2266 - Discover How to Leverage Speaking Opportunities for Business Growth and Impact with Speakers Gigs' Dannella Burnett

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1:05With us right now, Danella Burnett. Danella, you are the owner-founder of Speakers Need to Speak and Encore Elite Events. You are found on the web at speakergigs.com. Great domain name. Danella, thank you so much for joining us. I'm so excited to be here, Josh. Well, before we talk about what you do, and I suspect it's going to be a pretty popular topic on this show, given who we normally communicate with. But for you yourself personally, I always love, you know, finding out what, you know, high level leaders are into and kind of geeking out on lately. What are you geeking out on lately? Well, you know, I never get too far away from work.

1:49I actually love very much what I do, but I love travel. So I've actually been, you know, been able to travel recently some of uh business and mixing with the little pleasures i've been to costa rica lately i've been to the mountains of oregon and just this week we have planned a speakers cruise in the mediterranean for next year so a little it's personal but also a little bit of business i love all things travel all things good food um experiences are definitely my love language Mm. Why do you value experiences more so than an object or a thing necessarily? Like if we think about the things that we invest in that bring us joy, why do you prioritize investing in experiences?

2:38because the memory that's created from that is like it's not like anything you can take off a shelf or anyone else is going to have that same thing it's unique it's special to you when I do things I always go VIP when we're doing things with the kids and we even going to like Disney World or an amusement park like I love to do a VIP tour or something just to get that full, rich experience. If you're going to spend time in life, get the most out of it, like squeeze the juice. And I think travel allows you to do that, like experience new foods, new sites, shows. I love it. Yeah, it sounds good to me.

3:25Well, Danella, tell us a little bit about the work you do. Again, the website speaker gigs.com. Well, the website is super easy speaker gigs. If you want to share an opportunity with us, you're looking for a speaker, you can go to speakergigs.com. If you're a speaker looking for opportunities and we have services that we provide speakers. And that's not where I started in the world. I started actually in culinary arts and event planning and personal events. But that led to working with corporations and nonprofits and municipalities and events from 25 to 250 ,000 people. But I went to my own first speaker event in about 2004.

4:15And for me, it was like all of those things combined. What I love about the expert event space is it's the engagement of a personal event. It often has the feel good or the cause of a nonprofit. And then it's about business. It's about making money. I love impact, but if you don't match it with income, it can only go so far. And so I pivoted my business shortly after that into the speaker and expert space and worked for event hosts for many years. And we still do. We produce one day and three day enrollment events and summits for our clients. But we were matching speakers and events and speakers kept coming back to me going, that was great.

5:05Can I have another? And for a couple of years, I was like, we don't work for speakers. We work for the event host. But, you know, Josh, you're an entrepreneur. When enough people ask you the same question, it's often a good idea to go. Maybe I should do something about that. What is the problem? Do I have a solution? And if so, how so? And so Speakers Need to Speak was born in 2019. And so we serve coaches and speakers and business owners that want to leverage the power of the stage, getting on other people's stages or creating their own stage, their own event in order to grow their business, to maximize their impact, maximize their income.

5:50And I just love that I'm not the expert in everything, but if I can elevate experts, if I can get problem solvers further out into the world, then I have a little bit to play in making the world a better place. All right. Well, here's my question, Danella, million dollar question. If someone would like to do more speaking, how can you help them? What does it look like? Well, one of the ways is simply access. You know, prior to COVID, access was needed for speakers because often they didn't even know where to find the speaking opportunities. You know, you've been in the business for a long time.

6:33You know, it was a little bit of a closed door network. And, you know, a lot of things going on behind the scenes. And often you wouldn't even hear about an opportunity until it was full. Well, COVID kind of changed all that. Now we've swung to another direction where there's almost too many opportunities. So I think one of the services that we really provide for our clients is access to more opportunities. We have four to 5 ,000 speaking opportunities a month at our fingertips that me and my team update and share with our speakers. But then we also vet those and go through those so we don't overwhelm our speakers as well.

7:19We've never shared that entire list with our clients. No, thank you. Don't do that. If I handed you a list of 4 ,000 anything, what are you going to do with it? Absolutely nothing. Or be real sloppy and spam those people and do not do that. Oh, goodness, no. Goodness, no. We don't want to do that. So we used to like kind of vet through that list and we would give a smaller hot list to our clients. Well, now with the addition of AI, it's really exciting what we're doing now because now we use AI to actually match our clients to that full list, pulling the best opportunities from that list for our clients, and then filling out those pesky applications and doing that reach out on their behalf.

