Your Speaker Reel is Probably Costing You Bookings

If you're using speaking to grow your business, to get booked, or to build authority, then at some point you're gonna need a speaker showreel. Trouble is, so many of them are a bit pants. Some look like a montage from a wedding video, whereas others have been so focused on looking professional that they've completely missed the point. Because a speaker showreel isn't just about showing people what you do, it's about making Event bookers feel something. It's about trust, it's about credibility, energy, connection, and helping them quickly decide, will this person deliver what I need? So today I am joined by Max Partain. He is a speaker showreel strategist, and he creates showreels that help speakers position themselves visually in a way that actually gets attention and bookings. We talk about what makes a reel work, the mistakes that speakers make on camera, and why some speakers instantly look more bookable than others. So if you want to get booked more often or stop cringing every time someone asks for your speaker showreel, then this episode is for you. Before we cross over to the interview, I wanted to share something special with you. I am going to be doing a 2-day live event later this year. It's called Stagecraft and Showreel, and I'm going to be bringing my, uh, theatre director, comedian, speaking coach, and speaking judge perspective to your talk to help you craft the delivery of it and then capture the proof by bringing in a professional filmmaker and videographer to film you so that you have some footage for your showreel. Now this is a high-touch event so spaces are very limited. I think we've just got 8 available. We're just opening up Booking for this event, and there is going to be an early bird price. So if you think this is something that you want to do, if you want to come work with me on nailing the delivery of your signature keynote, then head over to saraharcher.co.uk/stagecraft, and you can get all the details and grab your spot there with that early bird discount. Right, enough of that. Let's cross over to the interview with the wonderful Max Partain. Welcome to The Speaking Club, Max Partain.

Thank you, Sarah. Happy to be here.

Oh, I'm really excited to have you on the show. I've looked at some of your work and I was blown away. So, I really, yeah, really excited. Now, the first thing that I wanted to ask you about was you position yourself as a speaker reel strategist. Rather than just an editor. What's the difference as far as you're concerned?

Oh, what a great question. So there's so much strategy that goes into speaker reels because you want to make sure that you're accurately positioned for what the market wants of you or what they're— what they see of you and what they want to pay for. And what I found out as I was editing these things is that like there's a lot of speaker reel editors, But they oftentimes lack the strategy. And when I needed to have a shorter bio for LinkedIn, I decided to put speaker, real strategist rather than editor because it positions me in a way that kind of puts— pushes me away from those editors that aren't really good at positioning and more put me into like a coaching/consulting role. And then I still edit the projects myself. But like 50% of the work is the strategy. And that's kind of what people pay for is to make sure that, okay, yeah, we can make you a video, but let's make sure it's the right video. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's really important to, to mention because it is, is, is a distinction and it, and that's the big part of it. I mean, anyone can throw a video together, but like your skill is in working out what to include, what not to include, the whole positioning, the narrative flow, and all of that great stuff, which I'm imagining, uh, you came a lot from your work, um, which you got an Emmy for outside of what you do with speaking, which is all about storytelling through film. I know that you used to do work for, uh, charities And the videos you used to create needed people to write like 7-figure checks. So I wondered if you could like share a little bit about how what you did then has informed the work that you do with speakers.

Uh, so when you're making a documentary for nonprofits that need to raise a lot of money, need to raise $1 million for the weekend or for the video, you have to build a pretty compelling case that this is a nonprofit that's worth giving money to. So you have to create a story that is compelling enough to evoke emotion in someone. And typically we would go in with a strategy of like, here's who's coming to this conference. It would be a 50-year-old. They probably have 2 kids. They are a multimillionaire. And then when we're going through and building the story, We would make sure that we're hitting key points that aligned with that target audience. So what might emotion— like evoke emotions of a 50-year-old might not evoke emotions of a 25-year-old. So you're playing a different game because you're not just trying to create a cool story. You're trying to create a story that is going to be— that is going to effectively evoke emotions for a very specific target of people. And when you apply that to speaker reels, it's the same thing. It doesn't necessarily have to be a video that your colleagues love for a speaker reel because you're not trying to satisfy your colleagues. You're trying to satisfy the people that hire your colleagues, that hire you. And if you can build a compelling case for the event planners and for the CEOs and other people by making this amazing speaker reel that shows whatever goals you have tried to accomplish at the beginning, then you're probably going to get a call. And it doesn't equate to a million-dollar check for a donation, but it does equate to emotional engagement in that video, which equates to, oh, I want to talk to this person. This person seems like my person. So how do we build that very human case from start to finish, which is what I did in documentary and now I do in speaker reels?

