February 7, 2025 • 26 mins
The Fortified Life Podcast
🎙 Episode Title: The Speaker’s Blueprint – Finding and Booking Gigs with Grant Baldwin
🔹 Host: Jason Davis
🔹 Guest: Grant Baldwin – Founder of The Speaker Lab
Episode Overview
In this episode of The Fortified Life Podcast, Jason Davis welcomes Grant Baldwin, a seasoned speaker, entrepreneur, and founder of The Speaker Lab, a leading training company that equips aspiring and experienced speakers with the tools to build thriving speaking careers.
With nearly 1,000 presentations under his belt and a reach of over 500,000 people across 47 states, Grant shares his journey from getting started in public speaking to becoming a sought-after keynote speaker. He dives into proven strategies for finding and booking speaking gigs, negotiating fees, and building a sustainable career in the industry.
Grant’s insights have been featured in Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, and Huffington Post, and his flagship coaching program, Booked and Paid to Speak, has transformed the careers of thousands of speakers.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
✅ How Grant Baldwin transitioned into a full-time speaking career
✅ Common misconceptions about getting started in public speaking
✅ The step-by-step process for finding and booking speaking gigs
✅ Tips on building credibility and positioning yourself as an expert
✅ How to set and negotiate speaking fees confidently
✅ The importance of The Speaker Lab and the Booked and Paid to Speak program
Notable Quotes from Grant Baldwin
💬 "Speaking is a skill, and like any skill, it can be learned and mastered."
💬 "The key to getting booked is not just being a great speaker—it’s knowing how to market yourself effectively."
Connect with Grant Baldwin🌐 Website: www.thespeakerlab.com
🎙 Podcast: The Speaker Lab
📖 Program: Booked and Paid to Speak
📢 Social Media: @thespeakerlabDon’t Miss This Episode!
🔥 Whether you're a beginner looking to break into public speaking or an experienced speaker aiming to scale your business, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you land more speaking gigs, increase your income, and grow your influence.
👉 Listen Now on All Digital Platforms!
🎧📢 Follow The Fortified Life Podcast for more empowering conversations with industry leaders!
#FortifiedLifePodcast #GrantBaldwin #TheSpeakerLab #PublicSpeaking #BookedAndPaidToSpeak #SpeakingBusiness #KeynoteSpeaker
🎙 Episode Title: The Speaker’s Blueprint – Finding and Booking Gigs with Grant Baldwin
🔹 Host: Jason Davis
🔹 Guest: Grant Baldwin – Founder of The Speaker Lab
Episode Overview
In this episode of The Fortified Life Podcast, Jason Davis welcomes Grant Baldwin, a seasoned speaker, entrepreneur, and founder of The Speaker Lab, a leading training company that equips aspiring and experienced speakers with the tools to build thriving speaking careers.
With nearly 1,000 presentations under his belt and a reach of over 500,000 people across 47 states, Grant shares his journey from getting started in public speaking to becoming a sought-after keynote speaker. He dives into proven strategies for finding and booking speaking gigs, negotiating fees, and building a sustainable career in the industry.
Grant’s insights have been featured in Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, and Huffington Post, and his flagship coaching program, Booked and Paid to Speak, has transformed the careers of thousands of speakers.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
✅ How Grant Baldwin transitioned into a full-time speaking career
✅ Common misconceptions about getting started in public speaking
✅ The step-by-step process for finding and booking speaking gigs
✅ Tips on building credibility and positioning yourself as an expert
✅ How to set and negotiate speaking fees confidently
✅ The importance of The Speaker Lab and the Booked and Paid to Speak program
Notable Quotes from Grant Baldwin
💬 "Speaking is a skill, and like any skill, it can be learned and mastered."
💬 "The key to getting booked is not just being a great speaker—it’s knowing how to market yourself effectively."
Connect with Grant Baldwin🌐 Website: www.thespeakerlab.com
🎙 Podcast: The Speaker Lab
📖 Program: Booked and Paid to Speak
📢 Social Media: @thespeakerlabDon’t Miss This Episode!
🔥 Whether you're a beginner looking to break into public speaking or an experienced speaker aiming to scale your business, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you land more speaking gigs, increase your income, and grow your influence.
👉 Listen Now on All Digital Platforms!
🎧📢 Follow The Fortified Life Podcast for more empowering conversations with industry leaders!
#FortifiedLifePodcast #GrantBaldwin #TheSpeakerLab #PublicSpeaking #BookedAndPaidToSpeak #SpeakingBusiness #KeynoteSpeaker
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Welcome to the Fortified Life podcast, where we learn how
to develop a dependency on Jesus in the marketplace. From
the boardroom to the bathroom. God is with you. Here's
our host, author, speaker, teacher, encourager, wore a TiO, coach,
and my husband. It's the man they call mister Fortified
Jason Davis.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode
of the Fortified Life podcast where we are passionate about
developing a dependency on Jesus and the marketplace. I'm your host,
Jason Davis aka mister Fortifi. Every week we have the
opportunity to bring on authors, speakers, coaches, all sorts of people,
people who are passionate about bringing God back in business.
(01:04):
And it's no different this week.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Now.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I got to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, our guest today.
I'm very excited. I've been following him for some time
and God has definitely graced him with a lot of
gifts to do a lot of things, and he is
impacting lots of people. Before I bring them on, let
me introduce him to you. Grant Baldwin. He is the
(01:31):
founder of Speaker Lab. He is the host of the
Speaker Lab podcast published author as well. We'll get to
his book a little bit later, but folks, welcome to
the Fortified Life Grant Baldwin. Grant, how's it going so well?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Man? Thanks for letting me hang out with you. Appreciate
it absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
You know, Grant, when people look at your bio and
everything you're involved in, there's always that question that comes up,
how did you get into what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I don't think people just kind of fall into coaching,
training and empowering speakers.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Yeah, So way back in the day, if we go
back in the Dolore and I in high school was
really involved in my local church and my youth pastor
had a big impact in my life, and for the
longest time, I was like, I want to do that,
you know, I want to be a youth pastor. I
kind of felt like if I could make the kind
of difference in others lives that he made in my life,
like that seemed really you know, gratifying, fulfilling, rewarding, and
so that was kind of the path.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
I was on.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
I went went to Bible College and became a youth
pastor at a local church and as a youth pastor.
There were, you know, parts of I like, parts of
I didn't like. But one thing I really enjoyed was speaking.
And speaking was one of those things I felt like
I was good at. Was doing, you know, Wednesday nights
with students, was doing Sunday mornings with students, was every
so often doing Sunday mornings you know in big church
as the as the Plan B substitute. And I just
(02:49):
felt like, you know, like, hey, there's something here. I
really enjoyed this, would like to do more of it.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
And so.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
When my my wife was pregnant with our first child,
there's nothing like bringing a kid into the world that
just caused you to question everything and just like, all.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Right, what am I? What am I doing with my life?
