Corey Kupfer Talks to Joe Apfelbaum about CEO's Getting Speaking Gigs

We are now recording. This is Joe Apfelbaum live from Brooklyn, New York, and I have none other than Corey Kupfer, the master public speaking human being. How are you?

I'm great, Joe Apfelbaum. I love it.

So talk to us. What, what is, what is a way that an EOer that either has a book or that's coming out with a book can get more public speaking gigs? What's the method? What's the method to the madness?

Yeah, okay. So, so, um, so listen, there's, there's a few things you can do. I mean, you do one of the things really well already, which is create a presence for yourself, right? Why? Because just have a book— a lot of people publish a book and they don't have a business plan behind it. And not only are they not going to get speaking engagements, but they're not going to sell books and they're not going to get clients from it because there's no model around it, right? So you already have a following, which is, which is key. But in terms of speaking engagements specifically, There's a number of things that I've learned over the last couple years, in part on my own, but also being a member of National Speakers Association, which, by the way, that's my first tip. I would recommend you join the National Speakers Association New York chapter. It's a community of professional speakers. It's like EO in that it's got chapters all over the country and then affiliations with chapters and other speaking organizations around the world. So if you want to be a speaker, be in the organization for speakers, right? Like you want to be an entrepreneur, be in Yale.

So what does it take to join? Do you have to have a certain amount of engagements already? What is that?

You do.

There's a few different levels. I don't remember them all offhand, but I think it's something like 20 or 25 talks, or you could have fewer talks but have earned— I think the money threshold is only about $25,000 in speaking fees. Or you cannot make the money threshold and do it through talks. And then, or you can actually be working for somebody. This doesn't apply to EOers, but you could be working with somebody and do speaking or workshops as part of your job. And so there's 3 criteria. It's all on the website. I don't have the details.

Do you have any idea how much it costs to join?

Yeah. So it's— don't hold me to this, but it's a lot. It's way— it's a fraction of EO. I mean, between the national and the local chapter, you're under $1,000 for the year.

Okay, got it. Okay, so it's a no-brainer.

And then you pay meeting attendance fees. Also, by the way, if you don't qualify, if somebody doesn't qualify as a professional speaking member, the New York chapter has an associate membership where you don't belong to national, but you can join as an associate member, you know, in the chapter.

You can still come to the events and—

You can come to the meetings. Cool.

All right, cool. So tip number 1, join the National Speakers Association or the New York chapter.

Okay, what else?

Absolutely. All right. So number 2 is, well, where I'll go is someplace that people spend a lot of time on that you actually shouldn't, which is people say, oh, I got to get listed by a bureau or a speaker management agency or whatever, right? That's what they hear. You got to get represented, right? And here's the bottom line. The bottom line is that for speakers starting out and for a while, No good bureau or management agency is going to be interested in you. Don't waste your time. Okay, what the good bureaus are interested in is frankly somebody who is already successfully speaking.

Where—

who— 2 categories: either they're already successfully speaking, getting paid, and they do not— and they want to hand off all of the booking, the logistics, and the negotiating and everything, and give it— and it's worth it to them to give a piece away. but they're already getting paid to book, you know, at a good level, or they're getting paid to speak at a decent level and they're on that tipping point. So in other words, an agency sees them and says, oh, this person's on the, like, successful, getting paid to speak and on the verge of being even more successful and we can put fuel on the fire. So already successful and somewhat successful on the verge. If you're before that, don't even waste your time with Bureaus or agencies.

Okay, so where do you even begin?

