The Secrets To Becoming A Great Speaker | Joe Polish

And some people are like, well, but I'd be willing to speak just for free because I just have a message. Well, then you'll be seen as a hobby, you know, a hobbyist. And you won't be able to get into those big name conferences because they want somebody who is time tested and has put all their eggs in this basket called speaking versus just dabbling in it, you know, And I don't believe a speaker is taken seriously until they get to $10,000 an hour. Until you get to a speech that is worth $10,000 and somebody's willing to pay you, you're just an amateur in my eyes and in the eyes of the industry. So my biggest thing is you gotta build up the message, the delivery and the marketing with the right attitude to get a event coordinator, a decision maker, to see that you're really as good as you say. And it comes down. There's a lot of components that I teach in my event called 10K Speeches, where I walk you through a process of here's what you're going to need in your marketing materials, here's who you need to be contacting, here's how you need to handle them. When they have questions and when you start to understand the formula to speaking, it's a lot easier than one might imagine. And it just really comes down to having the right coaching and mentorship. There's no way I would be at my position in life career wise if I hadn't hired the best to teach me how they got there.

If you think about what causes people to be nervous, and I think one of the words that usually comes to mind is you become self conscious and that's the antithesis of what makes a great speaker. It's not about you. If you accept that as one of the basic beliefs of everything. That it's taking me these days 46 years to learn about speaking is. It's not about you, it's about your audience. And if you get yourself out of the way, you're not self conscious. If you're not self conscious, you don't become nervous. You're focused on how these ideas can help others. And I know that I don't know you better than anybody else on this broadcast, Joe, but I know you very well, having watched you for many hours. And when I see you speak, I know that that brain inside is thinking one thing. How is this going to help them?

What differentiates a powerful, effective, impactful, profitable speaker versus one that does not?

Well, I'll just tell you when I sucked and what I did to stop sucking. And then what I've seen other people do, okay, when most people suck at speaking, it's because they get very technical and they get so robotic that they're more worried about where do I put my hands than what the heck am I conveying and why am I doing this in the first place.

Right.

And, you know, most speeches that you remember in your life, you don't remember what the speaker said.

Yeah.

You remember how they make you feel.

Totally.

And so the speakers that are able to convey an energy that is right to your heart, where you can't look away because you're just leaning in and you just feel like they get you. Those are the speakers that make all the difference in our lives. And the speakers that suck are the ones that are so concerned about their agenda. You know, buying something at the end of the talk or joining my group or whatever it is. But they're so fixated on them that they lose out on why there's an audience there in the first place. Another thing that I notice about speakers that I went through myself is when you suck, it's because you're in your head and you're not in the flow and you're thinking about, do I look good? How do I sound? Like I said, robotic in some ways. And you want to get to that place where you get into the flow, into the zone. And we can talk more about that as we move forward here.

Yeah.

Well, one thing that. There's a marketing term that I've always loved, which is people don't buy from you because they understand what you do. People buy from you because they feel understood. And when you're able to communicate and convey and get into their heads, there's a lot that you can do with that. And selling and speaking and marketing are very similar. I mean, you can. Even if you're not quote, unquote, selling something, it's just you're wanting to influence people. You're giving them an ability to think differently about what it is you're presenting. And sometimes you actually are selling stuff. And I define selling as influence, and I define marketing as storytelling. And if you're more influential, you're going to get more buying. If you tell a better story, you're going to enroll people. And so if you're going to speak, you want to either attract or repel. I mean, that's sort of an activity with selling. And so I wanted to frame it that way because people that are watching this, they may have never given the public presentation in their life. Maybe they want to, but they're deathly afraid of it. So when we even talk about speakers that suck, they're like, I've never even spoke before, so I'm certainly going to suck. And they're going to go through that whole fear, you know, the whole statistics about how more people are afraid of public speaking than dying. And I know that you actually teach people how to get over those fears. And one thing with obviously pointing out the fact that you are three feet tall and are in a wheelchair, in case you didn't know that.

Right.

I always say to people, it's like, look, you know, you can come up with all kinds of objections about how you can't do this. You can't speak, you can't work out. Shawn does this stuff all the time. So it's a learned skill. And if you want to be good at it, you learn from someone that has that skill, that's been doing it many, many times for years. And if you need to hire a brain surgeon, do you want someone that, you know, just got out of medical school and has never performed brain surgery, or do you want a brain surgeon who's done it a thousand times? What will that. What are the chances that that person is going to really be the one that you need? And so I look at you as that way. You have done literally thousands of speeches and communications, either in person or on video, and you have, what, close to a million followers on Facebook, and you just recently did a video that has been viewed as. We sit here 67 million times. So you clearly know how to get messages out to the marketplace. And so here we are. And I've got a list of questions for you. I'm not rambling here, but I think this is good.

Well, so let's talk about. You mentioned storytelling as marketing. And storytelling is huge in speaking, because when you tell somebody, okay, do this in your business, they're going to give you resistance. Do this in your marriage, do this with your children. It sets up this attitude that you know something they don't, and therefore you're superior. And. And they're just having to just take the advice. And that breaks rapport with the audience. This is where storytelling comes in. Whether it's storytelling in the form of marketing or storytelling in the form of professional speaking, it is a way to put the ego to rest of your audience member, where they're able to just lean back and listen to a story. I mean, who doesn't love a good story? Think about how they. Many stories we've been told and been telling our whole lives. And we love good stories. That's why we read books, fiction books, or watch movies or watch, you know, when we binge on episodes of Netflix and watching TV series, it's because we love that story. We don't know how it's going to end, and it pulls us into the plot. And so a really good speaker has the ability to captivate the imagination with that storytelling ability. And if you can get the story to have what I call bridge moments where you're now not just talking about the character, but you're talking about them as the character, you know, not everybody is three feet tall in the wheelchair. Very few people are going to live their life looking like me. But every single person has something about their appearance that maybe they're a little uncomfortable. You know, they have some element. Maybe their ears are a little too big. Maybe they feel like they have excess weight. Maybe they don't feel tall enough. Whatever it is, we all have abnormalities that we fixate on visually. So when you're telling a really good story, you need to say, you know, what is it in your life when you look in the mirror that makes you anxious, makes you want to be able to just photoshop it out, make it bigger, make it smaller. And as you're telling the story with the listener in mind, you bridge from the speech and from the stage out to the audience. They get pulled in because they know it's not just about the speaker. And so a really good storyteller activates the imagination of their audience. Another really good element of storytelling is you don't know what's going to happen. You know, people say, oh, I love surprises. No, they don't. They like surprises that end well. Right. And when you have stories.

Surprise. You're bankrupt.

Yeah, exactly. Surprise. I want a divorce. Right. It's like when you get those kinds of surprises, they hook you. They're like, oh, I didn't see that coming. And that's another really good, powerful element of storytelling is don't just tell them what they expect. Tell them, throw some curves to them. Life does that. So as a storyteller, you need to do the same. Where somebody goes, wait a minute, I. I didn't see that coming at all. I have a story that I teach about how we shouldn't judge other people. And there's this twist to the story where you start to hate this little kid, but then you learn this little piece about this child and how bad their childhood was, and then all of a sudden, you don't hate the kid at all anymore. You love the kid and you feel bad for hating the kid. And those little turns in the story are what hook people and bring them in. As a veteran speaker of 22 years, that's just one of many little tricks to telling a story so that the audience is leaning forward and they can't wait to hear what's coming.

Now, to play devil's advocate, but Sean, I'm not very creative. I don't have a deep imagination. I don't have a tremendous skill. I'm introverted. I'm definitely afraid of speaking, and I'm not quick witted. I can't do improv. I mean, there's all kinds of things. What would you say to that?

Well, the biggest thing I would say is, you know, when you get up on stage, you're not ad libbing. When you get up on stage, you have a model that you should be following. And that's what I teach is you should have a formula, a model that you are putting in stories that make sense for your points and you're taking the audience on a journey. So it's, it's not really about like the gregarious and juggling and making sure that the audience is thinking that at any moment you're gonna light yourself on fire. No.

Although you could.

Although that could be a good part of your speech. You know, the big part of it, when you're putting together your talk, you want to make sure that it's you on stage. And this is where I see some speaker trainers going off the rails with their students. They make them little copies of them. So that person marches out of that speaker training and they become little versions of that speaker. And I always say, you don't want to be a little version of Sean. I'm already pretty small. Right. You don't want to be pocket sized. Right. So I teach people like, how do you find your own authentic voice? If somebody's shy, I don't want them to get up on stage and try to push, you know, some kind of gregarious personality. It's going to be incongruent. I'm going to say, okay, if your dry sense of humor. Use your dry sense of humor. You know, if it's like you and somebody's not funny at all, I just say, you know, just enjoy not being fun at all on stage.

That was an attempt to show me how much you love me.

Yes, of course.

Okay, so let me ask you some questions that I typed up on my electronic device here. Well, so in order to be Skilled at something, it's nice to have actually enjoy it or find value in it or love it. So why do you like or love speaking? Why this?

Well, I get my message out, Joe, as you mentioned earlier, through lots of different formats. We do webinars, podcasts, we do, you know, streaming video, a lot of different things. But the reason why I love this, and I say this, being being up on stage with a live theater, as you get instant feedback, you get to look at people's faces and read their body language and interact with them. So speaking now to me is more like surfing. I can see the wave coming when all of a sudden I say something that may make people squirm a little bit. We're talking about serious issues, maybe something that is going on in their personal life. And you can watch it wash over the cloud. And being able to have that, it's almost like a dance with the audience. I love being able to take an audience on high highs and low lows and back. It's like a roller coaster. And so that that instant feedback. Most people spend their whole life like this. They're either holding their, their phone or they're sitting at a computer screen. And this ability to see a human being for one hour uninterrupted and being able to have a heart to heart conversation where you can watch the tears well up in their eyes, where you can hear the laughter just spread over the crowd, it's the experience of that bubble where this theater becomes a safe space for people to feel emotion and they put their life on pause. Joe, you run events every year. You have large crowds and you also have, you know, monthly smaller gatherings. You know that when a human being feels safe to share their emotions, that's when transformation can take place in somebody's life. If it's just clinical, if they can hide behind a computer screen, if they can hide behind their phone, something doesn't connect as deep as being able to see them and have them really there. So I guess the thing that I love most is the interaction. I mean, I've tried to leave the speaking industry multiple times I've said, oh, I hate traveling, or I don't want to run a live event. I know you and I have talked about the woes of live events. You know, filling up the seats are challenging, but yet we keep doing it. And it's not just because of the money.

