Selling From Stage: How To Turn Public Speaking Into A Prospecting Weapon

All right, folks, let's get rolling. I'll let people on when we get on.

As they come in, I am going to hit present. And we are going to talk about selling from stage today, how to turn public speaking into a prospecting weapon. I love talking about this topic, guys, because it changed my career. It continues to help us drive a lot of business. And my goal for you guys today is not just to be like, try to convince you guys you should speak. My goal is to give you a couple nuggets today that I think could help you look different and be better than the other advisors people hire to speak. And so that's really what I want to share with you guys today. So here's my goal. Number one, we're going to talk about why most advisors fear public speaking. We'll talk about that. And I think I might surprise you a little bit because I think there's a lot of perceived notions why there's a fear of speaking. They do say that people fear speaking more than death.

But we'll talk about why. You're going to learn how to outline a presentation that turns cold suspects into hot prospects. That's the big one. It's not a matter of just getting up in front and speaking. It's how you put a talk together that's really important. And then the third thing is you're going to learn how to find opportunities to speak in public. Now, I will say this, guys, when you think about public speaking, my guess is that everybody here wants to learn how to use public speaking to drive business for their insurance, their. Their book of business, right? But when you do leverage public speaking, you do want to make a very conscientious choice. Am I using speaking because I want to actually build a career around speaking, or am I going to use speaking to grow my business? And it's very important you know the difference between the two. I will tell you. Very few people get paid just to speak.

They get paid 50, 100, some cases, $150,000 a speech. My guess is that everybody here is wanting to take the stage to win an AOR by. If you're, if you agree with me, give me a thumbs up or a hand. Like, let me see, are we speaking to get an aor? Okay, that's what, that's what I thought. So let's talk about why people fear public speaking.

This is number one. People just fear failing. There is this really interesting belief that I've heard people tell me that they fear getting on stage and screwing up because they think people are There to actually watch them screw up. Like they think the people in the audience are waiting for you to screw up so they can laugh at you, make fun of you. The reality is, guys, the people in the audience need you to win. They need you to do well for one reason. So they can learn something. They're in the room to learn something, therefore they're cheering you on. They want you to do good because that helps them. So the first part of the fear of failure is I just want you guys to know that everybody in that room wants you to win. They're there to cheer you on, they're there to root you on. The second problem is the imposter sin. Okay? A lot of people have a fear when they take the stage that, oh my Lord, everybody in this room is going to find out, I actually don't know what I'm talking about. Here's the reality. The reason advisors have imposter syndrome. If you've ever felt imposter syndrome in this industry, my hunch is that you do because you're comparing your knowledge to your peers.

That's why. And there's truth. There are going to always be people in the industry, guys who've had more experience and who are smarter than you. But when it comes to speaking, if you want to use it to grow your business, you're not going to have a room full of your peers sitting in front of you. You're going to have a room full of your prospects. And I hope you have the confidence that you know more about what you do than they do. One of the things I love about insurance, when I was selling health insurance, I knew that I could walk in a room and have a conversation with a CFO who may have gone to the best MBA in the country, Wharton School at Penn, and I knew more about health insurance than they did. That's the truth, guys. You know more about insurance than your prospects. Oh, by the way, little side note on impostor syndrome, I actually think imposter syndrome is a good thing because it means you're talking about things you've never done before. There's always going to be that first time you sell a self funded case, a captive. There's always going to be a first time you do something in this industry, which means there's going to be a time you don't. You talk about something you haven't done. That's okay. But I want you to know, when it comes to speaking with your prospects, guys, you know more than they do about your subject.

And the third challenge is the biggest one. And this is what we're here to talk about today, which is, huh, what do I talk about? Okay, I want to speak, but I have no idea what I'm going to talk about on stage.

And what I want to help you do today is just give you a little confidence, clarity, and then a little game plan that you can take and leave with today to go start making public speaking a little bit bigger piece of your prospecting.

See, the biggest problem you have right now is all those fears are because you're making it all about you.

The reason we have all these fears, failure, imposter syndrome, not knowing what you want to say, your ego is getting in the way.

