Sean Stephenson On Becoming A Highly Paid Speaker - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #175

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish, and.

This is the I love marketing podcast.

Hey, everybody, it's Dean Jackson and Joe.

Polish, and we're here for a very special episode today with a good friend of Dean and Eyes. His name is Sean Stevenson. Does Dean and Eyes. Does that even make any sense? Did I pronounce that?

I often wonder that it's a good friend of. Even though it sounds wrong, I think the official way is a good friend of ours.

Dean.

Me and Dean. No, me and Dean. Any grammarian. Well, doctor, Dr. Sean, maybe you. This is in your realm of expertise, is it?

Well, I normally produce a lot of shows on ilovegrammar.com.

I wonder if that even exists. Well, our friend is Shawn Stevenson. Dr. Shawn Stevenson, and we've known him for a long time. Pretty amazing, phenomenal person with quite a life and quite a story and just, just awesome stuff. Sean, for people that don't know who you are, you've been on tv, you've written a best selling book, you have delivered presentations to literally hundreds of thousands, millions of people have seen you online. And who are you, what do you do, that sort of stuff.

Give some background, including the Olive Marketing Conference, of course.

That was my big breakout.

No, no, Sean has. I mean, well, first off, I think your big breakout was just hanging out with me. I mean, I think that's like, that's where all begin. No, but yeah, tell everyone who you are, what you do. If someone doesn't know who Shawn Stevenson is, spelled S E, a N Stevenson with a P, you can find him online, seanstevenson.com, but we'll get to all that later. But who are you?

Yeah, so what I think makes me most unique on this planet, visually, is the fact that I was born with a condition that makes me only about 3ft tall in height, and I use a wheelchair for physical mobility. I have a rare bone disorder called osteogenesis imperfecta. And by the time I was 18, I'd fractured over 200 times. Something as simple as sneezing would fracture a collarbone. And while that doesn't define who I am as a man, it's probably only about 2% of what I believe is a part of my identity. It's the first thing that people recognize, and it's usually the first thing somebody says when they say, oh, Shaun Stevenson, you know, the little dude in a wheelchair. And then they might go on to say a bunch of other resume building type things, but that's normally how people describe me behind my back. But I've lived a fascinating life in my own opinion, and I've had my own fair share of challenges as you can imagine. Growing up, I spent most of my time indoors with adults while I was in pain or recovering from injuries or surgeries. And so I grew up probably a lot faster than most people because I was around adults a lot, because kids were outside playing and I was inside healing from a new fracture. And in some ways, that gave me a huge advantage in business because when I was a child, I was listening to adult conversations. I was following things like CNBC with my father. I was having conversations about emotions and interacting with people's emotions and realizing that I had to control my own emotions or I would literally have gone insane with the amount of challenges that I faced as a child. So that was my upbringing, that was my roots. But then probably around high school, college, something snapped in me where I realized that I was gifted in something that not everybody is gifted. In fact, I was gifted in something that most people fear more than death. And that's professional speaking. I had my first paid speaking engagement when I was a junior in high school. So around 17 years old, I got to speak for one hour about what it was like to have a disability. And that one speech grew to speaking to hospitals and prisons and federal associations like the FAA and then into corporations. And it just kept growing to the point that while I attended college, I attended only part of my lectures that I was having to go through because the other part of the time I was traveling, making 1,500 dol an hour, speaking at organizations around the country and so had to balance out school and work. And you know, I've been an entrepreneur since I was 17. I've never had to take a paycheck. I've Never joined the 9 to 5 ranks and went on to work at the White House for a while for President Clinton, went on to, as you said, write an international best selling book. A few books, but one that probably has the most acclaim is get off your butt and it's spelled B U T. It's all about our excuses, fears and our insecurities. But, but what would I do? But I don't have the time. And so that got me a lot of international exposure. We're probably one of the top three best selling personal growth books in Korea. And it is a phenomenal honor to watch this career grow through all the strategies that I've learned in marketing and business from the two individuals that are interviewing me today and many others. So that's a little Bit about me.

Yeah.

Tony Robbins even wrote the foreword to your. To your book.

Yeah. Tony was a huge influence on my reason to study psychology and NLP and go on to get my doctorate in clinical hypnosis. Because I just was fascinated with what kind of communicator he is. I mean, there's no doubt in my mind that on this planet, Tony Robbins is probably one of the best speakers alive.

Yes, he really is.

Yeah. Well, and I'm in the midst of helping him with his new book and everything, and he's going to be speaking at my annual event in 2015 in October in Arizona here, which you will be at also, Shawn, and that'll be awesome. So let's talk. I mean, there's so many different things we could talk about. I mean, certainly I've done interviews with you in the past on one of your main goals, which is ridding the world of insecurity. You've helped people with relationships, with stress anxiety, with, you know, making decisions on what's your career path, how do you just perform at much more optimal levels, how do you work with children? Your knowledge base is very expansive. But I want to focus on something that you're really focused on right now, which is teaching people how to make money as a speaker. And I want to talk about just that in such a kindergarten level. Like as I set this up to kind of ask you some questions about it, me and Dean are going to ask you some questions about it. We all speak. I mean, every. We're speaking right now. You know, we're doing a podcast and we're speaking. So a lot of times when people think of making money as a speaker, they're thinking, well, that's an audience. And in many cases that's, you know, what you do, you speak in front of audiences. But we speak all day long. I mean, every day. You know, unless someone literally cannot physically speak, they're going to go out and they're going to talk to other people and they're going to communicate and they're going to do it one on one. They're going to do it sometimes in small groups, and there's a very small percentage that actually do of the population, because it's such a fear for a lot of people to speak in front of crowds that go and give presentations. And there's a much even smaller group that actually do it for money. And then there's a tiny, minuscule group that actually make a six figure income doing it in front of audiences or on webinars or on teleseminars. Or over Skype or whatever. And so you have really put together something that for the first time ever, you're going to teach people what you have learned how to do. And here's what I think is so unique about it. Although in your introduction you talked about what most people recognize, which is only like 2% of who I am or whatever is how I look because I'm this three foot tall guy in a wheelchair, is you have managed to travel the world and speak in front of audiences and get paid and make a lot of money. And you have. It is a lot more difficult for a guy in a wheelchair to get on airplanes and travel around because you physically cannot walk. I mean, you have to have someone accompany you and all that sort of thing. So I'm saying that just to create the comparison where people are like, well, God, I'm a little scared. I can't get up in front of an audience and talk. I mean, you've had some obstacles that other people will never have to deal with, myself included. So I can only speak to them because you're one of my closest friends and we've hung out for a lot. So let's first define what the hell is speaking from your perspective. And then we'll go into like the amateur speaker, and then people like you and Tony Robbins. And I would even put me and Dean in that category because we make quite a lot of money when we speak. But let's talk with just defining speaking as you interpret it.