Speaker 4 (03:05):
You know, you and I were just talking about this
a little bit offline, and like how it's just it's
just a game changer, right and so and so I
decided like, okay, if I wasn't going to be a
youth pastor, like I'm really interested in speaking. But this
was like eighteen nineteen years ago or so. At the time,
there were really no books or resources or tools or
podcasts or just anything to help figure out like how
(03:27):
do you like become a speaker? You know, Like they
didn't feel like there was a real clear blueprint for anything.
And so I found myself like emailing other speakers, harassing
other speakers, stocking other speakers, kind of pick your brain
sort of stuff, and like learning some stuff here and there.
A lot of speakers were super generous and kind. I
started booking a couple gigs here and there, and eventually
became a full time speaker, and I was doing sixty
(03:47):
seventy gigs a year all over, primarily in the US.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
And I loved it. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
And then I found myself kind of on the receiving
end of that, where a lot of people were asking me.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Like, Hey, you're speaker. That's kind of cool. How do
I do that? You know?
Speaker 4 (03:58):
How do you find gigs? And what do you speak about?
And how much you charge? And who hire speakers and
like how does this work?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
You know?
Speaker 4 (04:04):
And so I started doing some coaching training around that,
and that evolved into the Speaker Lab.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
And so the Speaker Lab is a.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Training company and we do training and coaching for speakers,
teaching primarily the business of speaking.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
How do you find a book?
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Paid speaking engagements and so yeah, that's the core what
we do today, and it's spent my days helping helping
speakers spread their message.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
With the world.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Wow, Grant, there's a couple of things that stick out there.
One transition. Obviously, as human beings, nobody likes change, so Grant,
especially with your background, and I can only at least
I could be wrong. I can only think of a
handful where they're kind of in the faith space first
and then they go into the business world where we
(04:47):
usually see the opposite. They leave the business world to
kind of come into ministry. But for you, what was
that transition like taking the next step saying you know what,
let's I'm gonna do this. What what was that like?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yeah, it's a really good question.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
I would say that that transition window there of going okay,
I was a youth pastor, I went to bib College
for this.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Thing, and now.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
I felt like that window of time, like that year
after I left this gig is at as a youth
pastor was honestly like one of the harder years of life.
And here's why I like the this is sadly far
too off in the case where churches are amazing resources
(05:32):
of places spiritual sanctuaries on the weekends, but they're not
always the best to work at. And this isn't you know,
this isn't universal. There's a lot of like amazing churches
out there. But the guy that I was working for
the church I was at was just is just not
a great human unfortunately, and just kind of a jerk
to work for. And so it just kind of found
(05:53):
me going, you know, as if I left this church
and I went to a different church, like is going
to be different somewhere else. I had a lot of
friends from Bible College I'd kind of compare notes with,
and I was like, Hey, I'm I'm semi miserable over here.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
What about you? Oh you are too over there?
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Like huh, apparently this is kind of a thread, you know,
and again, this is a universe. I'm still really involved
in my own local church. We've got a great pastor.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
But it just kind of.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Caused me to question, like, all right, what what.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Do I really want to be doing?
Speaker 4 (06:22):
And so as I was thinking on the speaking part
of it, it did I spent a lot of time
wrestling with the question of going. Okay, I went to
Bible College I thought I was going to be youth pastor.
I felt like I was called to ministry. So now
if I'm doing something tangential but different outside of the
four walls of a church, am I am I being disobedient?
(06:42):
Am I going in a different direction?
Speaker 3 (06:46):
You know?
Speaker 4 (06:46):
I didn't want to be Jonah running away from God
and end up in the belly of a whale or something,
And so I'm just I had a hard time wrestling
with that for a long time, and even as a
once I kind of landing on like, hey, I want
to be a speaker. The majority of what I was
doing as a speaker was not in the church world.
It wasn't in the faith based world. And so the
(07:06):
majority of what I was doing was in high schools.
It was in colleges, it was in student leadership conferences
and events. It was in like public the public sector.
And so I didn't necessarily view myself as a Christian speaker,
but more as a speaker who happened to be a Christian.
And so as a former youth pastor, you know, there's
certainly times where I would go speak out like a school.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Assembly, and.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
I wouldn't like, you know, in that time, like public
school setting, you're not like, you know, preaching or quote
de scripture or something. But sometimes I'd had students who
come up and be like, have you ever been a
youth pastor? It was like yeah, actually it was like, ah,
I knew it. You know, it's kind of like, you know,
you can't hide from it or something. And had a guy, actually,
this is funny yesterday, literally yesterday at the time of recording,
who I was talking to, and he's like, you know
(07:52):
what you just you I could see like how you
used to be a youth pastor, but you don't give
that like awkward, weird youth pastor vibe. You know, like
all right, I'll take that as a compliment, I guess,
you know.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
And so, but the point.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Being is like, uh, it was just definitely like that
year of going like okay, you know, wife just had
the first kid, left the youth pastor gig, trying to
figure out what's next if I go into this speaking thing.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Am I speaking in church? You know, my speaking outside
of church? You know?
Speaker 4 (08:25):
Whatever I land on, you know, am I doing ministry?
And it was just like it's just a difficult felt
like wandering the desert, just trying to figure out, you know,
what's what's next word? I go from here, But you know,
fast forwarding to today, like I still look back on
that season of life as such a pivotal time of
life that I'm glad kind of wandered through that to
(08:46):
land on you know what I'm doing today.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
M I appreciate your transparency, Grant, because you know, the
messy middle is what a lot of us struggle with.
They they just see the oh Man, Grant Baldwin. He's
got a company, he's an author, he's a speaker, he's
equipping thousands of people. And then it's like, well, yeah,
I had to I had to get started somewhere. The
other thing I wanted to ask you about, Grant is
(09:11):
you're so you're you're pounding the pavement, you're speaking, You've
got schools, universities, and then all of a sudden people
start asking you about, Hey, I you know, Grant, you're
kind of doing this. Can you start showing me?
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
You know?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
They say that, you know, feedback is a gift. That's
one of the quotes out there. So how did you
start to synthesize the questions and the request that people like?
Of course, you're still booking gigs, But how did you
start to filter? Like, you know what, I'm starting to
get questions about this piece was speaking? No, no, no, We'll
(09:49):
get to the businesses speaking later. But how did you
start to synthesize that? Because I would imagine you've kind
of on one side of the brain you got to
stay booked, and then on the other side you got
people requesting you for how can I learn about this?
So how did you kind of work through that?
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, that's a good question. So I think there are
a couple of things that happened.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
One was I'll tell you a story when I was
I remember this was probably eleven twelve years ago or so,
and speaking was going really well. I was doing a
lot of gigs, and I found I found myself kind
of like hitting a ceiling. Because then the nature of
speaking is it's a high paying, manual labor job in
that you get paid really well to stand on stage
(10:30):
and run your mouth.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But the nature.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Speaking is you got to get on a plane, you
got to leave your family, you got to go somewhere,
you got to go do that thing.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
You know, It's like a like a surgeon.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
You know, surgeon makes really good money for what they do,
but you got to go do surgery, you know.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
So I felt like I didn't necessarily have a business.