This is. This was my challenge years ago. I made it all about me. But if you just think of speaking as an opportunity to get on stage, and I know, easier said than done, get on stage and serve the people in the room.

You will do so much better with speaking. Just remember, it's not about you, it's about serving them.

I can guarantee every one of you on this call if I put you in front of one prospect right now at a whiteboard and I said, I need you to teach this prospect about what you know. None of you would have fear.

Public speaking is just you doing the same thing. But there might be 20, 50 or 100 prospects in the room. But if you just take the stage ready to serve.

Public speaking will be a much less.

Stressful thing on you.

But here's the opportunity, guys.

Public speaking is the best channel there is for prospecting.

There is nothing that will take a cold suspect and turn them into a hot prospect as fast as public speaking. You could walk into a room and that room could be full of people who don't know you.

And 45, 60 minutes later, you walk out.

And you're the one they want to talk to. Nothing else in prospecting can do it like that. Not even a referral.

The second thing is, when you're on stage, you have 100% credibility.

If somebody has hired you to speak. Let's say you're about to speak to a local SHRM chapter or some CFO roundtable. If somebody's hired you to speak, everybody in that room assumes you're the thought leader. You have credibility with everybody. It's a massive weapon when it comes to prospect.

And as I said earlier, nothing will turn a cold suspect into a hot prospect as quickly as public speaking.

Now, here's the biggest opportunity. The bar is low in the insurance industry.

I. I have a little fun with this guys. But how many of you, Let me ask you, how many of you have been to a presentation in the insurance industry done by somebody from the industry and it was really bad? Raise your hand. We've all been to those presentations. Somebody in the industry got up in front of a room, gave a presentation, you're like, wow, within five minutes, you were buried in this thing. Just checking your email, checking social media. Why? Why does that happen? Here's why.

Too many people in our industry do not take public speaking serious enough. They wing it, and they rely on a PowerPoint. I just gave a keynote talk yesterday. I want to make this point because somebody said something to me yesterday that is really relevant to point number three here.

When people are asked to speak and give a presentation, what most people will do is sit down and before they even put a talk together, they're already putting their PowerPoint slides together. Why do they do that? Well, they do that because they're going to use the PowerPoint as a crutch.

And I had somebody make a comment to me yesterday after my talk, which I was like, I wanted to hear that. Thank you. But it's very relevant to today's conversation. He said, you know what was really interesting about your slides?

Your slides had enough on them to intrigue me, but not enough on them to make me focus on the slides and not you.

So, for example, I shared three stories in the talk yesterday that were tied to specific years in my career. And when I shared the specific story, the only thing that was up on the slide was the year 2014.

My point in sharing this is, if you are giving public presentations, guys, and you're putting your entire Talk on a PowerPoint in bullet points, you might as well sit down and let people read the PowerPoints. You're not necessary.

The whole purpose of speaking is to have the attention on you, not on your PowerPoints.

And so when I look at the industry right now, I see a lot of people who aren't putting the practice in. They're standing up in front of a room full of people with a PowerPoint that basically is their talk. And instead of the PowerPoint supporting their talk, the PowerPoint is the highlight of their talk. Therefore, the presentation is not effective. People aren't paying attention, People are bored. And then by the time the talk's over, you're not getting any good feedback. Nobody's following up with you saying, man, that was awesome. We need to talk to you. And that's what I want to help you change today.

How do we look different again? The good news, folks, is the bar is low. If you put together good. A good talk as an advisor in the insurance industry, you're going to stand out.

So let me share a story, guys, where this really drove home. See what I did here, guys. Look at the slide. Denver 2017. This is what we're talking about with slides.

So my epiphany was. Let me share the story to set the stage. My epiphany occurred in 2017. Late 2016, I made a decision that I wanted to use speaking to grow my business. I was a health insurance advisor. I was in a market where nobody really knew me yet. And I said, I'm going to use speaking to get in front of a lot of people quick. So I joined a National Speakers association speakers academy, and I hired my own coach.

