The Speaking Pipeline Secret Most Speakers Miss

Yes, your talk matters a lot, but if you want to grow faster, get rebooked, fill that speaking gig pipeline, then there's another layer that most speakers miss out on completely. The speakers who scale the fastest aren't just focused on what they do on stage. They are also focused on the experience that they create around it. And that's exactly what we're going to get into today when I speak to my guest, Vance Morris. Now, Vance is a former Disney leader who's gone from bankruptcy to building a successful business, and today he's the guy that companies call when they're losing customers and they can't figure out why. And what makes Vance different is that he combines direct response marketing, which is all about getting people into action with engineered customer experience and loyalty so that they come back again and again. And that combination is gold for speakers because your next booking, your next referral, your next big opportunity often comes from how well you've handled the last one. In this episode, we're going to be diving into where speakers are quietly losing opportunities, how you can more intentionally create repeat bookings, and how to design an experience that people don't just enjoy, but they want to talk about as well. Enough from me. Let's get into my conversation with Vance Morris. Welcome to The Speaking Club, Vance Morris.

Thank you so much, Sarah. I appreciate it. Hopefully we'll have a little fun today.

Absolutely. Looking forward to, uh, having this chat and finding out how we can create raving fans and all sorts of other good stuff. Now, first question, you've had an unconventional journey throughout your career, to say the least.

Yes.

Yeah, we— Disney's in there, bankruptcy's in there, carpet cleaning's in there.

Entrepreneurship.

I wondered, looking back, which part of that experience do you still use every day that most people will completely overlook?

Probably tenacity. You know, I just, I don't give up. There's certainly that, especially when life throws you a few curveballs. And then really, you know, what I learned from Disney and carried through the rest of my career was really processes and systems and how they deliver a consistent experience, hopefully good or great. But, but yeah, those would be the 2 big ones. Cool.

So tell me, so when you went to Disney, you started— how did— what did you start out as at Disney?

Yeah, I was on the opening team of the Yacht and Beach Club, a restaurant called the Galley. I was a supervisor there and progressed pretty quickly in management over the next couple of years. Was on the Empress Lily, where I was introduced to character dining. That Empress Lily's gone now. That was actually a concrete steamship named after Walt's wife, Lillian. Never went anywhere. Just a big brick building, but looked like a steamship. Had a big paddle wheel on the back and everything. But yeah, a lot of fun there. A lot of stress there as well. You know, you have thousands of people showing up every day who've saved their entire lives to come to Disney. They're expecting perfection.

Which one was this? Was this Florida or California?

Florida. Yes.

Okay, cool, cool. Yeah, I've been there lots. I love it. It's a brilliant—

You found, I'm sure, Disney is a master at extracting money from your wallet and leaving you feel happy about it.

Yeah, definitely when you've got a child with you. It's good at that. So I know that customer experience is a theme that you have really focused in on. And from your time at Disney, and you've mentioned, you know, a little bit about this, I guess 2 perspectives. What experience have you taken from that relating to customers in businesses that you've advised on? And then I'm also curious, you as a speaker, what have you applied to your speaking business?

The one big lesson is, you know, Disney is just a big show. Walt Disney designed it as, you know, this is a production, which is why the employees are called cast members. They have onstage and offstage areas. And so, the Disney cast members are performing a role in the show. And so, I've brought that to everything that we do, not to the extent that Disney does. But when I'm advising companies, do you have an offstage area where employees go to have lunch? Or does your front desk person sit there and eat a big sandwich at our front desk when guests are coming in. You know, certainly looking at how we perform. And I use that term literally. So, like in our carpet cleaning business, one of the things we have to do is get into the customer's home. And this is a boring and mundane thing, but we've created an experience out of it. And we also have theatrical elements to it. And quickly it goes, you know, we park in the street, we don't park in the driveway. God forbid I got an oil leak. Now I have something else to clean up. Technician gets out, he's in a clean uniform because he carries extra uniforms with him. He doesn't smell because I forbid smoking and you're not allowed to wear cologne. You know, he goes up to the front door, he's got a special mat that he lays down. When the customer answers the door and invites us in, we do an exaggeration of wiping our feet on the special mat and we put little booties on our clean shoes. And then, as we're going in, we give our customer a gift. Now, that is our performance of getting into the home. All of my employees know that that's how we do it. And so, you take that and you look at any business, it's like, how can we create an experience out of something that's just boring and mundane? Answering the telephone, you know, I mean, everybody's heard, you know, thank you for calling Dave's Insurance. How can I help you? You know, we've heard that thousands of times from all different companies. How do you jazz that up? How do you make that an experience so that you stand out from all of your competitors? And then the same with speaking. You know, I look to entertain. I think they call it edutainment, where you educate and entertain at the same time, because nobody wants to be bored. You know, sit there listening to somebody drone on. They read their PowerPoint slides. You know, I mean, I use PowerPoint, but it's just there's just a picture. It's just an image that helps reinforce what I'm talking about. But I never have to turn around, which is, I guess, a big mark or speaking sin to turn your back to the audience. But, you know, you have those speakers, they turn around and they read their, their slides, just want to drive you nuts. And then also speaking is on camera like we are now, whether it be a Zoom or Riverside or some kind of video call. I've been working over the last week on how to create an experience out of these calls. So I've— I haven't perfected it yet, so you're not going to see it today. But I've got a little doodad here and I can push a button and there'll be a round of applause, or there'll be another button and there'll be confetti dropping. So really trying to create an experience out of Cool.

