"Two things have to be true: one, you have to offer enough value so that they're paying attention. And two, you've got to communicate that value in a believable way, either through a third party or somebody they trust or you directly."

It might be cliché, but it's still true: speaking is a relationships business. If you want to be a successful speaker, you have to invest in building relationships every single day — with event planners, with industry leaders, and with other speakers.

This week, Grant is sitting down with Mo Bunnell to talk about how to overcome some of the most common obstacles that speakers face in making connections — being "too busy," fearing rejection, and more.

Mo recently wrote a book called Give to Grow about how to invest in relationships to build your business and your career, and he has a lot of practical advice that will help you get out of your comfort zone and start building relationships like a pro.

If you're struggling to get traction in your speaking business and you're looking for a spark to get things going, this might be the episode you need to hear!

"I'll be really bold on this. If somebody is thinking 'I'm too busy to do the next piece of work,' that is a massive excuse and you just need to flush it."

Looking for the highlights?

• 03:53 How to fall in love with the process of building relationships
• 07:08 How limiting beliefs can block speakers from achieving success
• 10:20 Why many speakers struggle with promoting themselves
• 15:23 How to maximize face time with key decision-makers
• 20:40 Ways to balance service with getting gigs in conversations
• 25:06 How to understand client needs and stated vs. unstated problems
• 33:01 Why you should reach out quarterly to maintain important relationships

Episode Resources:

• Mo's Website
• Give to Grow Book
• Give to Grow Live
• Get Free Speaker Resources
• Book a Call with The Speaker Lab
• Calculate Your Speaking Fee
• Join The Speaker Lab Community on Facebook
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
• Subscribe on Spotify

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we’re giving you a behind-the-scenes look at what coaching can do for speakers. 

Erick Rheam is hosting live coaching sessions this week! These sessions feature TSL students and real problems that speakers face in their businesses.

This episode features Molly Kennedy and Theresa Skaar. Molly focuses on shifting her demographics and finding new income sources, while Theresa focuses on overcoming impostor syndrome and selling herself with confidence. 

A few of their quotes that you might relate to: 

“I just turned 50 this summer, and I feel like, personally, I'm kind of evolving and growing. I feel like my reach can expand beyond education, although I love teachers. Again, it's kind of an easy space for me, but I also feel like I want to challenge myself to have a broader reach as well." - Molly Kennedy 

"I don't know if it feels audacious if it feels like so many people position themselves as an expert. And I'm like, you know, I don't know." - Theresa Skaar 

Want to skim the session? 

• 04:56 Why Molly loves what she does currently
• 08:09 Where she would like to transition into
• 12:52 Erick’s ideas on getting into a new market 
• 15:18 Molly’s final steps to make the shift 
• 18:51 Where Theresa feels like she’s lacking confidence 
• 22:27 How Theresa wishes people felt about aging
• 25:11 What Theresa hopes to accomplish with her work 
• 28:03 Erick advice on how to build confidence and show up as a pro

Episode Resources:

• Connect with Molly on LinkedIn
• Follow Molly on Instagram
• Visit Molly's Website
• Connect with Theresa on LinkedIn
• Follow Theresa on Instagram
• Visit Theresa's Website
• Get Free Speaker Resources
• Book a Call with The Speaker Lab
• Calculate Your Speaking Fee
• Join The Speaker Lab Community on Facebook
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
• Subscribe on Spotify

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“The key to any industry is not focusing or trying to sell to 98% of your market. You're only trying to sell to that very top percentage of people."

If you're a speaker looking to scale your business and add new streams of revenue, you might want to consider launching a high ticket offer. This week, Grant sat down with Bryan Harris to chat about the value a high-ticket offering can bring to your business, how to get started, and some tips on developing these offerings in your own business.

Thinking about what’s next for your business? A high-ticket offering just might be for you!

“Our mission is to make it almost impossible to fail at getting customers."

In this episode, they also cover: 

• 00:00 What do Bryan and his team do?
• 04:41 Why should people consider a high-ticket offering?
• 08:22 How do you think about finding your target market for this offering?
• 09:27 What can your business look like in practice?
• 13:33 How does support vary in you business and other places in your life?
• 19:11 What can you do to ensure your clients get what they need?
• 21:47 How do you continue to create value for your high-ticket offerings?
• 24:17 What does it look like to sell to your target market?
• 27:56 Book a free strategy session with Bryan's team
• 31:10 How can you leverage this as a speaker?

