The Future Of Monetizing Thought Leadership

As far as when we'll get back to normal, short answer is, is we definitely have no idea when it comes from a speaker bureau vantage. What we're witnessing is a lot more virtual events than we expected. We knew that was going to be the shift, but we're ahead of forecast as far as the amount of virtual bookings we are booking, so that's encouraging. A lot of the Fortune 1000 are wanting to have virtual events, and what those look like and what's expected is evolving, and the standards are getting higher. I think our fees as speakers and speaker bureaus will also increase as well. You know, first it was kind of rock bottom when we were in freefall mode, and we just wanted to help and be of service, and clients also were guarded about their budgets. But I think there'll be some normalization there as far as what's expected and what prices or fees we quote. And as far as live events, there have been a few clients that are having events in July, believe it or not, like in Arizona and some other states that are more kind of liberal, ironically, to having live events. And for 2021, though, that's where the bulk of the volume is. And more late spring to summer.

Got it. Yeah, so, so I've got a bunch of sort of questions in that. Let me start, Barrett, with sort of how— I guess number one is how to protect your fee, and then underneath that is how do you provide the value that you'd like and the impact that you'd like as a speaker when you're limited to a digital platform? Because I think, you know, every speaker that I know is a master of their craft and everything is thought through, they know how to pull from their repertoire, they know how to work the crowd, they know how to make the points in engaging and dramatic fashions. This is a whole different skill set and world. So let me touch on pricing and then sort of the dos and don'ts of the digital world.

Yeah, one approach I've seen work pretty well is offering an option. So option A is, you know, iSpeaker will do it from my home studio, which has been, is, is, has been invested in, and we have a lot of hardware that makes it a quality experience, or option B is I go to a television studio and, you know, deliver there. And option A costs this and option B costs this. I think though, even though we should, we want to come from a place of being stewards of our fee and time and, and, and protect them, there's also an opportunity, I think, to not get too hung up on that and instead touch as many people as we can and have as many of these webinars as we can. Because unlike live bookings, I don't think these webinars are gonna cannibalize future live events. So in other words, a live event now typically would— you would then lose the opportunity to get that live event later. Whereas now I think if you do a web— if you do a virtual event well now, there's a very good likelihood you will get booked later for a live event. So looking at it that way, hey, you know, I'd rather be in front of these organizations than lose it over my preferential fee. That's a disposition we're taking. So there's a balance there, right? More art than science at this point. As we have more data, it'll become more of a science.

Got it. Any rules of thumb relative to fee? Because I've heard all different theories of You know, take X percentage of your typical fee for doing a delivery, it should be the same. You can defend the value prop by saying instead of limiting my delivery to 300 people, you can put it out to 5,000. Like, any guidelines there or things that you're hearing?

Yeah, I think for the last 2 months our average virtual fee has been about $10,000, whereas our average live fee used to be $27,000.

Okay.

So, you know, I mean, in the rate— and there's a whole range anywhere from low side of $5,000, the higher side of $20,000, and then of course there are $30,000, $50,000 virtual fees we are booking, but those are the outliers, I would say. Um, I, I would, I would guess probably by midsummer the average will come up a little bit, you know, for fall and fall and winter virtual bookings. My guess would be probably $15,000 to $20,000 will be the average. That's again, that's a, that's a guess. That's what I would think would happen because it's more work too for us, even though we don't have to travel, right, as speakers to events. There's more work on the tech check front. Um, that's becoming quite onerous. Um, each company uses their own platform. Or sometimes there's internet issues, right? Well, the entire neighborhood's on Netflix, you know, so, you know, a tech check that you think would take 5 minutes, like just hopping on the Zoom call, ends up taking 90 minutes. And if you're a high-profile speaker, you go, well, that's, that's, that's taking more of my time, and that's why my fee's higher.

Got it. Any thoughts? And then I want to open it up to questions, but any thoughts, Baron, in terms of What 2021 looks like? I mean, I think the reality is 2019 was phenomenal, '18 was great. I mean, the last 5 years have been one's better than the other. Any idea sort of what the normalization curve, if there is such a thing, looks like?

Yeah, you know, we haven't crunched numbers yet, but we— I mean, our hypothesis is it's gonna be good. There's gonna be a real pent-up demand to get back to live events. You know, one thing I've realized in this experience is, you know, all, all the people like ourselves and all the people in the event industry, they want to, they want to bring value, they want to justify value. So there's a lot of employment at stake or livelihoods at stake. So as there's a glimmer of hope and opportunity to get together, they're going to be pushing the agenda of, hey, let's get back together. I think the unknown, of course, is Is there, you know, is there a market collapse? If the stock market collapses and there is a prolonged recession here, that'll dampen discretionary spending of the Fortune 1000.

Mm-hmm.

But the associations for sure need to have live events. They really count on those events, right? So those are the 2 largest buckets for us, is the publicly traded companies and associations. So we're optimistic. If we can survive 2020, which I'm very optimistic our speaker bureau can, I think we will definitely thrive in 2021.