And what about in terms of when you, in the client journey of booking you as a speaker, are there any things that you do that might be different to what other speakers do to enhance the experience for your client of booking you as a speaker?

Yeah, even as a prospect, once we, if we're like reacting to a call for speakers, you know, we'll do whatever form of discovery we can. They want the online thing, but then I tell my VA, "You gotta get a mailing address, and preferably the name of the person who is you know in charge of the event." And I'll immediately send a copy of my book. Now, the book is an unboxing experience, so it's not like ordering from Amazon and it comes in a little cardboard box. I mean, this is a box within a box, and you know the box is custom made, and it's got you know an inscription in it. And colors. And, you know, the book has got a pen and a bookmark and, you know, little notes and things. So when you open this box, it's, you know, it's a little— it's like a little Vance in a box. And then for ones where we may be progressing through the— through their call for speakers, we send a shock and awe box, which is the big box of Vance's stuff. And all of my books are in there. There's, you know, food items in there. There's There's the book of testimonials, a magazine I wrote. And I mean, this thing weighs like 4 pounds. And not many people do it because they say it's too expensive. And I think to myself, I said, okay, well, you know, like my rate, you know, I get $7,000 for a keynote. I'll send a $60 box with postage. In order to get a $7,000 event. Yeah. To me, that makes sense. You know, I look at it as an investment. Others look at it like, oh my God, I can't set— oh my, that's too expensive. I can't do that. Well, you're gonna be stuck doing little, you know, carnivals and road shows and far-flung towns.

But what I love about that is that it's in complete alignment with your message. It's not like, you know, it may feel like, oh, it— because it's in alignment with your message, it doesn't feel like, you know, that you're doing it just to get the gig.

Sure.

You're also doing it because it's proof that you are walking the talk. And I, I think that's really important. And I think people listening to this maybe like, well, I'll, I'll take that idea and, and I'll do that. And, and I think this is the thing. I think when— and this is for the, you know, anyone listening— I think it's taking the idea of creating a performance and an experience for your client, but in a way for you that aligns with your brand, with your message.

Certainly.

and doesn't feel, you know, kind of like inauthentic. So I think that's a really good point to make for the people.

Yeah, it's got to be congruent with who you are.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Oh, thanks for sharing that. That's brilliant. Now you talk about businesses bleeding profit and the small leaks that go unnoticed. And when you look at speaking as a business, and we can also talk generally about other businesses as well, Where do you see those leaks showing up and what did you do in your own business, uh, to change that?

Sure. Uh, follow-up is the big one. Um, and, you know, and so for example, we'll do a lot of calls for speakers, you know, like the deadline is today. We're like, so, you know, the likelihood of getting that particular gig is probably pretty, pretty slim. But if it's something that's in alignment with me, they'll get the book and then they get put on my newsletter list and they get a physical print newsletter every month so that when it's time for next year's event, they really might not even have to go do a call for speakers because I've been showing up in their mailbox now Every month with consistency, so they know that I'm not just fly by night and I'm going to flit away. I've been showing up consistently with the same messaging. They get to know me, so they're like, "Oh yeah, that mess that really would resonate with our audience," or "No, this ain't the guy for us," which that's fine too. I'm not for every audience, and so follow up certainly is. before you get the gig, or even if you don't get it, but it's something that, um, you know, is really in alignment with you, you got to stay in touch with that company. You've already gone through the trouble of finding, you know, the, the, the person who's in charge and the company and the event. Stay in touch with them. And then, you know, when you get to the event, um, a lot of people forget about The behind-the-scenes workers, the registration table. So when I show up at an event, I have gifts for the workers, you know, because they'll usually have a green room or a break room or something. And I'll show up with a big basket of fruit and chocolate and say, hey, you know, I know we never met, but we're, you know, we traded emails a few times. Here's a little something for you guys to snack on while you're, you know, while you're on break. They're blown away by that. Nobody ever thinks of—

Yeah.

