The Domino Effect in Networking: Insights from Corey Poirier

Welcome to the Amberly Lago Show, stories of true grit and grace. Thank you for tuning in to the Amberly Lago Show, and I'm especially excited for you to be here if you have a hard time saying no, because we're going to talk about the power of no and how to not burn bridges, how to have some grit, and how to tap into your purpose and get clarity on your purpose and your mission statement. Not only that, I have a 5-time TEDx speaker who is the founder of Blue Talk, who is going to teach you how to put together a talk, I think, today a little bit. We're going to talk about that. I have Corey Poirier here. He's an author. You may have known him from seeing him on the media. He is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author. He has interviewed over 7,500 thought leaders. And so, like Deepak Chopra, by the way. So, Corey Poirier, thank you so much for being on the Amberly Lago Show.

Thank you so much. I'm super stoked to be here.

Oh my gosh. Well, you share so much. I'm like, there's so much I want to ask you from grit to the power of saying no, because that— I want to get to that first. That was really hard for me. I'm an overcoming people pleaser. So, how did you come about the power of saying no and to do it without burning bridges?

So, I'm also a people pleaser still. I believe I'm like, I'm a recovering, but I believe I'm still a people pleaser. But I learned over time the reason I had to start saying no. And I'll explain this. the reason I had to start saying no became so important that eventually I was able to overcome my challenge with saying no. And so, to bring it back a step, my grandfather growing up was a carpenter with a grade 3 education. And he always said to me when I asked him about how to be successful in life, he said, say yes to everything.

Yeah.

And just figure out how to do it. And then, at nearest— as I started my journey near that same time, I heard this quote by Richard Branson. that it went along the lines of say yes to everything and then figure out how to do it later. So, here I'm looking at my grandfather, who I looked at as very successful. He actually, carpenter with a grade 3 education, built a fiberglass space shuttle replica to scale.

Wow.

And all he'd ever built is homes. Like, I'm like, you know, he's my view of success. And I'm seeing him say, say yes often. Then I hear Richard Branson saying, say yes often. So, I'm like, What am I getting wrong? I guess I'm supposed to say yes. And then, so that's when I started this journey that you mentioned about interviewing high achievers. So the part of why I wanted to start interviewing people is I became obsessed with what do they do differently than other people that allows them to become so successful? So interestingly enough, I start doing these interviews and lo and behold, I noticed that they're saying no on average 20 to 50 times more than everybody else.

Wow.

So I'm like, what's the disconnect? My grandfather says say yes, Richard Branson says say yes, All these thought leaders are saying no. They're not saying say no. They're just saying no. And they have insulation. They have people built, you know, put in place that are just designed to say no for them. So, I'm like, what am I missing?

Yeah. I call that the gatekeeper. Like, I have a couple of people on my team that are like, they're like, no, no, no, no. I'm your gatekeeper. I will say no. They are not, they're not supposed to be texting you. They're supposed to be emailing you. Why are they texting? You know what I mean?

I do. And I, and I have my right hand. Her name is Heidi. Uh, we— our sales team recently, they're like— he's like, one of the salespeople said, well, if they go with the package, can we say they get 45 minutes of Corey? And I wasn't on the call. And she said, you cannot say that.

Yeah.

They do not get that. And so I have that sort of insulation now. But what happened was— so here's where, when you hear that about Richard Branson, you're like, wait a minute, Richard Branson's ultra successful. Why is Corey bringing him into it and saying— he said, say yes. Well, what really changed for me is I was still stuck in my grandfather saying, say yes. And I backed it up by Richard Branson until I finally saw the original quote, which was not what I had been seeing. I had been seeing this fragmented quote, this filtered quote. What Richard Branson said, based on what I've heard since, was, say yes to everything you love to do and then figure out how to do it later. Those are some pretty big distinction words that you love to do. Yeah.

Yeah.

So then I was like, oh my gosh, so Richard Branson is probably saying no to most things too. Now everybody's over here except for my grandfather. And then what I had to realize is my grandfather was a carpenter in a small town.

Yeah.

It's a lot different than when you're running a business or you have 1,000 people at your door. He was working for one client and he was getting referrals like crazy because they loved him. He was one of the nicest men ever. But he was saying, yes, yeah, I'll do that, no worries, I can take that on. Of course that was working for him.

Yeah.