Yeah, sure. So I get this question a lot, specifically on what is public speaking, what is professional speaking, what is the difference? All of that. And you know, I agree with you, Joe, that we are speaking at all times. We're all public speakers. Some just realize it and some capitalize and are able to market it and make it into a profession. And, you know, public. The word public speaking, public is different to each of us. You know, we have three people on this interview right now. You, me, and Dean. And we each would define public differently. So for Dean, he might say it becomes a public speech at a room of 1,000. And Joe might say it's a public speech in a room of 10,000. And I might say it's a public speech. When we go to a football amphitheater for 100,000 people, we ask somebody who comes in off the street, when does it become public to you? They might say, when there's a room of 10 people listening to me. So, you know, you see this all the time. People will be talking to their friends. There'll Be five people in the room, and they're not worried, they're not scared. They don't even think they're doing public speaking. But then all of a sudden, what would happen if they walked into a bigger room and there's now 30 people listening to them speak? Now their whole physiology, their neurology, everything in their body can shift, where all of a sudden they start freaking out that it becomes speech. And so public is different to each of us. And I believe what makes a speech is when we transfer ideas and we shift emotions. So when I have an idea, whether it's true, false factual, opinionated, whatever, when I have an idea and I transfer that idea out into the world, I send it out into a group, and then I'm able to shift emotions by being able to tell stories. Do activities, create engaging participation. If I can shift emotions and transfer ideas. Now we have the beginnings of a speech.

Yep.

That's interesting. I like that. As simple as that sounds. Transfer ideas and shift emotions. There's a tremendous amount that can be done within that transfer within that influence. And I look at speaking as one of the elements of marketing. I don't look at speaking from a making money standpoint as do a speech and get paid for a speech. I look at speaking for me because everyone does it differently. As a mechanism to transfer my ideas, shift emotions in people and acquire clients. Acquire people that have the potential to refer clients to me. I have a lot of people that utilize my ideas that don't pay me any money, but they'll refer people into Genius Network as an example that are at a certain level. And so my ability to transfer ideas through our podcast, as an example, me and Dean, you know, me and Dean both have businesses where we sell different things and people will hear about it, where we transfer ideas, it will shift their emotions, and some of those people will directly do business with us as a result of it. Other people, a lot of these people just become, you know, they become, I don't know, fans, admirers, colleagues, they buy in whatever, and they like our stuff and they'll tell other people about it. Of course you're experiencing that and anyone that's putting it out there into the world. So I want to. And by the way, if I'm getting too granular here, then let me know. People that are out there listening to us right now, most of them are entrepreneurs, many of them still work jobs, and they want to be entrepreneurs.

And.

And there's this space between, well, how do I do it? How do I not only transfer my Ideas, because many of them are, but they're not making any money out of it. And the shifting of emotions. It's one thing about getting someone to say, aha. It's another thing to get someone to say, I will give you money for that, either willingly. Because there are some people that are like, you guys are so damn valuable that I just want to pay you because you deserve it. I mean, it's just shifted my life and my thinking. You've given me a strategy. There's other people where the shifting of emotions is, you've got something I want. I haven't implemented anything yet, but I'm going to buy it from you in the hopes that by getting it, it's going to create some result or some value in my life. So there's all that sort of stuff going on. Last thing I'll say is Gary Halbert, who I used to have so many conversations with. He had this thing where he said, there's three things you need in order to sell something. You need a product or service, which is the thing that you. Whatever you're selling, you need a sales pitch or a marketing message, and you need a delivery system. So product or service, sales pitch, delivery system. I can put almost anybody's business through that in the same way that me and Dean can put anyone's business through before, during, and after the. Before unit. During unit, after unit. I look at speaking as well, hey, I've got this carpet cleaning business. Here's my sales message about it. And I'm going to deliver it through people through public speaking or through advertising or through a website. So going to your world, you have actually, for the first time I mentioned this earlier, you're going to do an event that's coming up here in a few weeks where you're going to teach people stuff that you have never taught before about how to make a living as a public speaker. And I'd like to have you share some of that stuff on today's podcast. And so one of the. I got a question for you on it, which is, what are the biggest mistakes that amateur speakers make that keep them from landing? I mean, I know the emphasis on your event is, you know, how to make, you know, $10,000 from a speech. So what's the mistake that a speaker would be? And that's the question. If you want to address anything I said before the question, feel free, but I want to kind of jump right into that and have you share what it is, you know?

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm going to answer this not From a space of arrogance. Like, I know all about speaking, and I've never made mistakes. I'd rather get in a DeLorean with you guys and go 88 miles per hour and go through the time continuum with our flux capacitor and go back in time to when I started. Because that's where the mistakes are. That's where I have to show my scars in this industry of speaking. Because, you know, Joe, Dean, you guys have known me for years. You've been a part of having me speak at your conferences. You know, I can get anywhere from 10 to $30,000, as crazy as that is for some people, I understand for just, you know, half hour to an hour of my time on stage. But it's not always been that way. It's been tweaking and understanding the system to figure out what makes a 10 to $30,000 speech. And it's about avoiding the mistakes that amateurs make and quickly cleaning that up. Because I don't believe that people need to take as long as I did to figure this stuff out. In fact, that's my goal, is to help people shave the learning curve so they're not wasting their money on bad business practices, that they're not making these rookie mistakes that are keeping them stuck at a certain level of speaking or not getting any speeches at all. So if we go back in time and we look at the early days of my career, probably one of the biggest things that I would do or I watched other colleagues and I do when we were just starting out is they will make. And I want to boil this down to that kindergarten level, as you said, Joe. And I want to give some immediately tangible, usable things that make that people can listen to this podcast and immediately go implement, if that's okay. So I'm not going to. I don't want to just speak in grandiose large over giant umbrellas here. I want look at specific baby steps. The worst thing that a person can do when they're on stage to flag to the audience and to the event coordinators and any buyers that they are a rookie, is to make any apologies from stage. And what I mean by that is not apologizing about something you've done in your life. I mean apologizing for your speaking ability. I will see people get up on stage and they will say, you know, I'm sorry. I really am not that good of a public speaker. I'm sorry that I didn't really plan much to talk about today. I'm sorry that I'm a little drained Today my flight was delayed, and so I'm a little tired. I'm sorry that I don't have the normal attire that I would be wearing in a speech today, but they lost my baggage. Anytime you sit or stand on stage and you apologize, I believe you are flagging to the crowd that you are a rookie. And I've seen this thousands of times, because pros only apologize for something they intentionally did wrong in their life. And they only apologize on stage when that intentional mistake then has a learning lesson for the audience. And when we get up on stage and we start apologizing for what we're not ready to do, we are basically saying, hey, I'm just kind of here. I stumbled into this place. Anybody in this audience could do the same thing I'm doing right now. So you really shouldn't trust me, because I'm not that good. I mean, imagine Dean, Joe, imagine you got on an airplane tomorrow morning. You get on your flight, you buckle up, they hand you your orange juice in first class, and the pilot gets on their plane, and he goes, hey, guys, I just wanted to start this morning and say I'm sorry that I overslept and that I had a little too much to drink last night. But we are gonna get going here in about five minutes. Like, you'd want to get off that plane pretty quickly, right? The same thing with.

