In this episode of the SpeakersU Podcast, James Taylor and Maria Franzoni explore one of the most important challenges for professional speakers: how to stay relevant in a rapidly changing marketplace.

Maria explains why relevance to a paying market is the first element of her Bookability Formula and how speakers can identify what audiences will need today—and in five years' time. James shares how he blends perennial topics like creativity with fast-moving ones like AI, and why staying a few steps ahead of clients keeps him in demand.

From industry reports and boardroom insights to experimenting with new keynote content and testing topics with the market before creating them, this conversation is packed with strategies to help speakers stay visible, booked, and valued in an ever-evolving industry.

• Relevance drives bookings – It's the #1 factor in Maria's Bookability Formula.
  
  

• Think five years ahead – Use strategy insights to prepare for how industries and audiences will evolve.
  
  

• Blend perennial and trendy topics – Pair evergreen skills (creativity, leadership, resilience) with emerging trends (AI, tech, demographics).
  
  

• Listen more, talk less – Relevance often comes from asking the right questions in discovery calls.
  
  

• Experiment before you build – Test keynote ideas, topics, or programs in the market before investing time and money.
  
  

• Differentiate by audience – Tailor your pitch for C-suite, event professionals, and bureaus, as each values relevance differently.
  
  

• Stay close to your industry – Associations like MPI and global markets (US, Europe, Asia) often signal future trends.
  
  

• "The most important element of being bookable is relevance to a paying market." – Maria Franzoni
  
  

• "Don't wait for five-year plans—ask what the world will look like in five years and move your speaking to match." – James Taylor
  
  

• "Sell it before you create it. The market decides what's relevant, not you." – Maria Franzoni
  
  

• "Relevance isn't just your topic—it's how you present it to different stakeholders." – James Taylor
  
  

• 00:00 – Welcome and updates: group sessions and risky live AI music demos
  
  

• 04:24 – Why staying relevant matters: Maria's Bookability Formula
  
  

• 05:18 – James on blending perennial topics with fast-changing ones
  
  

• 06:45 – Strategy lessons from Eric Schmidt: think five years ahead
  
  

• 07:34 – Maria on LinkedIn Learning and WEF reports as future-skills guides
  
  

• 09:10 – How James tracks trends using board minutes, Gartner reports, Reddit
  
  

• 11:11 – Tech examples: AR glasses, live facial recognition, event tech
  
  

• 14:54 – Staying close to the meetings & events industry for insights
  
  

• 16:22 – Meeting professionals shaping the future of conferences
  
  

• 18:48 – Being too early: when audiences aren't ready for your message
  
  

• 20:01 – Test the market first: lessons from publishing and Dragon's Den
  
  

• 23:15 – Differentiating yourself in competitive pitches
  
  

• 25:00 – Evergreen vs. niche topics and industry-specific competition
  
  

• 27:20 – Relevance shifts depending on whether you're pitching C-suite, planners, or bureaus
  
  

• 28:07 – Discovery calls: listening, mirroring language, and building relevance
  
  

• 29:18 – Why listening is the most underrated skill for speakers
  
  

• 30:17 – Maria's tip: ask clients "How did you find me?" and "Why me?" before and after gigs
  
  

• 32:43 – James' tool: Opus Pro for creating viral short-form video clips
  
  

• 34:16 – Closing thoughts and listener questions
  
  

👉 Have a question for James and Maria? Email: hello@speakersu.com

In this episode of the SpeakersU Podcast, James Taylor and Maria Franzoni tackle one of the most common dilemmas for speakers: should you ever speak for free? From the early days of building your career to strategic opportunities later on, there are times when waiving your fee can make sense—and times when it's a clear no.

James and Maria share their own experiences, including James' infamous "Ham Salad Tour" of free Rotary talks, Maria's love of prospecting, and why speaking for peers rarely pays. They also explore when unpaid gigs can serve as marketing, help you perfect your craft, or provide valuable assets like video footage, networking access, or bulk book sales.

If you've ever been asked to "speak for exposure," this episode will give you the tools to decide whether to say yes, no, or "yes, but on my terms."

• Get your reps in – Early in your career, free gigs help you practice, refine material, and build confidence.
  
  

• Peers don't pay – Speaking to your own industry or colleagues rarely results in paid bookings.
  
  

• Make it part of your marketing – Free gigs targeting your ideal audience can lead to paid work.
  
  

• Negotiate value beyond fees – Ask for video footage, attendee lists, association memberships, or bulk book sales.
  
  

• Positioning matters – Your website, testimonials, and branding can either attract paid gigs or signal you'll work for free.
  
  

• Give back strategically – Schools, associations, and podcasts can be the right places to serve without charging.
  
  

• Always set boundaries – Say "I normally charge X, but I'm waiving my fee" to reinforce your value.
  
  

• "Peers don't pay. If you're speaking to your own industry, don't expect a fee." – Maria Franzoni
  
  

• "Don't fall in love with the stage—fall in love with the audience that can book you." – James Taylor
  
  

• "If you're converting every inquiry, your fees are too low." – James Taylor
  
  

• "Speaking for free can be smart—but only if you're clear why you're doing it." – Maria Franzoni
  
  

• 00:00 – Welcome and Maria's targeted outreach experiment
  
  

• 01:56 – Introducing today's topic: speaking for free
  
  

• 04:01 – Maria's "I will speak for biscuits" mug and first perspectives
  
  

• 04:56 – Why free gigs are valuable for beginners (reps & stage time)
  
  

• 06:18 – James' first paid music gig vs. 40 free Rotary talks
  
  

• 07:41 – Speaking for free as part of your marketing budget
  
  

• 09:47 – The "Ham Salad Tour" and the moment free gigs led to paid bookings
  
  

• 09:57 – Why podcasts, peer events, and associations are worth doing unpaid
  
  

• 11:05 – Giving back: Speakers for Schools and pro bono speaking
  
  

• 13:01 – Schools as a paid speaking market (School Speakers example)
  
  

• 15:01 – How your positioning and testimonials attract (or repel) free requests
  
  

• 16:45 – Negotiating non-fee value: video, access, booths, memberships
  
  

• 18:20 – The myth of "sharing the stage with…"
  
  

• 20:22 – Free gigs as leverage for podcasting, YouTube, and influencer deals
  
  

• 23:41 – Digital twins, AI, and future revenue opportunities
  
  

• 24:28 – Tools & tips: Otter.ai for transcriptions and positioning your website
  
  

• 28:06 – Wrap-up and invitation for listener questions
  
  

👉 Have a question for James and Maria? Email: hello@speakersu.com

Entertaining and unreservedly direct, our guest isn't just a motivational speaker – he is a company turnaround specialist driving everyone from CEOs to schoolchildren to ignite excitement and action in their life.
For more than 20 years, he has been on his quest to make you the best by sharing his techniques and tools to break through the boundaries we put up around us. His always animated and interactive presentations have inspired thousands of FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 delegates, school children, charities, and prison inmates, in groups of five to 5000 and all over the world, into taking positive strides in their work and personal life.
No longer living the dress rehearsal of their life, his words whip up listeners into action; energized and passionate.

Questions:

• How long have you been speaking?
• What is your speaking biz model?
• How did you become speaker of the year from Vistage Ace Footdown and YPO?
• Why do you specialize in CEO groups?
• How many books have you written?
• Why books can be a massive income producer
• Why speakers are more concerned with testimonials than re-bookings
• How to get rebooked even before the first event

Our guest this week started in the speaking industry in 2012 and began as an agent handling the speaking for a range of motivational speakers from the world of sport, adventure, and military. In 2014, he relocated to Hong Kong to start the Chartwell Asia office. The majority of clients there were financial services firms sourcing experts to speak at their regional conferences. During his time in Asia, he got a lot of experience in "co-broking" with US-Based Agencies. In 2016 he returned to London and took over as Managing Director of Chartwell at that time. His role now mainly consists of handling "exclusive speakers" and managing the corporate speaking engagements for a range of high-profile economists, politicians, technology entrepreneurs & academics.

Questions:

• Tell us about Chartwell and what makes them USPs
• How did you get into the Speaking Industry? What's your background? 
• What's going on in the market?

• What type of speaker would work with you / Chartwell? 
• What advice would you give to a speaker looking to get booked by an agency like Chartwell?

Jessica Killingley: How Writing A Book Can Help Your Speaking Career – #136

Jessica Killingley is a Literary Agent, Publishing Consultant & Life Coach. An accidental serial entrepreneur, she runs a business that supports founders, consultants, and coaches who want to write & self-publish books that grow their business and their profile. Her podcast, The AUTHORity Show, gives aspiring non-fiction authors the inside track into what it really takes to get a book out there that turns readers into clients. After working for over 20 years in the publishing industry, she also co-founded The BKS Agency – a literary management Agency based in London – with two friends. They currently represent around 75 authors globally, across a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres. Their authors are Sunday Times bestsellers, Olympic athletes, gifted storytellers, international speakers, entrepreneurs, journalists, consultants, and experts in their field. Jessica's interests lie in business, personal development & smart thinking projects and she is looking for authors who have strong brands in their fields to be the thought leaders of tomorrow. 

Questions:

• Writing a book is hard work – why should someone bother? 
• How can having a book support your speaking career? 
• What is the best way of getting my book published? (See also Do I need an agent? How do you get a book deal?) 
• How do I make a book work hard for me once it's out?

Our guest is the author of the global best-seller, "How to be a Productivity Ninja". He is the founder of Think Productive, one of the world's leading providers of personal productivity training and consultancy. His podcast "Beyond Busy" explores the issues of productivity, work/life balance, and how people define happiness in their lives. Previous roles include Chief Executive of Student Volunteering England, Head of Volunteering at the University of Birmingham, and an advisor to the UK Government on youth volunteering policy.

Welcome Graham Allcott

Questions:
•What stops people from being productive?
•What are the ways to ensure a good work-life balance?
•How do you switch off?
•How do you ensure that a keynote delivery always feels tailored for the specific audience?

I'm James Taylor, and you're listening to the speakers you podcast, a show for aspiring and professional speakers. This episode is with my co-host, Maria Franzoni. Enjoy the episode. Today, I'm outnumbered. I'm the only one. I'm the only stranieri here. I'm the only non-Italian on this call on this event, so 100 million new businesses start every year, and 99% of them actually fail within three years. So really our businesses, we're kind of a little bit unusual here. So how do we create these sustainable businesses, businesses, businesses that could survive and thrive in the toughest market conditions? That is what our guests will help us discover today. Simone Gen Z is a multi-award-winning serial entrepreneur and author who has helped people to launch more than 500 profitable businesses before he reached the age of 30. He writes for Forbes Entrepreneur Magazine and regularly features on TV and radio, please welcome to speaking business TV Simone Vincenzi

What differentiates high performers from good performers? What helps one person to achieve in 3 months what others do in 12? These are the questions that have inspired our guest for the last 20 years and have led to his #IAM10 methodology for high performance. The world is changing faster than ever. There is more competition than ever before. The global economy, AI, automation all mean that you and your people need to work with conviction, embrace change, maximise productivity and add more value to every situation. Good enough is not good enough anymore. You need to be the best. You need to be a 10.  We are delighted to have Gavin Ingham as our guest this week.

Questions:

• How did you get into speaking? 
• What do you think makes a bookable speaker? And how has this changed over the last couple of years? 
• Why do only such a small percentage of speakers succeed? 
• What is it that speakers do/ don't do that would make the difference? 
• Where do most of your business come from? 

• What three things would you recommend to a speaker wanting more business?

For the last decade, our guest has worked with Business Owners, Entrepreneurs, MD's & Investors in order to help them stand out when they are delivering talks and speeches, pitching or looking to win business through delivering speaking. His unique and effective structures, impactful delivery training, and teaching "language that lands" has helped to hone their messaging, perfect their stories, and thus enable them to win more business. He has spoken globally at conferences, events, in front of teams, leaders, and managers on how to pitch and win new business. As well as speaking he has worked with some of the leading companies and corporations and entrepreneurs on customer service, how to get into the media and how to successfully pitch on top-rated television programs such as "Dragons Den" and "MasterChef the Professionals".  Welcome Elliot Kay

Questions:

• What does it mean to be more giraffe?
• How can someone apply this to their speaking?
• Tell us about the 8 principles – could you share a couple.
• Biz model
• Why is it important to stand out as a speaker?
• How do you help people be more giraffe?

We have a phenomenal guest today we have a very, very, very special guest today, her name is Maria Franzoni. You may have heard of her because the day we're talking about speaker bureaus, and when it comes to this topic of speaker bureaus working with Speaker bureaus, there are no finer experts to bring in than Maria. So as a speaker, at some point, you're going to consider working with Speaker bureaus just to help you grow your fees, and your business. Speaker bureaus can not only get you higher fees, but they can also get you booked by the right type of clients and take all that horrible admin stuff off of your shoulders. When the relationship works, your business is going to fly to the stars. Sounds great. How do we make it happen? Today's guest has spent 23 years amazing working in running international speaker bureaus. She'll be sharing some insights into what it takes to get listed and work with bureaus. Yes, Maria Franzoni is in the hot seat this week.

Geoff Burch is a leading authority on sales, leadership, customers, and change and has been voted Business Communicator of the Year by the Speechwriters' Guild.

He is a regular contributor and presenter on TV and Radio and was the star of BBC television's hit business show 'All over the Shop'. Currently, Geoff is regularly seen as a business correspondent and presenter for BBC televisions Inside Out program.

Due to his love of riding huge motorbikes, the Sunday Times referred to him as the Hells Angel of Management and where once he might have been thought of as a disruptive influence he has now been rehabilitated as an agent for change.

Geoff is the author of many highly successful business books with six currently in print and has some powerful business messages to bring, but most of all he would like you to sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

Welcome Geoff Burch

Questions:
• How did you get started in the speaking game?
• How do you prepare for each job?
• How do you set your fee level?
• How do you find most of your work?

Our guest this week is Dr. Marie-Helene Pelletier, better known to her colleagues as 'MH' or 'Dr. P' (which is a lot easier for me to pronounce!). Dr. P holds both a PhD and an MBA from the University of British Columbia and teaches leadership resilience in the UBC School of Business. Dr. P is a leadership resilience and workplace mental health expert. She is an award-winning work psychologist who has led workplace mental health strategy in senior leadership roles at various organizations including Sun Life Financial. She's a past Director on the boards of the Canadian Psychological Association and the International Association of Applied Psychology and an active member of the Global Clinical Practice Network of the World Health Organization. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Pelletier!"

Questions:
• Given your combined background in business and psychology and expertise in Resilience, how is resilience particularly important for Speakers now in their business?
• Even if many Speakers are the main, often the only person in their business, how should they think about Workplace Mental Health?
• What would be the top strategies for Speakers to implement to increase and protect their resilience and mental health?
• Many have used the past year to review our values and goals – how can this positively influence how Speakers take their next steps in their business?

In this episode of the SpeakersU Podcast, James Taylor and Maria Franzoni unpack the power of building a portfolio speaking career. Too many speakers rely solely on keynotes, but the most resilient and profitable speaking businesses diversify their income streams. From workshops and retainers to books, advisory roles, online courses, and even AI-powered products, a portfolio approach helps you weather the feast-or-famine cycle of the industry.

James shares how he applies Ray Dalio's "All Weather Portfolio" strategy to his speaking business, while Maria explains how to identify client problems and design solutions that add value beyond the keynote. Together, they highlight real-world examples of speakers generating millions through recurring services, and why thinking like an "expert with a product suite" is more powerful than being "just a speaker."

Whether you're an established speaker or just starting out, this episode will give you practical ideas to expand your offering, increase client loyalty, and future-proof your career.

• Think beyond the keynote – Workshops, masterclasses, MCing, advisory roles, and retainers all create additional value.
  
  

• Adopt an "All Weather" model – Spread your business across different products and services to survive seasonal slumps.
  
  

• Fall in love with client problems – The best portfolio ideas come from understanding what your clients need most.
  
  

• Leverage recurring revenue – Subscriptions, memberships, or video libraries can generate predictable income.
  
  

• Books as business tools – Sell bulk copies, personalise editions for clients, and use books to deepen relationships.
  
  

• AI and digital products – From AI assistants to online training, technology creates new ways to scale expertise.
  
  

• Be a triple threat – Like Judy Garland, combine speaking, training, and MCing to become indispensable to clients.
  
  

• "Speaking is something you do, but it's not who you are." – Maria Franzoni
  
  

• "Don't fall in love with your product—fall in love with your customer's problems." – James Taylor
  
  

• "Cash speeches are great, but continuity products build resilience." – James Taylor
  
  

• "Adding services isn't being salesy—it's serving your clients better." – Maria Franzoni
  
  

• 00:00 – Welcome and catching up: jet lag, oxygen bottles, and Denver events
  
  

• 04:26 – Defining a portfolio speaking career
  
  

• 06:00 – James on applying Ray Dalio's "All Weather Portfolio" to speaking
  
  

• 08:55 – How COVID forced speakers to diversify their offerings
  
  

• 10:46 – Positioning yourself as an expert, not just a speaker
  
  

• 13:29 – Examples of portfolio streams: video, retainers, advisory, coaching
  
  

• 15:42 – Lessons from "sell-from-stage" speakers and AI products
  
  

• 17:12 – Case study: a safety speaker generating $2m+ in recurring revenue
  
  

• 20:18 – Boardroom advisory and facilitation as high-value services
  
  

• 22:46 – Why being a "triple threat" makes you indispensable
  
  

• 24:57 – From keynotes to 16 workshops: extending client relationships
  
  

• 27:01 – First steps: talk to clients and identify their real problems
  
  

• 27:37 – Maria's book tips: booking forms, odd-number deliveries, and CEO forewords
  
  

• 30:49 – James' travel tool recommendation: Tripit Pro for managing logistics
  
  

• 33:30 – Closing thoughts and listener questions
  
  

👉 Have a question for James and Maria? Email: hello@speakersu.com

Our guest this week is Roger Fisk. He is a global communications expert widely credited with key behind-the-scenes roles in Barack Obama's two presidential campaigns. He served in both Administrations leading trade and diplomatic missions all over the world and more recently has been putting those experiences to work for Fortune 100 companies, causes, brands, and NGOs through his firm New Day Strategy. Roger provides analysis and commentary to Fox News, the BBC, Times of India, China Daily, SKY News, Bloomberg, and others.

Questions:
• The Obama brand seems bigger than ever, any CEO/Speaker would love to know how do you sustain and continue to building popularity after 15 years?

• You speak about the importance of culture in communicating your message, how did the Obama campaigns use culture in order to create the change that they wanted?

• How do you get your people and your advocates singing from the same hymn sheet? (message discipline and control v leadership)

• Do you continue to work with the Obama's (Michelle story)

• They called Judy Garland the triple threat because she could dance, sing and act. Obama was a triple threat- amazing on stage, on tv, and on social media. Any advice you can give speakers on how to translate their message across these v different media.

• What's happening in terms of events and conferences in the US currently?

https://speakersu.com/how-to-engage-millions-of-people-129

Today we have on the show a LinkedIn profile expert who has helped companies big and small to demystify the platform and take them from being anonymous to being highly engaged. Regularly ranked by LinkedIn search in the top 5 profilers in the world he is also a speaker, workshop facilitator, and author. He spreads the LinkedIn word near and far, I would like to introduce you to Tony K Silver.

Questions:

• When did you first get involved with LinkedIn
• When did you set up your business
• What is currently going on with Linked In
• What are your top tips
• I heard on the FB whistleblower expose on 60 minutes about although there might be 5000 pieces of content you 'could' see, you only get to see 100 pieces based on engagement. Your world gets smaller and smaller. I wonder if LI algo heading the same route as FB?

https://speakersu.com/demystifying-linkedin-for-speakers-128

Our guest this week is Ethan Beute. Ethan is Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, a platform to build better business relationships with video messaging. He is also the host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-author of Rehumanize Your Business and Human-Centered Communication.

Questions:
· What is "digital pollution" and how does it affect today's business professionals?
· Why is the goal of getting attention not enough?
· What does it mean to be "human-centered" in our daily, digital communication?
· What is the role of a video message in the day-to-day?

https://speakersu.com/build-strong-business-relationship-with-video-messaging-127

Rachel Maunder helps people tell their story in a way they've not told it before, working with them on finding and crafting their stories for greater engagement, greater impact, and ultimately more business.

As speaking became a more and more significant part of her business model and challenged her to share more of her story, Rachel found herself held back by a belief that she didn't have a story to share. This set her on a path to see the value in her own stories and to find a way to bring ordinary everyday stories to her speaking.

An experienced coach and trainer, she has developed her unique and simple StoryCRAFT process to help others do the same.

She is an active member of the London branch of the PSA (Professional Speaking Association). In 2022 she will become Regional President.

Questions:

• your own speaking career started in the courtroom. What relevance does that have for what you're doing now?
• Why would an experienced speaker need help to tell their story?
• What are the three stories business owners, business leaders and speakers should be telling
• The value of telling the bigger stories of achievement, adversity, etc is obvious, but is there really a value in sharing everyday stories?

https://speakersu.com/using-stories-to…ore-business-126/ ‎

Neil Mullarkey is a unique communication expert. With Mike Myers, he co-founded the Comedy Store Players, and still performs every Sunday with them in London. Neil was in a couple of Austin Powers movies. Nowadays he travels the world teaching improv and more to leaders and groups, as well as presentation skills His book, 'Seven Steps to Improve your People Skills' was published in 2017. And, yes, Mullarkey is his real name.

Questions:
• What is improv?
• How can it help us in life and business?
• Why are some people scared of the idea of improv?
• What's your favorite part of teaching the applications of improv?
https://speakersu.com/improv-your-speaking-business-125

Our guest this week is Steve Lowell who has been on the live stage since the age of 6; that's over 53 years ago. For 30 years he has been training and mentoring professional speakers around the world to craft and deliver their unique message in a way that positions them as the unmistakable authority in their field. He's the president of the Global Speakers Federation, past national president of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers, and a two-time, number one, international best-selling author.  