I had a job. You know. It was a cool job.
I loved it. It was a ton of fun, but like, nonetheless,
it's a job.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
And so I just kind of felt like at this
crossroads of going, you know, in order to like increase
your income or your impact, like you either have to
like increase your fees in the youth market. I was
kind of at the upper end of what I felt
comfortable with, and or you just do more gigs, which
is just again going to require you to typically be
gone more, you know, So that wasn't really appealing either.
(11:11):
I was already gone eighty ninety nights a year on
the road, and like the one hour year on stage
or whatever it is is like amazing, and the rest
of the time You're just like I just want to
go home, you know, I just.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
I just want to sleep in my own bed tonight.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
And so I remember being at this kind of like
pivotal time, and I remember I was speaking at an
event in Reno, Nevada, and there's a friend of mine
out in the area, a speaker friend of mine mentor
Hero who's probably twenty years older than me, a very
successful speaker, And so I met up with him at
Lake Tahoe and he and I are driving around the
lake there, just talking about life, and I remember him
(11:45):
giving a like a really good piece of advice. He
told me two things.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
He said.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
One is you have to regularly find things where the
challenge exceeds this skill set, where the challenge exceeds the
skill set, meaning like when you first start doing something.
When I first started speaking, I felt like I was
over my head, meaning like the challenge exceeds this skill set.
It was like, holy crap, I don't know what I'm doing.
This is gonna be a disaster. What's gonna happen? But
over time, what happens is that flips and the skill
(12:10):
set exceeds the challenge, Meaning I got to a point
where I could stand on stage in front of a
thousand teenagers and I could crush it, but inside kind
of be on autopilot and just be bored, you know.
And this isn't exclusive to just speaking. This is the
case with anything. You know, the first time you start
doing something, you're just like I feel like I'm over
my head. But over time is it flips and you
(12:31):
just get way more comfortable with that. And he said,
part of the joy in work is you want to
find things where the skill set or where the challenge
exceeds the skill set, where you always just feel like
I'm slightly over my head. And so at that point
in my career, I felt a little bored. I felt
a little restless. And so that was a really good
piece of advice. But the second thing he told me
is he said, Granted, a lot of people are feel
(12:54):
like they're just born to be speakers, you know, and
he's one of those people, Like, the guy's been speaking
longer than I've been alive.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
He'll do his own eulogy. The guy loves to speak.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
And for me, like I genuinely enjoy speaking, but it
also felt like not one necessarily one of those things that.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Like I gotta do this forever, you know.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
And and so he said, Grant, he said, I think
you are an entrepreneur who happens to be good at speaking.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
And that really resonated with me.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
It just kind of like it clicked for me that, yeah,
I genuinely enjoy speaking. But you know, if we fast
forward to today, like I don't do nearly as much
speaking as I used to, and I don't feel like
I'm desperate to get on stage. I got to get
back to it, you know. I genuinely enjoy helping other
speakers with their own you know, speaking business and making
that impact and income. And so when when I sort
(13:41):
of having several people who are reaching out to me,
going how do I do?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
What you do?
Speaker 4 (13:44):
You know, one, it was just kind of like you're
just kind of paying attention to that when you have
a bunch of different people asking you a lot of
the same questions, like, all right, there might be something
that I don't you know, maybe it is, maybe there isn't,
but something worth paying attention to. And then also at
the time, again this was ten twelve years ago or
zonn there in my experience, I didn't find anybody else
who is teaching this, you know. I kind of felt
(14:05):
like the Speaker Lab kind of evolved out of like
what I wish I had when I got started, because
there's there's a lot of like kind of coaches and
trainings on how do you put together.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
A talk and how do you present a talk?
Speaker 4 (14:17):
And you know, skills on stage and PowerPoint presentations, and
those sorts of things, and like that's important, you know.
But at the same time, it's like, man, if you're
a phenomenal speaker, but you don't know, like how do
you actually book a gig?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
You know, like how do you do that part of it?
You know?
Speaker 4 (14:30):
And like how much do you charge? And who hires
sp who do I talk to? Like how does that
part of it work?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
You know?
Speaker 4 (14:35):
It felt like you had to be some best selling author,
you had to be some pseudo celebrity, or you had
to have like conquered cancer climb Mount everest or won
a gold medal, and then people would just naturally book you.
It's like, yeah, but I'm like a white male from
the Midwest who's had a normal, average life. Like there's
nothing on paper where you'd be like, oh, well, of
course that dude should be a speaker, you know. And
so it's just kind of like, but how do I
(14:56):
how do I get booked? How do I get like
how does that work?
Speaker 3 (14:58):
You know?
Speaker 4 (14:58):
And so I've I figured out some things that I
felt like worked well for me, and I started doing
some coaching and training and felt like it was helping
others speakers get similar results.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
I was like I would.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
I love that part, you know, I want to be
able to teach that part of it. And so that's
kind of what evolved there. And so it was never like, Man,
I'm doing you know, sixty seventy paid gigs a year. Uh.
And then I get a couple of people who ask me,
you know, a couple of questions like, all right, I'm
done with my own speaking stuff. Let's you know, put
a bow on that, and we're gonna quit that on
Friday and on Monday, we're going all in on coaching
(15:29):
or teaching or whatever. You know. I was like, it
was never like that. It was just kind of like, hey,
let's start doing some more coaching training. As that continued
to ramp up, and it was like, all right, instead
of doing seventy.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Gigs, let's do fifty gigs.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Instead doing fifty gigs, let's do forty gigs, you know,
And it's just kind of like over time, they're kind
of flip flopping there to now, Like, like I mentioned,
I do you know, a very very little speaking and
the majority of my time is spent focused on the
on the speaker lab.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Grant.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
You dropped several nuggets of wisdom there an entrepreneur, Grant,
I think you're an entrepreneur who speaks. That's I could
understand how in that moment that was a light bulb
aha revelation, as we would say in the faith based Yeah, Grant,
let's talk about some of the tools and resources and
(16:19):
how you go about helping students. So we kind of
talked about this earlier. There's just kind of like the
art of speaking, you know, putting together a talk, voice,
inflection work in the audience. But then there's the businesses speaking.
And so I know you have a program, You've got
(16:40):
a book, and then you've got the podcast. So let's
start with the program that students can enroll in where
you kind of provide a framework and a lot of
other tools that kind of marry both the art and
the science and the metrics and the data. So let's
talk about the program, and then we'll get into the
book and the podcast.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Yeah, and actually we can kind of combine all three
of them together. Sure that significant there's significant overlap and
kind of a ven diagram there. And so the podcast
was kind of birthed out of a lot of people
were asking questions and so it's kind of like, you know,
if you had asked me, like, you know, Grant, what
should I charge as a speaker? Well, I can give you, you know,
a quick couple of minute answer here. But at the
same time, there's a lot of nuance that goes into it.