I would leave Dean there, but I would definitely want to get. I would want to get out.

You strap his seat a little tighter, and you run, right?

You give him some more orange juice, the concentrated sugar. I mean, the whole works, but absolutely.

Mickey, have him fall asle.

No, you're right, though. You're right. That's a great point.

Yeah. It's more than just apologizing. There's also many other things that we do to flag the audience and the event coordinator that we're a rookie. One of them is we sit behind a podium or stand behind a podium holding a bunch of notes and clenching those notes as if the notes are life vents and we need it to survive. You know, when we hide behind podiums, when we clench notes, when we are so hiding from the stage and we are reflecting in our posture that we would like to be anywhere but up on stage, that indicates to the audience, hey, this isn't a pro. Let me flip it around and tell you. The day that my whole career changed was probably about seven years ago, and I met with a couple other speakers that were pros that were, you know, because I was struggling at the $2,500 mark. And in the. In speaking, everything's about if you're in the keynote business, it's about, where's your fiat? Because if you don't want to travel as much, you got to get your fee up, if that's the way you make your income. And so I was at the $2,500 an hour rate, and, you know, that was a lot more than anybody else I knew making, you know, an hourly rate. But I had these other mentors. They're making 10, 15, $40,000. People like Larry wing it. You know, you're good buddies with him, guys. And, you know, I was like, what? What is it that makes a difference? And one of the things that I learned from this group of successful speaking mentors is that when they're up on stage, they take ownership of the room and they say, this is my house on the inside. So in their internal dialogue, they are saying, this is my house. These are all my guests in my house. And it's not an arrogance. It's not, you know, I'm superior to you. It's, hey, I want to serve all of you. You are guests in my house. Let me make sure that you are all getting great value from being here. But also, I know that this is my house. See, I don't feel awkward in my house. It's my space on the planet, and I am free to roam and say things that may make you a little uncomfortable. But this is my house. And you've. You've agreed to come over to visit. And when I shifted in my thinking as a speaker into this is my house, all of a sudden my presentations changed because I realized that what I had to say on stage was going to make a massive impact on these people's lives. Now, I also want to say something that makes a rookie mistake that I used to make, which is believing that you are saying is changing people's lives. And maybe Dean or Joe here, you're going to disagree with me, and that's fine. We can debate about it. But I don't believe that speakers change people's lives. I believe that speakers influence people's lives. But in the end, the audience has to pick up the baton like a relay race. They have to do something with the information. You know, I learned from a dear friend of ours, Eben Pagan, that a person really doesn't learn something until they've changed their behavior. You know, if you just hear something and you can regurgitate it back, that's not learning, that's just memorizing. But when you Change the behavior. Now something has been learned and the changing the behavior is in the hands of the audience. So I no longer get up on stage and act like I'm this incredible mind melter that I get up there and I reach into people's souls with my, you know, my special magical powers and I change them. That's bull. I don't change people. I am an influence of change. I am an example of change. But in the end, it's up to them and that level of confidence to know that you don't have to carry your audience, that you just have to deliver your best and be your best. And then the audience actually respects you more for not jamming down their throat and they realize you actually are the pro up there.

I like it. What do you have to say to the dean? Because you're sitting back there kind of like all back and join in.

No, you know, I was thinking about this whole thing about getting started when you were talking about, you know, I mean, we've talked about so much but defining, you know, a thousand or ten thousand or one hundred thousand. And I was thinking about the first time that I, I did what I would call public speaking. I did a first time homebuyer workshop in Toronto as a realtor. And you know, that's kind of the, that was the beginning. I think I had 24 people at that first home buyer workshop. And that was the only time I was a little bit nervous because I'd never really done any, what I would consider public speaking like that. But then I started doing them, you know, frequently and it became natural. So when I made the transition then to speaking to hundreds of people, I got to where it doesn't even matter now. You know, it's, you get that, that kind of comfort. But I think that defining what you know, there's going to be people who want to use the actual speech as a way to get paid for a speaking fee. But there's so many uses too for using being a public speaker in, like you guys said, affecting change, you know, moving people in a direction towards either you don't, working with you in your business to do whatever it is that they, that your business does, because that's a change that can be accomplished with public speaking as well. So it's not necessarily just that they're going to be getting paid speaking fees.