Questions:

1. How would you describe your expertise? 
2. What are some of your philosophies that guide you through your speaking career? 
3. What characteristics do you think a professional speaker should possess? 
4. What advice would you offer aspiring speakers to help them grow their business? 

https://speakersu.com/how-to-craft-and-deliver-your-message-124

Our guest this week is a musician. He's also a record producer, an artist in sound, and fanatical about the performing talent he sees in others, often choosing to promote and guide those performers in their careers. From being signed to a string of record companies in the seventies, to signing other acts to his label in the eighties, he then went on to launch his professional symphony orchestra in the nineties. But… not content to stand still for long, come the noughties, he turned his attention to professional speaking, and now supports the careers of a select number of aspiring musicians and speakers. QJ welcome to Speaking Business TV.

Questions:

• How did you get into sound and sound recording in the first place, and how old were you when you started?
• You have a lot of experience with speech-based recording and broadcasting, working with professional voice-overs and actors. How is this different from, say, recording music, and how did you get into this particular arena?
• What are the factors of sound quality that speakers need to pay attention to, whenever they're presenting online like we are now? And what difference will it make when they "get it right"?

Audio Advice For Keynote Speakers

https://speakersu.com/audio-advice-for-keynote-speakers-123

Frank Furness is an international specialist in sales, technology, social media, and goal setting and how they work in tandem to produce great results for organizations.

Frank is the Past President of the Professional Speakers Association of Europe and past Chair of the International PEG for the National Speakers Association of USA.

Many of the world's most successful speakers started out by attending his 'Speakers Bootcamp' which he runs on 5 continents.

Questions:
• How did you establish yourself in the International Market?
• What does your speaking business consist of what are the services and products you offer?
• How has the business changed since Covid?
• You are the specialist at marketing yourself, what are some of your tactics and strategies?
• Where are some of your favorite places you have presented and why?

https://speakersu.com/how-to-market-yourself-as-a-professional-speakers-122

Greg Schwem is a Chicago, Illinois-based comedian, keynote speaker, and emcee who has spent the past 25 years making the corporate world laugh at itself. When not traveling the world providing laughs, Greg writes a bi-weekly, nationally syndicated humor column for the Chicago Tribune syndicate and is the creator and host of the streaming TV show, "A Comedian Crashes Your Pad. He is the author of two books, "Text Me If You're Breathing: Observations, Frustrations and Life Lessons from a Low Tech Dad" and "The Road to Success Goes Through the Salad Bar."

• How easy was it to move from performing stand-up in comedy clubs to speaking for corporate audiences?

• Why do you feel there are so few humor speakers who market themselves exclusively for corporate events?

• How did the pandemic affect your business as a humor speaker?

• Tell us about A Comedian Crashes Your Pad

http://www.speakersu.com/how-to-use-humor-in-public-speaking-121

This week we are turning the tables on James Taylor and Maria Franzoni will be placing the spotlight on him and his speaking business.  As many of you know, James started his career managing high-profile rock stars and then transformed into a keynote speaker and internationally recognized leader in business creativity and innovation.  For more than 20 years, he has been advising CEOs, entrepreneurs, educators, governments, and leaders on how to build innovative organizations, unlock creative potential, and increase productivity.

James will shares insights into his speaking business, how he got started, where his bookings come from, how he went international, how he works with speaker bureaus, and much much more.

https://speakersu.com/behind-the-scenes-of-a-successful-speaking-business-120

In this episode of the SpeakersU Podcast, James Taylor and Maria Franzoni dive deep into one of the most important – yet often overlooked – aspects of running a successful speaking business: knowing your numbers. Whether it's tracking inquiries, bookings, conversion rates, bureau performance, or your cash flow, the numbers tell the real story of your business.

James shares how he hit his annual keynote target months early, why raising fees can be as important as raising bookings, and how he uses a simple paperclip system to track outreach. Maria draws on her decades of experience as a speaker bureau owner and management consultant to explain why speakers must think like business owners, track KPIs, and understand patterns in their market.

If you want to grow a profitable speaking business without burning out, this conversation is packed with practical strategies, tough truths, and a few laughs along the way.

• Define success with numbers – Not just dreams and destinations, but the bookings, fees, and revenue that will sustain your lifestyle and business.
  
  

• Work backwards from your goals – Break down your annual keynote target into leads, inquiries, discovery calls, and outreach.
  
  

• Track inquiries and conversions – Your most important KPIs as a speaker are how many inquiries you generate and how many you convert.
  
  

• Bureau vs. direct leads – Learn why direct inquiries often convert better and how to measure bureau performance individually.
  
  

• Cash is king – Never outsource awareness of your cash flow. Monitor money in and out weekly.
  
  

• Rolling averages & seasonality – Smooth out monthly fluctuations and use data to plan vacations, book writing, and marketing pushes.
  
  

• Detach from outcomes – Reward yourself for following the process (outreach, calls, tracking) rather than obsessing over every "yes" or "no."
  
  

• "If you're converting 75% of your discovery calls, your fee is probably too low." – James Taylor
  
  

• "Success isn't just about the stages you dream of – it's about the numbers that make that dream sustainable." – Maria Franzoni
  
  

• "Cash flow is king. Don't wait for your accountant – stay on top of money in and money out every week." – Maria Franzoni
  
  

• "It can be lonely as a speaker. But if you know your numbers, you know your business is on track even when the phone is quiet." – James Taylor
  
  

• 00:00 – Welcome back: James & Maria reunite on the mic
  
  

• 04:45 – Why "knowing your numbers" is the key to success
  
  

• 06:50 – Defining success in terms of bookings, fees, and revenue
  
  

• 09:15 – James on hitting his annual keynote goal months early
  
  

• 11:50 – The most important KPIs for speakers to track
  
  

• 14:45 – The case for tracking bureau vs. direct inquiries
  
  

• 19:30 – Learning from lost inquiries and re-approaching clients
  
  

• 21:15 – Maria's management consulting background & KPIs
  
  

• 24:00 – Campaigns and levers: adjusting when the funnel breaks
  
  

• 27:50 – The 80/20 rule for clients and industry analysis
  
  

• 30:20 – James' paperclip system for tracking outbound calls
  
  

• 32:00 – Why inquiries matter most (and why you must detach from outcomes)
  
  

• 36:30 – Tip of the week: never mention another speaker in a discovery call
  
  

• 38:40 – Tip of the week: use rolling averages for projections
  
  

• 41:30 – Wrap-up, listener Q&A, and how to send in your questions
  
  

👉 Have a question for James and Maria? Email: hello@speakersu.com 

How To Create Effective PowerPoint Presentation For Speakers

Today I'm joined by Ash Pemberton, founder of Overnight Design, a professional PowerPoint designer whose clients include Johnson, Johnson, PepsiCo, Unilever, Pfizer, and Heineken. Together, Ash and his team have produced over a million PowerPoint slides for their clients. Today, we're going to be talking about how to create really amazing PowerPoint presentations, and why you should perhaps be considering Thailand as a place to live and work. Thanks for listening.

Questions:

• Based in Chiang Mai, Thailand
• Please can you explain your service because it's pretty niche?
• How did you get started in this business?
• What kind of work do you produce for your clients (pitch decks, presentations, explainer videos)?
• What are the common mistakes you see people make when designing their Powerpoint presentations?
• Are easy rules of thumb when it comes to using visuals in presentations? (10-20-30 – Kawasaki)
• Apart from Powerpoint, many speakers use Keynote, Prezi, or even Canva. Do you have a preference?
• My team is in the Philippines but what's it like building a team in Chiang Mai, Thailand?

https://speakersu.com/effective-powerpoint-presentation-for-speakers-118

Our guest this week is a LinkedIn Learning instructor as well as the author of two books and an award-winning international speaker on Communication, Inclusive Leadership, and Empathy at Work. She's passionate about helping organizations create an atmosphere of belonging for their people and for those individuals, in turn, to be given the skills and opportunity to communicate with power and clarity. Please welcome Shola Kaye.

Questions:

• What do you speak about - did you have to pivot or make changes during the pandemic?
• Who are your typical clients?
• How did you deal with impostor syndrome and get started with your marketing when you began speaking?
• Which marketing strategy has been most useful to you, helping you grow your business, expanding to new markets despite the pandemic?

https://speakersu.com/linkedin-strategies-to-get-speaking-engagements-117

I'm James Taylor, and you're listening to the SpeakersU Podcast, a show for aspiring and professional speakers. This episode is with my co-host, Maria Franzoni. Enjoy the episode, we're joined by a wonderful, wonderful speaker today. And the first time I've had a chance to meet Maria. I know you've worked with her for a while Kay Korsch. And k has been helping people refine this style for nearly two decades, and has worked with some amazing personalities along the way, including actors like James Elizabeth DeBakey Riz Ahmed, and I'm a huge fan of Ben Whishaw, f1 racing driver, Jenson Button, and musician Will Young. She founded Mind Over Fashion 18 months ago, and our main priority is to tune into a client's needs and to gently elevate their existing style to make them feel comfortable and presentable. According to their brand and lifestyle. Her approach is candid and compassionate as we're about to find out. So, Kay, welcome to the show.

https://speakersu.com/what-to-wear-on-stage-when-speaking-116

Joshua Seth is a celebrity voice actor(and world touring magician)turned entertaining keynote speaker. Joshua is known to millions as the voice of over 100 animated TV shows and movies and can be heard in everything from Akira to Sponge Bob Square Pants.

As a headline entertainer, Joshua toured the world for over a decade with his highly successful show "Psychological Illusions". He performed live on stage in over 40 countries, had 5 TV specials inSouth Korea and Japan, and presented in front of 20,000 people at the Mandalay Bay Arena in Las Vegas.

He's also the author of three books, including the bestselling peak performance book "Finding Focus In A Changing World".

But he's best known as the star of Digimon, voicing the main character "Tai" for the past 20 years, in the hit tv series as well as all 8 movies, helping it become one of the top 100 highest-grossing media franchises in the world.

These days Joshua shows leaders how to speak with influence and communicate with confidence so they can make a bigger impact on the world.

Joshua Seth: Speak With Influence And Communicate With Confidence – #115

https://speakersu.com/speak-with-influence-and-communicate-with-confidence-115

I'm James Taylor and you're listening to the SpeakersU Podcast a show for aspiring and professional speakers. This episode is with my co-host, Maria Franzoni. Enjoy the episode. 

https://speakersu.com/how-to-rock-the-virtual-world-114

I'm James Taylor and you're listening to the SpeakersU Podcast, a show for aspiring and professional speakers. 

My guest today is Bronwyn Hesketh of Speakers Inc, a Professional Speakers Bureau, based in South Africa. Speakers Inc has branches in Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Durban and was started 21 years ago by Bronwyn. 

In today's episode, we talk about top South African keynote speakers, how the bureau industry has changed because of virtual, and her new WeSpeak project. Enjoy the episode.

https://speakersu.com/top-south-african-keynote-speakers

I'm James Taylor, and you're listening to the SpeakersU podcast, a show for aspiring and professional speakers. This episode is with my co-host, Maria Franzoni. Enjoy the episode. Our guest this week is a pioneer in human-based training and has spoken at over two and a half 1000 mainstage events from Texas to Tasmania. He is also the author of four books and markets his own line of stress Buster products worldwide. He is a speaker who teaches people to be more resilient and resourceful and coaches businesses on how to enhance productivity and employee enthusiasm through the use of humor. Please welcome to This Week in events. Mr. Tim Gard. -Top Humorous Keynote Speakers

https://speakersu.com/top-humorous-keynote-speakers-111/

I'm James Taylor and you're listening to the SpeakersU Podcast, a show for aspiring and professional speakers. This episode is with my co-host Maria Franzoni. Enjoy the episode.

I'm James Taylor, keynote speaker, and speaker business coach and this is the SpeakersU Podcast. If you enjoy listening to conversations that will help you launch and grow your speaking business faster than your thought possible, then you've come to the right place. Each week we discuss marketing strategies, sales techniques, as well as ideas to increase the profitability of your speaking business and develop your craft. You'll find show notes for today's episode as well as free speaker business training at speakersu.com.

https://speakersu.com/advanced-selling-for-speaking-business-110

This episode is with my co-host, Maria Franzoni. Enjoy the episode. This week we're going to be talking about goals big bold goals goal setting, a topic I'm actually really passionate about. And our guest today is Casper Craven, who is a leading authority and achieving big, bold goals through high-performance teamwork, a serial entrepreneur, he has built and sold a tech business for seven figures, some worked as a CFO, and at KPMG. He has twice sailed around the world, the first time as a team leader on a trophy-winning racing yacht in the BT global challenge. And the second time as captain and Team Leader of his family team, with his wife, and three young children, all aged under 10 years of age. So he's going to share with us how we can be more audacious and bold and achieve big, bold goals for 2021 and beyond. And it's my great pleasure for us to have him with us today.

https://speakersu.com/big-bold-goals-for-speakers-109/

Our guest is one of today's foremost practitioners of performance-enhancing psychology and is an expert in high-performing teams. He's ranked among the most influential figures in business in British sport, as well as a powerful figure in the business community where he has worked with business leaders and companies to fulfill their potential by delivering change and performance programs. in sport, he has worked with five Ryder Cup captains, Premier League footballers Formula One racing drivers, and the ashes-winning England cricket team. I'm delighted to welcome you onto this week in events, Jamil Qureshi. -Creating And Sustaining Momentum In Your Speaking Business

https://speakersu.com/creating-and-sustaining-momentum-in-your-speaking-business-108

How to create a 7 figure Speaking Business - #147

Ford Saeks has redefined a formula for business success. His efforts have helped companies generate a total of over a billion dollars in sales worldwide from startups to Fortune five hundred six is widely recognized as a business growth innovator with over 20 years of experience ranging from retail to wholesale, authored several books awarded three US patents and received numerous industry awards. tenacity and innovation are what fuel this revenue-generating powerhouse from grassroots to Google Ford provides its clients with fresh perspectives and doable tactics to resolve marketing operations and growth challenges. As President and CEO of prime concepts group Incorporated, Ford specializes in helping businesses attract loyally and repeat customers, monetize social media, and ignite creativity. We're happy to have him here with us today. So please give a warm welcome to Ford Saeks

Questions:

• What are the most important key factors of a 7-figure speaking business?
• How did you get started in this business and why?
• How do you stand out in such a competitive industry?
• What are the landmines to avoid that will kill a speaking career? With so many options, what are the top 3 secrets of success in this business?

My guest today is SpeakersU member Shola Kaye, a keynote speaker on communication, leadership, diversity, equity and inclusion, and workplace empathy. She's the author of two books and an award-winning speaker. Shola has a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University, completed scientific research in the field of Neuroscience at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, and spent a number of years working in the United States in financial services. She has also performed on four continents as a professional entertainer, which is why she values creating programs that are both engaging and effective. Shola's writing has appeared in industry publications such as Management Today and HR Zone and she has been featured in Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar, and on the BBC. Her clients include Deloitte, American Express, and The United Nations and in our discussion, we talk about Shola's transition from corporate executive to a singer to top keynote speaker on diversity and inclusion. Enjoy the episode.

https://speakersu.com/top-keynote-speaker-on-diversity-and-inclusion-107

My guest today is SpeakersU member Joshua Seth, a celebrity voice actor, and world touring magician turned keynote speaker and emcee. He's known to millions as the voice of over 100 animated TV shows and movies. These days he shows sales professionals how to unlock the power of "Your Money Voice". He has presented at over 100 virtual and hybrid events and was a cornerstone keynote speaker at The Global Million Dollar Roundtable. In our discussion, we talk about Joshua's transition to becoming a top virtual emcee and hybrid keynote speaker and setups for virtual conference studios. Enjoy the episode.

In this episode:

• Virtual Emcee
• Transition From Live To Virtual Stages
• Hybrid Keynote Speaker
• How To Become A Top Virtual Emcee And Hybrid Keynote Speaker
• Setups For Virtual Conference Studios.

 https://speakersu.com/how-to-become-a-top-virtual-emcee-and-hybrid-keynote-speaker-106

My guest today is Taylorr Payne of SpeakerFlow, a business that helps professional speakers create predictable revenue streams. In our discussion, we talk about how to find speaking engagements, how to generate leads for your keynote and training programs, and why speakers should be spending less time on social media? Enjoy the episode. -How To Find Speaking Engagements

In this episode:

• Origin Story Of Speaker Flow?
• The State Of The Speaking Industry Report
• Top Lead Sources
• Online Marketing For Speakers
• Finding Speaking Engagements
• The Role Of CRM For Speakers
• Tracking Your Numbers

What is the future for professional speakers and live events? What are some of the challenges and opportunities in working with speakers with hybrid events? Who are some of the top Singapore keynote speakers? My guest today is Andrew Vine of The Insight Bureau, an agency representing top-level professional speakers, in the area of economics and business, placing speakers and moderators into conferences, client events, and internal company briefings.

In our conversation we talk about his new podcast Honestly Speaking, trends in virtual and hybrid events, incentive meetings in South East Asia, and Andrew's selection of some of the top Singapore keynote speakers. Enjoy the episode.

Would you like to close more speaking gigs this year? Do you want to increase your speaking fee? My guest today is Bob Strange (AKA The Closer), a speaker consultant with 30 years of experience handling speaking inquiries and deal negotiation for top keynote speakers from Steve Wozniak to yours truly.  In our conversation, we talk about how to sell your speaking programs, how to qualify a speaking inquiry, and dealing with price objections. Bob also shares the one word which will instantly tell you if a client can pay your fee? Enjoy the episode

Have you ever used Google or Facebook Ads to generate speaking engagements? Are you looking for a way to generate consistent inquiries for your speaking programs? My guest today is Ilana Wechsler, a Google and Facebook Ads expert and the founder of Teach Traffic. Over the last few years, Ilana has helped her clients grow their businesses through the power of paid traffic.

In our conversation we talk about remarketing campaigns, the classic mistakes speakers make when setting up Google Ads campaigns, and how to put all the pieces of your paid traffic together. Enjoy the episode.

Please SUBSCRIBE ►http://bit.ly/JTme-ytsub ♥️ Your Support Appreciated!

If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on YouTube, iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW

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CTA link: https://speakersu.com/the-speakers-life/

FOLLOW ME:

Website: https://speakersu.com
LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/JTme-linkedin
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Facebook Group: http://bit.ly/IS-fbgroup

Read full transcript at  https://speakersu.com/profitable-ads-c…for-speakers-102/

Would you like more speaking enquiries and higher value speaking clients? Do you have a process for generating leads using LinkedIn and cold emails? My guest today is Will Wang, a sales funnel expert and the founder of Growth Labz. Over the past few years Will has helped his clients build, launch and scale outbound sales campaigns.

In our conversation we talk about cold email outreach campaigns for speakers, B2B lead generation using LinkedIn, and A/B testing of sales funnels. Enjoy the episode.

Please SUBSCRIBE ►http://bit.ly/JTme-ytsub ♥️ Your Support Appreciated!

If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on YouTube, iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW

Apple: http://bit.ly/TSL-apple
Libsyn: http://bit.ly/TSL-libsyn
Spotify: http://bit.ly/TSL-spotify
Android: http://bit.ly/TSL-android
Stitcher: http://bit.ly/TSL-stitcher

CTA link: https://speakersu.com/the-speakers-life/

FOLLOW ME:

Website: https://speakersu.com
LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/JTme-linkedin
Instagram: http://bit.ly/JTme-ig
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Facebook Group: http://bit.ly/IS-fbgroup

Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/how-to-get-your-message-to-millions-and-make-millions-sl098/

So let me ask you a question. If someone went to Google and searched for a speaker on your topic would you be on that first page? You see Search Engine Optimisation is one of the top three sources of leads for most speakers. My guest today is Gert Mellak, an SEO expert and the founder of SEOLeverage.com. Over the last few years, Gert has been able to help an increasing number of businesses like yours gain organic, qualified, and relevant traffic for their website from Google.

He firmly believes that SEO should be part of your marketing mix – no matter if your speaker website gets the most traffic and sales via referrals, speaker bureaus, social media, or paid search marketing right now.

In our conversation, we talk about the two activities that every speaker should be focusing on to improve their Google rankings as well as the future of SEO article writing using GPT-3. Enjoy the episode.

Please SUBSCRIBE ►http://bit.ly/JTme-ytsub ♥️ Your Support Appreciated!

If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on YouTube, iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW

Apple: http://bit.ly/TSL-apple
Libsyn: http://bit.ly/TSL-libsyn
Spotify: http://bit.ly/TSL-spotify
Android: http://bit.ly/TSL-android
Stitcher: http://bit.ly/TSL-stitcher

CTA link: https://speakersu.com/the-speakers-life/

FOLLOW ME:

Website: https://speakersu.com
LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/JTme-linkedin
Instagram: http://bit.ly/JTme-ig
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Facebook Group: http://bit.ly/IS-fbgroup

Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/how-to-get-your-message-to-millions-and-make-millions-sl098/

The SpeakersU Podcast will teach you how to become a better public speaker and ways to get booked to travel the world as a highly-paid keynote speaker.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW

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CTA link: https://speakersu.com/the-speakers-life/

FOLLOW ME:

Website: https://speakersu.com
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Facebook Group: http://bit.ly/IS-fbgroup

Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/how-to-get-your-message-to-millions-and-make-millions-sl098/

In today's episode Ted McGrath talked about How To Get Your Message To Millions (And Make Millions).

Ted McGrath is a theater performer, speaker, and best-selling author. He has created 5 household brands and made millions teaching Coaches, Speakers, and service based Business Owners how to turn their life story and life experience into a lucrative business that impacts millions and makes millions. Ted brings a unique approach to coaching, speaking, and information marketing by combining his business strategies and transformational skill set with his talent as a performer.

What we cover:

• Building A Seminar Business Around Your Speaking

• Making Millions From Your Message

• Adding Tiers To Your Speaking Business

• How To Get Your Message To Millions (And Make Millions)

Resources:

• Ted's Website

Please SUBSCRIBE ►http://bit.ly/JTme-ytsub ♥️ Your Support Appreciated!