Early 2017, I am asked. I am picked to speak at a benefits conference. So I put my name in the ring. Hat in the ring. I didn't do a lot of research on the conference, but I got picked. I'm like, cool. So January 2017, I'm off down to Denver to speak at this benefits conference. Now, here's where it gets interesting. I get to the event center and I'm ushered into a breakout room. And I start setting up everything. My PowerPoint, all that stuff. And all the attendees start coming in. And after nine attendees, they shut the door. And I remember going, what? I drove all the way down here in traffic to talk to nine people.

I was kind of frustrated. And I remember walking over to the corner of the room.

And I gave myself a pep talk. It probably looked kind of weird because I was literally facing away from the audience in the corner talking to myself. I'm like, dude, this is what you wanted to do. Show up, give your talk. So I delivered a talk on how to build a better benefits plan for less money.

And after this, the talk was over. I was breaking down my PowerPoint, putting stuff away, and one of the attendees came up to me and said, hey, man, I got to tell you.

I've never heard somebody talk about health insurance that way. That was really good. He said, in fact, our team has had a lot of conversations around the stuff you've been talking about. Would you mind if we jumped on a call? I said, sure. Cool. Talk generated a lead, right?

I said, why don't you give me your business card? I'll email you later today. So he handed it over, and I look at the card, and his name was Duncan McAlef, and he was the director of Total Rewards. Cool. And then I looked over at the corner of the card and I saw the logo and I kind of freaked out.

Because he was with a Fortune 50 company.

PepsiCo.

And.

I didn't realize it right there, guys, but when I was driving home after the talk, so it was good hour and 20 minute drive, it hit me that, holy cow, what just happened today. I'm an independent health insurance advisor working for a agency that's not all that big out of Longmont, Colorado. And because I took the stage this morning.

I'm about to book a meeting with a Fortune 50 company.

Now, the sad ending to the story, guys, if anybody's interested, is I did not win the account.

Our agency literally did not have enough professional liability to work with them. Believe it or not, that was the killer.

But the lesson was learned. I said, if I'm willing to take the stage. And I just. My first talk, I opened the door with a Fortune 50 opportunity. What else is possible if I public speak more?

The other thing I also also realized was it wasn't just that I took the stage.

It's what came out of my mouth. It's what I talked about. It's what, how I put the talk together that impelled him to want to know more. Now, the interesting thing about this, guys, I want to share this side note. A month later, I get an email from somebody else who was in that room, another attendee wanting to talk. And they represented 10,000 employees out of Loveland, Colorado. So I realized in one speech, I got the attention of two, what I would recall, jumbo accounts. And I'm just a little independent advisor.

Bryce, I'm looking at you, man. I know you're with Marsh McLennan. If I had been with Marsh, man, these things were in the bag.

And I'm like, what, what, what could my business do if I made this my thing? And that is when I really went all in on speaking, guys. And I'm here to tell you that was seven years ago.

And today, now that I own and run Complete Game Consulting, public speaking is the number one thing I focus on with prospecting. In fact, in the last month and a half, I have spoken seven times. And it has generated more leads than we know what to do with.

This is why I'm sharing this with you guys. It works if you're willing to put in the work.

Because public speaking is the fastest way to build credibility. The truth is, if you've been in the business for three years or 30, not enough prospects know you exist.

And I've shared this slide with you if you've been on my past workshops before, that line in the middle, that's a brick wall. And I want you to imagine that on the other side of the brick wall is all the credibility you will ever need to grow the business. That's when you become unstoppable, when you have all the credibility you'll ever need to get over that wall. You have got to find a way to break through. Public speaking is one of the fastest ways to break through, because when you're on stage, you have all the credibility in the world. Unless you're hosting your own event, if you're getting hired by somebody, it's 100% credibility. The people in the room assume you are the thought leader.

So let's start here. We're going to cover three things today. The first one is how to outline the presentation. So I'm going to take you back all the way back to 2017. It's the same outline I still use today. Let's talk about how to outline. I'm not going to go into the details of having you actually write out a speech here, but I want to give you the outline of how to write a more effective presentation. By the way, if you're not ready to public speak yet today, the same outline could apply to a proposal. And oh, by the way, a proposal is a form of public speaking.

