MBA1848 Extended Interview: Michael Port – Grow Your Business by Becoming a Referable Speaker

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Hey, welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA.

Show, the business podcast that always got.

Your back every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is a very special extended interview episode. Every so often we bring on an amazing guest, someone I personally trust to help us take our business to the next level. I sit down and ask them all the questions I know many of us have so we can grow as entrepreneurs and I share that conversation with you. Today's extended interview episode is with Michael Port. Michael is no stranger to the show. He's a very dear friend, but he's also a incredibly brilliant business mind. Michael Port is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of eight books. His latest book, the Referable speaker, in my opinion is one of the most unique and groundbreaking books on how to expand your abilities and opportunities as the leader of your business, as the leader of your brand, to get more stage time at conferences, to be more of.

A thought leader on podcasts, to be.

That guy or gal that people say you gotta have this person on your show. At your next event, we get into why being a great speaker and getting on stages helps your business. We also get into, hey, you're a successful author of seven books. Why an eighth? What pushed you to go through that slog of writing another book? You're gonna absolutely love this conversation. You're gonna get so much out of it. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. We're going to jump into my conversation with Michael Port in a moment, but before that, full disclosure. Michael and I are close friends now. We weren't always friends. We became friends in 2014. But one of the things that I want to say about Michael, and he doesn't know I'm going to say this on this episode, but one of the things I really admired about him is regardless of how much success he has, he's still kind, generous. Somebody always looks out for people. Looks out for people that might be on the up. When I first met him at a dinner in la, even though I felt so far behind his success, he treated me like I wasn't. And even though I've learned so much about Michael through his books and through his work and through his just expertise in general, I actually learned just as much by just knowing him and knowing his character as a person. We've been supporters of each other's work since, and it's just a privilege to know somebody that is just genuinely a good person and. And great at what they do. So much so that I actually try to find opportunities where I could be a Michael Port to people and pass on the torch and honor his tradition. You'll know what I mean when we get into the conversation. Right now, I'm going to move into the conversation, but I'll be back to wrap up today's episode. Here's me and Michael Port talking about how you can grow your business by becoming a referable speaker.

All right. It's so awesome to have you, Michael. A lot of those who listen to the show that follow me for some time know that Michael and I are close friends. We've worked together, we have went on vacation together. I've been fortunate enough to spend some time on his boat back in 2017. But what not many people know is that I'm also a student of yours, Michael. I've learned so much from you about public speaking, about really, about being an artist, really. I know that sounds strange, but one of the things that you taught me as a public speaker, as somebody who wants to become a public speaker or get better at that, is that you're an artist. Now that you're delivering an art. And I want to start from there because I feel like a lot of people think public speaking is about information and not really about the way you can change how people feel. Can you talk a little bit about that? I know we're just jumping right into it, but I'm so excited to talk about all the things you have going on. But I wanted to jump right into the meat with this question.

Okay, sure. So, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I love coming on your show because I find you delightful, and I always find you insightful in the way that you ask questions. So this first question is important, and I want to set some context to start, because very often there are three different types of speeches that people give in the professional arena. There are keynote type speeches, breakout type speeches, and workshop type speeches. So generally, in a workshop, your job is to help the people there do the work. You facilitate an experience of them doing the work.

Similar to like a teacher in a classroom.

Correct. In a breakout session, you are generally delivering a how to type speech filled with lots of practical advice and takeaways. And generally, in a keynote session, a general session, you're delivering a how to think type speech that changes the way people see the world. So you might not be delivering a laundry list of actionable takeaways, but you're getting people to see the world differently, and that's transformational. So to answer your question, in every single type of professional speech, including pitches and others, there are three things to focus on. First, changing the way your audience feels. Second, changing what they think. And third, changing what they do. But if you want to change what they do, you need to change the way they think. If you want to change the way they think, you need to change the way they feel. And most speakers focus primarily on just sharing information, trying to get people to change the way they think, which is very typical in a breakout session, which is why I offered that context at the beginning. So if you're giving speeches offering lots of practical advice about how to do something, but you're not influencing how the audience feels about the things that they need to do, you might have a hard time actually creating change.

Mm. That's such a profound distinction. And the reason why I say that is that's what really I learned from you. That was like, the biggest aha moment is when I kind of phrased it as, you are an artist in the way that if I went to an art gallery and I saw a painting, I saw a Rembrandt it changes the way you feel when you look at that.

That's right.

And therefore, you start thinking differently.

That's right.

Right. Same thing with a piece of music. You know, you hear an artist play a piece of music and you're like, wow, I'm starting to feel different.

That's right.

And I, as a teacher, a former teacher in the classroom, I was just doing information download every time I'd get on stage and forgetting that, hey, I need to change how they feel about this topic, influence what they believe is possible, and therefore I have that kind of key to open that door.

That's right.

So I think that's a huge kind of paradigm shift that I had when I got to know your. Your content and got to get trained by you. And for me, that was just huge. And I just wanted to start with that because I wanted to make sure I share that with our audience, because a lot of us, we know our stuff very well as experts. Right. But do we know how to deliver it? Is the question. How many people have you come across and really, what's like, your first kind of tip to them or thing you like to work on when they come with that kind of like, hey, I got a PhD in this. And then you hear him speak and you're like, yeah, you're a snooze fest.