You know, the employees of the event. And then certainly afterwards is how do you— you've got to have what I call an existence system. You know, it's not your customer's job to remember you. It's your job to remind your customer that you exist. And so after an event, You know, certainly there's the handwritten thank you note. You know, so much. Thank you so much for inviting me to speak at your event. And that's it. And it's handwritten and mailed through the post office. You notice I'm not using a lot of email here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, and I think because email, one, it's impersonal, it gets lost, and there's not a lot of intention behind an email. Because it's just so easy, you know, and poof, sent, it's gone. You know, handwritten note, I've got to get my pen out, I've got to get the card, I got to get a stamp and an envelope. You know, there's intention behind it, and that stuff carries a long way. And then staying in touch with them because could they have you back for a workshop? Could they have you back for a full day kind of workshop? You know, there's other opportunities. And it shouldn't just be, you know, flit in, do your 45 minutes or 60 minutes, and then flip back out.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Those are really, really useful ones. And I think, you know, I think that the thing is, yes, email is useful, but, you know, using the old school, um, contact methods can also make you stand out. And, um, I'm feeling I don't know, you know, I know Brian Kurtz has been a guest on this show.

Yeah.

And he's all about overdelivering as well. And I can feel some of that coming through some of your stuff as well. There's sort of synergy in terms of that. So, I know you know Brian as well.

Brian's a great friend. He was actually, he was a guest at my mastermind last month and we did a little fireside chat about overdelivering and Yeah, he's brilliant.

Yeah. Yeah. And I can feel that, you know, there's definitely synergy between your message and his as well. Absolutely.

Cool.

Okay. Now, a lot of speakers focus on getting their next gig. Using your customer experience lens, and it may be that we've covered some of this already, I don't know. How would you suggest that they could be going about things differently in terms of turning one gig into many?

Oh, sure. You know, again, I think offering, you know, anytime somebody hires me, you know, it's $7,000. My day rate is $7,000.

Yeah.

So, I say, look, you've got me for the whole day. You want me to spend, do a 45-minute keynote? Fine. I'll do that. Probably not the best investment for you. You know, why don't I do an executive session? Why don't I do a breakout for your top salespeople? And so that sets the seed that I do more than just keynoting, because if you get pigeonholed into that, well, that's all you're ever going to do. You're not going to have a back end where you can come in and do, you know, workshops, executive sessions and things like that. And that's the time to offer that stuff. And it's— you're not doing it for free. And I don't do anything for free. It's just it's included in what we do.

Yeah.

And it sets the stage for the future. So you can then, you know, you come in, you do your keynote, maybe you do a 2-hour workshop over lunch for some senior people. And then you can say, hey, you know, if you got value out of that, you know, I know you've got a department in, you know, in the UK or a department in Poland. You know, I'd be more than happy to— I travel well, be more than happy to do this same thing. Um, at other, uh, areas of your company. So, um, you just have to— what I find is a lot of people are timid. They just don't open their mouths. Um, and if you want to get more out of the same, then you gotta open your mouth and let people know that, hey, yes, I do this, I do that, I do this. Yeah.

And it's really— and what's really interesting there in terms of positioning is the fee is for the day. How do you get the full ROI on your investment in me spending the day with you is a great positioning. Um, and then, you know, if you deliver in that extra session, then that's going to open more doors for you. Yeah, I think that's a really, a really good tip for people to take on board.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, if you only want me for 45 minutes and you want to spend the— and pay my full fee, I mean, I'll do it. I don't think it's the right thing, but I'll do it. I'm certainly not turning the money down, but I actually have very few people turn it down. You know, a couple a year will say, no, just come in, do the keynote and be done. Okay.

Yeah, no, that's what I was gonna ask you, Vance. How many, how many people actually turn you down? So not a lot.

Just a couple. No, it's not one or two a year, maybe.

Cool. And how many times has Doing that and, you know, delivering those extra bits led to more work for you from the same organization.

Yeah, well, and from different organizations. So a lot of times it will be an industry meeting, uh, you know, maybe an association is running it and there are different companies there.

Nice.

Sure, you can get to know me a little bit in, you know, 45 or 60 minutes. Um, but if you are in a session with me and we roll up our sleeves and we're gonna really workshop, Now you get to see the whole breadth of what I can do. And, you know, I get called, hey, I was in your workshop last week, you know, at the Plumbers Association. You know, I'd really love for you to come and do that with my team. So, yes, you can turn that— that stuff just turns into more work, you know, especially if you do a good job, obviously.

Mm-hmm.

But you also have to have everything leading to the next sale. So, you know, not just doing a workshop or doing a keynote, but bringing a workbook or making sure that they have, you know, a printed thing for them to take notes that has your information on it. You know, and oh, if you like this, we can, you know, we can continue with this. You know, it's that, oh, by the way, we have something else for you kind of sales pitch.

Yeah. Yeah, and those actually, when you're talking, what you're showing is those potential leaks that you mentioned before showing up in not having workbooks that have your, you know, something else to offer or your details on, making these offers. These are all sort of examples of leaks that you are filling the gap.