Episode Resources:

• Growth Tools Website
• Connect with Bryan on LinkedIn
• Follow Growth Tools on Youtube
• Follow Bryan on Twitter
• Free Strategy Session with Growth Tools Team
• Explore List Swap
• Get Free Speaker Resources
• Book a Call with The Speaker Lab
• Calculate Your Speaking Fee
• Join The Speaker Lab Community on Facebook
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
• Subscribe on Spotify

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"If you've got a working keynote that has structure that you've been honing for a while, you probably have the bones of a book." - Liz Morrow 

"If you are someone who is highly entrepreneurial and you feel like you really value having a lot of creative control over the end product and you don't mind doing the hard, you know, kind of manual work of putting all of those systems in place and really championing your book yourself, then self publishing could be a great choice for you." - Ariel Curry 

This week, Liz Morrow and Ariel Curry joined Grant to talk about the process of book writing for speakers. If you've ever thought about writing a book, this is the episode for you! Liz and Ariel have been at it as writers and editors for years, so they bring first-hand knowledge to the conversation about the process of writing and selling a book.

In this episode, Grant, Liz, and Ariel cover: 

• 05:31 What’s involved in building a platform to sell a book? 
• 08:34 Pros and cons of self-publishing vs traditional publishing.
• 12:53 How do you find angles to sell a lot of books? 
• 14:19 Why are speakers positioned uniquely to write great books? 
• 18:59 How does the book mapping process make a difference when it’s time to write? 
• 20:42 What is the structure you recommend to writing a nonfiction book? 
• 24:30 How do you use the book map to align your content as you write? 
• 29:31 Are there ways to use AI to make the book-writing process easier? 
• 32:41 Why should someone write a book? 
• 35:14 Final advice for people still on the fence about writing a book. 

"And these are people who have multimillion dollar businesses. They have 4 million Instagram followers. They've got multiple six figures of email subscribers. I mean, these are people who think would have all the justification in the world that they have something worth sharing, and they still worry, am I good enough?" - Liz Morrow 

"The quality of the idea matters because people want something that is surprising. People want something that is new, and it's really hard to define." - Ariel Curry

Episode Resources:

• Buy Liz and Ariel's Book - Hungry Authors
• Follow Hungry Authors on Facebook
• Follow Hungry Authors on Instagram
• Get Free Speaker Resources
• Book a Call with The Speaker Lab
• Calculate Your Speaking Fee
• Join The Speaker Lab Community on Facebook
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
• Subscribe on Spotify

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“I'm really passionate about solving the same problem that they're passionate about solving. I have a unique ability that I'm willing to share."

How do you write your own story and become the speaker you've dreamed about being? 

This week, Brittany Richmond and Jake White are answering that question and talking about when to scale your business, how to find your niche, and so much more.

“If you want to accelerate faster, then you need quality time with the people that buy what you offer. I need to partner with the perfect match, learn their language, how they're funded, what problems they have, whenever they book us, what are the hurdles they have to go through? And however it can make it so easy for them to bring us in, that's part of my learning curve."

During this episode, you'll hear about: 

• 00:00 Jake’s background and the road to speaking
• 06:00 Jake’s story of founding Vive18 
• 08:54 How Jake met his co-founder
• 12:53 What it means to create your own story
• 14:08 The power in living your message 
• 18:05 Why you have to invest in your own career 
• 20:32 How to find your people in your industry 
• 24:34 Tips to accelerate your business and learning from the get-go 
• 28:16 How to create value for your customers 
• 32:55 What it looks like to support your decision-makers 

“If you build the community, then your people are going to continue using you because you are the hub and where to go."

Episode Resources:

• Connect with Jake on LinkedIn
• Check out Vive18's Website
• Follow Vive18 on Instagram
• Subscribe to Vive18 on Youtube
• Connect with Vive18 on Facebook
• Follow Vive18 on TikTok
• Get Free Speaker Resources
• Book a Call with The Speaker Lab
• Calculate Your Speaking Fee
• Join The Speaker Lab Community on Facebook
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
• Subscribe on Spotify

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

 "Just show up and provide value and get to know us."

If you’re like most speakers, you’re probably wondering about AI. How should you use it? Should you be using it at all? And how do you make sure your authentic brand and story doesn’t get lost in the process? 

This week, Pat Flynn is answering all of those questions and ALSO diving into what it's like being an event planner. How do event planners look for speakers? How do they make final decisions? Check out the full conversation! 

"Short form video is like handing out Halloween candy, right? You have people coming to your house, you hand out candy, they move on to the next one. That's just people swiping, and when they move on to the next house, they kind of forgot about you already."