Cool. Let me open it up for questions to Barrett. Anybody have questions for Barrett in terms of format, technology, anything? Cool. All right, let me throw it over to Naren, and then if you have questions for Barrett along the way, we'll go there. So, Naren, give us a sense of sort of what you're seeing from the publishing side. I can tell you one thing that I'm seeing from a lot of clients is if you would have asked many of the folks on this call 3, 4 months ago, hey, any books you're thinking about writing, most could rattle off 3 or 4. And then the next question would be, what's preventing you? And it's time. And I think many of us have been given more time than we thought. So I've seen a lot of people sort of dusting off the manuscripts and stuff. What are you seeing there?

Yeah, so again, Naarin Ariel, I'm CEO of Amplify. Great to be here, thank you, Peter, for organizing this. So when we look at the publishing industry, there's 2 pieces that we should focus on. Number one is the distribution side, and so there's been major disruption when it comes to distribution, obviously, right? Retail chains like Barnes Noble, Books-A-Million, hundreds of, if not thousands of independents have been closed for a long time. So books aren't traveling the normal course of retail distribution. We've got 3 books at Hudson right now, Hudson in the airport. And so just imagine you've paid for that placement on the new cover table— A lot of money. A lot of money. And the traffic is down. I think at one point it was down 95%. So, and it doesn't— the disruption extends Beyond that, places like Amazon, when this pandemic first hit, Amazon was not shipping books. They were focused on critical supplies. So that contraction in the supply chain has loosened, and so now books are flowing. And then the last piece of that, of course, is going to be when retail opens up, hopefully here soon. So that's on the retail and distribution side.

Mm-hmm.

On the authorship side, you know, a lot of people have had downtimes. A lot of people are looking to rebrand themselves. themselves, working on their websites, working on their blogs, their contents, and a book is a critical component of the overall content plan, as we're finding. And so from that perspective, we're hearing from a lot of folks that want to use this time to be productive and work on their next book or, you know, or whatever their next piece of content is. So the answers really depend whether you're talking about on the distribution side or the creative side.

Got it. So obviously disruption in the supply chain. Any thoughts, because I've heard different things around just demand. So one says people have more time, they're reading more books. The other is, you know, people are not commuting and that might have been time when they're listening to audio and books. What are the overall consumption thoughts relative to book sales?

Yeah, I would say demand has held steady.

Okay.

Because, you know, people do have downtime and so they are reading, of course. And specifically, we're noticing, you know, an increase in ebooks and we're noticing a sharp increase in audiobooks as well. Physical books are not going anywhere. I get that. I get asked that question all the time. So that's holding steady. But generally, I would say that demand is generally steady, but But then again, it also depends on what genre you're talking about. So there are some variations based on genres as well.

Got it. Excellent. So anybody got questions for Naren in terms of publishing world? What's the same? What's changing? Things to think about?

Yeah, I got a question. Naren, how much do you think this has accelerated already the alternative publishing methods that The legacy publishing companies have been either resisting or not embracing, you know, are we— did that accelerate that curve? And how is that impacting you and authors and speaker bureaus?

So are you talking specifically about, you know, the shift, call it the shift away from traditional publishing to other means? Yes. So that train has left the station. And so I think that it continues. And what we're seeing is, you know, particularly when you have this time to work on your book, you want to get it out onto the market, into the marketplace sooner rather than later. And so we're hearing a lot of that. And anecdotally, I can say that it's hastened that process. But I, you know, we're so new in this, I don't know that I've got hard data to back that up.

Got it. So Todd's got a question for you, Barrett. I'm looking in the little chat here. Um, you know, tell us a bit about BigSpeak, how it works. Yeah, that's a good question. Let me sort of paraphrase that. Um, so pivoting back to the speaking side, so as a bureau, what are you looking for? How do folks make life easy for you? And when, when someone's coming to you on the talent side and saying, hey, I, you know, I'm a speaker and blah, blah, blah. What are you looking for in a great relationship with representation?

You know, a few things. I mean, the very basic first thing is a really high-quality video of someone speaking. We need to be able to see that and authentically get excited ourselves about the person and go, oh, we'd like to promote this person. So that asset really is Number one. Um, the second is, is the other, the other, you know, I think number 310. I don't know if you're able to maybe mute someone. We're getting a lot of feedback from whoever's on the 310 number.

Let's try that. There we go. Here we go. I just muted that.

Sorry about that. No problem. Um, and we've all done it at this point, right?

Yeah, right.

Uh, uh, you know, the, the other, uh, have the other tools completed, like photo, speaking topics, bio, testimonial. Having all that stuff done so that way just makes our job very easy to, you know, then list and advertise and promote that speaker, their fee structure, all those things. Um, you know what, I think what always kickstarts a relationship is, is if a speaker, um, you know, has demand and, and, um, you know, as we're, as we're starting the relationships, even sends us leads and business that I can send over to the sales team. The sales team goes, wow, great new speaker, and they're already sharing you know, kind of business from their side of things and trusting us with some business, and that gets some momentum going. Um, and once we have that first booking, then of course that's where rubber hits the road. Does the speaker really deliver on all things? Do they have a good bedside manner with the client, listen to them? Do they really give an exceptional delivery? Um, you know, Stephen Shapiro— Brown knows him— we started working together about 10 years ago, I think. And that's kind of how it started, what I just described. And he's just been a remarkable partner and practitioner for our clients. And so we know we can always count on Stephen and, you know, always without a shadow of a doubt. And that has fostered the relationship over time. Sometimes we're bringing him business, other times things go quiet and he's like, hey, I haven't heard from you in a while. I'm having business over here. You know, we worked with Bristol-Myers Squibb like 7 years ago. I remember that. Here's another lead from the pharma industry, and we just kind of collaborate. So it's a long-winded answer to Todd's question, but it's kind of a give and take from both sides.

