How To Present With Power In Any Situation

Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast. Today you get to listen in as Dan Kennedy and Brian Tracy discuss their experiences with speaking on stage, including the key principles and techniques that they adhere to. Now, as they talk, you're going to learn about Brian Tracy's extensive past. You're going to understand what they both agree on as far as when do you actually find confidence in your craft? How do you work in persuasion and humor? How much research should you be doing as a speaker? And lastly, the closing techniques that you will find masterfully effective.

I don't think there's anybody that has had a bigger impact in the field of direct response than Dan Kennedy. The legend of Dan Kennedy should be ignored at your own peril. They're not really lessons, they're kind of laws that you live by. Dan opened my eyes to what small business marketing looks like. Dan teaches strategic direct response that is timeless. His ripple effect touches people who don't even know his name.

The world as we know it was Things changed because Dan Kennedy became obsessed with marketing.

Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with your host, Dan Kennedy.

Well, hello, Gold Plus members. This is Bill Glazer bringing you another one of our monthly Gold Plus telecoaching calls. This month I'm really pleased to tell you that we have a real true expert on the line with us. Brian Tracy is on the line with us. In just a moment I'll be telling you a little bit more about Brian. Although it's hard to believe that all of our members aren't familiar with him already. Also on the call with us as usual, Dan Kennedy has joined us as well. A little bit about Brian Tracy. For over the past 25 years, Brian Tracy has delivered nearly 5,000 speeches and seminars to more than 5 million people in 46 countries. He's a celebrated and respected expert on sales management, sales management leadership, business strategy, and individual development and achievement. Brian certainly knows. He really has a lot of charm on the stage. He knows how to engage people, influence people, and motivate a real crowd of people on the stage. What we will be talking about today is his most recent bestselling book that he came out with which is called Speak to Win: How to Present with Power in Any Situation. Mean in any situation. We will get into that a little bit today on this call. So welcome, Brian Tracy.

Well, thank you. It is a pleasure to be with you guys.

Welcome, Dan Kennedy.

Hello there.

I guess we ought to first start off by saying that the two of you actually have spoken several times on the stage together. I know Dan, I would assume predominantly on the Success Seminar Tour, correct?

Yes, more times than either one of us would care to recall.

Let's get into the topic of this book because I think it's going to really pique a lot of the interest of our members, especially when I want to be very clear and start off by talking about the fact that this is not just going up and speaking 10,000 people in a success seminar. This is also to be able to speak really even one-on-one, I think as Brian would attest in just a few moments. Brian, after 25 years of delivering talks around the world, what first motivated you to devote a book to teaching others the secrets of successful presentation on Speak to Win?

I had begun studying the whole craft of speaking. When I became a speaker. I did something that very few people do. I went out and bought every book I possibly could on professional speaking and I read them. I made notes and underlined them. Sometimes I would read a whole book and get just one idea. I find that most people in most fields don't study their craft. I studied my craft. Then I started taking coaching from a professional who had taught actors on the London stage for 150 plays. I took about 14 years of coaching. Every year I would have my talks critiqued, which was very painful, but gradually become just a little tiny bit better around the edges. The interesting thing about speaking is you can't see yourself, and unless you are open to feedback— and most speakers are so hypersensitive they can't take any feedback at all— so I would say, "Give me your best shot. Tell me what you see." Some of the things that they said were hurtful. But they made me smarter. So after 25 years I thought, "Well, if anybody knows how to do this better than me, I don't know. I'm sure there are, but I'll take everything that I've learned, everything I've read, everything I've practiced, everything that I've been taught from coaching and I'll put it all together in one place so someone else doesn't have to spend all that time learning these very important points." Yeah.

I think you make a really valid point because, you know, Dan, I've heard you oftentimes when people ask you a question as far as how to get good at speaking, your advice often is you really need to practice at it, which is exactly Brian's point.

Well, yeah, Brian's, and it's a broader point than just speaking. It is one of my most constant and bitter complaints about people is that they, as Brian said, they do very little to actually study the craft that they have chosen to have major impact on their income and their business either in preparation or on a continuous basis. He made a very important point that he kept at it for 14 years. It's not like lock yourself up for a weekend and read 20 books. I just had a conversation the other day with somebody who is starting a business and they are off to the races to run focus groups and they have read one book about how to run focus groups and off they go. They are, of course, woefully ill-prepared. Speaking, like many crafts, requires study and then, as you said, it requires practice. It's real hard to get good at it unless you go out and get bad at it first and then work your way toward good. I think every good presenter has had that experience.