It is very powerful to actually influence and yield a certain impact. Power, persuasion, changing people's minds in ways that it's hard to put words into that. I Mean, you almost have to experience it, what it does for your confidence level. And let's just take money. I mean, a lot of people that would pay to come to an event of yours as an example, which I'll talk about because you do trainings for people, and I'll ask you about your upcoming trainings and how people can personally get trained by you. There's a money aspect to it. A lot of people want to enter some speaking because they're like, oh, you know, this is going to be a great way to sell. You know, selling one on one is not as effective as selling to large groups of people. So if we just go to the money aspect. When I was a dead broke carpet cleaner, living off credit cards, and I learned Marketing back in 1992, I was first introduced to direct response marketing. And that was after two years of living off credit cards, going deeply in debt, being, you know, ethical, caring about my clients, and still being broke because I didn't know how to package and present myself in ways that people would hire, you know, a carpet cleaner. And of course I started out in business selling something nobody wants to buy, which is carpet cleaning. So if you have to figure out how to effectively sell something no one wants to buy, it really forces you to learn how to present and package yourself. And after I learned some marketing techniques, I turned my small company around and then I started thinking, wow, how many other people throughout the world could benefit from what I know? How do I tell them? So I wrote sales letters and did direct mail and ran ads. And then I eventually started speaking. The very first public presentation I had given in the form of a seminar, I wrote a letter and I signed up 52 people to pay $97 to to come to a one day event. And people would tell me that after the first two or three minutes the nervousness will subside and you'll be able to do it. I was like nervous as hell the entire day. And I never had anyone like you. I didn't go to some training and get trained how to do it. What I did is I actually sold tickets to a show and then I.

Had to perform it in true marketing fashion. Sell it, then build it, right?

And So I had 52 people show up. Most of them were twice my age because, you know, I'm like in my mid-20s and I think I was 24, 25 at the time. And basically I sat and talked to this group of cleaners and at the end of it I actually made an offer for my program and I sold $12,000 worth of programs. And I thought to myself, this is pretty damn good. It's not that the 12,000 is pretty damn good, because at the time it was great. Now I ended up doing really well. And that was the start of me building a multimillion dollar publishing company. What was really great is those people bought my stuff and went back and doubled their businesses. Some tripled. And fast forward, we've got over 8,000 service companies that have changed their lives. I've saved many people from bankruptcy. I've had people send me suicide notes saying, had I not met you and solved this financial, I was going to kill myself. Which, whatever, thank God they didn't. And there's many different things. It's just you never realize how you can change people's lives until you just get out there and do it. And it was nerve racking for me in order to do it. The first time was. It was difficult. But I'll tell you, it was one of the most rewarding things I'd ever done. And I was incredibly shy kid. Growing up, I couldn't even ask someone out on a date without shaking like crazy. I mean, my heart would beat out of my chest. It was hard to interact with other people. And now I've spoken to groups of 5,000 people. I'm doing a presentation next year in front of 12,000 people for an hour. Had you asked me that in the very beginning, could you do that? It'd be like, no, there's no way. So the point is, no matter where you're at, don't be so sure that you cannot do this and don't be so sure that you can not impact people. As a matter of fact, if you have some confidence in at least taking the same steps to learn how to do it and listen to someone like you, who's been doing it, who's had enormous challenges, but still, I'll tell you, like, there's a lot of people that have your condition that are probably pretty miserable because they have never created an outlet to impact other human beings. And I know one of the things that drives me, and I would like to think it drives you, is that you know when you open up your mouth and you have a camera on you or you're in front of an audience, it makes you feel good when you know that people are like, wow, this person's adding some sunshine to my life. This person's teaching me how to be a better human, how to run a better business, how to be more effective at what I'm doing. And everyone that would ever watch this. There's something that if they just knew they could say it to the world and do it in a way to where they would win, they'd be doing it all day long. So the question is, how do we actually get them to that state?

Yeah. Well, if you knew your audience really well, you would never worry about speaking. I want you to think about that for a second. If you knew who was in your audience and what they were going through, you would never worry about your speaking skills, your view of how they look at you. I'll give you an example. I gave a speech recently to 5,000 people, and the night before, I met with their top 600 leaders in the company. And I asked the 600 leaders to text in anonymously to this number their greatest insecurity. And so the top leaders, the 600 best and brightest leaders, texted in their insecurities. And we got over like 550 submissions, so we got pretty much everybody. And then I gave a talk to the 5,000 people, and I read the top 10 most common insecurities of the leaders. And they were just floored by how even the best and the brightest in their company were struggling with challenges just like them. And what I teach is that the only difference between you and a leader, the only difference between the person on stage and the audience member, is do you push through your pain? You know, it's not always easy for me to go to work. You know, there are times where I go to work and I just found out somebody I love died or I'm sick to my stomach and I'm vomiting off stage. But I have a commitment to be on that stage. I've had so many different challenges happen right before I go on stage, but I have to just remember one thing, and that's the pain that's in the audience. Most of the human beings that you will ever present to, they're going through rough times. They're either going through challenges and their heartache, they're going through challenges financially, they're going through challenges in raising their children with their own body. Like, you don't get through life unscathed. No one gets to live a life without a problem, let alone several. And so when you get on a stage and you look out and you don't see eyes and ears and, oh, I hope they like me and I hope they think I'm funny. But instead you see what kind of pains in this room. That might sound dark, but actually it puts me into a better perspective because I'm like, I'm here to serve right now. And when you come from a place of service and nerves and fear and sweaty palms and all that, that just dissipates naturally because you realize you have a very short window of time with somebody who you could impact them to not kill themselves that night or to make a change in their business that brings in dramatic increase in their profits, that then they can actually, you know, have so much more resources to see the world with their family or to have the money to help or, you know, hospital bills. I mean, you have no idea when you are impacting another human being, how far the ripple goes.

And it's true. And so that which you fear but don't face controls you. That which you fear and take steps to face, you can control it or at least get a lot better at it. And the thing is, what are the consequences of not doing it? So a lot of people can say, well, you know, it's going to be hard. It's going to be challenging. Well, you know, it's going to be more challenging is regret say, I could have made that difference. I could have learned that. And so, you know, people are too young, I'm too old, I'm too experienced, I'm too unexperienced. I mean, there's a million different excuses. But the point is, you know, what would this do for you if you just put yourself out there just a little bit more?

Well, and I think every person in my audience has a solution for me. They have gone through something. You know, if you were in my audience, you would have a series of solutions for people on how to develop their marketing. You know, somebody else they might be on how to deal with children with autism. Somebody else it might be how to cook an incredible souffle for a big, you know, dinner party. I mean, whatever it is, there are solutions in every single person that sits in my audience. And so I am excited to teach people to not be selfish. Don't hold on to your solutions. Bring them up on stage, share them. As a speaker, I personally believe when I meet somebody and they've overcome something massive, they should be speaking. If all they do is maybe 10 speeches in their life, what good could that do for the world? Let alone once they get that speaker bug and they get hooked and somebody hands them a check for 10, 20, $30,000. I mean, you don't have to get many of those fun tickets to change your brain quickly and realize, wait a minute, I'm speaking all day for free. It's about time I get paid right.

There'S something magical when you get paid for something that you never thought you could get paid for. And not only do people pay you, they will stand in line because they want your autograph. They will literally talk to you with intimidation. And of course, I do my best not to believe my lpr and I warn people about that. The good and the bad. So don't let your ego get ahold of you. And it's amazing. It can do wonders for pumping up your ego when you have the ability to get up in front of an audience. And it's hard for me to even relate to this now. A lot of people, the mere fact that you're one of those people that can get up and talk, that impresses some people, because most. Yeah, most people can't even do that. They literally are so scared shipments that they will not get up on stage and do it. And so even getting that step is great. And once you do that and you keep at it, keep at it, then you know, one day, and it doesn't in some cases, take that long, especially if you get a coach, especially if you learn certain formulas. So going back to the formulas, look.

If I could say one thing about that, a speaker is a tribal leader of the room. That's the tribal leader of the audience. You know that room, if it's 5,000 people in that moment, they are the tribal leader, and everybody looks up to them and says, lead us. And people get so bogged down with, well, I don't have the credentials to be a speaker. I don't have the expertise. And I'll tell you, in my 22 years of speaking, I found that human beings crave leadership more than credibility.

There's people that have gone to prison, and while they're in prison, they write books. And then when they get out, they start talking about their crimes, and they literally get paid for it.

Oh, big time, too.

Movies get made about them.

Yeah, absolutely. Because it's a good story.

Yeah, yeah. So people have to rethink what they can or cannot speak to. So you talked about formulas. So I'd like you to teach me as quickly as possible how to put together an entire speech. If you do have a formula.

Yeah, I actually do have a formula. And I'm going to show it to you with a visual aid. I got something right on the other side here that's going to help you. Yep, right there. Okay.

And begin.

So I want you to think about a speech totally different than you ever thought of it. Most people think about. I got to have points. I Got to, I got to impress them. I've got to be, I got a funny opener. Just put all that aside. I just want you to think about a speech in three simple blocks. Stories, they're the blue blocks, activities are the yellow blocks and your points are the red blocks. And now you have the start of a speech and depending on how much time you have, you can have as many of these three black chunks as you need. So for instance, if somebody says hey, I need you to do a 10 minute talk like you do in your genius network meetings, you might say great, I'm going to start with a really funny story, get them laughing. Then I don't want it just to be about any old story. I want to have a reason for why I told it. And so I want them to be able to digest their story with an activity. So I might have them write something down on a worksheet or turn into a group of three. And now that's starting to get them to digest the material that you are teaching to the story. So now you have your activity in the story and then lastly you have your point which is the whole tie in of the story and the activity. And the point is where you can have your facts, it's where you can show research, it's where you can reference interviews that you've done with other people to add credibility to what you were doing. But when you have a speech, just start thinking about I need a story, I need an activity and I need a point. And in a one hour speech you pretty much only need, I call the SAP story activity point. You only need about three SAPs to make a speech, three stories, three activities and three points. And when you start to think about man, it's just blocks in my head. Well then when you're planning, you know, like you do multi day conferences, you're like great, I need a bunch of blue blocks, bunch of stories to choose from. I need a bunch of different activities to pick from, a bunch of points, things that I want to teach, you know, give me an example of a point in marketing that you would teach.