The formula we use today to put our talks together is called impact.

And I created it intentionally once. Part of it learned from my coaching that I received from others. But to me, the acronym represents more than just the acronym. It's impact. It's how to deliver a presentation that creates impact.

You see, it's not good enough to deliver a presentation that delivers information.

You have to deliver a talk that also delivers impact. It's the impact that's going to get people to want to know more about you and how they could potentially partner with you. Your number one goal in a public presentation is to have the audience walk in with a certain belief and viewpoint. But because of your talk, they walk out of the room with another belief, a different perspective. If you can shift somebody's perspective in a talk, you got their attention.

And so when you look at this acronym, the first thing you have to do in a talk is deliver a good story out of the gate. And preferably that story should be about you for the sake of letting your audience get to know you. Think about how most people start a presentation, especially in our industry. Here's what they do. They go, guys, just want to thank the conference for giving Me an opportunity to chat today. I know I'm the only thing keeping you from happy hour. Oh, drives me nuts by. Don't ever say that on stage.

Here's what I'm going to talk about today. I'm going to teach you three things you need to know about self funding. So should we dive into it, click PowerPoint and then they go right into their presentation.

The second you do that. If that's how you start a presentation, guys, that's what causes people to start burying their noses in their phone in the first five minutes. They're already tuned out. But if you start a talk within story about you, that lets the audience get to know you a little bit, guys, you got their attention.

My current keynote talk, I talk about being the chubby kid growing up hating attention as a chubby kid because it grabs people's attention.

And you know what else it does for all those chubby kids in that room? It brings them back to their childhood.

And when I take people back to their childhood.

I got their attention.

Now just a little note on stories, guys. The more self deprecating you can be in your stories, the better it's going to be me. Talking about being a fat kid is self deprecating. Here's why you're more relatable.

The more deprecating the talk, the more human you look. And this was my epiphany, guys. Ever since I've been speaking, I share stories about playing pro baseball because that's part of my brand.

And I would deliver the talk. And at the end of the talk, some people come up and be like, that was a cool talk. But nobody really reacted the way I thought they would. And then one day I said, you know what? I'm going to deliver a talk. And in the talk, I actually shared about why I failed in pro baseball. All the fears I had, the fear of failure, comparison, judgment. And I really got slow and my, my tone got slow because I was talking about why I only lasted in pro baseball for a few years. And it was the first time in my life somebody came up and gave me a hug after the talk.

And I went, huh, something to this. Why did that work so well? It's because I was relatable.

Nobody in that room had played pro baseball, but everybody in that room had failed.

When I use the story now of being the fat kid, guess what? All those kids who had those, all those people in that room who had a similar childhood, they're looking at the stage going, that dude's just like me. That's what you want in an intro story. Now, the M is memorable message.

When you deliver a story, that story has to be accompanied with a message. What is the lesson you want the audience to take away from your story? Being the fat kid, my lesson I'm teaching them is I hated attention. And as a result, everybody looked past me. That was the lesson I was sharing with my story. So when you think about a story you would share with your audience to create relatability, what's the lesson you want them to learn? You'll see why this is important. So M is memorable message. The memorable message is the reason you're on stage, the reason you're about to teach them something. Something.

Because here is the secret, guys. You want to elevate your speaking career above anybody else in this industry.

If you can take a story about you and you can tie it with a memorable message to the rest of the talk you're about to give that teaches the audience what you do, you will hit a home run.

Today when I deliver a keynote about grabbing attention, my whole message is, you need to grab attention to grow your business.

I start the talk with how I hated attention as a kid because I was the chubby kid, but now, how bus how attention is the secret sauce that lets my business grow.

And I spend the rest of the talk talking about why you need attention.

Now, I've taken my story and I've attached it to the rest of the talk. I hope that makes sense for everybody. So it's your story, what's the lesson, and how is the lesson going to set up the rest of the talk?

Now, the rest of the talk is actually the easy part because this is where you get to be the subject matter expert.

What are the problems that audience is facing? So if you're on stage to talk about why self funding is important or the pros and cons of captive insurance, I don't know what it is. You have to start talking about the problems before you talk about any kind of solution.