Well, in keeping with this whole topic, I mean, Brian, I'd like to ask you, how can mastering this skill dramatically impact a person's career for their life?

Well, it's interesting. I teach this, that the greatest fear that people have, ahead of the fear of death, is public speaking. It comes back from early childhood when they were told to shut up or smacked and things like that. So they have a fear of speaking. What this does is it leads to hypersensitivity to the opinions of others. What happens is these two fears, the fear of public speaking and the fear of rejection, are on the same circuit. And if you can short-circuit one, you can short-circuit the other. So when you learn to speak on your feet, you become far more confident one-on-one. And it's interesting, if you look at top politicians, you'll find that top politicians have two characteristics. I studied this for years. Number one is they're good on their feet. They speak confidently in front of an audience. But number two is they're really good one-on-one. They're very effective interacting with individuals. If they lack either one of those, they won't succeed in the long term. What happens is when you learn to speak on your feet, you actually become more confident, you become more relaxed, you become less sensitive to the opinions of others in your day-to-day life, which takes about probably 98% of your life. So it's very helpful. And can anyone learn to be an excellent speaker? Well, I always say that most people give their first public speech loud and at the top of their lungs just after being born. And after that, it's downhill. They did it naked in a room full of strangers. And from then on, it's downhill. So everybody can speak. Everybody knows how to speak. And I say it's very easy to learn how to speak. I said, imagine somebody pours hot coffee in your lap. I said, you will find yourself, you're a very articulate speaker. Maybe colorful as well, but enthusiastic, direct, pointed, everything else. So everyone has the ability. It's just a matter, as Dan says, is you have to hone it. You have to work at it. You have to be prepared to make mistake after mistake after mistake. One key point that I learned in the last couple of years—I keep coming across these neat points—is that you do the thing and the skill comes afterwards. And it's very important to understand that. You don't wait until you feel like, "I got it." You just do with what you have and the skill comes as a result. If you wait until you have confidence, you'll never have confidence. So you do with what you have and the courage comes afterwards. It always comes after you've engaged in the act.

Well, you know, it's interesting. I'm probably going to go someplace that I should not go with this talk, but it's interesting. We're recording this shortly after the Republican convention, and there was a fairly substantial shift in the polls post-convention. And now we're going to be getting into the debates between the politicians. And to your point, Brian, you know, You said that speakers need to be able to speak confidently, politicians, and also be able to speak one-on-one. I would venture to say that the election is so close right now. By the time we actually release this call, they might have already had a few debates, but the election is so close right now, I'm sure that the election could very well be determined by how the politicians do sort of on their feet at these debates. I mean, every day, and I know politics is a great passion of yours, I mean, what's your take on that?

Well, I think first of all, we've sort of— we, with each successive election, we disintegrate into making the decision more like American Idol than hiring someone qualified to do the job. And people make a great deal of their judgments based on assessment of style rather than substance. Almost like you can say the same thing to a dog in 3 different tones of voices and the dog reacts to the tone of voice. It doesn't react to the words because it can't comprehend them. Human audiences have that characteristic as well. And so, you know, Brian's point about This leading to immunity to criticism, confidence, and the way that you carry yourself and put yourself across whether one-on-one or on stage is extremely important. It's a great benefit that comes from forcing yourself to become a good public speaker whether to 10 or 2,000 people. 100,000 is it improves everything else that you do to communicate. I think, as you say, you saw after the Republican convention a significant shift in the general polls, not as significant a shift in some of the state-by-state positions that are critically important because of Electoral College, but you saw a significant shift in in the major polls and the general polls. And a lot of that was style more than it was substance. That's not to suggest that you should run around with no content and nothing important to say, but that style is extremely important and getting to the point that you have a style you're comfortable with and can use that is also effective. And so, when you— Brian has already named, he studied actors from the stage, professional politicians, and professional speakers and drawn from all three of those sources to put together his persona on stage and the way that he presents. I could give you a similar list. The other point I would quickly make I want to make is in addition to the fact that this improves you, the two great sources of authority with people that give you great influence, that give you, if you will, license to influence, one is speaking because as Brian said, it is doing something everybody else is fearful of doing. So the very fact that you get up there and don't disintegrate in front of them and perform capably. It buys you a lot. It's sort of instant power to influence and authority. And the other is being the author of published books. And hence, Brian has— I claim to be prolific. But Brian writes a book I think every 3 weeks and you could fill a room with his and he does it for a very important reason. So these are the two paths to having great authority with people and that's another very good reason to make a point of getting good at this.

