How Anyone Can Become a Great Public Speaker w/ Keith Ferrazzi | EP #65

27:38And there was the opening ceremonies, the closing ceremonies, and in between. So I was giving speeches all the time. And I'll never forget an experience I had which taught me an amazing lesson. I was in to lose France at the closing ceremonies. And here we are with our 120 graduates and 500 parents and friends there. and I get up on stage to try and give a, you know, inspiring closing talk, and I had a speech right there in front of me. And I started reading it. And I started like just choking because, you know, it's like trying to make eye contact and reading it and like, uh, uh, and it was models.

28:23And I literally put it down and spoke from my heart. and something flipped. And I've never ever ever had a teleprompter or speech. So my experience, I'm curious if it's yours, is I would make sure I had like five to 10 maximum bullets. Like these are the things I want to hit on. Let's do that. Let's get into the structure. And I would, that would allow me to pick a subject In a lot of times, you know, my dear friend and writing partner Stephen Collar talks about being in flow. Yeah. And when you're on stage and in audience and you're in flow and you're speaking from the heart authentically, it's a people know it and you know it.

29:11Yeah. So I'll tell you, what I do is number one is at the beginning of a speech, you should very quickly get into a personal story. Yes. Stories are critically important. The biggest mistake I've made is when I was trying to give too much information and I felt that this audience didn't want to hear my stories. They wanted the information because I was intimidated. Maybe they were scientists or they were very senior executives. But the reality is that if you don't capture their heart with authenticity through a powerful story at the beginning, you've lost them. So that's number one is to start with some form of a story.

29:50The next thing I always do is there's, I always think of my talks as three sections. I don't know what they are, but there's three big sections. I can move it in my talk. Yeah. And if I lost my notes, all I would have to have is three sections to memorize, right? Because I could flow through three things. And then within each the sections, I'll have three or four bullet points, right? That's your point of 10 things. Now, what I will do, If I'm giving a talk that I've never given before, I will write out in two pages what I want us to share. Then I'll turn it in to three sections with bullet points.

30:31And between the time that I finalize what I think I'm going to say and the talk, I will take what used to be called recipe cards. Remember those little papers? I'll take a recipe card and I will write and rewrite my bullet points. over and over again without making it the last version. So I'll take a set of bullet points and I'll write them and then I'll say, I put it away, let me do it again. And each time it'll get smaller and smaller. The number of bullet points that I need to remember get smaller and smaller. Until I've really mastered the content and I don't need anything on the stage anymore.

31:11I agree a thousand percent on grabbing them with an opening story. It's beautiful, right? The thing that I've done recently, it works really well for me as well, is I have a PowerPoint deck. Sure. And the PowerPoint deck is mostly all image. Yeah, pictures. And a title across the top, which is your bullet points. Which you guys need. And so as I'm going through the deck, I use it as a reminder of, I'm gonna tell some stories around this, or some stories around this, people are there to be entertained first and foremost. And if you can educate them on top of the entertainment, that's fantastic.

31:52If you just educate them without the entertainment, they don't, they don't get appreciated. And I feel like the that regimentation and the idea that you're just going through reminders and nodes is important. Let's talk a little bit about over rehearsing talks and things. There's an association, I don't want to embarrass them in my belief of what they do. There's an association of speakers that has a very strong belief on how a speech should be done. And it's a very prominent group out there. I'm going to start guessing. And they literally have the professionalism down to a science. You open your first remark here and then you take two steps to the right and you have your next remark.

32:46And then, and it's this crazy, meticulous formula of giving it all, which I might imagine for somebody who isn't organically good at this might be a really nice way to start, but when I watch them, I have lost the humanity. And what I love about both you and I on stage, and certainly Tony, you know, is what comes out is the raw nature of our passion and the message. And the other, you know, there's also a very famous place to give talks that have, they squeeze you into a box and how to give a talk there. 20 minutes. And the way, you know, like I remember I was talking to Reed Hoffman, both he and I got coaching to do a talk.

33:36A test. Like come on, we were nowhere to tell. And we got our coaching to give a TED talk and we both swore that it felt like we were having the life trained out of us because it was so meticulous and out of game. It's gotten worse and you know, all of that was like, oh my god. And I look at it and I'm like it was it was excellent, but the the A pluses that I could have given if I didn't feel as regimented On the other hand if you think about the average person who gets up to give a TED Talk. Yeah, they need that Yeah, you know, and the way I got Pretty good decent at speaking was modeling others So I would watch Tony right Tony's a friend.

34:18We built companies together written a book together and so forth and I would, you know, in the early days, watch him on stage. And I would watch him not for the content, but the delivery. His hand motions, huge hands. His voice inflections. And then I went on YouTube and on Ted .com and started saying, okay, which talks really stop me and are like amazing speakers? And then why do I think they're amazing? What are they doing? And so I began emulating that. And one of the, you know, some of the lessons learned is for folks listening here is I don't ever get behind a podium First and foremost never right I'm in front.

