Episode 145: The Profitability of Public Speaking with Grant Baldwin

Give me something random. Does anything random right now?

Puppies. What?

Not loving. Like, okay, puppies. So how many puppies have you ever had at once? No, no. Like giving birth to.

No, I know. Well, three.

You've had three puppies. Like they were in the puppy stage.

I've had two that were in the puppy stage and one that was like about a year.

So my neighbor, they adopted an adult. Adult dog.

Yeah.

And just went to the bathroom all over their carpet. Oh, yeah. Three, four weeks in. But what it was is they were told by the agency, this dog drinks a lot of water. And we'll just keep drinking. There's water out. So you actually have to moderate the water. They left water out. They forgot. And they're watching a movie and all of a sudden he leaps up. Like what you do? He's like, let's clean it up.

Yeah, that's all you can do.

He's a puppy and he pet the dog. He said. Yeah, he like. I'm like, I don't think you supposed to reward them after they pee on your car. Like, I don't punish it. I get it. You do not hit your dog. You punch it. But to start petting as a good dog, as he's peeing in your car.

We trained our dogs, all of them, to ring a bell when they have to go out. So we, we swear to God, we hang a little jingle bell, like on a string and it's on our door handle and we train them. It only took about a week and they just, they hit the bell when they have to go out and it's great.

Really?

Yeah.

Cuz I mean, that's true today, like, we go, yeah. Huh?

Yeah. It only takes about a week because I mean, as you start for yourself, taking them. Well, at least my experience, I do.

What do you have a dog and two cats.

Okay.

Yeah.

And does your dog like pee on the carpet? Like, what do you mean?

Like, I just have never had very good luck training dogs. I had, I mean, I had two dogs too, with my marriage, so.

Well, it takes consistency though too. Everybody in the household has to be on board, so.

So your dogs, did they. Did you and your ex husband split the dogs?

Mm mm. I left them.

He left with you?

I left them with him.

That must be hard.

That's not easy.

Mm.

Mm. Well, on that sour note, you are.

Listening to the Profit first podcast, episode 145.

Oh, yeah, there it is.

Bring us back.

Mike is the editor king.

Welcome everyone, to the Profit first podcast. I'm Christina Bulduk. The ringleader of Profit First Professionals.

You come on some good terms. I'm Mike McAllister, the author of Profit First. And Serge, if you haven't got that book, and others too. Serge. And you are listening to the Profit first podcast. This is a show where we teach you every single element and piece of profitability. You will be richer by the end of the show if you listen closely.

Yes, you can find us on itunes, Stitcher, tunein radio, Google Play, profitfirstpodcast.com and pretty much any other podcaster or anywh that you hear a podcast. We're there.

Pick us up there now. If you didn't notice, we're also joined in studio by the one and only Fireball.

Hello, everyone. My real name is Kelsey.

Yeah, you don't like that nickname, do you?

I do.

No, I don't think you do.

No, I do.

All right.

I know your real name.

Is Kelsey going to tell her what she doesn't like?

No, I just have a feeling, like, you know, like some people embrace. Like Hawaiian lumberjack embraced his last name.

He does.

So what have you been up to?

I got my nails done. Like, I have long nails again, and it is so freaking hard to type. Like, I about taking them off. Okay. All right, smartass.

Nice. Nice.

You act like you didn't notice too. I know I was struggling this morning, but no, I don't really do much for myself anymore, so I was like, oh, I can sit there, get pampered, you know, once a month, and you.

Do stuff for yourself.

Yeah.

What have you been up to, Kelsey?

You can call me Fireball.

I think it's better. All right, we've Fireball.

So I'm doing the cabbage soup diet this week. Super fun. Yeah. It's like a vegetable soup that you eat as much as you want, and then each day there's like a different thing. So today I could eat as many vegetables I want, plus the soup. Oh, yeah. Yesterday I could have as much fruit as I wanted, plus the soup.

I will never.

Is there a day you can eat as many Oreos as you wish?

Any fruit packs?

Oh, my goodness, I love those fruit packs.

And obviously, Taylor, ham, egg and cheese sandwiches.

Didn't you fire one down?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Her and Erin started side stand. I was like, hey, guys, we're getting Taylor and Megan cheeses today. And they're like, all right.

Yeah. The 911 text come across.

What are you up to, Mike?

So. Oh, my God, I keep forgetting. I. I guess nothing too exciting. Oh, nothing too exciting. I'm I'm starting some crazy travel for speaking.

That's the only thing.

Some crazy. So I'm going to Minnesota next week, then Nebraska. Nebraska. Amsterdam, Georgia, Frankfurt. Frankfurt, Germany, Orlando. All within two weeks. It's really packed in.

So it's crazy.

It's a lot of flying around, but I'm excited. So, you know, today we have an amazing guest coming on. His name is Grant Baldwin and we're gonna talk about speaking. You know, you can make a lot of money speaking and you don't have to be a professional speaker, you know, you all smarmy with that. No, you project your voice stuff. No, anyone can be a speaker if that's what you so desire. Knife one could be a great speaker though, let's be honest. But first I want to thank our corporate partners. Corporate partners who make the show a reality.

Next.

Oh, and I want to do shout outs too. But first let's thank our corporate partners. Who are they?

Nextiva Fundera, Fun Box. Zero.

Yes.

Shut up.

All of them. We'll thank them in their entirety. We should really start planting them into the show. Can I, can I give you that responsibility? Okay, yeah. Just as we're going along like innocuously, just drop it in conspic. Inconspicuously.

Incons.

Innocuous. Is that the right word?

Innocuous is like kind of innocent and.

Yeah, yeah, like, you know, so kind.

Of that sound like zero? Something like that. Okay, yes. Who, what shout outs do we have today?