You see, you have to bring the audience to a level where they feel like, yep, that is where we are today. We are stuck today because of the. Because. Because of these problems.

So when I delivered a talk about how to build a better health plan for less money, I spent time talking about, well, what's the problem with health insurance plans today? You got to talk about the problems before you give any kind of answer. Because if you go to answers right away, solutions. And they can't tie the solutions to a problem, they will not be able to say, hey, we could leverage that solution.

You have to describe the problem first.

And my rule of thumb when I'm delivering a talk, guys, is if I'm going to share three solutions, I'm going to talk about three problems. I'm going to share two solutions. I'm going to talk about two problems. One, one. Just pair, pair a problem with the solution.

So the problems are followed by the answers. Answers are solutions. I call them answers because.

I had no better word for the acronym to call it impact. So it's technically solutions, but it's answers. Your job is to deliver the answer. Your job is to teach them how to do it. Now here is a key, this is a key point I want you guys to think about here when you are delivering a solution during a talk to your prospects. Be careful that you're not selling. This isn't a sales pitch, but what I do encourage you to do when you are delivering the answers, guys, you're sharing the solutions. You have got to teach them to the point that they could do it themselves. Do not hold back. We live by a phrase here at Complete Game. When you give away the farm, you reap the harvest. You teach these people as well as you could possibly teach them to the point they could do it themselves.

Oh, by the way, you actually can help them do it. But the more you teach and the more valuable it is, guys, the more apt they are going to want to talk to you. Do not hold back.

Now, the C Call to action.

This is really important part of the talk, guys. So I want you to imagine this. You've delivered a good intro story. That story has a message that sets up the rest of the talk. It is in the meat and potatoes where you get to display your subject matter expertise by talking about the problems they face and the solutions you're delivering to them. What most people do when they speak is right at the end of the talk or they do this. People do this in a webinar too is they say, oh, if you want to know more, let me know. And they do it right at the end of the presentation. You actually want to call your audience to action before you deliver the close.

Now, there's different types of calls to action. You could encourage them to schedule a call with you if the person who hired you let you do it. If they're cool with you doing it, encourage them to schedule a call.

Maybe you have some form of lead generator like hey, I created this PDF for you. If you want to download it, just go here. It's a good way to collect Email addresses. But you do that before you close. The whole point is any call to action you want these. These people to make, literally tell them what you want them to do when they walk out of the room. You want to do it before you actually close the talk. Don't do it at the end of the talk.

Why?

Because you want to save space for an amazing close.

If I close the talk and then right at the end, I say, oh, by the way, it kind of waters down the close. You want to call the action out before you close. Does that make sense?

And so one thing I often say when I'm speaking for the call to action, I'll use the schedule. A call with me, call to action. I'll say, hey, now that you've heard this talk, you might be thinking, you know, Andy, thank you for sharing a lot of information with me today. I first know what the problems are right now. I know why my business is growing, isn't growing. I understand that I'm not grabbing enough attention. And you have shared a lot of the problems with me. You've also shared with me how I can fix it, what I need to do to get more attention. But you might be sitting there going, great, when I leave today. What? How am I going to take action on this? Well, if that's you, here's what I encourage you to do. And I put a QR code up on the screen and I say, hey, if, because you're here today, we can do a free call, free strategy call if you want to schedule a call to learn how you can actually immediately implement this. Just get on my calendar, we'll talk.

And if I do that the right way, guys, we'll book five, six, seven calls.

But do you see how I set it up? Hey, you might be sitting there right now thinking, this, this, this. You learned this. You learned what these problems are. You learned what these solutions are. But you might be thinking about how the heck you're gonna actually implement this when you leave today. Well, let me help you. Boom.

That's a good way to introduce a call to action.

But it saves space, guys, for the close, which we label as transformation. T. The final letter of the phrase, of the word impact is transformation.

And this is what I talked about at the beginning when I said, if you can get people walking in the room with a certain belief and you can use their talk to shift their perspective so they walk out of the room thinking and believing something else, you have transformed them.