I mean, I even, I mean, up to a certain point, I'll even offer You know, hey, I mean, if it's a small audience, 50 people, I'll say, well, would you like a gift for your audience to have? And most people will say yes. I say, great, well, I'll ship a couple of boxes of my book and everybody in the audience can have one. And if you want, I'll do autographs, you know, at the end of the session. If it's bigger than that, I'll say, hey, you know, I think it'd be a great gift is to give everybody a copy of my book. They're $4 a copy. How many would you like? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And people usually jump right on. Oh, you mean they get something they can put in the swag bag?

Yeah, yeah, brilliant. Cool stuff. Excellent. Thank you for sharing that. I think that's given people a lot of food for thought in terms of what extra they could be doing. Oh, okay. So, um, and again, we may have covered some of this, but I'll ask the question because there may be extra. You've got a lot of, uh, golden nuggets that you're dropping, Vance. So, um, in business, you talk about, um, things people do that they think build loyalty but actually drive customers away. And what would you say, you know, perhaps you could give an example of that in business and then also give us an idea of what the equivalent could be for speakers when they're trying to get booked again.

Sure. I think confusing bribery with loyalty, like, hey, I'll give you a $5 gift card if you refer business to me. That's— you have to understand the reason that people refer, and it's to make them feel good. There's really two. They, they feel good about doing it, or they have a superiority feeling like, I know something you don't. I got a guy. I'll tell you all about my guy. And they, you know, they feel superior. Money is really at the bottom. You know, it's like number 5 or 6 on the list of reasons people refer. And so, I think in business, you know, certainly having a loyalty system, again, it's as simple as a newsletter or a postcard. I do a combination of email, postcard, and newsletter every month. to stay in front of either prospects or clients. And it's this not always selling also because you're also trying to build a relationship and maintain an emotional connection. So, and I do that with the newsletter. So, I've mentioned it a couple of times. It's really like Reader's Digest Lite. It's a bunch of kooky stories. You know, some stuff's about customer experience. There's weird things in there, like stupid criminal stories. You know, people, again, people like to be entertained. You know, I shamelessly use my children in my marketing. And so there'll be a picture of my daughter in her little tutu for her, you know, ballet recital. And people remember it. I did my daughter. She's 18 now, so she's not, she's not as cute as she was. But for like 6 years straight, I took a picture of her at her recital. And put it on the front of the newsletter. And we were at the grocery store one day and this lady comes running up to my daughter. She goes, oh my God, Emma, how was your recital? This, you know, one, we thought we were going to have to go run and hide in the frozen food section. But, you know, I had to think, wait, oh, she must be one of my customers. She reads the newsletter. She has watched my daughter grow up. So I've created an emotional connection With her. She's never leaving me. And so, you want to do that with your loyalty system. You don't always want to be selling. There's nothing worse than the only time you hear from a company is when they want money, right? You know, here in the US, we know when the mattress stores want money. It's around 2 holidays, Memorial Day and Labor Day. And all they do is send out mattress flyers. Well, Did you ever think of maybe just sending me a postcard maybe in June with here's how to get a good night's sleep? Offer me some value. And I think that that definitely translates into the speaking world by you don't always want to be selling to them, you know, oh, I just came up with a new whiz-bang presentation. Oh, I got a new method for that. Okay, fine. You can tell us about that at some point. But how about real value creation? And when you do that, now people, they want to stay in your world because you consistently provide value. You're not always selling to them. And that's really the strong point with loyalty is creating that emotional connection and providing value and not always selling.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think And one of the things that— those are all brilliant tips. One of the things, you know, that got drummed home to me years and years ago, even, even if I am doing an email to my list who, you know, and there is a pitch in there for a workshop or whatever, the, the, um, relative percentages are 80 to 90% value, yeah, 20 to 10% pitch. Because you've got to be delivering value all the time. Um, and, but value doesn't always mean information, education, like Vance said, it can be entertainment, you know, bringing, building bridges into your world, world building, that sort of stuff. So there's really good points that you've made there. Excellent.

Thank you.

Okay. Um, Interesting. Okay, so again, we, we're touching on these things across all of these questions.

Sure, that's fine. One of the things I talk a lot, so yes.

How can speakers, uh, in your opinion, create a Disney-level experience? Let's focus more on the audience now, um, without it feeling forced or gimmicky. And, and how do you do that in your talks, right?

Well, I mean, it's got to be congruent with who you are.

Yeah.

So if you're not naturally gregarious or fun or like I speak, this is how I speak when I'm on stage. I'm very blue-collar, plain-spoken. I don't use big fancy HR words and things like that. And so I can stand to be a little goofy. You know, I do a lot of self-deprecating humor because I've got plenty in my past that I can make fun of. But, you know, engaging the audience is one of the things I mean, like, I never will come up on stage just from the side when they announce me. You know, I have walk-on music. Everybody should have walk-on music. And so they'll play my song, and I'll run through the audience doing high fives and things like that just to get people— because if they've been sitting there for a couple hours, you know, they're like, oh, thank God I'm moving around a little bit. Um, you know, so getting them engaged and then get up there. And, um, you know, a lot of times I'll do a selfie from stage. Um, you know, I make the joke that, you know, my wife thinks that I'm just flying around the world, uh, you know, going to hotels and, you know, drinking beer and eating bonbons. So let's at least prove to her I'm working. And so we'll I'll, you know, I'll do a selfie, um, you know, and it— you, you let your personality shine through. I think that's what really a lot of speakers seem to think, that they've got to be somebody else when they're on stage as opposed to who they really are. Um, and if you get off stage and they start talking to you and you're not like you were on stage, there's, there's that incongruency in messaging and you start to lose them.