If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on YouTube, iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW

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Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/how-to-get-your-message-to-millions-and-make-millions-sl098/

James Taylor
Hi, it's James Taylor, founder of SpeakersU. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Speakers Summit the world's largest online event for professional speakers. And if you'd like to access the full video version, as well as in depth sessions with over 150 top speakers, then I've got a very special offer for you. Just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yep, that's right 150 of the world's top speakers sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to launch grow and build a successful speaking business. So just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com but not before you listen to today's episode.

Hey there, it's James Taylor, and I'm delighted today to be joined by Ted McGrath. Ted McGrath is a theater performance speaker and best selling author. He has created five household brands and made millions teaching coaches, speakers and service based business owners how to turn their life story on life experience into a lucrative business that impacts millions and makes millions. Ted brings a unique approach to coaching speaking and information marketing, by combining his business strategies and transformational skillset with his talent as a performer. It's my great pleasure to have Ted with us today. So welcome, Ted.

Ted McGrath
Thank you. It's great to be here.

James Taylor
So share with everyone what's going on in your world just now what projects currently have your focus?

Ted McGrath
Oh, we're very focused online. So we're doing a lot of online marketing and building our sales team, which is going great. And we have a big launch coming up for our message to millions of brands.

James Taylor
I've said we have a little chat about that and talk about that as well. How did you get involved in the world of speaking, I mentioned that you were a theatre performer. You came from that world originally, but when did the transition into the professional speaking public speaking style?

Ted McGrath
Yeah, so I started out when I was in the insurance business around 21 years old. And you know, I got into the business and I had a boss who believed in me, and he's like, you can crack six figures your first year in this business. And for me, it was more about the approval than it was the money. You know, when I was a kid and my parents got divorced, I was about six. And so, you know, I always felt when I was younger, I wasn't loved. And I wasn't good enough. And, and so I was always seeking approval. And I thought if I achieved I would get approval. So my boss was like crack six figures. And I was like, Okay, so my, after 12 months, I cracked six figures. And then I overdosed from drugs and alcohol that night. And I almost died, I had my soul coming out of the top of my head. And miraculously, I was revived the next morning, I was like, well, money didn't do it. So maybe if I you know, get promoted, and I become a partner or leader in this company, my life will change. So six years later, I became the number five partner out of 500 partners for New York Life Insurance, which is the number one and the number one life insurance companies in the world. And upon getting the news, I was like, okay, is this is this really all there is to my life. And so I left and I moved out to California, and I became an entrepreneur. And I was like, I'll start up two businesses, and you know, my life will be great. I start up two businesses. And, you know, I had, you know, I had a good lifestyle, the million dollar condos driving $100,000 car and, and about two years later, I my businesses were failing, my house is in foreclosure. And I was like, what, what do I really want to do with my life. And I just knew, like, deep down inside that I wanted more meaning and purpose, and I knew that I wanted to help other people. And so I started coaching. And, you know, I went out and I started getting some clients. But, you know, quickly, I learned that, you know, the one for one model of coaching wasn't really the best way to go, I was waking up on coaching calls all day and, and there wasn't really happy about it. So I started seminars, and I started doing groups of people together. And I really, really enjoyed that I was really thriving off the, you know, leading seminars and speaking and, and I just things just started to explode. And I really liked the group model of, you know, working in seminars, coaching people in groups, and, and we, you know, we went from, you know, a brand new startup to, you know, seven figure company in a couple of years. And, you know, now I've built a, you know, a multi million dollar company doing what I love. And, you know, the best part of it is it's very lifestyle friendly. So I can run it from Greece, or Hawaii or Japan, from anywhere in the world. And before whereas, you know, 90% of my business used to be through seminars, you know, like 98% of my business is all online now. Which is incredible, and, and it's great. And now I have time for my passions. And actually, the theatre show came in later. So I started theater about three and a half years ago. And so that was like a dream I had from being a kid. But I always suppress that because I never felt good enough. So that's when I got into theater and creating a one man show about three and half years ago.

James Taylor
That was it was actually the other way around. It was from doing a seminar. So in those early days of moving from coach to seminar leader and speaking in those groups, and then obviously larger groups and larger seminars, who were those early mentors or early role models for people that you look to say well I like the way that they are doing it, they have a model or they have a way about them that I like.

Ted McGrath
Well, you know, interestingly enough, like, when I got into the space, I didn't know anything about, you know, seminars or anything like I'd seen him or heard of them, I was like, I'll go do a seminar and I didn't, I had like 20 something people my first seminar and I didn't know that you make offers, or you sell. So I really didn't know the industry. But when I kind of first got into it, I was more like, in got into the personal growth side. So like, I was doing meditation, and you know, you did a lot of stuff with Deepak Chopra. And then you know, and so stuff like that was my first exposure to kind of like the seminar space. And then, you know, a guy who's a real close friend of mine today, he was like, one of my first mentors is Alex mandossian. And, and we become, you know, very close friends recently. So, he was somebody that I was inspired by, in terms of the one man show, you know, I saw Bo ees into a one man show, and that inspired me from a mentorship standpoint. So those were some of the things that that like, kind of inspired me.

James Taylor
So in those early days, you start to build that seminar business. I mean, how did it begin? was it was it free seminars that you were starting with, and then kind of built on to like two day events from there? Talk me talking to you like the transition that how that kind of seminar business built up?

Ted McGrath
Yeah, well, first, it was like a one on one coaching call, then it went to like a group, you know, group calls, like, I'll get 15 people in a group course. And I was like, wow, like, you can make way more money. It's way more fun, because you have the interaction with a lot of people. And it's just, it's just more joy. It's like, Well, you know, speaking, like I done some speaking when I was in the insurance business, so I was like, I'll go do a seminar. So the first seminar I ever did I charge for it was like, I charge like, you know, 700 bucks or something for the first seminar. And then I had 20 some odd people, but you know, like, 15 of them were friends. So maybe, like, you know, maybe 10 people were paid at $700. And then I realized, well, I didn't make an offer at that event. So like, I was like, I had this great experience, and I lost money as like, wow, this is going to be a business, I should make some type of offer, right? So I then went to I decided to back up, I'm like, Okay, let me put together a real seminar in a real room with a real stage. Let me market this thing for like four or five months hardcore. And I just started traveling around to like, meetup groups, I put my own Meetup group on and speaking of that, I started going to events, local events, and trying to get on stages there. And, and, you know, and then I found my way into, like, you know, the more community of like, you know, experts like, you know, LOral langemeier, Marcia wieder, I developed friendships with them. And so we went from a local seminar business, where I was, you know, had some people flying in, but it was about, like, 80 people at my first real seminar, and the tickets were free. So, and that was a six figure seminar for me. So that was like my second seminar ever. I did six figures in a weekend in sales. And then I realized, okay, I can do this. And so, and then I realized I had a platform, like, when you have a platform, and you have a stage, all of a sudden, you can go talk to other people and go, yeah, you know, I did a six figure seminar and had 80 people. So all of a sudden, I was in the conversation, you know, and I think most people don't take that leap to get in the conversation, like they don't risk going to do a seminar, invite a lot of people. But once you have a stage, like you're a professional, and it doesn't matter whether you had one, and it's different than like a, a, it's kind of different also than, you know, a smaller one, like a smaller one still good. A lot of my clients use smaller ones, and they crush it because of the model we teach them. But like, I also died at 90 people and somebody like you, somebody who's who's a speaker, who's well known what they speak on an 8090 or 100 person stage if they had a relationship with you. So that got me in the game. So once you

James Taylor
kind of go in there you can building building can bigger and bigger stages. At what point did the the kind of online component come in as well? And so you, you said like 90% of your business is, is kind of online, but is that in terms of the selling part, the marketing parts happening online? Or is actually the the Oh, and all that part of the delivery mechanism is also online?

Ted McGrath
Yeah, great question. So online emerged after like, three, four years of doing seminars, you know, and it was like, Okay, this is great. And I built a seven figure business, but like, you know, every three, four months, we're filling a seminar and you're running and running, running to fill seminar. And so I was like, This is not a sustainable model. While I love it, it's not a sustainable model. If I'm gonna get continue to do this and do seminars, I want to, you know, do seminars with five 600 1000 1500 people in the room, right. So, so the way the online piece kind of emerged is I actually got invited to to London with my one man theater, show coach, my, you know, my coach for acting, and he's, he's a one man show performer. And so I hired him and he's like, Okay, I'm going, we're going to London, and I'm like, London. He's like, Yeah, and I was like, I had a seminar coming up, like, in like, five, six weeks. So I was like, Alright, well, I I've been doing some webinars, right to get people into my, into my seminars as well like some online webinars that would then sell tickets to the event. And I was like, Okay, well, no better time than now to automate the webinar, you know, to like, automate the presentation. So I automated the presentation, I went over to London. And while I was in London for 11 days of writing my my first show ever, and watching my coach do his show, I made like 41 sales for my message to millions program in like 11 days, and it helped fill the event. And I was like, wow, this, this is like I started to really experience the lifestyle friendly piece of it.

James Taylor
It's interesting that that that point, wouldn't happen in my businesses as well. That point when you're, you're away doing something else, and you switch on your phone, and you see all the sales come in. It's quite transformative. I mean, and like you, I love being on stages I love I love that thing. I love traveling around the world and speaking on different stages. But this is nice, I would say, to be able to have the sales and marketing part of your overall piece is continuing to run. And also you continue to deliver value as well.

Ted McGrath
Totally, totally. So then once we started doing the automated piece, we're like, Okay, this is good. But then then I went and did a launch. And so I did a launch probably, oh, I think the launch might have been my first launch was like two years ago. And actually, like 23 months ago to be exact, right? So it was a, I did a seven figure launch. When I did it, I was like, Oh, this is a good cool business model. But when I looked at it, like we, in the launch, who was pretty cool about our launches, we did like $700,000 of our online message to millions program. And in product sales, you know, for the online product. But then we did like another seven, eight is another 700,000 plus in in phone sales to our higher tier coaching programs. Okay. And so, so the launch was, so seven figures, but because of a combination of the two, and so I said to myself, I said, Well, you know, the launch the the online portion that's just like to acquire a customer like you when you sell the low the products, it's like that acquires the customer that the revenue comes in from selling the coaching and the mastermind piece and all that. So I go What, what if I could, what if I could create this launch model every month online, to where I wasn't to where I was, you know, what, people didn't have to come to a seminar for me to sell coaching, because we sold $700,000 of coaching programs over the phone. So what I did was I started to create a model through Facebook, that would run to more like lower tier products. Yeah. And, and so you know, we have a whole system now where we're driving, like, you know, eight to 11,000 leads a month. And, you know, last month, uh, you know, we brought in over just from Facebook, over $300,000 in, in, you know, sales from coaching sales. So now we're so the goal is for us to get up to, you know, to double and then get over a million dollars a month in, in sales from the Facebook machine. And then all of our seminars and our launches and all the other marketing that we do becomes the the icing on

James Taylor
the cake. And what you're doing there with it with the fact that initially at the top of the funnel of your funnel there is you're kind of liquidating your costs, to a large extent in terms of your Facebook or your your ad rate cost. So every every dollar that you make after that is profit. And also maybe you don't have to have affiliate partners around there as well. But so you're investing and like you mentioned, you know, having to invest in those early days of kind of building your own stages where a lot of people might not have taken that step up to do that. And it was uncomfortable, you know, doing those smaller rooms, you took that step up there to take that risk to the biggest stage. And now with online, you're kind of putting that that taking that risk, although I'm guessing that you know, those numbers so carefully, so detailed, you know, what a lifetime value of potential customers, you can say, Okay, I'm willing to, to just to even lose a little bit here initially bring that person in from Facebook?

Ted McGrath
Totally. Yeah, yeah. Facebook, we want I want the product sale to basically get us our ad spend back and you know, typically we'll lose a little bit of money on that. But then when we will, what we'll do is we have coaches then upsell to the message to millions training and we make money there. And then we upsell to the, you know, the coaching for people who want more of the handheld program of, you know, helping them with it will upsell to that as well. So that's where we're really bringing in the revenue. So we spent $50,000 in ad spend, you know, we're bringing back almost 50,000 on the load to your products. And then like last month was you know, another, you know, probably 260 or so and sales 250 in sales from just a phone coaching. So you know, we're putting $1 in and when you look at it, we're getting six bucks back. So it's a good system.

James Taylor
What's really fascinating is in this this world of speaking in that there's such a there's such a broad range of different types of speakers. This one things I was so keen to do on the summit as well is you have people that are just keynote speakers. So they just get paid the 50 K or 40 k wherever the figure is to go and speak on that stage to accompany to an organization. And then also the other side, you have like, the cool different thing like platform speakers or seminar speakers, people who are creating amazing and I people think of also people like the one with a Marie Forleo has an online, so you have a live event component to what she does as well. But no, there's obviously lots of people that, you know, can do that. And it's kind of interesting, because it's not, I've seen people it's not an either, or I've seen people actually be able to, to bridge these two areas and actually have a really great online platform, their events, their own things, and also speak to those, those large corporations as large associations. Sure,

Ted McGrath
yeah. So like, we're like this, even this year, probably 2018, for me is going back on on the speaking road a little bit to speak a little bit more. And to me, that's like the icing on it. It's like the cherry on top, you know, and, and for me, I just wanted to create a business that would, you know, one is like about consistent income. Yeah, you know, that's the, that's the first piece is like consistent income coming in, provides freedom to like working with clients that I truly I call them dream clients, because I really enjoy working with clients at the higher tier levels, you know, and even even the third piece is working also in groups like with them. So I don't do any one on one coaching my one on one coaching last year, I brought on three or four, one on one clients, $200,000 each. So at that level, people go, Wow, that's like, That's an incredible price point, you know, and you make great money off that and I go, Well, the truth is like, I could either be spending that time with the client one on one, or I can be spending time building out my funnels, I could spending time building out my business on my show, speaking on other stages, like doing things that are more, more geared towards exponential growth, and fulfillment, rather than, you know, one person

James Taylor
says to you, when you're looking at things is almost you're looking in terms of opportunity costs. And this is obviously because of the stage you're at with your credit, I'm just conscious that everyone is coming into this, obviously, this is not really the best advice if you're just getting started. But when you're in level that you're at is a lot you're making decisions based upon, you know, you want to get your message to millions as well. And like, How can I do that. So you making higher higher level decisions at that point.

Ted McGrath
Exactly. And, you know, in our people who are just getting started in terms of the speaking piece, like we have a lot of clients that start with, like, they'll come in, and their first thing we tell them to do is like in the first 120 days, like go do a workshop, and some of our best clients, you know, are doing like, you know, one of my clients, Alex masco, you know, he had like, 10 people at his first workshop. And, you know, he's young young guy, but he charged the right price point for it, like he gave him like a 10 week course for $5,000. And attended 10 week group course, he did a workshop on the back of it for like two and a half days. And so, you know, he made $50,000 on his workshop on the on the, you know, the the the first year, for first year and like the group program and then at the workshop, he up sold them for another $71,000 with only 10 people in the room. So you're looking at like a that's a six figure model with somebody who's just doing a 10 person workshop, you see what i'm saying

James Taylor
is a really fast and and this is why I'm so keen to get you on to talk about so people can just get a bit of even if they're primarily going at their keynoting. And I know that, you know, all the stats are showing that many of the people that used to like the full time that number one income was the keynoting side. And things are changing now, you know, things are changing a really fast pace. And so your people like yourself, you're kind of leading on this as well. I'm interested as in your journey that you've had was there was there a kind of an aha moment insight moment you went, Okay. This this is the direction I want to be going with my business was a key distinction that you made that just made all the difference for your business. I mean, on what level on the speaking level on the mean, maybe on the speaking or the overall business, the business model levels at a time when you went? Okay, this is this is where I want to be going oh, you made a key distinction that you said okay, this is gonna take this is gonna tenex my business.

Ted McGrath
Yeah, well, I think on the speaking level, initially was like seminars, I remember we did a seminar and I remember, I we had like, 120 people in the room, and we made the offer and we had clocked like, 700,000 in sales that weekend. And it was like, you know, we just crushed it. And I remember going wow, like, this is a really good model, right? Like a This is fun. It's rich. It's it's, it's a very lucrative, so I was like, This is good. And I remember I remember where I was with one of the guys who was working with me at the time, who was his name was actually Alex guy just told you about and that was that was a big thing. Like I want to do seminars and then the change was the distinction was when I when I started to run our Facebook model and I started to see Like, the like, and I started to build out funnels and I started seeing sales coming in, I started doing, you know, 600 new clients a month coming into our business. And I was like, this is a business. Yeah, like, you know, we didn't get 600 clients the whole year prior to that, you know, and and like, we did a launch, maybe we put, you know, 400 new clients, but like, you know, you can't, businesses consistency. And for me, the AHA was tears, like, a lot of times people will talk about they do one thing, but like, we take them from the 37, to the 97, to the 97 a month to the 497, to the 2000, to the 8000, to the 20,000 to the 40,000. Like, that's a business, you know what I'm saying? And there's every every step of the way. For me, that was the AHA that like, there's a step for every person that wants to take it,

James Taylor
and is kind of coming into this world. Obviously, it can be really confusing, because there's so many different options we hear, okay, what we should be focusing on webinars and other people saying we should be doing this online courses, membership programs. So one of the things that you put together is obviously message to millions, which is, yeah, it is a pretty incredible program. I was I was kind of going through things earlier, we want your team just kind of going through everything, and it's amazing. So Talk Talk to us about you know, what was the festival, the inception of the idea of this particular program? And then I think would be great. Just take us through the top level, what what are some of the things that people will get from a program like this?

Ted McGrath
Yeah, well, here's the thing, like, the idea of message chameleons is I don't think there's one person on the planet in this space, I really don't, if they were honest with themselves, that wouldn't want to millions of people to see their message if they were confident in it. So I think the aspiration of like, people who really want to impact make an impact, they would love for millions of people to see it if it was possible. So I started with the end in mind of like message to millions is really about spreading a message and really impacting and changing lives all across the world. Like, how amazing would that be? And then you back up and you go, Okay, well, what's the starting point of all of that? And so for me, the starting point of it is like somebody's life story. Now, you know, you look around the marketplace, and you go, there's a lot of people doing different stuff, like we all looked at it Have you when you look at surface level, the message, it looks similar people's messages, right. But underneath it, I think if you tell a story, like a life story, and a lot of times people struggle with like, What is the message that I should be sharing, I always say if you look at your own life story, there was a transformation you went through. And if if you don't, if you don't look at that transformation, and some people are still going through it, but there's a transformation that you've gone through, and that you've accomplished. And, and that's the thing that we feel most called to teach about that we should be teaching is the transformation we've gone through. So story equals transformation. And so without looking at the life story, it's really hard to know the transformation ones go gone through, so that they can actually then teach that transformation somebody else. So story equals transformation. And transformation. Once you're clear on it equals the message you're going to share, right? So when I talk about message to millions, it's all about finding your life story and your message so that ultimately you can attract your dream clients, you know, bring in a consistent stream of income with a lifestyle friendly business and get that message to millions of people. So it's story first, and the story then equals the message. Then when somebody gets the message, like what's the starting point, I think the smartest starting point like to pick one for somebody is is to learn how to then take from that message of like, what am I going to teach? You know, and it's like, once they have the message, like, you know, I help people do this. So they can have that there's in anybody's message, there's probably like four or five bullet points of what they're going to teach, like one of my clients, you know, I helped him he went from a chiropractor to a brand called man on fire. It's like how do you go from chiropractor to man on fire because we changed his branding. And he's like helping men rising into their passion, power and purpose so that they can reach their full potential in their career and relationships, and the brands called magnifier. So if you look at those words, like everything I teach is already in the statement like passion power purpose, so we can teach man on passion like how to get their passion back in relationships, man on power man on finding their purpose man on reaching their potential man on you know, having more passion in relationships, man and having more purpose in in their career. So like, when you have a good statement, and you look at it, like everything you're going to teach is already in the statement. It's like, here's the content I'm going to teach. So I always tell people go story equals message message equals the content you're going to teach, then you've got to structure the program. And I think the most intelligent way to structure the program is to structure it in a group format. You know, I call it a tier one program, like, you know, you can either structure it in a tier one program where like, most of my clients either do a phone course where they're teaching it for like six to eight weeks over the phone, or they do like a two to three day workshop. Right? And it's just like it's it's a starter program. You know, it's like right out of the gate, something simple and they say sell it for like, you know, my clients have gone from 1000 to 7500 bucks for that starter program. And then it's like somebody experiences like that phone group coaching course that you're doing or that group workshop that you're doing for a weekend, they're gonna want a year long program after that. So it's not extra work. It's just taking those current clients, maybe those first 10 people that joined your group phone course. And then it's going, Okay, let me upsell them into a year long group program. And then, you know, you take like, you know, 20,000 in revenue, and you turn it into 100,000 in revenue with the same effort. I think it makes sense. Yeah, I

James Taylor
mean, that that point there as well. I mean, obviously, upselling. But I think whenever we learn anything new, we can have, we have a higher level of questions then afterwards, because we've kind of built that base of knowledge. And then like, Okay, so I've got that and start implementing that. And it, you then you generate a whole new level set of problems, often better problems, and questions. And so you need an additional, maybe a level of training of coaching or whatever is around there.