Well, I probably wouldn't tell them they were a snooze fest. Although I'm always honest. I really like to teach with positivity. And only once in a while will I give somebody a little bit of a, I guess a gut punch if their ego is so powerful that they can't seem to progress without sort of knocking the chip off their shoulder. But for the most part, I always want to make the students feel incredibly capable, because I know how capable they are. So with that said, the first thing I might do is to ask them what they respond well to when they see another speaker. And if they start to describe speakers that they've seen who are theatrical, who are open, honest, transparent, and exciting, then, you know, I might say, well, would you like to explore being able to do those kinds of things as well? And they say, yes, that's why I'm here. I say, great, just to make sure that we are on the same page so we understand what it means to bring more entertainment and theatricality to the piece. Because I want to make sure that I understand what they actually want to accomplish. Because my idea of what I like artistically is not always going to be exactly what everybody else likes artistically. And so I always have to remember that I'm not the. I'm not the arbiter of what is right. But what I am very, very good at is being able to tell you if what you're doing is accomplishing your objective. And then I can show you how to actually accomplish your objective if it's not currently accomplishing your objective. So one of the techniques we use is a technique called playing actions. And so I might start to do some exercises with the student on playing actions. Playing actions is an acting technique that has been passed down in an oral tradition for thousands of years from actor to actor to actor to actor, and really was only codified over the past maybe 15 years or so in any kind of text. It wasn't addressed earlier, but it's been passed down for many years. Because if you work with a great director in theater or film or. Or even dance, they will tell you, here's how I want you to make them feel. And then your job is to play that action. So, because think about it. If you're an actor, you're given your lines, and then you've got to decide how do you want to deliver that line in service of what your character wants, the objectives that you have, it's what you do as a human being. All day long, you say, I want this. So how I'm going to behave, how am I going to behave in order to get that? And so the actor gets really, really good at being intentional about how they behave in order to get what they want in the story that they're telling now. Keynoting, breakouts, workshop facilitation, et cetera. It's not the same thing as acting at all. They're totally different art. However, the craft of acting often can be applied to the craft of speaking to a different end. So for actors, they play actions trying to influence the other actors on stage. But a speaker plays actions trying to influence how the audience feels. So for every single section of content, every piece of content, it's incredibly helpful to know how you want the audience to feel at that very moment. Do you want them to feel safe? Do you want them to feel provoked? Do you want them to feel giddy? Do you want them to feel excited? Do you want them to feel a sense of wonder? And then your job is to create that feeling in the audience based on the choices you make on stage. And the bigger and bolder your choices are, the more likely you're going to be able to affect the audience. So greatest performers are people who make really big choices. In service of an audience with as much honesty as they possibly can in a manufactured environment. Because the stage is a manufactured environment. It is manufactured that you are up there alone for 60 minutes, getting to speak without people interrupting you, and then the hundreds of people or thousands of people in the theater are just sitting there, paying attention, being appropriate, and listening to you talk. That is completely manufactured. That would not happen in any other circumstance unless the construct was created. But then your job is to create as much naturalism and honesty on that stage as possible. And the way that you create honesty and naturalism is through rehearsal, which is a total paradox. People say, oh, I want to be naturalistic. So what I'm going to do is, is I'm just going to wing it. I'm going to rise to the occasion. Whatever I think of, I'll say, that's totally authentic. And people will really like me for being authentic. But actually, what happens is just, can I. Do you. Do you curse on the show ever?

Yeah, go ahead.

It's a shit show at the fuck factory is basically what happens when you go out there and try to make it up in the moment. When is the best time, Omar? When is the best time, Omar, to decide what you want to say before you say it or when you're saying it 100% before. Before you're saying it? So here's the thing. People have from time to time said to me, look, Michael, I get it in theory that you should rehearse. You know, that that would make you prepared, and if you're prepared, you generally do a better job. That makes sense. But, Michael, I've tried rehearsal, and frankly, it doesn't work. I mean, I understand what you're saying, but I've tried it and it doesn't work. And I say, really? Well, tell me about what happened. Well, I rehearsed, and then when I was speaking, I felt stiff. I couldn't really quickly remember what I was going to say. So I was, like, thinking about what I did in rehearsal. And so I felt robotic and kind of stodgy. And usually I'm really just quick on my feet and I got the gift of gab and I'm so clever, and none of that was happening. I say, oh, I completely understand. I totally get it. I see rehearsal wasn't the problem. The fact that you only did a little bit of rehearsal was the problem. Because when you only do a little bit of rehearsal, what happens? Instead of being able to be in the moment with your audience, instead you're back in time in rehearsal, trying to recall what you did in that rehearsal and then do it in the moment right now. But it's not possible. So in fact what you need is a lot more rehearsal, so much rehearsal so that you don't have to think about what you're going to do. You know what you're going to say, when you're going to say it, where you're going to be, when you're going to be there, and you know exactly how you want them to feel at any given moment. So that you could do this performance on any stage, no matter what size the stage, no matter where the audience were, whether it was in the round, whether you were high up or low down, none of that would matter because you are so well prepared. Now this only only matters if the stakes are high. If the stakes are not high for the speech, who cares? If my son asks me to come in and talk to their class for 10 minutes, I will absolutely prepare because that's just how I am. It is what I do. But frankly, I could go in there and wing it and it would be just fine. The stakes are not very high. If I bombed my son's 10 minute conversation at school, he's still going to love me. Everything's going to be fine. But if you've got a speech where you've got hundreds of people who are potential clients, or you've got someone paying you 20 grand to give that speech, or there's an opportunity for you to book 20 more speeches out of this one speech, or there's an opportunity for you to get funded for millions of dollars in series round, that's high stakes. So are you going to go in there and wing that? Or you're going to prepare as if that is actually a playoff game or the super bowl and you want to make sure that you don't have to think about how to pass the ball when it comes time to pass the.

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2025.

I mean, this is going to.

Sound like a testimonial. I know people listening are like, you know, know that we're friends, know that we've worked together, we've, we've broke bread together. But I remember you drilling this in in our training about how important rehearsal is and I to me it resonated very, very much because I'm a former athlete and one of the things you learn as an athlete is when you practice, you practice in game speed because you practice as if you are in the game. And if you see the best athletes in the world, you look at Steph Curry, for example, we look at the incredible performances he puts on, incredible shooting ability. The guy is not thinking the worst thing you can do in sports is think. He's just going through the motions, really. He's actually going through the thing he did over and over and over. There's a video that went viral where he made like 85, three pointers in a row or something like that. And it's not because, you know, he, he is just naturally gifted. It's because he's done it so many times. It's just so natural to him. And I would argue when you went to your, your son's school that even if you did not rehearse, you have so many reps under your belt that even if you just walked in, those past rehearsals and preparations in the past has helped you correct. So often I'm asked the same question. I think I've been asked this question every time I spoke on stage during the Q and A section since for the last three or four years I've been speaking a lot on stages before COVID of course. And this question gets asked a lot. They say, oh, are you a natural speaker, Omar, or did you get training? What happened? And of course, you know, I give you and Amy a shout out and mention. No, I worked hard for this.

Yes. You know, this is the thing. So I have one of my pet peeves is when very, very well known entertainers put a ton of focus on the importance of talent. So for example, Amy and I and our daughter Ruby watch the Voice together and I love the Voice because it's positive. The coaches are rooting and coaching, rooting for and coaching the performers. Unlike American Idol, which felt like the judges, at least some of them, were just up there to ridicule this, the performers, for the audience's entertainment sake.

Yeah.

So I love the Voice. Now, that's just a pitch for, for positive, you know, TV shows. But I like it. Where was I going? Tell me your question again.

We were talking about how, you know, it takes a lot of work and effort and it's not just natural.

So even, even those judges, they will often refer to how much talent the guest has or the contestant has. And yes, they have talent. Yes, they have a lot of talent. But I really wish they would emphasize how much skill they've developed over time because we all know very talented people who've done very little with their talent. There are some areas in my life, I actually have a lot of talent, and I've done very little with that talent. There are other parts of my life where I have talent, but actually I've exceeded my talent because I've worked hard in that area and I've built up more skill than just the natural talent that I had in the first place. And so I think it's important to recognize that most of the things that we do well, we do well because of the reps, not just because we have this talent. And so once you start to spend a lot of time with really high level performers, you recognize, yeah, okay, they've got some talent, but, oh my God, they outwork me every single time. And it's just. It's just extraordinary to watch.