34:59I'm bear naked Second thing is I go to 11 when are you by that right you if you think about It's when you're speaking at a level of energy that you think is high energy Yeah, it's not that high in the audience right and so I need to go higher. It's like one thing. I go to 11 and I go to two. Yes, 100 % right? 100 % the ability to go from there to then pause. Yes. And just land an emotional point. Yes. And that silence. And silence is a huge exclamation point. Yeah. And Tony would I love about you know sometimes I find myself after I've done like sometimes when you know what I'm doing Tony events they happen to be like three in a row.

35:41Yeah. And for the next month I find myself using Tony measums like in the middle of the thing I'm like, say yes, yes, exactly. Say yes, say yes. It's like, so to have that read, so I find myself going into those things. The thing about emulation is so important. I want to tip my hat to a beautiful man. His name is Lens Lesinger. He was a professor at Harvard Business School. I was a second year. He was one of the most meaningful people in my life academically. I was a student of his, but I became a mentee of his. He was studying my subject that I was really interested in, which was total quality, control and management, but he was doing it in retail and I had him come for manufacturing.

36:28What he would do, he was one of the best speakers, he was one of the best professor lecturers, he was energizing, he was always sweating and he was just, he was fucking amazing. But I got to the point where he said to me one day, he said, he would, I can't go to the National Retail Federation to give this talk. Would you give it for me? But I had watched him so many times that I literally would sit back and I would scribe his talk and I gave his talk, literally gave his talk, not just his inflections, his manners, I gave his talk and I learned how to give his talk and and then I earned the right to change it for myself.

37:08Right? And so that was the best way for me. It was total mimicry. But then I adapted it for myself. And I learned my own style held onto some of his. So, and I suggest I've got an amazing man, works in our company, who his name is Ronan, and he wants to be better and better at his speaking. He's doing the same thing for me, and I love it. He's giving my talks as him, but then he's modifying. Yeah, and I'm doing that with one of my strike force members, Yanni, just putting them on stage more and more, to give them the experience. Let's put a nail or a stake in the heart of fear one second. So the answer to fear, it's natural, is practice.

37:50It is practice, it's practice, it's practice, and it is allowing yourself. I want to say it's allow the emotion to come out fully. It's hand motions, it's volume, it's being confident in yourself. People love that confidence and they love the empathy that you have for them in this subject. At the end of the day, I'll remember my first TED talk, actually, when my first TED talk, I got a second -tet talk when I gave the abundance talk. I went and was giving it at the home of Lyndon Norman Lear. She invited me to come and present it just after abundance had come out. I gave what I was working on for Ted and then a common friend Eric Hirschberg pulled me aside and it goes, I think I could make it better for you.

38:45And we spent the better part of a week re -engineering the talk and me giving it over and over and over again. And it was phenomenally better and Kudos to Eric who is a brilliant creative himself. And when I got on stage and I gave that talk, I felt on fire and I was like on a mission to change the people's mindset there. but I was so confident what I was saying because you had iterative. I had iterative. I had it allowed me. And that's what I was saying earlier. I literally, you know, I remember my TED Talk and getting ready for it and just that over and over and over again. And I think that until you just get such comfort that you can do it in your sleep.

39:31Yeah. I think that's critical. You know, the thinking about speaking, I did want to make sure that we also punctuated the mediums. And I do think that one of the things I learned is there was a little bit of a difference between being on this media and being on stage. And between a small stage and a big stage. I agree. And it's like you're talking about being in 11 and being big. I used to do that on television and it looked weird. Yeah, that's true. It doesn't work for television. So I think it's important to understand your medium. Most of the time what we're talking about is you just look crazy.

40:07You look crazy. You look fucking crazy. I actually remember the very first time I did a CNN CNBC show with myself and Rich Dad Poor Dad and a bunch of guys on speed is swearing at me and I've never done cocaine in my life but I looked like I just over -toast on cocaine at the end of the thing. I watched myself and was like, oh that is so embarrassing. So you do have to break in ice. I think I came from nerves. Well, yes, and it was a medium I was used to like in again I was used to being on stage and as an actor and I was big and And you want some intimate setting. Yeah, and yeah, it's it's different So I think people have to be conscious and let me say another thing you and I are giving a disproportionate tilt to charisma and Energy etc.

40:57But let me let me suggest don't let that intimidate you if that's not who you are And maybe I'm going to think a very antithetical approach to what we just said. There are comedians who are totally different styles and land the joke beautifully. There are some comedians that are deadpan and do a beautiful job of it. Now you don't want to bore people, but I think that all of you could find a way to be a good speaker and honor you. You've got to command, you've got to modulate. I think even if you're not going to 11 to 2 if you go to your volume goes to 8 to 4 that's still going to be important Yeah, and by the way you might be a scientist or technologist talking about a really important subject You know some kind of a breakthrough you had Bill Gates doesn't do what you and I do now people listen to him But he is going to be a lot of him but so if you've got a really very important meaningful information to deliver I think you don't have to be the, like you said, the charismatic presenter on stage, but you still need to get a connection with the audience.