Well, in keeping with this theme of authority, Brian, you know, You take a lot of space in this book talking about persuasion. I would like to ask you a question specific to persuasion because it links to this whole topic of authority. Why should persuading an audience be a speaker's top priority number one? Then linked to that, how does this apply, this whole notion of persuasion and talking, linked to not only speaking from the front of the room but every time you communicate with somebody? Many of our Gold Plus members have no interest in necessarily going up on a stage and speaking, but they really do need to have good presentation skills. So can you sort of tie that whole thing in together for us?

Well, it's interesting. Daniel Goleman, who wrote the book Emotional Intelligence, was interviewed by Fortune magazine and asked after the book and the concept was very popular that EQ is more important than IQ in success. He was asked what's the most important quality of emotional intelligence, and he finally admitted, he had to be pressed, that It is the ability to persuade others to behave in a way that they would not have behaved in the absence of your persuasion. And you must be very clear about that. The whole purpose of public speaking is to encourage people to act in a way that they would not have acted in the absence of your talk. And so, you know the old saying, "Start with the end in mind." When I interview with a client, I always ask what is called the objective question. It's my objective question. And it's amazing how effective this is. I'll say, "You know, we've spoken and I've checked them out on the internet and I've read their material." I'll say, "Now let me ask you a question. If you could interview the people leaving my talk and ask them this question, 'What did you learn from this talk and what one action are you going to take immediately as a result?' What would you want them to say?" And whenever I ask that question, it's almost always on a conversation, sometimes it's on a conference call, there's dead silence. On the other end? And I can feel the people looking at each other saying, "Geez." And sometimes they say, "Geez, that's a good question." I said, "Well, we have to agree on the end result. You're not bringing me in because of my good looks. You're bringing me in to do a job, to encourage people to act in a way that they would not have acted. So let's talk about that." And so we sit down and we just sort of wrestle with that question until we're absolutely clear. I want people to say that I am encouraged in this market and I am going to go out and work harder than ever before rather than allowing the negative news to discourage me. I say, great. If that's your goal, then I will design my talk from beginning to end so that at the end that's what people say. And it's amazing how that simple formula not only gets me the booking at whatever price I charge but gets me repeat bookings and it makes the clients happy. The clients are sitting there shining while I'm speaking. Because I am driving home a point that they decided they wanted to get across as a result of having me. Again, it comes down to persuasion. Peggy Noonan had a wonderful line. She was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and Ronald Reagan said, "Every talk has a job to do." Ronald Reagan might have said it the other way. I don't know. He might have said it both ways. But the thing is, that's true. So you have to say, what is the job this talk is meant to do? I remember Dan telling a great story about how he went off to speak and his sole reason for speaking was to sell his product, which is what we do. He gave a fabulous talk, got a standing ovation, walked off the stage.

Do you remember that, Dan?

Yes, I do.

He forgot to mention the product at all.

It was the first and last time.

Because he forgot that the point of giving a great talk is to set the audience up to be persuaded to do something, in this case to buy the products at the end of the talk.

Well, in keeping with your book Speak to Win, you also talk not only about persuasion, but you also talk about planning, which is a very critical part to having an effective speech. What sort of research do you recommend that a speaker routinely does in order to plan a good talk?