Yep.

And again, it comes down to the stakes. I can't. I'm never going to try to create a sense of urgency for somebody around giving more time to their performances, because that's not my job. Each person is, you know, is going to decide for themselves whether or not they have an urgency around this particular subject, just like everybody's got to decide whether they've got an urgency around personal finance. I'm not going to try to convince somebody that they've got to put more work into their speech unless they want to, unless they believe that the stakes are high, that the outcome matters. If they don't, then I absolutely do not recommend putting in more work because you're not going to enjoy it if you care deeply about it. You can fall in love with the rehearsal process, with the ideation process, with the script writing process, because it's such a creative endeavor that gives you license to be fully self Expressed. And that's pretty remarkable. There are not that many things that we get to do and in our professional lives where we can bring that much creativity and full self expression to the work. So for me, I'm a convert. But the people who are listening, who already are, like, they know that they've got it in that, like, I know I can do that. I want to do this. They're the ones jumping up and down and going, yes, I need this. I need this. I don't really know how to do all this work, but I'm going to figure it out, I'm going to find out. And for other folks, they're going, there's no way I would ever put this much work into a speech. These guys seem crazy. Like there's something wrong with these two dudes, I think. And that's fair. I think that's fair too.

Yeah. But I want to get into so many things. One of the things I want to talk about is why would you want to do this? Like, why would you want to get on stages as a business owner, as somebody who runs a SaaS company, who runs an e commerce store that runs a e book or course platform or whatever it is you're doing in your business? You know, we have a lot of different kinds of small businesses that listen to the show. Why would you want to get on stages, get on webinars, do summits? What's the point here? Like, I could speak about my own story and how it's helped my brand, my brand affinity. But like in terms of business strategy, how can speaking help their business?

Sure. So, you know, in part depends on what kind of business you run, you know, but generally there are really only a few types of self promotion. You can do networking, you can do direct outreach, there are referral strategies, there are writing strategies, there are web strategies and there are speaking strategies. So my first book, Book Yourself Solid, is a marketing system for small business owners. And I was never under the illusion that marketing gets you clients. I believe that marketing creates awareness for the products and services you offer. But what you do once somebody becomes aware of you is what actually books you, the business. So I mean, of course, and the product that you sell, I mean you have, you know, your product has got to be remarkable and worthy of consuming. But the marketing is not what actually books business. But if you look at all the different self promotion strategies you can use, there are very few that rival speaking from a credibility building perspective and a sales process perspective. Because if someone sees an ad on YouTube, well then they Just see it as an ad. They know that's an ad that's been purchased trying to sell me something. They're going to filter the information through that lens. Oh, it's an ad. But if somebody sees you giving a speech that is entirely in service of them, that changes the way they see the world some way that demonstrates your credibility unequivocally. That not only creates awareness for the products and services you offer, but it speeds up the sales process, it speeds up the sales cycle because they already see you as credible right from the beginning. They already want to get to know you. That platform gave you a status that you can then leverage into deeper relationships more quickly. Only if you deliver a product when on stage that is transformational. If you deliver a product on stage that is not transformational, I.e. pedestrian, average, or worse yet, bombs, it's certainly not going to help you. So some people jump right to it and love it. Other people say, oh, I don't know, that sounds like it would be safer and easier just to run ads because A, I don't have to work that much, I can just hire other people to do it for me. And B, if it's not working, I have to pull it down, try something else and you know, I won't be embarrassed, you know, which makes sense, I get that. But the, but the upside of speaking if it's something that you would like to do is incomparable compared to most of the marketing strategies that you can use. So for those people who are entrepreneurs who are thinking about, well, what are they going to be the most effective strategies? Whether it's a, you're, it's in the middle of a pandemic or, or people can travel and gather freely, speaking through the virtual medium or in person gives you a leg up that you. That is very hard to get from most other marketing or advertising vehicles. Like sending an email to somebody like, hey, you know, I got one today from some Speaking of SaaS, SaaS company who had some really great ideas for what I should do. Well, what's the first thing I should do? Delete. But, you know, but Omar, if you're holding a webinar with somebody that is teaching something that's really interesting to me, well, I'm going to show up immediately and I'm going to spend an hour with this person and with you and I'm going to learn so much about, you know, what this person has to offer who they are that it's going to create an entirely different dynamic for the next stage of the relationship. Development.

I mean, one of the things I learned through your books, through your training, is how low the bar is. Like, it's so easy for you to differentiate yourself, so easy for you to stand out and be credible. Because most people are doing what you just said before. They're winging it. They're not putting any work in. They don't have any kind of technique or skill or they haven't really built out their webinar speech or whatever it is. The other thing I learned through the process of getting on stages, doing over 500 webinars, getting into summits, all that kind of stuff is really what I'm doing as a speaker alongside my business, as a business owner, is I'm building a trust bank. Really, that's what I'm doing. I'm building an incredible amount of trust with my audience. And really I'm building an incredible amount of trust in the marketplace because maybe one day we exit Webinar Ninja, my software company, we sell it, and I need to move on to something else. I need to have some credibility still. And speaking carries on. And that's what I think I've learned is, wow, this is a huge tool that will kind of serve me for all my working days.

We work with a lot of founders who are a few years from exit because they're trying to figure out what's my next stage. So often they say, I want to write a book, I want to, I want to speak. And so they start while they're still with the company, they start working on their material and then it's time to exit. Either they're just stepping down from CEO and they stay a chairman, or, or they're, you know, they're selling and they're going to have a lot of free time on their hands.

And I found that a lot of, and I found a lot of the stuff that I learned is, or just got out of the reps has helped me in my staff meetings, in my one on ones, and just communicating with my team, just being mindful of how I want them to feel, all that kind of stuff.

Well, we just had, just had someone send in a note to us. He went through our HBS grad program, that's our most comprehensive training program. And he, he, he works in sales for a very large company and he does a lot of speaking in his job, but also wants to speak on some other things outside his job as well. But he said, he goes, he said, listen, we've been trying to close a pretty big deal for a long, long time. And it just had not closed. So is I used your foundational five. It's five elements that exist in any great pitch or speech. And I incorporated the foundational five into my pitch the last time I saw them, and we just closed a $50 million deal. So thank you. I was like, wow, I never closed a 50.

Where's my check?

Is there any commission on that?

Yeah, exactly.