And in that transformation is where they're going to go. She's the one we need to talk to. We need to have a conversation with him.

Now, a very effective way to close.

Is to bring back the story that you shared in the beginning and close it out in the end. Now that's kind of 201, guys. I'm not going to go into that. But in closing.

If you can bring back the story you shared at the beginning of the talk, that will be that much more powerful.

And here is.

One of the easiest ways to think about creating an outline for the talk. We've got impact, but I'm going to take it even to a simpler level.

If you open a talk with a story about you that creates relatability.

Then you close it with a store message, a lesson. The lesson is setting up what you're here to talk about.

The rest of your talk is simply this. I'm going to share. I'm going to show you what your problems are today and I'm going to show you how to fix them. That's how you start. Then you show them what the problems are and you show them how to fix them. And then at the close you say, now I just taught you what your problems are and how to fix them. That is a very good way to close. All you're doing is saying, hey guys, I'm here to talk to you what your problems are today, how to fix them. Now I'm going to talk to you about what your problems are and how to fix them. And oh, by the way, I'm going to close by saying, and I just told you what your problems are and how to fix them. Just be very clear about what you're teaching them, what their problems are, what the solutions are. And the more you do that, guys, the more effective you'll be.

But stick to the acronym story message, Problems, answers, Call to action, Transformation.

By the way.

When you start with outlining the story, outlining the talk.

The PowerPoint slide is what should come last. You need to outline the talk first, know what your key points are going to be, and then you create the PowerPoint. Because the whole purpose of a PowerPoint, if you're going to include a slide deck, is the PowerPoint should just simply support your talk. It's not the highlight of your talk.

So when I share a story in a talk, I have a slide that may have a picture like you saw with the Denver 2017. In some cases, I just have the year up there. Because my whole goal is if I'm sharing a story, I want your attention on me. I don't want your Attention on the slides.

Remember the PowerPoint support, they're not the highlight.

So that's pillar point number one guys. How to, how to use public speaking to grow your business.

Know how to outline, deliver a talk that's impactful and use this formula to do that now. Oh, I forgot I put these slides together but we can go through these. There we go. How to find speaking opportunities. So number one, you gotta have a good talk guys. That's bullet point number one and I would highly encourage you to keep it to your area of subject matter expertise. We ask our clients what's the one thing you do better than anybody else? What's the one lane in the industry you want to own?

Stick to that. I would deliver, I would create a talk around that subject.

Maybe you spent, maybe you're you niche in a certain industry, maybe you're very niche on a certain product captives or self funding or level funding or commercial captives. Stick to that, whatever is your zone of genius. Deliver a talk around that zone of genius.

Now let's talk about how to find speaking opportunity because that's part two. The thing about speaking opportunities guys is they don't just naturally come to you. If you want to use speaking as part of your book building business, you have to prospect them just like you prospect everybody else.

So the first thing you have to do though is you have to have some very good pieces of marketing to help you go find those opportunities. So number one and if, if you look at the screen here, if you want to take a picture of this guys, go ahead because this are the templates we're going to be sharing the recording. The first thing you want to have is a good talk summary. So if you put together a talk, you want to have a good summary about the talk. So you'll notice if you look at my talk summary on the left hand side of my screen, what do you notice? You have a title. So I've got a title subtitle the insurance Agent Sales playbook. The two step process to go from unknown to unstoppable. Everything underneath that is just a description of the talk. And then over on the left you have key takeaways from the talk.

At the bottom you've got all the ways you can connect with me and then you got a picture of me in the upper left. That's what a good talk summary looks like.

The next thing you want to have is a good bio.

What should be in the bio? Number one, Contact information for sure. You'll see at the top I've got my name Job title and then a description, a bio of me.

Guys, if you just collected the or create these two pieces of information right here, these are two very effective marketing material. Marketing, what's the word I'm looking for Assets that will help you go find talks.

If you've ever, if you ever get reached out to potentially speak at a conference or to an organization and you have your summary of your talk and your bio, it is a great start.

The bio is what they're going to use by the way to introduce you. So if you're at a conference, you're about to speak, they're going to use your bio to introduce you. So if you're writing a bio, make sure you want you focus on what you would want somebody to say as they're introducing you on stage.