To do it right. I mean, there's many different ways that speaking can generate revenue. I chose a path where I said, look, I'm going to hone my craft, I'm going to Hone my message. And I'm going to actually have that be my bread and butter. I'm going to have people say, wow, this is not some guy who's going go up on stage and sell something in the back of the room. And so therefore, we're going to let him do it for free as a showcase. We're actually seeing that his years of expertise of entertaining, shifting emotions and transferring ideas is his sweet spot. That's his genius ability, his unique ability. And so we are going to pay for that 30 minutes, that 60 minutes on time, you know, being on stage. But I've seen people utilizing these tools to be able to make far more money than I've effort made. Being able to offer products or offer consulting or offer many things. But, you know, you make a good point, and that is that I believe that if you can figure out how to present in a way where somebody would actually pay you money for what you just said, whether they do or not, that's when you started to make it. That's when you really have the impact. When somebody was saying, wow, listening to Dean tells that story was worth ten grand to me. That's when we get to the moment of shifting into a whole new level of presentation. And that's where I want to get people in this event, is to teach them what are the tools, no matter what business you're in. You know, I actually have been branching out in who I believe can attend this event based on who I've been talking to. You know, I just had a conversation yesterday with a graphic art artist who is leaving his regular 9 to 5 job. He's going in to start his own graphic arts firm. And he was talking to me about how he needs to be doing presentations about his services. And I said, well, I think it's valuable then you learn how to captivate an audience and you should be at my event. Now, I've talked to other people of different industries in real estate, and you were mentioning your first speaking engagement and all these different industries that are out there that are listening to this podcast right now. When you can communicate an idea and you can transfer that idea and shift that emotion, you can actually cause a person to reach for their wallet. You can actually cause them to make a massive difference in their community. And in those types of skill sets, we're talking about creating world leaders. And that's, you know, when we think of world leaders, we think of people like Nelson Mandela and, you know, Mother Teresa. But I think that the world leaders are also people that are out There just really wanting to make an impact, even on a community level, of what if you go home after hearing this speech and you're a better father to your children? What if you go home and you're a better spouse? What if you go home and you talk to your neighbor who's going through, you know, some tough times? And something you learned at this speech allows you to access that neighbor in a way that normally you couldn't, and now that neighbor doesn't commit suicide tonight. You know, what kind of impact we have when we are presenting is it's almost unfathomable to believe that we have that kind of power. And yet in the end, it comes down to our, I think, our order abilities, our abilities to communicate those ideas and to shift those emotions.

No, I love it. You made me think of when I first did public speaking, I went to Toastmasters in the very beginning just to get over the fear of it. And it didn't even really get me over the fear of it. The thing that got me over the fear of it was literally speaking, just doing it. My very first presentation. Now for people that, that listen, I love marketing. From the beginning, they know my story. Me and Dean are both converts of our own system, and we needed to learn marketing and the skills that we have in order to make our companies work. Him in real estate, me and professional carpet upholstery cleaning. So I ended up becoming the top trainer advisor in the world in the area of marketing to cleaners and restorers. And to this day, our company still is Piranha Marketing. I have someone else that runs it and helps with that whole division. But we still have thousands and thousands of professional cleaning companies all over the world that use our strategies to this day. One of the first things that I did was I would try to get talks at groups of real estate agents. Small though, kind of like what you said, five people, 10 people talk to people at trade shows. I would book trade shows and then have kind of almost like you see people pitching stuff at home and garden shows and things like that. Someone with like a Vitamix or something. I never could get it with the microphone and that high of a level with chairs in front of me, but I would speak to groups of people like that. And what I learned is that just the mere act of being able to, you can write things down, you can hide behind a keyboard, you can hide behind social media. And when I say hide, I truly mean that people that won't get out there and address audiences, I think they hide. Now, some people that's just not their thing. They don't ever want to go and be a public speaker, so they want to speak in other ways. You know, they don't go and do presentations. But I have never, ever seen a situation where going out and speaking doesn't improve everything else that you're doing. Like, it wasn't until I started doing seminars to cleaners. See, I started selling marketing courses after I had turned my small carpet cleaning company around. I started literally selling kits and courses on how to do what it is that I do. And my very first public speech was to 50 people in San Diego. All day long, eight hours, just me. And I wrote a sales letter for 97 bucks a person to come to this event. But then I was selling one of my marketing kits, and I had two versions at the time. One that was $497, and another one that was $597. Now, with all of the advances and everything, we sell a similar but much more improved version of that original course for $1,800. And then the sky's the limit of all the different stuff that we've packaged and offered and solutions. But back then, I had a basic and a gold package, and I pitched it at the end of the day, and I sold $12,000 worth of my marketing programs to a group of 50 people. I mean, that's how many people bought into my ideas. And I was a nervous wreck the entire time. People would be like, oh, you get over it after a coup minutes, and you kind of get into it. But I was, like, sweating all day, but I made money. And I was like, oh, my God. I mean, this is, like, the ability to share my ideas that gave me a level of confidence about what I knew to be useful and valuable that never would have occurred.

I call that competence. Creating the confidence by being competent enough to make that money, it shifts your. Your ability to how you thought about yourself, that it created that confidence. It was the result that created the confidence. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah. No, exactly. Exactly. And what occurred to me was, you know, this whole thing like that book, Feel the Fear and do it anyway. You know, what I learned is that which you fear and don't face controls you. That which you fear and you face or you take substance to face, you can control it. Or at least you can certainly get better at it. Now, it took me a few speeches until I even kind of felt like I got into a groove. But the fact is, I realized you can be scared stiff, or you could be moving forward Making progress in spite of fear. And that took a certain amount of courage. But had I not done that, I don't think I ever would have been able to accomplish all of the things that I've accomplished now. I mean, biggest audience I've ever spoken to, you've spoken to. And of course to much bigger audiences than me, Sean. But, you know, the biggest audience I've ever spoken to was 5,000 people. But it's like now I get up, Hell, I get up in front of people that are running billion dollar companies and speak of it. It doesn't even bother me whatsoever. As long as I'm talking about something where the hell I know something about. I mean, if someone wanted me to get up in front of 500 people and talk about how to create a happy marriage or something, I'm not sure I'd be the most. Although never been married, I would pay.

To watch that class.

No, no, I would too. I would actually pay to watch that speech. Maybe that's a good way. I can pay myself to speak about shit.

I don't know.

I think there's a real market there because you actually have figured out a way to go 44, right?

I'm 46. I'll be 47 in a few months.

Okay, so you figured out a way to go 46 years without getting divorced. I think that's the thing that's fighting.

Off the advances of so many amazing women. I mean, if you really think about it, like, what is. You know, I was thinking when you.