Robotic marketing how to can and clone yourself using sales letters or 24 hour free recorded messages.

Okay, so now robotic marketing you call it. Well, you could tell a story about the first time you ever can and cloned yourself right then. Now what would be an activity?

Creating a consumer awareness guide.

There you go. So now you have the start to your keynote and you know if you want an emotional, you get an emotional story. If you want it to be just factual about how you came across something. It could be just a. A story, just to establish the scene, but story activity point.

I want to say this, too. So if people are thinking, well, you know, I'm not really super skilled at something because, of course, everyone is in something, but you can. You can do talks on anything. Like, for instance, remember that movie how to Lose a guy in 10 days?

Yep.

I mean, you can do speeches on something that almost everyone's done. How to, like, destroy a really great relationship.

Yeah.

Or how to.

To go broke very quickly.

Yeah. You got stories on both. Actually, dozens.

It could be an entire series, a Netflix series. But the point is, you can actually take any sort of life experience using that model, and you can make a funny speech. You can call it something to get someone's attention. But then within it are some great life lessons because you can tell people what. What to do. If you know what to do in certain areas, you can tell people what not to do. If you've learned what not to do, you can tell people how to do it. You can tell people how to think about it. You can use this for knitting. How to teach a parrot how to talk, how to build and grow a business, how to get hired, how to walk away from something in your life that's not working, how to overcome pain.

And what's great about this model. And as a professional speaker, somebody pays you to show up and bring both information and entertainment. That's what a speaker is supposed to do. Speaker is supposed to shift emotion and transfer ideas. That's when the speech gets good. And sometimes you get to your speech and they say, joe, we're actually running late on time. We. We're going to give you an hour. Now, you only get 15 minutes. Most people would freak out. They'd be like, oh, I planned out an hour. I memorized an hour. If you had your SAP model, you go, great, I'll just cut a few of those stories, or I'll cut a couple of the points, or I'll just reduce one of those activities. And you can just mix and match, and you can be as flexible as you need to right before you step on stage. And I can't tell you how many times this simple model bailed me out over the years.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video.

And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out, and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link.

Below in the description.

Or you can wait till the end of this video, or you can Simply go to joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

How do you handle someone who is really petrified to get on stage and to share their message? I know we spoke about this. I just think that that's an obstacle to some people. And if they can't, they can see you giving a presentation. They can hear about me, they can see other people. But if they can't believe they can do it, then we can talk formulas, we can do stuff all day long. It's just not going to bridge that gap. And I would really like people that are watching and listening to this to have a sense of possibility.

Yeah. So what I can do is we can actually show a clip from my first event that you presented at 10k speeches where I took a young lady in my audience who was definitely afraid of speaking, brought her up on stage. I don't know if you saw this activity. And we took her through a process that we're going to show right now.

With the mirror.

Yeah, with the mirror. And walking her through what the audience is going through. So let's show that now. I want to find somebody who is still feeling fear when they think about speaking and they feel fear with entering into this career of speaking. Maybe they've been in it for a while and they are still dealing with fears. It causes jitters. It causes panicking sweats. It causes sleepless nights. I want to find the individual who. Who is going to represent our fear. She's got her hand up before we even ask for the volunteer. So if you'll come on up here, you and I, Nicole, we're going to have an experience. Ready? Nicole, tell me your level of speaking. How long have you been speaking? Have you been speaking? Walk us through where you're at.

And I have stories that move people. And when I.

Speak, a lot of.

Times, I start off really confident I can fake it for a while. And then I get to this point where it's like I can't breathe. Like, I want to cry.

Like you want to cry? Yeah. Okay. I'm doing right now. So I want you to think about a struggle that you're in. And I don't want, like, oh, I'm struggling to get my business off the ground. I don't want, like, things that we may all be dealing with. I want to know the truth. I want to know going through divorce right now and tell us about it. I want to know about what's happening to your children. I want to know about a family member you just lost. I want to know pain. I want pain in the room, to get a voice, because I'm going to show this lovely lady something. So I want you to tell us about some of the pains you're in. One pain only. There may be a lot of pain, but I'm looking for one thing you went through recently that's been really hard, really painful. And here's what I want you to do. You're going to say your pain, and then it's Nicole, right? You're going to say, nicole, I need your help. That's how you're going to finish. Speakers in line. Do you get that? You're going to say your pain, and then you're going to say, nicole, I need your help.

And after about 40 years of being.

A single man, I finally found love in marriage.

And after 11 years, that marriage ended earlier this year in a horrible divorce. And I'm brokenhearted and.

And I have fear that I'm now going to be alone.

I need your help.

Nicole.

I am scared to death of the ridicule that I could face and maybe I'm supposed to face, because I know that the more I step into my power and the more I bring my message to the world, I can and probably will be confronted with more of the mirrors of that which I'm here to teach. And I know that if I cannot and do not for any moment stand in knowing I'm enough, and the power that I'm bringing to the world and the love within that power, that I could face persecution. And I know that there's a chance I could crumble. And I don't want for anyone. I especially don't want that for my audience. So, Nicole, I need your help.

September of last year, my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. July 18th, she passed away. And my mom was the most important person in my life. And I was 24 when it happened, just not too long ago.

And I said, this isn't how it's supposed to happen.

She was supposed to be here for my wedding. She was supposed to be here for all these things, for my brother's wedding. And losing her has been the hardest thing ever. And so, Nicole, I need your help.

Nicole, what are you feeling now?

I feel, like, honored.

To be able.

To share this room with everyone.

What sensations are in your body? Can you breathe?

Yeah, I can breathe. I feel, like release.

How's your throat and chest?

Oh, it feels good.

Yeah.

I feel open. I feel like.

I feel like.

I thought that being up here meant you just have to be flawless.

You're not taking notes, aren't you? It's not about being. Exactly.

And I see how much more beautiful people are when they open up and share themselves.

Do you hear that?

Yeah.

Is it echoing back in your ears? Yeah. I'm going to be your whispering, unconscious mind. Okay. All right, Nicole, I want you to look into your own eyes. Put your arms down to your side. And this time, as you look into your own eyes, I want you to realize that your audience needs you. They're asking for it. They're begging for it. I've heard some people say, oh, you know, the world doesn't need to be saved. You're right. The world doesn't need to be saved. But the truth underneath that is that there's a lot of people in pain. And by hitting your tuning fork inside of your throat, your chest, your heart, letting your pain take. Take the stage in a very professional, poised, purposeful way, it will resonate their pain. You will activate your audience, and then you can influence and guide them. You're not going to save anyone. You're not a savior. That's a lot of pressure. It's not accurate. I used to think that I had to save my audience. It exhausted me. Guess what, sweetie? You don't even need to be saved. You're perfect just where you are. Your flaws have defined some of your greatest strengths. It's your flaws that's going to build the replacement with your audience. And someday, I look forward to opening your best selling book and reading about that one thing that you're so in the past terrified that we would find out. Because that one thing is what makes you human. The nice scarf and the hair and the jewelry, that's just shit to distract us. The truth is, it's your flaws. It's your pain. It's your own little silly ego that we all relate to. I need you to step up in your life. I need you to step forward, forward into your power as a speaker. Because you heard it. They need you. Let's give it a round of applause.

That was great. So break down how you would apply that to other people.

Well, you know, when you get up there, you're going to have all these physiological responses and you could tell yourself, just like she did, that she was terrified, you know, and as she heard what the audience was going through and how they needed her help, her shift went from, it's about me, it's about me, it's about me. Oh, it's about them. What can I do for them? And so as you're putting Together your speech. As you put together your career, you got to think about how can you serve the planet? What is your why? What is the big purpose to why you're doing what you're doing versus how, how can I get, how can I extract from me?

Awesome. So you get to a point to where you can start making money with it. And I think people realize that investing in becoming good at speaking would actually increase their career options, their income, their.

Sales, their dating life.

Yeah, because it's all speech, right?

Yeah.

So if everyone out there cannot get a date, it's probably because they're terrible speakers, is what you're saying.

Well, I'm saying it definitely has something to do with it. If you think of all the great leaders in history, they were really good orders. They had the ability to move a crowd. Whether it's Steve Jobs selling an iPad to somebody that never even heard of an iPad, or Martin Luther King moving people to have racial equality. To a John F. Kennedy, say, we're going to put a man on the moon and bring him home safely. Like speeches and really good communicators really are seen as our powerful leaders throughout history.

Well, your whole thing is about doing 10k speeches. So talk about the money aspect. How does one translate speaking into revenue, possibly even a career?

Sure. Well, the biggest thing is you have to see it as a business first and foremost. And some people are like, well, but I'd be willing to speak just for free because I just have a message. Well, then you'll be seen as a hobby, you know, a hobbyist. And. And you won't be able to get into those big name conferences because they want somebody who is time tested and has put all their eggs in this basket called speaking versus just dabbling in it, you know, And I don't believe a speaker is taken seriously until they get to $10,000 an hour. Until you get to a speech that is worth $10,000 and somebody's willing to pay you, you're just an amateur in my eyes and in the eyes of the industry. So my biggest thing is you got to build up the message, the delivery and the marketing with the right attitude to get a event coordinator, a decision maker to see that you're really as good as you say. And it comes down. There's a lot of components that I teach in my event called 10K Speeches, where I walk you through a process of, here's what you're going to need in your marketing materials, here's who you need to be contacting, here's how you need to handle them when they have questions. And when you start to understand the formula to speaking, it's a lot easier than one might imagine. And it just really comes down to having the right coaching and mentorship. There's no way I would be at my position in life career wise if I hadn't hired the best to teach me how they got there.

What's the best marketing Strategy for getting 10,000 or more per speech?