I also have two shout outs again this week. First one comes in from bsh. He emails in and he says profit first is brilliant and parallels my business journey. He went through a lot of crap. His dad died as soon, like as soon as he left the funeral, they got caught in an earthquake. Then he found out he was losing his business and it just found out he was just going to be penniless. And he said it was quite a journey. But he said that made him realize how bloody important profit was and that there were always people with their hands out to take money and he would not grow until he paid himself first. So today he runs a well established consultancy practice. 15 years old. And he says through implementing some vague sort of profit first principles, I have 13 bank accounts of various headers. And he just says that profit verse is doing wonders. And he says, please accept my big thank you. So good job.

Thank you. In your honor. I had Indian food last night. I had lamb sock. It's the best.

Just for you.

I told you. Naan bread and a little Kinnier. Oh my God. Thanks, Bhavesh. Who else you got?

Yeah, and then I also got an email in from Roberts from the Philippines. He said he's running a food distribution business and has been living check to check these past five years. Now he's committed to profitability. He will do what it is that Mike teaches him to do in the next few chapters to achieve his goal. So keep going, Robert. You got this.

Go for it, Robert. Happy to have you as a fan and congratulations on significant progress forward. All right, any member, shout out. Are we good?

I have a member. Shout out. Another bottle of wine. This is a cabernet. This is from Connie Jacox. She's one of our Mastery members. And she sent this bottle of wine in saying that she's breaking through her fear and reaching out to influences in her niche.

Yay.

Niche or niche?

I pronounce it niche, niche, because it rhymes with rich. Right. Riches in the niches.

I like it, but I like that.

I think. I don't know. Is there proper pronunciation?

I don't know. I think it's one of those, you know.

Yeah.

You say tomato, I say tomato.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Who says tomato, right? No one says tomato.

Well, I say potato all the time.

Buy some potatoes, please. Not the mashed potatoes.

Oh, man.

His name is Grant Baldwin. He is the creator of the Booked and Paid to Speak training program. He's a nationally known keynote speaker and author. His podcast and training site, the Speaker Lab, provides weekly training to speakers at all levels of their business. And as a speaker, Grant has given hundreds of presentations and has spoken to somewhat over 400,000 people in 45 different states. I want to add the word of mind in 45 different states of mind. Some were high, some of them. That's not funny at all.

Wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, at least I didn't say Kegels this episode. His book and curriculum.

He just did.

Oh, that's a good point. His book and curriculum for students, Reality Check, is taught in 400 schools around the country. That's what blew me away. And now we're about to learn how you can be an impactful and profitable speaker. Grant, welcome to the show.

What's up?

How are you? I'm doing well. How you doing?

I'm not too shabby. I've been learning about puppies and manicures and nails and cabin soup. So I feel. I feel pretty good about life right now.

Yeah, you gave us a little scare. We thought we were dead.

Yeah, we thought we lost you.

I was tuning in, and all of a sudden like the audio cut. I don't. I don't know. With technical joys. But we're back. We're here.

Yeah, we're totally good. So tell me about being a speaker. I mean, it sounds like that is the hardest business to be in. Joe, most people who want to be speakers and try to become speakers actually fail at it and never become impactful nor profitable.

Well, you ask a bunch of questions there. And that old Seinfeld adage or bit that he does about, you know, that. That public speaking is a greater fear than death. And so in the. In a funeral setting, most people would rather be in the casket than delivering the eulogy. And so, yeah, speaking is one of those unique things in the world that most people are terrified by, but it's also an extremely exciting, thrilling opportunity to really make an impact, really make a difference the lives of people. I know, Mike, you and I have both experienced that with people who may be in an audience and have heard something that we've shared, you know, personally or professionally, that impacts their life in some way. And so, yeah, speaking. Speaking is a lot of fun. It's a lot of work, but it can be extremely rewarding, both in impact and in terms of just financially as well.

So let's talk about if it's a lot of work, what's the work you need to do to be an effective speaker?

Well, I think one of the misconceptions about speaking is that the best speakers in the world, the people that we've all seen, that we look up to, that we admire, we respect, they think they're a. That we think they're amazing speakers. We think that they just get up and just wing it. Like they just shoot from the hip or they're just making it up on the fly. And the reality is, like, that's just not the case. Like, the best speakers on the planet spend hours and hours and hours practicing, rehearsing, going over their material, practicing jokes, delivering one liners and stories and punchlines and all those different things they bomb a bunch of times before you ever see them, where they deliver a really great presentation. So there's just. There's a lot that goes into it behind the scenes. So, Mike, I know, like, you and I both have, we've spent a lot of time pacing around hotel rooms, just talking to ourselves, or backstage at a conference or an event, just pacing back and forth, just going over it time and time and time again, so that by the time we get up to deliver and present in front of an audience, we feel polished. We Feel ready. And we, we are, we're ready to go on and deliver.

So you say we spend a lot of time rehearsing, which I 100% agree. But you know, where, where can you bomb and still get by with it and then have that breakout success? And what I'm saying is, you know, on TV you see a comedian or some of these presenters speak and they nail the whole thing. If they bombed at one point, it couldn't be in the hotel room. How would they know they're bombing? So how do you get that practice under your belt?

There is a great documentary, I don't know if you've seen that. It's actually with Seinfeld called Comedian. Have you seen that?

No, Now I have to see.

