Speaking on Stage with Pete Vargas

Hi, everybody. I am so excited to be on here with you today. And I have a dear friend of mine, Pete Vargas, from Advance youe Reach, that is his company. And we are going to be talking to you today about the power of speaking. Getting on stages to share your message, to grow your business, to scale your business, which is my favorite topic. And I will tell you that speaking is the number one way that I have grown all of my businesses over the years, not just this one, but, I mean, in all kinds of industries. So if you have ever had an inkling inside of you that you have a message to share or you just want to ramp up the speed in which your business is growing and multiplying, then you definitely want to listen to this. This is going to be so powerful. So, Pete, how's it going?

It's good. I'm excited. And quite frankly, same thing with me. Speaking is absolutely the fastest way to get your message out there to grow your business. We have a common friend of ours, Roland Frazier, who we have a lot of respect for. He said, I've not found a safer, faster, easier, low, no cost way to generate anything from a few thousand dollars to well over seven figures in 30 to 90 minutes. This is a guy that said if he had to start his business, he would start it by using stages and speaking. And so you got this common thread of this very successful business guy, this very successful businesswoman, Allison, who I have so much respect for and is a dear friend and myself, who you don't know yet, but there's this common theme of stages to grow your business. So let's throw out the misconception of you've got to be a professional speaker and a road warrior and just get paid a fee. Let's throw that out. I want you to get paid fees, but I want people to have a different version or a different vision for it. Today, Alison is like, no, this is about growing your business. And there's no safer, faster, quicker way to do it than Stages.

Yeah. And so before we jump into that, because there's so much that we can cover here, I mean, I could talk about this all day long, and I know you can. And so Pete Vargas runs a company called advance youe Reach. And he's well known in the business community of the guy to get people on stages to help them build their signature talk, to help them to monetize that signature talk. And you've been on, what, how many stages over the years I put our clients.

So from 2003 to 2015, we worked with A handful of clients, and we put them on directly out of our offices. Meaning, like, I was the one and my team was the ones on the phone sending the email, sending the direct mail pieces. We put them on over 25,000 stages across the world, including Oprah, including, you know, The White House, YPOs, EOs, you know, every type of event that you can think about, we booked for those 13 years. And then three, four short years ago, we said, well, we got to go take this to the masses. And in 2018, we set a goal for your people to say, we want to help our students be on a million stages by 2027. A million. And that's not just a pretty infographic that we have. We track it in January of every year to see how many stages were our students on last year. We put that out in 2018. And in the last 18 months, our students have been on 47,000 stages using the methodology that we birthed over 15 years ago. So they 2X'd what took me 15 years to go. They 2X'd it in the last 18 months. And so there's something beautiful about compressing time because it's the only. Same amount of. The only thing we all have the same amount of, which is time. So.

Well, it's the power of intention too, right? And I was talking to our dear friend Michael Bernoff yesterday and he said something that it's got, it's got to become a non negotiable, you know, when it, when it's a non negotiable meaning it's going to happen. Like it's this intention that you set. And so, and I know, you know, you've had a journey. It wasn't always easy for you to get in front of people. And I know for myself, I used to be terrified. Pete, I don't know if I ever told you this, but I just had a lot of fear around speaking. I was one of those speakers that would practice like over and over and over and over and, you know, trying to memorize everything. And, you know, I spent many vacations walking around studying note cards, you know, just terrified. And, you know, or I remember one time I drank an entire bottle of Rescue Remedy because I was so nervous before a speech that I ended up walking out and going, ha. You know, like, because there's alcohol in there, don't do that. So I share this with you all because I think it's important to know it's normal to be afraid because it's something new that you haven't maybe haven't done before. And it's just from doing it, facing that fear and doing it over and over. And of course, getting the support from someone like Pete, it is. I love speaking now. It's like my most favorite thing that I do. Because when you're speaking and you're engaging with an audience, you're getting that direct feedback and direct connection and you're able to change people's lives in an instant. You know, you're able to share your message from your heart, be on stage there, look into people's eyes and see them being moved by what you have to say. And you're in an audience. You've got an audience of 100, 500, 5000 decision makers in that moment. If you were doing this online, which, you know, I think we can dive into the difference. This could take years for what you can have happen in an instant.