Well, I'm going to tell you this and it's going to sound like I'm kissing your butt, okay? And trust me, you're the last butt I want to kiss. But it's really about surrounding yourself with, with influencers. I have this thing called advocate marketing that I learned from one of my mentors. And being in groups like Genius Network, going to conferences and meeting people that have an influence over an industry that are connectors. As Malcolm Gladwell says, you know, there's a few group of people on this planet, a select few, you are one of them that have access to potentially hundreds of millions of people through their contacts. And when you get to know these people and you bring them value, you know, I moved my whole business from Chicago to Arizona to get to know you, to spend time with you, to bring you value, to bring value to your community, to the people that you care about. I mean, Joe, you can call me day or night and say, I have a friend that needs help. And I'm not like, well, Joe, you know, that's not my problem. You know, my thing is I drop everything because you are one of these advocates in my life now, because I do that, there is this unconscious reciprocity that just naturally happens. I don't do it for tit, for tat. It's more of like this reciprocity of when you're talking to somebody about events. You say, hey, have you heard of Shawn Stevenson? He's one of the best speakers out there. And it's because I stayed top of mind in your life by continuing to bring you value. And there's probably 21 other people in my life that I bring a massive amount of value to them. So on a moment's notice, they know if they're going through something, whether it's putting together a presentation, whether they need my therapy advice, whether there's somebody in my own Rolodex that I can reach out to that by bringing influencers a ton of value. They can make one phone call that can help you skip, you know, dozens of steps and potentially shave 10 to 30 years off the learning Curve because they just know the right person to meet because they spent their time developing their, you know, network. And the best way that I built my speaking industry is find the people that have access to influencers. Influencers of events and industries and the human race. I mean, now it's come full circle because now I have, you know, reached this year alone, over 200 million people through my videos. And now you are able to come back and say, hey, Sean, you know, let's do something together and get it out to a mass amount of people and teach me how to do live streams or put together viral videos. And so it comes full circle. So if you just bring a ton of value to influencers, find the people that are so busy that they won't pay attention to you unless, A, you pay them or B, you bring him so much value, it's worth more than money.

Yeah, so true. I mean, so true. And the lesson there is just be useful. And the more useful you are to the certain people or the right type of people. Although I think people should be as useful as humanly possible to everyone. I mean, you've heard me rap.

Well, you gotta give. Expecting nothing thereof. When you call me, I'm not like, hey, Joe, well, I'll trade this help with this friend of yours that's suicidal in exchange for three good leads for speeches this month. It's never like that. You know, it's. And. And that's the. The key here is you have to just keep bringing value. There. There are 21 people that are influencers that I reach out to. And I will say, not everyone each year brings me value in return, but. And some have never even brought me value. But I'm looking at the long game of my whole life. And I'm looking at maybe someday that person of influence calls me up and says, hey, Sean, have you ever been on Fill in the Blank event, you know, media, whatever it may be. And my response is, no, maybe I haven't. And then now we've created that, we've closed that loop from bringing all that value to them. And, you know, when I look at the value that you and maybe five other people from that 21, each person brings in potentially six figures a year to my business by just bringing those few people value. And that's the power of mentorship. I mean, I pay you $25,000 a year, and I spend money on my own pocket to market your materials because I know the value that comes from being your friend and bringing, you know, goodness to your world. I can never keep up with the amount of value you bring. I try, but it's yet to happen. I hope to surpass it someday.

We keep trying to outdo each other, too, which is great because the whole premise is just how can we be incredibly useful to each other? And there is no scorecard. I mean, we're not trying to say, oh, he's doing this for me, he's doing that.

Oh, that mic drop video got you this many people, right? You can't keep score. And the quickest way to lose at life is keep score.

Yeah, totally, totally. You know, one thing I want to tell a little bit about how I basically have packaged my speaking, because. And when I say this, let me remind people that this is not just about being in front of audiences. This is in any situation. Like, for instance, yesterday I was being interviewed for a documentary. And the person that's putting together this documentary, I'm not going to name names because when it comes out, we'll actually see. They want this documentary to be watched by over a million people. And I actually think they have the chops and the ability. And depending on how the content is, there's probably a really good chance that that will happen. And while we were being. While I was being interviewed at my home and then we went to my office because they wanted to do some footage there. I told them about, you're here in Arizona. When did your plane leave? I called you up yesterday. And this guy is going to be better on camera than me. He's awesome. They went over and did that. And it's because we have a relationship. The more that you develop and work on those relationships, the better. I mean, people say that time is money and time is incredibly valuable. You're not going to get it back. You need to treat it well. You need to. You don't want to squander it. However, I've never hit my alarm clock and there's been piles of money there. Money comes from relationships. And the more you develop and nurture those relationships, they will bring opportunities to you. It's the very nature of producing more than you consume. And if you do that, you will get all kinds of opportunities. So that would be an example. So in my world, I don't really want to be on stage all the time. I. I do. My Genius network, we have currently 200.

But I would say you are constantly. Every month you're on stage and it's a stage that you built.

Exactly. So there are models on how to do it. And I know part of what you teach people is not Just overcoming speaking, how to structure, formulas, marketing, but literally the model. If you never want to get up in front of an audience, a live audience, but you want to do a daily video, you'll teach people how to do that. If you want to create viral videos, you'll teach people how to do that. If you want to do a podcast, you'll teach people how to do that. If you want to have a big following on YouTube or Facebook, you'll teach people how to do that. If you want to do short clips on Instagram, you'll teach people how to do that. So there's a lot of stuff that you actually do. And so I always look at the model and there are people I charge $50,000 currently to do a talk. A lot of the talks that I do, though, I do them for free because there are certain people that are clients that if they ask me to speak and it's the right fit, I'll do it. Some I may negotiate the $50,000 fee, but if someone just wants, and that's just in the U.S. and that's if travel is easy. If I have to go overseas, the bottom line is I won't hop on a plane for a business thing in most cases, unless it's worth at least a minimum of $100,000 to me. So even though I may get $50,000, it's going to also translate into something else. So my criteria for business is $100,000 and something that I'm aligned with or something that's just going to be so damn useful for me that it doesn't matter. I'm going to hop on a plane because there's some other benefit to it. But the reason I'm bringing this up though is that what I tell people all the time, if you're just looking for a famous person, you can get people a lot more well known than Joe Polish for 50 grand and some even for half that price that have more call it fame or notoriety. However, when I speak for someone, I don't just give them a presentation. I actually will spend an hour with them talking to them about how to set up the before, the during and the after the presentation. A guy that recently hired me for his event, it was to a group of. It's like Michael Perella. He runs NABS Martial Arts Business Summit. I love kickboxing franchise. So here I am in a room with a lot of very strong people that can beat the shit out of me and I'm teaching them about marketing strategies. But before that, actually he delivers some really great content coaching and has a whole program that will teach them how to build and grow their businesses. I spent about an hour on the phone with Michael and he's also in my genius network and gave him a model on how to present his program, his coaching program. At the end of the event, he sent me the nicest text saying, thank you so much. Currently we've done 800,000 in sales and we're probably going to hit over a million. So I always say, do you think it was worth him hiring me to speak? He didn't hire me just because he needed a famous speaker. It was because there's something there. So whatever your deal is, there is no right or wrong way to do it. There's this successful models and there's unsuccessful models. So looking at different models on how to package present charge has everything.

I call that platform agnostic. When you're not attached to well, there's only one way to get a message out.

There's all kinds of ways that you can do this. And most people wouldn't even know that unless they're learning from someone that's done it for many years figured it out. You've got 22 years of doing this stuff. You have a lot there for people that would like to really what we're talking about. They're like, yeah, this makes a lot of sense to me. I want to talk about your training because people can actually come to you and they can learn how to be more effective doing this. And you're a damn good speaker and you're entertaining and you really care about people.

We also bring in some of the best in marketing and sales and in a lot of different formats that maybe that aren't as my strong suit as speakiness. And so my live event that you're referring to, you've presented at a couple Times. It's called 10K Speeches. It's in Tempe, Arizona. It's actually here in this room, the Tempe center for the arts. And it's August 19th through the 21st. If people want to register, they got to go to 10k speeches.com, the number 10. So10k speeches.com you can get all the information about what you get a lot of fun bonuses. They get more TR training before they get there on video than they could ever imagine alone. They get that plus they get the live event experience. We spend two and a half days with people. I've been told that it's one of the most fun events because I've been watching live events for 22 years. I see the ones that suck. I see that you got to keep the audience involved and laughing and moving and dancing and having fun. And also, you have to have substance. You can't just be fluffy. And, you know, I also don't like events that are just. The whole thing is a pitch fest, you know, that's why I say when you show up at my event, you get a ton of value for your price, for the investment that you put in. Because I'm a big believer of what you teach, what you pay, you pay attention to. And, you know, I've got all these years of expertise, and I bring in mentors such as yourself and on panels and as speakers to share different aspects of business, different aspects of marketing, different aspects of sales, and different aspects of speaking. Because when you come to 10k speeches, I want you to be able to walk out after two and a half days and say, wow, I got more information and more motivation to do this than if I had read hundreds of books and spent years of my life learning. I mean, I look at how I struggled. I mean, I didn't. This doesn't sound too sexy, but in 22 years of speaking, I didn't have 22 years of success. It's only been the last maybe eight years that I really dialed it in and figured out what are those little tiny hinges that the big door swings on, as you call it. And those little transformations are what I teach, you know, where not to spend your marketing dollars, what mistakes to avoid. I have dumped tons of money into certain things that never panned out because I didn't know what I was doing. It's also a mistake to think that spending money on a bunch of fancy, flashy websites are going to get you booked. No, it's not. Or even it's not just about being a good speaker, because I spent maybe 10 years really honing my craft. And being a good speaker is not enough, because people will go, yeah, but we've never heard of him. We've never heard of her. How should we know? And when you really get it dialed in, where you understand all the aspects, the message, the delivery, the marketing, and the overall attitude. Because, look, this isn't just about getting one date. This is about getting rebooked year after year. I have some clients like Whole Foods and Nike that brought me in several times, you know, Zappos, these companies that continue to bring me in year after year because I've got the attitude that they like working with. And so I teach people how to have the attitude that an Event coordinator goes, yeah, let's bring them in no matter what. Let's make sure the budget can handle this. Joe Polish coming in, this Sean Stevenson coming in. And so we teach you all that. Plus, it's super fun. And hopefully your calendar permits that you can come back and talk to us about marketing again. But I just really think that this. This whole audience is going to be. It's going to make a magical space here. And some best friends are formed out of this experience. And I do this year and year after year, and every year I call you up and like, Joe, events are so hard to run. Why do I do this to myself? It's like having a baby. You're like, oh, you get this great idea, and it's fun to get the idea, but then you got to carry this thing for months. And then finally you hold it. And the day comes and the audience is filled up and your bank account's hopefully filled up, too, and you're like, I want to do it again. And that's why the brain deletes pain, so that we can do things more than just once.