42:07Yes. Anacdotes, stories. Opening up with story, you still see dry professors that use humor beautifully. Reagan used to do it, right? He was just such a beautiful order and he would tell jokes and it worked. right? So I just want to make sure that we're not intimidating an entire population that don't think that they can be us. Everybody, Peter D. Madness here, I've been asked over and over again, what do I do for my own health? Well, I put it down in this book called Peter's Longevity Practices. It's very readable in just an hour. In the book I cover longevity diet, exercise, sleep, my annual found upload, meds, and supplements, longevity mindset.

42:50It's literally consumable in just an hour's time. Hopefully to incentivize you to make a difference in your life to intercept the technologies coming our way. If you want this, it's free. Just check out the link below and download it right now. Now, you may be an entrepreneur who's got a company of 10 people or a company of 100 people and being able to stand up in front of that company and give a heartfelt felt compelling, like drive and purpose and to ignite that company through a difficult time or a sprint you need to do is equally important. We are emotional beings, we have this emotional connection.

43:33Let's talk about how we turn this into a business because you and I have, and again, you gave me a tremendous gift of insight. So if someone's written a book, but that's so important, the day I started to think getting paid for speaking was the day I wrote a book. Yes. Really getting paid for speaking. And it's interesting because if you are a public speaker and you haven't written a book, you're probably going to get a 10 to 20 % of the revenue that you would get, then if you wrote a book. Yeah, a book in this matter is a representation that you have a concise body knowledge, right? It's exactly it.

44:16Yeah. And it's your credential. It's your card. If you don't have a book, the likelihood someone's going to, well, got to remember who's hiring. It's, and I apologize for this. It's a clipboard lady or clipboard guy. I always, it's like, there's somebody five layers down in the organization. Who's checking boxes. Who's checking boxes and is working with the bureau to figure out what's slate to give the CEO for the event. Of course, it can come down from the CEO, but a lot of the times it's a risk adverse individual looking to qualify who's supposed to be on this stage at this point in time. And so not having a book is almost a disqualify.

45:00Now, you could have a very successful company or you could have a very successful life experience that the world knows about. It's a brand. It's a you better brand. You don't have a brand you need a book. Yeah, maybe that's that's the mantra You don't have a brand you need to and by the way when you're being introduced and someone says so and so is the author of so and so book They don't need to mention how many copies were sold or anything and we are we talked about it on our other podcast They will say that it is the best selling book I'm either a child even though it's the best selling in Joe's book list so you no matter what you'll be a best -selling author and and you'll be able to have credential.

45:36People want to, they want to put you on stage if they feel like you've got a credential. And so that's so important. The book starts, the book starts your speaking group. It really does. It was the case for me. It was, I think it's the case for so many, and I don't know many examples. They can do it without. And again, this app, podcasters. Again, you have a brand. If you've got a major podcast that has a great following, again, it's because you have the brand. It's like having your own TV. And there were a few podcasters I know who haven't gone on and written a book. Right. You know, the old saying, you don't make money on book sales.

46:12You make money on speeches is very true. So it's an hour into the business. And now into the business. So, Kip, can I talk about the first thing that needs to happen to you? Sure. What is your topic? And, you know, I want to use you and me as an example here. Okay. You have found a topic. No, look, you didn't, you weren't searching for a topic. to get a good speaking business. Therefore, you picked abundance. That's not gonna happen that way. But let's just talk about, because my topic early on for a good part of my life was space. Guess what kind of a speaking business you would have with a space not a...

46:45Zippo. I don't know, but guess what kind of a paid speaking business you would have with space. Zippo, that's the thing. So, you know, JPL would hire you to speak, but an MIT would hire you to speak. That's free coffee. Right. But let's dissect a bit your abundance topic, which I think is really important. Interesting, and I was kind of shocked that it became a successful viable business topic. Well, I think that's just because of the purity of your intent of the message. You weren't engineering it for that. But as I looked at somebody who I helped to craft their speaking business and then all of a sudden I saw your speaking fee be double -mod.

47:28Sorry. I was like, what? No, what is about that? So I started dissecting and I was like, what is it about Peter's speaking business that has taken wind? And it's, and here's my analysis. And you can, the first thing is, if you look at who's putting you on stage, there's a CEO putting you on stage saying, I want you to kick the bottom of my people to be deeply curious, inspired to be over the edge in terms of what could be next, not sitting on our laurels, but going big and going next, because every CEO wants that. The other thing you do is you bring a very positive message. When you leave the stage, people have walked in saying, the world is shit, and it's falling apart, and they leave saying, oh my God, the world is abundant.

48:16It's amazing, right? So you've done two extraordinary things, and it's not a surprise. It's not how you engineered it, but it's not a surprise that you've created that. Now, why do I say that? Because when you're thinking about the business, if you're literally creating a speaking business for the sake of a business, then you need to ask yourself, is that message gonna resonate with which audiences? So this is, I'm a former marketer. So I would first ask the question, which audiences are hiring? So who gires speakers, sales organizations, hire them for their big sales off sites every year? Leadership off -sites, which is the big company meeting with a top 100 ,000 people or whatever it is, high customer engagement.