Well, I have people come to me, come to my office, Victor, and say, "I'm going to be the next Brian Tracy. I'm going to be a big speaker." I remember Victor saying, "No, you're not." I said, "What do you mean, no, I'm not?" Victor will say, "You're too lazy. You're not willing to do the work." You're not willing to do the reading. For myself, I read an average of 3 hours a day. Where do I get the time? Morning, evening, traveling, airplanes. I read about 3 hours a day. I read all the business magazines. I read 4 newspapers. I read 2 books a week. I keep informed. Most people are not willing to do that. They skate. About 80% or more, the 80/20 rule, but 80% of speakers are lazy. They try to get by with a few glib comments. They have one talk. I remember a top speaker, very well-known speaker, author, he had one talk and his talk was about 45 to 60 minutes and he was asked to do half a day. They said it was embarrassing. After 45, 50 minutes, and I watched this, I sat there in the audience, I couldn't believe it. I watched this, after 45 minutes he started to fall apart almost like a like an old car that was rusting out and the wheels started to come off. He repeated himself. He grasped. He stuttered. He was very good for his keynote talk, but after that he just had no substance. And it was embarrassing. People were walking out and leaving. The meeting planner had his head in his hands. I was sitting there and I was uncomfortable because he hadn't done the work. He had gotten by with one talk. And hadn't done the work. I know lots of speakers like that who are keynote speakers that can't go beyond an hour because they haven't done the work. So the preparation is really important. You must be continually replenishing your material, continually reading, studying, learning, keeping current with what's going on in order for you to sound like an authority. And here's the other thing is that— and I sometimes ask my audiences, I said, I said, "What's the most important single word that determines how much you earn, how much you sell, the quality of your life, your standard of living, the home you live in, the car you drive, and the schools that your kids go to in business? What's the most important word?" They were all stunned. I said, "I'll tell you what the word is. It's credibility. Credibility is the most important word." When you stand up there, your credibility is everything. If people believe you, then you can stumble along. Be a great speaker. Some of the great speakers that I've seen are people who just speak from their heart, but they have experience and they have knowledge of their subject and they just speak from their heart and they get standing ovations. And then there are other people who are smooth and glib and can talk like a swordsman just whipping that sword around, but there's no substance to their talk. It's just all fluff. So credibility is everything, and credibility comes from becoming an authority on your subject, being really knowledgeable about what you're talking about.

You agreed to share with us a couple of— sort of in keeping with this whole preparation theme, a couple of your kind of innovative memory tricks that you use. I mean, obviously, you know, I mean, as much as our Gold Plus members would like to think, we don't do a lot of preparation for these calls, so we're just sort of firing questions at you and you're just responding with great answers. Obviously you've sort of worked these memory tricks into any way that you communicate. Can you share a few of those with us?

Well, the simplest of all is repetition. I like to say I'm smart. People say, "You're smart." You should have seen my school grades. I mean, I failed out of school. What I found is that I'm not particularly smart. I speak French, German, and Spanish, but I spent thousands of hours studying the languages. I just repeat and repeat and repeat. I go over it and go over it and go over it. One of the best talks I ever did, which became an acclaimed talk, it was reproduced on video, distributed worldwide, got me more bookings than I could even count, I rehearsed it 50 times. I went over it 50 times before I actually gave it to 5,000 people, professionally recorded. That's the first thing. The second thing that you can use in terms of memory is a mnemonic. And the best of all is, I think it comes from Dale Carnegie or someone else, is you take the numbers from 1 to 10, and what you do is you go, 1, gun; 2, shoe; 3, tree; 4, door; 5, hive; 6, sticks; and so on. And then what you do is you mentally hook something to that. You say, 1, gun, and you see the opening coming out of a gun. So how are you going to open up? Just with a powerful shot, okay, to shoe. And shoe means you're going to transition into the next stage. So you think of the shoe. Is your shoe standing on a particular point or kicking a point or it's stuck in your shoe? And you keep that picture and you just keep putting these pictures. So then you go, 7 is heaven, 8 is gate, 9 is tine, like a fork tine, and 10 is hen. And with 10 points, I mean, you can do almost anything.. And what you do is you just keep associating them so that as you're going through your talk, you can say, okay, hen, sitting on a hen, sitting on a key point, sitting on a strategy, and you can remember the point that you were going to make and you can give your talk without notes.

Now, specific to a talk, I mean, I come actually from the world of retail and the first 18 years of my life I was on the retail selling floor of the family business. I knew that when a customer would come into the store, that very first impression was just so important to the success that I was going to have with what I wanted to accomplish, which was to have them get as much menswear as they could and me get as much of their money as I could. So we both had an objective.

Obviously you're a deep thinker. That's right.

Let's talk about the opening of a talk as far as how important is it opening of the talk to sort of make that first positive impression that you want to have with your audience or even in a one-to-one situation?