Because he had one client, one job, and that was the job he was working on. So when I finally realized that what might work for my grandfather wouldn't work for me because of the world I was going into, and then I looked at the people who I was inspired by and wanting to become in some ways, then I started realizing they're all saying no. So that was a long way to say that's where it started. So then I had to figure out how do I say no, and then most importantly, how do I say it without burning a bridge? And to summarize that really quickly, if you've heard of Chalene Johnson, Oh yeah, she's a friend of mine. Okay, so, uh, Chalene, you know, back in the day she had this book that just came out called Push, and I was interviewing her about the book and I asked her about this. I said, you know, you're so busy, you're running this big empire, how do you juggle it all? And then she told me this story about how— I forget, I think the number might have been like she had like 600 classes that were taking place all over the US, and she also had this Turbo Jam craze that was happening, all these DVDs selling with Beachbody. And so she said She kept getting asked by the local instructors if she could take over their class. And it was just, it wasn't feasible, but she was saying yes, I believe, because again, same idea, I feel bad saying no. So finally, either somebody told her or she realized herself she had to say no. And she had to—

If she was gonna grow, she had to say no.

100%. I think even her father said something to her. I can't remember what it was, but her father made this comment and she said it was like a, you know, ticking time bomb that kept reminding her, you have to start saying no more. So what she did, which is the no burning bridges part of it, Is she figured out a way to say no that would make it hard for somebody to hold it against you. So what she started saying was, you know, Brett and I run a family-driven business, and so whenever we take something on, we have to make sure that, like, I'm not taking something on that's going to interfere with plans he made.

Yeah.

Or he's not saying yes to something that's going to interfere with plans I made. So when somebody would call, she would explain that and say, so if you don't mind, I'll talk to Brett, I'll get back to you in 2 days and let you know if I can do it. If I can't, I'll find somebody else or I'll try to find somebody else who can help. Would that be okay?

Yeah.

And by doing that, how do you get mad at somebody for saying, I just got to make sure I'm not overbooked?

Yeah.

Or, I just want to make sure I'm not going against what we've already made plans-wise as a family. And so, I started finding my version of that for any circumstance, and that allowed me not to burn bridges.

Well, I had a client years ago because I was training, I was in the fitness industry for 26 years. And although I had, trainers that worked with me or that I had hired on to help me onboard some new clients and stuff like that, there were some days I was still training 14 clients in a day. So, that means 14 hours of my day, I was on the gym floor working with a client. And I mean, I would set someone up on the treadmill and run back to the back in 5 minutes, scarf some food, go back out. And I actually had this one client that said, You know, every time you say yes to someone else, you're saying no to yourself. And that really stuck with me. I was like, oh yeah, I'm like helping everybody around me until I am burning the— I mean, I'm burning the bridge with myself. I mean, I'm burning myself to the ground. I'm going to hit burnout, all the burns.

Yeah.

And so that really hit me. So that helped me. But I also do think it helps. When you do have somebody on your team that can politely say no in a way. And I have a lot of people that reach out to be on the show and I tell them no in a way that is, it's something that's really true to me that I say, you know, my team reaches out and says, look, we would love to have, they sound like they're on a very interesting path and they're doing amazing things. But Amberly likes to have people on her show that she knows them. Or she's experienced their work, so she'd like— she looks forward to getting to know you more, which is all the truth. And, you know, hopefully you'll keep listening to the show, and hopefully we can have you on sometime in the future, um, rather than just not answering them. Or, and sorry if you've reached out to be on the show and you didn't get an answer, maybe I didn't get your email, you know what I mean? But it, it's the truth. Like, I would love to have everyone on the show, but there's just Like, you know, there's just not enough time. So, I think that's powerful, but it's also a way to protect yourself mentally and physically and to grow your business.

100%. And I always say to people, it's better to practice it now when you don't maybe need to say no as much than it is later. Meaning, if you can't do it now, what's gonna happen when you get overwhelmed? And so, right now, I mean, it's not abnormal in a week for me to have, 8 people reach out and say, will you endorse my book? And 2 say, will you write the foreword?

Yeah.

And I mean, that's a lot. Like, if I were to say yes to all that, that's 20 hours, 30 hours. Like, for me to do it properly, because I have to read each book. If you do it properly.