Oh, you've got to see that. Just, just go pick it up on Amazon. It's phenomenal. But basically what it is is it follows Jerry Seinfeld after the show. Seinfeld had ended. Now Seinfeld is, we think of him as the, the. But he really has done stand up for years and years and years, long before the show and long since the show. And so it follows him after the show is over. And so you think of, of Seinfeld again as this, this big wig comedian and actor. And so it's showing him going up in these little tiny clubs and he's doing material and it's just not funny at all. Like he's bombing and it's painful to watch at times, but you think like, oh no, he's Seinfeld. Everything he comes up with is funny. And that's just not the case. It's a really great behind the scenes look at really almost like how the sausage is made, you know. So whenever, whenever you are sitting down to work on a talk or a joke or a story, it's really an educated guess until you get in front of an audience, I think this is funny. I think this is going to connect, I think this is going to relate. But I really don't know until I'm up in front of an audience. So whenever you get up in front of an audience to speak, you may. You're going to give it your best of what you think is going to work, but you'll get immediate reaction on this worked or that didn't work, and you'll know what to improve next time. And so 1. Another misconception with speaking is that every time you speak, you're supposed to do a brand new talk. And that's just not the case. The best speakers in the world, they have like one, two, maybe three talks that they do. Like, Mike, how many talks do you do?

Three. Literally three.

So three. And that's basically it. And so each time you give that talk, you're going to get a little closer to, okay, this worked, this worked, this worked. That didn't work. That story just didn't connect with this audience. Has that story not been connecting with other audiences? Do I need to change something? Do I need to tweak something? And so each time you present, you get that live feedback right in the moment there of this works or this doesn't work and you know how to improve for the next presentation.

Do you suggest, like, kind of doing a practice round for, like, a practice audience, like, of your family members or something like that? Like, is that, like in theater you do a dress rehearsal in front of, like, a senior community or something like that? Is that a good way to go, or does that not even matter because each audience is different?

Yeah, I think. I don't. I wouldn't put a ton of stock in it, in part that if I have a. A group of, you know, my mom and her friends, they're going to be a little biased, that everything I say is wonderful, and that just doesn't help me at all. I want to get, like, some honest, raw feedback. So I'd prefer to be in an audience that, like, they have no idea who I am, and I have to. I have to win them over, because that's going to be a more authentic, genuine type of setting. So I would prefer that type of setting to something that's a little more, you know, somewhat fake put together and people giving you, you know, feedback that isn't. That may not be, you know, super helpful.

Right.

If I can add some feedback just from my own experience. Christina, I would suggest doing from a senior community, because if no one dies during your performance, you know, you're doing okay. How are you talking about humor? How do you know, Grant, When. When to use humor, not to use humor. Should everyone be a jokester up there?

No, I think a lot of it just depends on your personality. Like, humor really, really, really works well. But don't force it if you're. You don't have to be a comedian. You don't have to be a joke teller at all. So sometimes we think that it's like an all or nothing thing. But for someone that gives a very serious talk, it can be a very engaging talk, depending on their presentation style. And they can throw in a one liner here or there, and it can be really funny. You Know, just because you, you weren't, you didn't see it coming. Another simple tip for any speakers is that slides can work really, really well for humor. Now I, personally, I'm not, I don't use slides when I present. I'm not a big fan of them. But if someone wants to present with slides, you want to use them, then slides can work really, really well for humor in that you may show a funny video or show a funny picture. And it's really, it's not you having to come up with a joke or come up with something humorous. It's just you literally pushing a button to show something and that's. That connects with something that you're talking about. Or shar that the, the slide itself, the picture or the, the video could be the humor without you having to feel the need to, to come up with something that's funny.

Do you have a general structure that speakers should follow? You know, there's a saying, make them laugh. Oh, tell me, tell them, tell them and then tell them what you told them. Is there some kind of structure that you can give us for a good presentation?

Yeah, I mean, I think that. Well, I think I'll give you a couple thoughts. One is I don't think there's any rules and that speaking, you have to do it this way. You have to have three points. You have to have a story, you have to, you know, have an int. You don't, you, you can, you can, you don't have to follow this certain rhyme or reason. Now having said that, there is, you know, some general frameworks and some general structures that people tend to follow because that works and that's somewhat of what, what audiences are used to. So for me personally, I like to have an intro and outro. Usually do three points within each point. I'm usually I'll tell the point, I will expand on the point a little bit. I will tell some relatable story and then I will. A lot of times when it comes to stories, I like to use first person stories, stories that have actually happened to me. I don't think there's anything wrong. Depending on the cont of telling some third person, you know, let me tell you about the story of, you know, so and so who invented this thing many years ago or you know, here's what Apple's doing and here's how this relates to your industry. You can do that. But I think oftentimes first person stories and first person experiences are going to be a lot more relatable. So a lot of times Sharing some type of story or anecdote and then bringing it back within each point of now what? How does this actually apply? And I think from an audience perspective, whenever a speaker is working on a talk, the audience is always asking themselves two questions. So what? And now what? So what? And now it's so what? Meaning, like, that's great, that's a cute talk, but why does that matter to me? You know? Like, I think we've all been through talks or sat through a lecture or something, and by the end of it, you're just kind of like, what does that have to do with me? Like, what was the point of that talk? So, so what? And now what. What do you. What do you want me to do as a result of it? Because if you listen to a talk and you just think, well, that was cute, that was fun, and, you know, it was a distraction for an hour or something, but you don't really do anything with it. Like, even this podcast, if people listen to this action on it or do. Don't do something different as a result of it, like the point, you know, like, so I hope in anything that people are learning that they do something with it, right? And maybe in the context of this, maybe just like, you know what, it just. It put a smile on my. On my face for the day, and it made the day, you know, a little better. But having some type of result as a. Or some type of outcome as a result of the talk, I think is really important.

So now let's talk about the profitable side. I want to be a profitable speaker. How do I make money speaking?