That's really interesting. What I find with speakers, and I don't know if you find the same thing, is that they often have blind spots because they're too close to their thing. And the blind spots mean they can't see sometimes the, the packaging or messaging that they need, even within the talk sometimes, to really tap into that problem and the underlying pain that's gonna get a a booker or CEO to hire them. Do you find the same thing with the people that you work with?

Yes. So all of them think that it's like, hi, or like most of them are like, hi, my name is X and I can solve a problem for you, which it does need to be accomplished in the speaker reel. But in reality, your speaker reel needs to be interesting. And hi, my name is, is not interesting inherently. You need to have a hook that gets them to go, oh, this person, I wanna keep watching. And they need to hook and hook and hook. And you really gotta build out something that's pretty heavily retention-focused. They need to get to the end of the video. Your video should only be as long as it is interesting. And sometimes they wanna make it like really long. And if it's too long, then nobody makes it to the end because they think that they're boring. And can you imagine a movie trailer that's too long? If the movie trailer is too long, Then you probably think that the movie's gonna be boring, even though the movie's not boring. The movie is probably awesome. But if the trailer stinks, the movie stinks. And if your speaker reel stinks or is too boring or doesn't have an interesting enough hook or doesn't have interesting enough story beats, then the speaker stinks, which isn't true. But that's what these, you know, recent college graduates who are watching these speaker reels are thinking. Because when you— yeah, I could dive into that, but—

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Someone like you Can sort of bring up? And in— I'm assuming that it's kind of like a partnership approach between you and the speaker in terms of strategy.

Okay, I'm ready to dive in.

Yeah.

Okay, ready? So I just recently worked with this woman named Renee Marino, and she is all over— she's a movie star and she's an actress, and now she's a communication expert. And the story that she wanted to tell was completely different than the story that I thought that she should tell.

Interesting.

Is this going into your question?

Yeah, yeah, exactly that. Yeah.

So what she wanted to tell was like, oh, like I talk about frameworks, I talk about the importance of communication, and I do this. As I was listening to the keynote speech, she did a story about Clint Eastwood and her relationship with Clint Eastwood and this amazing story about Clint Eastwood. I was like, nobody really cares about your frameworks. This Clint Eastwood is Awesome. Don't lean into these frameworks. Sure, you can have 30 seconds of frameworks, but that's not going to be the whole video. This Clint Eastwood where he rejected you, rejected you, rejected you, and then you came back is like this, this journey and like it's amazing story. So you want your speaker reel to not only be informative but also be an interesting enough story where people want to make it to the end. But if it's just like, I have frameworks and I've done other things, nobody cares.

Absolutely.

Tell the story.

Yeah, and this is like, like I talk about at the start of the talk, you're like, the start of it's the most precious real estate of your talk in terms of hooking people in and getting them off their phones and leaning in. But like, the speaker reel is, you know, even more precious than that because that's what either gets you on the stage or doesn't in the first place. And so having that you know, getting that retention is going to be absolutely vital, which, which is great.

When you're speaking, you need to nail the hook, of course. But people also can't leave. Like, if it's a bad hook, they'll at least stay to the end of it. But with video, it is just a flick of a finger to go to the next video. So you better nail it.

That's a really important point. Absolutely. That's fair. Fair indeed. Okay, so Leaning into some of this then, one of your core beliefs is clarity beats cleverness. I say something similar. I say clarity beats persuasion. That's my version of that. How does that show up in speaker reels specifically?

I could make a really, really cool speaker reel, but if the event planner after watching the video doesn't understand what that person does, Who cares?

Yeah.

The purpose of a speaker reel is to get you on a phone call. It's a sales video. And if you try and be really clever and you try to make this really artsy cinematic thing, like, sure, maybe it could work. And I've seen videos where they've threaded that line really, really well. And it was just an amazing speaker reel and they filmed Legos and all this other stuff. But like, To me, I would rather play it a little bit safer to make sure that when people watch it, they understand the problem that you solve, among other things. And it's just really clear why you should be the one that should be hired. It's not trying to make this artistic cinematic masterpiece.

Now, one of the really interesting things that I saw you sort of share was around event planners watching a speaker reel. Are asking four questions in their head. Can you unpack what those questions are?