(17:22):
So it's like, what if we record an episode you know,
that's a thirty minute episode going in depth on speaking fees,
you know. And then also there's a lot of like
speaker friends and people in the industry that I wanted
to talk to. And so, uh, we've been doing the
podcast for nine years at this point, we got five
and thirty five hundred and forty some episodes and basically
it's it's called to Speak a Lout podcasts. And so
(17:44):
if you you know, you listen to this podcast, you
probably listen to other podcasts, so definitely check that out.
And then had the book come out called The Successful
Speaker Five Steps for booking gigs, getting paid, and building
your platform. And then also we have a you know,
a in depth you know, coaching and training program at
the Speaker Lab where if you want more help and
support one on one group level.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
That's the case.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
But I start with like the podcast in the book,
because like you don't have to spend anything with us.
You know, you can listen to that literally hundreds of
hours of the podcast and you're gonna get a ton
of information and a ton of knowledge there. Or you know,
you got a ten to twenty dollars book that you
can get that's gonna give you a ton of information.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
But the core framework that we teach.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
At the Speaker Lab, and this is in the podcast,
is in the book, this is in our programs, is
what we call the Speaker Success Roadmap, and it makes
the acronym speak speak. And so maybe what we do
is just go over it at a high level. Then
we can kind of poke around wherever you want. But yeah,
i'd love, yeah to start.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
With a as kind of a foundational piece.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
The s is select a problem to solve, Select a
problem to solve, Meaning like, there's two things that every
speaker needs to be clear on, and that is who
you speak to and what problem you solve for that audience. Now,
the dangerous thing here in the mistake that a lot
of speakers make because we tend to spread the net
as far and wide as possible. So who do I
speak to? I don't know, man, I speak to humans
I speak to people. My message is for everybody, and
(19:02):
you know what do I speak about? I don't know
what do you want me to speak about? We can
talk about business or faith, or family or sports, or
leadership or customer service or sales are like on and
on and on the list goes. And the reality is
is like you don't want to be trying to become
like all things to all people because that's just very
ineffective from a business standpoint.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
And so the.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Like one thing we tell speakers is you want to
be the steakhouse and not the buffet.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
The steakhouse not.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
The buffet, meaning like Jason, if you and I are
going out to eat, we're looking for a good steak,
Like we have a choice. We could go to a
buffet where steak is one of one hundred things that
they offer and they're all mediocre, or we could go
to a steakhouse where they just do one thing, but
they do that one thing really really well. And so
it's counterintuitive because again speakers think like I got to
spread the net as far and wide as possible. I
want to speak to as many types of people about
(19:47):
as many topics as possible. It's like that's not what
event planner's decision makers are looking for. So the foundational
piece again on S is selecting a problem to solve.
The second part their p is to prepare your talk,
be really really clear on who you speak to, and
then how you're going to deliver that presentation. You know,
you're doing workshops or keynotes or breakouts or seminars or webinars,
(20:10):
how are you going to actually present that in a
compelling and meaningful way that's going to be applicable, applicable
and relevant to that audience. The E is to establish
yourself as the expert. Establish yourself as the expert. So
two key marketing assets that we tell speakers that you need,
you need a website in a demo video. So in
this day and age, if you don't have website, it's
hard for people to take you seriously. And then a
(20:31):
demo video is basically like a It's almost like a
movie trailer, you know. So before any of us would
go see a movie, we want to see a trailer,
you know. And they're going to take a ninety minute,
two hour movie, they're gonna boil it down to two
or three minutes, and within that two or three minutes
you're gonna have an idea of who's in it, what's
the theme, what's the plot, what's the genre, and the
goal of the movie trailer and the goal of the
(20:51):
demo video is to make people want to see more,
and so that demo video is critically important as well.
And the next one a is to acquire aid speaking gigs. Now,
this is the part that we want to fast forward to, Like, bro,
just tell me how to get gigs, you know, but.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
We got to have these other pieces in place first. Otherwise,
like who do I speak to? I speak to anybody
and everybody about everything. I'm just trying to book gigs.
Like no, no, no, that doesn't work.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
We've got to get clear on something here of who
we speak to and what that problem is. But whenever
it comes to acquiring paid speaking gigs, at this stage,
we're not trying to the mistakes speakers will make. Is
going like, you know, I got my website, I got
my video, and now I just sit back and I
wait for the phone to ring, and like that doesn't work,
Like just because you have a website, nobody cares. Like
your mom is thrilled and she'll tell both of her friends.
(21:35):
Nobody else is interested, and so at this point we
got to be much more proactive rather than reactive and
like putting it out in the world, identifying decision makers,
contacting them directly, starting conversations, and that's a big thing
that we teach at the speak a Lab. And then
the last part of the process is k is knowing
when to scale, meaning a lot of people who are
interested in speaking ultimately we say like, hey, I have
(21:56):
a message that I want to share and speaking is
a way to go about doing that. But a lot
of speakers also say, hey, I want to do a
book and I want to do a podcast, and I
want to do coaching and training and the course and consulting.
And that's fine, you can do all those things, but
you can't do all those things at once. So yeah,
you've got to be clear and like how to speaking
kind of fit into the mix of what it is
that you're wanting to do in order to share a message.
(22:17):
So again, I know I covered a lot there, but
that's kind of the high level overview of what we
teach in terms of like the speaker's success roadmap in
terms of getting a book and pay to speak.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
No, that's perfect Grant and just from a location perspective,
So where can people get a copy of the book,
How can they subscribe and listen to the podcast, which
I highly encourage. I've listened to it multiple episodes to
Grant's point, And then if they want to enroll into
your program, where can they go to find all three
(22:47):
of those?
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Yeah, So the book is you can find it on
Amazon our website. The successful Speaker is the name of
the book, and then then there's a kindle and audible
version of that. The podcast is the Speak Aloud podcasts
again the speak of that podcast, So again wherever you're
listening to this, you can do a search for that
the speaker Cloud podcast. And then in terms of our programs, honestly,
you know, tell you what. If you're interested, just shoot
(23:10):
me an email. Grant at the speakerloud dot com, Grant
at the speak of alou dot com.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I'm happy to connect.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
You with our team who can give you some more details.
But yeah, if there's any questions or things I can
do to help support people, I'm happy to do.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
So love it, folks, you heard it from the man himself, Grant.
This has been awesome. Before we get ready to go
as you think about twenty twenty five. I know people
you know, they do goal planning, nears, resolutions, all these
different things. What are you excited about for twenty twenty five?
Is there any new projects or initiatives or maybe it's
(23:45):
something with your family that you're looking forward to. But
what would that be for twenty twenty five for you?
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Yeah, I mean on the business front, you know, we've
got a couple irons on the fire right now. Within
the company, there's no shortage of people who are interested
in speaking. And again, a lot of people who were
where I was twenty years ago just going like I
think I can do this. I just someone would tell
me what to do and how to do it. And
speaking is one of those things that is a very
(24:13):
aspirational thing a lot of people are interested in. And
it's just regardless of what happens with technology or AI
or whatever, like, it's not going away.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
You know that there's that.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
Innate thing within us off connecting with other humans and
learning from the other people that was that was put
there by our creator, and so that's a real need
that well will forever be be there. So continually figuring
out like how do we best serve and support students.