Well, it's interesting. I told you before that sometimes you read a whole book and you get one thing. Well, that's one thing I got from reading a whole book on speaking, 5 or 6 hours. It is sort of twofold, right hand, left hand. It's first of all to be likable. The most important thing you do in the opening of a talk is you be likable. They must like you. And second of all, build a bridge. And you build a bridge that hooks into their life, their work, their concerns. And so you think, how can I do this? Now the way that you be likable is real simple. You smile. I used to be very intense until I started getting coaching. And the coach said, you're too intense. Yes, but I think this message is important. And he said, "Yes, but it's more important to be liked." And so what I do now is I really slow down and I smile and I look around and I'm really happy to be here. I mean, wow, I'm happy to be here with you. I remember Gary Smalley used to talk about how the best way to approach a new person is to imagine meeting a friend on the street that you hadn't seen for 10 years. Who had been a really close friend at one time, your eyes would open up and you'd say, "Wow, it's you. It's you. Holy smokes, it's you. I mean, how are you doing?" So I try to think of that when I speak as I go onto the stage and I act like, "Wow, it's you. I mean, you're here. I mean, geez." So I always thank the people. I always congratulate them for being here. One of the first things I do is I tell them that, "You know, you're in the top 10%." of your field because you're here. Statistically, only the top 10% of people in any field will come to a seminar like this. Everybody else has excuses not to come, and you know lots of those people, and they start nodding their head. I said, so you're in the top 10%, statistically speaking. And then I say, now, some of you are folding your arms. I fold my arms. You're saying, well, if you knew how much I was making, you wouldn't say I was in the top 10%. And then I said, But remember, it doesn't matter where you're coming from. All that really matters is where you're going. And they all say, "Yeah, that's right." And so here we're 30 seconds into the talk and everybody's happy to be there. Everybody has been congratulated and praised for being in the top 10%. And I say, "Today I'm going to show you some ideas and techniques that will get you into the top 10% financially. Would that be a good idea?" And everybody says, "Yes." I say, "Well, then let's go." And so that sort of a thing. Sometimes I'll build a bridge and say, "Later on I'll sell." You know, I started off knocking on doors in the street myself just like you. And I eventually learned some of the things that I'll share with you today. So I'll try to build a bridge. If I work with a corporation, because I work with so many companies, I'll say, "You know, I've worked in this industry before and I know that some of the things in this industry that concern you are this." And I'll just rattle off a couple of the critical things happening in the industry. Competition, foreign imports, offshoring of jobs, high interest rates. In other words, and they'll nod and smile and say, "This guy really knows our business." So these are all the things that you do to build credibility and to be likable. The main thing is to smile. Be happy to be there.

Now, you know, a lot of people when they look at sort of from the outside in and they look at a speaker going up on a stage, they are kind of conditioned to think that they are going to be receiving in the audience like a joke to get started in the beginning of somebody's talk. Brian, what is your sort of take? What you just taught is sort of contrary to that thinking. What is your whole take on this whole idea of having a speaker start off with a joke in their presentation?

Well, there are a whole lot of rules there. First of all, don't tell a joke unless you are naturally funny. Some people are naturally funny and get up there like Bill Gove used to be, just brilliant at this. He would get up and he was just funny and everything he said was funny. Other people don't have that natural sense. So I used to always start off with a joke and sometimes 2 or 3 jokes, almost like a comedian, like a humorist. I go bang, bang, bang, one joke on top of another on top of another. And then I learned something. I said how you start determines how they take your message. So if you start off with humor, they expect you to be funny all day long. If you then go into your subject, and I speak on business and sales and leadership, if you then go into your subject, it's kind of like jarring for them. So I realized you can't have too much humor even if you're good at it. So I avoid humor in the opening and then I use humor throughout the day. Day sort of to, as what we call comedic relief, is I'll use humor to make points funny or to illustrate points. But I try to start off with just being kind of friendly and happy to be there and tell them one of the things I learned is building expectations. So I walk on and I say, you know, this is going to be a really great day. You're going to learn some extraordinarily valuable things that you can use to save yourself weeks and months and even years of hard work and getting to the same level of income. I'll open up just with that and everybody leans forward because why? Because that's what they want. They want to learn some valuable stuff. They want to know that they're not wasting their time here. So if the first thing you tell them is this is going to be a good use of your time, then it answers a question they have and then you tell them the benefits of listening and they lean forward like sunflowers in the sunshine. Then later on you can tell something funny. You know, I just arrived here, I was on the plane yesterday, somebody told me something, and I'll tell something funny which is sort of like brightens them up, causes them to smile, and then again you roll back into the subject.