Yes. So every time that event planner is watching a video, whether they you whether they know it or not, they're asking four questions. The first question is: Is this person a good speaker? That's what they care about. That's what they're hiring. They don't really. If you're not a good speaker, they're probably not going to hire you. So you better be the best speaker ever on your speaker reel. So that's that's number one. Like obviously, duh. Number two is. Are you worth the money or are you expensive? And if you don't look expensive on your speaker reel, if you don't have— I mean, there's a lot of different ways that you can look expensive, so we can unpack that. But if you don't look expensive, then when you go into the call and you say, yeah, I'm $30,000, they go, well, are you though? But like, if you're Tony Robbins and you're the biggest motivational speaker in the world, you say, yeah, I'm $500,000 or whatever he charges. They go, of course. Like we know you are expensive. The perceived value of you is extremely high. So we need to make sure that we are building the case that you are worth that crazy amount of money. Number three is: Do you solve a specific problem? So are you well positioned? Are you going to be able to solve the problem that that event planner has? So, for example, I know one person and their thing is corporate burnout, and their whole speaker reel is about corporate burnout. That's the problem that they solve. Renee Marino is about communication and corporate communication. And there's so many other problems that all speakers that are successful know their positioning and they know that they need to get that in the speaker reel. But you need to really hammer it in. You need to really make sure because like these event planners, we want to pretend that they're 5-year-olds. Like if you add your positioning and then you add it as text and then you add it as you saying it, that's probably still not enough.

They need to be so—

it needs to be so So they leave, they say, yep, they can absolutely solve my problem. So are you a good speaker? Are you expensive? And do you solve a problem? And then there's an overarching one which is more recent, and it kind of depends on how deep you are in your speaking career. But does your reel feel like you?

Mm-hmm.

So it needs to be properly wrapped so that it feels like you. that the music— like, I did a video for this comedian and then I did a video for this thought leader who was extremely like— for the thought leader, they were extremely well-prepared. They were extremely like thoughtful. And that music is going to look a lot different than that comedian's music. And the music is typically what tells people what you're about. Just like subconsciously, you're just like, oh, this person's really fun, or, oh, this person's really sophisticated. The music does that. So you got to make sure that you're rapping and you're singing wrapper of the speaker reel feels like you.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of like they know what they're buying. They're getting a big heads up on that through the feel of the video.

Yes.

Cool. So, well, let's get back and unpack what you said about looking expensive or being expensive. Share a little bit more on that for me, if that's all right.

Yes, totally. Can I give you some examples?

Of course. Yeah.

So I just recently have been doing Renee Marino, so I'm just going to talk about her all the time. So one thing that I noticed as we were editing the speaker reel is that she's an amazing speaker. And we had these close-up shots from like hips up of her throughout pretty much the whole second half. And it's— she crushes it. She's on stadiums. She's on like probably like 1,000, 2,000+ people are watching her and it's all these close-up shots. But in the perceived value of the speaker as they're watching this, they're going and subconsciously going, well, is she in front of 1,000 to 2,000 people? Because I had forgotten to add wide shots of the crowd and her on stage because event planners have gotten so burned by watching speaker reels of people faking being on a big stage that one of Renee Marino's values or like what makes her valuable is that she has all this footage of her on these massive stages. And I got so focused on it's on number question number 1, is this a good speaker that I forgot to do question number 2, are you expensive? Because the more big stages that you've been on, the more expensive you look. Because if you've done this 100, 200, 300 times and you don't show that in your speaker reel, what are you doing? You want to show that you're expensive and that you are going to solve this problem consistently strictly because you've done this 1,000 times. Imagine if you go to a surgeon and they're like, yeah, I've done 1 surgery. You're going to be like, oh gosh. But if you're like, if you go to that same surgeon and they have a video that shows them doing 600,000 whatever surgeries, then you're like, absolutely, you're gonna, you're gonna crush it for my audience. I'll pay you big bucks.

Yeah.

So that's, that's one way. Another way is, let's say you're in the news. If you can show that you're in the news, and you can put it as a news clip for a second, for half a second, then that increases your perceived value because it shows that you're a trusted authority because you've been in the news. Okay, let's— it keeps making you look a little bit more and more expensive, keeps building the case that you're worth more and more money. You've done a TEDx? Okay, worth a little bit more money. And you're just increasing your perceived value over time. So that when you give them your number, they say, of course.

Yeah, I'm with you. Cool. And, uh, I had a question on the tip of my tongue. Oh, um, so one of the videos that you did was for a Ninja Warrior winner.

Angela Gargano, my queen.

It was a great video. Really, really good. So that sort of footage there, that's an authority piece, isn't it?

Yes.

This person. Yeah.