How do we help students get the fastest possible results
and make the kind of impact that they desire as
(24:44):
something we're working on a lot in twenty twenty five.
On the personal front, I'm married to my high school sweetheart.
We're coming up on our twenty third wedding anniversary, have
been together twenty eight years. And like you and I
were talking beforehand, we got we got three daughters, and
so it's me and a household, ladies.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
It's the best.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
And so I mean, I love being an entrepreneur, I
love being a speaker. Those things are lovely, but it's
way more important to me to be a good husband,
to be a good father. So you know, we're currently
planning a couple of trips right now with the girls
and intentional about making memories with them and quality time
with them. Our oldest just started college and so you know,
supporting her in that. So yeah, it's way more important
(25:24):
to me to just be a good be a good husband,
be a good father.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
That's the stuff that ultimately really matters.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
That's awesome, grant, I love it. Well, folks, that's all
we've got time for today. Just huge shout out Grant,
thank you for coming on the show. You've definitely imparted
wisdom and given clear and folks will have all Grant's
information in the show notes. It's email Speaker Lab podcasts
which make sure you subscribe leave. I promise you when
you listen you'll want to leave a good review as well.
(25:53):
But we'll have the book, the podcast as well as
this program, website, email all that. But Grant can't thank
you enough for stopping by here on the Fortified Life.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Thanks Jason, appreciate a man.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
All right, everybody, that's all we've got time for today.
But you know how we leave things. Don't compartmentalize your
faith in the marketplace and from the boardroom to the bathroom,
God is with you. We'll see you next time on
the Fortified Life podcast.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Thank you for listening to the Fortified Life Podcast. You
can catch us live on Wednesdays at eight thirty pm
Eastern Time and on demand. Check out Fortified lifepodcast dot
com for more details. So learn how to live out
your faith in the marketplace. Grab a copy of Jason
Davis's book Fortify Being Rooted in God's Plan for Work
(26:44):
in Business, Available on Amazon
Welcome to the Fortified Life podcast, where we learn how
to develop a dependency on Jesus in the marketplace. From
the boardroom to the bathroom. God is with you. Here's
our host, author, speaker, teacher, encourager, wore a TiO, coach,
and my husband. It's the man they call mister Fortified
Jason Davis.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode
of the Fortified Life podcast where we are passionate about
developing a dependency on Jesus and the marketplace. I'm your host,
Jason Davis aka mister Fortifi. Every week we have the
opportunity to bring on authors, speakers, coaches, all sorts of people,
people who are passionate about bringing God back in business.
(01:04):
And it's no different this week.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Now.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I got to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, our guest today.
I'm very excited. I've been following him for some time
and God has definitely graced him with a lot of
gifts to do a lot of things, and he is
impacting lots of people. Before I bring them on, let
me introduce him to you. Grant Baldwin. He is the
(01:31):
founder of Speaker Lab. He is the host of the
Speaker Lab podcast published author as well. We'll get to
his book a little bit later, but folks, welcome to
the Fortified Life Grant Baldwin. Grant, how's it going so well?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Man? Thanks for letting me hang out with you. Appreciate
it absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
You know, Grant, when people look at your bio and
everything you're involved in, there's always that question that comes up,
how did you get into what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I don't think people just kind of fall into coaching,
training and empowering speakers.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Yeah, So way back in the day, if we go
back in the Dolore and I in high school was
really involved in my local church and my youth pastor
had a big impact in my life, and for the
longest time, I was like, I want to do that,
you know, I want to be a youth pastor. I
kind of felt like if I could make the kind
of difference in others lives that he made in my life,
like that seemed really you know, gratifying, fulfilling, rewarding, and
so that was kind of the path.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
I was on.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
I went went to Bible College and became a youth
pastor at a local church and as a youth pastor.
There were, you know, parts of I like, parts of
I didn't like. But one thing I really enjoyed was speaking.
And speaking was one of those things I felt like
I was good at. Was doing, you know, Wednesday nights
with students, was doing Sunday mornings with students, was every
so often doing Sunday mornings you know in big church
as the as the Plan B substitute. And I just
(02:49):
felt like, you know, like, hey, there's something here. I
really enjoyed this, would like to do more of it.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
And so.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
When my my wife was pregnant with our first child,
there's nothing like bringing a kid into the world that
just caused you to question everything and just like, all.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Right, what am I? What am I doing with my life?
Speaker 4 (03:05):
You know, you and I were just talking about this
a little bit offline, and like how it's just it's
just a game changer, right and so and so I
decided like, okay, if I wasn't going to be a
youth pastor, like I'm really interested in speaking. But this
was like eighteen nineteen years ago or so. At the time,
there were really no books or resources or tools or
podcasts or just anything to help figure out like how
(03:27):
do you like become a speaker? You know, Like they
didn't feel like there was a real clear blueprint for anything.
And so I found myself like emailing other speakers, harassing
other speakers, stocking other speakers, kind of pick your brain
sort of stuff, and like learning some stuff here and there.
A lot of speakers were super generous and kind. I
started booking a couple gigs here and there, and eventually
became a full time speaker, and I was doing sixty
(03:47):
seventy gigs a year all over, primarily in the US.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
And I loved it. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
And then I found myself kind of on the receiving
end of that, where a lot of people were asking me.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Like, Hey, you're speaker. That's kind of cool. How do
I do that? You know?
Speaker 4 (03:58):
How do you find gigs? And what do you speak about?
And how much you charge? And who hire speakers and
like how does this work?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
You know?
Speaker 4 (04:04):
And so I started doing some coaching training around that,
and that evolved into the Speaker Lab.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
And so the Speaker Lab is a.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Training company and we do training and coaching for speakers,
teaching primarily the business of speaking.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
How do you find a book?
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Paid speaking engagements and so yeah, that's the core what
we do today, and it's spent my days helping helping
speakers spread their message.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
With the world.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Wow, Grant, there's a couple of things that stick out there.
One transition. Obviously, as human beings, nobody likes change, so Grant,
especially with your background, and I can only at least
I could be wrong. I can only think of a
handful where they're kind of in the faith space first
and then they go into the business world where we
(04:47):
usually see the opposite. They leave the business world to
kind of come into ministry. But for you, what was
that transition like taking the next step saying you know what,
let's I'm gonna do this. What what was that like?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yeah, it's a really good question.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
I would say that that transition window there of going okay,
I was a youth pastor, I went to bib College
for this.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Thing, and now.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
I felt like that window of time, like that year
after I left this gig is at as a youth
pastor was honestly like one of the harder years of life.