Ted McGrath
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the cool thing about like, these group programs of like, you know, deciding what you're going to teach, right? And if you have your message, you know, right, so you decide and content you're gonna teach at the workshop or the group phone course. And then it's like, Okay, well, how do you fill it like, Well, you know, the simple strategy is just through basic offline, you know, warm market networking, going to live events, you can anybody can fill a course, so tend to people with people they know, you know, so it's like, it's getting that first win and that victory for people. And you'd be surprised, like, we've run into so many existing business owners who, like they don't have a group model. So they're like, I've have seven figure business owners that come to us. And like, they don't have a group model. So they're like, you know, they're very successful, but they're on the phone all day, they're in the office all day. So that group model starts the baseline of freedom, and it's the foundation of it. And then from there, it's like, okay, go talk to your warm network, go get some people in this first program, and then learn how to enroll them. Yeah, learn how to enroll people, you know, and if people know how to do that, and they know how to enroll, then you have the foundation 90% set to then go online and start driving traffic to that same,

James Taylor
same same program. And that's obviously part of what you teach your message to millions because that piece as well, the How to enroll people from stage or from an event is, I mean, that's an art form to do that, that's really difficult to do and to do it well. So I know that you, you can recover and all that. So I know what we're going to do here is because we've been talking about in the time we have available just now we can't go through everything on it. So we're going to have a link here. So people just click on that link is going to take them through, you can learn all about message to millions, you know, find out all the details what it covers. It's a really extensive program, it looks pretty amazing program as well. So as we start to just kind of finish up here, I kind of want to maybe ask a slightly more mundane question. Yeah, I'm asking this of all the speakers. What is it that that that speaker bag? What isn't that bag that you carry to all of your seminars, your events, your things when you're out there on the road speaking? What is in that bag that you never leave home without?

Ted McGrath
Ha ha ha ha like just what I travel with you? Yeah,

James Taylor
listen that bag.

Ted McGrath
Oh, well always of course my computer I mean, that's all I need. Right? So it's always just a simple laptop and that's it and some book that I'm reading you know, so that you know that that's it. I always have a book with me and I already always have a bag a laptop and that's it. Of course my golf clubs on the other coast on the other shoulder right?

James Taylor
Speaking someone here in Scotland, the home of golf, you could have to go You have to bring your movie you're gonna have come after of course the complacently so when you mentioned books as well, what if you could just suggest one book everyone and it can be one of your own but one book that you think people should these speakers everyone that's on this summit just now you think it'd be really powerful for them to read transformational? What would that book be?

Ted McGrath
Well, if you want like a you mean a business book, or like more of a personal growth book completely open to you? Well, you know, I would say personal growth. So like Dianetics, the modern science of mental health is a pretty amazing book that really talks about what stops people from, you know, reaching and raising rising more into their potential in life. And so for me, like it's all about, you know, as long as my spiritual growth is, you know, bigger than my business growth, I'm always going to be in a good space. So that's, that's my belief.

James Taylor
And what if that was the one online resource or tool or app you find really useful for yourself as a, as a speaker? As a coach, as an expert?

Ted McGrath
You should things like an app I use for my business to

James Taylor
run it, you need something something usually you find is they useful to help you do what you do? You know, I

Ted McGrath
my stuff's pretty much I don't do much with the technology piece, like my team runs that I would say, like, you know, the one thing that works for us in our business strategically is just like, you know, running a Facebook ad to a strategy session. So you know, when it one of the six piece that I didn't share on message to millions is that when you when you do all the legwork of all those other steps I shared, like the only thing that changes when we went Online is just we have an ad that now runs people to go book a strategy session. And you know, people think a lot of times it's so hard to do this, but like, the most useful thing in our business has been running advertising to the same thing that made us successful when we started coming to online. And if one final question for you, Ted, let's imagine you woke up tomorrow morning, and had to start from scratch, so you have all the skills or the knowledge you have acquired, but you know, no one,

James Taylor
no one knows you, you have to restart, what would you do? How would you restart?

Ted McGrath
I would, I would go online, you know, that's exactly where I restart I would go online and I'd you know, get a Facebook ad up. And I'd I'd, you know, I'd set up a basic funnel that starts running to you know, to make some to make some sales and get clients on a strategy session and, and you know, that that's what we would do and it's just like, it's, it's a great model, because it's consistency, you control it. You're not dependent upon all these different relationships. But you can have the joy of being with all these different relationships and strategic partners, because it's like more of like the cherry on top rather than the thing that you primarily rely on.

James Taylor
Well, Ted, thank you so much for coming on the summit and sharing your your knowledge or wisdom about about speaking and in the seminar business as well. We're gonna have a link here to message to millions people can go on there, learn more about about the program. Thank you so much. I look forward to maybe we'll get a game of golf either in California or Scotland or something. Yeah, man.

Ted McGrath
Of course. I'll have to tell my girlfriend she's a golfer too, as good catch you soon. Thanks, bye.

James Taylor
Today's episode was sponsored by speakers you the online community for speakers and if you're serious about your speaking career then you can join us because you membership program. I'll speak as you members receive private one on one coaching with me hundreds of hours of training content access to a global community to help them launch and build a profitable business around their speaking message and expertise. So just head over to SpeakersU.com to learn more.

#speakersU #speakerslife

In today's episode Nick Morgan talked about Storytelling, Body Language, and Public Speaking.

Dr Nick Morgan is one of America's top communication speakers, theorists and coaches. A passionate teacher, he is committed to helping people find clarity in their thinking and ideas – and then delivering them with panache. He has been commissioned by Fortune 50 companies to write for many CEOs and presidents. He has coached people to give Congressional testimony, to appear in the media, and to deliver an unforgettable TED talk. And he has himself spoken, led conferences, and moderated panels at venues around the world. During the last American election cycle, he provided expert commentary on the presidential debates for CNN and Nick's methods, which are well-known for challenging conventional thinking, have been published worldwide. His acclaimed book on public speaking, Give Your Speech, Change the World: How to Move Your Audience to Action., was published by Harvard in 2005. His latest book, Can You Hear Me?, on the perils of virtual communication, is due out from Harvard in October 2018.

What we cover:

• The art and craft of telling great stories

• Storytelling, Body Language, and Public Speaking

• How to ensure you don't waste the opening of your speech

• The three versions of your speech you should prepare

Resources:

• Dr. Morgan's Website

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Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/storytelling-body-language-and-public-speaking-sl097/

James Taylor
Hi, it's James Taylor, founder of SpeakersU. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Speakers Summit the world's largest online event for professional speakers. And if you'd like to access the full video version, as well as in depth sessions with over 150 top speakers, then I've got a very special offer for you. Just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yep, that's right 150 of the world's top speakers sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to launch grow and build a successful speaking business. So just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com but not before you listen to today's episode.

Hey there, it's James Taylor. I'm delighted today to be joined by Dr. Nick Morgan. Dr. Nick Morgan is one of America's top communication speakers, theorists and coaches. A passionate Teacher He is committed to helping people to find clarity in their thinking and ideas, and then delivering them with panache. He has been commissioned by Fortune 50 companies to write for many CEOs and presidents. He has coached people to give congressional testimony to appear in the media and to deliver an unforgettable TED Talk. And he has himself spoken led conferences and moderated panels at venues around the world. During the last American election cycle, he provided expert commentary on the presidential debates for CNN and Nick methods, which are well known for challenging conventional thinking have been published worldwide. His acclaimed book on public speaking give your speech changed the world how to move your audience to action was published by Harvard in 2005. His latest book, can you hear me on the perils of virtual communication is due out from Harvard in October 2018. It's my great pleasure to have Dr. Nick Morgan, join us today. So welcome.

Dr. Nick Morgan
Thank you, James. It's great pleasure to be with you.

James Taylor
So share with everyone what's going on in your world just now.

Dr. Nick Morgan
Well, I'm just finishing up the book that you referenced the Can you hear me book, which Harvard is now very anxious about, I'm facing a tight deadline. And they're committed now to publishing it on a certain schedule. So they're very anxious that I get it done. And they call me regularly now and ask for after my health and my ability to focus and whether I have enough coffee to drink and that kind of thing. So that's the main thing on my mind that and, and the business goes on taking care of clients,

James Taylor
I was just reading a book called Hemingway's boat, talking about his Hemingway's writing career. And he had exactly the same thing because Hemingway is building this lovely boat. And, and he would write in order to pay for things on this boat that he was building. And it just is a series of kind of exchanges between him and his editors and his publishers like, when's this gonna be ready? Where's this gonna be ready? So is this is this this next book we are doing just now? Is it any easier than the last book or is it is still difficult every time you have to write a book like this,

Dr. Nick Morgan
I'd love to write, I'm one of those few people that you're free to hate, because I really do love to write. But that said, This book has been harder than any of the others. You just, it turns out that we don't know enough yet about the virtual world. We're just we're just discovering all its perils, as well as its opportunities. And, and new research comes in all the time, on an almost on a daily basis. In fact, literally just this morning, I was working on a chapter. And I got a Zirin. Online saying there's this new study out about, about virtual communication and how it affects us emotionally. And it's that kind of thing that it's just getting very difficult. I have to keep revising it and changing it to keep up with the time. So this has actually been the most difficult to work to work on because of that fast changing environment. Now you're

James Taylor
known for working and really helping many corporate CEOs, presidents, politicians, and also some of the world's most high profile professional speakers. I mean, I think of some of the people that we've got on this, like, you know, there's something like Josh Linkner and Sally hogshead. And many of these people are your clients. How did you get into this, this world of working with with people who have to use their voice to kind of make their living or persuade,

Dr. Nick Morgan
I was teaching at the University of Virginia. I was teaching Shakespeare in public speaking. And I expected to be an academic for the rest of my life and, and just teach increasingly indifferent undergraduates in the arts of Shakespeare and public speaking, which they were very happy to live without. An only took the course, with the greatest reluctance it seemed. And I got a phone call from a friend of mine, who was the State Secretary of Education for Virginia. And he said, Morgan, how would you like to put that academic Bs, that academic stuff into practice, the previous speechwriter has just had a nervous breakdown, and we need a replacement on short notice. And I should have asked why did the previous speech writer have a nervous breakdown but I was so excited about the challenge. That I just said, Sure, let's do it. And then I found out over the course of the next two years why he'd had a nervous breakdown. It was certainly because of overwork. I literally worked seven days a week, for two years, with one day off Christmas Day, one of the years. And I wrote on average, five speeches a day. So it was an incredible experience of just flat out work, every waking hour, exhausting, but also very rewarding. And that was where I really honed the craft of, of speech, writing, and then coaching in the real world. And then I joined a couple of consulting firms to do that for business people, and then started my own business in 1997. Public words,

James Taylor
how I'm wondering how long it when you're working for that Governor there, because you're working for him all the time. You get to know his cadence, his voice, you know, what he would say, when you're having to work with multiple consulting clients are all coming from slightly different ways and different things? How do you get yourself into the head of that person, because eventually, they're going to be seeing the words that you're going to be creating. And it may be in large part, because of you Well, I

Dr. Nick Morgan
say to people that what I really do is I listen harder to you, the client, than anybody else in the world will ever listen to you, including your spouse or significant other. And that's exactly what I have to do in order to get that person's voice is I have to listen very, very closely to try to hear that, to hear that uniqueness. What makes them special, what makes them unique. And then also, of course, what we're trying to do is up their game a little bit, so I may take the liberty of trying to make their voice a little better than then they might be just a normal conversation.

James Taylor
I was recently I attended a an event and the speaker was former US president, President Obama. And I was I was watching it was great, great talk he gave, he used to use, I mean, fake classical oratory, or rhetorical devices, and a lot of pausing much as I was sitting actually almost kind of trying to work out how many words per minute he was using was really quite slow and very, very deliberate, very, very intentional. And it was some real kind of zinger phrases kind of going on there, at Wow, made me able to, like create those phrases. And and I watched a documentary The other day. And it was actually his speechwriter was in this. And I actually watched him creating some of those phrases that I'd heard on that night, because he used them previously. And I kind of felt a little bit led them because I felt kind of I thought that that President had created the written note that stuff. And actually it was some speechwriter that was sitting in the background. So how does it feel? Maybe sitting at the side of the room, or the back of the room, or sitting there watching the TV as your words are being being set out? And what's that sensation, when you when you know, something is really landed?

Dr. Nick Morgan
Yes, it's, it's the most exciting thing in the world, when it goes well, you just feel enormous pride, and you're part of a team. So you, you may have originally written the words or helped create them, because usually, it's a give and take between you in the in the in the client. But then when the when the speaker gets up, and gives the words, then he or she owns them completely. So all you can do is is bask in the reflected glow. But that's, that's just a very satisfying thing. When it goes well. When it goes badly, and they screw it up, which sometimes happens, then you want to you want to pull the microphone, let's say pull the cord and shut them up. I I've had that experience occasionally too, though, thankfully, not recently to any of you clients who might be listening.

James Taylor
So as you as you work when you're working with those clients, I'm wondering, I'm guessing many of your clients are already probably pretty good public speakers, whether they're a CEO, the app developer, you know, the the maybe have a strong communication style, they may be professional speakers or politicians who are used to speaking all the time. What they bring you in, is it to just to really kind of create that, to really just make it make it absolutely 100% perfect, or is it something else that they're really wanting you to come in and do that kind of deep listening you described,

Dr. Nick Morgan
people often don't know the stories that they have, because they've lived them. And they don't know the power of them. They've they've experienced them. chronologically, of course, that's the way we experience our lives. But the best stories are often told, not in chronological fashion, but beginning at the last possible moment, as I often tell people in the story. So you want to begin as Aristotle said in medius race you want to begin right at the latest possible point in the story at the most exciting point. And then if you have to fill in back material then you can do that as you go along. But most of us when we tell stories, we go back to the beginning in our minds, and we tell it in chronological order. And that's not usually the most interesting way to tell the story. But it's very hard for somebody who's lived it that way to break out of that mold and tell it differently. And so one of the things I'm often doing is helping the client find out the best version of their lives or the stories they've experienced. The points they want to make, in a way that's, that becomes memorable.

James Taylor
Oh, that reminds me a little bit of how TV shows have changed. Now we're like Breaking Bad to a TV show, they'll always have a scene right at the start, which is taken from halfway through to the thing. So whether it's a hero's journey type narrative that's kind of going on, and it just hooks you in right at the start, you want to go, what was that about. And it's, it can be a little bit discombobulating at first, when it starts like that, but it's intrigues you you want you want to you want to go on. And as you're working with those, those speakers, so that you're helping them can maybe understand and pull out those parts, those stories, how much you pulling on some of those classic, you know, we hear like the hero's journey, the Joseph Campbell type of thing, or that we hear that he's only really seven classic plots to his storytelling as well, how much you pulling on your academic and your classical background?

Dr. Nick Morgan
Well, I was I was trained in rhetoric, and the ancient Greeks and Romans. And so it's shocking how often those stories and rhetorical devices are still the ones that that make for good rhetoric today, we also bring in a lot of neuroscience. So that's, that's very modern, to help with delivery, especially, we now have a better understanding of what's effective in in delivery. But the basic old stories still hold very, very true. And, indeed, they're the powerful ones. One of the great mistakes people make nowadays. And I think TV is partly to blame is in in television, there's this huge fear that you're going to lose the audience. And so they're constantly shocking us. And you mentioned beginning of show in the middle of things, that's a good idea. But often, there's an element of shock there that the hero that we've gotten to know over the period of several episodes is suddenly dead. And then it'll say 18 hours earlier, and it will go back to explain what happened to them. And then it'll turn out actually wasn't dead, there was some trick involved in that kind of, sort of deliberately shocking, but not very well plotted. storyline is to keep our attention. So this is terrible fear, you're going to lose the attention. But actually, what the neuroscience about storytelling shows us is that good storytelling involves fulfilling expectations that the listener has. And so it's not about shocking the listener, it's about fulfilling the expectations that the listener has for how the story is going to go. And so we do use these. When we're writing our best speeches, we use the old storylines, like the quest, you mentioned, the hero's journey. That's best defined by Joseph Campbell, in his book, The hero with 1000 faces, in which as an anthropologist, he went out to many, many cultures, and found that was this common theme of a quest story where the hero goes out on a journey in order to reach a goal. And the longer and the more difficult the journey in the end, the greater the ups and downs, and the harder the journey is, the better we like it. Because the real purpose of that journey is to test the resolve of the hero. And that's what that's what quest stories are really about. And that's still the most common form of story, we all resonate with them. all cultures have quest stories. And so they make great speeches, because you can set a goal in the speech that then the audience wants to join in on and then suddenly, the audience is all in on that quest with you, you can make the audience the hero of that journey, which is far more effective than making yourself to hear the story. And so there's still lots of reasons to use the power of these ancient storytelling modes, versions. And, and the point is that even though we know what the result of a quest is, we still love to hear that particular quest, because that shape of that story has stood the test of time it's baked into us. We love it, and we're familiar with it. And part of the joy of hearing a good story told is that we have the moment just before the end where we go, yeah, I knew that was gonna happen. We have that sense of fulfilling expectations. That's much better than trying to shock your audience by saying it was all a dream or none of this actually happened or the other kind of silly plot tricks that that the back to our example television often uses these days. He used that

James Taylor
example, you know, making the the audience the hero of the journey. If you think about it, because I made a terrible mistake in early speech I did, where I'd been getting really into all the Joseph Campbell stuff. And there's there's been subsequent books on that type of writing and, and that, you know, theories around that. And so I want to write a hero's journey Titan speech, and I wrote it and making myself the hero of the journey, and I delivered it and it was it was like it was fine and everything wasn't terrible, but it just didn't really kind of resonate, resonate. And then someone said to me, Well, you just said to me just there, I said, You've got it all wrong, you know, you need to make the audience the hero of the journey. And I went, ah, how did how can we subdominant not do that. And I had to kind of go back. So as someone that maybe has heard this, like the hero's journey, how do you make your audience the hero of a journey? Because that sounds quite complex as well. And you speak you speak to maybe 1000 people? How can 1000 people be beat at the hero?

Dr. Nick Morgan
Now the first question you have to ask yourself is, what is the problem or challenge or fear that the audience has, for which what I want to talk about is the answer. And so let's say you're an IT specialists just to pick something out of the air, and you want to talk about cybersecurity, then you need to start your audience on a quest to finding cybersecurity by talking about their very natural and understandable fears of all the ways in which hackers and and, and state terrorist organizations and all the other bad guys that we think about out there now can can hack their, their credit cards online or their accounts online or whatever. And the point is to get the audience nodding, and thinking, yeah, that is the state of things today. Oh, it is, it's very scary, it is very uncertain, we're, we are indeed worried about that. And that preps them, then for the solution, when you offer it when you're your version of however, you're going to achieve cybersecurity and that so you're taking the audience on that journey from fear and an understanding of what they're going through to ultimately to a goal, which is to find a clever solution for that problem. And so that at a very simple level is how you, how do you make the audience the hero of it, because if you focus on them and their problems, rather than saying, I've figured out cybersecurity, I'm a genius, let me tell you the 12 ways to get there, then that's very off putting for an audience and it doesn't it doesn't enroll them in the in the journey in a way that is compelling. And one

James Taylor
of the things because you're seeing speakers speak all the time delivering speeches, and now we're just obviously awash with like things like Ted Talks, for example. And so many of your clients have, they come to you because they're giving their first TED talk or giving a TED talk. And it's, and they want to go on that journey and really give them give their best time. But I'm wondering, what are some of those things that really put your hackles up and that really, with a speaker, you just the common like things that they end up falling into that you have to really work with them to try and break out of a, one of those some of those bad habits that we have as speakers,

Dr. Nick Morgan
the one that infuriates me the most, and there are many, but the one that infuriates me the most is wasting the opening of a, of a speech. So at the beginning of a speech, the audience is most eager to hear from you. And and they're freshest, and they haven't started to object to you one way or the other. It's all it's all good at this point. And and they're asking the question of why, why should I care about this? Why is it important? And and speakers? instead of answering that question, why that's, that's what you should do at the beginning is answer that question, why very clearly and strongly it can be done with a story, it can be done with something as simple as a factoid or a question. But I prefer stories, obviously. But what speakers do often instead is they do one of three things. First, they introduce themselves, they say, let me tell you about me or my company. And the result, the result of that is course is you don't answer the question why and frankly, the audience doesn't care. If especially if you've been introduced, they certainly don't need to hear any more about you. And so that's a classic mistake that that speakers make. The second one is they give an agenda. They say, if I were going to talk to you, in effect, this is what I would say. So they and I believe people need agendas, if you're going to talk to them for a whole day if it's a workshop, but if it's only an hour, we can live without an agenda. In fact, it'd be nice to have a little element of surprise along the way. So don't tell us what you're going to say. Because what happens is if you start saying, okay, here's what I'm going to talk about. What I've noticed the behavior I've noticed in conferences is that people go immediately to their mobile phones. And they think I can get one more text message. And one more email done before this person actually starts talking, because he or she is just is just setting things up not actually beginning. And we've learned to, to wait for the actual start. And then the third thing is, and the worst. And surprisingly, this is the hardest to get speakers not to do is to chat. So the urge for speakers to walk out on stage and say, Oh, it's great to be here. Anybody else here from Singapore? Oh, I see a few hands. Wonderful. How are things back there and synched up or Been a while I've been on the road, and they just they just chatter. And the reason for that is, they're trying to make themselves feel more comfortable. But they inevitably defended as a way of making the audience relax and connecting with the audience. It has nothing to do with that. It's about making themselves feel more comfortable. But what a waste of time. Because the your, the audience, again, is at its freshest and most ready and most eager to hear why am I here? Why is this important? Why should I get excited, and back to your example of TV shows that now start in the middle? Because there, they don't want to waste that opening mental real estate. I always use the example of James Bond movies. And I hope people all around the world have seen that great franchise, which has gone on for 50 years or so. But how does the James Bond movie begin? Back in the in the in the day when it first started 1963, the first James Bond movie came out, it was quite a remarkable thing, because most movies in those days began with the credits. And so you'd get anywhere from five to seven minutes of just saying who's going to be in the movie, who's the director, who's the producer, who wrote the music, who's the cinematographer, on and on and on. And all of that was just set up for the movie, and you learn quickly that you could go and get popcorn or a drink or something, because nothing was going to happen for about seven minutes. Well, James Bond changed all that by beginning with a car chase, or an explosion, or some exciting fight or something like that. And then only after you were hooked with the credits roll. And so if you missed the opening, you missed the most exciting and most expensive part of the movie, typically until the very end. So people learned they had to be in at the beginning. And so I say the same thing to audiences to speakers and audiences everywhere. Don't waste that opening with credits, just get right to the the opening story, hook that audience grab them. And then if you must, if you absolutely must say something about yourself, do it 510 minutes into the speech and just keep it to an absolute minimum.