So the first thing a lot of people do is that they speak for free a lot, and you build, you know, reputation, especially like for associations, um, because the associations have members who may, you know, who may book you for their corporate gigs and that kind of stuff. Um, even the chambers of commerce and, you know, things like that, right? I mean, you know, the EO Circuit, uh, who will pay something, you know, sometimes depending on what you're doing, and sometimes they won't. One of the things, you know, and then obviously through, you know, through your own connection. Now, here's the thing. If you want to get booked by a meeting planner, this is one of the things that I didn't have, I'm still working on getting. Like, I spoke for 15 plus, 20 years as a sideline to my law firm. It just started as business development and I started getting paid for it, but there was never a business model around it, right? And then when I came to say, hey, I'm publishing this book, I want to create my own business model, etc. What I found I was missing, one of the big things was video, right? Nowadays you cannot get booked for speaking without video on your website. They want to see you speak. Now I look back and I said, oh my God, I wish I would have known. I had all these great talks I did for 15 years, never videoed them because it was never— it was always just an adjunct. So I'm building up that video content now. I'm videoing everything I do. Now they want 2 things. One, you have your speaker reel or your sizzle reel where, you know, you have this cool whatever, a few minutes of All the, you know, cutting in and, you know, and the great shots of you, a little clip here and 30 seconds here and 8 seconds here. But you need more than that. You need, in addition to that, you need at least one full talk on your site where a meeting planner or, you know, somebody who may book you to speak can see you speak. Nobody books anybody without reviewing their videos these days. So that's the other thing.

Or they go to your event.

Or they go to your event. But, but that But obviously, as you can imagine, there's a limit, you know, the number of people who can go to your event compared to the number of people who can do the event.

I had a very successful meeting planner that actually teaches other meeting planners how to be meeting planners, made me crazy to come to my LinkedIn seminar, and she came, and after that, she's like, all right, Joe, I need to book you. I need to start booking you. So you're absolutely right, yes. There you go.

So they need to see you, whether it's in person or, you know, or in video. So that's absolutely key. So, and listen, it's like anything else. Hey, there he is. Hey, Dave Schnurman.

Hi.

So Joe's recording this, so the stuff you missed, you can catch up. So listen, it's like anything else. This is the other thing I say, right? It's like we know this in EO. If you want to become a speaker, it's not just like, oh, I want to speak. It's a business, right? It's like any other business. It takes time. You gotta build it, you build relationships, you start charging lower, you increase your fee as you go along, you have to put a business model around it. And the thing that I've really learned, so what I did this first year that I've had it as a separate business was my goals were to just increase my, like I didn't have the kind of social media presence. You and I, Joe, had talked about this like a year ago, 2 years ago.

Yeah.

I never had that. It wasn't as necessary for my law business. So my goal was to build it up. My goal was also to get PR and be quoted in articles and be on podcasts and on radio shows and get the right logos on my website to create the credibility, right? Because you got to create some credibility and then you have to have the video. So I've gotten to the point now where I've created the credibility. People look at my page and it's not just— I mean, it's true.

Right?

I've been interviewed all over the place on, you know, all these things and they see me quoted in these publications and they see me doing my own blogs and now, you know, I've established myself as an authority, which I always was in negotiating. I've been doing it for over 30 years, but I didn't have the online presence and the media presence to create that authority. So now people, you know, so now this coming year, right, I've made a decision. So just to give an example, because this will help people. Is what some people do is they want to go out and all they want to do is speak and that's how they're going to make their money and a lot of them are looking at business models behind it, right? I'm fortunate, actually all of us on this call are fortunate that we have businesses already, right? So, you know, we don't have to like speak and then decide what we're going to upsell people to on the back end. We might do additional products and things like that but we have core businesses that we might be driving people to. So, you know, for me, I made a decision that I don't want to be on the road. Like, I love Jack Daly, right? We all know Jack. He's phenomenal. And Jack's on the road 180 days a year speaking, and it works for him. He loves it. He's 90 days at home, 90 days, you know, on vacation, and 180 days on the road speaking. I'm clear I have no interest in doing that. I'm also clear that what I love to do is the high-end workshops and consulting, and that's what I'm really using my speaking to drive people to. So my model is I actually get paid to speak in certain things, but there are certain, you know, like I spoke at something called the Dealmaker Summit in the investment advisor space where I have a lot of clients. I, you know, I didn't charge for that one. I got, you know, 4 deals out of it. So, you know, I think, you know, I think like anything else, you got to decide on what your business model is because if you're looking to do high-end keynotes, it's a different model compared to wanting to do breakouts, compared to wanting to do workshops, compared to wanting to speak for free to drive consulting, you know, or other business to your business. So when you say, hey, you know, how do I get speaking gigs? Well, it depends. I mean, are you looking to, you know, work your way up to be a $15,000 or $25,000 keynoter, or are you looking to drive business to your core business and making money on speaking doesn't matter that much, or somewhere in between?