Yeah, no, it's. It's so true. So I think what happens with a lot of business owners or a lot of people who are watching this is they feel like this best kept secret and what happens is the, the online world has created us, created a space that has created this busy, bright shiny object syndrome. And so the very first guy that we started helping get on stages, his daughter was the first girl killed at Columbine back in 1999. He left. She left, left her father with six diaries and a paper called My Ethics, My Codes of Life. And it was her way of what she felt, how she was transforming the culture of her school. She wrote about it. So he read it. He surveyed her friends after her death. Not like, not, not like formally, but asked questions. And there was this common theme that Rachel would impact the culture of the school. So he started diving into her writings and saying, how did she do that? And as he started seeing how she did it, he wanted to take this message to the school system because he felt like if I could. And corporate, he said if I could convey her message in the education and the corporate market, I could change the school system, the culture, and I could change the corporate culture in America and in the world. The problem was he was trying a lot of bright shiny object syndrome things. He was trying this, he was trying that, he was trying this, he was trying that, like a lot of our people are. And so he was the best kept secret. Nobody knew who he was.

Such an important message, right?

Yes. And with the most such an important message. And so, long story short, Alison, you know the story. He came into my town. My dad heard him speak. It's what prompted my dad to write me a letter when I was 23 years old of asking forgiveness for the abusive dad that he was growing up to me. My grandmother took me away from my dad when I was in sixth grade because of what he was doing to me. And now at 23, I'm receiving a letter for the first time saying I'm sorry for the father I've been here. My son is having an impact on hundreds of kids lives and I can't have an impact on my only son's life. He asked me for a second chance to do things right and he told me for the first time in a long time he loved me. So all of a sudden this man's best kept secret message, that's the type of profound impact that it had on once he actually got it out there. Well, guess what? My dad heard him on a stage and it's what prompted my dad to write that letter. And here's what happened. I called him, I said, Darrell, for 15 years I've been trying different things to get my dad to make things right with me. And in one hour on a stage, you got him to take action. I want to get your message out to everybody across the world. And he said, well, let's. Okay. But here's what he had in common with a lot of people. He was trying all of these other things in a busy, noisy online world of competing with everybody. And I'm not saying that stuff's wrong, it's of the wrong timing. A business needs sustainability with revenues and there's no quicker way to generate revenues. I didn't say a following revenues in your business and stages. First stage, I put them on. Which took me a long time to figure out how to win my first stage. But it's kind of like the 4 minute mile. As soon as I won the first one, the tens of thousands of after that just became really easy. Very first stage, I put him on. He spoke on what I call a dream stage in front of his ideal customers. Here's where a lot of people miss it. Dream stage, ideal customers. He said, oh, I'm already doing that. I'm speaking to parents and students. I said, darrell, parents and students, although that's who you want to speak to, they don't control the budget or the calendar in schools. Superintendents and principals do. Oh, dream stages, ideal customers. They have to control the budgets and be able to say yes. First dream stage. I put them on 400 administrators. In the two weeks following that, we could not make any offer or any sale. There's in Corporate and education and that you can't make offers, you lead, collect by giving away a free gift. We lead, collected. We followed up with those leads. One stage, he did five times the revenues that he had done the 12 previous months from being on one stage for 60 minutes. The same profound impact he made on my dad in 60 minutes, he made on those customers in 60 minutes. And that was the start of him no longer being the best kept secret. Fast forward 13, 15 years later. He is one of the most known, most impactful programs in America, changing the educational landscape in America where 15 years ago nobody knew him. Why Stages, Alison? Completely Stages.