Mm-hmm.

You know, we did, we talked a little bit about, you know, either worksheets or note cards or, you know, books or things to give the audience something to hold on to. You know, I feel you've really got to hit as many of the human senses as possible during a presentation. So, I mean, they've got the visual stuff, they got me, they've got my slides, you know, They they've got the worksheet, so now they got something to hold on to. Certainly, they've got what they hear. So do you have sound effects? And I'm not talking about you know the goofy stuff like a boom boom. You know, we don't need that. But you know, do you have stuff that just adds a little something to your the the in Louisiana they it's called lagniappe. It's a little something extra that they put in the dish, you know, to make it special. So what's just that little— it doesn't have to be big, just little, you know. You know, what do you wear? You know, do you come out in a gorilla costume? I don't know. But there are just different ways that you can get the audience involved. You know, I love asking audience questions, you know. Okay. Hey, how many of you are this? And you get people raising their hands and You know, that's the kind of thing that people are going to remember, that they were engaged, they were part of the show. They weren't just sitting in the audience. And that's what Disney does so well. You know, if you think about their attractions, they bring you into the show while you're waiting.

Yes.

You know, even though you're waiting in line, you're still— you got interactive things. You've got, you know, if you're in the Haunted Mansion, you get to read the tombstones and play with the organ. And, you know, the whole thing Is the experience. So how do you bring the audience into that is, is key.

Yeah, that's really, really interesting. I think there's a couple of points that I wanted to, to highlight that you, you mentioned there. So something I'll talk about frequently is people going into presenter mode and losing their personality. Um, and it's, your personality is really one of the biggest ways that you stand out on stage. And so you need to tap into that, uh, in order to, to bring, you know, to create that relationship with the audience and also be more memorable. We have a saying in the UK, uh, whizzywig. Have you heard that?

Oh, sure. Yeah. What you see is what you get.

Exactly. Some Americans I've said that to haven't heard that before. Um, yeah, exactly. So you wanna— I always say there's like, you wanna— it's like you, but on a really good day.

Like, right.

It's, you know, exactly that. So there's— that's a really good, important thing to say there. Um, yeah, and I think I love the, the sort of tapping into all of their senses, um, is something that's really, really useful. And I think you've probably heard of the IKEA effect, and I think this is something that you would tap it. You, you know, Disney create that immersive experience from the beginning, the moment you step into the park, in every queue and everything else. And I think the— what you were referring to also is this, this concept of the IKEA effect. If the audience is kind of creating the experience with you, they will have a— they will buy into it more, they will have more positive memories of it because they were co-creating it with you. And I think, you know, having opportunities in your talk to have the audience co-create Is, is really, really good. So those are some really good things. Excellent.

Now, and if I could just add real quick, I think if you can do some kind of dramatic demonstration.

Absolutely.

So I will, depending on, on what I'm doing, I will bring an audience member up on stage and we will do like a mini mastermind or a mini workshop right there. So it's really putting me in a spot thinking, oh, hopefully I know the answer to their question. But it's this dramatic experience that, you know, it's not contrived, it's not canned. It's okay, here's just some random person from the audience coming up. And that really is powerful because then everybody wants to be next.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I love the fact that you use the word dramatic demonstration there. So I think we have uh, some similar experiences in learning and sort of getting, um, au fait with direct marketing. And I know that direct response marketing is something that you, um, use and blend with customer experience. And I think, what do you think makes you different compared to other speakers and also business owners? Because you know, dramatic demonstration is, is a really good example of that, and you can use that in your marketing, not just in your speaking. But what else makes you stand out because you tap into direct marketing as well?

Right. Well, I, you know, I think, um, that's the kind of marketing that small businesses need to be doing. You know, they've all been brainwashed into doing these, uh, you know, these big, you know, billboard kind of I call it Goodyear blimp marketing. You know, if you go to a— in the US, if you come to a US football game, not soccer, but football, you know, they fly a blimp over top and it's usually, you know, a tire company, Goodyear. And, you know, I don't know how many thousands of dollars it costs to fly a blimp, but it's not cheap, I would guess. And I always make the point of, okay, on Monday morning after the game, let's call up Goodyear And ask them, how many tires did that blimp sell?

Yeah.