Well, the. There's a lot of ways to make money. I think there's actually another kind of misconception is whenever you go speak that either you got a check or you didn't. And that was kind of the end of the transaction. And another thing is that sometimes there's this misconception that speaking for free is a bad thing. A lot of it depends on how you want to use speaking in your business. Meaning there are plenty of speakers. Mike, you and I would be these speakers who we go speak, we collect a check, and that's kind of the. The basis of the transaction. But there's a lot of speakers. And I'll give you a quick example. There's a student that we've worked with, and he speaks for free. That's all he does, is he speaks for free, but he uses it as lead generation for his coaching business. So last year, actually, he generated $372,000. $372,000, $372,000 in coaching business from speaking for free. So on paper you're like, ah, he speaks for free, it doesn't really count. But in reality, like it's generating a multiple six figure business in other ways. So speaking can be used in a lot of. I personally I've had some events where, and Mike, maybe you've experienced the same where I would go speak and I was willing to take a lower fee knowing that I was going to make it up in product sales or book sales, that the event was going to buy so many books or that the, I knew that the attendees were going to buy a certain percentage of books. And so I just knew like that event makes sense to do because I'm going to make it up in other ways. There's some events where it may make sense to go speak out for free or for a discount rate because you know of who's in the room. You know, sometimes there's people, people like event planners and event organizers will say, well you know, come, come speak at our event for free or for a discount because of exposure. And 95% of the time like that's just baloney. But there are times where that's true, that actually is accurate. And I think for you as a speaker you need to know when that makes sense for you because there's certain events that you may go do and you may speak at and you do that one event and you can, you can directly point back to twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred thousand dollars worth of business that came from that one event. So again, the point being there's no right or wrong way to do it and that you have to do X number of gigs per year to be, you know, considered a speaker. There's a lot of ways that speaking can be used in business.

You know, I can testify to that. In regards to the exposure part, I did a lot when I started out speaking. I was doing a lot of free speaking. And you know, the, the argument that event planners would have would be, oh, you'll meet so many people, you'll. Nothing ever came out of it. Nothing. But now I rarely do it. But I did it once recently. I don't know if, if Kelsey, you helped me line it up, but it was for. It was in Cleveland with Jonathan slain and I did an event down there. It was all these event planners. I got I think five or six engagements now. The Minnesota, Nebraska, now maybe Mexico just called yesterday. Yeah, so I'm speaking all over because of that grant. You know, how do I Even figure out if I'm the guy who's going to work for a check. How do I know what to charge a client for my speaking?

Yeah, yeah, it's a, that's a tough question because there's, there's a lot of variables that go into it. So one variable is going to be what industry are you speaking in? Meaning that sometimes when people are getting started with speaking, they say, well, I just want to be a speaker and I'll just, I'll speak to anybody and everybody and whoever. Like that's a, that's a horrible answer. Would never recommend that. So you want to be really, really clear about who you want to speak to. And in speaking, there's a lot of different industries. So you have high school students, college students, education, parents, teachers, government, military, associations, corporations, I mean, all nonprofits, churches, faith based. I mean, there's just a lot of potential industries that hire speakers. And there's going to be a huge range depending the industry. Meaning that you can charge more speaking to college students than high school students. You can charge more speaking to corporations and associations relative to, let's say, nonprofits. So a lot of it depends on the industry. Another big variable is going to depend on your experience level. I mean, if you're a brand new speaker, you're typically not going to be able to charge as much as someone who's been doing this for 10 or 20 years. And then the other factor would be your marketing materials. There's two big things that speakers need. One's a website and one is a demo video. They're really, really important for, especially for getting paid. And so if you don't have those in or if you have them in place, like whether we like it or not, whether we want to acknowledge or not, like in the world we live in, people judge books by their cover. And so if people look at your website and your website sucks and it looks like your demo video was just thrown together, people are going to assume that you suck as a speaker. Now that may not be fair, that may not be accurate, but that just means that your materials need to look sharp and they need to look presentable. So having said all of that, it's just kind of like a precursor. Most of most new speakers who are getting started are going to be able to charge somewhere in the range of 1 to 5,000 is usually a ballpark there. And again, there's a lot of variables, but usually anywhere from a thousand to five thousand is a decent starting point.

That's not bad. You know, it's Funny when, when you make a thousand dollars or something to speak when you're starting out, it sounds like making so much money, like I only spoke for I'll make a thousand dollars an hour. People say it's like, well, hold on. As granted you had to rehearse for all this time time you had to travel to get there, travel to get back. You were at the event for probably half a day. So you ended up making like 25 an hour. It sounds. So yeah, impressive.

At what point can you start charging or you know, including in your price like travel and you know, hotel, like when how do you know when to take that next step or do you feel like you're being too greedy? Like how do you make that transition of okay, no, this is what I'm doing for a living, this is how I need to charge and what I need to charge.

Sound, text for everything. You know, I think you can, I think you absolutely charge travel right out of the gate. There's nothing wrong with that because the nature of, nature of speaking is you, you have to get on a plane, you have to get in a car, you have to go somewhere and so there's a certain level of expense that comes along with you showing up to speak at, you know, their event. So there's two ways to handle travel. One is to do to bill travel separately, meaning I go speak, my fee is X and then I keep track of all the receip and I just bill you and invoice you for travel separately. So that's one option. I think the simpler, better option is just to do an all inclusive meaning that just basically one flat fee. Here's my speaking fee, it includes all my travel. I'm going to take care of everything. It's a heck of a lot simpler for you as a speaker. It's a heck of a lot simpler and cleaner for the client. But yeah, absolutely, there's, there's absolutely nothing wrong with, with charging for, for travel out of the gate. Now having said that, especially for new speakers it's good to look at more local events. So I would recommend that you look anything within like a 2, 3 hour driving or even whatever, whatever is comfortable for you that they don't have some big budget, that maybe they can't afford to pay someone to fly halfway across the country. But man, they would love to have someone who could still deliver a solid presentation for them that lives, you know, in a two hour radius. So I would start by looking at some local things that still would require some travel for you to get There, but it's not going to be, you know, the, you know, as much as someone traveling a, you know, significant distance.

That flat rate suggestion. I love it. I wish I implemented that earlier. We just started doing this year recently.

Yeah, yeah.