Got it. That makes a lot of sense. Know your goal. And once you know your goal, then you know what type of speaking you can get. Make sure you have video on your website. Make sure that you, you're not going to a speakers bureau if you're starting out. And then make sure you're putting yourself out there on social media. Those are the basic tips. Any— have you had any success getting administrative assistants reaching out to conferences and like putting your, your information on their looking for speakers forms?

Yeah, so I actually hired somebody about 6 months ago or so as an assistant in my speaker business 'cause my assistant in my law firm is fully busy. And we started looking into that and we did a couple of them. And listen, what that situation is, is you're in a hugely competitive business. Like a lot of, they get all kinds of applications, right? And there are people who do well in that game. And it's, you know, so, you know, and what you do is you should— so let me take a step back with a couple of tips that make a big difference in that situation and in all situations. The other 2 things you need to do is you need to figure out exactly what your message is. There are too many speakers out there who are, you know, oh yeah, I'll speak on these 20 things, right? No, you need to have— you need to pick something to start with and you can, and you know, you can have a couple of things. But really, you want to, you want to get known for something, right? For me, it's—

what is your core message, right? Right.

Now I have authentic dealmaking and authentic business relationships. There's a whole branding around authentic. But the first thing I focused on was authentic negotiating. That's what the book is on. That's what I'm getting a reputation on. Then I can expand it. So, so that's the first thing, because when there's a million speakers, if they see you speak on 20 things, but they want somebody on negotiating and they see Kupfer, is the authentic negotiating guy, my odds of getting hired for that gig versus you are much higher. So that's number one. Number 2, you gotta figure out what your target audience is. This is like any kind of other business, right? Who are you looking to speak to? Are you looking to speak to CEOs? Are you looking to speak to entrepreneurs? Are you looking to speak to salespeople? Do you have more of a general public, you know, kind of thing? And that'll also dictate where you go, 'cause you ask where do those people hang out? Now, in terms of the sort of submitting for, conferences, um, yeah, that's the game a lot of people play. You know, it's a numbers game and it's a, it's a positioning game. And, um, frankly, just for me, and I'm not saying this is the right choice for everybody else, I've actually chosen not to play that game. I mean, part of it is just my, I, I, you know, self-awareness, right? Like, I have been fortunate in that I built a business where I've never been So I built a business where people come to me, right? My law firm business, my consulting business, other stuff I've done where I built reputations and I built authority and then I get referrals. I built key partner relationships, people come to me. And there's something about sort of, you know, putting in all of these— like I never did highly competitive RFPs. I, you know, I get referrals. Maybe, you know, maybe I'm the only one being referred or maybe there's 2, you know, there's 2 or 3 people and I And I'm fine. I'll compete for that business. I just made a decision I'm not interested in submitting, you know, where there's 100 or 1,000 other people submitting, you know. And by the way, it's a model that works for some people. I'm not putting it down. It's just not my thing. I'm not interested in waiting for somebody to tell me that I can work for them. It's the entrepreneur in me. It's the freedom, you know, that I wear on my thing here. It's— I'm not judging anybody else. It's self-awareness for me. So my whole model that I'm building is an inbound model. Creating the authority, putting out the content, speaking in various places, and then wanting people to come to me to say, hey, Corey, can you speak at my conference? But there are plenty of people who put in the applications in these various places and have their assistants research the right conferences for them and, you know, and research who spoke before and put in proposals. Nothing wrong with that model. It's just not the one I've chosen.

Are you an EO or a Vistage speaker, or do you speak at YPO, any stuff like that?