Yep. So, I mean, Steve had an interesting question in the chat there is, you know, when the world went a little nutty and— or a lot nutty in January, February, Things that were hot may not be what's in vogue right now in terms of the war for talent, in terms of employee experience, mindfulness in the workspace. Can you touch a little bit, Barrett, on what clients are asking for, even if they're not asking yet, what your gut is of what they will be asking for?

Yeah, sure. You know, the other thing too I would add to Todd's question was You know, it always stands out if someone's working with someone like you, Peter, or you, Carolyn, you know, someone in the industry who's like long in the tooth, has, has, has helped architect someone's brand and content. I mean, it takes away a lot of work for us. We go, wow, A through Z is really here. Now we get—

we—

now it's time for us to step in and sell and market that person. So that always helps too. As far as which topics are trending, leading in crisis, performing under pressure, parenting from home, diversity and inclusion. That was actually a trending topic for this past year or 18 months, and now it's even more amplified. Trying to think what else.

Hmm.

Those are, those are the main ones. I'm probably forgetting one.

Got it.

I remember during the recession, innovation was like the hot topic for probably 2 years. I mean, really innovation and change management, like those 2, anything related to change or innovation. And then it, then, then sales ended up for 2 years having to run. And so it hasn't been really one prevailing topic quite yet. A lot of it though, I think, is just Helping people navigate, lead, and manage through a lot of anxiousness within their firms and stress and uncertainty that their people and colleagues are going through with parenting from home, loved ones and friends losing their jobs, other people just afraid of, well, like their health, right? The fact that we have a virus floating around.

Yeah. Got it. Eduardo, you had a question. You wanna just ask your question there? I see you, I'm trying to monitor what's in the box and what people are asking. I think it's easier if you just ask them.

Sure, thanks, Peter. Barrett, I was just wondering, for speakers that already work with other speaker bureaus, if they come to you and you start a relationship that's non-exclusive, how does that affect how you work with a speaker, how you prioritize putting them in front of clients? How does it affect things? Yeah, great question. We love working with speakers who are non-exclusive and work with various bureaus. You know, I think other than those things we talked about before, as far as really quality product and assets and relevancy, which ultimately I think drives the opportunity for both parties, the other little, I'd say, tricks or tactical things that stand out is I always say agents run agencies and agents need to pay their rent and they need to pay their mortgages. So they know like which speakers offer large commissions, which speakers get repeat business, which speakers are easy to work with, which speakers don't negotiate every time they bring them an offer. They really try to empower and work with the agents as much as possible. That helps a speaker really stand out. amongst the crowd. And, you know, some speakers will even offer larger commissions. And, you know, those things help.

Got it. So I want to sort of pivot a little bit for a moment. The headline for today was really the future of monetizing thought leadership, right? So that was sort of the headline. So I wanted to share a conversation I had earlier today and get some reactions from some folks on here. So I interviewed today for my podcast Roger Connors, who co-wrote all the Oz Principle books. He's one of the co-founders of Partners in Leadership, and he's got a new book coming out on coaching. And he's been at this for, I don't know, geez, 30 years, maybe more. And his whole thing was he sold Partners in Leadership about 5 years ago and is starting— had started a new piece, uh, which is called 10X or something on coaching. And he said this time he started with digital at the center. of the universe versus back in the day it was let me get my book out, let me speak, let me do workshops, and then sort of digital is sort of the penultimate. And he was like, let me— and he just happened to start thinking that way 3, 4 years ago. What is the endgame? And it's a software-based derivative of his thought leadership. Speaking clearly plays a part in it, the book plays a part in it, but the end result of the monetization is His objective is to get clients at scale on his platform. So I wanted to throw that out there and see what anybody has been thinking about doing, experiencing from that perspective, because publishing, unless you have been president or got eaten by a shark, is not usually the primary revenue generator. It's critical for the brand, it's critical for the platform, get the message out, et cetera, but it's usually something that leads to something else. Many, many, many times the something else was speaking, Right now that's in flux. Barrett's pretty confident it's coming back, which we all hope, but it could be a while till it looks like what we did. So then, then you've got this gap on your P&L that says, how do I fill that up? So any, any experiments people are doing, thoughts, things you're seeing, thinking? You ever moderate like 30 people and nobody has an answer? This is like every facilitator's worst nightmare. And I know most of you facilitate. Nobody's got anything? Okay.

Peter, I'll back up something you said about publishing and how it fits into all this. You know, oftentimes we'll hear from people that are just gung-ho to get their book out, and they won't have done all the things that are necessary on the front end to cultivate the audience and generate content and be proactive in all those things. And so, absolutely right, you know, those are the things that got to be done early on in the process rather than waiting for the book to come out. So your premise is correct.