49:02And then external customer events, big like the big event where you bring all of your customers together. Like sales horsemen. And then associations which are hiring it for their members and that's either a personal message like you're going to get a sports hero that everyone's interested in, but you could find something that general consumers would be interested in. So you really just think about who are the people hiring speaking and ask you what gift are you giving That organization by virtue of you walking on stage and that's an important alignment Where where I have gone with my talks as I call my talks challenge talks because again my brand is Is partially to inspire I go on stage and I say to an audience and this is what I have sold my speech to So where do you want your people's behavior to change over the next six to nine months in order to meet your strategy?

49:57You know, Peter's the guy that will help your strategy and technology get on path. I'm the guy that comes behind and says, where are the behaviors of your people? And I believe that anybody in that room could be the tipping point of the transformation of the company. That's why I wrote, leading without authority. I'm trying to say that everybody in the room, you can take the manifestation of the strategy of the company and you could go out and build the relationships and the vision to make it happen and your career would be on fire, right? And by the way, you are a leader of a team that is yet to know that they're following you.

50:32That team is the people inside of the organization that are going to follow you and your vision on how to meet the strategy of the company. So that idea, I call it a challenge block, it crushes it out there because you know, you come on one day and we've done this actually where you've spoken and I've spoken, you You come on one day and you get your organization to see where it's strategy and its technology needs to be. I come in and I see, you know, where is the, how can an individual ignite transformation by changing their behavior and managing teams differently? You know, tactically, let's say you've written your book or you've had this life experience or you had something that creates a brand that makes, gives you a message that is super credible and people want to hear, right?

51:21One of the things that you taught me was you said, listen, you introduced me to leading authorities, one of the speaking agencies that still to this day, we have a great relationship with. And you said, go to their office in Washington, NDC, and meet with their team and give your talk there. I also said, buy them lunch. I'm sure they did. Many you show off for to buy them lunch because there's a lot of people that want to get on their radar say, hey listen, I'd love to buy you all lunch and all I want you to do is listen to 20 minutes of what I have to share. Yeah, I mean how many agencies are out there?

51:54I think there's, you know, first of all there's hundreds. Yes. Because as that world has grown, any individual can be an agency. But I know let's call it 12 to 15 important agencies. And I'm not suggesting, by the way, that the biggest agencies are the most important. Washington Speakers Bureau is not an agency that you should have. That's the only one. That's the only one in New York. Yeah. But so the biggest ones aren't necessarily where you're going to give me a 10 -second. Those will be the agencies that typically have the, you know, the problem is the clinical thing. Yeah, exactly. The ex -politicals.

52:30But there are agencies that have either specialization or subspecializations and going and building relationship there because at the end of the day when the agent, part of that agency, is on the phone with a large marketing event or membership event, they say, hey, let me point you at this individual, check out this website and let me know because I've heard them speak and they're amazing. Right? Now, let's talk about how to do that. Now, this is where my never -earned loan act comes on. Yeah. You're not building a relationship with a bureau. You're building a relationship with three agents. Yes.

53:05And the way you do that is you start to connect by doing that first, you know, outreach. You get their email, you follow up, you ask them questions about it. You ask them questions about your talk. So they've just heard you give your teaser and then you started relationship. Hey, what advice do you have? Would you think about the messaging? Where do you think that that messaging is going to play well? And by the way, do you have anybody that you're thinking about that you think would be great for that? then you the first time they they put you up for a potential talk whether you got it or not I want you to send them flowers yeah Amazon card so I just say thank you thank you so much I didn't get the talk yes and I'm cash right and by the way this is they're paid by their bosses this is direct to them individual right here.

54:01I just want to thank you and remember their birthdays and find out. I mean I used to have all the stuff that you teach. It's everything. It's all of the relationship component. I had a I had a woman who ran my speaking business for a while Jordan and Jordan was a great leverage for me with those bureaus and she richly got to know those folks. She was sending birthday presence that were so intimate, like she would send a baseball card to somebody that she had researched that person's hero was that individual and they were a baseball fan and it framed, you know, baseball card to sent him. That kind of intimacy.

54:46Now you and I have gotten to the stage where we're probably not doing those tactics anymore. But in the beginning it matters. Right. And so Jordan for you Connie still words my speaking business. And that is important that if you're not going to hire 12 people to if you're not going to go with an agency To have a right hand whether that's your Administrative assistant maybe we can talk about that a little bit. What is the role of your admin or yourself? Well, Connie who runs my speaking business used to be my admin Excuse me my executive assistant and as my speaking business started growing at one point I got her a second EA Esther and I said Connie, would you just go and run the speaking business alone?