Yes. There are several different archetypes that you can take for a speaker reel. Hers was like very much leaning into the first minute. We don't really get into the problem that she solves at all, which is very different than a lot of what I do. But because she's so honestly famous, it's really easy to lean into like she's a Ninja Warrior and then you can show clips of Ninja Warrior. She's a biochemist. You can show clips of her being a biochemist. She's been in the news. She started a pull-up revolution with women. It's like all of these amazing things about her. We're still not into the problem, but it's really interesting.

Yes.

And if you can keep them hooked long enough to get to the problem, then you can have a 60-second intro where you haven't gotten to the problem yet. And then eventually she tears her ACL live on TV. Really, really interesting. And even still at like the 90-second mark, we're not into the problem that she solves. It's just her story, this really interesting story. That's where my documentary background comes in. It was like, how do I just keep making this interesting and keep drawing it up? And eventually the problem arises where because of this ACL tear, she needs to figure out how to do life, not at when the door closes and another one opens, but in the hallway in between. And so then it eventually, the event planner goes, oh yeah, all of my employees are stuck. And then we relate it back to the employees and you're telling this compelling story. Sorry, I could go on and on.

But like, I know, I loved it.

I loved it.

What's really interesting about the way that that video is presented is that it, it literally is inspiring just as a video. Yes. Without getting her on the stage. And if, and you're an event planner and you're going, oh my God, if that's what I get from watching this highlight reel, yes, am I gonna get when the real person comes along in front of my audience? That's how it made me feel.

Yes, that is 100% the goal. Because just like with a movie trailer, if the movie trailer is good, the movie is supposedly good, which is not the case. You could make an amazing movie trailer and the movie could stink.

Yeah.

And vice versa.

Yeah.

So how do you make an amazing movie trailer, which typically is incredibly inspiring, which typically is making you feel something? How do you make a movie, a speaker reel that makes people feel something? Because that's the experience they're going to get in the audience. But because of the, because of the medium of speaker reels, people expect that same level of emotional draw in 3 minutes than you would be able to get in 60 minutes. So how do you make something in 3 minutes make somebody feel something?

Yeah, we'll put a link, obviously put a link in the show notes to Max's website where you can have a look at that video for yourself. I mean, it kind of like You don't really, you know, need to sell yourself because that video does, does a great job for you and for the, for what you do, which I think really is different to, to other reels that I've seen. You say people hire you because they know that they don't want to get this one wrong in terms of the speaker reel.

Mm-hmm.

What do you see Most speakers, and we might have covered some of this already, what do you see most speakers getting wrong with their existing reels?

Starting with a logo.

Right. Interesting.

Why start with a— anybody who's watching your reel knows who you are.

Yeah.

So don't waste 3 seconds of my time. You've already ruined the hook. Can you imagine any social media video ever having a logo? You're just going to scroll.

Yeah.

So it's like they already see, like if this is on YouTube, they're already seeing your thumbnail with the name of the video. So it's like, please don't waste my time. You're already putting me in a bad mood. Like, obviously nobody thinks about this, but subconsciously they're thinking you're wasting my time. So how do we hook them right away? And oftentimes the hook isn't very compelling. It's, it's like they just talk about the problem that they solve. Again, starting with, hi, my name is blank and I— Bleh, no, no, not good. Boring. I'm bored. I'm bored. And you need to thread the line of interesting and informative. And if you just try to make it informative, it's not going to have that emotional feeling that, say, the Angela Gargano piece has.

Hmm.

You need to make sure that there's heart in it. And in order to have heart, you need to make sure that you have killer music. A lot of mistakes that I see is that these speakers don't have good music in their speaker reel. And if you don't have good music in your speaker reel, you're not going to be able to create an emotional experience for the viewer. And if you can have killer— so then that begs the question, what is killer music? And killer music, if we were to section this thing out, and I normally structure my speaker reels in 4 things, they start with the problem and then you go into why you're qualified to talk about it, and then you go into you Solving it, so the problem qualified proof, and then you add social proof throughout of like testimonials of like anybody famous or any any like like let's say Apple gives you a testimonial. Anyways, so then those are the three sections. You need to have three different songs for the whole piece that relate to these three sections. If you have one song over the whole piece, over the problem, the qualified, and the proof, it's probably not going to create a roller coaster of emotions. It's just going to be boring. And a lot of the times I see videos where it's just like a straight line starting really. slow and the music builds epic and then more epic and then more epic and then it just ends. Have you ever seen a movie trailer like that? There's a couple that are like extremely incredible and well-designed and thoughtful to do that, but you're probably not at that level. So instead, choose 3 different songs for your piece and basically have it be in chapters because if it's not in chapters, it's just kind of like 3 minutes is— somebody's probably just gonna space out. Give them some— some room to breathe in your speaker reel. Don't just information, information, information, which is ironic in a world of retention where it's like, you know, don't give them any room to breathe. Just make sure there's no breath in there. It's like if it is well-timed breaths, it is appreciated.