If you do it properly. Now, I'll tell you what I have actually, because I remember being on the road speaking at events and in the middle of, actually, we talked about Kyle. I was doing a collaboration book with him and my book had just come out and everybody was like, you have to promote it on this and do it. And I was in the middle of speaking at an event and somebody had reached out who I really love. And they were like, can you endorse my book? And I was like, I'm going to be completely honest with you. I'm swamped and you know I love you. If you will give me a synopsis of your book and give me some samples to choose from that I can kind of edit, I'd be happy to do it. Because I didn't want to say no to her, but I knew— There's no way I have time to read your whole book and do all these things. But it takes a lot of time when you're writing the foreword to somebody's book or you're doing endorsements and you're doing it in the right way. So, yeah.

Agreed. And I will say, I mean, that happens a lot. Even people that I know, like, and trust, and I know they like and trust me, that will say same idea. Can you send me a synopsis? I've seen both sides. So, do you know who Neal Donald Walsch is?

I don't.

He wrote Conversations with God.

Oh, I have that book. I should know that author. I have that book.

Well, Neil, uh, he did an endorsement of the book. He said, can you send me the book? And he literally read it in a night and came back and told me, I like this, I like that. So his thing is, I'm not going to endorse it unless I read it front to back and agree with everything in it. But then I've had other people, uh, you know, I won't say the name now since I said the opposite scenario, but really big name who said to me, Corey, can you just tell me what the book's about? Like, we were— he said, call me tonight, tell me what the book's about. I told him, he goes, Oh, that sounds like my buddy Augie, Aug Mandino's books and his writing. He said, that sounds like a similar style. He goes, can you take— do you have a second phone? I said, yeah. He said, record this. And then he gave me the endorsement from what I just told him. So it was almost like a synopsis, like you said.

Yeah.

And basically he verbally said the other to me. He said, now turn that into something and send it to me and make sure I can take a peek at it. And that's how he did the endorsement. So I will say a lot of people don't realize that. There's nothing wrong with that.

And I will only do that with people that I know, like, and trust. that I've known for a while. I won't just do that if I'm like some, you know, Joe Schmo off the street comes up and says, you know, will you endorse my book that I have no idea who they are?

Trust me, it's a good book. Trust me.

Yeah, trust me, it's a good book. Because what people don't realize is when you do endorse that book or you do write the foreword for that book, you're tied to that person. So, if people Google your name or that person's name, Your name can come up. So you better make sure there's somebody that you want to like really collaborate with.

Well, I want to touch on one other thing about the no and how to actually know what a yes and a no could be for you. But I will say, and we don't have to go there, but we could circle back to it. But one of the things I get asked about a lot is how do you get that big name endorsement? How do you get that person on your show? How do you get that person to even listen to you? And I believe it's like a domino effect. It goes back to what you said. I believe it's that Um, if somebody knows the person that knows, likes, and trusts you, they'll listen more. So in other words, um, I kind of say it's like a domino effect. Like the hardest one I ever got, the hardest interview I ever secured was Jack Canfield from Chicken Soup, uh, the Chicken Soup for the Soul co-creator.

Yeah.

And I always say it was the biggest domino knockover because I had nothing. I had nobody to reference. I had— and we had no listeners on my show. I was going to his team with zero listeners and Jack didn't do podcasts. And this was like 20 2002, when podcasts wasn't even really much of a thing.

Oh, wow.

And so I had to get Jack. But once I was able to get Jack, then I was able to go to Mark Victor Hansen, Jack's writing partner, and say, oh, we had Jack last week, we'd love to have you on the show. Then when I had the both of them, I was able to go to Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach because he's their coach.

Yeah.

And so, I mean, I didn't mean to go down that road, but you mentioned endorsements.

It is so true because I know when I started my podcast And I had zero listeners. I remember reaching out and being so nervous about reaching out to like Dr. Erin Haskell, who I was like— I was doing it in a studio at first, and it was a live radio show where people could call in. And she said yes. And I was like, oh my gosh. And then Heather Monahan, who I barely knew at the time. But she— I knew she was gonna be in town and I said she was gonna stay at the— in Beverly Hills. And I was like, hey, Heather, you know, I just live right down the street and I could— would love to have you on my show. And I remember I had this handheld recorder and being so nervous and not— I was so intimidated. Did the recorder— was it working? And we— she met me in the lobby and we went to her hotel room and we recorded the podcast. But she took a risk on me. But once I had her on, then Trent Shelton said yes. And once I got Trent Shelton, then Maye Musk said yes. And then, you know, it was just this domino effect. Then people were like, how did you get Ed Mylett on your show? And how did you get John Gordon on your show? Like all— and it is a domino effect, but you have to have like once you get that one big name and look, I just wrote a new book and just, it was so hard for me to ask for endorsements. I have endorsed so many people's books and written so many forewords. And it was so hard for me to ask for endorsements. But I did. And do you know who Coach Michael Burt is? Do you know who Coach—

I do.

