How to Do a TEDx Talk in the Next 90 Days (even if you aren't a speaker) with Taylor Conroy

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. podcast network with great shows like Content is Profits. Today, we'll be breaking down how to do a TEDx talk in the next 90 days, even if you aren't a speaker. To drop these value bombs, I brought Taylor Conroy into EO Fire Studios. Taylor has helped 400 entrepreneurs land TEDx talks around the world, garnering tens of millions of views. He's been a speaker at Harvard, the United Nations, Disney, KPMG, and in front of audiences of 10 ,000 plus people. And today, Fire Nation, we'll talk about why, why you should be doing a TEDx talk this year.

0:43We'll talk about attention. We'll talk about real results. We'll talk about money. And we'll talk about some secrets being revealed about becoming a paid speaker and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Taylor and our sponsors. Factor is America's number one ready-to-eat meal kit that can help you fuel up fast with meals delivered straight to your door. Head to factormeals.com slash EOfire50, that's five zero, and use code EOfire50 to get 50 % off your first box. That's code EOfire50 at factormeals.com slash EOfire50. Outbound Squad, hosted by Jason Bay, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

1:30Tune in for convos with leading sales experts and top performing reps to help you land more meetings with your ideal clients. One of my faves, the monthly app with Jason and Ethan, where they share hacks, tips, and tricks. Listen to Outbound Squad, wherever you get your podcasts. Taylor, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Yeah. Okay. What's up, everybody? Thanks for having me, JLD. Much appreciated. Good to be back. And here's the thing about success that I think most people would disagree with, that success, consistent long-term success, would actually be perceived as boring to most people because most people focus on the outputs.

2:12Only when they get successful do they celebrate. What I focus on, I've got a big sign on my desk that says, I love inputs, like the daily grind, because finding enjoyment to that basically guarantees long-term success. Love that. Such a great start to our episode, Fire Nation, all talking about how to do a TEDx talk in the next 90 days. And this is even if you aren't a speaker, Fire Nation. So you're going to want to hear more about this. Let's start at the beginning. Why? Why should Fire Nation be doing a TEDx talk this year? Yeah, it's so funny. I get that question a lot. And I think, you know, you shouldn't.

2:50You shouldn't unless you want this year to be ridiculous. You shouldn't unless you want to go way beyond your comfort zone. If you want to be a paid speaker, there's literally nothing that contributes more to a paid speaker experience or career than a TEDx talk. If you want to sell your book, there's nothing that's going to contribute more to that than a TEDx talk. If you want to get one-on-one coaching clients or group coaching clients, or you want to do freaking retreats in Hawaii, there's nothing that's going to contribute more. It means it's 18 minutes of authority, credibility, building, perceived value creating that is unparalleled on the face of the earth.

3:27And I know I'm sounding like it sounds like I'm speaking hyperbole. Tell me one YouTube channel that has more than 38 million subscribers that continually pumps out the same stage, the same sign, the same lighting. So people are used to, they're conditioned to watching TEDx Talks unlike any other platform on the planet. That's why we call it the biggest stage on earth. It's the biggest stage on earth, Fire Nation. I'm still quite devastated because, man, I had a TEDx talk lined up here in San Juan and it was going to be a beautiful stage. And of course, you know, the typical everything that you have with a TEDx talk.

4:01And then it was canceled because of COVID and it was devastating. We still did it virtually, but I mean, and it's not even close to the same. You have to be in person on that stage. You have that for life. And I want to talk about that attention. Let's talk about the views that your clients get on their TEDx talks. Let's pretend you worked with us. Just for example here, John, the views that our clients get, we've got a client who's got close to 15 million views. It's pretty typical for people to have around a million, 2 million, got multiple clients at three, four, 5 million views. And let's be realistic.

4:39Not everybody's going to get 5 million views, right? the first person I ever helped get a TEDx talk was 10 years ago. He was a kid. He was like 18 or 19 came to me. He's like, hey, I just dropped out of high school because basketball was done. This guy's like 6 '7". That's the only reason he was staying in high school is to play basketball. And he's like, I've heard that maybe you can mentor me. I said, yeah, sounds great. I can help you get a TEDx talk. I'll title it for you. I'll help you practice it. And that kid who's now in his early 30s or late 20s now, I should say, late 20s, that kid got 5 million views to his TEDx talk because of the right titling, the right practicing, the right writing of the talk.