Actually, I'm going to switch over to you, Dan, because I like, you know, when I heard you speak, and I've heard you speak many, many, many times, you oftentimes will you use humor in your talks as well. And how important do you find it is for actually putting humor into the talk?

Well, first of all, I think Brian's caveat—

I don't know that I would use the word naturally, but Brian's caveat that the worst thing to do is use humor badly and/or trot out stock jokes. Out of a joke book that you haven't made yours. Both of those things can be pretty painful for speaker and audience alike. I think it's pretty important. I would go back to the earlier point about how you open. There are lots of choices, but my profound working theory about this— actually, there are two. One is that differentiation is really important. My premises is that most people in most audiences have seen more bad speakers than good speakers and have suffered through more slow, fatiguing, irritating, time-wasting, painful presentations than they have experienced good ones. And so this management of the expectations thing, Brian mentioned, if you at all appear like those others that they have suffered with before, your bad start will affect the entire experience for everybody no matter how good your content is. I think the same thing is true selling one-on-one, by the way, that everybody has experienced more bad salespeople. Giving bad sales presentations badly than they have good salespeople giving good sales presentations effectively. And so their initial expectation is not great. And so some method, some means of differentiating yourself very quickly from all of their prior experiences is pretty important. Secondly, I viewed the speech like a sales letter. And so, I think there are headlines. I think there's then a couple of opening paragraphs to establish rapport and get people moving forward. And so, I view the speech sort of the same way. Humor is harder than probably any other type of content, but it is very useful in so many different ways. It can help make people like you. It can relieve pressure building up to or at point of actual— now asking for action, asking them to buy, for example. And so speaking on the platform personally and selling. I always injected some humor right at the bridge point of moving into the "commercial" to sort of relieve the "Uh-oh, here it comes" response to that. I think self-deprecating humor, not overdone to the point that you make yourself out to be a buffoon, but self-deprecating humor is helpful. It allows people to identify with you and accept you. Going back to your political thing earlier, most people, perhaps incorrectly, prefer a politician that they believe in some way or ways is like them as opposed to not like them. That again may be a very poor way to choose the CEO you're going to put in charge of the country, but nevertheless it is how most people respond. And so humor is a way to make yourself like them, to come up with sort of what I call shared experience humor, things that everybody has experienced. Perhaps been embarrassed by or made mistakes with so they can connect with you. I don't think you need to be a stand-up comedian delivering one jab after another. In fact, some of the best humorous speakers— Brian will remember a very well-known humorist in the national Speaker:Q] I had a friend who was in the National Speakers Association for many years who finally got a shot on Carson. Everybody in our world viewed him as the funniest guy on the planet. He died like a dog on Carson because stand-up comedy versus comedy in a seminar room with a friendly audience and the time to develop rapport and develop material are two entirely different different experiences. But I think everybody, whether selling one-on-one or in group, can find ways to use it and ought to have some humorous material in their toolbox. And again, humorous material that they've gotten very comfortable with. If it's a joke, they've reworked that joke to be theirs, to be their story. They have memorized it. They have practiced it so that they're not awkward with it at all. They appear now to be natural.

But, you know, what you just said is very important and I learned this many years ago about the bridge between the talk and the sales talk. What you said was and what I learned was always bridge with humor. Keep a really funny story. In the back of your mind that links into the product in some way. And then just tell the story and when people laugh and the laughter comes up like a wave, as the crescendo of laughter dies down, you shift like a gear into your sales presentation. I've done that for years which has enabled me to sell many millions of dollars worth of product. From the stage, but always with the laughter. The worst I've seen, and I've seen really top speakers do this, is they're going through their talk and they'll just basically almost like stop and in the middle of the paragraph start talking about their product. The audience is jarred, almost like clang, it's jarred and the presentation comes off not as smoothly and not as persuasively as if you would start it with humor. Humor. So that's a really good point, Dan. I really agree with that. That's why I always save what I know is to be guaranteed laughter. I say, "You know, this reminds me of a story," and I tell the story as I bridge.

You know, Brian, one of the reasons, if not I hate to say it, the main reason why I'm recommending all of our Gold Plus members pick up a copy of your book, Speak to Win, is because it not only addresses how to speak to delivering a message to a crowd, but you do a great job in talking about how to deliver a message to colleagues, to small meetings, really just in everyday conversation. Again, getting back to my point I made before when I was a sales guy on the selling floor. So what I'd like you to do, if you would, is just take a few minutes and talk about the differences between delivering a presentation to a large crowd of people as opposed to just like a small intimate group of people?