8:06So I like to think we're a nice mix between a program and service providers and an agency without some of the challenges that speakers might have had with agencies in the past. Yeah. And so for someone who's never hired an agency, Danella, what typically happens? They just kind of show up, you know, like, okay, get me some good gigs. And then they just kind of kick back and then they wait for the magic to happen? Well, that's what they would like to happen. And, you know, agencies, for the most part, have worked on percentages, which means they're only going to do their best work for their very best speakers.

8:55It makes it challenging for a newer speaker, somebody who's, you know, maybe got great value, but doesn't have as much experience. the reality is, is there are so many speaking opportunities today, looking for content, looking for value, smaller opportunities, opportunities to, you know, podcasts, summits, that we like to work with four to eight figure business owners. And we're not a percentage based agency. We're a flat fee agency, meaning we're going to do this work for you. And you're going to pay a flat fee and we want to encourage you to make money from every stage, to grow your list, to grow your leads.

9:41But we're not looking to take any of our clients stage money. So we have clients that double their list. We have clients that make tens of thousands of dollars throughout the year from speaking opportunities. We have clients who make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year off of speaking opportunities and filling their events. And we're not chasing our clients for a percentage. Yeah. The opportunities for paid speaking versus, no, you're not going to get paid, but if you got a thing going on, you can probably do a lot better. What's that world? What's that world like or that kind of race? I'm kind of being a little silly there, but this is my understanding.

10:26Like the paid speaking gigs, they're there, but I'll let you explain in that world. It's definitely changed and COVID and virtualists had a big part to play in that. You know, there used to kind of be this hierarchy and getting paid to speak was at the top of the mountain. And then a free opportunity or a pay to play or a sponsorship opportunity might be seen as a little bit dirty, if you will, or a little bit lower class. And really, I think that that hierarchy is gone now. One, the amount that companies and associations and organizations are paying keynotes has come down, law of supply and demand.

11:08There's more speakers and those opportunities can reach out for speakers more easily than they could before. So they're not paying as much and they're not paying as much for a keynote or a training that's virtual as they might've done in the past for an in-person. So that whole model has changed a little bit. And if you are an entrepreneur, a coach, a service provider, if you have programs and services, you often can make more money from an opportunity that's free that you can generate leads. And in that follow up, generate sales or where you're probably paying for the opportunity, but you're selling directly from the stage.

11:54So what I often teach our speakers is in order to be the most effective speaker today, if the opportunity has your audience, then you should be able to get a return on your investment of time, energy, and money by getting paid before, during, or after. And it's your responsibility as a business owner to know what those pathways are and to be prepared for them. So I don't turn down a paid opportunity, but I make a lot more money when I'm able to sell from the stage or if it's a free opportunity. And I know I can invite that audience to a masterclass or maybe to one of my upcoming events and sell them at that time.

12:41But every once in a while, I'll get an opportunity to get paid to speak. And if it's a good opportunity, that's great. But I do think limiting yourself to only one way to get paid from taking the stage really is limiting your opportunities today. Yeah. All right. Website, speakergigs.com. Do you share some next steps, resources? Where do folks go from here? Well, we'd love to have a conversation with you. It always starts with the conversation. Where are you? Are you a four-figure business owner that's just starting to take the stage? Maybe you're one of that 72 % of the population that's a little bit nervous about taking the stage.

13:26Like, what are some of the opportunities that are good when you're nervous about taking the stage? Look at interviews. If standing up and giving a presentation just gives you the heebie-jeebies, do podcasts or summits where you could do an interview. Most of us can have a conversation about what we're an expert on and not get nervous. So focus there. Maybe you are more comfortable doing a presentation and you're looking for corporate opportunities. Great. Know that that's what you're looking to do. And you need marketing materials that not only show your value to the audience, but your value to the entity that's writing the check.

14:10or maybe you know you want to sell from the stage, you want to fill your events, you want to fill your programs, you might need a little bit of training on how do you effectively sell from the stage because it's not quite the same as an individual sales conversation. When you do that from the stage, you're actually having multiple sales conversations all at the same time. So knowing where you're at, where you want to go, and then having a conversation with me and my team to see how we can support you getting there further and faster. Love it. Love it. Danella Burnett, your website, speakergigs.com.

14:54When you get there, click around. You'll see how to connect, Danella. Have a conversation. See what makes best sense for you. I encourage this. Danella, it's been a great conversation. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. Thank you so much for having me, Josh.

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