Yeah, so I've definitely spoken at EO. I spoke down at the NERV conference, you know, in Florida this past year. I've spoken for the New York chapter. I've spoke for Western New York. I've got some others in the works, potentially actually in the Middle East and some other things. I have not yet broken into Vistage or YPO, but I'm working some of my contacts there to get in, 'cause those are good markets for me. You know, I mean, not that, like, a lot of those organizations, some of them, like Vistage, they don't pay a lot of money, but it's the right crowd, you know. So, I'm working on that. You know, Joe Greenwald does a lot of that, our fellow EOER.

What's the process for speaking at NERV?

Well, I will say, I mean, for me, frankly, it was— I knew the right people. I mean, you know, I mean, they have a process where people recommend speakers and they submit stuff and whatever, you know, but I just reached out to the folks I knew, including Barry Katz and Carl Gould and you and the Learning Chairs and the people who run it and say, hey, I got the book out, whatever, do you have a slot? And they got me in. So, you know, but that shows you, I mean, listen, you know, leverage the relationships. I mean, You know, we know EO Learning Chairs are looking for speakers, you know, all around. I mean, they have a multitude of options, but at the same time they're looking for the right content. So, you know, whereas we don't solicit any, it's okay to send your book to an EO Learning Chair and say, hey, this is what I speak on, you know, if you need me to speak. They're looking for those options.

In terms of creating your speaker kit and preparing your actual speech, did you use a coach for that? What are your resources that you use for that?

Yeah, so, you know, I did this authority marketing program with my publisher Advantage Media, and so they helped me put my kit together, my speaker kit, so that, you know, I had that support. In terms of speaking, that's one of the things I really get out of NSA is that we have people come in every month and speak, and some of it's on the business of speaking, But some of it's on the, you know, on the art of speaking. Not to mention the fact that, like, I'm going down in July to Dallas to the Influence Conference, which is the national conference, and you see people on stage who are just masters, you know. And the great thing is they do workshops where they share their stage, you know, their speaking skills and stage stuff. And then there are a lot of speaking coaches. In fact, there's one of the ones that I helped out on some legal stuff, and she She helped me out, you know, gave me some input. Like, I sent her a video of my talk and she gave me some input, you know, and it's, you know, everything from, you know, when you step backwards, you know, it's losing power. Like, you know, all the little tips for stagecraft. So, and there, yeah, there are a lot of people who will coach you on that. A lot of resources in NSA for that.

You're muted, Joe.

Paul, another point. Plug for NSA. Beautiful. Okay, David, do you have any questions for Corey before we wrap up?

I feel like we're on Joe's podcast right now. Are you gonna turn this into a podcast? I hope not.

He is interviewing me like it's a podcast interview.

I love Joe. So great questions, obviously, because you're really focused. So just a couple questions I have just to get some context. And by the way, Corey, thank you so much. Like, just hearing you speak about this stuff, just, it reminds me of why I need— why even if you're not an EO, like, I want to stay in touch with you. No, seriously, like, you don't, you don't need EO to be surrounded by smart people who all get it. So there's that. So since you did the book, how many, if you ballpark, how many times do you think you've spoken, paid or unpaid, in the past 2 years as well?

So the book's been about a year and actually only like a year and a quarter. And I don't know, I mean, not that like maybe a dozen, 15 times. I mean, it's not like a big, you know, you know, once or twice a month here and there. And then, you know, so yeah.

And in terms of paid speaking gigs, is that one-third about paid?

Out of those, probably about, well, actually more than half of them were paid.

And is the average, I assume for like the level that you're at, is it usually like $5,000? Is like the—

All right, so yeah, let's talk about money. And here's the thing, so this is just us discussing this. I have to say, this is not a conversation in any of my capacities with National Speakers Association because we're not allowed to talk about fees as an association.

Okay, interesting.

For antitrust and, you know, purposes, but personal experience. So I'll only share personal experience. I think it's pretty common. People think, oh yeah, you know, you're gonna go out and speak for $5,000 and work your way up $10,000, $15,000, whatever. $5,000 is actually a real speaking number.