So talk about that a little bit. So give me maybe an example, Naren, of 2 hypothetical authors that come to you, one with a fairly robust following and platform and one that's got maybe a killer idea, maybe even a better idea for the book, but they don't have that. How does that weigh into—

People have to develop trust in the author and the book project. And so if you're talking about a topic, whatever it may be, adding to the conversation, the dialogue, well in advance of the book launch, it's just a more authentic— I don't want to call it a sell, but it's just more authentic of an ask when your book finally does come out to say, oh yeah, you know, I'm the guy that's been blogging on employee engagement, for example, for the last 5, 10 years. And, you know, I've I've immersed myself in this topic. I'm an expert in this topic, and I've put all of that into this next book that I've got. So, you compare that on one hand with, you know, somebody that decides that employee engagement is something that, you know, she wants to get involved with and spends 2 years in a cave writing the book, and the book comes out and all of a sudden, hey, check out my awesome book. Go buy it. No one's going to buy it.

Got it. I thought I heard somebody say something. Steve, you got something? Mr. Shapiro?

Yeah, well, I guess, you know, for me it's interesting because 2020 was going to be a year of doing more virtual work. And I think, you know, it's important though for us to get some language right because a lot of times we collapse virtual with Zoom calls. And I think there's asynchronous and there's synchronous work.

So there's that.

But then there's also high touch and low touch. And so you could go low touch asynchronous, which would basically be like a membership site. You could go high touch synchronous, which is a speech. And I basically— what I've created is about 5 different offerings, and these were in the works before this, uh, that are a combination of all of them because I don't want to be a no-touch person. I actually like working with clients, talking to clients. And so I have a process that I've been using, and what's really cool is they seem to value that. Because they get more value from it than they would just from an individual transaction.

So do you want to touch on maybe what some of those look like, Steve? Like, what are the— because I think, I think you're right, people's first knee-jerk reaction was, oh, I can just do it on Zoom. Well, now everybody's doing everything on Zoom, so there isn't a lot of sizzle, and the perception and the value creation might not be there. So what are some of the interesting things that you're seeing, Steve?

Well, I mean, some of it's— I think, I think some of it's pretty straightforward, but what I'm finding is that I'm still getting pretty solid fees when I, uh, instead of saying it's all about the event, like I'm gonna go do a Zoom call or whatever it is, it's like, okay, well, what are we gonna do beforehand? So for most of my clients, I'll create a custom, uh, web page that's password protected with information that everybody can get access before the event. I create a custom email address where people can write me questions, and then I'll create a video after my event where I answer all the questions that they had on a video that gets posted back to that page. So there's sort of this before, during, and after mindset that I've really put on steroids at this point. Because— and clients just tell me that they get like 10 times more value than they would otherwise. From my perspective, it's not that, that much more work. And I love to do this. And the great thing is this translates into the in-person world. So you could do all these things with an in-person keynote speech. I think it's just, you know, now it's forcing us to accelerate innovation a little bit.

Excellent. Thanks. Carolyn, can I— I want to call on you for a minute, because you and I had a fun call about, I don't know, a week or 10 days ago, and we were talking, which I think is a precursor to all this, on the importance of platform, right? So, could you sort of throw your 2 cents or 10 cents or whatever you got in your pocket in?

Sure. So I'm a publishing consultant who has spent some time with authors over the last dozen years. And, you know, inevitably, the strength of an author's longevity really rests on 2 things: their platform and their well, right? Their well of content. And we've been talking a little bit about platform, but mostly about well. This is the time that tests speakers and authors incredibly in both regards, right? Because on the one hand, speakers have to have their platform robust, right? You have to be on LinkedIn and you have to be engaged and you have to be publishing something everywhere, you know, every week, every other week. You've got to have that content really rolling through a variety of channels. And you've got to have more than one thing to say. I mean, I I feel badly for the speaker authors who have one story to tell because these times are not going to be kind to them, really. I've had a couple of clients have the ability to pivot and adjust their leadership message from, say, general leadership to how to thrive in the quarantine, and they're doing short-form synchronous and asynchronous videos for everything from no dollars to $10,000 depending on the client's ability to buy. And again, that's an example, I think, of a success story where a speaker has something new to say, not just a one-trick pony, not just one story to tell, and several channels to rely upon to say it, right? They're good at video, they're good at social media, they can write, they can— They can jump in and engage because I think engagement is what people are really seeking.

That's great, thank you. Um, one thing that I'll add is one of the things that Bill and I have seen is the burden doesn't have to just be on you to figure out what they want. I think your clients will tell you if you actually ask them. If you come to the table with some hypothesis and say, listen, you know my work, you know what I'm about, whatever, the world has been flipped upside down. How can I help you? What do you need right now? And there might be some things that you say, no, I'm not a, you know, work-from-home expert or, you know, distance management. But, you know, if you— if your expertise is on culture, you know, you could clearly create some programs on what's the impact on the company culture when we're all working remotely. Or, you know, I think there's a lot to be said by going back to clients that have loved you over the years and just having open-ended conversations. What's going on? How can I help you? Even if it's collaborating on some of those things together. Hey, can we do an experiment? Hey, you know, I'll do a webinar. Forget fees for a moment. Bring me in to talk about that. Let's see how that goes. Let's see where it goes. And I think that leads to good things. We've seen some people do some, some interesting things there.