Well, what I want to mention, too, is there's a difference between just showing up and having someone else run an event and then running your own events. Oh, yeah, but you're probably never going to run your own events unless you actually do some speaking. You can be crazy, like I did, and I could run my own event as my very first speech and sell tickets and then show up and be nervous as hell and run everything, but still make more money than I've ever made ever in my life in one fell swoop simply because I went through the first fear and I just did it anyway.

I mean, my. One of my first speeches, Joe, I got paid, and the person that hired me didn't even show up, and there was no audience. And I flew to Tampa, Florida. I showed up, beautiful room like this. No one was there. And I remember thinking I could look at this one of two ways. Pissed off because there's no crowd here to hear my message, or excited because I get paid whether they're here or not, you know? And so you got to look at your speaking career as, why are you doing it? Are you doing it because you have a message burning inside of you? Are you doing it because you feel like you are the one expert that can share this solution in the best way? I tell people no one can rid the world of insecurity the way I can. And if I could just kind of pull the curtain back for a moment and Just tell the truth. Here is the speaker training. It's really about how do you create world class humans? Because when you become a world class human, that shows on stage. But nobody pays to find out how to be a world class human. They have to logically justify with becoming a speaker. And I think it's great to be able to teach them both.

Well, you know what, that's a good way to kind of wrap this up is if all of this you're still thinking, well, would I be well served to actually delve into this? If it made you a world class human, that would probably be worth it.

Think about what they could do with your family, your friends, the community, the planet. And as cheesy as it may sound, when you meet a human being that is really on purpose, you want to spend more time with them.

Okay, so Joel, over the course of your career, what are the three most valuable speaking and presentation lessons you've learned or discovered?

Okay, that's a great question. So as you're listening to this, what about in your own experience, what has been when it comes to speaking, your aha moments? Well, since you're asking me that question, the first thing I would say is that speaking is a learned skill. Once that became clear to me in 1969 when I went to a Toastmasters club in Tempe, Arizona and realized that I needed to learn how to speak. I couldn't even lead my Sunday school class in silent prayer. I mean, that's bad. And I was terrified standing up in.

Front of a group.

I mean, if anybody ever told me I'd have a 46 year career as a professional speaker when I couldn't even lead my Sunday school class in a silent prayer. How could that be? So that's the first thing that it's a learned skill. You don't have to be naturally gregarious and outgoing and dynamic. You can be dull, boring and monotone and be highly effective. One of the greatest speakers recently passed on a few years ago, Jim Rohn. And I've known Jim over the last 40 years. Jim was not a high energy guy. He spoke in a monotone. But people hung on every word he said because what he said was so important. So that's the first thing I'd like you to think about. That speaking effectively is a learned skill. Number two, that being an effective communicator is the fastest and best way to position you as an expert, a thought leader, a results getter. That your ability to communicate to more than one person at one time is going to help Position you at a higher level in whatever field that you're in. And third, and most important, it's being you. Speaking effectively is a private conversation held publicly. It is not a performance. And Jennifer Carroll has known me longer, probably, than anybody else on this call, other than Jenny Laughlin, who was on this call, who's my daughter, and one of our certified coaches of the ultimate speaking system. Hi, Jennifer. And Jennifer knows that what you're seeing now is just like I am. If we were sitting in her living room or I was with one of her kids. It's not a performance. And that's what you need to think of. Be congruent.

Be you.

When you're you, you're relaxed, you're calm, and you're confident. And if you are dull, boring, and monotone, you can build that into a presentation. So one of my clients, we called him Boring Bob. One of the things we did when we introduced him at a meeting, the president of the company said that the next part of the program is going to be the most difficult. Boring Bob is going to come up. He's our chief financial officer. He's going to give us all the reports for the year. It's going to take an hour. Every year that he does this, people fall asleep. So we have a plan this year. If the person next to you starts to fall asleep, you got to wake them up. For the people in the front row, if Bob starts to fall asleep while he's talking, you got to go on stage and wake him up. Well, before Bob said his first word, they were clapping and cheering. He never changed his presentation. He was dull, boring, and monotone. We just worked out a system to capitalize on that negative and turn it into a positive. So just think about those three things. That it's a learned skill. It's the fastest way to position you as an expert and be yourself.

Love it. Love it. So, Dean, I can keep going? Unless you want to.

You know, I think that this. You recommend, you know, that there's not much I can tell, like from learning speaking, just getting the more comfortable you are in bigger groups, that it does become much more natural. I remember that same thing. Being fearful. Not fearful, but more nervous. The first time I did a home buyer workshop as a real estate agent, I had, you know, 18 people, and it was like a big, much bigger nervousness than being in front of a thousand people became. And you're right, just felt being natural was really a thing. More conversational, too, in a way.

Well, let me just comment about you, Dean. In the Years that I've known you, you're always the same.

Yeah.

Just like what you're saying right now. I mean, the attire that you have, the black hat, the black shirt, the black pants, shorts. I mean, that's the look. And you are the same. You are real. And that's what you need to think of as you're listening to this.

Be you.

There's no one else like you in the world. Everybody else is already taken. Why would you try to be somebody else? And if there's anything about that, like I noticed, we had people from all over the world. We had Peru, South Africa. When we have an accent which could add difficulty in understanding you, you just build that into the introduction that Fred is from Peru. English is his second language, but he's an expert at building email lists. So you're going to really need to concentrate on what he says. And even if you only get half of what he shares, you'll be still twice as far ahead in building your email list. So pay close attention and don't let his accent distract. And if you say something like that, people say, well, I can understand everything he says, but if we don't do it, then it can become a distraction.

That's one thing I've learned from you, is observing the introductions and how you went through exercises with us in Genius Network meetings to lay out an introduction for ourselves and what you just said, so much of it. You can set the table. You can set everything up in the introduction.

Well, let's just add. That's such an important part, Dean. And since we have Ben Hardy on here and having worked on many of his introductions, the things that he speaks on since he's been a client since the three years that he's joined Genius Network, if you get a good introduction and there's a certain system in writing an introduction, and Joe, I think I've written 187 introductions for Genius Network members that have spoken at our events. And there's a system of doing it. And when you get a great introduction, you speak downhill. Now, if you've ridden a bike, when you go down a hill, it's a lot easier than going up a hill. And unfortunately, most people begin speaking uphill. They're trying to drag the audience into the message. But a great introduction enables you to have the audience moving with you before you have even said your first words. And that's the key of a great introduction. And remember, the introduction is not really about you. It's about the message and how that message is going to help your audience.

When it comes to fear. So you're gonna say some great stuff. I've got some questions that I know is gonna list some great stuff. If someone here is like, I can't picture myself speaking in front of people. I'm nervous. And you just said it's, you know, be yourself. But their self is, I'm scared. I can't do this. What would you say to that person?

Well, if you think about what causes people to be nervous, and I think one of the words that usually comes to mind is, you become self conscious. And that's the antithesis of what makes a great speaker. It's not about you. If you accept that as one of the basic beliefs of everything that it's taking me these 46 years to learn about speaking is, it's not about you, it's about your audience. And if you get yourself out of the way, you're not self conscious. If you're not self conscious, you don't become nervous. You're focused on how these ideas can help others. And I know that I don't know you better than anybody else on this broadcast, Joe, but I know you very well, having watched you for many hours. And when I see you speak, I know that that brain inside is thinking one thing. How is this going to help them? And once you do that, it's not about Joe Polish. And that's what you need to think of as you watch and listen to what we're sharing. That when you're focused on your message and how it can meet the needs of your audience, how it can help your audience or your listeners overcome their fears, their worries, their concerns, or reinforce their successes. It's not about you. And then you're not looking at, what does your hair look like? And what does my clothes look like? That's not part of it. Yeah, you need to check your hair before you start. And then that's it. Forget about you. And that's the best way that you can get away from the nervousness and the fear. And if you look at fear as an acronym, False Evidence Appearing Real. F, E, A R. False Evidence Appearing Real. If you have the opportunity to talk virtually or in front of a live audience, just think, how is this going to help them?

Yeah, that's a really great. I've got to read this because there's this comment from Celia Black who's like, freaking brilliant, and she wrote, I get stuck thinking that no one wants to hear what I have to say. And then, hey, Anna, I'm reading all these comments. These are great and then Jim writes, celia, your inner voice is a liar. So that's an interesting thing though, because you got people that second guess or doubt themselves. And by the way, Ben, this is going to sound like an aside, but Ben Hardy, I'm going to call on you in a moment because I want you to actually come on and say something. But what? You know, when someone's doubting themselves and they're yet at the stage where they're. There are people that are on here right now that their success, if you want to call it financial. Right. Their ability to do it is limited by this part of them that is doubting themselves, that second guessing themselves. It doesn't think they're good enough. Imposter syndrome. The billion different ways that people can frame stuff. And I know that these people are incredible in terms of their knowledge base and stuff like that. So again. So what would you say to that, Joel?

Well, since you mentioned Ben Hardy and he's gonna come on and for those of you that know a little bit about Ben, he now has a whole bunch of children and he just had twins and they're having another one or they already had the other one one and they have three adopted children. So Ben is going to come on and teach us how to change diapers. That's his talk. Now, if that was the subject. Ben Hardy's going to talk about changing baby diapers. Is that a subject relevant to this audience on I love marketing on our meetup?

No.

