you probably speak at, Idon't know, 30 to 40 gigs a year
, maybe a little bit more as anorganization.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
How many speakers is that total that would do those
30 to 40 gigs a year, maybe alittle bit more as an
organization.
How many speakers is that totalthat would do those 30 to 40?
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I'd say about five, okay, and so 10 or 15 of those
are me, and then the rest arespread out across our speaking
team.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
I'm going to interrupt you frequently here.
Do you determine who goes towhich gig or certain gigs are
like we don't want Chandler Jr,we just want Chandler.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
We determine it typically.
Yeah, there will certainly besome events like that.
I would say most frequently wedetermine it though, roger that,
and so I guess my big questionwould be, if you were us and
I've got a bunch of specificquestions around this, I doubt
we have time to get to most ofthem but how would you approach
(37:39):
scaling up those gigs?
Both I I look at thisseparately maybe.
Maybe that's the wrong way tolook at it, but okay, because I
feel like I was doing maybe 20,30, 40 gigs a year.
I'm like, all right, I want tonarrow that way back, but now
I'm at a point where, okay, I'mI'm down to do a lot more for
bigger audiences, which I thinkthose opportunities are there,
but I haven't been superstrategic about all the stuff
(38:02):
you're saying and reallypositioning myself as a speaker.
So it's almost like doing alittle bit of a reset.
So, anyways, back to thequestion how would you look at
me booking more gigs for mespecifically and booking more
gigs for our speaking team?
Like?
What would your approach be?
What would you focus on thatsort of thing?
Speaker 2 (38:19):
How many gigs a year would be ideal for you to do?
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I would say probably 10 to 15,.
Well, maybe, maybe up to 15 or20.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, if they're the right gigs.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Unlimited if they're in the Texas area or like Austin
, dallas, houston.
So like I've got kind of likethat localized event approach
that my team's kind of workingUnderstood Obviously the big
national events.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Understood, okay.
So if your answer to thatquestion was you know 30, 40, 50
or more, then I would branchyou towards.
Your goal should be getting onwith different speakers bureaus,
okay, and I'm going partiallydown this road because I imagine
there are a few people that arethinking, yeah, I would like to
(39:03):
do 30 to 40 to 50.
So with those folks, instead ofyou trying to pitch yourself to
the indecision maker, your goalshould be to pitch yourself to
the two dozen reputable speakersbureaus out there.
Close a certain percentage ofthe reputable ones, be picky
there.
There are some shady ones outthere.
If you're not intimidated bythe other speakers on the bureau
(39:24):
, then you should probably justexit that website and look
elsewhere, but thoughtfully tryto get them on board.
Because when we talk about thatreputational risk, particularly
in the corporate and businessworld now this is anecdotal
Again, I'm not an expert in thecorporate space, so only trust
what I'm about to say 70%.
But my understanding there isthat in the corporate world,
(39:48):
bigger budgets, even higher riskreputationally, I would argue
they're often less open toindividual speakers, pitching
them or kind of pursuingindividual speakers, and instead
they have a handful of bureausthey work with.
They've had longstandingrelationships with and they just
go.
Hey, the last folks you sent us, you know, michelle Poehler,
(40:08):
kyle Shealy they killed it forus.
Who should we have this year?
You know, give us a half dozennames and we'll choose a few.
So, chandler, if your answerwas 24 more gigs, then I would
say you need to go the bureauroute, earn those folks' trust.
And if you go that route, itcan't be what I understand the
(40:29):
current model is, which, to you,the importance is getting
self-publishing out there, doinga pitch, these sorts of things.
That's not how those bureausare paid.
That's not how those agents atbureaus are paid For them.
It's about the check at the gig.
So, even though that's not yourpriority, you would need to
(40:50):
make that your priority for atleast booking that gig Now,
because it's a hired gig.
Not all of those gigs wouldallow you to pitch and again,
that could be something you sayhey, I need to know in advance,
because you're the $20,000 check.
I mean I'll take it, but Ireally want to be able to
appropriately pitch at the eventand if they're not going to
allow it, then I'll just bow outahead of time.
(41:13):
Now for your situation.
You said 15 or so I would sayyou need to set up teams and
processes of probably one to twopeople to do this in-house,
because 15 gigs a year andyou're going to need to be kind
of picky, like turning down the$20,000 check because they won't
(41:35):
let you pitch, that's going toirritate a bureau.
Bureaus aren't going to be onboard for that, even if they're.
Like.
This guy does a good job.
I like him, I like his profile,the ink stuff, the business
he's built, but there wouldn'tbe enough meat on the bone for
those bureaus to kind of quotewaste website space or proposal
(41:56):
space pitching you.
So I think you need an internalteam that can go after leads, go
after events, target the idealevents.
And then the good news is, ifyou were working with a bureau
and they didn't want to book you, they're going to book one of
their other reputable speakers.
With your situation, you canuse Chandler as the bait, right?
(42:20):
And then the branching logicbecomes is this a perfect event
for Chandler?
If so, let's move forward withChandler.
If not, let's downsell one ofour other speakers.
But I wouldn't lead with theother speakers because you're
going to have kind of the mostshiny reputation and stuff that
will grab attention.
Um, you know, and then we can.
(42:41):
You can focus just on havingone killer demo video putting
your profile out there and then,if it's not a fit for you, uh
pitching one of the otherspeakers on your team.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Love it.
Uh, last question on this Sorry, I know we're know we're
running right at time here alittle bit over is how, how
would you find events in bothnational and local?