Peter, that was a successful campaign we had recently. I didn't share with my bureau friends because it was our little secret, but it was basically offering one of our speakers' programs free. It was keynote and training, and I mean, we had some Fortune 50 companies, you know, this— our email get directed up the food chain to talking to the executive of— actually, one client, a Fortune 10, said, wow, this is great, we would love to have this speaker, and I can't believe you offered it for free, and we'd actually want to introduce you to the OD department. And now all of a sudden, we've like, so to speak, cracked a big account because we just came from a place of generosity and giving in this chaotic time. So I think the more we can all do that, probably the better.

Excellent. So, Annalee, I see you've written a couple— I've just noticed the comments here when monitoring those. You have a couple questions you wanted to throw out, Annalee?

Yes, thank you. I have been watching, oh, so many conferences and virtual experiences largely from the perspective of equipping myself as a potential virtual experience designer. So what can I learn from observing how this is being done? And just in this last week, I've been on 4 conferences, very, very patchy in terms of the end user experience. So my question is, you know, particularly aimed at the speakers' bureaus, but as well as speakers themselves, is, you know, to what extent can you control the end-user experience that your audience is going to get by investing in your own tech setup, your own bandwidth, your professional lighting, a soundproofed kind of a studio? Because this is going to be something that is going to stay and stick around. My other question is also, are you considering brand damage if you agree to participate in events where the platform is not well thought through, there is not adequate production support, and that sort of thing? So it's a little bit more of a question in terms of You know, I guess the impact of your message can be so deprecated by a poor technology experience.

Well, I mean, I'll touch on the comment about the brand damage. I think there's a window And that window's probably closing of people giving you a lot, a lot of leeway. Like, I mean, I've seen things through speaker friends where, you know, they have a power outage and they're actually doing it by candle and, you know, all this other stuff. Steve's shaking his head, he knows what I'm talking about. A good friend put one of that up and he powered through and he did it. It was like, oh my God, like that was kind of a nightmare. I don't think you're gonna get away with that in a month or 2 or 3, particularly if there's, you know, 5, 5-figure fees attached to it. So there's some, you know, bandwidth now we're seeing, you know, we're seeing network television where, you know, kids are running by in the background, or people are on AirPods and all that. But I think, as this, you know, becomes the intermediate normal or whatever, I think there's going to be some production values. I don't know if they need to all be studio quality. But you've got to have your setup, and you got to have your, your lighting and the backup and a backup to the backup and all that. sort of fun stuff there. So that would be my take. And anytime you put yourself out there, it's your brand, you know.

Yeah, I think when you are commanding a steep fee, it is— the onus is up to the speaker to also make sure that that fee is justified through proper investment in the tech.

Yeah, and I think the reality is The cost of that technology is nominal today. I mean, you could— I mean, Steve, you got a couple of setups at home. I mean, you can— not what it would have cost you 10 years ago. It's not a fraction of it, right? So, interesting. Todd, I wanted to just call on you for a minute because you and I were having a conversation the other day. You just came out with your book. You're kind of new in this whole world. So great timing on the book, but great book nonetheless.

Thank you.

We were talking about you're already thinking about the digitization of the content in the book and what else to do with it. Do you want to share some of that a little bit? And then, oh, JT, I'll get you.

Sure. Each of my chapters was written with a thought piece at the end, basically asking, saying, this was my big— the big lesson from this chapter was this, the big question is this, and then what was your insight and what was your action. So basically, if I took the end of each chapter, I could basically create a workbook It can be turned into a webinar. I have about 30 different models in there. Each one could be a mini book. It could be a webinar. It could be a course. So basically there's a lot of different ways to dice and slice it. I also talk about my triangle of here's my content, here's an audience, and here's the hot topic, right? So I kind of triangulate those 3 things and say, right, my topic is on visual leadership, visual thinking, and visual communication. Communication. If the audience is X and the topic is Y, how do I connect the 3 points of that triangle? So that way, like visual leadership in the age of COVID visual leadership for— I'm doing something at NYU tomorrow night, visual leadership for instructors and students when you're teaching classes virtually. So there's a lot of different ways to dice and slice it. So anyway, that's a long answer to that question of just repurposing things by customizing it to an audience and a situation.

Got it.

JD, you've got your, your digital hand up, so thank you for that.

Hi Peter, hi Bill, hi everybody, and a question for Barrett. Uh, hello Barrett. Um, what becomes the new standard of excellence now for speakers, uh, established or otherwise, to market themselves virtually? Because We're in such a confined space right now, and everybody's doing webinars from, say, the sternum level up, and you don't get that sense of body language and movement and grace across the stage, the interplay with visuals. It's, it's clunky at best, even for the most seasoned virtual presenter at this point. So past marketing, past branding notwithstanding, they're bringing you in to be smooth as silk online? And what becomes the new area for marketing and branding in putting yourself out as a virtual speaker?

