Using Speaking to Grow Your Business Featuring Joel Weldon, and Joe Polish - I Love Marketing Episode #397

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?

If you'd like to join world renowned entrepreneurs at the next Genius Network event or want to learn more about Genius network, go to geniusnetwork.com this week we are revisiting a previous episode. Here are some of the best highlights.

Hello, this is Joe Polish.

And sitting next to me is my good friend and just a brilliant guy, Joel Weldon. So, Joel, great to have you here.

So.

So let me tell you about Joel Weldon. How does a shy carpenter earning $67 a week with no formal education and an inability to speak to people, become one of the three final winners of the Toastmasters International Speech contest out of 60,000 members that year? He then becomes a full time professional speaker. And in just five years, he's a founding member of the National Speakers association, becomes a speaking legend, a member of the Professional Speakers hall of Fame, and and earns over a million dollars that year just from his speaking. Joel Weldon has discovered two important things in the beginning of his career. Number one, speaking effectively is a learned skill. And number two, you need a system. A system to organize your ideas with clarity, deliver them with impact, and connect emotionally with your audience. When you do, you'll get the results you want from every presentation you give. Now a 42 year career, Joel has been paid to speak at over 3,000 events. And today, as the creator of the Joel Weldon's Ultimate Speaking System, he's the speaking skills coach of legendary professional speakers like Brian Tracy, Dan Burris, Chad Hyman, Waldo Waldman, and Bill Bachrat, all five of whom are in the Speakers hall of Fame. All five use Joel's system and each one earns over a million dollars a year from speaking. Havert brilliantly critiqued over 10,000 speakers.

Joel.

Joel brings a unique skill set. Some can do and some can teach. Joel is unique in that he can both do and teach how you can be an even better speaker, communicator and business leader.

Speaking can be used in any sort of environment. Now, most of the people that are watching this or listening to this are entrepreneurs.

They're salespeople.

They're people that are wanting to start their own enterprise. They're someone that needs to influence somebody in some way, shape or form. And you are just literally the master at doing this. Like I mentioned, you not only have been paid for over 3,000 presentations, but you've actually critiqued some. And for those of you that are not in Genius Network, Joel literally critiques the 10 Minute Talks. We have this great process called the 10 Minute Talk, where in 10 minutes, our presenters share a best practice idea, a strategy, a method, something they have done or are doing that's been worth at least a minimum of $250,000 or more to their business. And if they actually deliver that promise, every minute's worth $25,000 in value. So how does someone speak to where every minute is worth $25,000?

And then Joel literally critiques the person.

So by the time we do the annual event, we have these powerful speeches, which is why Genius Network is literally considered one of the top places to learn ideas worth implementing, ideas worth using.

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 and 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 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 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? Nothing. Then he's not a great speaker, but you could hear a boring, dull person. That would change your life.

So how much of the ability to be persuasive has to do with the.

Content versus the delivery?

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 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, 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. 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? 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? Earl Nightingale in 1956 recorded a record and that record became the largest selling recording of a spoken word message ever, and still is today the largest selling spoken word message. He said, well, the strangest secret is the statement that you know so well, because that's one of your favorite recordings, is that you become what you think about most of the time. And then Mr. Nightingale said, what have you been thinking about? Do you think about what you can do or what you can't do? So I went out with a different attitude of what I could do. And I knocked on four doors, I made two sales, and I doubled four months of production in four hours. What if you just altered your thinking about what you could do in your business or with your speaking? And that was like the key to everything. By the end of that year, including the first four months, I was the number one salesman out of over 1,000. One other thing that Earl taught me that very few people have ever heard, I took him out fishing to Saguaro Lake, bass fishing, because he liked to fish. And we talked about the idea of changing or improving. And he taught me the 51% rule. He said, joel, so many people go through all these different changes in their life. You know, they change spouses, they change homes, they change jobs. They're always changing. Here's the rule. He said, If 51% is positive, you improve it. If 51% is negative or more, you change it. So if you're living in a home and there's not 51% positive about that home, then go get another home. So when it's 51% positive, you improve it. A marriage isn't 100% perfect, but ours was 51% or more positive. So instead of changing spouses, and I'm sure there was many days Judy would have said, there's got to be somebody other than you, right? But 71% positive. So she kept me, and now we've had the 55 year run for doing it. So that same thing is to the business that you're in. I mean, everybody's looking for another business. What about the business you've got? If you made a list of all the things that are positive and negative, if you have more positives than negatives, then you improve it. When you think about your job, your relationships, your income, we can improve those things. And that's why we need speakers who have ideas that can move us into action. And there are things, you know, that could help people improve. And that's why speaking is such a great way to grow your business. If you can talk to your customers about ideas, to help them grow. And you just need one good idea, but you have to act on it.

I've always loved the saying, today's the last day of the way you used to be. Or, or every passing moment is another chance to turn it all around. And every moment of everyone's life, there is the possibility to go ahead and make that shift and do something. And I'd like to utilize our conversation here to be that vehicle for the person that's out there, literally on the edge, and there's that fear. And so that's kind of what I want to go into. And I think one of the biggest things we hear all the time is, well, yeah, you know, speaking, but I'm scared. I mean, I don't want to get up in front of crowds. I'm an introvert.

Earl Nightingale, the dean of personal motivation that we talked about earlier, was a very ineffective speaker. If you saw him today on a one to ten scale, you'd give him a two or a three. Stood behind a lectern, didn't look up, and he read his speech and he changed lives because what he said was so clear, was so powerful, so impacting and so effective. So you don't have to be different than who you are. If you're terrified of something, there's a different approach. Like people who are afraid of heights, then they go up and jump out of an airplane to face that fear. If you're concerned about speaking, then don't do it. Look for an alternative. Make a video. And if you get good feedback, then you'll have the confidence maybe to go and join a Toastmasters club. 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.

So how do you constantly improve and.

Grow your skills, your goals, and success.

As a speaker and as an entrepreneur?

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 and grow it again. So if you always start with the audience. So in all my years of speaking, I've never given the same presentation twice. I'm not saying that it's 100% different, but it's that 5% or 10% that's customized that changes everything.

The point is, though, I'm very big on identifying who is the client. You know, 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.

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 that's where the preparation, the customizing, and the 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.

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