Were talking about the first time you sold something to an audience. And I remember, you know, I did those homebuyer workshops, which was such a great training ground because I was doing them every month. And I got to be really a natural at it. And then, then when I created my system for finding buyers in real estate in Halton Hills, I did the first thing, the Consumer Guide, the guide to Alton Hills House Prices. And I got together a group of realtors from all around Toronto and I did a workshop and I showed exactly how I was doing this system, exactly the guide, the ads, the follow up system, the whole thing. And I signed up 40 of them in, you know, the 40 communities around Toronto and licensed that system to them. That was my first thing outside. Like, that was my first thing into the information marketing business. Taking my system that I created and, you know, licensing it to 40 different real estate agents and just, you know, selling that out. Those, those 40 spots in that one workshop was just such momentum, you know, parallel. Funny how parallel we are in those Things, you know, I want to weigh.

In here for the two of you as well as the listener right now. And that is, you know, I'm hearing that the success of whatever it is you're working on helped to propel you to. To keep doing it. Where I want to take it to the next level is how not to also have to dredge through the experience even though you're making money. I'm a big believer that public speaking and professional speaking can be actually quite enjoyable and fun without having to do it. Scared to death. And one of the techniques that I use with people, and I've used this with people who have been speaking for years, I won't mention the name, but Joe Dean, we have a friend who is a professional speaker who gets paid to speak, goes around, does conferences, does boot camps, and he is still petrified to get on stage. Okay, I'll mention his name after the program, just. Just for our own enjoyment. But he's petrified. He's petrified to get on stage still to this day. And. And when I've worked with him, I've asked him, you know, why are you scared to get on stage? And of course, I know the responses, and I even have the queued up counter responses for him. So the responses are, I'm worried what they're thinking. I'm worried I'm going to mess up. I'm worried that I'm not going to look good. I'm worried that I'm going to get tongue tied. I'm worried. And it's all things that are about him. Okay, where I countered that and I counter anybody who, quote, hates public speaking or fears public speaking or whatever. My counter to that is, well, the problem is you are thinking that the audience is there for you. And he's. He's like, excuse me. Well, of course they are. My name's on the front, you know, of this building right now, saying that I'm the speaker here. And I go, no, no, no, no, they're not here for you. And I make it. I make them wait and I say, who are they here for? And finally he goes, oh, okay. Because he's a smart businessman, he goes, they're here for them, like, exactly. So they're not. They're not here for you. They are here for them. They are trying to glean some kind of learning inspiration, some kind of shift in emotion, transfer of idea that's going to help them. They don't care about you. They don't care about your stature, your money or your success or your Fame. They care how you're going to make them feel and what you're going to introduce to their mind. And if you start thinking about them and not about yourself, you're going to shift out of fear and go into service. Because when people are in service, you know, like when you're ladling soup into a container for somebody who's starving at a soup kitchen in the middle of a very impoverished neighborhood, you're not like, oh, I'm so worried they're going to think I'm doing a bad thing and how I'm ladling the soup. Hell no. You feel amazing because you know you're doing something that is going to nourish somebody who is starving. And that's the way you have to think about that is when you peep, when you get up in front of a crowd, you have to think about who is in your audience. This is a little technique that I do. If I could show with you guys right now, it's kind of my little secret on how I never fear public speaking. And that is when I get up on stage, I do something about one hour prior that eliminates all fear, it eliminates all worry.

I don't think we should tell anyone that. I think we should display, we should.

Just sell that and then nothing else. So here's what I do and it's going to sound a little woo woo. So I'm going to ask that you to just kind of play with me here for a moment. And that is, is I Visualize for about 5 minutes all the people in my audience and I may not know them. So I visualize different caricatures, different avatars, if you will, of people that are going to be in my audience. I visualize the single mom who is just so scared that she's not going to have the strength to raise a young boy into a strong, confident man. I visualize the older couple who is running out of their, their light, their retirement money, and they're so scared that they're not going to have enough money. I visualize the young couple who just bought a new house and they don't know if they're going to have enough to cover their mortgage. I visualize the young girl who is in college who is just, you know, sexually molested by ex boyfriend of hers and she doesn't know she should tell anybody and she's so scared for her life. And I start visualizing everybody in their problems and their pain and the divorces and the cancers that might be in the audience and the fears and the depressions and the potential suicide cases. I visualize some of the hardest stuff that people go through. I visualize what they must be bringing to the table. And when I start thinking about my audience from a very deeply empathetic standpoint, I have no room to worry about are they going to like me? I have no concern are they going to what happens if they think I mess up. I don't have any care whether or not they're going to purchase in the back of the room for me. I care about making sure that I bring my best into that 30 minutes, 1 hour, 90 minutes that I'm given to present. Because I know that that transference of an idea, that shift in an emotion, could have a cascading effect on at least one of those people that are bringing one of those massive challenges to the auditorium that day. And that massive global shift can make a difference when you're worrying about your own petty fears and concerns about what are you going to look like on stage.

That was extremely valuable. That was really good. And that is what a great way to set it up, what a great way to frame it. And so that should give some evidence of just your depth of knowledge. And what this also really reminds me of is sometimes I undervalue the amount of wisdom that comes from mistakes, that comes from learning how to do it right when you used to do it wrong, to bypassing making mistakes and going through hell when you can just talk to someone or learn from someone that just knows how to avoid all of those things. I mean, someone that's never given, given a public presentation before for money. And there's many people that are listening to this right now, what they just heard, if they really listened to what you just said, when that time comes, it's not a matter of if, but when for most people, that they're going to do this, that has just been enormously valuable. And right now, if you don't have a public speech next week, that may not seem like something, but if you really integrate that into your thinking, you have just learned the wisdom from someone that a lot of people never hear that and they never think about it. And they have a tremendous amount of anxiety because they don't know that. So I'd like to hit you with some rapid fire questions, Shawn, because you've alluded to this event you got coming up. And I just want to point out that if anyone, if this resonates with you, if you want to learn how to be a public speaker, if you want to learn how to make money at it as speaking, then no better way to do it economically, time wise, and competently and effectively than going directly to someone that this is what they do, who is going to share what they've learned, mistakes to avoid, and just strategies on how to do it right. So since we do a marketing podcast, what's the best marketing technique to make six figures a year as a speaker? Because I know you got one that only cost a few hundred bucks to do, so talk about that.