So if Ben is going to talk about the power of a book and how the book you have within you can change your life and the lives of others and why you should think about writing it like he did with the two books that he said published, that's a whole different story. So one of the things to think of when you feel like Cecilia said, well, they're not really going to be interested in this subject, then they shouldn't be hearing about it. We don't want to hear about Ben changing diapers. That's not relevant. That does not meet a need, it does not overcome a fear, it doesn't reinforce a victory unless you just happen to have a couple of babies at home and you've never changed a diaper before. And once you know that, what your subject is and how relevant it is to your audience, that imposter syndrome, that fear goes away because you know that what you're going to say is going to help that audience. And I know whatever Ben is going to say is going to help our audience. So I call Ben, my adopted Son from another mother. And I love you, my friend Ben, even though my daughter is on.

How would you define speaking? I mean, people can hear, okay, we're going to hear a couple guys talk about speaking, but I really want the audience to understand the importance of this and that this is a skill that can be learned.

Well, there's different kinds of speaking. You mentioned that. We're always speaking. We're communicating. You and I are communicating, but a lot of people are joining us, but we're really only talking to one. Just you. So it's always one person. If you're in front of a large audience and you've been in front of large audiences, if you have a thousand people, it's still only one person. It's just replicated a thousand times. So there are entertaining speakers, speakers that. It's like going to a movie. Why do you go to a movie? To relax, unwind, be entertained. And you come out and say, boy, that was a great movie. And you have a good evening. And there are many speakers like that.

But.

But hopefully our listeners want to grow their business through their ability to communicate, which means action must result. And that, to me, is what makes an effective and great speaker, is when a message is delivered and something happens and that something is so positive in the person who heard the that idea that they grow their business. And you don't need to be humorous, high energy, charismatic, and dynamic to have ideas that are worth implementing. So to me, what makes a great speaker an effective speaker is when the audience acts. And if you think, how many people have you heard in your life? And you say, oh, he was a great speaker. And if somebody said, okay, Joe, based on what you just heard, a year ago you told me that was the best speaker you ever heard. What did you do as a result of what he said? Right? Nothing. Then he's not a great speaker. But you could hear a boring, dull person that would change your life. Now, but let's talk John Paul DeJoria, who was one of the keynote speakers at the 2015 annual event. Okay. In my opinion, of the 24 speakers, he had the greatest impact on the audience. Because I have heard, knowing so many of your members, that that message, which was two words, be nice, be nice. And I've asked members who are in that room, how many times have you thought, oh, almost every day I think of what John Paul said. I mean, here's this billionaire running all these companies. And the key is, be nice to people. Be nice to your employees. Be nice to your customers. Be nice to your Family action resulted from his message. But he was quiet. He didn't have any humor. He sat on a chair and he talked. But what he said was so profound.

Do you think it was just because of my speaking skills?

It was your interviewing, I think that probably drew that out of him. He probably never thought of that.

Exactly.

Because you're so nice. I mean, I look at you and I just want to be nice.

I'm a prince.

Yeah, you are a prince.

Not really.

Yes, but I hear you think the effective speaker is the one where the audience acts on what they say. So if we think of the genius network speech, I've heard and critiqued 200 of the 10 minute talks over these years I've been involved. Now you have me working with them before they give this speech. So we get them even better. Yeah, but at our last meeting as an example, we had a speaker who was not a speaker, who never spoke really in front of a group, but had a message. And that was on Retargeting Jimmy Harding. And in the introduction, which I worked for you, we said that he's not a speaker, but this was an important subject. And I think if we look back on the results of that meeting, more people acted on that idea than almost anything else that was said in those two days.

So how much of the ability to be persuasive has to do with the content versus the delivery? Now, of course I'm asking you questions that some of them I know the answer to. But I want to make sure that the person we are talking to here actually kind of gets that if someone has incredible content or a great idea or a secret or something, but they're not really great at delivery. How much versus someone is just polished and has an incredible presentation style, but their content is just mundane or boring. I mean, you can really take something boring and make it sound amazing, or you can take something really amazing and have it not sound all that amazing based on your ability to communicate.

Well, there's a system. And that's what really my ultimate speaking system is built on. What I've Learned in these 42 years, years and watching and critiquing over 10,000 presentations is it starts with the audience. If you always begin with who is the. So before we did this interview, what was the first thing we went over? Who is our audience? So that's the first thing, if you know who your audience is. The second thing is, I call it the NFV formula. What do they need to be done doing they're not doing? Now that's the end. The F is fear. What are they afraid of, worried about or concerned about? And the V is the victories. What are their successes or achievements? So if you know what the audience needs to be doing, you know what they are concerned or afraid about, and you know what their successes are, then, and this is what I do with all of you 10 minute speakers. And that's what we did with this retargeting with Jimmy Harding was, okay, let's think of this audience. They don't know what retargeting is. Remember, you're the only one that knows this. So you can't think like a speaker. That's the mistake most speakers make. They think like a speaker. You have to think like the audience because you're there because you know something that the audience doesn't know.

Right?

And you've got to make it so clear. Then the next thing is in one sentence, based on what you know and you know who you're talking to, what are you going to talk about? So that was the other thing. Once we talked about who our audience is for I love marketing. Then we said, all right, what's the golden thread? The one sentence that this whole interview is about, using speaking to grow your business. That's what it's about.

And so by the time everyone is done watching this, they will have learned and have thought about and have seen and demonstrated different ways that they can use speaking to Bill and grow their business. Of course, we've already gotten into that. That's the point.

But we're not talking about anything. We're not talking about marketing computers, we're not talking about Facebook ads, We're not talking about any of those things, even though they could be important in marketing. Because the golden threat of this message is that specific. And that's what you need to have when you speak. What in one sentence do you want the audience to go away with? Then the next step is, what is your call to action? What are you going to ask them to do? So on Jimmy's talk, on retargeting in talking to him, what do you want us to do? Well, I want everybody to retarget in his Louisiana exit. Okay, so now we got to lay out, how do we go about that since we don't know anything about it, give us the steps. So by the time he finished his call to action, which is start retargeting and I'll help you, everybody said, well, I'm going to do that. And that's what you want the audience to think. Every idea should elicit this Thought, well, I can do that, right? Rather than, boy, that's a great idea, but there's no way I could do that. And how many times have we heard that? We hear great speakers and they come across, oh, man, that's terrific. But there's no way I can do that. So there's no action. If there's no action, your business doesn't grow. Something has got to happen. So that's the criteria for why I see speaking is not a performance. It's not in a delivery. It's in the clarity of the message. If you can deliver it with humor, visuals, powerful stories, high energy, because that's who you are, that can enhance it. But it's certainly not necessary. Because if I look back in all the years that I've been in, audiences watching speakers, the majority of those that have left the impact were none of those kind of speakers because it wasn't about the speaker, it was about the ideas. So that would be the criteria. How can you make your message action focused and reasonable to that audience based on their needs, fears, and victories? Biggest mistake is not thinking like the audience is thinking like a speaker. And, you know, I'm just so passionate about this.

Who cares?

I want to tell my personal story. Nobody cares about you. They care about themselves. Now, your story can be a tool to help move the audience into action. But if you accept my premise that what makes an effective speaker or presentation is if action results, do you accept that premise that if you do a meeting and people act and implement the ideas, this was effective?

Well, in the context of if the goal is to actually build and grow your business, yes. If your goal is just to entertain people and make them laugh or whatever.

Well, then if the goal is to be an entertaining speaker, you measure it by how many times the audience laughs. And if they laugh 50 times in 30 minutes, that was an effective presentation. But if your goal is to get them to do something easier in healthcare, like Dave Berg. Dave Berg, one of your longtime members of Genius Network, we worked on his presentation. A year and a half ago, he started a new company called Redirect Health because he discovered our healthcare system in the United States was not effective, and he implemented it. He has 400 employees. So he has a big company here in Phoenix, and he implemented, and he saved himself so much money, he shared it with his friends, and they implemented the system and they saved money. So now, a year and a half later, he has 100 companies that have signed up with over 5,000 people using redirect Health to have better health Care. And Dave gave a talk about this, a 10 minute talk that changed people's thinking on the health care system.

And by the way, because we mentioned earlier your epiphany, if you actually want to see Joel in action, we're going to, literally, as we're doing this interview, we are building the GeniusX platform. And so a lot of your talks are going to go on there so people can actually see some of your 10 minute talks, see other examples of 10 minute talks. So since we brought up the 10 minute talk, you'll be able to see examples on geniusx.com well, you need a.

10 minute talk for whatever you're building business is because in 10 minutes. And this is the man that created it. I never heard of this idea before, but it's so difficult to concise what you do in 10 minutes. So you're talking about the health care system, a tiny different mindset. And he was able to do it in 10 minutes. And now the growth of this company has resulted from his ability to stand up in front of a group and communicate an idea and get action. And that's what makes Dave Berg an effective speaker, not a great speaker as far as humor, energy, charisma, like a Tony Robbins, nothing like that. The message is the key. So John Paul dijuria, be nice. So many of those simple little truths, Earl Nightingale, that you become what you think about.

Got it.

So how do you constantly improve and grow your skills, your goals and success as a speaker and as an entrepreneur?

Well, I told you, that's the basis of everything in my mindset is improving. Because if you're not getting better, you're getting worse. You can't stand still. So you're either moving forward or moving back. If you're alive, everything grows or it dies. So if that's the case, the only way, you know, I call it numbers. You've got to measure it, right? So if you have a business, how much did you sell last year? Okay, what's that number? Well, how much are you going to sell this year? It's pretty easy to see. Did it go up or did it go down? Right. So if you implemented some of Joe's marketing ideas and your business grew, then you would say, okay, maybe I should implement some more of these marketing ideas, grow it again. And then Dan Sullivan, a strategic coach, one of your longtime friends and members of Genius Network, talks about 10xing things. That 10x is easier than 2x instead of doubling it 10 times it. But you do that with ideas. So you need numbers, you need to know where you are. And I'm a numbers fanatic, so I keep records of everything. I mean, how do I know I'm improving? Unless you know where you were.

Good point.

I mean, there's a lot of people that just do not track anything and then they don't have any way of even knowing. So awesome.

What are the.

Some of the best ways.

So I've got, I've got some different.

Questions here that I think would be really valuable for you to dig into. So what are some of the best ways to develop a message and create a credible and emotional connection with your audience?