But in any event, what we teach can be applied to so many different formats. But I want to just piggyback on something you said before about how most people wing it, and, you know, just think, well, I have the information because I'm a subject matter expert, and that'll do the trick. And, you know, yeah, you can definitely get away with that. I just really want to emphasize that it's. It's very. It's not easy to do this work, especially when you had no training in it. If you went to business school or you went to college or you didn't go to either one, either way, nobody taught you any of these things. You didn't have courses in college or grad school on high level transformational keynoting. Maybe you took a public speaking class. And they said, well, look people in the eye and don't put your hands in your pockets and make sure you take your keys out of your pocket before you start. I'm sure these are all helpful tips, but they're not going to create a transformational experience for an audience. That's just managing anxiety. That's totally different. So I just say I want everybody to give themselves a break and to be really kind with themselves, because to be fair, the only reason that I knew how to do this when I went into professional speaking is because I have a master's in acting from nyu and my wife, who is my business partner, has a master's in acting from the Yale School of Drama. Although David Geffen just gave $150 million to the Yale School of Drama, as well as the other graduate programs at Yale that are for the performing arts, and they're not gonna charge admission for those programs anymore because of the gift. The gift was so big, but of course, they have to rename the school. So now it is the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University, which is arguably the worst name ever. And David couldn't have just left it alone. He couldn't have said, here's 150 million bucks. Go have it. He had to change the name. But in any event, because we had that training, we were able to take the craft of speaking re engineer it, transform it for keynoters. But if you don't, you don't have that experience. How on earth would you understand what the seven step rehearsal process is? You wouldn't. You wouldn't understand the five minute method for rehearsing. You wouldn't understand the ideation process or content cataloging or any of the, you know, or playing actions or any of these things. So you got to give yourself a break because it is a craft. And if you haven't trained in the craft or apprenticed in the craft, there's no expectation that you should have the craft. But you also have to be willing to say, oh, I realize that this is a craft and I got to go on some sort of journey to learn it. I got to go on a quest to see if I can master the elements of this craft that are most important for having an impact on an audience. Once you know that it's a craft, then it's up to you. You can decide to ignore it and just, you know, go on with the way you're doing it, or you can say, all right, I'm going to go on a journey. This could be really interesting. Let's see where this leads. Because it is a craft that needs to be learned. And once you learn it, you can, as you said before, you can stage and block an entire presentation off the cuff because you have built skills. And that's a really powerful feeling. I mean, it's an incredible feeling to be on stage, know exactly what, you're in the zone.

That's what it is. It's like you're in that zone.

Yes. You can watch yourself performing while you're performing, you know what's happening backstage. You know exactly what's happening in the back row. You know who just picked up their phone, you know who just put it away. You know, if the meeting planner is really happy with what you're doing or, you know, if the stage manager is like, we're having a technical issue that we're trying to, you know, all of these things and you can still perform on a dime every single time, reliably.

You know, this is what they mean in sports when they say, you know, the game has slowed down for him or her. You know, where it's almost in slow motion now because you have gone through it so many times. You're faster than the events.

That's right. But it's like, you know, it reminds me of what people say when they get to the show, when they get to the NBA or the NFL, they go, oh, my God, it's so much faster. Even then division one college.

Yeah.

They were like, I was not prepared. How fast everything is. Yeah, that's on the court.

I remember that I didn't play pro, but I remember playing against, you know, D1, you know, Allen Iverson, you know, Georgetown, all that. And, like, I remember seeing that. And I just like, okay, I'm not that. Like, that is another level of human being. And you start to realize, okay, that's why they know that they're gonna go be professional.

Yeah. But they're. You know, to be fair, Omar, I'm gonna go out and limb here and say you were not training from the age of five to get to the NBA.

No. And that's the excuse I'm gonna have for the rest of my life. No. But a lot of ways, you know, Nicole and I were ref the other day and thinking, man, I don't know if I can live any other kind of life. I don't know if I can get back into the workforce. I don't know. I know that sounds very obnoxious in a way, but in another way, just like, I feel very grateful that I found my calling. I found what I love to do. I got to talk about your new book, the referable speaker. Not because you're on the show, because we had a chat. I don't know if you remember this, chad. Back in 2017, we were in Maryland on vacation together. We're on your boat. You just released your last book, steal the show, and you're an accomplished writer. You're a New York Times bestseller. You're a Wall street journal bestseller. Book yourself. Solid think big manifesto. I have steal the show right here on my bookshelf among all your other books. And you told me this is the last book I'm going to write. Yes, you told me that. Writing a book is incredibly hard. It's a lot of stress. It takes a lot out of you. And I think this is my last book. Why did you decide to write another book?

I may have added something like, if I decide to write. If I do write another book, punch me in the eye.

Stop me.

Yeah, I think I would have said, punch me in the eye. I remember this conversation. So thankfully, you're right now in Australia and I'm in the States because you've got very long reach. I mean, you're.

But not that long.

But you can't get this far, like, through the screen. So I'm protected. But I did not plan on doing another book at present. I mean, I was being a little Bit tongue in cheek because I knew, you know, I do tend to get involved in big projects that turn into books. But in 2017, I really felt like, okay, I think I'm done for a long time with books. I'd actually published the Steal the show in 2015.

Yeah.

And I didn't have plans to do this book until I developed a close friendship with Andrew Davis. And Andrew is somebody that I got to know because I started working with him on his speeches. And he's a transformational keynoter. He's one of the hardest working speakers that I've ever met. And we developed a friendship, and a lot of our time was spent arguing about the speaking business. And one of the things that we started to address was the fact that there was no formula in the speaking business for creating a sustainable speaking career. There's a formula in medicine for creating a sustainable career as a doctor. There's even a formula in pop music for, you know, creating a very successful career as a pop musician. But when you looked at most of the advice that was given in the speaking industry, most of the advice was, listen, you just got to build your personal brand, you got to build your credibility, you got to get known, you got to write that book, you got to write the bestseller. You got to just, you know, run more ads, you got to get better known. You just got to market yourself more.

Then sounds like you just got to be better.

Well, it sounds like it sounds like you got to be better at marketing is what the advice usually is. And all of that marketing, it can get you lots of first gigs, but it's not going to get you second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth gigs. So when we started actually looking at data around the speaking industry, for example, the fact that Speak Inc. One of the larger speaking bureaus, did a survey to find out how meeting planners, the top three reasons the top three ways that meeting planners book their speakers, they found that they were either, number one, the meeting planner saw that speaker elsewhere. Number two, another meeting planner told the meeting planner that they had seen the speaker elsewhere and they should hire them, or number three, somebody in the organization that they were working for saw the speaker somewhere and said, you need to hire them. So if the top three ways that speakers were being hired on the professional keynote circuit was through referral because someone had seen them speak, then it stands to reason that the most important element of a speaker's career is the speech. And so when you look at an actual successful speaker's trajectory and you map it out, if you re engineer it, you See, there are three business fundamentals that are consistently successful when somebody has a sustainable speaking career. So number one, something that we call stage side leads. Stage side leads. A stage side lead is a lead that you get either during your speech because somebody wrote into your website in the middle of your speech said, this is great, we need this at our event. It's on March 23rd. Are you available? What's your fee? Or they come up to you right after the event, literally in line when you got off the stage and say, that was incredible. We've got an event on March 23rd. Are you available and what's your fee? Or they'll call you up next week. Or an assistant will call you up in two weeks and say, my boss just saw you speak. We've got an event on March 23rd. Are you available? What's your fee? That's a stage side lead.