Oh, oh, we have a studio audience here today. Yes, we were at an event that—

Every other person You mentioned, I know. Yes, yes.

Coach Burt and I, we shared the stage at an event. And yeah, and my friend Brian Gelkey was like, you got to meet Coach Burt. I got to introduce you to him. Well, anyway, I love this man. And he was the first person that I like reached out to. And I was so nervous. I sent him a voice memo and I was like, hey, Coach, do I've written this book? And do you think you could do a some praise for it if I make it easy on you, blah, blah, blah. And he is the nicest guy. He was like, well, hello sunshine, of course I'd be happy to do that. And I was like, whoo, I was like sweating, you know. I mean, with each person. And then Ed Mylett wrote praise for the book. John Gordon wrote the foreword. Did you know that?

No.

Yeah. It's— well, and freaking John Gordon. I cried when he said yes to that, by the way. I cried. I cried on the phone with him. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I'll tell you one of the things for me that this latest book was a fictional parable. And so, you know, there's a part of me always— I think like—

Who wrote praise for it? Let me—

Uh, let's see. Uh, James Redfield wrote Celestine Prophecy. Uh, Mark Victor Hansen.

Oh, I love Mark. He was on my podcast.

Oh, really? Uh-huh. Lisa Nichols.

Oh, I love Lisa Nichols.

So Lisa we put on the back cover. That was the choice of the publisher. They wanted her in the back. And then—

Well, she's a She's amazing. She's like one of my favorite speakers in the world.

Yeah, we have her coming on for our boot camp that we do twice a year. We have her coming on in February. And so, one of the biggest— well, one big one too was a guy named Richard Paul Evans. He wrote The Christmas Box, which was— and oh, did you— The Noel Diaries that was on Netflix last year, the biggest Christmas movie? He wrote the book for that. So, he has 46 times— he's 46 New York Times bestsellers.

Oh my, that's all?

Yeah, that's all. And he said, whenever I asked about the foreword, he said, Cory, I haven't written a foreword in 13 years. And so I thought, okay, it's going to be no then. And he goes, but it's a yes. And so what happened was, we— I went to his writer's retreat and we told him about the book. And he said this, uh, was— and it's in the book, so I'm not saying something that he said privately— but he said, while my wife and I were there, I told him the story behind the book. It wasn't even finished yet. And he said, I'm gonna put it this way. And he then, he said in front of the class too, he said, if you don't finish writing that book, I'm gonna buy the rights off your wife and write it for you.

Wow.

But why I bring this up is because that was the validation. 'Cause I always thought, okay, well maybe I can market a book, but being a writer's a different thing. And then, so when I had Neil Donald Walsch, James Redfield, and Richard all say it's a good book.

Yeah.

That was like the biggest validation maybe ever in my life. But Richard wrote the foreword and he mentioned that it reminded him of Og Mandino, who I'm a big Og Mandino fan. fan, reminded him of his writing. And then at the end, he said, I told Corey, if he didn't write the book, I'm going to. So that's how he finished the foreword. Um, but that's kind of who helped with the book as far as endorsements. There's, there's other ones. Anthony Trucks. I don't know if you know who Anthony is.

Anthony's a friend of mine.

Okay. Yeah. So Anthony did. And, um, trying to think off top of my head, but yeah, we have so many friends in common. But I think that Heather Monaghan, I've had on the show multiple times too.

When am I going to be on the show?

Well, why won't I want to make that happen as soon as possible?

See, you like how I'm putting you on the spot there.

Yeah, no, yesterday we need to make that happen yesterday. And so as far as, uh, the one thing I want to mention about that, because I think this is something probably you get asked often, is how did you get this name or that name? One of the things I get often too from people is, hey, can you, um, I'm launching a show, can you send me over Lisa Nichols' phone number?

Oh, I don't do that. I don't pimp people out.

No. And so my answer is always, that's going to be a hard no.

Yeah, but I do, I do say no to that. I, I won't. I'm very protective of my relationships.