Yeah, thanks for the question, JD. I think we're still figuring that out. I think what stands out to me so far, there's 2 types. One is a speaker in a studio where it's 2 or 3 cameras and you see the whole body. So it gives you a more immersive experience, right? The speaker actually walking around, and it's really high-resolution cameras and good audio. So much more than just us from the sternum up here in a Zoom call. And then the second is where a speaker takes it even farther and has graphics or tools that I don't quite understand yet. But if you take a look at Nick Webb's videos online, or even Eric Kwaad, I mean, Eric Qualman, he even— he does things that like movie studios do. Like, I mean, he's literally holding an object in his hand. I mean, I think he goes overboard in his demo reel just to kind of make a point that anything's possible, but it's really showing where we could be going with this the next 6 or 9 months.

How do you spell Qualman?

Q-U-A-L-M-A-N.

Gotcha.

But I think just on a basic level, the studio is probably the best place to point to. And if someone can't do that, just a very, very well-styled-out home office with, you know, very quiet, great lighting, you know, using a DSLR camera or something that gives really high resolution. Because you're right, that definitely going forward here, clients are expecting that as they're paying fees and they have thousands of people on the call. They want their guest speaker to look very, very tight, silky smooth, as you said.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Anybody else? Questions for me, for Naren, for Barrett? Barrett, you got a point there?

Yeah, just one follow-up there. So another, another way companies are actually mitigating the risk with speakers and everyone is doing prerecorded sessions. So they'll have the speaker do it in advance. That way, if there's connectivity issues or something— so I wasn't expecting that. I thought live was definitely going to be the preferred.

Interesting.

But prerecorded is picking up a little bit.

Really? And any, any fee difference on that, or just risk management from a tech standpoint that you could just put it in the can and you're good?

So right now the fee's been the same. Some speakers have experimented with, hey, I'll do it a lot less. I have a canned prerecorded 30-minute presentation and then I'll do an intro and I'll do Q&A at the end in person. And that allows them to kind of scale themselves, right? But in general, it's been like for like.

Got it. And from a contractual perspective, Barrett, I mean, the, you know, typical speaking contract is You know, the event is on Tuesday, it's in front of these 300 people at this hotel, etc. Once you start creating video and putting that out there, this moves into licensing, you know, and what are you actually giving them permission for? Because that directly weighs into the fee if they've got an in-perpetuity global license, blah blah blah. But how— what are you seeing and how are you managing that?

So we make certain that we've received funds in advance, so we treat it just like a live event. So if the pre-recording is 2 weeks before the, the day it's gonna go live, we kind of go, so what? The pre-record is actually the asset and the deliverable by the speaker, so you need to have funds in advance. Also, we get clarity around, you know, what's the editing expectations, because we've had clients say, oh, this is not what we want, why don't you do it again? And the speaker's like, I did everything you asked, right? So getting really clear, hey, one session. Also, and then the likeness and licensing, getting really clear on that. And that's, that's somewhat similar to just a live speech getting recorded. You say, hey, this is how it can be used, this is how it can't be used. But all those things definitely are coming up and needed to be spelled out.

I got a question for Barrett. Barrett, are you seeing examples of where somebody's incredible on stage and that's just not translating to the virtual world and vice versa?

Yeah, and I don't want to name names.

No names, of course, but just—

because I'm extremely humbled by what you all can do on a stage. I cannot do that. I'm much better off here in my office promoting speakers than I am being a speaker. So I say that, I say that very humbly. Yeah, I think what was pretty obvious, what we're seeing is speakers who have really good content and can be interactive with either polling or questions and make it dynamic, they really do better than a speaker which I would classify as like a hand waver or just a lot of charisma, a lot of entertainment, but not much substance. I think it's just hard to translate entertainment over these pretty 2-dimensional webinars, you know, although some clients are getting creative and saying, hey, we'd love to have a magician or a comedian come in for 15 minutes and, you know, and one in the beginning and then later in the day. Or we'd love to do a wine tasting. In fact, we had someone book Gary Vaynerchuk recently and we're shipping wine to everyone and he's gonna do wine tasting with his wine. They're wanting to make, you know, make it much more interactive for their employees. I think that's gonna increase. Because people are, you know, they're just getting bored. They're stuck at home on their Zoom calls and they're like, you know, looking for that creativity that would liven their day and week.

Yeah, I mean, I think a piece of what you're saying now and under that question is just because you're awesome, you know, you've been doing this for 15 years on stage and you're awesome at it, I think you have to have a little bit of a beginner's mindset and say this is a new platform. These are new tools. You know, maybe I'm big and grandiose, the hand-waving thing on stage, or I've got, you know, the music comes in, I got them pumping, and then there's some videos playing. Like, you don't have, as of yet, the theatrics on that. We were on a call, I was on a call the other day, and we were talking about, you know, sort of integrating some of the best things about some speaking events where, you know, you come in and there's a mood being set by some opening music. And I think we'll see some of that happen, but I think being humble enough to know, you know what, I got to really work out these muscles and figure out how to give the best presentation I can in a digital world, uh, because I can kill it on stage, but this is not— it's not a one-for-one translation here. And I think the flip side of that, there might be people that didn't have the big stage skills that this might be their power, this might be their game.