They won't know. They don't know. They can't know. There's no way possible for them to know. They could have sold one. They could have sold none. They could have sold 10,000. I'm hazarding a guess that blimp didn't sell any. But, but as a small business, and especially as speakers, we have to use strategic direct response marketing that we get Anything we put out has got to come back with something. So, you know, if I send a dollar out in marketing, it's got to come back with a whole bunch of its little dollar buddies in order for me— it's got to be measurable.

Yeah.

And your website needs to be set up that way. Your outreach needs to be set up that way in that, you know, we can't do this good year. I mean, none of us as speakers could put a billboard on the highway saying hire me. It just wouldn't work, you know. So we have to be strategic. We have to, you know, use our, our, our networks, um, and the little things that we can control in order to, uh, in order to get our business.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think this is, I, I find that in my experience of working with speakers, there's not enough of them. that will do this extra in terms of things like direct response marketing, outreach, all of the stuff that, you know, builds the pipeline, and then they wonder why they're not getting booked consistently. So, you know, they want to do the show but not the business, the marketing part of that.

So, uh, this is the hard part. Yeah, speaking is easy.

Yeah, exactly.

It's, you know, the business side of it is not easy.

I will—

and it— that's why they call it work, right? But, you know, there are ways that you can farm this out. I mean, I have 2 VAs. All they do is look for speaking gigs and do the initial outreach for me. I mean, it's happening right now. I don't know who they're talking to, but if it gets to the point where there's some interest, well, then it gets turned over to me or a senior VA who can get it almost to contract. You know, so you don't have to be doing it yourself. You know, there's plenty of ways that you can do it, but it needs to be done.

Yeah. And I bet I'm making an assumption, but based on our conversation and my knowledge of you, I can imagine that they do it, but they do it according to a process that you've come up with and that they follow so that it aligns with your brand and, and 100%. Yeah. Okay.

They actually have a Vance bot. And they— it is, it's everything they need to know about me to fill out an online call for speaker or to send an email, you know, pitch for, for speaking. They've got everything they need at their fingertips. It all sounds like me.

Yeah.

But yeah, you're right. It is a system.

Yeah, absolutely. Cool. Okay. So looking back from today, what was the one thing that you would say actually moved the needle in building your speaking business and what didn't?

Well, I'll go with the didn't and that is Build a website and they will come.

The Field of Dreams strategy.

That's, that's just not how it works. You know, I mean, yes, you need a website, but just building it is not going to make money for you. So that's definitely a fallacy. I mean, I fell into it too. I was like, oh yeah, I got a great website. People should be finding me. Well, no, there's 52,000 speakers out there, you know. They're not going to find me. Um, so I think that was, that was a big, uh, big mistake. But being active and not pro— or excuse me, being active and not passive. Um, and we talk about this with, you know, just the, the job of getting gigs. Um, you can't, you can't sit back. I use this, uh, so I'm on a lot of podcasts, um, and I have a system.

Mm-hmm.

that gets me on podcasts and it's out there pitching me right now and I don't even know it. But it is— it's active system. There are podcast websites you can go to where it's— I think one's like PodMatch or something.

Mm-hmm.

And but it's passive. It's, well, you can go on there and maybe you'll find something or this, you know, the host will go on and maybe look for somebody. But there's no intentional activity. You've got to have intentional activity to move the needle forward. And whether that is your outreach, whether that's your, you know, how you use VAs, call for speakers, you know, whatever it is, you've got to have intentional activity going on in order to move the needle.

Cool. That's brilliant. Um, thank you so much for sharing all of that stuff, Vance. I know there's, there's a ton of gold in there for people. Now, before I let you go, and we'll talk about where people can come to find out more about booking you as a speaker, maybe working with you in, if that's available. Um, I've got a few standard questions that I ask all guests, if that's okay.

Please.

The first question that I want to ask you is, what's the best thing that speaking has done for you?

Well, if you believe it or not, I'm an introvert and it helps me get out of my shell. And speaking is my number one lead generation for the rest of my business. Number one, whether it's speaking on a podcast, speaking at an event or an association meeting. It is my number one lead generator, is speaking.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's even though you speak for a fee, you know, I think most people miss this. If you speak, if you do the gig in the right way, it is not just that fee. It's feeding into all the other things that you, you offer as well. Yeah. Right.

And we didn't even talk for, you know, speak to sell.

Yeah.

I mean, I certainly, I'll do events if I know I can, you know, sell a product or a program at the end of it, because that's usually more lucrative than any fee they would have given me.

Absolutely. I call those strategic free gigs. And, uh, there you go.

Yeah.

And they are, and they are, you know, really important, I think. And also, if you are, again, this is something just to make a point of, if you are kind of new to speaking, But you do have a product, then, you know, getting paid through these strategic free gigs on the way to getting paid is the best way to do it.

Oh, certainly.

Yeah, definitely. Cool. Um, so tell me, when you first started speaking, since you've mentioned this, um, how challenging was it for you to get on stage, you know, with being more an introvert than an extrovert?