James Taylor
And when you're working with speakers you're working on on the script, what they're saying the ideas, the stories within it as well. And, and the crafting of it. Where does the body language part come in? When do you start working with them on that part? Or do you end up having to bring in another because I know there's obviously experts to just deal with body language, especially in the political scene as well? Are you able to kind of deal with all of that with a client?

Dr. Nick Morgan
Yes, I always divide it into two. Because what I found is that as soon as we start talking about body language, then that's all we can think about. People get self conscious. And they start to worry about how they're standing and what they're doing with their hands and what their face looks like all those things. And, and so we always begin with content. And I like to get the content completed and everybody feeling very confident and happy with the content. And then we'll start on the delivery, we call it the choreography day where we're arranging, how the client is going to walk on stage, how they're going to stand, where they're going to go, and what slides of course they're going to use or anything else they can use video, we've arranged sometimes to have music on stage with the with the speaker, and all sorts of light shows and all kinds of interesting things. So all of that comes later once you've got the content set. And that may come from my background in the acting world where an actor never walks on stage, unless they know what the lines are. And they've had a chance to do what he called blocking, which is to marry the the lines to a specific place and action on stage. Once you do that, then you can start to make it real and make it your own. embody it, literally. And so that's such an extraordinarily important stage in the preparation of a speech that I feel very strongly that people need to get the content down first, and then they can start rehearsing it. And I'm always unhappy when I see a speaker working up to the last minute on on changing the text and that kind of thing. Because usually it's a result of nervousness or fear and they're and they think if I just fix this one phrase, then I'll suddenly won't be nervous anymore. Well, unfortunately, we all get nervous for speeches, and that doesn't go away. And so it's the wrong place to put the put the focus but people do that.

James Taylor
Yeah. What you described is is very, like an alchemy, I mean, some of the things you just described, you could be in ancient Greece, watching someone, you know, in terms of, you know, they had table reads back then or you know how they would have done it, but you know, blocking and some of those things that that we do now, obviously, memorization comes into that as well. So as we start to finish up here, I'm intrigued to know when you're going on working with with clients, what is in your, your speaker bag, what is in that bag that you take with you to all your, your engagements, when you're working with clients, many of the speakers we've had on this have talked about their clickers and the different things that they take them to their speaking engagement. But I mean, she guessed it, someone like yourself actually works for speakers in that way, what isn't, isn't your speaker bag,

Dr. Nick Morgan
I always have some form of light, small camera, because there's, there's no better way to learn how a speech went, then, then, of course, to see yourself on video. The other thing I like to do is when I have the technology available, is to bring two cameras, one of which I put on the audience, because the ways in which you learn the most about a speech actually, is to do something which is a little hard for a speaker to do in the moment, which is to watch the audience listening to the speech and seeing how do they react? When do they start to get engaged? When do they get disengaged? Do they get bored? Do they start to twitch and look away and do they surreptitiously go for their mobile phones and that kind of thing. So you can learn an enormous amount by looking at a video of the audience. Now, that's not a video that 90% of the world would want to look at, it gets a bit dull, but, but for somebody like me, it's absolutely fascinating, fascinating way to learn how that speech is going over. So those are key. And then of course, I always bring double extra of everything. So extra clickers, extra copies of the slides, if they're slides extra everything because you never know what's gonna go wrong. And the other thing we do is we there are two key ways in which we always prepare speakers these days. One of them is always come ready with a short version of your speech. And it's just the reality in a conference that often the conference is running late. And so somebody will, will come up to the speaker and say, can you do the speech in 20 minutes, I'm really sorry, you had an hour, but the last speaker ran over over running really late. And thanks to the lunch coming up, we can't, we can't delay too much, or the food will spoil so and that's unbelievably stressful if you don't have a 20 minute version prepared. But if you do, you can smile calmly and say absolutely no problem, I can do that 20 minute version, and off you go. So that's, that's absolutely key is to have that is to have that short version. And then the other thing is to have the no technology version. Because even in this day and age, a projector can fail, sound can go out. And you'd be surprised how many speakers are completely unable to deliver a speech without their slide deck. And that's, that's just extraordinarily important to be able to do that. So it's really having three versions of the talk one, the standard one with all the technology, the second one, the talk with zero technology. And then the third one, the short version. And so that's, that's only metaphorically in the bag that you're talking about. But that's that's what I bring to every talk, those things are incredibly important.

James Taylor
And if we had more time, I would love to go into the virtual This is the part you're going on to next in terms of virtual presentations is obviously a huge area as well. And some of the challenges around that. But what book would you recommend if someone is interested in this, and we're also gonna have a link to your site? So it can be one of your books, but if there was another book, it could be on storytelling, it could be on presentation or or, or something else you think would be a value to them? What would that book be? you'd recommend?

Dr. Nick Morgan
Oh, there's so many that I love. Gar Reynolds wrote a classic book presentations in which is all about creating great slides. So if anybody has any questions in their minds about how to create good slides, that's still the best book out there, I believe on the subject. Robert McKee wrote a wonderful book called story, which you no doubt heard of, if if any of your listeners and viewers haven't read that book, and are serious about giving good speeches, they should read that book. The I'm the one I mentioned earlier, Joseph Campbell, a hero with 1000 faces really gets into the deep structure of that particular story, the quest and how it's told and why it resonates so much with people. And so that's a great book to get a good understanding of what you're really doing when you're telling you a quest story. So those are the those are the first three that comes to mind. Yeah, so I'll stop there.

James Taylor
I mean, these are great. I love I haven't read the presentations and yet, but so many people have recommended that to me. So that's going to be on my list. So I can final question for you Nick. I What do you imagine tomorrow morning, you, you wake up and you have to start from scratch. So you have all the skills that you've acquired over the years. But you know, no one, no one knows you, you have to restart your career and what you do now? How would you restart? What would you do?

Dr. Nick Morgan
Well, I would start by giving free speeches. And that is the way everybody has to start who wants to get into this business of ultimately paid public speaking. And so I would, I would join Toastmasters because I love that organization. They're, they're worldwide. They're incredibly supportive of each other the most of the individual groups that local groups have, have a theme, so find one that suits you. But that's a great way to get lots of practice. And really, that's the thing that's most important is if you want to become a speaker, then you've got to start speaking you and you've got to practice. And, and you never get enough, you should always be honing your craft.

James Taylor
And if someone wants to reach out to you, maybe they're working on their first TED Talk, or they're going to be giving a big new keynote, and they could really use some some help work on working with someone, what's the best way for them to connect with you?

Dr. Nick Morgan
Sure, just go to the website, www dot public words.com. And there's a contact form my email addresses on there, so we're very easy to reach.

James Taylor
Well, Nick, it's been a pleasure speaking to you today. I hope when next time you're in the United Kingdom, I hope we get a chance to meet in London and we'll go to the Globe Theater together. And we'll go see some great Shakespeare together.

Dr. Nick Morgan
That'd be a great pleasure. Thank you.

James Taylor
Today's episode was sponsored by speakers you the online community for speakers and if you're serious about your speaking career then you can join us because you membership program. I'll speak as you members receive private one on one coaching with me hundreds of hours of training content access to a global community to help them launch and build a profitable business around their speaking message and expertise. So just head over to SpeakersU.com to learn more.

#speakersU #speakerslife

In today's episode Mark Bowden talked about The body language of inspiring speakers.

Mark Bowden has been voted the #1 Body Language Professional in the world two years running. He is the founder of the communication training company TRUTHPLANE® and his clients include leading businesspeople, teams, and politicians, presidents and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and Prime Ministers of G8 powers. He has written three bestsellers about body language and human behavior and spoken at TEDx Toronto. One of the world's foremost authorities on nonverbal communication, he is in high demand giving keynotes worldwide.

What we cover:

• Why understanding body language is critical for speakers

• How audiences judge speakers

• The body language of inspiring speakers

Resources:

• Mark's Website

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Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/body-language-expert-sl096/

James Taylor
Hi, it's James Taylor, founder of SpeakersU. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Speakers Summit the world's largest online event for professional speakers. And if you'd like to access the full video version, as well as in depth sessions with over 150 top speakers, then I've got a very special offer for you. Just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yep, that's right 150 of the world's top speakers sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to launch grow and build a successful speaking business. So just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com but not before you listen to today's episode.

Hey, it's James Taylor, and I'm delighted to be joined by Mark Bowden. Mark Bowden has been voted the number one body language professional in the world two years running. He is the founder of the communication training company truth plain, and his clients include leading business people, teams and politicians, presidents and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and prime ministers of g8 powers. He has written three bestsellers about body language and human behavior. And spoken at TEDx Toronto, one of the world's foremost authorities on nonverbal communication. He is in high demand giving keynotes worldwide and it's my great pleasure to have him on today. So welcome.

Mark Bowden
Oh, thanks very much for having me, James. It's great pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

James Taylor
So we've spoken before and and when we started kind of putting this event together, I thought it would be absolutely insane if I didn't have you on this, because you, you are the guy when it comes to body language. And and you know, I've spoke we've spoken about the body language of speakers and what they do, right? So for how did you get involved in this world of understanding body language, and then obviously writing and speaking about it.

Mark Bowden
So I first got involved because as a kid, I was fascinated with animal behavior. And then human behavior, just fascinated with Why do humans do this? Why do they do that? Why did that occur? Why do we get on with these people and not get on with those people over there. And I wanted to know why. And I wanted tools and techniques to get better at it better at influence and persuasion. So really, I got him through that angle.

James Taylor
So it's like they can evolutionary side of things. That's how you and it is speaking to you before and reading some of your work. There's such a strong evolutionary side, we it's so subconscious, that when when these things are happening, but they all kind of pause back to that doesn't it all connected, there is a reason for these things in the way that people behave.

Mark Bowden
Sure. So I would class myself as an evolutionary behavioral psychologist, so obviously, everything is going to get pulled back to evolution. From my point of view, there are other models to look at human behavior from, I just happened to think the evolutionary one is the best, and is the most likely, and seems to make the most sense. And more importantly, it's the most helpful. So it's always been a really helpful way for me to look at behavior. Because in that way, there's no bad behaviors, there's just results that you wanted or didn't want. And I think that's a really important model to use, especially when you're thinking about public speaking, in that there's nothing really bad that you can do, there's just results that you wanted or didn't want. And if you're not getting the results that you want, the important thing is is what behaviors can you do in order to get the results that you want? And that's really the work that I do with speakers is, what behavior would you have to do to get the right result out of your audience.

James Taylor
So one of the videos I saw on your site, you did a very interesting little experiment where you walk through a door, but you have your hands behind you, and you walk up to the camera, and you start speaking. And then you and it was fascinating, because we're so used to seeing, you know, it just felt weird. It just felt really odd. And I couldn't kind of put my finger on why it was odd at first until you explained it. So what was going on there?

Mark Bowden
Yeah, so here's one of the ways that our primitive brain that older part of the evolutionary brain, here's how it deals with some data, it says when insufficient data default to a negative. So if you don't have data, that primitive brain is not optimistic, it's pessimistic, better to be safe than sorry. So at the moment, when I'm speaking to you, I'm trying to show you a lot of my gestures and my hands. So you get a lot of sufficient data about what my feeling and intention might be, as I'm speaking to you. But if I actually I'm just going to move this a little bit and step back a little bit so you can see actually more of my body. And actually, what I'm going to do is, is put my hands behind my back, as I talk to you here. Now just think how confident you are about my content for you and my feelings and intentions towards you. And now if I let you see my hands, are you more optimistic and more confident about me and my content? Because there's me and you could listen to me for the next you know, 20 minutes, or there's me and you can listen to me for the next 20 minutes. Yeah, is that one that you immediately prefer as

James Taylor
well as being able to see the hand and it's not just it's not just the gestures, obviously, there's gestures going on there as well. But there's something it's just like, being able to see the hand it just feels like something's not it's not right. And it's, it's difficult to can put your finger on it, but just I think everyone's gonna see this as the as the watch this just now it's like there's something not right there.

Mark Bowden
Yeah. So it's it's in it's interesting is that you don't quite know what's right about it, or what's wrong about it is because essentially, it's unconscious, it's in your subconscious is in your primitive brain to want to know, do I have any tools or weapons? Is there anything in my hands that could harm you. And you'd rather know that there's something in my hands than not know, there's something in my hands. So again, look, if I show you these and say, there's nothing here, but then hide them from you. Again, you don't feel as good about me as if you can see my hands. So it's that what we call a heuristic it's so it's a quick way that the brain makes a decision. And it's always saying if insufficient data default to a negative, it's just not an optimist around this.

James Taylor
Now, the last time I spoken to you, I think I just come back from being an event that former President Barack Obama had been speaking out. And we were having a conversation about his body language on stage. And so and this is, I think it's interesting, when you're talking just now maybe if people can go back and watch some videos of him, you'll quickly see what you're talking about, as well. But someone like that there's a speaker that's known for being a great orator, a great communicator on stages, what are some of the things that you might notice about him that you might that might not necessarily be there in other speakers?

Mark Bowden
Yeah, so let me give you actually just a couple of things that I think he does particularly well, and again, I'll stand up and go back a bit, so you can see more of me, there, let me just tell this camera up, so you get more of my face in as I move back, one of the things that you'll notice he does is open palm gestures at navel height that are symmetrical. So you won't very often see him start to gesture in asymmetry, as I'm doing for you now, because probably as you and the audience are watching me move in this asymmetry and move the horizontal height, you'll notice it's a little more confusing what I'm saying. I mean, my content for you is very simple at the moment, but my gestures have actually become way too complex for you to really judge my feeling and intention. And if I bring my hands back to open palm gestures at exactly navel height, this is the area that I've called the truth plane, because it's calm and assertive. And you're most likely to trust me when I speak here, and I keep them symmetrical, which means that if you know what one side is doing, you know what the other side is doing as well, it takes less brain capacity to be able to understand me, you get very assured about my content, essentially, you're more likely to feel confident about my content. Now, here's the other thing is that on many of his speeches, he'll speak at around about almost one word a second. And that's really slow. And I want you to notice how much attention you're now paying to every word. I say. Now, it's a little laborious. And you might not be able to cope with a full hour of this. But for moments when I'm speaking, you're probably getting a sense of there's real power, in my words. And my normal speech pattern would be about this kind of speed. And you'll notice the faster I go, sure, it's very energetic, but it doesn't have the power of just a few words a second, and at times, almost one word a second. So I think those are the two things that he's doing which are really important. Not that we have to emulate that completely. Yeah, but I think there's lessons to be had from it.

James Taylor
And it was obviously in language as well. He's kind of doing he's imitating with his body things are happening his language, he'll often use very long pauses, almost. I mean, it's coming from a sales background, almost like salesman pauses where you'll purposely pause to make it feel almost a little bit uncomfortable if you want to know they're coming with it with a comment and sometimes that says he was doing those but they were doing him very skillfully, so it didn't feel like weird or anything. There's another thing I noticed that politicians do a lot and have obviously been some have been trained or some some haven't, is in the use of their hands. So you were using like different hand gestures and things they will when they're pressing Homecourt. I think this was the first person I possibly saw do with Tony Blair, where he used this gesture here so he was like pressing, you know, he's pressing on the point Other other things that I know you work with politicians as well as speakers are the things that you teach them in terms of what they do with, with the hands themselves.

Mark Bowden
Yeah, in fact, that's one of the main things that I concentrate on is, is what they do with their hands. Now, this gesture here, which actually I would say, Bill Clinton was probably the best known for Yeah, and, and what this was about was his trainers, trying to stop him pointing, there's nothing wrong with pointing, it just might get you a result that you don't want, it can feel aggressive at times. So what they did was swap it for this. My problem with this is this isn't a gesture that anybody ever uses in real life. If you think about, you know, for those those out there watching and listening, think if you've got kids, When was the first time you saw your kid do this gesture? Well, they don't. Yeah, they might do this one for sure. A fist. Yeah, that's, that's an instinct or instinctual gesture, but this one isn't. So we always look at politicians doing this gesture and kind of go, what do they do? What are they What are they meaning by this, and actually, its meaning has become one of Oh, you're a politician. So I actually guide my clients away from these gestures, and more towards suddenly open hand gestures. You know, rather than point I'd rather they cut like this in, because again, this shows no tools, no weapons, nothing in my hands to harm you. So again, if I just kind of show you, those, those gestures from from back here, you'll be able to see these open palm gestures here probably feel more inclusive, inclusive of you, calmer, more assertive, the moment I change to these fist like gestures, with that pointy thumb, I become a lot more aggressive, naturally. And I don't know whether this is really helping me make contact with you, the audience? So let me just swap back to these gestures here. And my guess is you probably feel me calming down a little bit becoming calmer and assertive, my voice patterns slowing down slightly. So you know, again, I would I would bring my clients back to that idea of the the open palm gestures and, and generally open body language. And what about the use of anchoring when it comes to body language, so

James Taylor
you'll hear a lot of speakers, they will use phrases, there is a way of anchoring an audience. And I've seen like people that maybe like Tony Robbins would be the first one that comes to mind off the top my head, he has a, he has a certain couple of little gestures, like one was he does this thing here. And there's a couple of gestures. So what any suggestions for maybe the speakers that are watching this just now who they kind of see these things? And they're unsure, you know, should I be using these maybe the the high point of my speech? Should I be adding an anchor? Or is it just not going to work? Is it going to backfire on me,

Mark Bowden
I would use bigger anchors To be honest, I would anchor yourself to parts of the stage, rather than specific gestures. So let's just do a simple idea here, let's have a good part of the stage and a bad part of the stage make it really binary. Yeah. And the bad part of the stage is all our old behaviors that we used to do. And the good part of the stage is the behaviors that we're going to move towards just and I'm just having the context here, if you're trying to do some kind of behavioral change with the audience, maybe you're trying to get them to change some patterns in their life or sell better or lead better. And we could talk about, so again, we could talk about the old way that we were leading over here somewhere. And then I could maybe anchor these these behaviors, even to some body language, which is a little more in what I call the grotesque plane. So hands down by your side. And look, there was nothing wrong with these behaviors that you were doing in the past, it was maybe just not getting you the results that you wanted, and these old patterns, but are now starting to think about some of the new behaviors we can start to do. And I started thinking about how exciting those could be, you know how they could really move your life forward. So I'd like you to choose these behaviors. Now. Look, there was nothing wrong with these ones over here. But were they really getting you the great results that you needed. Let's think about changing over to these new behaviors more exciting for sure. And certainly, they'll get you the results that you want. So in that I'm just anchoring to to really specific points. And when it comes to question time, for example, and the audience want to ask me questions about this, I might anchor back To those, again, to create the states that I've set up the state of excitement over here, maybe, and the state of, you know, not bad behavior, but just not getting you the results that you want. I think those kind of big stage movements are a lot clearer than going for sometimes quite delicate and specific gestures, which might be harder for some of the audience to see.

James Taylor
Yeah, I mean, that reminds me that those kind of smaller ones, I saw someone do it recently. And and I think there's actually, I think cults used to do this, which he said something along that I came up with the present said, but he said something along the lines of, so you can do it my way, or you could do it the other way. But whichever way you're going to choose, I know you could do the right direction and vary. And it was like, Oh, it was like really horrible. And I don't know if we were just me noticing it, but it just felt like not right. But I'm wondering as well, when I when I speak on stage, there's one keynote I gave what I actually want, for the first 10 minutes, I actually want it to be a bit confused on purpose, because I'm burning tension in my talk. So how can we use body language to create a little bit of like, we talked about cognitive dissonance, you know, so we can use our body, in addition to what we're saying and creating that confusion. Where's he going with? What's happening with this? Well, you can actually do that with your body as well.

Mark Bowden
Yeah, for sure. So all you need to do is asymmetrical gestures, especially one that will be around the head. Yeah. And you can circle your hands as well during this in different ways. And the more you start to take the hands away from the head as you're doing that, the more confused people will get. Because they can't quite tell which side you're on. Yeah, so asymmetrical gestures For a start, move the hands around. Yeah, and move them away from the head. And then what you'd want to do is bring the hands symmetrical, as to when you want to make your clear point. Now actually, Donald Trump does this brilliantly. Yeah, he's a real genius, at being able to confuse people. And he'll go, you know what, and they've got this idea. And this idea, it's just not gonna work, it's just not gonna work, because they just don't know what they're doing what they're doing at all. But here's what we're going to do. And then he'll come symmetrical. Yeah. So watch out for for Trump during that you may not agree with his politics. But it's great watching his body language, because there's a great deal that he does absolutely on purpose, in order to get you to feel like what he's saying is delicate and intelligent. And then to be able to confuse you, as well, and then be able to bring you to a point that maybe actually isn't very logical, but you're by it, because the body language is now clear behind it. So I think that's one way of confusing people. And the other the other way is to, is to not, not finish patterns of behavior. So to so to do stuff that that confuses people, because you're, you're alarming them as to something's going on, but you don't quite know what it is. Now, this might disturb them too much, by the way.

James Taylor
And I think you see actors use that when they're in character for certain things, if they want to get across that sense of being a little bit manic. And they'll do those movements and not complete things. And it's, and it's very jarring,

Mark Bowden
right? Right, I'll often use it as well, if I want to alert the audience that something is about to happen, I'll often think, Oh, I want to I want to write this down. And I'll look for look for where I've put my pen or something. And then I'll make the statement. And suddenly they get they've locked onto me, because all of these movements triggered them that there might be a predator around. And so their instinctual mind goes, Oh, we better watch what's happening, what's happening, what's happening, what's happening, or something definite is happening now. So incomplete gestures, then going to complete gestures will fulfill an audience, even if your content doesn't fulfill them completely.

James Taylor
So these these techniques, your your, you teach, and you talk about and you write about, you know, they're very powerful. And I'm guessing they can be used for harm, as well. So, you know, as speakers where we're having to be quite alert to what other speakers are doing, and there's maybe some people, some speakers will go Actually, I'm not going to use that because that doesn't really fit with my, my codes, my way of doing things. I don't want people to feel those sensations or going to those places. So when people make that claim, he says, Listen, I don't think you should be teaching stuff because it feels manipulative in some way. What is your response to that?