And here's why I like the this is sadly far
too off in the case where churches are amazing resources
(05:32):
of places spiritual sanctuaries on the weekends, but they're not
always the best to work at. And this isn't you know,
this isn't universal. There's a lot of like amazing churches
out there. But the guy that I was working for
the church I was at was just is just not
a great human unfortunately, and just kind of a jerk
to work for. And so it just kind of found
(05:53):
me going, you know, as if I left this church
and I went to a different church, like is going
to be different somewhere else. I had a lot of
friends from Bible College I'd kind of compare notes with,
and I was like, Hey, I'm I'm semi miserable over here.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
What about you? Oh you are too over there?
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Like huh, apparently this is kind of a thread, you know,
and again, this is a universe. I'm still really involved
in my own local church. We've got a great pastor.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
But it just kind of.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Caused me to question, like, all right, what what.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Do I really want to be doing?
Speaker 4 (06:22):
And so as I was thinking on the speaking part
of it, it did I spent a lot of time
wrestling with the question of going. Okay, I went to
Bible College I thought I was going to be youth pastor.
I felt like I was called to ministry. So now
if I'm doing something tangential but different outside of the
four walls of a church, am I am I being disobedient?
(06:42):
Am I going in a different direction?
Speaker 3 (06:46):
You know?
Speaker 4 (06:46):
I didn't want to be Jonah running away from God
and end up in the belly of a whale or something,
And so I'm just I had a hard time wrestling
with that for a long time, and even as a
once I kind of landing on like, hey, I want
to be a speaker. The majority of what I was
doing as a speaker was not in the church world.
It wasn't in the faith based world. And so the
(07:06):
majority of what I was doing was in high schools.
It was in colleges, it was in student leadership conferences
and events. It was in like public the public sector.
And so I didn't necessarily view myself as a Christian speaker,
but more as a speaker who happened to be a Christian.
And so as a former youth pastor, you know, there's
certainly times where I would go speak out like a school.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Assembly, and.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
I wouldn't like, you know, in that time, like public
school setting, you're not like, you know, preaching or quote
de scripture or something. But sometimes I'd had students who
come up and be like, have you ever been a
youth pastor? It was like yeah, actually it was like, ah,
I knew it. You know, it's kind of like, you know,
you can't hide from it or something. And had a guy, actually,
this is funny yesterday, literally yesterday at the time of recording,
who I was talking to, and he's like, you know
(07:52):
what you just you I could see like how you
used to be a youth pastor, but you don't give
that like awkward, weird youth pastor vibe. You know, like
all right, I'll take that as a compliment, I guess,
you know.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
And so, but the point.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Being is like, uh, it was just definitely like that
year of going like okay, you know, wife just had
the first kid, left the youth pastor gig, trying to
figure out what's next if I go into this speaking thing.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Am I speaking in church? You know, my speaking outside
of church? You know?
Speaker 4 (08:25):
Whatever I land on, you know, am I doing ministry?
And it was just like it's just a difficult felt
like wandering the desert, just trying to figure out, you know,
what's what's next word? I go from here, But you know,
fast forwarding to today, like I still look back on
that season of life as such a pivotal time of
life that I'm glad kind of wandered through that to
(08:46):
land on you know what I'm doing today.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
M I appreciate your transparency, Grant, because you know, the
messy middle is what a lot of us struggle with.
They they just see the oh Man, Grant Baldwin. He's
got a company, he's an author, he's a speaker, he's
equipping thousands of people. And then it's like, well, yeah,
I had to I had to get started somewhere. The
other thing I wanted to ask you about, Grant is
(09:11):
you're so you're you're pounding the pavement, you're speaking, You've
got schools, universities, and then all of a sudden people
start asking you about, Hey, I you know, Grant, you're
kind of doing this. Can you start showing me?
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
You know?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
They say that, you know, feedback is a gift. That's
one of the quotes out there. So how did you
start to synthesize the questions and the request that people like?
Of course, you're still booking gigs, But how did you
start to filter? Like, you know what, I'm starting to
get questions about this piece was speaking? No, no, no, We'll
(09:49):
get to the businesses speaking later. But how did you
start to synthesize that? Because I would imagine you've kind
of on one side of the brain you got to
stay booked, and then on the other side you got
people requesting you for how can I learn about this?
So how did you kind of work through that?
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, that's a good question. So I think there are
a couple of things that happened.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
One was I'll tell you a story when I was
I remember this was probably eleven twelve years ago or so,
and speaking was going really well. I was doing a
lot of gigs, and I found I found myself kind
of like hitting a ceiling. Because then the nature of
speaking is it's a high paying, manual labor job in
that you get paid really well to stand on stage
(10:30):
and run your mouth.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But the nature.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Speaking is you got to get on a plane, you
got to leave your family, you got to go somewhere,
you got to go do that thing.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
You know, It's like a like a surgeon.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
You know, surgeon makes really good money for what they do,
but you got to go do surgery, you know.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
So I felt like I didn't necessarily have a business.
I had a job. You know. It was a cool job.
I loved it. It was a ton of fun, but like, nonetheless,
it's a job.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
And so I just kind of felt like at this
crossroads of going, you know, in order to like increase
your income or your impact, like you either have to
like increase your fees in the youth market. I was
kind of at the upper end of what I felt
comfortable with, and or you just do more gigs, which
is just again going to require you to typically be
gone more, you know, So that wasn't really appealing either.
(11:11):
I was already gone eighty ninety nights a year on
the road, and like the one hour year on stage
or whatever it is is like amazing, and the rest
of the time You're just like I just want to
go home, you know, I just.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
I just want to sleep in my own bed tonight.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
And so I remember being at this kind of like
pivotal time, and I remember I was speaking at an
event in Reno, Nevada, and there's a friend of mine
out in the area, a speaker friend of mine mentor
Hero who's probably twenty years older than me, a very
successful speaker, And so I met up with him at
Lake Tahoe and he and I are driving around the
lake there, just talking about life, and I remember him
(11:45):
giving a like a really good piece of advice. He
told me two things.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
He said.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
One is you have to regularly find things where the
challenge exceeds this skill set, where the challenge exceeds the
skill set, meaning like when you first start doing something.
When I first started speaking, I felt like I was
over my head, meaning like the challenge exceeds this skill set.
It was like, holy crap, I don't know what I'm doing.
This is gonna be a disaster. What's gonna happen? But
over time, what happens is that flips and the skill
(12:10):
set exceeds the challenge, Meaning I got to a point
where I could stand on stage in front of a
thousand teenagers and I could crush it, but inside kind
of be on autopilot and just be bored, you know.