55:28And I sent her to a negotiation school, and she has, and she's done extraordinarily well for me and for herself, and Esther became my EA and I'm my chief of staff. But this person isn't, they could easily just be a booker at transactional logistics person. But Connie is a relationship person. That's what it's important. She develops relationships with the agents as well. right? And she's my first line of defense as well. Now I get a lot of inbound emails. People who are members of my communities or my organizations or donors and Peter, can you speak? Mostly for free. Well the requests come in for free.

56:07I mean everybody is asking and I get hundreds of requests a year and my way of looking at it is if I do something I'm training against time with my 12 year old boys or trading against my companies. And so the answer is no unless they meet a threshold. And that threshold is either it's extraordinarily meaningful for me or in my companies or I'm going to take a certain number of paid gigs per year and it's going to be one of the paid gigs. So Connie goes in and we'll say I just got a request from a very high level politician to come and speak at an event. And I'm not going to say, listen, here's my speaking rate.

56:51And, you know, but Connie can go in very respectfully and say, you know, so and so, here's Peter's speaking rates and he could be free on that day. Is that an option and going through that? But it gives me a separation. But I want to level down for the meeting party. Yeah, of course. it's where second, but I hope they'll get there. Yeah, but I also want them, I want to give them the opportunity if you're an entrepreneur in the healthcare space. And you're building a business that sells into hospital systems. There's a lot of really cool places that you could be developing a speaking business. Now here's the thing.

57:38If the association of hospital administrators, If you went to them normally and said, I would like to speak on your stage and you have a business that sells into hospital administrators, they'll say yes and you can pay us $200 ,000 for a sponsorship, right? Exactly. But if you write a book and you write some articles and develop a sense of thought leadership and you have a $30 ,000 speaking fee associated with your name, you could probably get on that stage at a minimum for freight. Yes. And that's okay. Yeah, no, it's not much to talk about. Yeah, being on a stage in which it's great for your company or your organization.

58:23Well, that little strategy is important when people understand. You went from when I was a sponsor, being a sponsor, when I was a Deloitte as chief marketing officer. Every time I wanted to show up and speak, people wanted me to pay them. And it wasn't long after that when I wrote a book that I started getting paid. And so it's really important to be able to have. And they're not obviously - In a way if you haven't watched Keith and I talking about how to write at New York Times by selling a book, go watch that podcast next because the two are intimately connected. If you have, please leave comments.

58:57We'd love to know what you thought. Was it useful for you on how to write a book or is this podcast useful for you? Love to know. Everybody, I want to take a short break from our episode to talk about a company that's very important to me and could actually save your life or the life of someone that you love. Company is called Fountain Life and it's company I starred years ago with Tony Robbins and a group of very talented physicians. You know, most of us don't actually know what's going on inside our body. You were all optimists. Until that day when you have a pain in your side, you go to the physician and they burn into your room and they say, listen, I'm sorry to tell you this, but you have this stage three or four going on.

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1:01:02It really is something that is, for me, one of the most important things I offer my entire family, the CEOs of my companies, my friends. It's a chance to really add decades onto our healthy life spans. Go to fountainlife .com, backslash, Peter. It's one of the most important things I can offer to you is one of my listeners. Alright, let's go back to our episode. It's one of the things that, for me, is important, is this work -life integration. Because a speaking business can be a bit addictive. right, if you guys start getting paid to go and speak and you're flying around the world and it can Take you away from the normal course of your business.

1:01:46And so there's got to be a balance a lot of times if you get a speaking engagement They'll pay for your travel I'm always asking to have a second person go with me. Yeah, right? So I don't go to any of these events on my own I'll bring one of my strike force members Yani because a lot of times a lot of the business operations opportunities are occurring just before, just after, and having someone there. And in bulk. And you can keep trying. You can keep it off stage and you're a swim mob. And so being able to say yes and talk to Yani and basically helps a lot. Yeah. Can I on this simple little thing called travel expenses?

1:02:28What I've found, and I think you might have found the same thing, is it's actually more efficient to have a standardized speaking. I'm standardized travel expense. Yeah, about a dollar. It's a buyout. It's like, you know, my speaking fee is 50K and my domestic travel is $3 ,750, whatever it is. And you might say, on a private jet, whatever your level is that you can ask for it. On the ever forget, I was trying to get a particular well -known tech entrepreneur to come and speak. This was years ago. And he came back and he said my fee is a hundred K and a private jet and I was like WTF holy shit really?

1:03:10Like who is his person? Yeah, it's actually funny. I did something recently I was helping a friend of mine as a CEO trying to get some pretty prominent people to come and speak at his event But it was a small event. It was only 30 CHR rows Yeah, and these people wanted a lot of money and I said I have an idea Let's ask people who live in this bed was in Santa Barbara. I said let's ask people who live in San Francisco Major people live in San Francisco. Let's not pay them. Let's send a helicopter for them Hmm, and it was amazing. We got them to say yes Yeah, the idea that they were getting a helicopter sent to bring them down to the event of a VVIP Yes, Brands, but we didn't have to pay them so we ended up as a lot cheaper So this idea of travel buyout is something people should know.