Well, Peter Drucker once said that there are 3 tools of the executive. The first tool is the written letter and the command of language. There are some people who teach people to write really effectively. They know the words, they just don't know how to write effectively. The second is the one-on-one conversation. And the third is the small group presentation. He said these are essential tools that the executive must master in order to fulfill his or her potential. So the small group presentation, I always say remember that whenever you're in a meeting you're on stage. You don't realize it, but everybody's watching you and everyone is assessing you. And so I give a whole series of ideas. I even teach this in the seminar. Separate course, I say people who don't speak in a meeting are presumed to have nothing to say. And this is not the impression that you want to leave because many people sit there quietly thinking that they're, you know, just keeping their peace, but what happens is other people consider them to be irrelevant. Another thing is you speak up within 5 minutes of the meeting. And the third thing is that the person who asks questions has control. So the very best way way to persuade in a meeting is to ask good questions. If it's your meeting, it's a different thing. If it's your meeting, then you plan it. And you always plan it with an agenda. And you plan the points so that you go through the points one at a time. And you think through what you're trying to accomplish. Many people just rush into a meeting and say whatever comes out of their mouth. But professionals think it through and they set the stage and they ask questions. And they save the critical point until a little bit later. And then they bring it up and they kind of lay it out there. And then they get opinions. And then they kind of push forward toward getting a conclusion. Again, they look upon the meeting as an opportunity to persuade. So thinking about meetings is really important. So one of the questions I ask, and it's one of the great questions, is I'll ask the audience, and this is a great tool by the way with the audience. I'll say, by the way, I said, what is the highest paid work in this industry? Or what is the highest paid work in America? Or what is the highest paid work that you do? Prephrase the question. The answer is the same. And of course they will grasp at it. And I'll say finally, I said, the answer is thinking. Is thinking is the highest paid, most important work that you do, because the quality of your thinking largely determines the quality of everything that happens to you. The quality of your decisions, the quality of your actions, the quality of your results. It's thinking. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you some I'm going to give you some thinking tools. Like a craftsman has tools in his toolbox, I'm going to give you some thinking tools that enable you to think better. Because the only difference between top people and average people is top people think better than average people. It's just sort of a wonderful transition. Then I'll go and I'll talk and I'll give tools, ideas, techniques like the ones that Dan teaches in entrepreneurship and copywriting. People really respond well to that. Sometimes I will say, "And of course you are some of the best thinkers in America because you are here." So I keep complimenting the audience.

Well, I have one more question that I would like to ask you and then I am going to let you go because you have been very gracious with your time. But before I do that, I want to make sure all of our members know how they can get a copy of your new book, Speak to Win: How to Present with Power in Any Situation, as well as all the resources that you make available. Available. So why don't you give out information where they can get a hold of your resources and certainly get a hold of your new book?

Well, thank you for that sweetheart question. You can come to my website, BrianTracy.com, and you can get the book there. We match the same prices as Amazon. Also, we have free newsletters, newsletters on sales and time management and personal success and so on. And a whole bunch of other stuff. So come to briantracy.com or you can get the book on Amazon or at Barnes Noble or any bookstore.

And again, I highly recommend this book because there are a lot of books out there on teaching people how to speak, but what I love about this is how to present with power in any situation, not just getting up in front of the room. But let's talk about this last question, which many of our members do actually. Speak from the platform. They speak to sell. Give us a couple of examples of closing techniques and tactics that you actually find most effective that leaves the audience with having to take action.