It's a tough medium too, right? It's just a tough assignment, frankly, being a guest speaker in this environment, um, because you need to have your energy up, but you're also limited. So I think the best is making it interactive because that keeps engagement up. I think Carolyn was saying it's all about engagement. I completely agree. Um, so when people go, okay, I'm gonna take a moment, put up a poll, I'm gonna take a moment, take some questions, that really makes it much more dynamic for everyone.

And, and sort of script that, if you will, every 3 to 5 to 7 minutes to flip it up a little bit.

Yeah, and I think if that's a takeaway we take as a group to our live events later, that could be really powerful. And some speakers were experimenting with that in the past, right? They would do kind of text, text your answer, or— yeah, I think if we evolve that way, that'll ensure more live events down the road because we definitely need to iterate. How we were doing them, I think, kind of took its course.

Yeah, I think that's right. Cool. And the other thing is probably the richness of the takeaways, you know, that Piera was talking about earlier. It's not just the 45 minutes or that hour that we have where, you know, you could kill it and get off stage, but thinking about sort of this is going to be an experience that we'll share together for a couple of weeks and give them some things that they can do. I think there's going to be a finer line between speaking, which used to just be stage speaking— be entertaining, be engaging, throw some concepts out to people, deliver it well, and move on— to capabilities development, where this virtual speaking is the introduction to the world of your content. And there's many other courses that they can have so people can develop those capabilities that you're all, you know, best in class at. And I think that's where a lot of the opportunity lies in the digitization, where this is sort of— speaking has always been, if done well from a business standpoint, you know, paid business development if you have the backend, if you have the systems and processes in place. I think they're even more important.

I also wonder if there's like a mashup combination package speakers and all of us can start offering. Like, for instance, with our webinar series that BigSpeak's doing today, we have Lisa Bodell and James Lawrence. James Lawrence—

Of course.

The Netflix special Iron Cowboy for doing 100 Ironmans. Lisa Bodell is consultant, former Fortune 100 executive, author. I mean, completely different people, but they're going to be having a conversation together. And if I'm a user attendee, I go, oh, that's interesting, I'm curious. what they're gonna talk about and where this conversation's gonna go. So if I'm an event planner or managing LD or OD in an organization, I might start thinking that way. How can I do a mashup, especially with these really enormous topics with terrible nuances like Black Lives Matter?

Like, Mm-hmm.

You wanna address that, but, you know, if you can have a couple people have a conversation, you might do it in a more informative, eloquent way. Than just having one person give a lecture.

Right. I had some success recently with a Harvard Business School professor and a Navy SEAL. So, you know, it really drew people in. It's like, what the hell are they going to say? You know, who knows? Let's, let's tune in.

I'd love to see that.

Yeah. Was it a wrestling match or what was the format?

No, it was, it was a discussion, a moderated discussion.

I think that's cool though, because a lot of times, I mean, many of us have seen the same speaker on the road multiple, multiple times, and you can sort of get to, you know, 2 minutes and 32 seconds, it's going to be this punchline. But I like the idea of the improv-ness of it and the mashup of, you know, 2 different fields, obviously depending on what the client needs, and just throwing it out there and see what they, what they come up with. That could be an interesting place.

Some, I mean, speakers have already started collaborating by having like their own, their own virtual events, right? People get together and say, hey, we're gonna have our own event. And so I think that's in that same path. So if a couple people partner and really package themselves, there might be some additional opportunities there for all parties.

And the smallest version of that, Barrett, is 2 people having that discussion on Instagram or Facebook Live. So that it's not a paid moment, but it's a promotable moment that you can repromote again and again.

That's a good point.

Yeah.

Definitely a good point. So, Naren, I want to get back to you on publishing. What are you seeing that in the old days is not available to us now? So many speakers, the— connection between speaking and book sales was either back in the room or every time I speak, they're buying books. How do you replace that? Because that, that was always a really important piece of the book exposure, right? So if I speak 50 times a year, we can count on X number of sales and getting that out there. Have you seen people do some creative things to figure out how to get around that?

Well, getting in front of people has been difficult, to say the least. So back of the room sales obviously went when speaking gigs dwindled. So it's a big challenge, and there's no easy answer. And I think we talked about this the last webinar we did. Things like this is basically what we have available right now. I can tell you that in-store book signings and book events aren't happening yet, but they are starting to slowly come back. And so what that leaves is online gatherings and just smaller starting to see some smaller book gatherings as well, but for book launches. So there is no easy answer. It's all virtual and digital, and it also goes back to what I think Todd said, and Stephen has done really well, is to take books content and slice it and dice it and put it out there in as many different mediums and channels as possible. And Stephen Shapiro, who's— he may not be here, but he's done a He's done a fantastic job of doing that, repurposing the book's content and, you know, leaking it out there in different forms and formats and getting engagement that way. So there's no easy answer to this question. You just got to be creative and try a lot of different things.