And this isn't exclusive to just speaking. This is the
case with anything. You know, the first time you start
doing something, you're just like I feel like I'm over
my head. But over time is it flips and you
(12:31):
just get way more comfortable with that. And he said,
part of the joy in work is you want to
find things where the skill set or where the challenge
exceeds the skill set, where you always just feel like
I'm slightly over my head. And so at that point
in my career, I felt a little bored. I felt
a little restless. And so that was a really good
piece of advice. But the second thing he told me
is he said, Granted, a lot of people are feel
(12:54):
like they're just born to be speakers, you know, and
he's one of those people, Like, the guy's been speaking
longer than I've been alive.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
He'll do his own eulogy. The guy loves to speak.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
And for me, like I genuinely enjoy speaking, but it
also felt like not one necessarily one of those things that.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Like I gotta do this forever, you know.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
And and so he said, Grant, he said, I think
you are an entrepreneur who happens to be good at speaking.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
And that really resonated with me.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
It just kind of like it clicked for me that, yeah,
I genuinely enjoy speaking. But you know, if we fast
forward to today, like I don't do nearly as much
speaking as I used to, and I don't feel like
I'm desperate to get on stage. I got to get
back to it, you know. I genuinely enjoy helping other
speakers with their own you know, speaking business and making
that impact and income. And so when when I sort
(13:41):
of having several people who are reaching out to me,
going how do I do?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
What you do?
Speaker 4 (13:44):
You know, one, it was just kind of like you're
just kind of paying attention to that when you have
a bunch of different people asking you a lot of
the same questions, like, all right, there might be something
that I don't you know, maybe it is, maybe there isn't,
but something worth paying attention to. And then also at
the time, again this was ten twelve years ago or
zonn there in my experience, I didn't find anybody else
who is teaching this, you know. I kind of felt
(14:05):
like the Speaker Lab kind of evolved out of like
what I wish I had when I got started, because
there's there's a lot of like kind of coaches and
trainings on how do you put together.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
A talk and how do you present a talk?
Speaker 4 (14:17):
And you know, skills on stage and PowerPoint presentations, and
those sorts of things, and like that's important, you know.
But at the same time, it's like, man, if you're
a phenomenal speaker, but you don't know, like how do
you actually book a gig?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
You know, like how do you do that part of it?
You know?
Speaker 4 (14:30):
And like how much do you charge? And who hires
sp who do I talk to? Like how does that
part of it work?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
You know?
Speaker 4 (14:35):
It felt like you had to be some best selling author,
you had to be some pseudo celebrity, or you had
to have like conquered cancer climb Mount everest or won
a gold medal, and then people would just naturally book you.
It's like, yeah, but I'm like a white male from
the Midwest who's had a normal, average life. Like there's
nothing on paper where you'd be like, oh, well, of
course that dude should be a speaker, you know. And
so it's just kind of like, but how do I
(14:56):
how do I get booked? How do I get like
how does that work?
Speaker 3 (14:58):
You know?
Speaker 4 (14:58):
And so I've I figured out some things that I
felt like worked well for me, and I started doing
some coaching and training and felt like it was helping
others speakers get similar results.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
I was like I would.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
I love that part, you know, I want to be
able to teach that part of it. And so that's
kind of what evolved there. And so it was never like, Man,
I'm doing you know, sixty seventy paid gigs a year. Uh.
And then I get a couple of people who ask me,
you know, a couple of questions like, all right, I'm
done with my own speaking stuff. Let's you know, put
a bow on that, and we're gonna quit that on
Friday and on Monday, we're going all in on coaching
(15:29):
or teaching or whatever. You know. I was like, it
was never like that. It was just kind of like, hey,
let's start doing some more coaching training. As that continued
to ramp up, and it was like, all right, instead
of doing seventy.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Gigs, let's do fifty gigs.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Instead doing fifty gigs, let's do forty gigs, you know,
And it's just kind of like over time, they're kind
of flip flopping there to now, Like, like I mentioned,
I do you know, a very very little speaking and
the majority of my time is spent focused on the
on the speaker lab.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Grant.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
You dropped several nuggets of wisdom there an entrepreneur, Grant,
I think you're an entrepreneur who speaks. That's I could
understand how in that moment that was a light bulb
aha revelation, as we would say in the faith based Yeah, Grant,
let's talk about some of the tools and resources and
(16:19):
how you go about helping students. So we kind of
talked about this earlier. There's just kind of like the
art of speaking, you know, putting together a talk, voice,
inflection work in the audience. But then there's the businesses speaking.
And so I know you have a program, You've got
(16:40):
a book, and then you've got the podcast. So let's
start with the program that students can enroll in where
you kind of provide a framework and a lot of
other tools that kind of marry both the art and
the science and the metrics and the data. So let's
talk about the program, and then we'll get into the
book and the podcast.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Yeah, and actually we can kind of combine all three
of them together. Sure that significant there's significant overlap and
kind of a ven diagram there. And so the podcast
was kind of birthed out of a lot of people
were asking questions and so it's kind of like, you know,
if you had asked me, like, you know, Grant, what
should I charge as a speaker? Well, I can give you, you know,
a quick couple of minute answer here. But at the
same time, there's a lot of nuance that goes into it.
(17:22):
So it's like, what if we record an episode you know,
that's a thirty minute episode going in depth on speaking fees,
you know. And then also there's a lot of like
speaker friends and people in the industry that I wanted
to talk to. And so, uh, we've been doing the
podcast for nine years at this point, we got five
and thirty five hundred and forty some episodes and basically
it's it's called to Speak a Lout podcasts. And so
(17:44):
if you you know, you listen to this podcast, you
probably listen to other podcasts, so definitely check that out.
And then had the book come out called The Successful
Speaker Five Steps for booking gigs, getting paid, and building
your platform. And then also we have a you know,
a in depth you know, coaching and training program at
the Speaker Lab where if you want more help and
support one on one group level.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
That's the case.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
But I start with like the podcast in the book,
because like you don't have to spend anything with us.
You know, you can listen to that literally hundreds of
hours of the podcast and you're gonna get a ton
of information and a ton of knowledge there. Or you know,
you got a ten to twenty dollars book that you
can get that's gonna give you a ton of information.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
But the core framework that we teach.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
At the Speaker Lab, and this is in the podcast,
is in the book, this is in our programs, is
what we call the Speaker Success Roadmap, and it makes
the acronym speak speak. And so maybe what we do
is just go over it at a high level. Then
we can kind of poke around wherever you want. But yeah,
i'd love, yeah to start.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
With a as kind of a foundational piece.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
The s is select a problem to solve, Select a
problem to solve, Meaning like, there's two things that every
speaker needs to be clear on, and that is who
you speak to and what problem you solve for that audience. Now,
the dangerous thing here in the mistake that a lot
of speakers make because we tend to spread the net
as far and wide as possible. So who do I
speak to? I don't know, man, I speak to humans
I speak to people. My message is for everybody, and
(19:02):
you know what do I speak about? I don't know
what do you want me to speak about? We can
talk about business or faith, or family or sports, or
leadership or customer service or sales are like on and
on and on the list goes. And the reality is
is like you don't want to be trying to become
like all things to all people because that's just very
ineffective from a business standpoint.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
And so the.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Like one thing we tell speakers is you want to
be the steakhouse and not the buffet.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
The steakhouse not.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
The buffet, meaning like Jason, if you and I are
going out to eat, we're looking for a good steak,
Like we have a choice. We could go to a
buffet where steak is one of one hundred things that
they offer and they're all mediocre, or we could go
to a steakhouse where they just do one thing, but
they do that one thing really really well. And so
it's counterintuitive because again speakers think like I got to
spread the net as far and wide as possible. I
want to speak to as many types of people about
(19:47):
as many topics as possible. It's like that's not what
event planner's decision makers are looking for. So the foundational
piece again on S is selecting a problem to solve.