Well, how do you develop a credible message? I mean, that's really the key. You got to know the audience, it's got to be credible to that audience. Since you're such a health fanatic, I mean, you work out all the time, you stay in great shape. So if you were going to talk about fitness to Olympic athletes or in this room we had overweight teenagers and in this room, room we had pregnant mothers. But our subject is fitness, health and nutrition. Now would you need a different presentation for an Olympic athlete versus a pregnant mom?

Yes, you would?

Okay, but could there be some similar themes through that?

Absolutely.

Some of the principles wouldn't change. Right. That's what most speakers don't do. They have a talk on health and nutrition, not realizing they're talking to Olympic athletes or pregnant mothers or overweight teenagers.

Right.

So if you always start with the audience. So in all my years of speaking, I've never given the same presentation twice.

So you don't have what many people refer to as a signature speech.

I don't have a signature audience. If I had the same audience on the same day at the same time, I give the same speech. But since. And I go back many times to the company's train air conditioning company, State Farm Insurance hired me in 1974 and they still hire me 40 some odd years later. But I've still never given the same presentation twice. Because the Trane air conditioning company has changed tremendously in 40 years. All the needs have changed, the fears change. So if I go back a month later, later they say, I want you to do the same presentation. It's not going to be the same because the NFVs have changed. So you don't have, you can have basic truths like your talk on nutrition and fitness, certain principle stories you can use, but you've got to reframe it for the Olympic athlete different than the pregnant mom.

Interesting.

And the same thing when I encourage, encourage all of the speakers that speak at Genius Network, who is. So we look at the member directory. Joe, we had 72 people at the last meeting. So I had the speakers that I coached before the meeting. Let's look at the directory. How many of these are online marketers? There weren't that many. We had real estate people, we had people that owned supermarkets in the East. We had people that were in brain work. We had all different kinds of people. So Jimmy realized if we're talking about retargeting, I better define some of these terms because these people don't know that. And that's why those presentations get so effective. And that's what you need to do. Who is your audience?

Well, let me ask you to play devil's advocate a little bit because I know some professional speakers that have made a huge, created huge businesses with the same talk.

Absolutely.

In signature speeches. Now granted, I am in agreement with you also that I've never given the same speech. I mean, there are things that I will talk about. I have my riffs and I tie them all together and I've learned how to do that. And I feel it's a better service to the audience to not just giving a quote unquote canned speech. And at the same time, I don't argue with success either. If someone's having success in a particular way. What I'm a big fan of is, is having more success. So if someone has a signature speech and they can apply it or they go from niche to niche. For instance, if you talk to people that are in multi level companies and the multi level companies are selling. I don't even know why I'm using this as an example, but selling nutritional products, you could probably give the same speech to different multi level companies with very little if any changing. But if you have much different, know you're talking to lumberjacks and then you're talking to, you know, vegetarians, I mean, you know, it could be quite, quite a difference. So to what degree do you keep some things the same and just adapt it or customize it versus what? Because what I don't want to do is scare anyone off saying, oh, I could never give the same speech.

You know, you're bringing up a very. So yes, that's the needs to be clarified. So let's just use this thing. You're talking about a multi level company that sells nutritional products and you have company A that you spoke for and now you go into company B. Yeah, I'm not saying that it's 100% different, but it's that 5% or 10% that's customized, that changes everything.

And by the way, I mean, and I love marketing that I do with Dean Jackson, the very first profit activator is select a single target market. I mean, you're talking to a guy that absolutely believes the number one thing first and foremost is who's your audience? I mean, if you're going to fish, the bait you use is dependent upon what you're fishing for. And I'm not really a fisherman, so I'm just using that as an analogy. The point is, though, I'm very big on identifying who is the client. People don't buy from you because they understand what you do. People buy from you because they feel understood. And the more that you understand the mindset, the person, their fears, their paranoias, their needs, their desires, their perversions, I mean, everything you can, the better you're going to be able to connect and communicate with that individual. So I'm in favor of what it is you're saying. I'm also someone that's like, replicate what you can.

Okay, absolutely. I'm not suggesting it's an entirely different presentation. So let's say you have a hundred parts to this message. Stories, illustrations, examples. 95 of them could be exactly the same, but you reposition each one. So let's say company A has been established for 50 years and they have grown substantially. Company B sells the same basic products, except they've made two acquisitions and they've merged two other companies. That's a different kind of product mix and mindset of these people. So if the speaker understood that and said, since you've just gone through these two acquisitions, we got three different groups of people in the room. We're coming together now under unified thing. Let me tell you a story. Same exact story you told under A, but now you're reframing it for that audience. That's the kind of customizing I'm talking about. I'm not saying that the talk is entitled different, but it's reframing it and reusing that. That based on the needs, fears and victories of this group. With the two acquisitions, they're going through a lot more turmoil that this group didn't have. And once the audience knows that you know what they're thinking and feeling, that's how you connect with them. When the audience says, that speaker knows exactly what I'm going through. And how many times have you sat and listened to a speaker and said, he doesn't have a clue what's going on with me, Right. And if you can do that, that's how you emotionally connect with the audience. Says, he gets me or she gets me. And that's where the preparation, the customizing and that focus on the audience comes in. Not on changing your content stories, your riffs, as you like to call them. But you can reframe it.

Yeah. And I'll tell you, like that conversation we had a while back, if you remember talking about, you said, if you have a beautiful piece of art and you duct tape it to a wall versus putting it in a beautiful frame, it gives a much different presentation. Presentation. So how you frame everything in speaking, in marketing, in packaging, in positioning, has everything to do with how people respond and how you enroll people in. So I just even love the term of reframing. Because listening to this, think about all of the things you say, how you present yourself, what you communicate, not just in speaking, but in your marketing, how you frame everything, how you has to do with how people see it. There's such an emphasis today than there was 20 years ago on PowerPoint, on Keynote, on visuals. And so I wanted to get your perspective on the best way to use visuals in a presentation. Because I can do it with or without. And some people, they literally do visuals and then they talk about the visuals. But there's all kinds of ways to do it. You, more than anyone have seen, because you were speaking before, I think computers existed.

Oh, yes.

Definitely.

Yes. Yes. I mean, I am so old. I was a busboy at the Last Supper. Okay. I got an autographed copy of the Bible. I've been around a long time. That's awesome. So here's the rule on visuals. A visual needs to enhance your message, clarify it, enhance it, or make it more impactful. And the other rule, if you're using any kind of. Kind of visual, and it's so simple. But watch what happens at your next meeting. Any meeting you go to, the only thing on the screen should be what's coming out of the speaker's mouth. So if you have five bullet points, five steps to marketing, and you have them on the screen with five bullet points, the audience is already past number one and you're talking about number. They're not even hearing what you say. So you use five slides. Right? Simple thing like that. So I brought along some visuals to show you. So I work a lot with financial advisors. This is a terrible visual. Do you have any idea what this is?

It's a graph.

It's a graph of the US federal tax bracket history from 1913 to 2009. Okay. Can you can't even see it sitting next to it. All right, here's another one. Be a terrible visual. Now, here's one that gets a little better, but there's four newspaper headlines that should be on four separate slides. The Wall Street Journal on its own slide. Barron's on the other. Forbes on the other. So then, in working with financial advisors, we've made an adaptation to put something like this on the slide.

Why do you take risks?

Okay, Profit, risk, loss. Simple thing.

And if you're listening to the audio version of this, just suffice it to say that, yeah, there's.

So we showed very complicated slides. Now here's a visual of being creative. You know, plumbers can be creative.

Oh, yeah.

So can carpet plumbers. Creative Plumbing Company. Have you heard about them?

No, I haven't.

In our business, a flush beats a full house. Okay. All right. So that's different.

That's funny.

Or if we're talking about some computer technology.

Now.

Now on the screen, we're showing a picture of a mouse at a computer. And what we would call the mouse is actually a human being, and he's moving it around. Okay? So these are visual. You can see these. So the rule on a visual, in my feeling, is what's coming out of your mouth on the screen. It's got to be visible. If you can't see it, it's not a visual. How many times you heard a speaker say, I know you can't see this. Then why are you showing it if you. You can't see it?

What makes in your mind people successful at speaking and what causes them to fail?

Well, I think the answer to the first question is, what makes a successful speaker? It's one word, results. Just think about that. I mean, if we think of the great speakers in our nation's history, John F. Kennedy, what did he say? We're going to land a man on the moon in 10 years and bring him home safely. What was the result? We landed a man on the moon and brought him home safely. Ronald Reagan said, gorbachev, tear down that wall. And what happened? The wall was turned down. Martin Luther King said, you know, I have a dream. And what happened with the civil rights movement? Look at the results those three speakers got with the words that they used. So that's what you need to think of as a communicator. What are the results that you're going to get? And one of the things in this system that I've developed is I've tried to create tools and ideas that are so doable, so simple and easy to use. And I frame them around a word, a sentence that you taught me, Joe, that little hinges swing big doors, that little tweaks just like opening with no have feel. So let me share with you as a listener one of the other little tweaks you could think of. So let's say if I said to you, joe, I can help you earn more money. Now, that sounds like a good statement, but you're probably pretty broke right now. Or if I said, joe, I can help you get in better shape, chances are you're probably not in very good shape now. But if I add one word in front of better or more. So here's the tool. Anytime you use the word better or more, put in even. So. Let me give you that statement again, Joe, I can help you earn even more money. Joe, I can help you get in even better shape. Look how the tone of that message completely changes by giving your listener credit. Now, that doesn't mean they can't get in better shape, but it means that they're already doing something in the right direction. And just that word, even so, in working with so many of our members at Genius Network on their presentations, just putting little tweaks like that, it's simple stuff. But it's taken me 46 years to figure these things out by watching and critiquing over 10,000 speakers and seeing how little things like that can make a difference. So think about just little tweaks, easy things.

No, I totally agree. The interesting thing about what you just said, the psychology behind it, is that most of the self help books are what's wrong with you and how to fix it versus what's right with you and how to enhance it. Whenever you approach someone in that way, it's way less threatening and it's more validating and they become more open to hearing what it is you have to say. So that framing that you did is really powerful. And one thing I learned from you early on is you made this analogy that I've talked about quite a bit where you said if you had a beautiful or valuable painting and you duct taped it to the wall without any lighting versus if you put it in a frame and you put it in a museum and you had great lighting, all of a sudden it's just a completely different context. So so much of what we teach at. I love marketing with the eight profit activators before, during, after education based marketing, all of the stuff is really about how to frame and position what it is you do and Then our friend Jason Fladlin has this great line where he's like, anything that you're selling, you want to put information in front of it. Well, people have to communicate in order to do that. Joel, I have a question about how.