The what a feeling, by the way.

What did you say?

What a feeling, by the way.

The closer that inquiry is to when you gave the speech, the hotter the lead. Because stateside leads close faster at higher fees with fewer objections than any other lead. Now, what produces a stage side lead? Is it a clever pitch at the end of your speech? No, it's the speech. If they love the speech because it changed how they felt, what they thought and what they're going to do, then they want other people to see that speech and they're going to come and hire you for it. So that's the first business fundamental. Until you are regularly receiving multiple stage side leads, which are new inquiries to speak for for at other gigs, the speech is not yet a referable speech. It may be a fine speech.

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She loves it hot, he loves it cold. However you sleep, the POD by eight sleep adapts to you. Personalized temperatures keep you in deep sleep longer, so you wake up refreshed. Learn more@8sleep.com what about the stage itself?

Like to be on the right stage to be in the company of people that are interested in hiring you?

Sure. Can I table that for a second then get back to it?

Sure, of course.

So I want to table that. So please do remind me to come back to it. So this, the stage side lead produces new opportunities to speak. So let's say you do one speech and you get four leads from that speech and you book two of them. Because you should generally be booking 50% of the leads that you get. If you're booking more than 50%, your fee is probably too low. If you're booking way under 50%, something is wrong in your sales process. Because they loved the speech, they wanted it. But then if you're booking under 50%, either your prices are way too high or you only want to book 10%, you want to keep the fee high. I mean, that's fair too. You want to do fewer gigs, higher fees. But generally, if you want a full calendar of gigs a year, around say 50 gigs a year, then you want to be booking at about 50% of the leads that you have. So that now you go and do two of those two gigs that you got and you get four leads at each of those gigs. Guess what? Now you just booked how many more? Four. Because you got eight leads turned into four gigs. Those four gigs turned into 16 leads which turned into eight more gigs. That second business fundamental is called the power of compounding gigs. The third business fundamental is the referral tree, because those stateside leads produce the power of compounding gigs, which build a healthy referral tree over time. Because, Omar, you mentioned, you asked about, well, the people in the audience and getting the gigs. Well, here's what happens. If you are very focused with respect to where you speak, you can get known in what we call in the book a fractal, and we use that term very specifically. No other term will do. We tried niche, we tried target audience. None of them will do. Because a fractal is a mathematical concept. It is a self sustaining, self repeating pattern. And we're trying to create a formula for a self sustaining, self repeating career that keeps producing more opportunities just by doing it. So the only marketing eventually you do as a speaker is picking up the phone. We give an example, a case study in the book of Dr. Elliot Eisenberg, who's an economist and funny, which is an oxymoron. But when we asked him, what do you do for marketing? He said, I pick up the phone, we said, how many gigs do you do a year? He goes about 100, 110, because he got really clever. And instead of trying to be the economist that spoke at all the big economic events like Davos, et cetera, he said, well, let me see if I can pick a fractal, a small segment of the market that I can get really well known in. So he created a multi family housing stock index because there's, yeah, no I'm CEO. On the video now, your eyes are bugged out. Like, what multifamily stock index? Well, multifamily stock index is completely irrelevant to anybody outside of the multifamily housing industry as a very specific fractal, very, very small group. So he started giving speeches for that group. Anybody that saw him doing those speeches that was in the multifamily industry were like, you got to come to speak for us. This is incredible. Then guess what happens at those conferences. Very often in the audience are some people from an adjacent fractal. Well, maybe now they're not in multifamily, they're in condos. But what he's speaking is relevant for them, too. So they said, you know, look, we're not multifamily, we're condos. But this would be really great for our audience. Are you available on March 23rd? And what's your fee?

Boom.

Stage side lead, he jumps to a new fractal. And when he's there now, he's getting referrals for other people in that particular fractal. And it keeps growing. Think about a tree for a second. You have the trunk, then you have big branches which go to smaller branches which go to twigs. Most people want the trunk. Like, if they're in finance, they say, oh, I want the whole finance industry. I'm going to be famous in finance. I'm going to be a big speaker in finance. But what the smarter speaker does is says, I'm going to pick just a couple fractals way out on the end of the tree, and I'm going to work my way down to the trunk. Because if I get all the fractals at the end of the tree, I'm going to start getting the bigger branches down below as well. Then I'm going to trunk.

Totally.

I mean, a good example of this in my world, in the business world and the SaaS world that I saw about the exponential referrals, the fractal method, is Patrick Campbell. Patrick Campbell is the founder of ProfitWell. Their whole thing is SA Analytics. But he doesn't talk about business. He doesn't speak about just business. He doesn't speak about all finance and business. All he talks about is pricing. His specialty is pricing pages, what pricing packages work, the data on, willingness to pay, all that kind of stuff. And that's why he's on every poster for every single business conference for the last two years. Is there going to be a talk about pricing? Patrick Campbell is the guy, right? And I saw that in action. And Then I was at a conference, I saw him speak, and then we had lunch together because we were fortunate enough to become friends. And I asked him, you know, dude, you're amazing on stage. You're yourself, you're funny, yet very data driven, you know, how did you get to this place today? Like, how did you get here today? And he went back to his high school days. He was like a debate champion, all this stuff. And then you pull back the current, you realize, oh, lots of reps, lots of preparation for this. But I really love this idea of the tree and the tips of the branches. And then a lot of people are scared to be fractal, to really choose a corner in the market, then work there. They want to grab all the customers, thinking that they're going to say no to people. I experienced this with my own software, Webinar Ninja. We were just trying to be the best webinar software. And then we realized, you know what? That's not really what we do. What we really do is we cater to independents, creators, teachers. Our software is for people that want to teach and not run a meeting. That really helped our business. Boom. Because what happens when you do that is you become the household name in that fractal. Like you in that fractal. Everybody thinks you are the only solution because you're the only one that speaks directly to them. And I love this kind of example in the speaking world because you can really own that topic and become the. And you mentioned a fractal of this guy in economics, and I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about, but he books a hundred, know, 100 gigs a year.