So powerful and so, so many ways. I mean, you know, it is. It's also what you said about getting on the right stages. Although I think in the beginning when you get started, just get on any stage just to practice, right? Get up, speak, speak. Speak to as many people as you can. I used to speak at, you know, mom's groups and clothing stores and record store. Like I spoke the craziest, you know, restaurants while they're serving dishes and you know, all that good stuff. But what you're teaching Pete is really getting people to, because your time is valuable, is figuring out who is that ideal audience. This is something we work with our clients on. And you might think that that's so easy. Well, it's not. And it's probably one of the top two most important things that you ever do in your business is that you're spending speaking to the right people. And that takes some creativity to figure out where are these people on stage. For us, it's speaking to business owners and generally high level business owners that want to scale their company. And once we figured that out that that was our sweet spot, things really took off. So it's the message and who you're speaking to to, right?

Yeah, completely. Completely. You know, one of the things, the message, I think everybody that's watching this has a message that they're trying to really make an impact on the world. And some of them right now aren't on stages maybe because they want to stay kind of just behind their computer. And what I would tell you is that the online space has never been noisier and busier than ever before. I had an incredible online market. Tell me, man, you're telling me like you can get 60 minutes of your content consumed in 60 minutes, meaning like over one hour. Yeah, that's why I call stages one hour launches, because on one stage it's like a launch for your business every single time where if somebody on the online space, if you get 60 minutes of your content consumed over the course of an entire year, that's an incredible thing. And a high probability that person's going to become a customer. The problem is, in a busy, noisy world, I'm probably never going to consume your content. But if you have me captive in an audience for an hour, in one hour, I consume your content and I'm very highly likely to work deeper with you. And so there's people out there right now that they're just trying to hide just in being online. And I'd really encourage you to kind of take a step out and think about what stages could mean to you. And then there's the other person who's just scared. They're afraid. And you know, you were afraid. I was afraid. I have a common friend who's become a dear friend of mine too. Michael Hyatt, he was afraid. And here's where a lot of the afraidness begins. It begins by the thoughts that are going on in your mind. And let me tell you the simple shift that Michael Hyatt's wife told him that I'm a big believer. And even before he was afraid on his very first stage, and she said, what are you thinking? And he was thinking about all of the things that were like, what are people gonna think about me? I was afraid because I was overweight. He was afraid, like, what are they gonna say? What if my PowerPoint doesn't work? What if this doesn't work? Like, all the thoughts were very self absorbed. All about yourself. And what everybody has in common is they know that they have a genius that can change people's lives. You know it. I've seen you. Like, you have a genius that just changed, that helps people scale their business. I have a genius that helps people use stages to grow their business. And when you can shift the thoughts from being self absorbed to audience centric around your topic, that alone just shifting your thoughts to say, I'm about to come out here and be responsible for a lot of people getting their message out on a bigger scale through stages because of what I'm about to give to all of those people in the audience, when I can shift my mind from it being all about me and I'm overweight and like, am I going to be sweating and am I going to be shaking?

Will they laugh at me, all of that thinking? Yes.

When you shift your thoughts, you now show up really powerful. It doesn't mean you're not nervous. I still take protocols to wear, like lavier, because I'll shake still. If I have a handheld, I'll shake. I'm still nervous, but I'm not in my head. There's a difference. You're nervous because you want to serve these people. And so listen, everybody has a message. You want to penetrate the online space and literally like no longer be in a busy, noisy world. Start beginning to be on more stages and start getting out of your own mind and into your customers. Like, get into their head and watch what begins to happen.