Yes. So I like to stand on the shoulder of Jeff giants. That's why I quote Dean Jackson, Joe Polish, and, you know, all the people that I really admire in the marketing world. And another name that I think you guys should definitely interview someday is another mentor of mine named Mark LeBlanc. And Mark LeBlanc taught me this one technique in marketing that is only a few hundred dollars a year to spend and yet makes you well over six figures as a speaker or presenter, no matter how you tell your story or share your ideas from stage. And I kind of paraphrase his teachings. He has a little tiny book called growing your business. And he has a little chapter in that book that I took one component out of that book and I have extrapolated it into almost my best marketing plan ever. And it's called advocate marketing. And advocate marketing is something that you also do, Joe, you have your 25k and you totally agree with this. But advocate marketing is where you surround yourself with people who have what you want. Okay, what does that mean? They have more than just money, but they have successful marriages, they are happy, they're in great shape, they love their life, they have a great relationship with their children. They are spreading wonderful ideas and messages on this planet that are solving problems in the world. And if you surround yourself with people who have what you want, then you have to find the people in that group that are huge believers in you. And I'm not just talking about somebody who thinks you're good at what you do. I'm talking about somebody who really wants to see you succeed because they know that your success is good for the planet. And I believe an advocate is somebody who is a, almost like wears three hats in your life. An advocate is a mentor. So somebody that's been where you want to be, has what you, has what you want to have, and knows what you want to know. Okay? And these group, this group of people, these advocates, they are your mentors. They are also your friend, Meaning they trust you, you. They open up their line of communication. You know that somebody is your advocate. If you have their home mailing address. You know, you have somebody as an advocate if they invite you over to their home for dinner to spend the night in their guest house, if you're in their town, you know that somebody is your advocate if they trust you with your. Their children, their money, their time, their energy, their resources. And they're also. They are your cheerleader. They believe in you. When you are down and out, when you are scared, when you're thrown down on the mat and you just want to quit, they're the person slapping cold, you know, cold water in your face, slapping you across the face, lifting you up and saying, no, you cannot quit. You have a gift that needs to be shared with this world. You have a company that solves problems on this planet, and you cannot quit. You get back out there, you sleep this off for the night, but you call it a loss for a day, but you get back out there tomorrow, okay? And these advocates, so they are your mentors, your friends, and they're also that cheerleader. These people have to be people that are up to really big things on the planet. They have to be already so busy that you can barely reach them. They aren't the kind of people that are just hanging around with nothing to do in the middle of an afternoon that you can just hang out whenever you want. No, these are people that you got a scheduled time to get on their calendar, okay? And you surround yourself with these people, and then what you do is you just continue to dump value into their lap. You continue to help them get more of what they already have. You continue to help their life get better. You continue to make their life run more smoothly. You continue to make their life filled with joy and laughter and bring incredible people into their life. And the way you do that is you do every format that you can think of to stay on top of their mind. What does that look like? Well, this is where the strategy of advocate marketing comes into Play. I have 21 advocates in my circle. These are people who. They get mail from me, and I'm not just saying, like, a little letter. They get a letter with a packet with maybe a movie that I just watched. I'll buy a movie if I just really was inspired by a movie. I'll go onto Amazon and I'll buy 21 copies of that movie, and then I. And I will stuff them into beautifully colored envelopes with a handwritten letter or a nice card saying, hey, this movie just really blew my mind and totally inspired me. When you get a free chance, I think you'll really enjoy watching this with your friends, your family, your significant other. Maybe if I see something funny when I'm out and about on a vacation and I'll see a little trinket or a little toy that will make me laugh, I'll see if they have 21 copies of it. And I will mail out that little copy of that little trinket to that group of people. I will send out gift certificates to their favorite restaurants. Of course, I know that because I polled them. What are their favorite restaurants, what are their favorite drinks, what's their charity of choice? So if I make a donation and I can send it in kind donation, I can let them know, hey, I just sent off a thousand dollars to Children's Miracle Network because I know that that's important to you or Make a Wish foundation or als. And what I do is I continue to dump tons and tons of value into these people's lives. If I know that they like sports and they like, you know, a specific kind of team, and I can figure out how to get them to be meeting the top star on that team, I will work my butt off to make sure that I get an appointment with that person and that top athlete someday in the same room at the same time. And that person is going to feel so overjoyed by meeting that person. And so what I do is I just spend a few hundred bucks a year on making sure that I send out packets to them in the mail, that I call them, that maybe I hop on an airplane and visit them. And I get in front of them, and maybe not physically, but in the top of their mind, they're thinking, oh, hey, I wonder how Sean's doing. Hey, maybe I should invite Sean to his dinner. Hey, maybe I should bring Sean along to this trip. Maybe I should introduce Sean to this person. And then all of a sudden, now I've taken as very busy person. That's very important on this planet. I have brought value into their life, and they are bringing me into their incredible network. And that little thing brings in six figures a year minimum into my business. And I'm not. I'm not hitting up blind, you know, customers and mailing out, you know, thousands upon thousands of brochures, hoping, keeping my fingers crossed to God that they. That they get that brochure and hope that they hire me. No, I'm connecting with my advocates who are reaching out to companies every day. They're reaching out to conferences, they're reaching out to organizations and associations that are hiring speakers. And then they turn to Dean or they turn to Joe and they say, hey, who's a really good speaker on overcoming the odds? Who's a really good speaker on being more confident? And then what? Oh, hey, you know what? I got my buddy Sean Stevenson. And no matter what your industry, no matter what your niche, if you have your advocate, they don't have to be 21 people, they could be five people, they could be three people. You just bring a ton of value into their life. Now you're top of mind. Now they are introducing you to their awesome world.

What a great strategy. I mean, that's kind of something you're always looking for. Advocates. We talk about that in the real estate world. You know, picking up your, you know, we have two different groups, your top 150, all the people that know you, like you, trust you already. The ones that if you saw them at the grocery store, you'd stop and have a conversation with them. But then picking out your 12 disciples or your, you know, the, the people who are your biggest advocates and treating them a little bit differently, that's just a great illustration of that. You know, it's finding out who those people are.