Now if you want to take it to a new level, you want to have I focus on this on the right. You want to have a media kit.

Now a media kit is a much more detailed description or overview of who you are. It is, it includes your talk summary, it includes your bio, it may include testimonials if you've spoken. Other places and other people have given you testimonials. But when you you want to take your speaking career to the next level, you could have a media kit that you can hand over to people and that's going to help you stand out. This is what our my media kit used to look like. Then you could take it to a next level and you have a media kit in a demo reel. Maybe you have video of you you actually speaking, proof that you actually speak.

Now I'm showing you this guys intentionally to future cast.

What this might look like for you. But I want you to start here.

In fact, I want you to start with just what you see on the left hand side of the screen. If you are serious about using the stage to grow your business, all I want you to do.

Is focus on one talk. If you could give one talk to your prospects, what would it be? What would be the subject?

What would this story be you'd share at the beginning? What's the message you want them to learn and then what's going to be the topic that you're going to discuss that you're the best at discussing?

My challenge for you after today's call is to sit down and think about what that talk will be.

Before you go thinking about a bio, a media kit, a demo reel, I don't want you to go there, I just want you to think about one talk. Who would be in that room. If you could fill the room with the right people, who would be in that room? Would it be a room full of HR directors, CFOs, CEOs, homeowners? Depending on what you sell, who would be in that room.

And what would be the talk you'd use on stage to deliver the most value you could possibly deliver to them? My advice is pick the one thing you are best at.

One of the phrases we use for our clients is.

Dominate one area of the industry, become known for one thing.

Public speaking is a channel where you can grow exponentially to become known for that one thing.

Our goal for our clients is when people think of a certain subject, we want them thinking of that person. Bryce, you just happen to be on my screen right now. You focus on private education institutions. When people think private education institutions and how to protect that school, I want them thinking of you. So if you're going to take the stage, my man, I want to talk to be around that.

You want to become known for self funding, cool captives, cool love of funding, cool customer service. Whatever it is, whatever you want to know, pick it and then build a talk around.

Will do wonders for your business. Guys. When you can stand in front of a room of 50 of pro of, of of your potential prospects delivering a talk on what you know best, it will get rid of that fear.

It will get rid of that impostor syndrome.

It will give you 100% credibility and there's nothing that will turn that room into hot prospects.

Now let's talk a little bit about where you can find them. Where can you speak, where can you go find the opportunities? The first option is you can host your own events, right? There's a lot of people in the industry that host their own events. Now the challenge with hosting your own events, let's start with the pros and the cons. The pros of hosting your own event is it's your event. So if you choose to sell from stage and literally pitch your services, you can. It's your event, you get to do with with it what you want.

The challenge or the con to your own event is it is hard to get people to show up. You're doing all the marketing. You have to work your tail off to get people to show up for that event, to register. So that's the downside. They're hard to fill the room.

Speaking at others events can often be the easier path to go. That's what we spend our time doing. Why? Because if somebody hires us to speak, there's credibility and they're the ones putting the people in the room. We don't have to do the marketing to put people in the room. If I could choose one way to speak right now, I'm going to other people's events. Go to the rooms where your prospects already hang out. Could be an association.

Could be a specific business, chamber of commerce. Go to the rooms your people hang out. Let them fill the rooms for you. So let's talk about that. Where could you go? Well, here's some great places to start if you're just starting out your speaking career and you want to go find opportunities to speak. Guys, these are the types of organizations I've spoken at and I would look to to speak if I were you. First one for my benefits folks. Sherm, you know, is a very, very well known organization, national organization with state chapters. Every state has subchapters within the state and throughout the state. I'd start there. I've spoken at Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado. Sherm, it's a great place to get in front of a lot of HR professionals.

If you're more of the C suite type, think about FEI executives, Financial Executives International. I've spoken there before. You've got the CFO Leadership Council. It's another national organization, have chapters all over the country. The big one, the hard one to get into is vistage. That's for CEOs. You It's a it's a very lengthy vetting process to pick speakers but health you can get in front of them. A great place to go speak. Some of you might already be Vistage members if you are CEOs of your business.