Yeah, well, so, you know, it's interesting that you bring that up, Omar, because one of the things that, the fact that you came to that over time, and I think that happens very often in conjunction with and because of improvement in the product, meaning you start to learn more about what you're actually making and who you're making it for. So at the beginning of the process, you're like, oh, I got this idea for a better way to make a webinar software. Everybody's going to love this, so let's do that. But then as you're developing it, you're learning more about what you think really what your mission is. You're learning more about who your favorite types of, of customers are. You know, you're, you learn. And then as a result, you gain more confidence, which gives you the ability to make stronger choices and say no more. Often in the early days, the for most people, the reason that it's often hard to pick a fractal or, or, or make strong choices and say no to things is just because we don't have the confidence yet. We don't know what's going to work and what's not going to work. We're afraid we're going to make the wrong choice and then will be, you know, a year down the road and we're out of luck. You know, we don't really maybe understand what our selling proposition is yet fully. Sometimes this takes some time. And I saw this in my own career. I'm, I'm very good at saying no. Now. I know what I'd like to do and what I don't like to do. I know what I do well and what I don't do as well. And the issue that lots of really ambitious people have is they can do a lot of things pretty well. Like, you know, someone says to me, Michael, like, okay, the pandemic hit. And everyone said, oh, you guys are gonna, you're gonna make a killing because you're gonna train all the, all the companies and how to use virtual platforms and to speak better on camera and the whole thing. And I just said, no, I'm not doing it, don't want to do it. I'm absolutely going to make sure that I work with my speakers on how they transform to do keynotes virtually. But I don't want to become a different company just because the opportunity is there. And people would say, yeah, but you could do it so well. I say, yeah, I know we could do it well, but it's not what we're going to be best at. And I still think there are other people who are going to like doing it more, so let them do it. And fortunately, I had the confidence to say, look, I've been doing this for long enough. I know we're going to be able to weather this storm, and we're going to be able to do the things we want to do when it's over. And if it means we make a little bit of less money right now, I can handle that too. But I think it does come with time. And I think if I look back on the mistakes that I've made, which are plenty, one of the big, big ones is just not being willing to say no more, often sooner.

Right.

So it does take a certain amount of courage to, to say no and be more intentional and deliberate with your choices in life.

It's tough in the beginning because you, you almost have to be delusional you know, to feel that way. It reminds me of a story of Kanye West. He was at a party at Jamie Foxx's house or something like that.

Somebody called him, and that's a great opening. So you almost have to be delusional. Which reminds me of Conway.

Yeah, exactly. So, like, from a young age, he was like, I'm great, and I have a. My life is dope and I don't.

Have time for you.

Like, I'm. Even though he hasn't even released his first album, he's just. He's just. He. He just says no because he knows what his potential is. Most of us are not like that, you know, that have that kind of sense of value of themselves. But you're right, it does take some time. It also takes some frustration, you know, like, for us, I'm just speaking about my own. My own experience is that you get frustrated with competing and trying to go tit for tat and features or services or whatever. And you get frustrated to the point you're just like, okay, I've tried it that way. Let's try do something different here. Let's just do something different. That's not so hard, not so uphill.

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. Doing something different, because one of the concepts that we introduce in the referable speaker is, I think, a groundbreaking concept. We actually introduce it toward the end of the book rather than the beginning. I think because it's too big to introduce at the beginning, it can be provocative. But I think it's worth understanding. A lot of the folks that speak, especially people who are entrepreneurs who speak often do so as experts, and they're told you should position yourself as an expert. There's a lot of value in being an expert, and they rely on their expert status, so they give expert talks. And I think that is very effective if you want to book basic services. If you're a graphic designer, people want to see you as an expert. If you're a lawyer, they want to see you as an expert. If you're an accountant, they want to see you as an expert. If you're a programmer, they want to see you as an expert. But if you want to be a speaker, if you want to be an author, if you want to be somebody that is tasked with changing the way people feel, the way they think, and the way they act, then your expertise has been commoditized. I can go into YouTube and I can learn almost anything about almost anything. So I don't know how to program, but I can go to the Khan Academy and learn how to program. It's going to take me a little while. I'm not going to be a great programmer right away, but I could certainly learn how to do some basic programming pretty quickly. If I want to learn how to patch some drywall in my house, I can go on YouTube and figure it out pretty quickly. It's actually how I spent my weekend patching drywall, getting ready for the painters to come. I thought that was they were going to do the patching. They said, no, no, we just paint like, okay, I'll do the patching. So there are experts everywhere. They're in every corner, in every coffee shop, you know, selling six secrets for this until someone comes along and says, I can do it in five. And then someone else says, no, five or six is too little. Seven secrets are what you need. So in Expertville, it's a never ending stream of competition for the same exact space, the same exact.

That's exhausting. That's exhausting. Hearing this is exhausting.

Yeah. And eventually you just burn out and realize you're just a commodity. And commodity, once something is a commodity, it's not very valuable unless the demand is very high and the supply is low. But if you think about the area of expertise that you have, it may actually have modest demand, but a very heavy supply. You referenced the gentleman earlier who does the pricing. Well, for him.

Yeah, Patrick Campbell.

Yeah. There's a lot of demand, but very little. Excuse me, there's a lot of demand but very little supply at his level. So I mention this because if you want keynote stages or if you want to be seen as something other than just one of the pack in your field, then you might want to think about moving out of Expertville and into what we call visionary towns. There's a big difference between how people thought leaders approach their work in Visionary Town compared to Expertville. In Expertville, most experts are delivering current best practices, tips, tricks, hacks. They're saying, here's how the world looks right now, here's what you can do to quickly figure out how to make this thing work. Great. It's helpful, people need it, but there's a lot of people who can do it. However, the Visionary challenges the status quo and offers a new approach, a new perspective, a new way of being.

That.

Gets people to think differently, feel differently and act differently. And so if you look at the most prolific people in the space, the most respected, they're visionaries, they're not experts. Brene Brown, visionary. Simon Sinek, visionary. But the guy that did the video on how to patch the drywall was an expert, which is why I say the guy, because I don't know his name. I don't remember the channel. I don't think I can find it unless I went back to the history in YouTube. But the first time that I saw a video from Brene Brown, I remembered her name. I remember what she stood for, because she changed the way that I thought and the way that I felt and ultimately what I was able to do. So the question is, you know, are. Are you right now sitting squarely in Expertville, or are you already in Visionary Town? If you're not yet in Visionary Town, but you want to move there, then. Then ask yourself if you're ready and willing to go on an investigation to answer a question that Google can't. Because if you can only answer questions that Google can't, I mean, that Google can answer, then you're not necessary.

It's so true.