1:03:58It became easier than just tracking all the expenses. It was a chunk of change that you got to. You have an international travel buyout number. You've domestic travel buyout number. So COVID hits. And we're not traveling anyplace. And our speaking fees for about a month or two went to zero. Yes, they did. And people were like 5 ,000 bucks. You could come and speak at our event virtually. And isn't it interesting? it went back up that our virtual talks are now getting paid. What are old speaking fees? Well, I'm not sure it's gotten up to the full one, but a virtual talk at a third of the price for an hour.

1:04:34You're living your pajamas and slippers and giving your key notes. This under here you are. Yeah, at least in the half of it. And that's amazing. And so the ability and actually enjoy it can be as interactive and I can deliver real value. What else do people need to know about? Setting your rates. So I mean, listen, in the very beginning, maybe when your books just come out, you might be doing a number of talks for free, right? Ted's never going to pay you if you can get on the Ted stage. It's, well, let's talk about that a little bit more. But otherwise, you know, my speaking fees early on were probably 10, 20K.

1:05:13And that was amazing found money. And that's still, I think. Significant. That amount of money, if you get to be a $15 ,000 speaker, that's sort of the first rate. I think the first, when you're a real speaker, you're getting paid 15K. The next level is 30, I find. And I think the next level goes to 50 to 60, 50, let's say. And then you're up to 75. And then you're at 100, which is a very rare find, group of individuals. But if you really think about those, I think those demarcations are about right, the people that I know. What becomes important is to ask yourself, you always want to use the price to set your days.

1:05:56So at 15, you could probably be speaking all the time. If you were really going to hustle, you're going to do all the stuff of marketing we were talking about, get your butt out there, work the bureaus, you can speak a lot at 15K. And one engagement can lead to three, to, you know, you have an excellent answer for all. Right. Particularly if it's associations, you can go and work at it, you know, speak at an association, you've got 1 ,000 people in the audience, each of whom could go back and say, we should hire that person. Yeah. Of course, speaking, it just won't accompany. But the 15K, what I did was I was finding myself speaking too much.

1:06:33And I had to up at the 30, this was back in the mid mid 2000s. I had to up at the 30 to keep my days down. Yeah, yeah, my only question is was the same I meet with Connie once a year We said our pricing and I I Ask her not to tell me About the gigs that come in too low so I'm not going to you and I both would be like well at 16 Can I rationalize that yeah 60 K cuz 60 K? I mean guys in salary for a year. Yeah, it's crazy. That's a house when I go So So the reality is you need to titrate that, and especially if you have a family or you're an entrepreneur running a company, balancing that is really important.

1:07:17But if you're at the beginning of your career and you've done something extraordinary, being on the road and being able to share your message and get paid for it is amazing. Amazing. The problem is I'll come into Las Vegas for an association meeting and I'll arrive at midnight. I'll have this incredible suite. My talk is at eight o 'clock in the morning, and then I'll leave. It's like it's not a waste What a waste of this glamour and the blitz I agree. You know, one of the things also is At this point in our lives We get to cherry pick what to speak for You should care about who you're speaking for yeah And I found myself in a few times where I'm like how did I end up speaking to this audience?

1:08:02I have no connection to them And yes, it's a great payday, but I should have said no. Right? So I think that being authentic and being able to really feeling your heart that you're going to help these individuals is super important. What other lessons can we teach you? You know, I was, I wanted to think a little bit about free talks because in one regard, It's easy to say you shouldn't do them But let's talk about where I have found free talks have really had a return on investment. Please no question a TED talk Yeah, it has the massive You want to talk about Ted one second first sure, but I want to come back to other free talks I can how one thinks about those but yeah, let's talk about it.

1:08:49So Ted's still the it's still the shining star It's the premier hill. It's a nice Ted stands for technology entertainment and design right and it is. I don't even think they claim that anymore. Yeah, it's like it's just Ted. I mean what Chris has done. Yeah, Chris Anderson. Chris Anderson, you and I know each other from Ted before Chris took it over. Yeah. And that man and his team that has created the Ted Talks, the media business outside of a single conference, that by the way is a great example of abundance. by giving away your product for free, you exponentialize. Well, they did it. They did it more than one way, right?

1:09:33So Ted .com is where you can go and watch all the talks and people say, well, why would you want to go and pay $10 ,000 or $15 ,000 or $30 ,000 if you're a patron and go to Ted, when if you watch the talks for a month later, you're gonna see them for free. And of course, that's not why you're there. You're there to meet everybody else and to experience it live. I'm here right now because of Ted. You and I are together because of Ted. Some of my best dearest friends and my richest relationships I have in my life was because of the Ted membership and the Ted community. And I am so grateful for that organization, the community that's created.

1:10:10Getting on that stage, I hope, you know, it's there has become a better mechanism than back of the day. And back of the day, I think it was, you know, Pixie Dust and who are you? Who are you? Who are you? And how your name or book or topic came across the right person at the right time? Which couldn't be engineered. It couldn't be a bit, but it was very difficult to. But now they've got an entire feeder system called the TEDx program. And it actually does work. You can be no one and give a local TEDx talk and have that rise up through the ranks through the likes of the system and the next thing you know, you're on the main tent.