Mark Bowden
Fine, don't use them. It's just nobody will listen to you and you won't get your point across. That's okay. I guess it wasn't important to you. I guess I guess, I guess you didn't actually. Because here's the problem is that other people will accidentally use these techniques and accidentally get their message across better than you. And that's unfortunate, because maybe you have an incredibly positive message. But you're not prepared to put on the behaviors that will get your message across, right, this whole idea of build it and they will come, No, they won't, they'll stay at home, that watch the TV TVs great

James Taylor
is the default position. Really, as you mentioned, at the start, not to do

Mark Bowden
right, the default position is I'll just be myself and people will, you know, gravitate towards me? No, they won't. I guarantee it, they won't, you have to have something of an element of charisma, which is focused behavior on purpose. And you can do that nobody's born with charisma, they learn it, they learn it, because they know it has the effect that they want. So I would say you need to use behaviors on purpose in order to influence and persuade people, because as a speaker, it is your job to persuade them, that is your function to influence and persuade other people. Otherwise, they will spend their life how they've always been spending it, which is not with you, not with your content. Now you need to gather more audience around you. And therefore, you must influence and persuade and manipulation is, is part of that MIT manipulation comes from Latin Manny, which just means hands, just means it just means you're molding the world. And we do it unconsciously, all the time. We mold the world with our language. Just listen what I did that. I said, we do that all the time. And my guess is, is everybody's head nodding, going. Yeah, we do that all the time. I don't know, do we I've not tested it. Maybe we don't. But look how I manipulated the world unconsciously there by using the the idea of all the time.

James Taylor
And I think some of those some of those great speakers will talk about some, like, you know, inspiring people that you find very inspiring speakers and what they're what they're doing. I think many of them maybe they haven't, they haven't learned it in a in a set way in terms of these skills and these techniques, but they've maybe studied under someone, or they've trained or they become, I mean, I think about friends of mine that are great speakers. And they've studied it will be like Martin Luther King. So you'll notice things going on there. Or they'll like a zig ziglar and and maybe in the motivation award and you'll you pick up lots of little things there. Their phrasing is going to be different. But there's things that are going on the body language, because they've obviously been in the room, they've watched that person work the room and subconsciously, something's happened there.

Mark Bowden
Sure. So it's it's always learned behavior, we just often don't know how they learnt it. And sometimes they don't know how they learnt it. But we can learn it. I mean, I teach it. Yeah, I teach it because it must be liked by anybody wanting to lead, it must be learned. And it must be conscious. Because if it's not conscious, how do you know you can do it tomorrow? How do you a great today? What are you just going to leave it up to luck, that you're good tomorrow, that you're great tomorrow, I don't think it's fair on an audience to leave your level of performance to luck. I think you have to study and train as much as you can, in order to make as much of it as possible. Under your conscious control.

James Taylor
I think you know, we're talking here about a lot about the audience how the audience perceives you as a speaker. But in terms of those done those body movements and things that you do with your body, is also I think a lot about anchoring you into those positive states that you want to in order to give your best when you go go up there on stage. And obviously sports people they use this all the time, they're very, very good at knowing there's any, they they work through these loops, and they they do certain things before they they go out to the track and see speakers do that. Sometimes it's a little strange quirks and things that they have, they feel that they have to otherwise it's just, it's just a way of being before they go on stage.

Mark Bowden
So sometimes I don't get why why people are so you know, anti putting on behaviors. Because they don't mind when 100 meter runner does their warm up routine, which is not their innate behavior. They've decided those behaviors in order to get the best performance. And and nobody goes without really inauthentic what they're doing right now why don't they just run, you know, just if they just ran? No, they know you can't just run and win. You have to choose really specific behaviors within the running and really train in those specific areas. In order that when you get to the point of performance when you're up against others, that you stand the best chance of being the best performer, they're nobody on the 100 meter track is doing innate running. They're trained runners,

James Taylor
and I think they want to win is that that, you know, that word elite gets used, and people are very comfortable about using elite for athletes, maybe elite in music and classical music, for example. But when you talk about elite speakers, or that feels, you know, people kind of get a little bit strange about about that word.

Mark Bowden
Yeah, I'm with you on that. Because I get a little I get a little bit a little bit worried by people going, Well, I want to be an elite speaker, but I just want to be me. Well, if it was about being you, you'd already be it. You just show up and like a crowd would just form around you, you would have this natural magnetism where you just show up. And so it's not about that, you have to create a set of behaviors, which I believe is about you being way more than you. So not about you being authentic. It's about you choosing your greatest behaviors and amping those up to a level whereby you're irresistible. Yeah, where it costs you, because it's you. But it's the most extra ordinary you. And I think people often go well, to be authentic, I just got to be the ordinary may, I guarantee nobody will show up for the ordinary. Yeah.

James Taylor
And I think you know, friends of mine, that actually a friend of mine, who was the manager for Taylor Swift, the music artist, and she would have a coach, you'd have multiple should have vocal coach, you'd have a dance, you know, choreography coach, but she also had a performance coach, who would would know in terms of our set, and I think, you know, when I speak with people to hear the speakers as well, or watching or listening to this, your, your, your keynote, your hour long keynote, a 90 minute keynote is a set in that way. And so Taylor's coach there, they would work out the story of this the arc of the of the performance, and he would say, this point here, when you do this, you need to be in this point in the stage, you need to be doing this this movement, you need to be you know, and it was very well, and obviously, for an audience's standpoint, it just feels, you know, it's all about that word authentic. I'll be Will you maybe use that word about something he or she just heard you just heard, right, but huge amount of craft, there's a huge amount of going on backstage and also with our coaches. So when you work with speakers, unported, how do they How do they you end up kind of working with them? What's the usual way that you can operate together? Is it like a Skype coaching sessions? Or do you come together and huddle for a couple of days? Do they send in videos? How does it work?

Mark Bowden
Yeah, so if it's if it's politicians, for example, I will be part of their team. And I'll be working with strategists, you know, people, pollsters, and strategists. So here's what we're trying to work out. What do we need people to feel in order for them to vote and for that politician to win. And, and, and it's not about what everybody needs to feel, there's only a few people that matter. There's only within the systems, the democratic systems, actually not everybody is equal, some people matter more than others, simply because of the system that's been set up. So you're really interested in who matters most, what do they need from a leader? And therefore, what would your leader have to do in order for them to feel innately that that is the leader for them? Now, here's the thing with politics is, the point is to win. There's no second place. You don't nobody cheers you when you come in second, actually, what happens is, is history forgets you, you won't even remember the name of the person that came in second. So you have to win. And so you will perform whatever you need to perform in order to win. So I'm pretty much there choreographing helping them understand, here's the behavior that will provoke those people to feel like you are the right person for them. Now, let's talk about that in terms of manipulation. Unless you actually turn out to be the right person, they will have what's called buyer's remorse, and they will dislike you intently. So, so you can lie. That's okay. You can put on the behaviors that lie, just lying is for the lazy because you will get found out in the end, maybe not this year, maybe not next year, maybe five years down the line, you'll get found out for lying, and they'll say we're disappointed in you to the extent that will make your life a misery right now, and then they will for sure. So So really, that's the work that I do is is where, you know, just as you were saying with that Taylor Swift idea. We're looking at what do we want the audience to feel? And what what do we have to do in order to For them to feel like that. And then we do that. And we don't just do it once we do it again and again and again and again. And again, it's about the repetition. And we don't try anything else. We don't go, Well, why don't we add a little, you know, nuance of this and a little bit of that we just go, No, we've got one thing that we're doing, and we're just gonna do it repetitively. So that that audience's mind really knows what they're buying into. Does that, does that make some sense to you jokes?

James Taylor
Yeah, I mean, that. So you have, what's going on there is is that the body version of what cam strategist will do where they'll have a set number of phrases. And they know that it's the only know that is really working as being repeated time and time again, when not only is a strategist and everyone, their team completely fed up with the phrase, the media is completely fed up with a phrase, but only when you start hearing people repeat in the general public repeat that phrase. And so you're doing a similar thing with it with the body language. And I guess we're this relates to speakers is often speakers will have their, their, their story that shortly, depending on the size of your keynote, it could be a short version, it could be elongated version. And I've seen a lot of very good speakers do they will have that story. And it's the same story, which they've been saying for 15 years. Yep. And they will tweak things here and there, but the same one, and, and there's one person I know, in particular, very successful speaker and I said, can't get fed up telling a story. And he said, Well, it's a bit like having your hit as an art, you know, you know, if you go there, and you have to give that you get that hit. Because in that room, there will be people that have never heard that before. And also, some of these people might only get to hear you maybe two or three times. So you want to make sure that wherever they're leaving with it that's like ringing in their ear, they absolutely can say one thing is that that story is that if that's life story, or whatever the pieces that you want, there's a lot of a lot of similarities there with politicians.

Mark Bowden
I think that's absolutely true. And just just to talk a little bit on that speaker point of, of the speaker coming up with new material, I hear this from many, many speakers that I that I work with, or who are colleagues of mine, and clients will come to you. And they'll say, Oh, you know, can you do a little bit different? We got some ideas for some different content for you. And and what you do is to go Oh, yeah, that's really Oh, yeah, I could do some of that. That's great. Yeah, I'll fit some of that in. And then you go on, and you do the same as you've always done, because they didn't want anything different. They just want it to be heard. But they want like you say they want the hits. The reason they want you back is because they've seen the hit that you've done, and they want that for their audience. I've played the same audiences time and time again. And I do the same stuff. And they come and they go, God was so different this time. And I know it wasn't, I know it was the same. It's just now they've got even more relaxed with me even more used to me, they're seeing the different levels in the speech, they're actually able to pick out more nuance, but I haven't changed anything about it. So I think, you know, when you have got a really great narrative, and you've got a really great performance, and you've got great content, one of the keys then it's just a stick with it. And just to you know, if you ever been to a to a music concert, where, you know, somebody's playing one of their hits, but because they've got bored with it, they've decided to change it in some way. They've changed the tempo. They've got a different you know, they've decided they'll, it's like going to see the police and sting gets like, bored with this stuff. And he decides to do some of his songs, you know, not with a reggae beat and on a lute. It's like, Oh, really?

James Taylor
Yeah, I

Mark Bowden
really wanted to the police. I didn't want sting. Singing, you know, so only as a ballad

James Taylor
on a lute. You feel a bit disappointed by that

Mark Bowden
disappointed

James Taylor
so the end of this everyone's gonna get that loot album by sting. album. Like Dominic Miller apology, he's the guitar player of his thing. So hopefully, more people want to reach out to you many of our speakers here because they want to work with someone like you on on the coaching side and just improve what they're doing with their their body language. What's the best way for them to connect with you?

Mark Bowden
Sure, just go to the truth plain sight. So that's ww truth plain comm tr u th, p L, a n a truth claim calm. You'll see a contact form on one of the pages. Just drop me a line on that. And I'll get back to you really quickly or find me on Facebook or find me on Twitter. Just put in the word truth plain, and you'll get me some way

James Taylor
somehow. Mark, thank you so much as always, it was a fascinating experience. talking with you. I always learn so much. Thank you so much for coming on the summit. I wish You all the best with your own speaking because you're very busy speaker yourself and I know you're working on your next book at the moment so all the best of that I look forward to seeing you on a stage really soon.

Mark Bowden
Yeah I hope to be with you on a stage sometime that'll be that'll be great and thanks for thanks for speaking with me and thanks audience for joining in really appreciate it.

James Taylor
Today's episode was sponsored by speakers you the online community for speakers and if you're serious about your speaking career then you can join us because you membership program. I'll speak as you members receive private one on one coaching with me hundreds of hours of training content access to a global community to help them launch and build a profitable business around their speaking message and expertise. So just head over to SpeakersU.com to learn more.

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In today's episode Carol Cambridge talked about, Active Shooter And Threats to Event Safety.

Carol Cambridge is CEO of The Stay Safe Project, an international conference speaker and workplace violence expert. She is on a mission to help people and organizations stay safe by being prepared and taking action from a place of strength not from a place of fear. Her career began as a communication specialist in emergency services and disaster preparedness with a Canadian Law Enforcement Agency. Today, 25 years later, Carol has taught over a quarter of a million people how to make good decisions. Highly profiled for her expertise, she is constantly sought by media for comments when workplace shootings and tragedies occur. Carol has been interviewed by ABC, NBC, USA Today, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation & News Channel Asia in Singapore.

What we cover:

• Emergency planning for events

• Active-shooters and terrorism at live events

• Working with local enforcement

Resources:

• Carol's Website

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Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/active-shooter-and-threats-to-event-safety-sl095/

James Taylor
Hi, it's James Taylor, founder of SpeakersU. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Speakers Summit the world's largest online event for professional speakers. And if you'd like to access the full video version, as well as in depth sessions with over 150 top speakers, then I've got a very special offer for you. Just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yep, that's right 150 of the world's top speakers sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to launch grow and build a successful speaking business. So just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com but not before you listen to today's episode.

Hey there, it's James Taylor, and I'm delighted today to be joined by Carol Cambridge. Carol Cambridge is CEO of the state safe project and international conference speaker and a workplace violence expert. She is on a mission to help people and organizations stay safe by being prepared and taking action from a place of strength, not a place of fear. Her career began as a communication specialist in emergency services and disaster preparedness with a Canadian law enforcement agency. Today 25 years later, Carol has taught over a quarter and a quarter million people how to make good decisions and credible number highly profiled for our expertise. She is constantly sought after by media for comments when workplace shootings and tragedies occur. Carol has been interviewed by ABC, NBC, USA Today Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and news channel Asia in Singapore. It's my great pleasure to have Carol join us today. So welcome, Carol,

Carol Cambridge
thank you. My pleasure to join you this morning, James.

James Taylor
So share with everyone what's going on in your world just now. What are you currently working on at the moment?

Carol Cambridge
I guess more than anything, the inquiries I get are all around active shooters, workplace violence in general, things that we didn't see years ago, we're starting to see and it's becoming almost commonplace. I hate to actually acknowledge that or to say that, but it is becoming more commonplace, especially with event planners, they're dealing with things in the last year, so that weren't even on their radar five years ago. So across all industries, I would say increase in violence increase in workplace safety, security issues. And active shooter is probably the biggest concern, at least in the United States. And I think globally, people are starting to wake up and think, Hey, we have time now to get prepared to take whatever steps necessary to maybe not be able to eliminate but to reduce the risk of that ever happening.

James Taylor
Yeah, I know where I'm speaking to you from today, here in the UK, you know, obviously terrorism has been a strong, you know, a big one for many, many years and thinking about and preparing for those as there's incredible work that's gone into around that. But in the US, obviously gun crime is a bigger issue. And we've seen some terrible occurrences recently as well. And you're I know, you're often brought on to like news channels and TV shows to do that. Do you ever feel sometimes I really wish I wasn't having to go back on and do these do these interviews? Because you know, you're having to? I know you're having to do, unfortunately, you have to do a lot of them in a bad sense.

Carol Cambridge
Absolutely. And, you know, it's very sad. There's a recent study been done out of the University of Alabama, that shows when there is one bad incident like this, that almost always within a two week period following there will be another severe incident, whether that's in the UK, in Europe somewhere, whether that's in the United States, but you know, my phone rings, I have more interviews, I have people that wake up to the possibilities. So the unfortunate part for me is every time there's a terrible incident, anywhere in the world, my phone starts to ring.

James Taylor
Let's talk about how you came into this industry. I mentioned you worked in law enforcement and helping those kind of agencies as well. When did it when did the more the events side start for you? When did that all begin?

Carol Cambridge
Well, I moved to the United States from Canada about 24 years ago. And when I started into this business, I just saw that there was a hole, I guess, in both corporate america and then probably just five, six years ago, really in the events industry started to realize that that event planners just weren't prepared. And this is happening more and more. When I get hired to do. I do an active shooter keynote, which I know sounds a little odd to do a keynote on an active shooter, but we actually do a couple of mock drills. And when I get hired to do something like that, I have something that I send out to my client to help the event. planter, from the point of insurance to talking to where the the event is going to be located, whether that's a conference center or a hotel, but really where they can combine forces. And what I realized going through this is that most event planners are just not aware at all of the potential for violence or what their role should be in this, I think the UK and is probably further ahead. In this area, the United States is getting there, but other countries are really far far behind and smaller events, event planners who are maybe running conferences for 150 people or 200. People, they have less knowledge of what preparation that they need to be concerned about

James Taylor
is one of the reasons I was so keen to get to get you on here, because I just feel it's such a, it's such an important issue at this point as well. We're seeing obviously more and more occurrences of this happening as well. And also with the the nature of this event, we're doing just that as a global event. So I you know, I know that frozen in the US and and also in the UK, they're really at the forefront of some of these things as well. But I wanted to get him get your knowledge to as many people as possible because it could potentially save lives as well, when you were starting in this business of actually talking about these things, especially to meeting professionals, event professionals. Was there any other kind of mentors or any other people you saw during that time that we were doing this work? Or did you have to kind of forge your own path,

Carol Cambridge
I think it really forged my own path. When I first started doing this, I almost had to twist people's arms. And even now I just spoke with a bureau speaker's bureau this morning, and let her know that I have a last minute booking. And I know she had a couple of people who maybe couldn't afford me. But I thought if I'm there locally, maybe we could work out a deal. And she said, I can't understand why I'm not booking you three or five times a day. She said everybody needs this. But in the event planning industry, there's a little bit of denial going on. I think people there's two reasons I think people are in denial, they're afraid that if they address these issues, or they address them with their audiences that they're going to create fear with the audience. And then I think secondly, they think that this is a negative or a downer, you know, as a professional speaker, and presenter as you are, we know how to work with audiences, I know how to take a traumatic topic, a topic, that could be a real downer, but I make it, I almost hesitate to use the word fun. But it's very experiential. And audiences say they have fun, I'm constantly coming back as one of the highest rated, and it isn't because necessarily what I'm doing. But the way I choose to set up the program, it's extremely experiential, it, there's not a talking head, I'm not the talking head, everybody is involved, and everybody plays a role. And so I think that's what makes it exciting. And, and attendees learn better that way. So I'm starting to see where some event planners are getting more and more calls, even in the last month, from event planners who are more open to let's get our staff trained, let's get our people trained, because if something does go wrong at one of our events, we do have some liability there.

James Taylor
Now we're gonna get into some more specifics in a minute. But one of the stats that I heard and I came up with you told me or maybe it was one of one of my speaking colleagues was this 10 8010 rule where this, I think they said it was, in the case of an event, basically, 10% of people will actually actively do something to help and to get things happening. 80% will do nothing, unless they're given instructions from either the keynote speaker on stage or someone there. And actually not and 10% will almost actively see the wrong things to do. And actually, you know, get missed, not intentional misdirection, but they're doing things which are not helpful to deal with that situation as well. So when you're first talking to going in and speaking to audiences about that, let's say if you're if you're in a in a room, you're speaking in a room, what are some of the first little things that the you kind of bring their mind to and bring their attention to?

Carol Cambridge
Well, you're totally right. 80% do nothing and 80% do nothing from the perspective that they don't know what to do. So people aren't freezing out of fear. They're freezing because we haven't trained ourselves. We don't have messages in our brain as to what to do. So when I'm first with an audience, and let's say we're talking about an active shooter incident, I'll actually run a drill probably five to seven minutes, maybe after I start. And I actually watch everybody, there's some warnings that I give to people. Of course, I don't want anybody who might be susceptible to a heart attack or anybody who's dealing with emotional illness or PTSD. I give them warning. So I never surprised an audience with an active shooter drill. But what I do is I allow them to do everything wrong. The meeting players don't even really know what's going to happen. They just know that I'm going to let everybody do what's wrong. And if you think about it, most of us as adults have been trained, for instance, what to do, if there's a fire alarm, what do we do we get up, we orderly leave the room, most participants will leave the room in exactly the same manner that they entered. So they don't bother to look around at the other exits in the room, they don't know what's behind closed doors. So they go out in a very orderly fashion. Well, if it's an orderly fashion, and you're stacked up at a door, and you have an active shooter that you don't know where they are, all of a sudden, that person is going to take out a lot of people, a lot of folks are going to be injured or killed. So then when I bring people back in, we actually have the conversation, and we do a debriefing. And the number one thing that people will say to me is, I just left the room, I didn't even think to look to see if I could find a shooter. I didn't, I didn't know I could have been running right into him. So several things that happen, people go out the doors, because they don't know anywhere else we don't. We're not aware of situational awareness, we don't pay attention to what else is going on around us. Secondly, we follow the crowds. We do what everybody else is doing. Or Thirdly, the people do your third point that that other 10% takes actions that they probably shouldn't. In this example, many people will pull a fire alarm because they think, Oh, I need to I need to be the hero here. I'm going to warn other people, it's done with great intent. Even meeting planners will pull a fire alarm. Well, what do most of us do? If we're in a hotel venue and Conference Center, and you hear a fire alarm? What normally happens, James, we sit back and we wait, don't waste it.

James Taylor
And as you're saying that one of the things I'm I'm thinking of just now is, you know, that happens. And I'm wondering here, what the role of not just the event planner, let's say before and doing things there. But what is potentially the role of the keynote speaker, maybe the person that's up on stage or has that microphone at that point, because that's that's a pretty powerful position to have to be in when something like that happens. And you could go either way there.