Yeah. And it's really about, not just about deciding who they are, but seeing who decides you. Now I'll give you an example. This is what I struggled with in the early days of advocate marketing. I would pick somebody who was really super successful and I'd try to dump a ton of value in their lap and they wouldn't want anything to do with me. Maybe, like they just didn't click with Sean Stevenson. Maybe they didn't. Maybe they didn't like my personality. Maybe they thought I was over the top. And you know what? Eventually I realized, wait a minute, this is a two way street. And the advocate isn't just somebody I want to be close to. It's got to be somebody that enjoys being around me and wants to be around me. So I shifted my format and I started looking at, hey, who is amazing that continues to stay in touch with me because maybe I need to give them more attention than just the people that I think are awesome, but maybe the people that are awesome that also think I'm awesome. And that's the difference. I reordered my 21 list about a year ago when all of a sudden I realized that there was somebody who was really amazing, who maybe I didn't think was that influential or huge, but they had a ton of contacts, they were a really good person, and they were really trying to get close to me. And all of A sudden I shifted the format. I went, whoa, wait a minute, this is a two way street. I gotta like them, but they also have to like me. And that's when I started bringing value to people that I could tell really wanted my value.

Yeah, and that's a huge key too. I mean, that's why you take my relationship with Dan Sullivan. I mean, there's a lot of people I know that are extraordinarily bright and that I admire and that they're really great. But it's like there are others that just will go out of their way to support me. And it's a very mutual beneficial relationship where we both add value to each other's lives. Because it's kind of like Martin Howard came to my office and he told the story about how he has cancer and has had multiple surgeries. And just going through this whole process and he was talking about motivational quotes that people take as face value. But you got to really think about them. One of them being the Zig Ziglar. You can get anything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. He said. Well, that's not always true because there's a lot of people you can work your brain butt off getting them what they want. That won't do anything for you. So you have to really kind of keep your eyes open. Now here's what I want to do, Sean, because there's so much that you know and you do have an event where you have coming up and I'm actually speaking at it. And we also have some amazing people speaking at it like Dean Graziosi and Jay Abraham is going to be there and the awesome Larry Winget and of course your wife Mindy Kness and.

And.

Several others that I'll let you speak to. But I want to hit you with some rapid fire questions and you, because of our time, give as short of answers that you can, but also answer them. So let me hit you with because these are things I know you know. What's the key ingredient to a killer speech that gets crowds pretty much jumping to their feet and giving you a standing ovation? Because a lot of people would love to have that happen. So what are the ingredients?

Yeah, I will, I'll just give it to you in a tiny bite sized format and that is to get a standing ovation, you must make a person laugh hard, cry and rethink their life. Now let me say that again in more detail within a few seconds, which is people are stressed. If you can create a speech and this is what I teach. But if you can create a speech that makes people laugh, that relieves their stress even momentarily, then why do I make people cry? Why is it important to make people cry? Not because I'm some kind of twisted individual that likes to see people cry, although maybe I do, I don't know. But really it's because when people cry, they release their pain. When people cry in that moment of tears, they realize that they have been touched. They realize that they have been moved. They realize that they are alive. You know, if, you know, some people go years, years, decades without crying. But if you can teach, if you can reach them in a way that you can shift their emotions where maybe they just pull up a little bit of tear in the corner of their eyes, they realize that something special just happened, that you hit them on an emotional level. You didn't just stay in their mind, you dropped down into their heart. And when people cry, when people have that moment of, like, sad reflection, if you will, that sobering moment of, wow, you know what? Like, sometimes life is difficult, and I'm sometimes ghost through difficult times. It's like a bouncy ball. When you throw a ball down hard, it bounces up higher because after somebody cries, they want to laugh again. They want to smile, they want to take action. They don't like staying in that place, so they hop back up faster. If you know how to get them there. So you need to get them to laugh, you need to get them to cry, and you need to get them to rethink their life to go, holy crap, I need to do more with my life. I need to be more for my husband, my wife, my children. I need to be a better businessman. When you can shift a person's thinking and feelings so that they want to be more and do more, that's when they jump to their feet and that's when their applause isn't about you, it's about them and where they're headed. Awesome.

Okay, next one. And this will be a short answer. What are the top, say, three worst business mistakes that professional speakers can make that would cost them their career, that would ruin their reputation?

Sure. One is bleeding out your own, your own personal, private ideologies and opinions from stage. That has nothing to do with your message. I find that when people get up on stage and they blurt, literally blurt, either their political opinion, their religious opinion, their. Their beliefs about people that are maybe not empowering, you know, disempowering beliefs that can kill and crush a career as a presenter, the Next thing a person can do in their business to kill and crush their career is believing that all they have to do is be good. All they have to do is be a powerful speaker. That is not going to make a career that can actually cost you a career. Because I. That almost happened to me where I just spent all my time and attention in becoming an incredible speaker. But I never stopped marketing. I never studied business in the first 10 years that I floundered around and just was so depressed because I was getting standing ovations but not getting bookings, and I was so confused. So the second thing is not studying business and marketing will cost you your career. The third thing is not being fun to work with. Because when you get hired to present to Whole Foods, to Nike, to Purdue University, to Zappo Shoes, those are all some of my companies that I work with. If I was an asshole to the event coordinator who is bringing me in, guess who doesn't bring me in again? Because that person just says, this person is not fun to work with. Yeah, they may be awesome when they're on stage, but I have to work with them. I have to be the one that is going back and forth with them, you know, 10, 15 times before the event. And if they're not fun to work with, not only am I not going to bring them back in, but I'm going to make sure other associations, conferences and companies don't bring them in because it's going to bring them down and make their lives miserable.

Yeah, no, no. We know many people that are extraordinarily talented, not just as speakers. Extraordinarily talented, but they're just assholes. And nobody wants to work with an asshole. So I.

They get a lot of first dates. I gotta admit. They will get a lot of first dates. They just will never get asked back. Yeah, yeah.

No, look, I mean, we, you know, we live in reality. The reality is you can be a real mean, sort of jerk person. You can still make a good living in everything. But if your measure of success is simply money, but everyone thinks you're a fricking dork, or I'm trying to censor myself here. Yeah, douchebag, whatever. Then that's a whole different. That's not the world that I would consider success for me. So that was great advice. All right, last one. What's the fundamental difference between speakers that flounder from the. That wildly flourish? Talk about that and then let's tell people about how they can access you and get some freaking real skills in this area.

Yeah, I Mean, it's a perfect transition, Joe, because it's the same reason why. I think. I think it's the same reason why people need to come to my event, and that is that they don't surround themselves with the people that flounder. They don't surround themselves with people that master marketing and master platform techniques. It's a merger of the two.

Wait, wait, wait. I think you said they don't surround themselves with people that flounder. You mean with people that don't flounder.