And what, it makes things so much easier, you know, Grant, I was at an event you mentioned, you know, speaking of high school students, literally, I had to go to a parents conference. It was like eight or nine o' clock at night. It was a rainy night, everyone's coming home from work. It's a Thursday night, everyone's exhausted. And it was about, I don't know, safety or some safety program. The guy, he comes with his little boombox. There's maybe 50 parents in this auditorium. He turns it up and it's like I the tiger type music. He's like, come on, I want to hear the energy.

Come on, parents, let's do it.

Do this. And it was such a disaster from the get go. Oh man, I felt so bad for him. What in the pit stains. He had like the yellow pit stains.

Whatever.

Yes. With the one clip on tie. What are the things we should.

He made an impression.

He made an impression. Yeah. I'll never forget this guy. Come on. What are the things we should avoid, Grant, in doing?

Well, I think, I think it's important for speakers to match the energy of the room. Okay. So for example, if you're speaking to an audience of 5,000 people, you're going to speak to that audience very, very differently than if you're speaking to a group of 10 people. And so you need to make sure, even if, you know, if the four of us are at lunch, the way we're going to have a conversation is very different than how Mike or I would communicate from stage.

Well, you and I both can be hyper. We'd both be talking like this. Hey, let me tell you what's going on. Hey, what's up? Happy to be here for lunch today.

How about you?

We'd be great co host for like some cheesy radio show. But yeah, it was just like.

But in a small setting, like that just doesn't work. Like that doesn't, that doesn't make sense. I think it's really important for a speaker to be aware of the environment and again, make sure that your, your energy is matching that environment. I think it's also really important for, for a speaker to, to do what they can within the environment to, to create a better environment. And here's what I mean by that there, Mike. You've probably had experiences like this where you go speak in a venue and a vin. The venue is the audience. I'll give you an example. A couple years ago, I spoke at a conference and I gave a keynote for 2,000 people. And then right afterwards, they wanted me to do a workshop in the same room for about 50 people. 2000 people in a 2000 seat room or so is great. It's perfect. It's exactly what you want. But 50 people in a 2,000 seat room just feels empty. So if you let 50 people spread out over 2,000 seats, it's a disaster. It's really, really bad. And so what I want to do in that situation is I want the room to feel as small as possible. So I want those 50 to come up to the front and I want to create a small, tight, intimate type of environment there. So I think it's just important for a speaker to be aware of not only their energy, but also the environment to make sure that, that the audience has the best possible experience.

What if you go after that amazing speaker? I mean, the person just crushes it. Do you do anything with your speech to leverage that momentum or anything you can do to, to improve your position as a speaker?

No, I. Not specifically, to be honest with you. And some of it depends on the conference and the setting. There's not. I don't know about, Mike, what your experience is, but most conferences I've spoke at, they don't like stack up speakers back to back to back. So it may be the type of thing where Mike, you open on Tuesday morning and I don't speak till Wednesday afternoon or something. So there may be some big gaps there, I think, if possible, to see what other speakers are talking about, even if you can just reference it and just call it out and be like, hey, earlier Mike was talking about this, and here's how this also, you're just connecting the dots between someone else's talk and your own. You also sometimes it's helpful to, as a speaker to watch other speakers speak in the same setting or environment to just get a feel for the audience. Because like we were talking about, every audience is different, every dynamic is different, every room is different. So it's helpful just to kind of from an audience perspective to see did what the previous speaker talked about, did that work? Did that resonate? They told this joke and that didn't work. Or the audience seems really excited, or they seem totally bummed out or dead, or you're just trying to get a sense of that before you speak. So I think sometimes watching some other Speakers in the same setting can be helpful for that.

If you have like a specific product that you're promoting, do you suggest, I mean, is there a specific way that you should kind of be selling from the stage? You do, because you don't want to sound like you're pitching them, but like, is there a certain way to do it without sounding cheesy?

Yeah, I think there's a few things you can do. One is I think you definitely want to get permission from the client up front. Like at the end of the day, they are paying you, you know, a significant amount of money to come in and present. They're not coming to, they're not paying you to come in and sell something. So just getting their permission, I think is really, really important. And in fact, I do that a couple ways. Like, I'll mention that up front in our, in our, in our conversations. Hey, is it okay if I bring my book and I mention that I will, we will include it in the contract and then we will do a pre event call with the client, like two to three weeks before the event. I'll mention it again in that call. Hey, I just want to double check. Are you still cool if I, if I bring the book and mention it? Because remember, like, they're inviting me onto their turf. So I want to make that. I, I keep a good, I keep a good connection and relationship with that client. So then from when, assuming everything's good there and most clients are pretty good with that. And if they're not, like, be respectful of that. Like, don't try to. Well, if I can sneak it in, you know, I'm a speaker, I can do whatever I want. Like, don't do that. That's not cool. But I would say once you're on stage, there's a few things you can do. You can do it kind of passively in terms of, you know, talking about something, teaching something, and mentioning, you know, in my, you know, in my book, I talk, I gave you five different ideas on how you can put first in your business. But there's actually, there's three more that we cover in the book and just kind of like giving some type of tease or some type of reference. You can also do a. In fact, there's a buddy of mine who, he would do this. He would tell a bunch of stories and he would tell a story and kind of like tease the story and the, and he would actually pull out his book. He would read the story from his book, but he wouldn't finish the story. So if you Wanted to, if you want to hear the end of the.

Story, you got to pick up the book.