Carol Cambridge
Absolutely. We saw that in the horrific Las Vegas shooting that just happened within the last month, the band when they realized that there was shots being fired, the band turned off all the lights, well, then there was great controversy. What do we do? Do we shine the lights? Do we turn them on? Does that make people an easier target for that active shooter? Or do we turn the lights towards the active shooter? Well, in that particular incident, it wouldn't have made a difference. But when you're in a controlled environment, like a meeting space, it really is up to the speaker who has control of the mic to give some directions. We often can see better from the platform, we have a better view, we're often on risers, and we can see the room, we can give advice to people. Here's the biggest issue though. Many speakers don't go into the room and see what's behind those closed doors. Are they fire exits are those doors locked? So I think as a part of this, speakers, event planners, vendors, the facility managers themselves, we all need to start working together and create some checklists. And I do have some checklists for your listeners if they want to email me for that, on creating a safer event. And these will be really important for speakers as well. Some of the information on there is not only going to be what, what we do as professionals to help get people out of the room. But what kinds of things can they do up front in preparation for along with, you know, when do they hire executive protection? When do they bring in law enforcement? Do you have them in plain clothes Do you have them in uniform, and there's lots of different reasons that you would want people in to appear differently, and this white paper I have is going to address many of those issues that they need to look at. So that we, as speakers and event planners, we're not getting caught by all of these blind spots that we have.

James Taylor
So that's interest, you know, in that role in terms of trying to get as much as many things planned upfront as possible. I'm interested to hear also from the speakers, I know, a lot of speakers are attending this, and I've been in situations where I'll be speaking at an event and where I've had a meeting beforehand with one of the team, and there's been certain, I've been taught about certain kind of code words and certain things in the case of emergency that will be said and, and other procedures, but I would say, it's pretty rare, you know, it's a relatively low number that that's ever that's ever happened to me. Most of the time, you know, you're not, you know, you're you have your AV check, and, and your your PowerPoint presentation, and kind of you sit in the greenroom and you go up and do your thing there as well. So, what should you know, because this is a this is a point that other speakers we can take about a leadership stage here as well. What should we be asking those those? Those people are booking us, either on our pre event calls? Or when we get on site itself? What are some of the questions that we should be asking to ensure that we have at least you know, we think about the entirety of our job, this is another part of our job that we need to really have locked down? You know, that's

Carol Cambridge
a great question. And it sparked some interest in me, I think I need to write an article about exactly what speakers can do. Let me share with you a couple of questions I asked. I want to know if the association I'm speaking to or the event planner, do they know anything? Do they know or anticipate protesters of any kind. Even if it's a corporate event, I've had corporate events where the corporation is launching a new product, and perhaps word has gotten out that there may be something in that product, for instance, that that might cause cancer? Well, an event planner, a speaker, we would never think of asking that question. So we have to think and ask that the event plant planner to check back with a client. Is there anything that would create a protest? Is there anything that would cause problems here? Give me another example. We have we had a 21 year old woman shot dead at was it Hannover, Germany

James Taylor
at a wedding? I say

Carol Cambridge
to event planners, if it's a wedding asked do you expect an ex husband and ex boyfriend and ex girlfriend to show up and cause problems? So as speakers, we asked that question as well. Do you anticipate any protesters? Do you expect anything negative to happen as a result of this? I often asked the planner. Have you connected with the hotel with the convention center? Do you have an emergency plan in place? And does that include a plan in terms of active shooter? Most of them will have a plan in place, but they have a plan. If something goes wrong with the AV or somebody gets injured or someone has a heart attack? I want to know Do they have communications? Have they spoken with local law enforcement? If I know that there's the potential for protesters, I take it upon myself to call law enforcement, I will call the police chief in the area that I'm speaking ahead of time and have that conversation with them on a personal level. So I want to know what what they anticipate for problems.

James Taylor
So you know, just as you as you're saying that, and I'm thinking I mean, one of the things as we start to talk about this area, so many other kind of follow up questions happen as well, because you start you know, you think about, well, what's in this kit, and so it can feel it can feel a little bit overwhelming, because this is another thing that, you know, we have to think about. And we have to develop, you know, if there was if there was someone's has an event, let's say they've got an event coming up very, very soon, ie within the next few weeks, you know, what are the two or three things that you should be absolutely ensuring if they don't have a huge amount of prep time, but they have some prep time that they should be ensuring that they have together?

Carol Cambridge
Yeah, I want to know where the exits are. I want to know ahead of time very often I actually asked the event planner to send me a copy of the room that I'll be speaking in. And so I actually can see where the exits are. If I have any issues, any problems with that I can find out from the hotel or the conference room. I want to know what safety briefings they are going to give or they expect me to give, usually as a keynoter, it's someone before us that gives that information, but I want to know if they address these issues at all. And I give them guidance. I say to them, if you're going to deliver this deliberate in a matter of fact way, just like the safety briefings on an airplane, we're not terrified when we hear those safety briefings, we shouldn't be terrified. And we shouldn't be terrifying anybody in our audience with a safety briefing. But I do think it's very important these days that we do take the time to ensure that either we or the event plan or whoever's introducing us, gives that information to our audiences. So that's a question I would make sure up, will you be informing people where the emergency exits are and where they should go in the event of a problem? And I also think, if we have, the most important question we can ask is, do they expect protesters? Do they expect tourism? are we speaking in an area that is dangerous? Any of those things, then would lead me to the next question? Will you have executive protection on site in the form of off duty law enforcement? Will they be dressed in suits? Will they have a uniform on, I want to know who I can count on to help me in the event of an emergency.

James Taylor
So most events will have some kind of event insurance. Our insurance company is really starting to kind of catch up with this and ensuring that when they're there, they have someone that's looking to get cover of some sort of that the ensure that they have some plan in place some in terms of looking at different risks and have some preparedness in place. Or is I'm even insurances companies maybe perhaps coming in to help provide some of that, that that training, because I know there's, this is an area that's relatively on spoken about. Obviously, event security is often more spoken about. But things like this is less spoken about, using insurance companies may be stepping up to the plate, a little bit,

Carol Cambridge
not a lot, it's new to them, it's a new area, they really just have started in the last year to 18 months addressing workplace violence type issues. But I haven't seen too much in the event planning portion of it, I think we are going to see more and more of that. And I think when we have I spoke earlier about a controlled environment, that's an inside environment like a ballroom, when you have an outdoor event, that's I think, where insurance are much more concerned insurance companies are then stepping up to the plate. Because there's a much higher risk and a much higher vulnerability in any kind of an outdoor event.

James Taylor
So let's get to this maybe some slightly lighter things now as well. I know you're always speaking your your keynote, speaking all over the place. Just now you're attending events all over the place. Are there any any apps or online tools or resources you find really useful to help you do the work that you do, especially when you're having to travel and speak all these different events?

Carol Cambridge
You don't none that I can think of? And that gives me a great idea. Maybe that's something I need to invent. But no, I don't know of anything online as a tool at this point, that's going to make that effective.

James Taylor
And what about I know whenever I go to speak events, there's there's a couple of things that are always in my bag, I never go to any event without having to mobike you know, for me, it's like my clickers. And there's a couple of other things I have other any things that you take to events and bearing in mind, because you understand the safety, the security side a little bit more than most of us, as well as anything that you have maybe have in there that most people probably don't have. And they when they go to an event,

Carol Cambridge
you know, nothing I take with me. But here's the thing, because I'm familiar with it, I would even know how to lock a door. If you think about it, if you were at an event and you got when that there was an active shooter at the at the conference center, but your people are safe inside there, we need to secure the doors. And most of those event doors, they're just push handles to get quick access. We don't they're not set up so that we can lock those doors from the inside. But very quickly, I would be able to say to people from the platform, who's got a belt, grab your belt, undo them, you can tie them, secure them, lock them, you can put tables up against those doors. Part of it is how do you secure the doors quickly. So I don't think that I actually bring anything with me other than the knowledge of how you could quickly secure yourself and keep the audience safe and attempt to head hide some of those audience members in that secure space.

James Taylor
If people you know they want to maybe go a little bit further into it maybe to to kind of bring you out to their event or maybe their their their they need some consulting or maybe they they actually apartment Association, it's just really use someone like you coming in where's the best place to go to? To find out about that,

Carol Cambridge
you can go directly to my website, which is www the stay safe project.com is probably the easiest way I get notified within seconds of somebody sending a message that way, and happy to help happy to offer some consulting to help planners figure out what they need to do and what some of their blind spots may be.

James Taylor
Well, Carol, it's been an absolute pleasure speaking to you today, I think this is a this area is going to be something that people will be talking about a lot more I know as a speaker, just speaking to you and learning from you is incredibly valuable, because we never know if we're going to be in a situation we may have to use some of this this information as well. So thank you so much for coming on. And also thank you so much for the work that you're doing and helping training event professionals in this area.

Carol Cambridge
Well, I sure appreciate your time. And thank you for the idea. Now I'm going to go back to work and I'm going to include in that safer or creating a safer event I'm going to write down a list of things that speakers can do to keep people safe so thank you for putting that idea into my head.

James Taylor
Today's episode was sponsored by speakers you the online community for speakers and if you're serious about your speaking career then you can join us because you membership program. I'll speak as you members receive private one on one coaching with me hundreds of hours of training content access to a global community to help them launch and build a profitable business around their speaking message and expertise. So just head over to SpeakersU.com to learn more.

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In today's episode Jeff Ponders talked about, What Speakers Can Learn From Miles Davis.

Jeffery Ponders is a keynote speaker, tech entrepreneur and jazz musician who helps organizations and individuals unlock their best performance. Previously he has led marketing and innovation strategy for leading brands such as Walmart, Campbell', and General Motors. Today, using a mix of live performance, real-world stories, and techniques from jazz masters, he helps teams develop underutilized talents, boldly tackle challenges, and collaborate more effectively to discover their big ideas and achieve results.

What we cover:

• Reaction vs Response

• What speakers can learn from Miles Davis

• Phrasing and rhythm

Resources:

• Jeff Ponders's Website

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Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/what-speakers-can-learn-from-miles-davis-sl094/

James Taylor
Hi, it's James Taylor, founder of SpeakersU. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Speakers Summit the world's largest online event for professional speakers. And if you'd like to access the full video version, as well as in depth sessions with over 150 top speakers, then I've got a very special offer for you. Just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yep, that's right 150 of the world's top speakers sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to launch grow and build a successful speaking business. So just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com but not before you listen to today's episode.

Hey there, it's James Taylor. And I'm delighted today to be joined by Jeff Ponders, Jeff Ponders, is a keynote speaker, tech entrepreneur and jazz musician who helps organizations and individuals unlock their best performance. Previously, he has led marketing and innovation strategy for leading brands such as Walmart, Campbell's and General Motors today using a mixture of live performance, real world stories and techniques from jazz masters. He helps teams develop under utilized talents, boldly tackle challenges, and collaborate more effectively discover their big ideas and achieve results. my great pleasure to have Jeff join us today. So welcome, Jeff.

Jeff Ponders
Thanks so much, James. It's a pleasure to be here.

James Taylor
So share with everyone what's going on in your world just now. Oh, wow,

Jeff Ponders
there's a whole lot going on right now. So wrapping up into really kicking this speaking platform off using jazz to help others unlock performance, which is a ton of fun. For me, it's given that up and playing professionally. I'm kind of I'm not that old, but almost 30 years.

James Taylor
Early, what's what

Jeff Ponders
I have here back then I can tell you that about two feet shorter. Um, but so it's been a lot of fun to see the response to you know, bringing a saxophone on stage. And talking about the same concepts become proficient as a musician, not just not just proficient, but really become really good professional, as a musician, and how those same processes apply to the, to the professional world. And legitimately every professional. It's been a lot of fun. So watching that platform has been great. I'm releasing an album in the next two months. And that's been really exciting. So created an album called Spark, which is designed to actually spark creativity and performance, oddly enough. And so it's been an interesting journey. My family has been very supportive, because there have been a lot of late nights. That stated and also, my wife and I are expecting our third kid in a couple months. And so yeah, yeah, yeah, we are out here doing things. So you've got a lot, you've

James Taylor
got a lot going on just now in your life and your work. And let's take us back. How did you how did a jazz musician end up on stages as a keynote speaker, talk to us about that journey. And I split the interest as well, when you were making that transition into going on stages as a speaker as well, who are those mentors in your life?

Jeff Ponders
I guess, I think I can do an abbreviated version. So in 2007, I was watching PBS. Cuz you know, that's what guys do. We watch PBS Yep, which is when you're 24 years old. And so I'm watching PBS. And I see this guy playing jazz guitar. And like, just like playing the guitar. He's really good. Man. He went to Berkeley. And then turns out, he's an entrepreneur. He's running an agency and he's on a second startup, exit off the first one. I was like, that guy's amazing. I have to meet this guy. And literally the next week, unbeknownst to me, I end up in a rehearsal with him. And we and so for the last 11 years, we play music together. That guy is Josh Linkner, I think is actually on, on the conference as well. Josh is amazing. Josh is an amazing human being. And so literally, from the moment I met him, Josh has mentored me, through many phases of my life, everything from entrepreneurship to, you know, what does it mean, to be a good speaker wasn't mean to be a speaker who isn't just a professional. I've been an executive and agencies. And that's cool. And I've started companies. But I love music just as much as I love building value in a corporate setting. And what does it mean to bring all of yourself into whatever it is you do, and in finding ways to create value that don't leave you saying I left something on the table. So just been a great mentor. So that's that stated, I kind of went to the corporate world knowing that I wanted to play music, but also knowing that I was entrepreneurial. And so as I navigated the world of starting companies, making some money losing some money, at the same time playing music, it was always How can I find a way to merge my passions? And being a student of business models, and then obviously saying Josh's work and seeing folks like Michael gold, like, Hey, I can really take what I you know, that they're they're processing, there's science behind Music that has actually impacted who I am as a professional, I can even look back two lessons early in my career in marketing, where improvisation was a critical, critical component to being successful, you know, things never go exactly how you want them to go as much as you can plan. And I would never be shaken. Like, I could look at some of my teammates, just like, Oh, my God, this guy is fun. And I started recognizing that those those lessons were translating in ways that I just hadn't had paid attention to. And, you know, one of the things I think is really important is the idea of how do we how do we tackle failure? Because, you know, failure is anything in life that that that can throw us off. It's what happens when things go wrong. And I know as a musician, things may not be perfect, but they never go wrong. Yeah. And so how can I start from that? How can I take that if others do that, too,

James Taylor
it reminds me of there's a line which says, in jazz, there's no such thing as failure only opportunities is a very, is a very different mindset, because and knowing a lot of being involved, like you and I like being involved in jazz music for a long time as a jazz drummer, and having a father and a grandfather, both jazz musicians, there was there was always that sense of not only you know, did you learn from sleep, but sometimes you would actually put yourself in positions musically put yourself down avenues alleys, you weren't quite sure how you were going to get out of musically. And you were doing it live in front of an audience. So there was a there was a heightened sense of risk when you're

Jeff Ponders
doing it. Absolutely. Right. It's funny, Miles Davis has a quote, he said, fear no mistakes, there are none. And there's a really good story behind that with him and Herbie Hancock. And I believe that, you know, what we consider mistakes are really opportunities to create magic. I mean, imagine if you were talking about magic in real life, there's no, there's no, without suspense, magic isn't just somebody doing something. But it's that suspense that oh, my God, what's going to happen? On the embracing of risk that makes it real a powerful moment? It's, look, look what happened when we tackle this challenge. And then amazing things happened.

James Taylor
Now the audience can sense that as well. They can sense that whether you're a speaker, or whether you're a jazz musician, when you're taking those risks, and you're going, and it feels and it obviously is unique to every every performance. But I'm also guessing that you don't go in go into like a, like a speech, let's say you're giving a keynote or something going in there saying, I have no idea what I'm going to be saying today. You you have you have your you have your, your your ABA or your bridges, you have your thing. So tell me, I mean, what other things can speakers learn from how jazz musicians, they have this lightness of foot when they're when they're going into giving a performance? But at the same time, there's huge skill, huge practice behind there as well. And there is a structure even if you don't necessarily see it first. Absolutely right. It's

Jeff Ponders
funny. You know, I think there's a lot of fun, like white wall, calamity can kind of be seen by the audience, you never really know what's what's happening. I'm example, I did a keynote a couple of weeks ago. And when I started playing, my read crapped out. And so I listened back to the audio, and it sounded fine. But I know that I was handicapped in terms of what I was able to actually execute. But you never know that there were, there were bad things happening. And subsequently, as a musician, jazz musician at that, it was I see what's happening. I'm skilled enough to understand how to navigate these waters. So one of the cool things about improvisation, a lot of folks think that it's random action. And that's, it couldn't be farther from the truth. You can't be a good improviser without having a good basis of skills and techniques. In fact, improvisation is really the application of known skills and techniques and unknown circumstances. And so, you know, if you're an accountant, you you understand life or FIFO, and you understand how to navigate numbers. If you're a marketing person, you understand how to manipulate graphics or words. But what happens when constraints happen, that's effectively what a challenge is, there's a there's a new constraint. And when a constraint happens, you've got to be able to apply your skills, your experience and maturity mean, how you how you make decisions, in order to make the best decision in that moment to get to a better outcome. And in the

James Taylor
in those moments. Because I think about in terms of music and jazz, you're not really thinking it's it's there's there's difference between or you could be saying, I'm thinking I need to go to this next part. And I think you obviously see that with, with speakers, there's not really a they often are thinking but they're not thinking is a strange kind of, well, they're, they're, they're reacting. I don't know, I mean, what's your take on that? Because that feels like there needs to be this step beyond thinking that you need to get to in order to be able to express yourself.

Jeff Ponders
Absolutely. I mean, we could talk about muscle memory all day, but that's what I think about is the difference between reaction and response or reaction is, somebody happens to not flinch. Right. But a response that is a measure of thought behind it. You know, I think one of the things with music that's really powerful is this concept of listening. In fact, actually, I have a, I have a segment that I do about listening to the kind of talks about a variety of forms of listening, listen to yourself to understand what's happening with you, in the moment, listening to the folks around you so, so you understand how your team is, how your team what your team is doing. But also listening to the audience and see how they're responding to the product that you're presenting. And honestly, as a musician, listening is the most important skill. And so when you apply listening along with the actual skills that you develop, so what happens now is you're no longer reacting or you're not flinching. But there is thought that happens. It's just really, really fast. And the thought is based in experience, experience, knowledge and maturity, it's, I understand what this chord sounds like, I know, I naturally know because I've rehearsed enough, what types of patterns and scales work on top of that chord. And, you know, on one hand, because it's structure, I know what the chord progression is, I know where the music should be going. But because I'm listening, I know that the piano keyboard player who's actually laying the structure of the sound, he may do something different. And so I'm anticipating one thing, anticipation being thing, I'm, because I'm actively listening, I can hear when something else happens that allows that sparks a different type of idea. And again, because I'm responding, and I've got this, just Well, well founded skill set, I can in turn, go where the music is going to,

James Taylor
and that that unlike if you're playing in a jazz club with, you'll have a quartet, for example. So you've got other people on stage with you, a speaker is just you, usually, it's just you're on stage, so you're kind of having to use them the audience as, as your fellow band members is, it is a different relationship that goes on now.

Jeff Ponders
Absolutely. But it's funny, I will even look at it like this, that there's the audience and their meaning for this word, they're your best mirror. But there's also the technology, what happens when, when the slides go out? Right? I mean, you're you're, you're listening to your environment as well, what happens with the audio guy stops paying attention, and you can hear feedback or something like that. There's so many things are happening again, you're listening is just, it's your spatial awareness ultimately. And so you're pulling off of what you should be pulling off a lot of things not to mention me What happens if you're doing a speech and, and it's a huge, it's a huge ballroom and a bird is in there. Yeah. It's really random. But again, environmental, can you take that and make that and turn it into a magic moment? Again, it's not a mistake, but it's something that's happening and listening with your eyes at this point, and turn it into a magic moment for the audience. Because how often does the bird fly in your keynote?

James Taylor
Yeah, so there's other things I think about, like for speakers and jazz musicians. I mean, we hear you know, for example, I was I was, I think, in America, especially a lot of the great like, the zigzag was of this world of great speakers, I think of a lot of it comes from the frankly, the preaching tradition, the gospel tradition, in jazz obviously comes from gospel as it blues and gospel can have roots as well. So they use a lot of things like cold call and response gets used a lot with and musicians will use that between each other. They'll have little phrases that they'll copy. And then they'll take that phrase, almost like Mozart used to do a theme and variation. So it's not really impressive, but theme and so you can go in on one I've seen, I saw someone who actually was I think it was Oprah saying she did the the big awards ceremony. And she had this amazing speech that she gave, as part of I think it was the Golden Globe Awards. Last year, I saw. And she used a number of devices, which I think they have a lot of resentment to the music. And one of the ones I had it used to in particular, and I thought of one was that she was using 10 tension release. So it says, as musicians, I mean, we talked about how musicians do there's not really speakers. So that was one I heard you like 10. And then there was released. And the other one that uses incredibly well is pause, pausing breath, you know, like Louie Armstrong, for example, is very, very good at that. It's the spaces in between what you do and what you say and what you play is as powerful as actually what you say. So, I really like those two things like what we as speakers can learn from, like tension and release and what we can also learn from from intentional pausing.

Jeff Ponders
So tension and release is such a powerful tool. You know, if everything is good, you don't recognize how good it is. And so the idea of, again, we mentioned magic earlier, the idea of creating the oh my god moment, whether it's what's going to happen or I feel that pain, and then coming in and offering not just the release of it but truly the comfort and the restoration. One, it allows you to have good motion in your in your talk, but more importantly For the listener, it allows it creates a euphoric moments that make your make your sweets memorable. It's the idea that you made me feel good. And they don't think that it's but chemically, that's what's happening. You're making somebody feel good consistently. It's almost like dating it's, it's the flowers and candy that happened unexpected if you had an argument and then you had a makeup moment if you have and those things are powerful and they make they make things memorable. On the flip side, you don't make it I don't, I don't miss a second point. Essentially release.

James Taylor
Like pausing like the fall. I mean, I think about someone like something like Louis Armstrong is jazz musician. He used pausing this, it was almost like the space between the notes were more important than the notes themselves as well. So I'd like you know, how does that relate to speak? Yes,

Jeff Ponders
it's funny, there's Miles Davis had a cold, he said, sometimes the most important note is the note you don't play. And what's powerful about that is the idea that if you hit somebody with a wall of content, how much can they actually retain there's, you know, we talked about the magic number three there, three, you know, in any point in time, we're gonna remember three things from what somebody says to us. If you allow pause, you allow the listener a moment to stop and actually process what just happened, rather than hit them with 45 minutes to an hour worth of words. At that point, you can have the most amazing takeaways ever. But you just gave 25,000 words Yeah. How many can somebody really remember?