Yeah.

So get 3 different songs in there for the problem, the qualification, and the proof.

Brilliant. I'm, I'm absolutely reviewing my own speaker reel in my head and thinking about how many X marks. I'm gonna have to go and have a look at it afterwards. So, uh, yeah, I think I'll, I'll need a call with you in the, in the future, Max. Anyway, sure.

Happy to talk.

That's really cool. That's really useful. So even like, even if people are listening to this, they're already getting a hit, like a leg up, just by hearing this stuff from you, you know, today, which is brilliant. The other interesting thing that I don't think that we've mentioned, maybe touched on it, you, you probably touched on it, is that you use people's existing footage. It's not like you're going out and filming specially for their showreel.

Yeah.

You take what they've got and create this emotional, um, you know, piece of, uh, storytelling from what they've got. Yeah.

Do you struggle?

Is there, is there like a minimum people need? What, what's this? How do you sort of say, can I work with this person or not?

Yes, great question. So there's definitely a minimum that people need. A lot of times the speakers that I work with have enough footage and that— what does enough footage look like? It's typically like 2 to 3 professionally recorded keynotes, because I'll tell you why. If you have one professionally recorded keynote, the event planner looking at it, will say, well, why is there only one? Have you not been doing this very long? Even if it's like amazing, it's like, oh, you just got lucky on that stage. And if you have 2, they go, okay, so you do this, you're legit. Like you do this for a living. If you have 3 plus, got it. You're a safe bet.

Yeah.

Because at the end of the day, we're trying to de-risk you to an event planner because the event planner is just scared that they're going to get fired. So how do they Select the most likely option of success. So if you have 2 to 3 professional keynotes, you'll probably be a success. Then I've worked without any B-roll of like visuals of you getting ready, visuals of you walking up on stage, visuals of you interacting with the crowd, B-roll. But it's hard because a lot of what that does is it positions you as a celebrity and we want to position you as a celebrity. We want you to look legit. We want you to look like you've been doing this for years, even if you haven't. I've had people that get paid $2,000 per speech, but we position them to look like a celebrity where it looks like they make more money because it looks like people take them seriously, even though everybody gets mic'd up for an event. They're no different than anybody else. But if you can have that footage in there, it's like BTS of you, and all of a sudden people are like, oh wow, they're legit, which is the dumbest thing ever. But subconsciously, that's what runs through people's minds. And if we can get you into celebrity status, that's when you're like $10K, $20K, $30K. They're like, of course you're a celebrity. You're gonna pay extra money for a celebrity. So let— and what, what defines a celebrity? Well, there's ways to cheat it. And that is with the B-roll of you getting ready. And these are really easy things that you can get. And you, cuz like if a lot of the times they do have the professional keynotes, but they don't have the B-roll. If you have a keynote that's coming up, you can literally just have your partner or anybody at the event be like, hey, can you grab your phone? And film horizontally and just film me getting mic'd up and just be like 3 feet away and just film me getting mic'd up. Can you also just like film me from behind as I walk up on stage? And then you're getting these like more artsy shots positioning you as like this really celebrity-tier speaker. And it's just on an iPhone. But because we can— if we can get that footage, then we can continually position you, which is why I like the partnership aspect of what I do. I don't really offer one-off reels. Partnerships where we go in and maybe we have 2 to 3 professional keynotes, maybe we have some B-roll. But as we're building out the speaker reel, I go, okay, but do you have— could you get a shot of this at your next event? Could you get a shot of this? As we continually increase your perceived value as a speaker, as we continually get more and more B-roll, as we continue— like, there was one woman named Ovetta, and she said one of the things that she does is that she stays 2 to 3 hours after Her speeches and just talks to the crowd.

Hmm.

And I was like, you can't just write that on screen. Like, that's not going to do anything. We need visual proof of you talking to the crowd, of you going out shaking people's hands. So, Ovetta, can you go out and have somebody film you on their iPhone? It won't look great. So ideally you get it professionally recorded at some point, but like, let's get proof of you being this warm, speaker. And then we might need to adjust the speaker reel a little bit to include a testimonial from an event planner that says, yeah, she stayed 2 to 3 hours after the event. But like, that's kind of the game. The speaker reel is kind of a never-ending thing.