So ask a question that Google can't answer. That's where you start. Ask a question Google can't answer. Go on an investigation to find a solution to the question. Just like Andrew and I did with the book. We said, okay, what's the formula for creating a sustainable speaking career? Google had nothing. No formula. Lots of tips and tricks and hacks, but I heard them a million times, and, you know, they don't really guarantee a successful career. So we said, we want to. So it took us two years, and I've done nine books, so I'm pretty quick at writing books these days. But this one took two years because of the amount of research that went into it and. And the amount of time it takes to engineer a formula to, you know, to provide a successful path forward for an entire industry. So I think we created something visionary in the work. It's. It doesn't mean that every single person who reads the book will do it, because it's still nuanced and it's still hard, but there is a formula for it. And so for anybody that wants to move out of Expertville to Visionary Town, start with the question. Ask a question Google can't answer, and then go on a quest to find the answer. Because experts start with solutions. Visionaries. Ask a question that Google can't answer and then go on a quest, an investigation, a journey to uncover the solution to change the way people feel, think, and act. And as a result, they often create a whole new space in an industry that didn't exist before.

You know, I love this Visionary Town concept, and often I Think about the people that I listen to, the people that I read that are visionaries. The information or the content they provide is timeless really. It's not going to expire. It doesn't have a shelf life. It's not a tip or a hack. You know, I look at successful speakers, successful YouTubers, right, that you may or may not love or jive with them. Like whether you love him or hate him, Gary Vaynerchuk, he is a very sought out speaker. But if you look at really what he's all about, he's about three things. He's about work hard, use what you have, be grateful, that's what he's all about. But his delivery, the vision he has and the inspiration he gives, especially younger generations, is what keeps people watching, keeps people attending his speeches. Same thing with the classics. I started this morning with a cup of coffee and watching a YouTube video of Jim Rohn. Jim Rohn, he's maybe not everybody's cup of tea. And the concepts he's sharing is not revolutionary. It's not like you'd never heard about these concepts, but the way he's delivering it or it's a reminder, you kind of know it and it's like, man.

I got challenging you, isn't he, Omar? Yeah, that's what he's doing. Same thing with Gary, you know, like Gary is always challenging his audience. That's what he does. And it's one of the reasons that he comes off sometimes as a little bit abrasive, but it's, it resonates with the people that he serves. It's often what they need, which is like a, you know, one of the titles of his books like Jab, Jab, Punch, Punch. They need a, they need sort of get woken up a jolt. And that's what he does. So this is why I love the business. Because there's no one way to do it. There's no one style that's right. It's a creative art. So you get to make it up, you get to create your own style. But what we've done with the referable speaker is codify what the formula is for the speech itself. So you, as long as you have those elements in the speech, as long as you're approaching the business using this methodology, which is the methodology that exists in the business, you can bring as much creativity and self expression and individualism to your speeches. It's really important that people understand we're not saying there's one way to deliver a speech, but there is a formula that exists in referable speeches. That is different than even just a good speech. What makes something referable is different than what makes something just good.

Yeah, I got so many questions. I got so many questions on just that topic. But I'm conscious of your time and things like that, so I just want to touch on that a little bit. I had dinner with Scott McCain. Great speaker.

Friend of yours, A man whose voice sounds like it's velvet swathed in butter covered with caramel. That's what his voice sounds like.

Incredible, right? So Scott McCain, we had dinner. He was in Sydney. We were having a meal together with his wonderful wife Tammy. And I was asking him, okay, so why are you here? And he was like, you know, I'm here to speak for Volkswagen. He's got a gig with Volkswagen, and they fly him out a whole bunch of times a year to do it. And I asked him, well, how'd you get that gig? He was like, well, you know, it was all referrals. It was all. They saw me in somewhere else and then I spoke there and I just asked them, okay, I know you've been doing this for decades. Do you ever go out and try to get a speech yourself or you. Everything's inbound. And he kind of chuckled and he's like, I don't want to sound arrogant, but, you know, I don't have to go out and get anything. So I want to talk a little bit about that because the conversation changed and we talked about something else, and that kind of just resonated with me and sat with me a whole bunch of times. And I wanted to ask you, in the speaking industry, is it like show business where people can smell desperation a mile away? And if you're just getting started, how do you get on a stage or stages? Because I know it took a lot of time for me to get momentum without being desperate.

Well, this is incredibly important because you have to get your first gigs, your referable speech, when you know it might take you a year to produce a speech that's truly referable. But you've got to get enough first gigs to build enough momentum to start getting second, third, fourth, and fifth gigs. So, yes, you absolutely need to get first gig. So it's something that we hear all the time. And the first thing I think you need to think about are three things, because there are three things that you can do right now, tomorrow, to help you get your first gigs to produce enough momentum to start getting stage side leads. So first, find at least three speakers who are paid speakers, who you either know already or can develop a relationship with that might speak on something that's similar to you. It's not exactly the same, but it's close enough that you can contact and say, listen, I'm working on a new speech and I'm taking a bunch of free gigs so I can work it out in front of audiences. It's in a great place. It's absolutely ready for primetime. But you know how it is. You want to work that speech in front of audiences as much as you possibly can before you start charging high fees for it. So if any, if any gigs, leads come into you for, for speeches that are free you don't want to do, or they're below your fee, you know, and you want to pass them off to me, I'd be happy to do those gigs at no fee to work out the speech. Stop.

Brilliant. Right there. That is a brilliant. Just that that is worth. This is credible.

I love it. Keep going.

And then, you know, and if the first one doesn't do anything, then find someone else who wants to do it. Because when you're a working speaker, you get requests all the time for gigs that you're not going to do because they're like, hey, you want to come to Australia for free? I'm like, can I see Omar when I'm there? May. You know, but like, that's a big trip for free. I mean, I've gone for fees, like speaking fees for 40 grand to Australia. Coming home, going, that wasn't worth 40 grand. Like, that was a tough trip. I mean, Australia is the most incredible place. But if you're flying in for a day to do a speech and flying home, that's a tough gig.

So my point, 30 hours of travel.

Yeah, there's a lot of gigs out there that the, that the paid speakers are getting offered that they're not taking, so they can pass them on. Secondly, contact as many executives as you know who can bring you in for a lunch and learn. No fee, for free. See, listen, lunch and learn. It could be three people, could be 30 people. Doesn't matter. I just want to come in, do a lunch and learn. Here's the topic. Super helpful for your folks. It's in a great place. There's some sections that are new sections. I want to work them out in front of an audience, but you're going to get the speech for free. And they're like, this is incredible, fantastic. So you're going to do as many of those as you possibly can. And then finally, the third thing that you do is go to Any organizations that you've worked with in the past in any other capacity and say, hey, I want to come in, do a lunch and learn for free. I'm working on the new speech, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Before I start charging other people high fees for it, I need some audiences to work it out. We've had a great relationship and I want to give this to you. It's also a gift back to me because I can go work on their new material like bang. Now you want to try to line up as many of these as possible in a three month period because you need the momentum. If you do one every three months, you don't produce enough momentum to get enough stage side leads. So it's a momentum based business. So what you do is you do as much research as you can to try to identify who these people are. Now you've got a list of say 20, 30 people that you're going to contact. You're going to start working through that list over a one week period to try to produce as many gigs as you possibly can. It may take you three months to close all of these up and make them happen, but then the idea would be in three months and before six months you'll have multiple gigs per week to do. Oh, and by the way, really helpful if you can do these in a proxy close proximity to your house so you can drive, say within five hours. Then you don't even have to get on a plane. Now if you can't travel, do as many as you can virtually. You're still going to work it out. You're still going to pick up stage side leads. You just use whatever you have. Now you don't know exactly which ones are going to produce stateside leads, but once the stateside leads start coming, you know you've got a speech that will work for you and will produce a sustainable speaking career as long as you keep doing that speech. If you stop doing the speech, the leads will stop and you'll have to get the first gigs again. But once you've got momentum, it will carry on.