James Taylor
It's like one of the things with AC with with guitarists, which one of the downsides that in why more guitarists, I think should listen to a horn player sax players, and also singers is because as a sax player, you have to breathe. So unfortunately, get to get the guitar players haven't quite learned that. And so the it's just like this flurry of notes they're going on. And we're probably already experienced with speakers as like these, this flurry of information and no point do I get charged as the audience member to go there to breathe, take a pause. And it's great singers are good thing because they have to do this you as a horn player, you have to do this, you have to breathe, and it means you will play certain things. And there's also certain things that you can't do as well. So you have to find ways to kind of compensate for that.

Jeff Ponders
Oh, man, that was that was really well satisfying. We talked about you mentioned Oprah and using Zig Ziglar. And using, you know, preaching style. Yeah, preaching is part of this delivery style. So I grew up in a church and I'm not good at hooping anymore. there's a there's a technique that preachers use, and it sounds absolutely insane. But it gets audiences incredibly excited. It gives it forces them the it literally forces them to breathe. And after they get done, they have to stop and drink water because it's throat burning. Um, but again, so I referenced that one in terms of pause, but also the idea of recognizing what you do and what you don't do. I don't who, um, and so, as a speaker, I'm naturally excited. I'm easily excited as a human being. I'm high energy, but I'm not gonna I'm not the guy who's gonna yell at you. You got to do it. You can. That's not my style, probably. But even doing that right now. I feel a little tickle in my throat and I might pay for it. Yeah. But I recognize there are other things I can do that can just as effect that can just as effectively get somebody excited and get them to, to really embrace the passion of a moment, whether it's how I use my facial facial expressions, or my body language, or even the fact that I might use a saxophone and scat

James Taylor
that's one of the understand that doesn't you know, scatting What is scatting?

Jeff Ponders
So if you've ever heard somebody say DB Abba, Dabba Doo better about it ever. Did you get better, better, better, better, better? Bah, bah, bah. It's almost like it's singing like an instrument. Yeah. It's kind of fun. Everybody can do it. Come on. Yeah.

James Taylor
And in fact, funnily enough, where I'm speaking from Scotland. We have a tradition that similar to that because a lot of scouting has come from oral fish. India has the same thing like tabla players learn stuff orally, so you have to be able to sing it before you can. You can play it in Scotland, they had to it was an orchard nothing was written down. So you have to do that as well. But actually, it's almost like an art form in itself. Doing scattering.

Jeff Ponders
Absolutely. Is there are there folks who are masters getting elephants journal? Yeah. Amazing. If you look at Layla Hathaway in terms of modern singers, Laila Hathaway, her father was Donny Hathaway, amazing solo artists, Laila. She's, uh, she's she's like, she can sing chords by herself. It's crazy. But as as a vocalist, she's a better musician than most musicians. It's interesting. You talked about oral tradition and the idea of listening and listening to learn. Even going back to Zig Ziglar. And how how we borrow from folks, again, that that concept of listening as a musician, one of the things that's really important for us when we listen to our stuff, Listen to our bandmates. We listen to the audience, but we also listen to the greats. And as we are listening is education is the idea of not just what it's not what can I steal? But what do I hear? How do I learn the language of the of the art, just like with speakers, you know, if you're watching this, this, this this interview right now, this is you're studying this so you can learn the language of art form of speaking and motivation and inspiration and instruction. And it's how we intentionally apply our listening to folks who come before us or folks who have different perspectives, in order to enhance our skill sets and make ourselves better.

James Taylor
And sometimes it's not necessarily the thing that they say, you know, there's exactly a certain type of thing. And the spokesperson kind of thing is not literally what I speak about, or you speak about. But you can learn also things that I think about, like phrasing, and articulation, there'll be certain lines that he would say, where it would just, it would be like building upon itself, you'd use a lot of like classic rhetorical devices, in terms of repetition, musicians use all the time, they'll say a phrase, and then they'll repeat the phrase slightly different, and then repeat phrase slightly different as well. So sometimes you can learn from these people, even if they speak in a completely different topic from you, then there's always something there, there's something it could be in the way that they phrase something, the way they build up to something, it could be in their physical gestures, the physicality on stage. And it can also be, I mean, under some visitors, I've seen this, you can watch them with a musician or a speaker. And you say, that's what I don't want to do.

Jeff Ponders
It's so funny, you see this. So I went to a talk. So Les Brown gave a talk in my hometown a few weeks ago. And so, you know, les is one of the great speakers of our time. And so I went for the sake of I'm studying what he's doing. And so less than an amazing job with pause, he did an amazing job of calling response, how he leveraged his slides, if he wasn't selling on stage, which I'm not a I'm not a selling speaker. But he did a great job of providing really cool, next best action and calls to action for the audience to stay connected with them. That were, they weren't obtrusive, they were just subtle as Hey, sign up here for for free, you know, free daily inspiration, which is a lot in line with what he does. On the flip side, there were other speakers I've seen over the last few weeks, you know, one guy and one of them. And one of my one of my speaking coaches, he reiterates to me make sure you you find your base, and you plant yourself. And again, they don't paste the stage. And so there's a gentleman and the speaker, he paced the stage. And so I grew up with a WWF. We're not it's not a WWE WWF. And the way he paints the stage reminded me of a WWF wrestling, I was like, I get it, I don't want to do that, or is another speaker and he had really amazing content. But his body language, he kept his head down, his chin was buried to his chest. And again, delivery wasn't bad to use vocal inflection, even for his facial expressions. But because his head was down the whole time, it was hard to connect with him. And so listening, at that point, I'm listening to my eyes like you, I don't want to do those things. But I appreciate how you how he, how he leverages inflection to highlight important points.

James Taylor
And you can do this we had Elizabeth McCormick great speaker. And she, whenever she, her educated, didn't have any mentors around her where she lived at the time when she was becoming a speaker. So she just watched videos, your YouTube videos and other speakers and she had a yellow pad legal pad and she drew a line down the center. And on the left side, you put the things that she liked about a speaker, it could be the style or articulation or presentation where the thing was, but on the right she used to put things that she didn't want to emulate as well. So it can be useful, you know, to look at one thing I often think is, I think great musicians do this might we've mentioned Miles Davis, great speakers do this, their their presentations, their speeches, their music, it almost operates at different levels, you can even get into in different levels. So listening something like sketches of Spain, Miles Davis, you can you can listen to that background music, making dinner, really nice, very chilled, very relaxing, you could listen to another level up, where you could just get really like listening lives like that. And then there's a completely different level you can listen to if you're if you're a musician, especially a jazz musician, because you're listening in slightly different ways. And I think the great speakers, they can they can do this, they can appeal to that person is just new in an organization and speaking conference there. You know, the the new person has just gotten started, they could speak to that, that middle manager who has a different set of challenges and what they're trying to do, and they can speak to the CEO and the C suite. But the speech works, it works all different levels. I think that that requires real mastery to be able to do to do that.

Jeff Ponders
It's so funny to talk about mastery. I think that's one of the things that I think music teaches you that most professional Tracks don't teach you is the idea of mastery. For example, a part of the framework that I teach is practice rehearsing perform practices, development of individual individual skills. Rehearsal is how you apply those skills with teams. Performance is how you deliver those skills and talents to your marketplace. But the thing with music is that it doesn't stop with performance. There's literally a cycle of practice worse perform, you're consistently feeding your skill set, you're consistently learning how to work better with folks in consistently assessing your performance. So that example betters that go back, there's no such thing as perfect. It's always How can I be better, whereas in day to day, most folks, they go and they do their jobs, and they just do their jobs, and it's not consistent. They're not feeding that skillset, they're not feeding their ability to the capacity to perform better. And for me, that's a big deal. It's a huge part of the idea of peak performance is well, you have to keep feeding it keep beating in order to perform better. But that comes from music, because that's what we have to do. If you talk about the speakers. How we think it's one thing to say let's refresh our content. It's another thing to say, How can I How can I make myself more marketable? How can I reach broader audiences? Meaning How can I take one talk, and within this talk, have concepts that are, that are simple enough for a fifth grader to get it and find value, but have the depth and the depth of content, that if I present this to a CEO, you know, with some nuance, I think part of part of being a musician is also the idea of recognizing who your audience is, and making modifications to your setlist to fit to play the right to play the right stuff at the right gig subsequently, when we you know, as we look at our audiences of speakers, you may have your talk. But how did you talk needs to be tweaked in a way that's, that's natural, who you are and how you deliver to make sure that's appropriate for the audience. Because your sales folks don't need the same talk as your CEO. And it may be the same base talk. But how do you tweak your examples? How do you tweak your body language? Do you put on a blazer now instead of you wear a blazer with no tie instead of wearing the full the full tuxedo? Yeah, nobody was

James Taylor
nobody was thinking about, you know, that can relate to how you structure your your set, whereas music set or your your 15 minute keynote, or however long it is. And we think about something like Duke Ellington used to do, he would usually start a mid tempo like little dial in or something at that tempo. And then he would take the audience up that that's, you know, how you see he was doing it, because he was doing a lot of concerts. But if you were maybe playing a different type of venue, let's say be more of a, a club or something. You might start like hearing people right between the eyes blinking. Yeah, so that's right reactor. And I think then we also kind of get into like the audience is, is the is like a partner and what you're creating, but actually, I think a lot of times the venue, the place that you're playing in itself, you know that that small room that you're speaking to maybe 100 people is going to, you're going to give a different type of talk probably to the room that you're giving 1000 people like music musicians know this kind of instinctively, when you go and play in a jazz club, you know, certain things will work better than others, because it's a small place, low ceiling, the bass will carry very, very well. But if you're playing, let's say, if you're playing a church, like a big Cathedral type church, doing fast things just doesn't really work in those places, you have to be much longer notes, because you have the reverb in the place as well. So so you can also kind of apply those things about listening to the actual, the place where you're presenting also has an impact as well as the audience

Jeff Ponders
ask me that. That's a really, really, really good perspective and absolutely true. It's when I think about that, what I what I think about ultimately, as speakers, we're doing more than giving a talk, we're delivering an experience. And it you know, I come from a marketing background and experience design is a big part of what I've done in my life. And as a musician, as a speaker, as an entrepreneur, I think about what's the experience that I'm delivering right now. It's not what's the talking because what's the experience in delivering because it in real life, most folks don't remember most of what we say, but they do remember how we made them feel they remember, aesthetically what happened when they walked in. And it while we don't have control over all these elements, we can think about how can I craft a memorable experience. And that can be everything from for me, the fact that I might have a saxophone on stage is memorable, because most folks can't do that. Yeah, um, if we, if we create a song together, if I create a song with the small group, or I bring up five people and you're going to be the drummer, you're going to be the basis you're gonna play the melody and I'm gonna sit here and conduct you guys or better yet you're going to conduct us that's a memorable experience, whether you're a participant or an observer, and so becomes how can based off of your platform How can you take what you do and make it inclusive of your audience? And that doesn't mean that doesn't mean do what I just talked about in terms of bringing them on stage. But it's how can you create this symbiotic experience, that leaves somebody not only walking away with really, really valuable tangible points, but feeling like, but actually feel like, Hey, that was really good for me, I want to tell somebody what just happened, because that's how we ultimately build sustainable careers as speakers.

James Taylor
I think in order to do that, and this has me below, like mental thing that maybe some speakers have to go through, you have to essentially treat the audience like everyone in that room is equal, in the sense that everyone has something that they can they can bring in, frankly, if you're speaking to a room of any more than 20 people, there'll be someone in there that knows a lot, maybe a lot more about your subject than maybe you even think you know, so I think it's kind of being humble in that sense. But I think the other thing if you start to do that, and that's maybe not right for all speakers and all events, but you know, we think about someone like me, it's jazz as an example there. So jazz does require that the audience works a little bit harder than if they were going to list a rock concert, because the things are being said, it's like going to a poetry a little bit less of a Leanback is more of a lean end type of experience of going to jazz cake. So if you treat people in the audience, like everyone is my equal in that room. And, and also, I want to, I think there's people, the people in that room, I can make them work a little bit with their brain, too. So I'll give an example of this. Art Tatum, great jazz pianist, one of the amazing things that he used to do was, he made it sound like he was doing a lot more than he was actually playing. And he was able to do that by essentially making you as a listener, the audience member, fill in the blanks, using your imagination, he wasn't actually playing those. So you'd hear a lot of time, he would recall as a jazz musician, implying time, he wasn't playing, like exactly four beats to the bar or anything, he would be implying it by certain things he was he was playing. So you as the audience member, were essentially filling in the blank. So as a speaker, you might be as you're crafting your speech and working with an audience, they may be almost thinking, so you're saying something or, but you're not actually saying it. It's them. They're filling in the blanks, and people that do NLP and stuff of that are masters at this kind of stuff. And this week, I'm actually seeing Tony Robbins, he's gonna be speaking at something. And he's very good at that of essentially having you do workers as the audience member, is there anything like you know, on on that that topic, having the making sure that the audience are not just sitting back, but they're actually leaning into the experience, and actually an active participant in in, in the keynote, there's been given anything that we could be doing better speakers?

Jeff Ponders
And the answer is always Yes. We can all be doing things better. So this is a no, this is to me, this is really, how do you create engaged audiences? Or how do you stimulate engaged audiences? That that's the question to me. At least, that's the way I that process that and I don't think that there are, there's no cookie cutter for this. I mean, I can talk about jazz techniques for it. But the, you know, the technical that ultimately talked about is, Alright, hey, if you're Charlie Parker, you play fat. versus if you're a Coltrane, who's not in his bass playing state, and is really playing these more spiritually induced sounds. You're doing different things. And so first things first is understanding who you are, what you do, what you do and what you don't do, too. It's funny, I've got a model on my whiteboard over to my right here. I don't want to show it yet. I'm miked up, that I use to help help individuals really build their brand identity, individuals and brands. And so part of that is understanding what your mission is why what's Why are you Why are you here? Why are you talking? In our case? Why are you Why are you speaking to what's your message? And three, it's alright, what do you want somebody to feel? What are those brand attributes you want somebody associated with you? And how do you ultimately craft an experience that does that example for me? My big why's I want people to create lives that worth remembering. And that means when something's worth remembering, you write it down, you take a picture, you do something to record and that says you don't forget what happened. And so the brand attributes I'm hip smart and creative, meaning I'm cool enough that I'm relatable, but hip is like a little bit cooler. And so in a smart, which is, you know, makes sense and creative is, which is more than music is the idea that finding unique ways to do things example jazz to talk about professional performance is a unique spin on that. And so for that it gives me a lot of latitude to figure out how can I create hip smart, creative experiences for audiences. So really kind of digging into what your unique sauces and then outside it is awesome at that point else becomes, okay, I'm doing a talk for 100 people versus 5000 people 5000. audience participation is a little different, is a lot more risk and saying, Hey guys, let's make a song together versus with 50 people where I can say, hey, James, I can see your name tag. Yeah, James, can you help out. And, man, that's not always the right way to do it either. But it's understanding who you are,

James Taylor
that's important as well, because we can often feel like bigger is better playing the bigger venues is stadiums and things is the way to go. But in doing that, you also lose, you lose some of the intimacy and being able to try and try something. So I think I think every speaker kind of has to find this the I mean, we all probably sense it, this is our, this is my ideal size, this is I love speaking that side, if that is your ideal size, do you have photography on your website that has you speaking to audiences of that size, because that's so cuz you'll get more, you'll probably get more bookings or that kind of size, the kind of places that you want to be be speaking in planning. And I just want to as we kind of start to finish up this this interview as well I'm, I mean, treat what is in your, your speaker bag, what is in that bag you carry with you to all of your speaking engagements. So you obviously, you can have your saxophone, which is kind of an unusual thing to have in a speaker bags. But what else what else is gonna be in there,

Jeff Ponders
I don't think I have a whole lot honestly, my phone is there. Um, cuz I, I use my phone to take notes, I use my phone to take pictures, I probably get a better camera on my phone. But my phone is kind of like the center of life. And I'll even do website updates and stuff like that. So my phone is a big, big, big, big deal. Um, this is gonna sound crazy, in my speaker bag is space. And so the to take us to take them to take three minutes before talk, and just go and be quiet. And just, you know, hone in I I've ever been performing mind literally my entire life. And it's not butterflies always happen. But that three minutes before before talk is invaluable. Just to settle on, refocus, you know, I know my stuff. But having looked at the room and say, Okay, let me not spend too much time on this one. That that time that space is probably that's probably more valuable than my phone. But it's a big deal. Um, I keep lotion, because my hands get ashy. And I just, you know, that's the thing for me. I like my hands to feel softer. So that doesn't really matter too much of my talk, but it makes me feel

James Taylor
I think when you're traveling a lot as well, you know, those things are I mean, forget like this. We are an instrument our body is an instrument our voices we are we are our instrument in that sense. So if you see if you take your saxophone player sax to certain places, certain countries climates, ticker guitars, and it's going to react well or not so well in different places. And you need to kind of look at it you need to ensure just keep an eye on it. Same thing with our voice. So like, you know, those motion those look those kind of lotions, water, all that stuff is actually really pretty critically important because

Jeff Ponders
I'll click it too. I bring that up. Yeah, I do. I've definitely seen experience. It was like, Oh, this isn't gonna work out too well. And I'm the very, very first talk I gave. I try I tried to use one. There's a second one. I tried to use my phone and my phone was distracting. It was. Don't do that. Yeah, it's crazy. It looks so unprofessional. So that was like, Hey, I'm using keynote. I've got keynote on my phone. I'm like really trendy. Now, not it was not the thing to do. So I went and a good buddy of mine, Ryan foland. He made a recommendation for an amazing clicker. And I can't run anymore right now i can i can send it to you. But it's awesome. Just having

James Taylor
like, in some ways that there's an instrument there as well. So having that thing you feel confident in you know,

Jeff Ponders
I know it's gonna work, everything else is

James Taylor
maybe going to hell, but you have a couple of things. What about a book is there one book you would recommend to to maybe an aspiring speaker or professional speaker could be a speaking they can maybe I know your your background. You speak a lot as on marketing creativity as well.

Jeff Ponders
So there's a is a pastor in Atlanta named Andy Stanley. Andy Stanley's father's Charleston, Andy Stanley's a bad he's a bad dude. He's good. He wrote a book called communicating for change. And he wrote it. I guess it's designed to build sermons. But there's a really good framework there and smart science behind it. And it's a way of capturing attention relating to the audience, pulling them in, helping nail down the key insight and make it memorable, and then giving helping them walk away feeling like something changed. superpower. It was amazing. Wonderful.

James Taylor
We'll put that link here as well. What about a tool is that you mentioned you've taught your firm before? Is it an online app or like a mobile app or an online tool you find really useful for yourself as a speaker.

Jeff Ponders
I don't have one I don't have I don't I don't have like a go to tool as a speaker I've done. I've a example, I've used grant Baldwins platform. And that's been that was that was, I think he did a great job putting together a speaker platform form. There a couple of them testing out right now. But nothing was like that's the one you got to have. Though a smart CRM CRM system is a good thing, too, isn't one in particular you would recommend is is the one that a CRM that you tend to use. So I ran, and I'm using nimble. But I've seen powerful things with HubSpot as well.

James Taylor
Yeah, HubSpot is great, especially on the content, the content marketing side as well. What but I'm gonna kind of just finish up here. If you had to start again, tomorrow, I'm gonna let you imagine, choose whichever city you want to start in, you have to restart your career, you have all the skills you've acquired over the years, but no one knows you. And you know, no one, you have to completely restart. What would you do? How would you restart?

Jeff Ponders
I think it'll be it'll be, it wouldn't be that crazy for me. Only because I can take a saxophone somewhere and say, Hey, and I can make a kind of fun. So I'd probably pick a city that embraces jazz. So a New Orleans or Chicago, New York is huge. And it's like it'd be warm, but it's huge. And so it's easy to get lost there. But in New Orleans, or Chicago may be a Dallas. And so in Atlanta falling into, so I pick up so I'm a corporate speaker. And so I'd be looking at company areas with lots of corporations and a warm chassis. And I would leverage the musical experience in mind as well as about corporate relationships to, to kind of kickstart things. Um, that's it too. So the other thing that I would do, and it's actually it's, oddly enough, is we didn't talk about this before, but there's a so I'm big. I mentioned creating experiences, right. And so as speakers we we hustle hard to get beautiful relationships and to find relationships with event planners and conference planners to get booked. I've never been a believer in waiting, waiting on an opportunity to find you though. And so, for example, what I've done is I've created a lunch and learns workshop series where, where a company or you know, a client can buy a package that's a two hour experience with that includes launch live performance, and a workshop, a keynote in a workshop that I can take as a product and sell the experience. So part of what I would do is starting over will be outside of making friends and playing music would be develop a product that's easy to that's easy and warmly received and using that to kind of spark the next level

James Taylor
fantastic. And if people want to reach out to you maybe to refer you for a speaking opportunity or just do it can reach out with a really enjoyed what you've been sharing today. where's the best place for them to go and do that?

Jeff Ponders
Do you go to Jeff Ponders calm that is the center of my universe right now. If you look on social media, if it's Jeff Ponton, it's probably me. And as partners with an S so je FF er, je FF p o nd ers, you'll find me. Yeah, that would be the best thing. It'd be great. I'm looking forward to hearing feedback from you guys. And hopefully, this conversation has been helpful.

James Taylor
Well, Jeff has been a pleasure speaking with you today. I look forward to sharing the stage together. I don't know where it's going to be as musicians or whether it's going to be your speakers, but I'm sure will be

Jeff Ponders
a good idea.

James Taylor
We can combine them both as well. But thanks so much for coming on today.

Jeff Ponders
pleasure speaking to you. I wish you all the best with your new member of your family and all your speaking as well.

James Taylor
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