Yeah.

Like most people do not get anywhere near $5,000 when they start.

Right.

Now I am getting that when I get paid. So like for EO chapters, I've been discounting. For example, like I do $5,000 for my talk and $7,500 for my half-day workshop, and I've been discounting that by a third for EO chapters just because of my relationship with EO. So that gives you some numbers there. So, but $5,000 is actually sort of the, you know, most people start out, I mean, there are a lot of people out there speaking for $500 or $1,000, you know. Now, you know, it's, it's a different— one of the things I mentioned earlier is all 3 of us have underlying businesses, right? So we have a different cost-benefit analysis. So for me, part of the reason why I've spoken 12 to 15 times and not 30 times is because I don't choose to go— I choose to do either gigs where I'm getting paid my rate or where they're super phenomenal business development opportunities I do for free. I'm not spending time doing $500, $1,000 gigs, not because I have any judgment or anything's wrong with that for people who built— I mean, when I built— when I started my law firm, I was doing $65 an hour teacher union legal plan work.

Yeah.

So I have no issue with the hustle and starting low. It's just that for my time and cost-benefit analysis in terms of where I'm at with my other businesses, it's not I'm not interested in that. It's not worth it to me. So I will do fewer gigs to, to get paid, you know, at the level that I want to get paid, or do the free ones that are super good business for me.

Got it. And like, uh, so for me, like, the naivete but also the, the dreamer side of me is like, it's like, I want to speak to have impact. I don't care, you know, it's not like— forget the business plan, forget all that. And so I'm still at the early stage where Like, I'm speaking at the NextGen Summit next week. There's gonna be 1,000 college student entrepreneurs. I'm speaking at the Nifty thing in 2 weeks. Obviously I'm not getting paid.

Yep.

So, and obviously my book is coming out in September. So I assume there becomes a point though where you're like, yeah, it's cool to have impact, but you need to like, you know, depending on how much you're getting paid or not, like, 'cause to me, I think I can actually have this dream that the book You know, it'll be more than 200 people who actually get it. So to me, it's like, well, the goal is just to get a book out there. That was— is that not enough?

Yeah, so this— so I think, I think there's a couple of things you're raising, right? Number one is— and listen, you know me well enough, David, that service and impact is like— so it's such a core part of who I am, right? Um, and 2 things about that. So number one, I think for you it really makes sense because, you know, you're— I know you've done some speaking, but, you know, you're, you're in the You're sort of like where I was, right, where you're doing some stuff on the side, whatever, but now you got, you have a book coming out and you got a business model around it or whatever. So, you know, especially in anticipation of the book, you know, to do more free stuff and get yourself out there and build up momentum and buzz for the book is a great idea. So, so I totally agree on that. You know, when you get a book, you more easily can get booked and paid for it, by the way. The book helps a lot if you do it right. But here's the other thing that I think a lot of— most speakers, most speakers are not Jack Daly. Most speakers get, you know, are all excited about doing a lot of speaking and then they're on the road a bunch and then they get tired and they're like, yeah, this was sexy and fun for a while, but now like living out of hotel rooms and on planes all the time, so I want to start picking and choosing, you know, what I do. And then, you know, that's where often they'll say, Well, you know, unless it's X dollars. Now, by the way, you can also have a criteria that says if it's X impact, you know, and I do that. You know, what I've done is this. I've created a model where I say, hey, this is how many speeches I want to do. This is how many of those I want to be paid. This is how many of those I want for business development. And this is how many speeches that I'd like to do for causes or organizations or things I care about where at the doesn't need to make me money and doesn't need to, you know, be for business development where it's just— but so in other words, I plan that. I have a model. So I have a way to vet because as you, you know, get more and more, you know, out there, more and more opportunities will come to you. And if you don't have a filter or a model through which to vet them, it becomes, you know, it becomes hard.

Got it.

So I actually have a number of speeches that I will do for things I care about without regard to the money or the business development opportunity.