1:10:51So, Suleiman, I talk about TEDx in our EXO 2 .0 book, right? As an incredible exponent for organizations. How do you go from this once a year event which TED used to be for how many people, 1500 people in the audience there, to all of a sudden reaching hundreds of thousands, millions of individuals through TEDx talking about the world. Yeah, right. And they have their podcasting series, et cetera. So I would just say you and I both are super fans. Yeah, we both have so much To respect the quality of what they've done. Right. Um, and I would say The way to go about all of you should be worried about your tent talk.

1:11:35Yeah, that's it. It's important as a book Yeah, and your your book how would you present your book in 20 minutes or less or 18 minutes? What is it? Is it 18 minutes? Well, I do it changes. I mean, like my Ted Duck was 12 minutes back in the day. Okay. But I think if you can't convey your purpose, your mission, your MTP, your essence of what you're in that period of time. Well, there's the better Franklin. Sorry, I wish if I had more time, this letter would have been shorter. So start to work your TED talk even though you don't have a place to give it yet. Then or throw a TEDx conference. You can get involved in the TEDx community and sort of the modern day tech version of Toastmasters in one sense.

1:12:23It is at a hyper -dub level. So that's one. Now the other thing about free talks is I'll tell you this is my alumni university. Speaking at the reunion has sometimes been the best feeder for my speaking engagements. Interesting. Because particularly with my alma mater at business school, I was able to give talks to my classmates who were like, wow, that was a great talk. And you're dealing with an entire group of individuals that are running businesses. Your stages, right, is an, I'm sure, an immensely the rich opportunity for bunch of entrepreneurs to see somebody speak on stage and say, wow, I should have them come in.

1:13:07So there are places, as I was mentioning earlier, associations, if the organization, if the forum is a group where the audience are buyers of speaking engagements, then it could be worth doing free talks. And so that's what I want people to consider. Or if you care deeply about, of course, the audience. in the topic. Right. Your mission is to be a driver. Yeah. Right. So I am, I am, whenever I can deliver to entrepreneurs and graduate students and so forth. I mean, the challenge is I think people don't realize, uh, there's a lot going on in our lives. So being able to pick up, you have, it's trade.

1:13:46You're always trading time, right? The one thing we all have in common is 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week, 365 in a year. And it's how you use your time, which is everything. It's our most precious resource right now. I've gotten to the stage where I could probably only do one or two talks a year that are purely you know, generous and gratis without a mode of for doing it, which is, well, this is an audience that could be more speaking engagements or more team coaching or such, etc. But I do think it's important. I just, what I say to my team is this is our channel strategy. Yes, and and my team is responsible for identifying who are the Associations that you should speak in front of for your channel strategy now This is where book helps because if you've written a book and if you haven't seen it We've got a really great podcast about booking I'm about writing books.

1:14:38Yeah, if you write a book it is all of a sudden a permission to speak and So if you think about what free talks you should be given where writing a book for the next six months. It's very funny because I reached out to Salesforce and said, you know, in Dreamforce next year, I've got a message I really think would be great. Okay, that's interesting. Here, we'll put you on the list. Yeah. No urgency. But if I reached out to Salesforce and said, I've got a book coming out the month that Dream Force is out or the month after and I could tease out my message which is about to be published before anywhere else on your stage and I'd be happy to sign books.

1:15:27All of a sudden there's urgency about having me as a speaker. So I know of a guy who is just a brilliant speaker. I don't know if he would want me to say his name or not because his strategy is so beautiful. He writes a book a year just for his speaking business and he does it just as a machine and Every year he writes a book he publishes it he markets it and that's his next and as a result unlike guys like you and me Who I suspect the off the the the the the amount of time that we get invited back to the same state one year after another is almost never Yeah, it's it best like friends like you know 360 yeah, he gets invited back to the same stage He's got a different message here.

1:16:10Sure, sure, sure. Because he's engineered his books around his speaking engagement in that way. You know, other platform stages are YPO chapters and EO chapters and stuff. If you, yeah, the here so again, EO, YPO, but the actual chapters don't have a lot of money for speaking engagements, right? They do a 5K, 10K. They have an education budget and sometimes they'll group three or four chapters together and create an event. But then the members you have to ask yourself at YPO, certainly the membership has the ability potentially to speak engagement. 50k, 15k. But as you go down to EO or Vista, your other organizations they may not have, you've got to ask yourself, is the audience used to paying my speaking fee?

1:17:00Now, one of the other things that I've done, it's interesting. You people think of speakers and they think of themselves as hiring speakers and not hiring speakers. It's what's the difference between helping them facilitate or helping them in a leadership offsite versus a speaking engagement. I've been able to open up the number of engagements. I know I still get paid 50k. I still do the same crap but I've now sold myself not as, are you hiring a speaker? But when are you giving your next leadership off -site? I'd like to present some of my research. Yes. You know, it's a nuance. But this idea of selling yourself as a speaker, you've actually, by the way, you've usurped the bureaus, you've usurped the clipboard people, and you've gone straight to a leader who might think, you know what, I don't normally have an outside speaker at my team meeting, but this topic would be interesting.