Grant and Pat also talked about:

• 03:22 What does your speaking business look like to date?
• 08:05 How does the format of content change the way it’s consumed?
• 11:06 What kind of prompts get you the best results when you use AI?
• 13:17 Why should someone consider using AI in their business?
• 20:07 When did you get into hosting events and what did that first one look like?
• 25:45 How do you think about finding speakers for an event?
• 29:12 Why showing up the spaces you want to be in matters.
• 31:26 Tips to get on event planners radars.
• 34:43 From an event planner, what makes a great speaker?
• 36:54 How do you build credibility with speakers before you make your selection. 
• 40:20 Why it’s important to maintain quality relationships with other speakers.
• 44:10 Why the story you tell yourself matters, and how to change the narrative. 

"When I first started, there were gatekeepers, there were people like, what are you doing here? Why are you trying to do this? And, like, who are, who are you to even do this? And I just, you know, just kept going and kept, you know, hitting that hammer across the value wall, and eventually, it broke, and people saw what I was actually here for, which is amazing."

Episode Resources:

• Visit Pat's Website
• Connect with Pat on LinkedIn
• Subscribe to Pat's YouTube Channel
• Get Free Speaker Resources
• Book a Call with The Speaker Lab
• Calculate Your Speaking Fee
• Join The Speaker Lab Community on Facebook
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
• Subscribe on Spotify

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“They used to be easy to spot, but they're getting better. They are getting more and more convincing at weaving their stories." 

This week, Grant sat down with Lauren Sergy to talk about a new (and very) convincing speaker scam and, more importantly, how to avoid falling for it! 

“No transactions are made, no contracts are signed. Unless you have a zoom, ideally a face to face Zoom call or a phone call. There must be a phone call. You have to make voice to voice contact."

Ready to jump into this episode? Here’s the layout: 

• 00:00 What does Lauren speak on.
• 04:13 When did Lauren start speaking?
• 09:06 What does Lauren’s business book like today?
• 12:11 How did Lauren build her speaking business? 
• 12:52 The mindset Lauren brings to fluctuating seasons.
• 16:09 Let’s get into this speaker scam… how did it come to your door? 
• 20:31 Beware of weird or unconventional payment methods. 
• 23:37 What has changed with modern-day scammers?
• 25:49 How to logically think about gigs at the moment.
• 30:56 Don’t forget to trust your gut and ask others if they have experienced something similar! 

“If you are in doubt, get a hold of the venue and double check with them and then understand how your payments work. If you want to be really safe with your payments, you could say, I will only accept payment by credit card."

Episode Resources:

• Visit Lauren's Website
• Connect with Lauren on LinkedIn
• Follow Lauren on Youtube
• Get Free Speaker Resources
• Book a Call with The Speaker Lab
• Calculate Your Speaking Fee
• Join The Speaker Lab Community on Facebook
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
• Subscribe on Spotify

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"We always recommend that people do not memorize their presentations verbatim. That results in just acting a little bit too robotic. Your audience can tell, and that's just not the best way to go." - Eric Silverberg

This week, Grant sat down with Eli and Eric, some of our friends from Speaker Labs (not to be confused with The Speaker Lab). Eli and Eric help speakers master the four pillars of becoming a world class speaker — content, delivery, visuals, and mindset — so that they can become exceptional communicators.

"When you share your idea, even if it's a known idea in the world, but you share it your way through your stories, your experiences, your unique creative analogies and metaphors, and interesting ways to package that idea, the audience may not have heard it your way, and that allows you to feel confident, to show up and say, I may tell you something you already know, but I'm certainly going to tell it to you in a way that you haven't heard it before, because I'm telling it to you my unique way." - Eli Gladstone

In this episode we cover: 

• 05:12 How Eli and Eric built this business
• 06:21 What Speaker Labs does 
• 10:28 The difference in good and great speakers 
• 15:02 What makes a great presentation
• 18:41 How to improve confidence as a speaker 
• 21:53 Understanding the E’s of engagement
• 23:52 How to read the audience and develop a knack for making last minute tweaks 
• 26:59 Let’s talk about slides and visual aids
• 28:51 How to think about slides + some tips and tricks 
• 34:06 The importance of mindset in public speaking 
• 38:05 How to confront and overcome fears
• 39:11 Tips to overcome impostor syndrome as a speaker 
• 42:32 The most important question to ask yourself about your message

"Eli came up with an amazing analogy once that has to do with the GPS systems. You know, when you're in your car and you're using waze or Google Maps or whatever, and then there's a voice that speaks to you, and they tell you what to do. They tell you, in 400, you know, or in 4 miles, turn left, and in 3 miles, turn right. But here's what the GPS doesn't do. The GPS does not say, turn left, go straight, go straight, go straight, go straight, go straight, go straight, go straight, go straight, go straight, turn right, go straight, go straight, go straight, go straight. That's way too much, right?" - Eric Silverberg 