But the point is guys, finding places to speak is prospecting just like you prospects everywhere else. You have to do the research. You got to look up who the people on the boards are. You got to reach out proactively, prospect, tell them you want to speak at their events.

And if you have the assets like the bio, the talk summary, it becomes a very effective approach to finding yourself on stage at some of these conferences.

And there's again not a more effective way to grow your business.

And just as a side note, because we teach it, all the social media content, all that other stuff you're doing only supports your opportunity to speak. Because if people see your LinkedIn content, maybe you have a podcast, whatever it is.

That is content that's going to be give give them that confidence that they can hire you to speak.

But this is the term we use called exponential awareness. This is how you leverage exponential awareness. Guys, would you rather spend your days Picking up the phone, calling one person at a time, hoping they pick up the phone.

Or where you. Would you rather work hard to go find opportunities to speak where you might have 20, 50, 100 of your prospects in the room.

Where one 60 minute talk could generate 6, 7, 8 good leads.

This is when my career changed, when I started playing a different game of math. The days of I'm gonna make a hundred calls, I hope 10 pick up three of them, say yes, one turns into a client, became whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm gonna go speak for 60 minutes, create eight hot leads and have six of them turn into yeses.

I felt it was a more efficient use of my time.

And it helped me grow my business faster and it helped me open bigger doors.

So I decided that if I were going to do this, I had to do two things. Number one, I had to get serious about it, which mean I had to get better, which is why I hired a coach. And I got to have a good talk. I've got to have a good talk. I could go deliver to these organizations and I gotta prospect these organizations. Just like I pick up the phone and prospect the CEO at my local manufacturer that I'm trying to get into.

It is the same sales approach everywhere else. Guys, that's my advice for you guys today is I wanted to give you a little, a few nuggets around how to outline a talk. If you guys want, I'm going to go back here. If anybody wants to take a picture of this, you will get the recording. But here's the formula, the impact formula. Outline. This is my homework for you. Outline a talk.

Sit down and ask yourself, if I were to give a talk tomorrow, what would I want to talk about? Outline it, using it, the acronym and start there.

And then take that and create a talk summary, create a bio.

You don't need a coach. And then go find opportunities to speak.

Now I'm going to answer some questions here because it looks like we've got some stuff in the chat box. But I do want to bring this up to your attention, guys. The whole lesson today was public speaking is the quickest path to cash. I can tell you with that, that with a hundred percent confidence, there is nothing that will generate business faster than public speaking. I know clients of ours who've taken the stick spoke and had been given the AOR without a meeting.

Because the prospect was so bought into what they did, what they talked about, they walked out saying, that's our person.

It works. Guys, if you're willing to put in the work Now I'm going to share this tomorrow. I know it's quick turnaround. Tomorrow I'm actually putting a half day workshop in. I'm hosting this called Selling from Stage. How to grow your sales with public speaking. Now this is part of our Complete Game University membership program. So if you're listening in, you don't know who I am. I own Complete Game Consulting. I'm CEO and founder. We have a membership community called Complete Game University. It is for insurance professionals looking to get extra coaching every month. Once a month I host a half day workshop called that for our members. Maze happens to be Selling From Stage. Our goal with our members tomorrow is they are literally going to put a talk together tomorrow.

If you have any interest, I'm going to encourage you to think about becoming a member. This is what our portal looks like. So if you become a member, you get access to our on demand video course. We do coaching calls every two weeks for the members. We provide exclusive coaching videos. We have sales and marketing resources and then we have our half day workshops.

And as a member you get access to six hours of coaching for a hundred and ninety nine dollars a month. There is no other platform in this industry where you get that much coaching for 199 bucks. And I bring this up because tomorrow's workshop is on public speaking. It's how to put your talk together. Now I know it's tomorrow, your calendar is probably already locked in. But if you want to get access to this, you want to become a member, all I encourage you to do is put your phone up to that QR code right here and you can become a member. Today, get access to the recording tomorrow, where I am literally going to walk.