Right. The people that flounder are the ones that don't surround themselves with people that have incredible platform skills and incredible business and marketing skills. If you continue to try to do it on your own, if you continue to think that, oh, if I was just. If I'm just funny on stage, that'll get me booked, or if I. If I just have a good flashy website that will give me a book. No, it's about surrounding yourself with people who are already crushing it in the business side and the art of the platform side. And I have found many boot camps out there in speaking, and I've gone and paid a lot of money to attend these. And you know what? I got wonderful things from them. But where I've merged, the things that I have learned over the years, the years is that you really need to have four components. And this is why I'm going to be teaching this event November 13th to the 16th, Scottsdale, Arizona. And that is, I call it the MDMA format. You got to have incredible message, you got to have incredible delivery, you got to have incredible marketing, and you got to have an incredible attitude to work with. If you have the messaging, the delivery, the marketing and the attitude, then and only then, then will you crush it in the speaking industry.

Love it. Love it. So how do people find out about this? Where do they go? And by the way, I mentioned that I was speaking there. That alone should be a reason enough for people to come and attend this thing. And what I'm going to share is, you know, I mean, the reality is I have over 150 people that pay me $25,000 a year every time that I speak at my own office in Arizona and run a group which does not consist of me speaking the entire time. I make over $100,000 a day, and the people that are there all know that, and they're very glad with that. Sometimes I make upwards of $200,000 a day, and that's more than most people that are quote unquote speakers ever make. There's also selling from the platform, which is another part of doing it. There's getting paid fees. There's all kinds of different ways to monetize it. Sometimes I will go and do speeches for free for friends because there is a leverageable relationship there. It's kind of like the advocates that you talked about. So there's all kinds of ways to do that. And I know you are going to exhaust all of everything that anyone could possibly think of. When someone comes to your event, they are not just getting the event. You are actually giving them all kinds of training before the event and even after the event. So what they are doing is they are actually investing in an entire skill set of learning what to do, what not to do. And there are some practical, pretty incredible people that are going to come and speak to this. Like I mentioned, Dean Graziosi, Jay Braham, who's one of the sharpest marketing minds on the planet, Larry Wingett, who's amazing. Talk about who else is going to be there and then what this is give out the website and then we'll let people decide if that's something they want to do.

Yeah, absolutely. So you'll go to Sean S-E a n Stevenson S-T e P-H-E-N-S o N.com 10K. So that's the number one, the number zero and the letter K as in kangaroos. So SeanStevenson.com 10K and when you get onto that page, you'll see the list of presenters are amazing. Just like Joe talked about. We have some of the brightest minds in marketing. You got Joe, you got Jay Abraham, you got Dean Graziosi. But we also have some of the best in delivery. Larry Wingett has been in this industry of speaking for I think three to four decades and he is the most captivating speaker next to maybe Tony Robbins that I can think of. He just calls it like he sees it and he knows knows what it takes to get the biggest name companies to pay incredible sums of money and travel around the world to the most luxurious spots on the planet to get paid first class all the way as a professional speaker, as well as to be able to sell a ton of product in a presentation as well. We also have people not just on the delivery of being on stage and being commanding, but also the delivery of a deep impactful message. So Mindy Kinnis is probably one of the best in terms of presenting presence. When she gets on stage and she presents, everyone sits there like her words are liquid gold. You'll see it when she gets up on stage. She understands how to control the body, how to control the energy in the room so that everybody is leaning forward in their chair through the presence of being right there in that moment with the the audience. We have presenters like Sekou Andrews, one of the best award winning poets on the planet. He's performed for Barack Obama. He's performed for big name celebrities, NBA teams. He is one of the best spoken word poets on the planet. He's going to talk about using your voice and tapping into your voice. We have, remember I talked about you got to make them laugh. We have one of the funniest people I know, Kyle Cease. He had one of the top running shows, comedy shows on Comedy Central for a few years. He's going to be talking about comic timing and what makes people laugh. We have incredible presenters on business. As I said, I'm going to be doing a lot of the teaching talking about how is it that we can shift all of this information so that the audience wants to spend money on us, they want to spend time with us and they want to be a part of our lives and follow us afterwards in our social media and become waving fans of ours for years to come. This is going to be one exciting event because I'm bringing together all the people that I admire that have helped me with my speaking career. I'm going to bring them into one room. I know this will never happen again. We will not get all these names in one room to be this accessible to people ever again. And the icing on the cake is when people sign up for this and they register on that website. They also get a 10 hour video training program called Standing Ovation System that goes in great detail about a lot of the things that we've been talking about. It's like your pre assignment, you can go through it before you even get to the program so that you are just chocked full of great conversation pieces and questions so that you already feel like just from that value of that program alone, which was worth four grand, that's what people paid for that product. You will get that absolutely free for your registration. You'll get all of that and you'll feel like, wow, I'm getting all of this plus the live training all for $14.97. I mean I can't make it any more idiot proof if I can think then to bring all that together in one place.

Cool. Well, there you go. That's the pitch, that is the offer and that's something that I would highlight highly Highly encourage everyone to do it will come back to you probably a hundredfold in your career, even if you don't even think that you're going to be a speaker. I would even go to it just for the marketing strategies and stuff that even myself that I'm going to share. I mean, I know what I'm going to share alone will be worth the ticket price to admission. So it'll be fun and. Yep. So, Dean Jackson, anything you want to say before we wrap up with Sean?

That's great. Wish I lived in Phoenix.

Listen, I want to hear your excuses. You're gonna be. You're gonna be out here too, right, Dean? Are you gonna be. You're able to make that?

I'm not gonna be able to make it. I've got an event, my own event going on those same days.

Yeah, well, obviously this one's gonna be much better than yours. But that, yeah, you can just cry after we hang up on this episode. But no, for everybody who's obviously not in prison by their own schedule like Dean is, then you definitely need to be at Sean's event. ShawnStevenson.com 10k and by the way, this ain't an affiliate thing. We ain't making a penny by promoting this thing. We're doing it because we know it will be awesome and that Sean is awesome. Any famous last words?

Shawn, thank you so much for this opportunity. I look forward to meeting those that attend and I really do hope that something will we said today can help shift your emotions and transfer the way you look at the world.

Awesome. All right, thanks, everyone. Give us your comments and we'll talk to you on the next episode of I Love Marketing. Share this with anyone that you think could benefit about hearing about how to basically package, present, and offer your ideas to the world to transfer ideas and shift emotions.

Thank you. It.