5:16The talk led to 300 paid speaking gigs all over the world. He literally made millions of dollars because of a talk that he did when he was, I think he actually delivered the talk when he was actually 20, which is kind of mind blowing. And again, not everybody's going to go as crazy as this kid did, but with our offering, what we were so confident in our network and the people that watch what we do and the way that we market talks is that we guarantee every client of ours that goes through our process, every client will get at least 50 ,000 views, at least. So if someone's like, ah, I really like to do it and I just want to make sure people would watch it, don't worry about that.

5:53We've got that. The reason we've got that is because we've built a network over five years of people that love watching TEDx talks. And these aren't just views of people clicking like and then moving on. You've got likes, you've got comments, you've got tons of engagement so that your talk actually reaches the people that it's supposed to reach. I mean, Fire Nation, just picture that. And this is the minimum. I mean, picture 50 ,000 people. That is a packed NFL football game. And you're on stage in the middle of that speaking and people are listening. And that is crazy. And then some people are 10, 20, 50 X-ing that because they're just hitting it out of the park for some reason.

6:31And of course, you have a lot better chance of hanging out of the park when you're working with people that know what they're doing. So I want to talk real results because you just shared what happens, 300 paid speaking gig, millions of dollars in paid speaking revenue for that one individual. Let's talk about real results. What can happen for someone that does a TEDx talk? I really like your example of the stadium analogy. And so let's stick with that for a second. If you picture 50 ,000 humans all sitting there, maybe they're sipping a beer or whatever they're doing in a stadium. They're sitting there and they're watching you do this fire talk, this epic talk.

7:06The real question to me is I always ask, if 50 ,000 people watched you, what percentage of those or how many of those would do the thing that you would love for people to do with you after the talk? Meaning, do they want to hire you as a coach? Maybe you're a coach and you help people one-on-one or help people in group. You think about how many people out of 50 ,000 would book you? And a lot of people say, well, at least a hundred, you know, maybe even 500, you know, like 1 % of people would book me, it should be 500 people. And then you think, okay, well, how much do you charge? If let's say you have a hundred, let's be conservative.

7:38Let's say a hundred people book you, how much do you charge? Maybe people charge like three grand for their coaching. That alone is$300 ,000. I'm not trying to be like, you know, gregarious and think that like everybody's going to get results through the roof, but I've seen it over and over and over again. We've got a client who had at 5 ,000 views, John, this guy, 5 ,000 views, by the way, He was terrified to do a talk, terrified to speak in public, terrified to actually put himself out there like almost every one of our clients are. Yet he gets on stage, does it. Right around 5 ,000 views, he passed the$75 ,000 mark in revenue generated from workshops and speaking gigs.

8:12And by the way, he had never been paid to speak before in his life. His name is Mike. His talk, by the way, you can watch it online. It's called My Other Car is a Time Machine. It's hilarious. He did an amazing job. He's a flight attendant at Southwest. Did this TEDx talk. But what I'm saying is he wasn't a Harvard professor. He wasn't some crazy expert in his field. He just gave a passionate, thorough, thoughtful TEDx talk, the way that we help people write them. And now he's edging up on that$100 ,000 mark in workshops and paid speaking gigs because he made his message bigger than his fear. And that's what it always comes down to for people is like, man, I've had this thing inside me.

8:48I guarantee a bunch of people in the EOF, Entrepreneurs on Fire community, they've been thinking about it for years. Chances are before you did Puerto Rico San Juan, you probably could have done a TEDx talk five years ago. You've had something in you for a long time, and it always comes down to the decision, what's bigger? My fear of public speaking, my fear of not being good enough, my fear of it not reaching enough people, or the message that you actually have inside you that's meant to reach a whole bunch of people. Make your message bigger than your fear. I love that phrase, Fire Nation. In fact, I always love to say you have an obligation to share your voice, your message, your mission with the world because it will help people, period.