The second part their p is to prepare your talk,
be really really clear on who you speak to, and
then how you're going to deliver that presentation. You know,
you're doing workshops or keynotes or breakouts or seminars or webinars,
(20:10):
how are you going to actually present that in a
compelling and meaningful way that's going to be applicable, applicable
and relevant to that audience. The E is to establish
yourself as the expert. Establish yourself as the expert. So
two key marketing assets that we tell speakers that you need,
you need a website in a demo video. So in
this day and age, if you don't have website, it's
hard for people to take you seriously. And then a
(20:31):
demo video is basically like a It's almost like a
movie trailer, you know. So before any of us would
go see a movie, we want to see a trailer,
you know. And they're going to take a ninety minute,
two hour movie, they're gonna boil it down to two
or three minutes, and within that two or three minutes
you're gonna have an idea of who's in it, what's
the theme, what's the plot, what's the genre, and the
goal of the movie trailer and the goal of the
(20:51):
demo video is to make people want to see more,
and so that demo video is critically important as well.
And the next one a is to acquire aid speaking gigs. Now,
this is the part that we want to fast forward to, Like, bro,
just tell me how to get gigs, you know, but.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
We got to have these other pieces in place first. Otherwise,
like who do I speak to? I speak to anybody
and everybody about everything. I'm just trying to book gigs.
Like no, no, no, that doesn't work.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
We've got to get clear on something here of who
we speak to and what that problem is. But whenever
it comes to acquiring paid speaking gigs, at this stage,
we're not trying to the mistakes speakers will make. Is
going like, you know, I got my website, I got
my video, and now I just sit back and I
wait for the phone to ring, and like that doesn't work,
Like just because you have a website, nobody cares. Like
your mom is thrilled and she'll tell both of her friends.
(21:35):
Nobody else is interested, and so at this point we
got to be much more proactive rather than reactive and
like putting it out in the world, identifying decision makers,
contacting them directly, starting conversations, and that's a big thing
that we teach at the speak a Lab. And then
the last part of the process is k is knowing
when to scale, meaning a lot of people who are
interested in speaking ultimately we say like, hey, I have
(21:56):
a message that I want to share and speaking is
a way to go about doing that. But a lot
of speakers also say, hey, I want to do a
book and I want to do a podcast, and I
want to do coaching and training and the course and consulting.
And that's fine, you can do all those things, but
you can't do all those things at once. So yeah,
you've got to be clear and like how to speaking
kind of fit into the mix of what it is
that you're wanting to do in order to share a message.
(22:17):
So again, I know I covered a lot there, but
that's kind of the high level overview of what we
teach in terms of like the speaker's success roadmap in
terms of getting a book and pay to speak.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
No, that's perfect Grant and just from a location perspective,
So where can people get a copy of the book,
How can they subscribe and listen to the podcast, which
I highly encourage. I've listened to it multiple episodes to
Grant's point, And then if they want to enroll into
your program, where can they go to find all three
(22:47):
of those?
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Yeah, So the book is you can find it on
Amazon our website. The successful Speaker is the name of
the book, and then then there's a kindle and audible
version of that. The podcast is the Speak Aloud podcasts
again the speak of that podcast, So again wherever you're
listening to this, you can do a search for that
the speaker Cloud podcast. And then in terms of our programs, honestly,
you know, tell you what. If you're interested, just shoot
(23:10):
me an email. Grant at the speakerloud dot com, Grant
at the speak of alou dot com.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I'm happy to connect.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
You with our team who can give you some more details.
But yeah, if there's any questions or things I can
do to help support people, I'm happy to do.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
So love it, folks, you heard it from the man himself, Grant.
This has been awesome. Before we get ready to go
as you think about twenty twenty five. I know people
you know, they do goal planning, nears, resolutions, all these
different things. What are you excited about for twenty twenty five?
Is there any new projects or initiatives or maybe it's
(23:45):
something with your family that you're looking forward to. But
what would that be for twenty twenty five for you?
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Yeah, I mean on the business front, you know, we've
got a couple irons on the fire right now. Within
the company, there's no shortage of people who are interested
in speaking. And again, a lot of people who were
where I was twenty years ago just going like I
think I can do this. I just someone would tell
me what to do and how to do it. And
speaking is one of those things that is a very
(24:13):
aspirational thing a lot of people are interested in. And
it's just regardless of what happens with technology or AI
or whatever, like, it's not going away.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
You know that there's that.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
Innate thing within us off connecting with other humans and
learning from the other people that was that was put
there by our creator, and so that's a real need
that well will forever be be there. So continually figuring
out like how do we best serve and support students.
How do we help students get the fastest possible results
and make the kind of impact that they desire as
(24:44):
something we're working on a lot in twenty twenty five.
On the personal front, I'm married to my high school sweetheart.
We're coming up on our twenty third wedding anniversary, have
been together twenty eight years. And like you and I
were talking beforehand, we got we got three daughters, and
so it's me and a household, ladies.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
It's the best.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
And so I mean, I love being an entrepreneur, I
love being a speaker. Those things are lovely, but it's
way more important to me to be a good husband,
to be a good father. So you know, we're currently
planning a couple of trips right now with the girls
and intentional about making memories with them and quality time
with them. Our oldest just started college and so you know,
supporting her in that. So yeah, it's way more important
(25:24):
to me to just be a good be a good husband,
be a good father.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
That's the stuff that ultimately really matters.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
That's awesome, grant, I love it. Well, folks, that's all
we've got time for today. Just huge shout out Grant,
thank you for coming on the show. You've definitely imparted
wisdom and given clear and folks will have all Grant's
information in the show notes. It's email Speaker Lab podcasts
which make sure you subscribe leave. I promise you when
you listen you'll want to leave a good review as well.
(25:53):
But we'll have the book, the podcast as well as
this program, website, email all that. But Grant can't thank
you enough for stopping by here on the Fortified Life.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Thanks Jason, appreciate a man.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
All right, everybody, that's all we've got time for today.
But you know how we leave things. Don't compartmentalize your
faith in the marketplace and from the boardroom to the bathroom,
God is with you. We'll see you next time on
the Fortified Life podcast.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Thank you for listening to the Fortified Life Podcast. You
can catch us live on Wednesdays at eight thirty pm
Eastern Time and on demand. Check out Fortified lifepodcast dot
com for more details. So learn how to live out
your faith in the marketplace. Grab a copy of Jason
Davis's book Fortify Being Rooted in God's Plan for Work
(26:44):
in Business, Available on Amazon
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