Well, I, I have an advantage over most people, and I grew up playing in a rock and roll band. So I've been on stage since like 15 years old, whether it be playing at a high school dance or playing at a nightclub in Boston. I played— that's how we actually paid for college, was playing in a band. So I've I had a lot of stage experience, um, you know, before that. And then you don't think about it, but, you know, so I was a restaurant manager, um, and every night we had to do a pre-shift meeting with the entire waitstaff. You're on stage for that.

Definitely.

You know, I mean, yes, you're hosting a meeting, but you're on stage. You do a presentation to your bosses. That's on stage. So if you start to think about all the different stages there are, do you get on a big one and there's, you know, 2,500 people standing in front of you? It's, it's not a big deal.

Yeah, it's just easy for—

I don't know, it's just, it's easy for me because I've, I've been doing it for so long.

Yeah, and I think that's a really good reframe. Like, it, it really isn't that much different, especially if, if you're a good speaker, you're having a conversation with your audience, you know.

Right.

It's— and, and so in that sense, if you can reframe it, if, if you are just starting out, to, you know, it's like all the other things that you've done already that are in your, you know, in your locker, and it's no different. So that's a great reframe. Thank you. Okay. Having said that, has there been a gig that you were like, that didn't go to plan, and you're like, oh my goodness, I want to put that out of my memory forever. Has that happened to you, Vance?

Uh, it's happened twice. Um, I had one where I was, um, uh, selling— one of the parts of my business is I take business groups to Disney, uh, for 3 and 4 day full boot camps. Um, and, um, I remember He didn't— my host didn't tell me I was speaking twice. So my first presentation went great. And he said, I don't want you to, um, I don't want you to pitch. We'll, we'll do the pitch later. I said, okay, fine. I didn't even think about it. And then day of, he's like, okay, you're on at 10 AM. I'm like, what do you mean I'm on at 10 AM? Yeah, your, your second speech. I'm like, oh crap. You know, so I'm literally no slides, pulling this, this presentation out as I go. And I'm selling a $5,000 product at the same time. I mean, it did not go well. Finally, the host came up and, you know, saw that I was struggling and said this was very early on. That was bad. And then just recently I was doing a keynote at a really nice hotel, but the AV team was a disaster. And I remember I knew it was going to be bad because I never got to do sound check. Got there 3 hours early to do sound check. They didn't— they didn't even have a speaker set up yet. They were— somebody got some cables tangled up in a— in one of those lifts that they do the lights real high up. And as they're backing up, the entire lighting truss is coming down. Oh, my God. And I'm like, and then I'm there, I'm in my suit and I'm holding this lighting truss up. I said, this is, this is just the beginning. I know it. And so I'm on stage and this is why you always have sound check. You check everything. They gave me the clicker. I knew I was in trouble because it had Scotch tape around the back to keep the battery in. And I— And it was one of those little ones that has like all of 20 feet of range. So like your laptop needs to be sitting right next to you for the clicker to work. And they were away, they were 50, 75 feet in the back of the room. And I'm clicking and slides aren't moving and I'm clicking. And then I start just joking around and I start doing it under my arm and between my legs. And I'm like, finally, I just said, I'm sorry, folks, this thing ain't working. Tossed it over my shoulder. You could hear the batteries fall out on the floor and rattle. Um, and I said, okay, I'm just going to do this without— I don't need the slides. They're there for to make it better. But, um, yeah, that was— oh no.

Oh my goodness. Yeah. Well, the good thing is that you get back on the horse because everyone has those experiences. That's cool. Okay, good. Thank you for sharing that. Um, 3rd question. What's the book that's had most impact on your life and why?

So Think and Grow Rich is definitely at the top. Napoleon Hill, and it really it opened my eyes to a number of his laws for success. Accurate thinking being one that's definitely in there's not a lot of it these days in the world. You know the mastermind effect. And so, you know, I really— when you get past the, the fluff of the stuff around it, when you get down to the basic laws, they were, they were, they were vital. You know, certainly Dan Kennedy's book, The Ultimate Marketing System, was— is a must-read marketing book for anybody. And I'm trying to think—

it would—

yeah, those are the two.

Cool. That's brilliant. Um, yeah, love, love, uh, love those ones there. I think they just open your eyes to, to things that you may not have thought about. Um, I'm just reading, um, L.C. Lincoln Benedict, who I think preceded Napoleon Hill, How to Get Anything You Want. Very similar, a lot of crossover.

Right.

But it is all in the thinking, uh, that the seeds of success Start. So yeah, that's really cool. Thank you. Okay, what's the best bit of business advice you've had and why?

Do something. Implement. Seriously. I mean, you got a lot of ideas today, I hope. And if you didn't get one here, I'm sure you read something or heard something somewhere else. The only way you're gonna move the needle is by implementing. And it's the only saying I actually have is you won't profit unless you implement. you have to do. Otherwise, again, nothing happens until you do something. So that is the best bit of business advice I got. It's similar to my old boss's, we will be better tomorrow than we were today. So constant improvement all the time.