1:18:01Sure, I'll free up 15, 20, 30, whatever it is for my team. So you can actually create a speaker slot that didn't exist before. Why would you go direct? Shall we summarize? Yeah. So inspiring thinking you do this one first. Okay, I'll go first. So speaking has a lot of extraordinary benefits for you personally. Now, if you're an entrepreneur and a leader, it's a chance for you to become a thought leader on stages around the world. You can make a great living at it. It's a way to present your company, your ideas. And so there's a lot of elements of being called a platform or a keynote speaker. Fear often stops people and there's one solution to fear and that is practice, practice, practice and speak about something that comes from the heart.

1:18:56Right? If you're speaking with your mind and your brain, you're going to get caught up. If you're speaking from the heart, for me, a lot of my successes were emulating great speakers on stage who I watched and I'm studying you when you're on my abundance for your 60 stage or Tony's on my stage or vice versa. So it's like, huh, fascinating the way they did that, how they paused even a second lot longer than I would have paused, or they're a volume, or they're, you know, they're motions and they're hand motions, and it becomes like, incredibly, it shocks, oh, another thing that I do, I love doing, when I'm on stage, is breaking the barrier.

1:19:37I will jump off the stage and walk into the audience. Yeah. Right? It changes the entire dynamic. The camera people hate that. I go and check on the first. I said, I may jump off the stage and they say, well, stay away from that speaker and that speaker's going to get the feedback, but that's fine. And so, and you're looking to build a relationship, rather than just, you know, hit and run, can you give your slides away to that audience and can you, in fact, keep a relationship going with that audience, but it's there to serve. You know, those are my thoughts off the bat. I am. Yeah, well, as a good summary, I'm not going to be redundant.

1:20:19You've said so many good things in your summary. I still have so many years. It's okay. It's a good summary. That's what we're here for. The inspiring summary. Where I want to go with it is maybe just a little different. And maybe this is just because the way I think about it, I think about my speaking business really is a lifestyle for my future. Interesting, yeah. The more that I invest in my brand today, I mean the $2 million that I invested around some research that I did during the pandemic, actually ended up being $5 million. Wow. The end of it. You know what I was thinking about? I busted my ass during that two to three year period, doing research about the future of work.

1:21:02I invested my own money and other brands money. What I was thinking about was, This is going to give me the permission when I'm 75 to 80 years old to go around the world and step on stage and my brand legacy will still be there and I'll be relevant. And I'll be my partner and I will be able to travel and have a beautiful life because I will have built a brand and be meaningful to people. And it's the way I want to live my life. And so that's what I was thinking about. I was thinking about what I would I consider the Nirvana of my retirement. And I think that's what I would encourage any of you if you could start to build your brand and start to get permission to speak in people's stages and in their companies.

1:21:53It could be a beautiful way to live your life. And that's that would be my wrap up statement. You know, I think a few points you made as well. Remember to tell stories. Yeah, open with a story. A personal idea. Authenticity, variability. Of your voice level. And the last thing is relationships. What kept coming up throughout this for the both of us is people, whether it's bureaus, it's about relationships. It's about agents, it's not about bureaus. It's about individuals. It's Sally from XYZ speakers bureau who has gone out on a limb and said Peter would be the right person and then was rewarded for it both by your success but also by the flowers and the gratitude to build that relationship as important and And also I'll give you one last one is Don't be afraid to ask my old man used to say don't ever be afraid to ask the worst anybody could ever say is no If you've got a buddy that you know is a big wig and a in a company Just sitting there, hey, who runs the events that you do?

1:22:59I would love someday to get a chance to bring my message to your organization. What's wrong with that? I mean, that kind of just putting yourself out there and asking is a great way to get your speaking business, maybe even just started. You know, what we didn't talk about, by the way, I know this is the wrap up, but what we didn't talk about is you speak a real important idea. And if you've never done any speaking before asking friends to be able to be to get on the stage in front of you there You there company but with a video camera. Yeah, so that you could get it videoed and you can get two or three of them videoed and put it together in a Real it establishes you at the end of the beginning of your career when people don't know you we don't have reputation You don't have a bunch of you need the real you need something to demonstrate what's your style, your capacity, capabilities, and so forth.

1:23:53So Keith Farazee, folks who want to hire you to go speak. Yeah, Farazee Greenlight. Farazee Greenlight .com to ours, Tuesdays. Yeah, indeed. Awesome, and they can follow you on what social media? LinkedIn's probably best. Amazing. Thank you for this gift. Thank you for the gift you gave me a decade ago that launch, I'll never forget where we, you know, that lunch sitting outside and you were so generous in teaching me these ropes that we've now conveyed on. It changed my life and it truly was a rising tide. I hope it is for many others. Yeah, good paid for. Thank you. Cheers.

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