Often you should be practicing in between speaking. How long would you say that should be in between your live performances?

Okay, so the question about practice. I don't recommend practicing what most people would think of as practice. I think the best practice is quietly thinking about your audience, about your message, and how that message is going to help them meet their needs, overcome their fears, reinforce their victories, and get yourself out of the way. And the reason I don't recommend practicing it is the reason I don't recommend practicing it. And memorize the reason. Okay, so what am I doing? I've memorized something. I'm trying to think of that next word, and I just went blank. And you see that so often. So my suggestion, if you accept the premise, the belief that speaking publicly is a private conversation that a number of people hear at the same time. So if you and I had dinner, would we need to practice what we're going to talk about at dinner? No, we would need to know. Okay, I want to ask you about the trip that you had to xyz. I want to ask you about the kids, and I want to see about your book. So I made a mental note. Those are the three things we're going to talk about tonight. I don't need to think about what words to use. You have been speaking your whole life, so that's, to me, the best way to practice. And as a result, you should never give the same presentation twice because you don't have the same audience every time. It's about that audience that day on that podcast, that webinar, that live event, and no one else. And Joe knows, when we talked about him speaking at the National Speakers association, how important it is to customize it to the audience you're talking to. And that's not something you memorize. So I know that might not be the answer you're looking for, but practicing something mentally and seeing it clearly in your mind is one of the best ways that you can do it. There are a few people that I've worked with that can memorize a talk and deliver it effectively, and I can count them on one hand. It's not something most people can do, and therefore, it's not necessary. And you don't want it to sound like a talk. Talk that's canned. It's a conversation. So hopefully, that'll answer that question for you.

Thank you for answering in the honesty.

Yeah. Joel, I want to say something. You helped me with that presentation I was given at National Speakers association, so we did it at the headquarters here, which actually is located in Tempe, Arizona. And I never even prepared that presentation. I talked about things I've spoken about before, but you actually, you introduced me. You helped him organize it. And it was the highest rated speech in NSA's history at their headquarters there. And I don't even consider myself a public speaker. I just think of me as this marketing guy that happens to speak, and I run a pretty amazing group. Right. What I think we should do for everyone that gets your package is because I've never distributed that talk. But someone here is asking, like, what's a great introduction? Well, the best introduction is you showing the model doing an introduction. If anyone gets Joel's program, you'll have to let us know that you got it so that we know.

I'll let you know, everybody. Yes.

Jenny, put. Put in here. Ilovemarketing.com speak in a 50% off coupon of the course. Use the code ILM, as in Ilove Marketing ILM to get the course. But let's include the NSA presentation that I did with you introducing me and people seeing how I did it, because it literally got all, like, I think, four stars or whatever they rated on different things, and it was across the board. And I was, like, blown away because, I mean, had you not helped me with that, there's no way in hell I could have done it. So it's not just even what you talk about. It's all these other things that are so important. And, I mean, I tell people all the time, you're going to be. You know when I tell people to hire Joel in Genius Network, because I've told so many people in Genius Network, like, I got something to sell you want. You know, it's like, hire Joel. Just trust me on this. Even if you're not a public speaker, it's going to help you in all these other areas. Because of what he does, you're going to use it for the rest of your life.

So, Brian, come on.

Okay, stop.

You just heard one word. Did that get your attention?

That is the power of words.

Thank you, Kyle. You did a great job. What words are you using? What if we had. And I certainly wouldn't yell this at a meeting, if we heard the word fire, if that was said at a meeting, we would all know what to do. We've got to get out. That's the power of your words. Your words have great power. We talked about that earlier when I mentioned that comment about what you're saying to yourself. So we need to think about just the words that we use, whether it's ourselves or others. So I'm going to give you a word. Would you think of elephant? Okay. How many see an elephant? Maybe not one on a pot. Maybe you see how many saw something like this in your mind? Did anybody see these eight words? No. Every time you use a word, it creates a mental picture. And Darrell, your willingness and Brian to go help whatever was happening in that room was illustrated by that, that our words have great power. And that's why when you speak, everything you say is transferred to your audience's mind. So whether you're speaking at a Genius Network event at an annual meeting or a 10 minute talk here, you're doing a webinar, you're putting a video on your website, which so many of you do, a podcast or a radio interview, television interview, or if you're at the Redneck Yacht Club giving a speech. Now all these ideas are in a handout for you, so you don't bother taking notes. So what if I said to you, since we heard we have a lot of financial advisors in the room that are in the money business, I can help you earn more money. Does that sound like a good statement? I can help you earn more money. But if you think about those words, doesn't that infer that you're probably not doing very well? Or what if I said I have a system to get you into better shape? Now, Fred, you're in great shape, right? Mr. Muscle man here. But if I say I have a system to get you in better shape, what picture comes comes to mind? Something like this. So here's your first four letter word. Even if you will use this four letter word every time you say more or better. So let me give you those two sentences again, I can help you earn even more money.

What does that say?

This is the kind of person you are. I have a system to get you into even better shape. What does that mean, Jim?

Do.

Is that good? Is that what you wanted me to say? Jim? Magnificent physical shape. It also gives people credit. It builds people up. Do you like that first idea? It's so simple. And in working with many of you on your presentation, Linda, on your meeting, we talked about just changing a few words that make such a greater impact. So just imagine It's Monday the 3rd. That's this coming Monday about 9:37 and you're back in front of your team. David, you have a lot of people that work with you. How many people do you have? We heard Nick had 22. How many in your company? 155. So let's say at 9:37 in California, David's going to be in front of his people and he says, you know, I just got back from Genius Network.

I am so excited.

I got so many great ideas. We're going to make three changes around here that are going to grow our business even more. Now, is that a good statement? Okay, but we had that word change. How do you feel when somebody says we're going to change something? Fear, uncertainty, disruption, confusion. All of those thoughts run into mind. A threat or loss if we're going to change something. So you know what these people are going to say, David, in their own mind, wait till Thursday, he'll forget about everything and we'll just go back to normal because he'll calm down. So here's your second word. Replace change with improve. I've got some great ideas on how we can improve what we do here. You know what people will say if you go back on Monday? Say, oh, I just came back from Genius now I got so many ideas on how we can improve things. Well, what do you have in mind? People love to improve. So replace change with improve. Would that help you? Have a nice day. How many say that to people? Have a nice day. Have a good day. End our emails. So great talking to you. Have a nice day. Don't ever say that again. It's a conditional phrase. It means, sure, I'm going to have a nice day as long as I don't get a root canal, as long as I have to sleep on a bed of nails, go through an IRS audit and end up with this shirt. Sure, I'll have a nice day as long as I don't have to learn the name of David's 11 kids. You have one of your daughters here, right? And there's 10 more back home. He doesn't even know the names of all 11 kids. Alex, please stand up. Sure, I'm going to have a nice day as long as I don't have to pronounce. How do you say that last name?

See?

See how easy it is for him? Or keep up with Linda McKissick's on 101 activities. Right, Jim, that she's got planned for this week. Then I'm going to have a nice day. So here's the third word. Instead of have a nice day, make it a great day. If you put make it a great day when your kids leave for school, have a nice day. Well, bus, drivers, tests, all that's going to affect me. Make it a great day. Who's responsible? It's our responsibility. Just one, one little change and people.

Get stopped by it.

Put it on your voicemail, end your emails with it. Now, those of you in Genius Network that I've been working with see that on all my emails and notice now it's coming back the same way to me. Make it a great day. Little things can improve your speaking impact. If you just think of those 15 letters, even improve and make. Could that make a difference? Mike, you're a master and we're going to hear about that at sales letters and videos. You spend a lot of time thinking about the words you use because you've learned that if you just change this a little bit, it makes such a difference. And I saw the reaction when I said, even I can help you make even more money as opposed to I can help you make money because you probably don't have any. Just those little things. So we are needing more political correctness now. We got Trump in the White House. We got Joe up in front of the group. You don't want to say to people, they've got a beer belly. This is not the best use of words. He has the liquid grain storage facility. This would be much better. You don't want to call a woman a nag. She's just verbally repetitive. Much better. And you don't ever want to say somebody is a total ass. You're much better off saying that they have a rectal cranial inversion. That's much better for that. But seriously, even before you use more and better, improve instead of change and make it a great day, One last thought, since we have a lot of women in the room, I don't know much about personal development, fence or anything like that. We have many members that do that. I don't think any of them are here today. But if you do need help, just like Kyle yelled in my opening, help. This group came to help. But if you were in a parking lot and yelled help. We've heard the Kitty Genovese that happened in New York where a woman was screaming for her life and she got killed in front of all these people, nobody did anything. So here's a suggestion. And this would work for men, too. Help my baby. Just add my baby. Old women will come to your help if a baby is threatened. But if it's just you alone, you might be out there all alone. The power of words. So I told you I had a handout. Let me pass this out quickly and then we'll cover a few things on making your own killer 10 minute talk. So if you could pass this down your way and this the other side this your way. And then there's some at the end for the back table. And we have some extras for the people downstairs if somebody could. We'll just stack them up. An extra stack for downstairs people. When you speak, it's great to have a handout. Wasn't it nice you didn't have to write all the ideas down? So on the first page there we have the help and the fire. The mental picture about the elephant. At the bottom of that first page it says the three power words even improve and make. And the examples I gave on the back are those other illustrations. E has helped my baby. But look down below under some of the speaking ideas. Is there any question? Question number one. The golden thread. That's the one sentence that summarizes what you say. In my case it was the power of words. Does anybody get confused by what I was talking about? Are you having a single statement that your audience can follow? Then the visuals added impact. I had 78 slides on the screen. Did it seem like 78? Use more visuals, but make them simple. One or two words, that's it. Or a picture. And number three, add humor. And here are five examples of visuals where you laughed. I didn't have to be funny or say a joke. The picture added the impact. Think about doing that when you speak. And now make it, make it. Make it a great day.

Okay? I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here.

Go ahead. You're over here.

Do it now.

Come on.

Thank you.

Watch them.