Yeah, that's brilliant. And I love that point that you made. I think I've said this before because we can get lulled into a false sense of momentum. I'm listening to the podcast, So I am taking action. But if you don't actually put the things into motion, it's like you're on a treadmill at the gym. You know, you think you're making progress, but you're not actually going anywhere. So that's a really important point.

It's activity mistaken for moving forward.

Yeah, definitely.

You can do activity. It doesn't mean you're actually making anything happen.

No, that's great. Okay, last question from me. If you could have any mentor, and they can be alive or dead, fictional or nonfictional, who would you choose and why?

Oh, that would be easy. Yoda.

Nice.

That's easy. Yoda. I've got a Yoda poster over here. It says, do or do not, there is no try. Right? Yeah. He's brilliant in his simplicity. And I don't think there's anything he's ever uttered that didn't make me think, oh yeah.

Excellent. Love, love that Star Wars fan. Love it. Um, good. I haven't got a Yoda. I've got a baby Grogu over there.

Um, yeah, I've got one behind me. He's Grogu. He's up on my shelf back there.

Yeah, a little Grogu. Yeah. Um, cool. Excellent. Vance, thank you so much for sharing all of that stuff. As I said before, there's some brilliant tips, uh, in there for people to, you know, move the needle on their own speaking business or business Um, with doing some of this stuff. So if people want to find out more about you, booking you to speak, working with you, where is the best place for them to go?

Uh, 2 places. Uh, one is, uh, my website, which is really easy, vancemorris.com. Um, and then you'll be able to click around and see different things. And then I do have a gift for everybody because we did talk about how do we create these experiences. So, I have something called 52 Ways to Wow Your Customer. So, it's one wow for every week of the year. So, in case you're not feeling overly creative, I've given you 52 of them. And you can find that at wow52ways.com.

Excellent. wow52ways.com and vancemorris.com. I will put those in the show notes as well so people can find those easily. Is there anything Anything else that you want to say, Vance, um, in order for us to call this interview complete from your perspective?

Uh, no, I think, um, I, I think we've done a good job, Sarah.

Excellent. Well, thanks so much. Best of luck with everything. And yeah, it's been a pleasure having you on the show.

Thank you for having me. Wow.

There were some bangers in that interview. So much gold. It's really difficult to sort of pick out one thing, uh, that I thought was, you know, the best thing. So, probably I'm going to share a few things. I mean, I guess the big thing is it's not just what you do on stage, it's what you do around it that's going to, you know, increase your opportunities. Like how you apply, how you follow up, how you create the experience even around some of these basic processes where, you know, you can stand out by what you do and how you handle that. And also how you stay connected. And nurture those potential opportunities for the future, even if they haven't worked out for today. Because your next opportunity is often sitting in the room that you've just spoken at or in a process that you've just gone through, and you will, you know, have those little leaks that Vance was talking about if you don't make the most of those things. If you enjoyed this episode, do let Vance know. I'm sure you can find him on LinkedIn or elsewhere. You know, let him know if something really resonated with you or you're gonna put it into action. And he's very big on implementation and rightly so. Um, and also I've put his links in the show notes. If you wanna go and collect your 52 Ways to Wow Your Customer, which sounds great, uh, the link is in the show notes for you to go and do that. And if you know a speaker that's brilliant on stage, but maybe isn't getting a good number of gigs, send this episode over to them to have a listen to. So, I want to say thank you very much for choosing to watch or listen to The Speaking Club. If you are watching on YouTube, amazing if you could subscribe to the channel, leave a comment below if there's something that resonated with you, if you've got a question about anything that we've discussed today, and if you're listening to the podcast on any of the platforms or podcast apps, Thanks again. If you could leave a rating or review, that would be amazing. But yeah, thank you. It's been a pleasure as always sharing this stuff with you. And until next time, you know what I'm gonna say. Don't forget to go out, grab your life by the nuts, and get cracking. Bye-bye. It's a nightmare. You're an expert. With so much to say, but now that you've been booked to speak, you're struggling to know exactly what to talk about. You want a talk that engages the audience and wins you new clients without you losing your personality or anyone feeling pitched to. But what happens when you sit down to create that talk is that you end up staring at a blank page for ages, or worse, surrounded by hundreds of sticky notes with content that you could include. With so much material, you just don't know where to start or finish. Don't worry, because many experts like you face exactly the same challenge, and that's why I created the Blank Page to Stage Guide. In just 15 minutes, this breakthrough resource is going to help you identify the big idea of your message, make it relatable for the audience that you're speaking to and convey it all in a way that gets the audience inspired and on board with your idea. And it works even if you have tons of material or your subject feels less than exciting. If you want to cut through swathes of content and get a talk that you're excited to share, your audience loves, and wins you new clients, then grab your blank page to stage Guide from saraharcher.co.uk/newguide-tsc. Oh, I forgot to say, it's completely free. Enjoy!