And well, and so here's what, so here's what I was going to add about what I do. What I— so whenever people ask, how did you do this? I said, I'll give you the sexy answer and the non-sexy answer. Meaning like, how did you secure this name or that name? Well, if I go to Jack Canfield, the sexy answer is I found out— I could— I went to Jack's team and they said it's going to be probably no, Corey. He's saying no to 9 out of every 10 interviews. He's not promoting anything right now. And, uh, they said, but keep checking in. And so what I did was I said, okay, so this was the strategy. Here's the sexy, and then I'll tell you the non-sexy that nobody wants to do, but it's really what the bigger picture is. But with Jack, what I did was I went on his website and said, who's endorsing Jack that I can get to? And I found Dan Sullivan. Now Dan Sullivan's with Strategic Coach. It'd be harder probably to reach Dan now than Jack because he does a lot more stuff behind this. He's him and Joe Polish. do a lot of stuff together. But at the time, Dan liked my interview— or sorry, Dan liked an interview he did with Darren Hardy from Success Magazine. So my interview style was similar, and I said to his team, he said it was his favorite interview on the air. Here's my interview style. And I sent my clip and Darren. And so they eventually said yes. And so I knew that Mark Victor Hansen and Jack both paid Dan to go to his coaching events once a year. So they were like his coach. He was like their coach. So I got Dan on the show, and I brought up Jack a few times. And then Dan said, you know, Corey, Jack would love the show. You should tell him Dan said he should come on the show. So I took that clip and I sent it to Jack's team and I said, even Dan, Jack's coach, thinks that he should be on my show. And they replied with a link and said, Corey, you've beaten us into submission. Here's the link. And that's, that was, that's the sexy answer. Okay, the very— that's a sexy way, creative way, what have you. So I say to people, be creative, find a sexy way. There's a friend, John Talarico. You know John?

I've heard of the name. I don't know him.

John, that's what he did with Bob Proctor. He said he wanted to kind of work his way into business with Bob Proctor, kind of like Napoleon Hill said in Think and Grow Rich. Yeah, he wants to do with Edward C. Burns. And so what John did was he went to Bob Proctor's events. Bob always played the song I Can See Clearly Now. So he found out who the original singer was. He was still alive. He reached out to their family, convinced them to sign a record to Bob. He framed it and left it at Bob's next event at the front.

Wow.

And Bob and him ended up becoming best friends. And so creative. That's the sexy way. That isn't still the short way, but it's sexy. The longer way, which nobody wants to hear from me, is what I do is I look at each relationship like a bank account. And so if I'm building a relationship with Mark Victor Hansen, I'm depositing into my relationship with Mark. So in other words, when I first meet him, I'm like, how can I start building up my deposit so that I have a positive deposit in the account? Exactly.

Yeah.

And so whenever I first met Mark, we did an interview, then not much later, Then, a year later, I interviewed Mark. And on the show, he said, do you know of other podcasts that we'd be a good fit for? We just launched our book. Crystal and I launched it called Ask. And it was during COVID He was on—

him and his wife were on my show for that book.

So, at that time, you know, he was looking for big shows, but he said on the air to me, is there any other shows? And I thought, that's so— like, here's the guy from Chicken Soup for the Soul saying, do you know of other shows? So, I said, you know what? I'm going to overwhelm him. So I got him on 25 large shows in about 2 weeks. Wow. And they said, okay, Corey, enough, enough. We're overbooked now. But the reason I bring that up is I did that and then I didn't say, hey, Mark, can you do this for me? I didn't do anything. Then I, like, 6 months later, I was working on a documentary. I said, hey, Mark, would you and Crystal like to be in the documentary? He looked at names. He goes, yeah, we'd like to be in that. All our friends are in it. So then I did that and I did maybe 6 or 7 things. And then eventually I said, hey, Mark, would you be willing to endorse my book? He said, yeah, buddy.

Yeah.

But what I'm saying is I deposited all those times without ever asking for a withdrawal.