9:29The amount, that's unknown. That's up to you in a lot of ways, but it will help people. Now, before we take a quick break, Taylor, believe it or not, I know it's hard to believe, but not every single person listens to the very end of every single episode that I do. It's heartbreaking, but it happens sometimes. So I don't want them to miss something that's really cool that we're doing. So please, what do you want to make sure that Fire Nation knows about something that you're offering to my audience? This is the second time I've been on your podcast, as you know, hopefully you remember. And we always like to offer entrepreneurs and coaches a special deal on our services.

10:09I mean, we've offered a breadth of, is that the right word? Breadth of offerings. If someone wants to land a TEDx talk this year, then hop on a call with us. The call's totally free. We'll dive into your idea, dive into the timeline as to what it's going to take to get a TEDx talk, all that jazz. And every EOF member will get a special discount on us. Wow. So what's the call to action URL for that? It is thought-leader.com slash apply. Thought-leader.com slash apply. Fire Nation, thought-leader.com slash apply. You owe it to yourself to get on a TEDx stage. I know it's scary, and I know it can be uncomfortable to think about something like this, but believe me, Fire Nation, all the magic happens outside of your comfort zone.

10:59Not in your comfort zone, outside of your comfort zone. So get the flip out of your comfort zone. Make magic happen. And we'll be right back after we thank our sponsors. Spring is finally here. And with more fun and the sun on your agenda, I'm guessing you could probably use some help with convenient, nutritious meals. That's why I'm excited to tell you about Factor, America's number one ready-to-eat meal kit that can help you fuel up fast with meals delivered straight to your door. With Factor, you can skip the chopping, prepping, and cleaning up too. Their fresh, never-frozen meals are ready in just two minutes.

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13:27But can we just the average person right now that's listening, I mean, nobody's average that's listening to this podcast. You're already way above average, but can somebody in Fire Nation actually make money from a TEDx talk? To be honest with you, when you do it this way, if you've got 50 ,000 humans watching your talk, unless you have literally no way to monetize your stuff whatsoever, you're ideally going to trip over money that could come in. Here's what I mean. Your people in your nation, they need to get really clear. How do I want to monetize this thing? Do I want to sell more books? Do I want to sell coaching?

14:01Do I want to become a paid speaker? This is something we talked about when we were connecting before the podcast. If someone wants to be a paid speaker, for example, then there's one thing, literally one thing. By the way, I've spoken at Harvard, Princeton, United Nations four times, Cornell, NYU, KPMG, Pfizer, Morgan Stanley, corporations all over the world. I've spoken in front of 100 ,000 people live. So if there's one piece of advice that I have for people that want to become paid speakers, it is this. Stop going out and doing all the free gigs you possibly can, all the low paid gigs you possibly can, and building up some sort of imaginary quote unquote portfolio.

14:35When in reality, the one thing that matters and the one thing that will contribute more to a paid speaking career than anything else, and this isn't just my experience, this is hundreds of my clients' experience, is having one authority building, credibility building talk that you can send to the right people who have a budget to pay you to speak. I hope that's landing. It's like the old way of speaking is go out and just speak in front of as many people as possible, hoping there's one person in the room that can book you for another paid speaking gig. And then maybe there's one person in that room and you get a bunch of referrals.

15:06If someone's telling you that you build a speaking career on referrals, it's because they don't know how to build one faster. So if you want to trust them, if you want to take five to 10 years to build a speaking career. If you want to take one year to start getting paid to speak or six months to start getting paid to speak, have a piece of footage, AKA a TEDx talk with great lighting, the great stage, the great state with a great sign in the background with the authority that comes along with the TEDx talk. And then, and only then send that talk out to the people that can book you to speak. And by the way, all of this and more is stuff that we teach.

15:41We teach people how to write the talk. We get them in talk practice community so they can practice the talk on their peers over Zoom. We help them land a talk. We literally guarantee every single one of our clients will land a talk as long as they follow our very, very simple steps. And they guarantee that they have 50 ,000 views to that talk. So tell me this, John. If you had John A, who's got a cool speaker site and some pictures on it, and he says that he's a good speaker, but no video of him speaking. Or you've got John B, who's got whatever, the same speaker site, but he's got a TEDx talk of him doing amazing talk.