Did you, Corey, quick question that just came up in my mind. Have you ever done a talk for a not-for-profit where they gave you a receipt and you didn't charge them, but that's a tax-deductible receipt? Do you know anything about that?

Interesting.

I know a little. I would— so here's the thing. My understanding, and don't take this as gospel, but I remember looking into this, but you should definitely check with your tax advisor, is that So, the only way that that— so, you know, basically if they give you a receipt, what they're saying is, hey, we paid you $3,000 and you donated it back, right? You have the income that offsets the deduction. I don't think you can take the deduction without taking the income, right? Because you can't take a deduction for services. Like if you go volunteer at an organization, you can't take a deduction for the time you spent. So when they give you—

You might be able to take a deduction for the books.

What's that?

You might be able to take a deduction for giving them books and just increase the price of the books significantly.

Yeah, well, that's different. Yeah, I think if it's not services, if it's a product, there's a value to that. You know, there's a value to your books. So yeah, that's deductible.

Cool. And I just have one last question for today's interview podcast series. The Joe and David Show. Is being somebody who is EO president for one, not one year, but two, this is timing-wise really good for me because September is when the book is gonna be coming out. I'll just be in the height of the presidency. Any advice or thoughts on how to, 'cause whenever I tell people I'm EO New York president, it does give that credibility another level. Just thoughts, you know, being that that timing's right, any ideas or thoughts on how to leverage that?

Yeah, it's interesting. I gotta tell you, you're a better man than me because I waited till my 2 years was over to write my book and put it out there because I needed to be your president and running my businesses and doing a book. You know, more power to you, David. But yeah, so listen, it definitely You know, it's interesting, right? Because it definitely gives you a higher profile within EO. Of course, we don't use it directly to solicit EO, but you know, you know how it is. We're a supportive community, and if you let people know you have a book out, people are going to start to, you know, ask you. You know, and then, yeah, listen, I'm not shy, you know, when I'm outside of EO, when I'm doing a media interview, whatever, if it's appropriate, I'm not shy, and it's in my bio, you know, to talk about being in. A lot of times the host or the media people will pick it up and say, you know, former president of, you know, Entrepreneurs Organization. I mean, it's, you know, this whole book speaking game is an authority building game and that's, you know, that's a big piece of authority.

Cool.

Amazing. Amazing. Okay. Thank you so much, Corey. Thank you so much, David. I appreciate you both for being on this amazing program. And I look forward to sharing this with other EOers. Corey, do we have permission to share this video with the EO around New York?

You wanted to be careful what you say, right?

Uh, no, it's okay. You can, you can, you can share it.

You can share it.

It's not a problem. I don't, I don't care where you share it if it gives value to people.

I'm gonna dress a little bit more professionally.

Listen, you want to tell everybody, you want anyone—

David, you don't have to always look professional. You can put out raw videos.

That's the way it is.

Corey, if somebody wants to like get into with you and hire you as a speaker, how do they do that?

Oh, look at you. This has definitely turned into a podcast. You're the man. The hub for me is coreykupfer.com, C-O-R-E-Y-K-U-P-F-E-R.com. All my info's on there. They can get to my law firm site from there. They get my book from there. There's an authentic negotiating success quiz where they can find out whether they're an authentic negotiator and get automatic feedback. So that's the place to go.

Yes, thank you very much. Happy, happy, have a good Shabbos, everybody, and thank you for being amazing.

I just want to say one thing, Corey. Corey, so you know, I think about 25 people have signed up for the, um, the workshop so far, or about 25.

Oh, awesome.

So for how the, uh, what is it, the phantom stock and other things. So thank you.

Yeah, yeah, the, uh, I call it employee attraction and retention vehicles. Yeah, it'll be cool.

I like phantom stock and other things, but whatever.

So there we go.

All right, thank you guys, all the best. And David, by the way, thanks, thanks for being on the COVID of my book, David. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

I should have grabbed the book. Take care, folks.

Bye. Take care, everybody. Bye.