Exactly. And that's why people— I actually write about this in my new book because I write about relationships and I write exactly about this situation where so many people will— like, I'll have a friend that'll go, hey girl, how are you doing? I heard you weren't feeling very well. I hope you're feeling good. Well, By the way, can you introduce me to Ed Mylett and Jamie Kern Lima? And I'm just like, oh, that's what it was really about. And I'm just like, no. And they're like, well, how did you get on Ed's show? And it was the same. I never asked him for anything. I was just always there to support him, add value, build the relationship was more important to me than being on a show. And then one day he asked me to be on his show. And I was like, dream come true. Yes, that's a yes. But it was the same thing. I focused on the relationship and how can I add value to that relationship? There wasn't a shortcut. Like, I didn't— because there are— I can only imagine how many people reach out to him wanting something, you know? And I was like, I'm not going to be that person who just wants something and asking for something, you know what I mean? So I think that's so important and a great lesson for everybody listening, whether writing a book or wanting to get on a podcast or wanting to meet someone. It goes for anybody. And so I want to talk about— man, I could talk to you all day and we are going to run out of time. And I want to talk about BLU, BLU Talks, because I have a lot of people in my mastermind, all the ladies in my mastermind. Well, I would say 90% of them want to get on stages. The other 10%, one Natalie Gardner who I just had on the show, I was like, oh yeah, and you're going to be speaking at the Unstoppable Success Summit in April. And she goes like a deer in headlights. I'm like, yeah, you're going to be on stage. You know what I mean?

Did she not know?

She knows, but it still hasn't quite like sunk in. I'm like, yeah, you're going to be doing it.

Okay.

And so, there's a lot of people that do want to get on stage. And it's really hard as a speaker that wants to be on stage if they don't have any pictures of them on stage, they don't have any video of them speaking on stage, you know? And you've done 5 TED Talks. And I feel like once you do one big talk and it's a really great talk, then you get another one. And then it's your chances of getting another one and another one and another one are easier, not always easy, but easier than just trying to pitch when you've got nothing.

Absolutely.

And so, I know there's a lot of people listening that are like, well, how do I do it? What do I do? And so, you have created Blue Talks, what, 5 years now that you've had it?

Yep.

Tell me exactly what that is and how it helps somebody who wants to get on stage and share their message and really increase their influence.

Absolutely. Well, I will say it's probably important to know the backstory. And so, why I launched Blue Talks is whenever I started, I was that same person you just described. I'm like, how do I get started? How do I get the first paying gig? Actually, in fact, even how do I get a gig? Like, how do I get somewhere to speak even if I'm paying to do it? Like, it was just really hard. And now we're going back to 2001-ish. So, I mean, it was a bit different. There was only like—

So, you started when you were like 10? Yeah.

No, 9 actually. Thank you. I appreciate that. But I mean, media-wise, it's not like today, new media we call it. There wasn't this new media. It was like, you need to get on insert big name here, ABC, NBC, New York Times, what have you. So for me, that's when I was starting. There was no shortcuts really. And to get on even the smallest, like local media, I almost had to beg 17 friends to get one little, you know, little article in a local newspaper. And so it was really hard. And then the speaking side, I was told by— I remember this couple told me one time that I met at a, well, CAPS meeting in Canada, but it'd be the same as the NSA, uh, the National Speakers Association. They said, oh, if you build it, they will come. And I'll tell you, to this day, that still did not mimic my experience. But I went out into the woods, I said jokingly, went out to the woods and started building it. Nobody even heard the hammer. So like, I came from a really strong sales background, so I'm like, this is going to be easy, and it wasn't. So to make a long story short, I, back then when I couldn't find any bookings, I couldn't find media, I said if I ever get this figured out, I want to help other people get this figured out. It's much the same way when I started in sales. I started selling photocopiers door-to-door, and, uh, they brought me in a VHS tape of Zig Ziglar, and that was all I had for sales training. And that was with the 48th largest company in the world at the time, and my whole sales training was a $30 Zig Ziglar tape. So at that point I said if I can help salespeople figure out this thing easier in the future. Like, a Fortune 500 company should have a training program, and they didn't. And I said, if I can help people figure this out, that's what I want. So that's why I started getting into speaking myself. I started doing sales training and speaking. And so much the same way, when I got into that, I said same thing— if I can help people, I want to figure that out. So that was what my plan was. But I'm one of those people— and whether this is right or wrong— I'm not one of those people that reads page 2 and then start teaching you page 1. Like, a lot of people do that now. It's like, what I mean by that is, hey, let me show you how to make $1 million on their Facebook ad.

Yeah.

And meanwhile, you find out later they've never made $100,000.

Yeah.

I'm not that guy. Like, I— if I'm going to teach you that, I have to have done it 5 times. So, with speaking, I had this great idea of what I wanted to do, but I was not prepared to do it until I had done it a lot and well. And so, I just started it. I said, I got to build it first. So, I went out and started plugging away. My first year as a speaker, I left a software sales role where I was getting paid 6 figures to wake up, and I thought I'm going to replace that in a year. Didn't happen. So my first year, it was a struggle. I did a lot of free talks, talks where I was like getting the dinner, you know, dinner.