And Barrett, have you seen clients— because I mean, in the past, and I would imagine still going forward, you know, if they buy X number of books, we'll do sort of the free webinars or exchange it for a speech or something like that. Have you seen an acceleration of that or any impact on your world?

It's just starting to come back on the radar again where clients want to purchase books and have it shipped to employees' houses. Publishers are already teed up and ready to do that. So I think we'll see that continue. Which is great. Great, right? They say there's a boom in bicycles. I would think there's going to be a boom in books if there hasn't already.

So yeah, we're going to see a lot of COVID-19 pandemic-related books coming out, and they've actually already started. And what I tell a lot of our authors that are writing on various topics, if you're not addressing what's gone on, your book is dated. So if you have that opportunity, it's worth the time to go back and figure out exactly what the impact has been Cool.

Anybody else got any questions, anything they want to share in terms of things that they're seeing in the market, things that clients are asking for, things that you're— you have some folks on the line that might be able to help you with? JD, your little screen lit up there, JD. Oh, Ryan, what's up there, brother?

What's up, guys?

I don't know a lot of you, but Hi, Peter. Hi, Bill, and others that I know. Real quick question, because I've— everything that everyone's saying, I'm taking everything that we're doing. Most of what we offer is virtual already. What's the best platform for video evergreen and also live video to live for easy access and use for the consumer to be able to get on and just purchase right there. Is there any like one-size-fits-all for a speaker like myself that's probably not gonna be on stage for a while?

Ryan, I don't know about purchase, but from a playing standpoint, a utilization standpoint, for us as a speakers bureau and clients, YouTube has been the best. Okay, it's the easiest one to edit and modify. We can put our logos and You can cut it up however, but I don't know about purchase. Okay, thank you, Barrett.

Yeah, thank you.

Does anybody have a good platform where you just go on and all the videos are laid out real nice and you can select certain— each module differently, purchase right on? Anybody have the secret platform that nobody knows about yet?

I'd have to kill you if they told you, Ryan. Brian, you had a question there. You want to ask that? I'm going to try to track this piece here.

Sure.

Um, we're, you know, I'm an ideation facilitator and author, and, you know, do about 100 ideation sessions a year. And of course, they've all gone away, but now they're coming back virtually. And so my question is, is there a call from clients to go through speakers' agencies to get to move away from speeches to virtual ideation sessions?

We haven't had many of those as far as bookings, but I imagine ideation is more important than ever, and so facilitating that virtually is I mean, I think what we're going to experience going forward here is that, you know, there's acceptance of this, this, this, this situation we're in, and the essentials like that topic and some others, they're just, they're gonna, they're gonna start taking place. Right now it's almost kind of like been proactive work to engage people and offer them, but I think pretty soon the previous needs, like the business needs for why they're working with us speakers and thought leaders, are really gonna be pronounced. And I would imagine we're going to get inquiries like that. So we just haven't yet, but I would imagine we will.

Well, yeah, because you mentioned the trend towards interactivity and engagement and all the rest. And so to me, it's a natural— potentially a natural extension of that. Maybe they're not thinking of it that way, the people that book those speakers, uh, or that the clients who hire Ideation Facilitators are just going through different channels.

I don't know.

Yeah, I was gonna say, Baron, I think there might be an opportunity for you and your industry because traditionally viewers have been really good at selling speeches because that's what you do, right? But I think being a little bit more consultative to Brian's point and saying, yes, it's not the event in Scottsdale, but we've got this thing and a problem and whatever. Oh wait, we have, we have Matamoros can do this. It's not a speech, but that's Clearly a solution to your problem. I don't know if you've been thinking about that.

Oh yeah, we— your finger's on the pulse. You know, how to go from order taker to consultant, that is, for years we've been working on that internally.

Yeah, yeah, I would just say, you know, I had a large pharma company, I had 150 clinical trial people, and they said, oh, they're not creative, and so just give a canned speech And I said, geez, I— this was before COVID— I said, I just really don't want to do that because I don't see the value. And so I talked him into doing this whole interactive thing with 150 people, and that was so much more fun and so much better. And, and I know that they appreciated the fee moving from just an hour to deliverables, if you will. So yeah, I guess, I guess I do see that as part of the future, maybe.

I don't know. Thanks, Brian. Todd, you've got your hand raised up there.

Yeah, I was going to say similarly to that, organizations are looking for executive education. So speakers bureaus instead of, again, just not just keynotes, but I'm an adjunct professor at NYU and Columbia where I teach leadership in a variety of different programs where a company could bring in someone and say, hey, you're getting an NYU or Columbia professor at a fraction of the price of, you know, you pay $40,000 for a semester for tuition. here for X amount, you can get the equivalent of that in terms of quality and content. So again, that— again, in terms of it could be done as a workshop, it could be done in a variety of different ways. But again, that's just another out-of-the-box offering other than keynotes with, you know, traditional speaking engagements.

Great. Well, we're getting to the top here, so I want to thank you all for participating. Barad, thanks for coming on board. And Aaron, thanks for coming on board. Thank you all for jumping on. And I see everybody's got like their Zoom calendars going to the next one at 2 o'clock or whatever. But a lot of good stuff here.