16:15It's got 50 ,000 views to that talk. Which one is more likely going to get booked to speak? Which one has a higher perceived value? And your higher perceived value correlates to how much you get paid to speak. So if you want to do free gigs, don't do a TEDx talk. If you want to get paid gigs, do do a TEDx talk. I think it's as simple as that. Fire Nation, there's a reason why I had Taylor back on Entrepreneurs on Fire. Because when he was on back in the day, you loved him. Fire Nation loved him. They took his call to action. Many people worked with him and they've had great results. And I personally love secrets being revealed on Entrepreneurs on Fire.

16:53So what is the secret, Taylor, to becoming a paid speaker? The secret is once you have that talk, once you have this amazing film talk, is getting really clear. What's my lane? What's my niche? What is the piece of the pie that I'm going to chunk out for myself. I'll give you an example. We got a client, Ellie Nash, does his TEDx talk. I think it's got about four or five million views now. The talk is called Escaping Porn Addiction. He's addressing this huge elephant in the room, this monster subject that very few people are willing to address. He decided that he goes, you know what? I think my niche initially is going to be within the Jewish community because he's Jewish.

17:37That's where he had some inroads. right so at first his his whole uh strategy was leverage the people that are close to me first then go bigger then go bigger then go bigger and what he told me he said once the talk had about 50 000 views he could get into all of this kind of niche level press within his jewish community once he had about 100 000 views 150 000 views he started hitting the mainstream like big pr you know wall street journal type uh publications and now that he's got four million views imagine him taking that talk and sending it to the right people that have a budget to pay him to speak Like if you've got 4 million, that's 4 million people that have said, this is an amazing talk.

18:12It's 4 million people that are saying, this is someone that's worthy of being on your stage. So when you know what your niche is, whether it be social good, whether it be overcoming trauma, overcoming addiction, parenting, maybe it's climate change. When you know what your niche is and you have a really amazing credibility building, authority building talk that you can take that talk, send it to people within that niche that are putting on conferences. And by the way, kind of a spoiler alert, we have a list of 3 ,000 events, associations, and conferences that are happening all over the world that we give our clients access to so that they can take that talk and not be guessing where should I send it.

18:48We just say, send it here, here, and here, and make the process as easy as possible for them to actually get paid for their message. So Taylor, I want to end with a bang, brother. Once again, what does Fire Nation need to do to get in contact with you, to get this ball rolling to do a TEDx talk this year? I mean, it's pretty simple. If you're on your computer right now, go to thought-leader.com slash apply. Book a call with us. It's a free call. It's a very, very fun call. We'll talk about your goals. We'll talk about your idea. We'll talk about your title, talk about all those wonderful things.

19:23And when everything's a fit, we'll guarantee that not only will you land a talk but they'll get 50 000 views to it because we love the entrepreneurs on fire uh community and you guys are full of amazing people and i'm guaranteeing anybody who's listening to this this far in the in the podcast has a message if they're actually listening to the end like this right i'll just speak directly to you people that are listening to direct to the end you have a message inside you you know what's not inside you just stay inside you till the day you die it's meant to come up to the world and impact the people that it's meant to reach i am purely and Thought Leader is purely a vehicle to help you do that.

19:58So if we can serve you in doing that and support you, we'd love to. Fire Nation, you're the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, you've been hanging out with TC and JLD today. So keep up that heat. For links to everything that we talked about, visit eofire.com, type Taylor in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. And one last time, that call to action, thought-leader.com slash apply. Get that ball moving. Taylor, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge, and value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Taylor for sponsoring today's episode.

20:42And Fire Nation, what can 3 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs teach you? How about how to achieve financial freedom and fulfillment? My first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, is a revolutionary 17-step roadmap that will lead you to the lifestyle you've been dreaming about. This book took me 10 years of accumulating the genius of the world's top entrepreneurs, and you can get it all in one place when you visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Factor is America's number one ready-to-eat meal kit that can help you fuel up fast with meals delivered straight to your door.

21:20Head to factormeals.com slash EOfire50, that's five zero, and use code EOfire50 to get 50 % off your first box. That's code EOfire50 at factormeals.com slash EOfire50. Outbound Squad, hosted by Jason Bay, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Tune in for convos with leading sales experts and top performing reps to help you land more meetings with your ideal clients. One of my faves, the monthly app with Jason and Ethan, where they share hacks, tips, and tricks. Listen to Outbound Squad wherever you get your podcasts.