And it was a great story that left, left you going like, oh, I got to know how that story ends. He'd literally read it verbatim out of the book, you know, so you do something like that. And I think if you're going to pitch it or you're going to offer something, a lot of times, depending on what you're pitching needs to be in alignment with the price and the value. Meaning if I'm pitching up, you know, a $20 book, I'm probably going to spend, you know, 45 or 60 seconds at the end mentioning it. I'm not going to go on for five or ten minutes about it. Now if it's something where, you know, I've given a, a full day seminar and at the end I'm offering some, you know, high end coaching or consulting package, I might spend some more time on it because it's, it is in alignment with the amount of time I've shared with the audience and in alignment with the price of the value of what the thing is that I'm offering. But for most speakers, if you're doing, let's say a 45 or 60 minute talk and you want to mention the book at the end, I think that's totally fine. Do it in 30 or 60 seconds. Because again, you, we've all been in audiences where you're, it just kind of like the speaker was okay, but it just felt like they were like just pitching us their thing the whole time. Like a slimy. Yeah, it just leaves a bad taste in the audience's mouth and you just, you don't want to do that for the audience or for the client.

Yeah. What about attire? This is something I've seen some presenters go up there with a wrinkled suit and stuff. Yes. Yeah, exactly that first impression, such a big impression. What suggestions do you have? Should you have a unique costume, so to speak? Michael Gerber always wears, wears that like he's like a pimp or something outfit. But I've seen some, some speakers always have a costume. What's your recommendations about that physical presentation of yourself?

Yeah, again, I don't know that there's any hard and fast rules that you have to follow. Every speaker is different. There's some speakers, Mike, you and I know who they, you know, they wear black jeans and a black polo shirt and they wear the same thing every single time, regardless of the environment. I personally, I try to figure out what's the audience going to be wearing, wearing and probably try to match that. Whereas I know some speakers who, it doesn't matter who I'm speaking to, I'm going to be wearing a suit and tie. And that's just their preference, you know. So I think a lot of it depends on the speaker in terms of what you're comfortable in and what you. I don't, personally, I don't like wearing a suit and tie. I. That just feels stuffy. I would rather, I would rather be more business casual. So I want to make sure that I'm matching the environment, but at the same time that I'm. I'm doing something comfortable. So if, if I'm talking with a client, they're like, everybody in there in this corporate setting is going to be a suit and tie, then I'm going to be wearing suit and tie. But if they say, hey, it's more business casual and you know, there's gonna be a lot of the audience in jeans, then I'm gonna wear jeans. So I think again, some of it comes down to, to personal preference there.

So we, we gotta start wrapping up in a second. But I do have one more question about a startup speaker. If I'm just trying in this business, I want to be a profitable speaker. How do I get that very first paid gig?

Yeah, I think the first two things that you really need to do is you got to get really, really clear on who you want to speak to and what is the problem that you're going to solve. Like, one thing I hear from a lot of the those new speakers who are getting started is they say something like, you know, I have a really cool story. I have something that I've experienced, something that I've overcome some type of obstacle, and that's great. And not to diminish or demean that in any way, but nobody cares about your story. Like, people want to know how is what you're talking about going to solve my problem. So you have to be really, really clear as a speaker of who is it that you want to speak to and what is the very specific problem that you are going to solve for the. So once you get clear on that, then you can begin to look for potential opportunities. So I would, I recommend that you start by looking for an events that are looking for events, conferences, groups, associations that are already hiring speakers. It is so much simpler to get hired by groups and organizations that are already looking for speakers rather than trying to convince an organization that not only that they need to hire a speaker, but they need to hire you as that speaker, like, that's a pain in the butt. So take like conferences, for example. One of the nice things about the conference space, space is that, you know, if they're, if it's an annual conference every single year, they are going to be looking for a speaker. You don't have to convince them to hire a speaker. They're already planning on it. You just have to find conferences and events that you are the right fit for. So I would recommend that you, you start there. And once again, once you're clear on who you want to speak to, what's the problem that you can solve? Begin looking for where do those people gather? So let's just say, for example, you want to, you're a former realtor and you want to speak to other real estate agents. You've got some really cool social media strategy that helps realtors sell more houses. Okay, then the question would be, where do real estate agents gather? What are the conferences, the events, the associations? You can begin reaching out to them and saying, hey, you know, I was a realtor. Here's what I speak on. Here's the problem that I can solve. Here's how I can help your audience. You know, if you're interested, let me know something along those lines rather than, I see that you have a conference for realtors. I have a really cool story about selling a house one time. Do you want me to tell it? Like, nobody wants to hear just a cool story story, even if it's inspiring or motivating, like they want to know again, at the end of the day, how does that, that talk, that presentation solve the problem for their audience?

Grant, I want literally everyone listening to the show to go through your training, your speaking training. Because I think, listen, you can be a professional speaker like you and I are, or you can do that one sales pitch, but you've got to deliver an amazing speech. So if people are interested in that, where can they go to learn more about you and your Speaker Lab app?

Yeah, we got a couple places to go if people want to hear more in depth of kind of what we've been talking about in terms of the nuts and bolts of finding and booking paid speaking engagements. Definitely recommend people check out free speaker workshop.com free speaker workshop.com and if people are looking for some additional resources, check out the speaker lab.com we got the podcast blog, a bunch of free resources there. People can kind of browse around and get lost in all the way got there.

Grant, thank you so much for joining us today, man. Yeah, this is Good stuff.

Thanks, guys. Appreciate you. Let me hang out you. With. With you. It was fun.

Yeah, it was fun. All right, we'll catch you a little bit. You know, could you imagine me and granite lunch? It would be like that.

So what are you up to?

Entertaining.

Yeah. The energy. I think he's. I think he's got a little bit more than I do. I think a little bit more. No, no, I think.

No, I think you guys are.

We go toe to toe.

Yeah.

I love to hang out with him.

Don't underestimate your energy.

Don't get all self conscious on it.

I am very self conscious. Isn't it interesting?

Are you really?

No, I think. I think what I'm doing is. I'm just looking. Looking for you to say great things about me. So I'm like, oh, I feel so. No, you're great.

Validation.

Yeah, I'm looking every episode. I would stop listening to the Profit first podcast here in this whiner here.

Because the dynamic has shifted. We went from two men and a woman.