Alison, you know what, and I'm just going to talk straight to you, the audience here is that, you know, life is precious and you are born with gifts and these gifts are meant to be shared. And exactly what Pete just said is that stop making it about you and make it about those that you want to serve. That's what drives me every day. That's what gets me pumped up and excited. And it's all about being generous and giving back and lifting others up. I really feel at some point we all have to step up in leadership and share that message of transformation and whatever that is. And it doesn't. You don't have to be in the personal growth space. I mean, I've had speaking speakers on my stage that have owned jewelry companies and dry bar companies and, you know, fitness companies and in businesses that I've had in the past or clients of mine that are engineers that own staffing companies. All of you, can you have a message to share? And we live in a society today where you don't want to hide behind your business. Your customers want to know you and they make the decision to work with you, whether you sell tires or you're in the beauty business, about how they connect with you. And so this is your coming out party. This is your opportunity to really get out there and share this message. And Pete, you've got, you're going to make this easy for everyone because you have a workshop coming up that's totally free. And that's what I mean. Just like I'm so excited about, because I want everyone to know about this. Can you just share what you're doing?

Yeah, Allison, you know, over the next couple of weeks, and I know your, your team's including the link here, but we used to do this incredible workshop three years ago that we charged a couple of thousand dollars for. And so we've now taken that workshop, we've up leveled it and made it very much about today. And it's called the why Stages Workshop. And over the course of a couple of weeks, we only do this Once a year, there's not replays sent out of it like people consume the content real time. But we're going to make people no longer being the best kept secret, a reality. Last year, our class from last year that went through this workshop, like I told you, booked 47,000 stages. They no longer were the best kept secret. And this was when the workshop was rolled out last year. So this is the one time of year we're doing it. We're going to help them do three things really, really well, get clear on their message and understand how to communicate it powerfully without fear. In designing one incredible signature talk in their business. One great talk, one great talk will become the greatest marketing tool they have in their toolbox tool belt. The next 12 months, we're going to help them understand the eight offline and the eight online stages that they can be on and how to win those stages, literally how to win them. They will all have three dream stages identified in this workshop that they're gonna go after and know how to win. And then most importantly, we're gonna show them how to attract customers without ever feeling salesy, sleazy or slimy. So stages literally can become a 5, 6, 7, 8 figure customer acquisition channel for them in their business. That's what we're going to do in this workshop. It's going to be phenomenal. And I think there's this theme that today's taken and so I never share the story, I've only shared it once. But Alison, you probably know this, but the wealthiest place in the world is the graveyard. It's where messages and dreams have not been told. And Prince EA has an incredible video that says most people die at 25, but aren't buried till they're 75. Meaning that they've kind of given up on that message or that dream that exists in them for whatever reason. And I'm excited about this workshop because we're going to make sure that these messages that they have to serve people with, that it comes out in an extremely powerful way. And that stages become one of the most powerful ways for them to get their message out there. So I'm really excited about it.

Oh, I can't. I'm so excited about it. And it is true. It's just such an incredible loss not to share whatever it is on your heart. There are people out there that need to hear what you have to say and what you're putting together, Pete. I mean, you know, there are places where you can get little pieces of what you do, but you do the whole pie, the talk, and then how to get on the stages, how to monetize that, like, the whole thing. And so, yeah, it's really exciting. I mean, speaking is what has grown our business and all of our businesses. I travel around the world speaking. It's how I've been able to build an international audience. And. And really, it has also given me, even though being on the road, it has given me way more time to be with my family, because it really is this concerted effort which would have taken us months and months and months to create. So all of this is with your workshop? I know we're putting the link right here for everybody to get. And this is starting when?

October 24th through November 8th is when the workshop is running.

Okay. October 24th to November 8th, all, virtually all, online. And share this, everybody. If there's someone out there that you care about that you know would be incredible on stage, maybe they don't see it in themselves, or you feel like it could really help them to grow their business, please share this link. It's absolutely free. And Pete Vargas is the man and his team, and they'll take great care of you. I'm going to be on that myself. And, you know, I'm always. I'm a forever student, so thank you for sharing this and so that I could share this with my community. Pete, thanks for having me and trusting.

Me with your community. Grateful for your friendship.

Yeah. Thank you so much. Very exciting.

Thanks.