What I do when I sell from the stage is I will tell a joke, as I said, a guaranteed joke that really sort of links in. And then I will say, "And by the way, I've brought some programs here for you today. And because this is Grand Rapids or Chicago or I haven't been here for a year, today they're all free." I just state that strongly. Today they're all free and I leave it hanging in the air. Well, of course, the most popular word in any language is the word "free." So everybody, first of all, laughs. And then they lean forward and they say, "I wonder." I'll explain to you what I mean by free in a couple of minutes. It's a Chicago type of free, and if that doesn't scare you, nothing else will. And then they all laugh again, but they're all thinking about this free, free. So then I'll start my presentation and I'll start talking about the programs. What I do with each program is I give a specific story or benefit. That someone has gotten from listening to this program because that's what people link to. It's amazing. They'll come to me, "Which is the program where the guy was struggling and then he did this and increased his income?" Well, that was that program. So always link every single product with a story that is a story that a member of the audience wants to happen to them, to be more successful, to be thinner, to be happier, to have more confidence, to manage their time better, set better goals and so on. And then once I've done the presentation, I'll say, "Now let me explain to you what I mean by free." And then I say that these programs are unconditionally guaranteed for 1 year. You can take them, look at them, listen to them, try them out. If for any reason you're not happy, within 12 months you can give them back and there's no charge. So what we do is we give you a 100% return on investment guarantee. We say that if the programs don't more than pay back their investment and turn out to be free in your estimate, you can give them back. We don't want you to keep them unless you're happy. All you have to do is take them, listen to them, try them. There's no restraints. You can just say, "I didn't like it," send it back, and there's no charge. Then I'll say, "Now many of you are probably asking, 'I wonder how many he gets back?'" I say, "Well, I'm very happy to tell you we get very few back." I'll stop, pause, silence, and I'll say, "But of course we move a lot," which cracks them all up. They all laugh. "We move a lot." Then I'll go into the pricing and I'll walk through the pricing. Once I finish the pricing, I'll come back and I'll face the audience directly and I'll say, "Look, if ever you're going to get these programs, get them here and get them now. You'll never get a better price. You'll never get a better guarantee. You'll never get a better deal." "If you're not happy with the programs, you can send them back. But don't delay. Get them here. Get them now while supplies last because we don't have enough for everybody. Okay, let's take a break." Boom. We sell out over and over again with that simple presentation.

Well, that's terrific. I guess we've probably got a couple dozen Gold Plus members that are jotting that down and they'll be using that exact same closing. Of course.

Just ask for the order. But here's another thing. Tell them, as Dan has said over and over again, I think Dan's got some of the best ideas I've ever read. And it was Dan's concept of mega credibility many years ago that was a real eye-opener to me. You need credibility to get a hearing. You need mega credibility to get a sale. I still remember that. And tell them what you want them to do. Don't say, you know, programs are available. Say, go to the back table. Get your credit card out. Fill out the form in your materials. Tell them exactly what you want them to do. It's astonishing if you don't do that, they'll come up to you at the stage and say, "Do I buy the products here?" You say, "No, you don't buy the products here. I'm management, not labor. You buy them at the back of the room." But the reason for that is because I neglected to tell them. So be very specific in the close and tell them exactly what you want them to do.

Brian, again, I thank you very much. Is there anything that you'd like to sort of leave our members with before you jump off this call?

Yeah, there's something that's really important, and I, myself, Dan, other people are kind of obsessed with this, and that is the importance of continuous learning. We all start off with very little in life. We don't have any money. We have poor educations. We start off broke. And then what happens? Well, what you find is that people who are successful are people who continue to learn and apply new information. And they go from rags to riches. So one of the things that we emphasize is dedicate yourself to lifelong learning. Keep learning new materials. Keep getting the materials that Dan supplies. Subscribe. Attend courses. Listen. Read. Because your rewards on the outside will be in direct proportion to your preparation on the inside. Never stop learning. In the 21st century there is not an income gap; there is a skills gap. What people need is practical skills that they can use to get better results in their own life. The only way you can learn that is by learning and learning and practicing and practicing. That is what I would pass on to our members. Every single day you breathe in, you breathe out, you brush your teeth and you learn and learn and learn. The difference it can make in your life is extraordinary. Very, very much for your valuable time today. Well, thank you, Bill.

Thank you, Dan. Thank you for listening to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with Dan Kennedy. If you love hearing in on these lost Dan Kennedy talks and speeches and calls, then please let someone else know about this podcast. That's how you can help it to grow, and the more it grows, the more free Dan Kennedy we can bring to you. Also, Dan would love to give you the most incredible free gift ever, designed to help you make maximum money and in minimum time. This free gift comes with almost $20,000 in pure money-making information for free, just for saying maybe. You can get this gift from Dan right now at NoBSLetter.com. Not only do you get the $20,000 gift, you also get a subscription to 2 marketing newsletters that will be hand-delivered by the mailman to your mailbox each and every month, one from Dan Kennedy and one from me, Russell Brunson. To get this gift and your subscription, go to NoBSLetter.com right now.