"I try to get them to think about playing with the levels of altitude of that idea. You may not change your message, this is your message. But once you understand the most abstracted version of that idea, you now understand the language that could speak to the most people." - Eli Gladstone

Episode Resources:

• Connect with the Speaker Labs
• Follow Speaker Labs on Instagram
• Follow Speaker Labs on LinkedIn
• Get Free Speaker Resources
• Book a Call with The Speaker Lab
• Calculate Your Speaking Fee
• Join The Speaker Lab Community on Facebook
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
• Subscribe on Spotify

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"There is so much value in saying no because not every event is the right event for you." 

This week, Brittany Richmond sat down with Nathan Wray, an inspirational speaker who speaks on teen mental health and substance misuse prevention. Together, Brittany and Nathan dig into dozens of practical topics including recovering from rough feedback, showing up for and supporting event planners, finding direction in your career as a speaker, and more!

"So I'm going to go as far as I can go to help an event organizer to make sure that they're successful. And if that includes setting up 300 chairs at 01:00 in the morning, then I'm gonna do it."

In this episode, Brittany and Nathan get into: 

• 04:49 Who does Nathan serve and what’s his message? 
• 08:00 How do you take feedback on your message and build something better?
• 10:58 Nathan’s turning point for storytelling.
• 15:41 The importance of community in the speaking world. 
• 16:58 Why you should say no to some events
• 20:05 What to focus on as a speaker?
• 24:32 Why your superpower matters and will shape the way you show up.
• 26:59 The importance of pre-event meetings.
• 30:20 Why making the whole event a success matters.
• 35:09 How to support decision makers and event planners. 
• 37:01 Why showing support and value changes things. 
• 42:53 What the speaking community is like. 
• 44:10 How the audience impacts us as speakers. 
• 49:52 Where to find Nathan and our hope for every aspiring speaker out there! 

“I reshaped the whole thing, and then I went and delivered it at a school, and it was the first time that kids came up to me afterwards and were like, can I take a picture with you? Can I tell you what happened to me? Can I tell you my story? Can I ask you a question? And that's when I knew, like, okay, I don't have it where I want it, but I'm on the right path."

Episode Resources:

• Connect with Nathan on Facebook
• Connect with Nathan on LinkedIn
• Follow Nathan on TikTok
• Get Free Speaker Resources
• Book a Call with The Speaker Lab
• Calculate Your Speaking Fee
• Join The Speaker Lab Community on Facebook
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
• Subscribe on Spotify

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“I feel like I've always been Reggie's administrative assistant with our life. So it was kind of a natural transition just to slide into that.” - Patrice Wright 

This week, Grant sat down with not 1, but 2 lovely guests to chat about building a speaking business with your spouse! You may remember Dr. Reggie Wright from Episode 471 last fall, but this week, we’re hearing from him AND his better half, Patrice.

“My first year as a full time speaker, I wanted her to resign. I wanted her to retire the first year and come on board as my COO. And that was a little bit of some tension there, because she wanted to kind of wait and see how things would play out, and that kind of put some stress and strain on things." - Reggie Wright 

Grant, Reggie, and Patrice get into: 

• 00:00 Where does the story of Reggie and Patrice start?
• 04:31 What’s your history of supporting each other in your marriage?
• 06:24 When did you start using help to scale your business?
• 10:56 What point made sense to put more time and energy into the speaking side of things?
• 14:59 Where was the tension in the decision of Patrice still holding down a full-time job?
• 16:36 How did Patrice know it was time to make the jump?
• 20:57 What habits/thought patterns/routines do you instill to focus on your family and marriage first?
• 24:37 What are some examples of setting boundaries around your time?
• 27:01 How do you balance work and rest and each other’s work ethics?
• 31:10 Reggie’s reflection on the growth process to build a business like he has
• 34:15 What should you think about before picking a support system?

“I would not be half of what I am right now if it wasn't for my wife." - Reggie Wright 

"Knowing my own worth and value and knowing what I bring to the table helps me to never feel less than or never feel like, you know, he's up here and I'm down here. We're on an equal playing field." - Patrice Wright

Episode Resources:

• Connect with Reggie
• Get Free Speaker Resources
• Book a Call with The Speaker Lab
• Calculate Your Speaking Fee
• Join The Speaker Lab Community on Facebook
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
• Subscribe on Spotify

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.