It's really sh. You guys are bullies. You guys are bullies.

Do you cry at night?

Fireball. The least expected. You're the bully. You're like the bully leader.

The bully.

Yeah. She's like, oh, Christine, why don't you go punch him and the f. Face. All right, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to summarize what we learned from Grant.

Yep.

We are going to talk about our corporate partners first. And we're going to. Oh, we're going to listen to Erica Werning's. Yeah, okay.

I'm excited now.

Bully. I didn't hear you. I. I go, hey, why don't you say something?

Nickname.

You're no Fireball. You're fire Bully. I'm like, why don't you drop in like one of our sponsors throughout? Oh. And I'm like, hey, you started doing a fisherman. What was that all about?

Thought you were.

I thought you were asking if I had a question, and I had one, but it was going to be a really long answer, so I didn't. You know, it was kind of late in the show.

I signaled to you to talk, and you're like, fisherman story.

Work on our telepathy.

Yeah. You're like, wow, the fish was like 15ft long. Okay, so since you didn't do that bully, we will do it right now. Who? Why don't you say our corporate partners and Christine and I will explain who they are.

Okay, great. First one is zero.

I Guess it's to me. You got eyed up first and I got it up second. Xero is cloud accounting software. It's from the cloud up. We've been users of Xero for two years. Our bookkeeper actually doesn't support Xero. They're our new bookkeeper so we had to move to QuickBooks. But Xero was a phenomenal experience. So we have experience with it. We like it. Zero. Yeah. Who else you got?

How about Nextiva?

Nextiva VoiceOver IP. The best phone system for businesses app ever.

And very affordable.

Very.

Yeah.

We have so many phones, like, I can't. We probably ordered like 24.

We got settled down. I saw two more arrive today. We haven't hired anyone and we got two more phones.

Like we got home offices and they do the simultaneous ring. And I have like Internet issues at home, so it forwards to my cell phone if I can't answer it. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, okay.

Yeah. Next diva. Get it. It's awesome.

Hey, Mike, what about Fund Box?

Oh my God, I can't remember. Oh, Fun Box. Yes. Fun Box is a cash flow accelerator. That's what they themselves. Yeah. So you have that jewelry business of yours. There was one client I know that took time to pay you was us. I don't know what was going on there. Like, that wasn't like intentional, but it took us.

Like part of it was me.

I was waiting to make sure everybody was satisfied.

So, okay, you guys invoice late, but it still took us like two weeks to pay after your invoices. Three maybe. And you're doing the old stretch. You're like four. You could have said, you know what, I work for these guys, so I can't get too much in their face, but I need that cash. You could have called Fundbox. They released the funds to you, and then when we paid you, you. You could return the funds to Fundbox. So it's a cash flow accelerator in that way, yeah.

It's awesome.

I'm still sorry that we took it a little while to pay.

I don't understand. I wish I knew that then.

You've never done that. You've never done the party. Who else you got?

Oh, Fundera.

One stop shopping for business loans. You need a loan. You don't know who to tune to, tune to or where to go. Fundera does it for you. You say, hey, I need money. This is how much I need. Find me somebody. And they come back to you in like what, not even 24 hours? And they're like, hey, here's like six loans that are great for you. We think you should go with this one.

Podfly, our host. I mean, our. Our producer for show Podfly. Ryan's producing it, but I thought Cory was going to hop on today. He used Pod Fundera. Yeah, Fundera. To get a loan, and they developed some software. Yeah.

And then last one, last but not least, Receipt, bank.

Receipt. Bank. Like that software. A lot. Lot. So it's a scanner you put on your phone, and you can scan in any document, actually. So it's a document management system for your business. But receipts tie right into QuickBooks or Xero or any platform you use. It's just a big efficiency tool is what it boils down to.

Yeah. Awesome.

Yeah, awesome.

What did you learn today, Mike?

What you.

Hold on. What did you learn today?

I learned have a great demo. Video. Video.

Yeah.

Update your website. First impression. I learned. So what's. Now what? I thought that was a great.

So that's a great way to start over there.

Match the energy of the room. I've never heard anyone say that.

Yeah.

Like, I've heard these speakers say, like, that high school person was a perfect example. He didn't gauge the room at all. He just came in, pit stains and all. He's like, let's get this party started. But I like the idea if the room's a little.

Do you tend to do that a little bit? Yeah, I feel like you would.

A little bit. I'm like, come on.

Yeah. Force the energy. Yeah.

But his. It was just. It was clearly his same approach every single time. He wasn't reading the room. Like, yeah, like, I'll do the. Come on, come on. Like, Like, I see. I was reading the room there.

Well, I feel like you do that in the huddle sometimes in our morning huddle.

Yeah, I. Yeah, I'll try to pump up the room, but I don't come in there necessarily, like, always jazzed.

No.

You know, you got the energy.

It's about the connection.

Yeah.

With the audience.

Yeah.

But I like when he said that too, even with a tire. Because I've noted, like, I don't like watching speakers who are all bundled up in suit and tie. Like, if you're up there in jeans and a T shirt, like, I'm gonna feel more comfortable.

I don't like when they're too, like, schlubby.

Yeah, well, schlubby. Or like, two, like, trying to be cool.

Yeah.

There's different.

That's what you mean.

Yeah.

Yeah. Schlabby.

I don't like Schlabby is because I.

Feel like you're presenting as, you know, a professional in some way.

Yeah, I like that. He also said, get clear on what problem you want to solve. Don't just go up there and talk to people because you have a great story. You need to know you. They need to know how what you're saying applies to them. That's like, probably.

Oh, of course. There's no question about it.

Yeah.

No, it's funny. So as a speaker, at the. After you speak, at the end, before the. You speak. From my experience, no one talks to you. A few people after you speak, there's the lines. Right. And so at first I'm like, oh, they really like my speech. And the honest truth is the speech is irrelevant. They want to share their story. Everyone's looking to be served. And it's very selfish, I think, of a speaker to say, oh, they're here for me. No, they're here to improve themselves.

