In this monologue, entrepreneur and author Mike Michalowicz recounts a memorable speaking engagement at Drexel University where he was paid $3,000 to address only two students. He frames the experience as both humbling and a test of his commitment to speaking. Michalowicz then shares a step‑by‑step promotional strategy he uses after securing a speaking gig: first, he asks the student club president to invite the campus newspaper journalist, then he leverages that journalist’s article to obtain a backlink from the university’s domain (e.g., drexel.edu). He extends the tactic to Ivy League schools, noting that backlinks from prestigious .edu sites boost credibility. Next, he contacts professors teaching relevant subjects, which led to his books—The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan, among others—being adopted into curricula at Pepperdine, Stanford, Columbia, and other institutions. The narrative demonstrates how a modest, even embarrassing, speaking slot can be transformed into a powerful marketing engine for an author’s brand and books.
Chapters
I go to Drexel. I'll never forget, I arrived, students like, we're so excited for you to be speaking on entrepreneurship. I didn't have a book or anything. And they said, oh, here's the envelope. Open the envelope. There's a check for $3,000 from Drexel University to me. I remember my hand shaking like, holy, I'm getting paid to speak. And it's this beautiful auditorium. Like, this is amazing. Like, I can't wait to go on stage. So I'm sitting there, I put the money in my pocket. It feels great. I go on stage, 2 students. It was the most embarrassing thing, but I got paid. And I remember just sitting there saying, this is the ultimate test of my commitment to speaking. So yeah, it's humbling or maybe even humiliating that no one is there, but I gotta give my best speech ever. And I just did everything I could to do the best speech. The two kids were texting, they were there out of obligation, but I got paid. But there was another kid that came. This is the next tip. Once you have your gig lined up, tell that student president or whatever, I would love for the journalist from the school paper to be there. Journalist shows up and I tell the club, my goal is to meet with this journalist, tell them a little about the event, but really to promote your club. So your club's gonna get some exposure. When I meet the journalist, I tell 'em about the event, the club, and then I say, by the way, would you backlink to me? Student newspapers as of 20 years ago, 15 years ago, They all went online. They used to be printed papers. So now Drexel University says, speaker Mike Michalowicz comes to Drexel University, talks on so-and-so, here's his link. I'm getting a backlink from Drexel.edu to Mike Michalowicz. I did this at Princeton, I did this at Harvard. I have these Ivy League EDUs who paid me also pointing back to me. Then I would ask, who are the professors on this subject? That's how I met Zarek Bahosian. He's a professor at Pepperdine. I met him this way. He said, I love this subject. Now I had books. He said, we'd love to teach your books. Pepperdine started teaching The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, but they teach Profit First, Pumpkin Plan. I think 4 of my books are now at Pepperdine and Colton College and Stanford and Columbia. My books are being taught there.