Well, you know what, thank you for sharing that because I think so many people think, oh, well, I'm going to be a speaker and I'm just going to start making $100,000 a talk, $100,000 or $50,000 a keynote. And it's like That is not how it was for me. I was speaking at anywhere people would have me. And I'm talking like recovery meetings. I spoke at Betty Ford. I spoke at churches, network groups, Chamber of Commerce, anybody that would have me, rehab centers, doctors' clinics. Like, I'm like, yep, I'm your girl. I'll be there. I'll be there. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, what we try to do is help people shortcut that. But There's no— the only way—

I didn't know.

Well, and I didn't either, right? So, and the only way there is through sometimes, meaning even if we give you all the shortcuts, at some point you still have to deliver.

Yeah.

So, so what happened with me is, and it's probably good, I think honestly, Amberly, that I started the way I did because I wasn't there yet, meaning I wasn't ready. Like my first talks were, I did, I got a community college to let me start doing teaching a business Uh, studies course, and it was a sales course. And I often joke and say it's ironic it took me a year to sell them on it, but I started teaching it and I wasn't great. And so I had to get better, in my opinion, to be at the level where I should be charging. And so I think it happened the way it was meant to. But again, to make a long story short, it was 3 years of me trying to build up to finally replace my income I already had. But what happened is I figured out a couple of little hacks, and once I figured those hacks, it went from my Second year was like basically, or third year, I got to 6 figures for the first time. Second year, multiple 6 figures and never looked back solely from speaking. And it was these little tiny tweaks that nobody was teaching. All my favorite teachers weren't teaching them. And I came across them and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is it. This is what I've been missing. So then I still went another 4 or 5 years building it. And it got to the point where I was doing 200 paid talks a year, which, you know, that's pretty substantial for a non-celebrity speaker. And then at that point, enough people were asking me every almost day, How are you getting paid to do this? And how are you getting paid so much? What I found fascinating, which nobody wants to talk about, was that a lot of the people that were doing that were the ones that had sought-after speaker on their profile, or along the way told me, oh, it's an easy business, were coming to me saying, how are you doing it? Oh, I've been doing it, but I only get like once every, uh, booking every 3 months. I'm not getting paid. But they were telling the world they were a sought-after speaker. So what happened was I put together a self-study program, Here's How You Build a Speaking Business in a Because I thought, I don't have time to, like, to handhold. And the irony is, I always say now, metaphor-wise, all those people want to be in the car, but nobody wants to be behind the wheel. What do I mean by that is a lot of people signed up for the program and took it, but they didn't necessarily want to do the lifting involved in building a speaking business.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's where Blue comes in, by the way.

That's where Blue comes in. And that's what I have noticed as well. Like, no, you got to actually do the work too. You got to put in the reps. But yes. And so tell us about Blue a little bit. We're almost out of time and I could just talk to you. I know, I know. They're like waving me over there like, you're almost out of time. And I also want real quick, I want to get a question from our studio audience. We've got— how about Brian? Would you like to ask a question, Brian? Sure.

So you were talking about when people get started, you're absolutely right. It's hard to know because when you first get started, You do everything for free, but you don't think like, well, I need to pay a videographer, but then there's no videos of you, there's no pictures of you. So, if someone was to want to get started, what do you think is the thing that they should start doing earlier, they should invest in themselves in that will pay off faster than just thinking, well, I'll wait till I have the money to do something?

Videographer.

That's what I was hoping you were going to say, but I'm curious.

No, it's such a great question. And that ties to what we were talking about is as far as why we literally eventually launched Blutox was because of all those things that you do need that people don't have. And I will say, even when we start working with people, let's say they're in a book with us and we're like, can you send along your, your headshot? And they're like, what's that? You know, so like, yeah, people don't have this stuff. And so what I found was, first and foremost, when people hire speakers, the number one reason they say they hire speakers is they saw them themselves and loved them. Yeah, the second reason—

that's mainly how I get hired is through referral or somebody has heard me speak and they hire me from that. Yeah, yeah.