Right, right.

What'd you learn?

That was my number one takeaway.

Don't be sloppy.

What you're talking about is to solve their problem. I, as a kind of consumer of somebody's speeches, I never thought of it that way. I thought of it. I was listening to their story. But it's totally right. It's. How can I apply that to my life? How can I learn from it?

Who's your favorite speaker that you've ever seen or favorite influencer? Maybe author. The first thing comes to mind. You don't have to pick the one.

Yeah. Like the one maybe sitting right.

How about you? That's weird.

That's weird.

That's weird. What? Who's your favorite?

I mean, obviously I. I do enjoy watching you, but I think that. Oh, the. I mean, I didn't see a lot of business or speakers before I started working here, but Mike Aguilero really got me, like, his first one at profitcon, and he had. We did like the boards, the breaking of the boards. Like, you write all your insecurities and then you smash them away like that. I think stuck with everybody.

Yeah. So Mike Aguilera was a guy. You didn't see him yet. He spoke at ProfitCon a couple times in a row. He'll. He'll drop F bombs S bombs everywhere. But he can do it and the audience resonates with it. I do it. Not so good.

Yeah. It depends on the person.

Yeah. It's just not.

It's his vibe, though, because he does the whole jeans and T shirts. Tattoos, Tattoos everywhere. I'm a badass And I'm gonna show you how to be a badass and kick your problems to the curb.

So do you have a speaker now or you're.

I mean, I really like Madeleine Albright.

Yeah, there you go.

I don't think she would get away with F bombs.

Can you imagine Madeline Albr there? All right, so here's an update. I. I talked to Erica Wernick. We interviewed her, you and I and Chris, a while ago, way back. She has a very small business. She made $7,000 in her business the first year, and she was actually embarrassed to even share her numbers. I'm doing air quotes share her numbers because of how small as air quotes again, she was. And when we talked to her size is irrelevant. And you can make even that business profitable. Here's what she shared or an update just yesterday when I recorded it.

Hello, I'm erica Warnick from HollywoodSuccessCoach.com and before profit First, I had just started my online business and I had made $7,000 my very first year in business. I was totally embarrassed to say that on air last time. And I spent $7,000. And thanks to Mike, I learned about Parkinson's law and how this is very common for people before they start using Profit First. So after reading the book and being on the podcast and working with one of your advisors, I made it my mission to use the Profit first system. And I was able to set up all the different banks accounts. My mom, who's really great with Excel, made me this cool spreadsheet that calculates the formulas for me. So all I had to do was pop in how much income I had coming in on the 10th and 25th, and it would tell me how much to put in each account. And I'm crazy proud to say that at the end of the first year using Profit First, I made a little over $31,000 in my business. And I only spent 39%, which is just so huge. And I actually only spent 30% using the bank accounts. I went a little over using my credit card, my own personal money, to invest a little bit more in Facebook ads. So that's the only reason that I went over. But it was just mind blowing to see the difference. And now I'm so Profit First. It just feels so good to have healthy numbers and to really be on top of my numbers and to really understand exactly how my business is working and where I can spend money and how much more I need to bring in to start using other expenses that I would like to use in the Future. And I'm just. I've become so obsessed with it that I tell every business friend of mine that they need to start using it immediately.

So.

Yeah, so that's my update on using Profit first and how it has helped my business. It's just been amazing. So thank you so much, Mike.

Erica's so proud of her.

I hope she's listening in right now.

Yeah, she was episode 66. So that aired February of 2016. So this is a little over a year, like 80 episodes later.

Yeah.

And that's. That's all it took.

Unbelievable. And she's just getting started in this year that she's into already. Already a banner year again. Ah, yeah. Just a wonderful success story. And what it points to is you can have any size business.

Yeah.

You hear these numbers like, Grant was talking about. $372,000 booked from speaking engagements. That's a. That's a nice size small business. You don't have to have that size, though. You can do it with 30,000 or whatever. So.

And your personal finances.

And your personal finances.

Yeah.

Yeah. All right, we got to start rocking and rolling here.

Do it.

So please, guys, I want to hear what you have to say. Say about what we're doing over here. Comment, give us A rating. ITunes, Stitcher, any podcaster that you use, and of course, profit first podcast.com Mike will respond to you. We want to know what's going on in your life.

We do. We're there. And you know, when you. When you go into your podcast, just give us a rating, give us your comments, all that stuff. We want to be having a conversation with you. And there's one more thing we want to talk about. The whole reason we exist as a company. Profit First Professionals is the name of our organization. Yes, Kelsey does work here and does bust my chops every so often. Yes, Christina works here. Yeah, she bust my chops every so often. And so do six other of our colleagues here. And we actually. That new guy.

We have interns.

No, I heard the one intern's not coming on board.

We have an intern.

Jackson's coming on board. The other one wasn't so impressed by us. No, no, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

She got liar.

A better. No, she's not coming.

Oh, stop confusing me.

No, she's. She got another opportunity. Yeah, we have one other person coming up for. Well, we want you to join the fun here. Here's what we call fun. Having fun and being profitable. So we will drive profitability in your business. One of our family members. Will do for you what happened for Erica. With regards to size your business, we will do the same for you. Now, here's what you got. Go to profitfirstprofessionals.com, click on the find button, fill out the little form form there. We will then make an introduction to one of our profit first professionals. Either an accountant, bookkeeper, or business coach. Whoever's best suited for your current needs. They're all steeped in profitability. And hell, yeah, they're gonna make your business more profitable than ever before.

Oh, yeah.

All right. Okay. So I think that's all I got to share, you guys. See you later. See you.

Until next time.

See you next week.

Come on, man. Shut up, Sarah.