Michael, you've been incredibly valuable to me, to our audience. I'm excited to read your book, the Referable Speaker. I read all your books. I remember the first book Nicole and I read was Book yourself Solid. We're on vacation or reading. It was before we knew you. We were just like, this is a great book. It changed the way I ran my business. And when I read your book Steal the Show, it changed the way I did webinars, the way I Communicated and the way I brought my best self on stages. So I know there's gonna be a lot of value with this book. And for those who are listening, don't be surprised if I do a must read episode on the book, because I'm sure it's gonna be great. Michael, thank you so much for your time. It's always a pleasure. And you always bring so much value to the show.

Thank you so much. And everybody's gotta hear what you just said, because I still think it's amazing that I wrote a book that you, who I think is a fricking genius, thought was amazing and changed the way you do business. I never thought that I'd be able to do those kind of things. When I was younger. It wasn't something that crossed my mind. So I want everyone who's listening to recognize that even if right now you can't imagine that thousands or hundreds of thousands or even millions of people out in the world could read your books or listen to your speeches and change the way they do business or change the way they behave in some way, you absolutely can if you're willing to put in the work.

Yeah. I love it. And we start our webinars with, you know, kind of our company mission is we. We empower teachers, trainers to be able to change the world with what they know and what they teach. And I kind of break it down and I say, I know that sounds grandiose. Change the world. But what is the world? The world is the people in it. And if you're helping some people in that world, you are changing the world.

Yes.

And it's a. It's a good way to kind of break it down. And I. And I had to break it down to myself first before I was able to kind of teach that. But it's true. It's true. And the world is a very small place. And one thing I learned. Have learned in the last decade is, you know, especially in the business world, in the professional world, everybody knows everybody. Like, it's just, you know, like, we're all a few degrees of separation. I was thinking to myself, you know, how many degrees of separation am I from, like, Elon Musk. Right. By the way, please, can you help Elon Musk? Well, actually.

No. Speak. Speaking of degrees of separation, someone very senior from his team came and worked with us.

Thank you.

Well, and she said, I'm going back and I'm going to tell him. And I'm going to say, I'm putting my job on the line. I want you to Meet Michael and Amy Port. Just give them 15 minutes. If you give them 15 minutes, you're going to want to work with them. You need help because you're speaking is a bit of a mess. This. She goes, I'm going to tell him this, even if it means my job. I was like, I don't want the responsibility of you getting important over there. I think I'm going to be okay. Long story short, he didn't hire us. We didn't get to meet him. But she did pitch him. He's like, I don't need it. I'm fine. I'm okay.

So, so interesting. But this just goes to show you, it's such a small world. The degrees of separation are very small.

So you're 2 degrees from Elon Musk, because I could introduce and that could get you to Elon, which is incredible.

I mean, he's a hero of mine, and. But he's the perfect example of somebody who knows his stuff. He's brilliant. He's an incredible engineer, you know, and. But he has a tough time delivering it. Like, I just saw him give his keynote about releasing the new Model S plaid, whatever that breaks all the sound barrier and speed. It's the fastest road car in history. I'm. I'm more excited about it than he is.

Right?

And he's like, it's a fast car. Next slide. Like, what are you talking about, dude?

Well, to be fair, the only thing I would say is that it kind of is part of his mystique and.

Kind of.

Yes, kind of part of his mystique. And he's also created the most remarkable product in the world. So there's two caveats. You actually don't need to be good at speaking. If you're incredibly famous, no one will care. They just want you because you're famous or because you've created the most impressive, fastest production car in the history of the world. But most of us, even if we're producing great products, it's still not the most amazing production car in the history of the world. So as long as your products are speaking for yourself, you can do it. But there are going to always be outliers, and Elon Musk is definitely an outlier.

Totally. Well, see, I was trying to wrap up this episode, but I love you so much. We keep on going. But, Michael, thank you so much for being here. Always a pleasure. Don't be a stranger to the show. We'll definitely connect soon again.

Thanks, buddy. You're the best.

What a great conversation with Michael Port. You can learn more and buy Michael's latest book, the referable speaker, at thereeferablespeaker.com or Amazon or anywhere you love buying your books. This book is 10 bucks on Kindle, 20 bucks on paperback or something like that, but it's worth way more than that. This is absolute gold. If you're interested in becoming a better speaker as well and want to take things to the next level, I highly, highly recommend you check out HeroicPublicSpeaking.com this is where Michael and his partner in life, partner in business, Amy Port, run the best public speaking training ever. I know this because I was a student. I'm still a student. I still review some of the videos that were in my course, and his training helped elevate my public speaking to a totally different level. In fact, every time I've gone on stage and spoke at a conference or an event, one of the questions that I'll get after the event, always during the Q and A, is are you just a natural good speaker or did you put in some work? And I always say I worked with the best. Michael and Amy Port at Horal Polk Speaking. You should check them out. I got to give them so much credit because they really transformed how I speak speak not only on stage, but in person, in events, on the mic, on a podcast, on webinars, in interviews. So highly recommend you check them out. HeraldPublicSpeaking.com that wraps up today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to the Hunter Olympier Show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe on whatever you love to use to listen to podcasts. We're on every single app, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Citradio, Himalaya, you. You name it, we're on it. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. In our conversation, Michael talks about crafting a dynamite speech. That one speech that gets you all the gigs. It gets all your referrals. Even if you are not looking to become a professional speaker and get paid thousands of dollars a gig, if you're an entrepreneur that runs a business and gets invited to speak at events or you're interested in promoting your business through, you know, those trade events, if you deliver an incredible performance on stage with your speech, with your talk, with your workshop, people will remember you or remember your business will want to look you up. The value of that is incredible. It's exponential. It makes you and your business stand out from the competition. It's a great investment. Pick up the Referable speaker by Michael Port and Andrew Davis and you won't regret it. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then.

Take care.

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