So referral, I was going to say, is second. The third is they watch a video of you speaking. But the challenge is most people don't have a good quality speaking video. So to answer your question, uh, I would say the most important thing to have if you want to get paid to speak is a great speaking video. Obviously a website can be crucial, but I think a video is more important even than the website. So a video of you speaking Let's just say in a perfect world, at the very minimal, a video of you speaking for a certain amount of time, 20 minutes, 10 minutes, with nothing else is gonna still do the trick. In a perfect world, maybe you have also a sizzle reel where there's people talking about what they loved about your talk. You can capture those right at an event you do. So it's all those things that are going to sell me on why I should trust you to speak in front of my audience, and I need to see you to do that. So video is crucial. If you're a best-selling author, I can then, as a meeting planner, I can promote we have a Barnes Noble Amazon bestselling author here today. If you've done a TEDx, I can say, oh, and she's also done a TEDx talk. So to me, you put them in whatever order you want. I would say the most important is the speaking video. Beyond that, you want to have accolades like whatever that looks like. You've written for Forbes or Entrepreneur. You've been profiled in this place. You are a bestselling author of this book. And in a perfect world, it's a book that's on the topic you're going to speak on. And so it's all of those things. And quite honestly, because we were going to talk about with BlueTalks, that's what we do. We basically make that stuff easy so you don't have to do that. Like, we get you speaking at an event, let's say like at MIT, we film it. So now you can say you spoke at an event at MIT. Wording is important. Don't say MIT brought you in, but you spoke at an event at MIT.

That is important. That's good.

It's very important because words matter, and I'm all about integrity. And so, but then you have a video of you, highly polished, multiple angles, 4K footage. that you can leverage forever. Uh, you know, we get you in a book series where maybe you co-author with Dr. Joe Vitale, and so then you can say, co-author a book with him.

Joe changed my life. Okay, go ahead.

So, but, but that's kind of the idea is what we're trying to do is the things you're saying, what do I need first, what should I have first, we're trying to make it so it's a one-stop shop that you come and work with us. And I'm not joking when I say this, in 4 months you can have a bio that says, I shared the virtual bill with Deepak Chopra and Les Brown, I co-authored a book with Dr. Joe Vitale, I'm a Barnes Noble, Amazon bestselling author. I spoke on stage at MIT. Uh, here's a video of me speaking. Uh, what I always say to people is, what do you think your website looks like if you have those things on it versus not having them? Another thing is, because we rebroadcast, we are— we're on Connect TV out of Hollywood, Apple, Roku, Amazon. So now imagine being able to say you've spoken or you're featured on Apple, Roku, Amazon in 4 months. This stuff took me almost 20 years and cost me Hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so, I mean, in a nutshell—

But then you can use those logos also on your website.

That's exactly it. They say an As Seen On banner, which is the same as those logos, they say that that can increase your credibility by up to 70%.

Oh, I'm sure.

Which is why Tony Robbins and Jack and all these guys have them at the top of their website. They know. They wouldn't spend their time, all the years they put in, and put those logos on the top if they weren't important. So hopefully that answered the question, but I think all that stuff is important. And it's not a pitch for why you should work with us to do that, but whoever you work with, you need to have video, you need to have something that proves that you're the go-to person, which could be a book, and you need to have credibility.

That— yeah, that— you're speaking my language. That was awesome. Well, I'm— man, I could just talk. I'm gonna have to have you back on because I could just talk to you all day. So thank you so much for being on. Tell people if they're like, okay, I want to do that, I need to get my my sizzle reel or my speaker's reel. I want to get video of me at Harvard or wherever, big place. How can they find you for Blue Talks, and how can they find you?

So I'm going to give the answer that's probably not the normal answer. I'm actually gonna— which is weird, I know— I'm gonna give my email address to make things easy. I know that's abnormal. Most people say, here's my website, go there, reach out in the contact form. I want to be a little more personal today. I remember Tom Ziegler was on my show one time and he gave an email address and then Bob Burg did the same. And they're the only 2 people I ever remember doing it. So I'm going to try to follow that suit. So it's pretty easy. It's Corey, which is C-O-R-E-Y, @blutalks, which is with an S on the end, .com. That's where people can, if they want to reach out and say, this is something I'm interested in. Beyond that, if you want to search me, I mean, you can Google Blue Talks. You can, uh, coreypoiriermedia.com is my main website. So you can go to all those places. But if you really just want to go direct, send me an email.

Okay. You are so awesome. Thank you so much for being on. Thank you for flying in. Thank you for being here. Thank you to our studio audience.

Woohoo!

And thank you for tuning in to the Amberly Lago Show, and we will see you next week.