We've got the team that's kindof looking, but it's, I feel
like it's a little bit differentin the corporate and business
space.
They're just kind of huntingfor hey, okay, let's find, let's
(43:14):
find events in Austin, dallas,houston, san Antonio, or let's
find big entrepreneurialconferences which we haven't
been able to find, kind of likean aggregated database for that.
Any tips on that side of things.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah, it's a little.
I mean, sometimes those peoplekind of tuck back their
information because otherwisethey do get hammered and you
know spam from a bunch ofdifferent people you know
wanting them to speak at theevent.
There's a variety of ways, butI think the two that would
probably kind of give you themost fruit is number one look at
speakers with other similarprofiles, messages, and go, okay
(43:50):
, let me, using the WaybackMachine and bracketed Google
queries, let me find a and AI,let me find a list of you know
300 events that these namesmight not be the relevant ones,
but Gary Vaynerchuk has spoke atand Alex Ramosi has spoke at,
so sort of like.
You know folks that are like,okay, I feel like I'm kind of in
(44:13):
that lane, you know.
So that could be one thing.
What events have those folksspoken at?
And you know, I think I wouldbe a good follow-up offer.
So that's a way to go about it,and another way to go about it
would be unfortunately there'sno lookalike generator for a,
you know, for corporate speakinggigs, but you can kind of force
(44:37):
it Meaning, you know, if youthink about the gigs you've done
over the past few years, Iwould.
I would start with a nucleus ofthe 12 perfect events.
So you go, here are the 12events.
Like I loved speaking at it, itbrought in good business.
The the decision maker wassuper happy.
I had a great time.
My goodness, if I could have 15of these a year, I would love
(45:00):
it.
So I would start with thatnucleus and then I would focus
on job title of that decisionmaker and I would start doing
cold database searches of thatindustry.
This job.
Show me more people like thatperson who was the person that
brought me into the event andbegin to kind of whittle from
(45:23):
there.
That will get you like a nicemeaty, sizable database that you
can start to make overtures at.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Killer, incredible Guys hopefully you.
It's probably pretty obvious atthis point why josh has booked
over.
Well, josh and his team hasbooked over 5 000 gigs.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Uh, I mean I only have seven hours more of
material channel.
We're done.
Are we gonna have?
Speaker 1 (45:48):
to have you come back for like a 301 or something.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
I'm just trying to get booked at a gig at your
event.
It's all this was.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
I'm a 9 or 10 right now.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
It's all this was.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
This is good.
Well, final question JoshParting, piece of advice for
people looking to break throughin the speaking world and also
kind of attached to that Where'sthe best place for people to go
to find out more about you to?
You know?
Book either, book your speakers, go through youth speaker
university, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Sure.
So I'll give the pitch thingand then I'll give the parting
words of wisdom.
Our agency we only sign twospeakers a year.
You know, if you're not, ifyou're not in the youth and
education space, we're not agreat fit for you.
If you're not already doing it.
More than a hundred K a year ingigs in the youth and education
space, we're not a great fitfor you.
If you're doing that kind ofthing, reach out, we can triple
(46:42):
your business.
Easy, no problem if you're theright kind of folk.
If you are in the youth andeducation space but you're just
getting started, youth SpeakerUniversity is, as you noticed in
this conversation with Chandler, it's just like I am.
It is neurotic, it is OCD.
It is incredibly methodical andincredibly exhaustive and
(47:04):
step-by-step.
If you're like man students oradults that work with students,
I would say our thing is 100% afit for you and you can kind of
do it yourself until you get tothat level and you need an
agency, or congrats, you don'tneed an agency, you're killing
(47:25):
it on your own.
I'll be happy for you.
Either way, I think my partingwords of wisdom that is contrary
to a lot of what I see kind ofpreached in the speaking space
is like you've got to think ofyourself as a singer, songwriter
in the music business and stepone is you got to get that
speech incredible.
You've got to get that speechincredible.
(47:46):
Be patient with that.
Don't start trying to film thedemo video too soon.
Don't start trying to marketyourself too soon.
Make the product extraordinaryand then start to move forward
Places.
I get inspiration as thecreative side of the speaking
business myself.
I love watching one-man shows,another gentleman's one-man show
(48:19):
.
It's like my mother's Jewish,my father's Italian and I'm in
therapy.
They, for 90 minutes, hold anaudience and take them on an
emotional rollercoaster.
Now, yeah, they don't teach youa thing, but they take you on a
rollercoaster.
Stand-up comedians phenomenalat presenting information, with
all sorts of tones, all sorts ofangles, all sorts of
personality styles.
And then preachers.
(48:40):
Even if you're not religiousman, you watch a preacher.
The visuals will be stunning.
You watch folks like TD Jakes,stephen Furtick, craig Groeschel
.
You will see differentpersonalities, but you will see
engaging presentation, cleartakeaways, stunning visuals that
back up their message.
You know, soak yourself in thatand get your speech in a
phenomenal spot.
(49:00):
That is your product, that iswhat you're selling.
Then, when you go out, you willhave much greater success
because, at the end of the day,folks are risking their
reputation.
So let your speech be worthy ofsomeone risking their
reputation on first.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Drop the mic.
There you go.
I love it.
Guys, give it up for Josh.
Check out Youth Speaker,university or Top Speakers if
you're looking to book a youthspeaker.
This was amazing.
Thank you, josh.
Yes, sir Pleasure.
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