Yeah. Unfortunately, you get more footage, you get more stuff to put in it.

Yes. Yeah.

I'm with you. I'm with you. And as you grow, you need different footage. I guess it's iterative. Yes. Evolving.

I can talk about that forever. Because like the way that you need to be positioned, and I won't, the way that you need to be positioned At 0 to 5K from a speaker reel perspective is different from what you need to look like at 5 to 15K. And then once you get to 15 to 30K, you need a completely different thing. Once you get to 30 to 50K, you're going to need like a cinematic art piece that is just like this unbelievable thing that probably cost an unbelievable amount of money, but like positioned you as so that when people see it, they say, well, of course they're 50K. Look at that video.

Yeah.

Which is, which is silly. But that's the game.

Now, one thing I wanted to ask you, and thanks for sharing this gold here, I really appreciate it. As you spend your life watching people on screen, what's—

As I waste away watching people on screen.

What's your take on the speakers who are genuinely commanding attention from those who just look polished?

The thing with a speaker reel is that you can make anybody look like they're genuinely commanding attention.

Cool.

It's really easy to lie in a speaker reel, which is why event planners have gotten so callous to a lot of speaker reels, which is why now I recommend, okay, we need 15 to 30 seconds of you in your speaker reel. Where there are no cuts.

Yeah.

And we need to prove that you are commanding the stage because you can't fake that.

No.

If you do a cut every 3 seconds, you can fake that. Event planners see right through it. So you better have at least one section in there where you are crushing. And I don't care if you need to go on a stage and do those 30 seconds 100 times till you get one where you are crushing. But like, you gotta have it.

Yeah, that makes sense. And I think that's why often, because people have been burned before, speakers will also ask for an unedited cut of your, like, a talk. Yeah, yeah.

Yes, for sure. So some of the— one of the things that I've started giving is like, because I get all their footage, and then they have like— one of the recommendations from this woman named Marjana who owns, uh, Speaker Story Bank She recommended that for all the topics that you write on your website, you add like a 3 to 5 minute clip of you speaking on that topic unedited. That's just you delivering because event planners, they just want to click and say, okay, good. They're actually a good speaker. You don't really get that from a speaker reel because it's a trailer. You can make any movie look— you can make garbage look good in a trailer.

Yeah, absolutely.

At least for 3 minutes. But you Unedited for 3 minutes on a stage. Can't really fake that.

How much is it about the audience? And how much is it about de-risking the booking decision? And it feels like it's, it's more the second, but what's your thoughts on that?

So how much of it is about the audience? Well, let's define audience.

Yeah, the buyer, I guess.

Yeah, the buyer. You speak, right?

Yeah.

So we have The buyer, which is some— well, like, I guess, who's your buyer? So then, you know, like, if we go into like, who is your buyer? They might be a 40-year-old event planner, or maybe they're a 24-year-old event planner, because that's like, apparently you can be 24 and plan an event, like, whatever. It's insane. But like, those are 2 different buyers. So I would say it's almost both.

Yeah.

You need a video made for them. That de-risks you. You don't need to just make a video for them and not have it de-risk you. Every video, every, every video and social media piece that you put out, you should be focusing on risk. If you look like a risk, like there's this one woman and I'm not going to name her, but she's like a wild speaker on stage and like that's kind of part of her brand. But you have to thread that line really carefully where it's like you're too— you're a little bit too wild. What if you go off the, off the hinges during a speech and start talking about something that you probably shouldn't talk about? You have to toe the line really closely.

Yeah.

So sure, you make it for the audience, but you have to thread the line between risk and de-risk. And for a 50-year-old event planner, they're not going to tolerate risk as much as a 24, as a 25-year-old event planner. Because a 25-year-old is going to go, oh, this is fun. 50-year-old is going to go, oh my gosh, I have a family to feed and I'm not willing to risk it.

That's really interesting. Yeah, I know. And fair and fair. So it's getting that balance right, isn't it?

Basically, you have to get really clear on your audience. Yeah. And then you build it for them.

Yeah.

While de-risking yourself.

Excellent. Okay, that's really cool. Now, if someone's listening to this today, and they want to dramatically improve how they're perceived in the next 30 days, where would you tell them where to focus first?

Okay, okay, okay, okay. I love this question, Sarah. Okay, but question for you: dramatically improved how they're perceived within their speaker reel, or just in general? Because those are different things, and I'm passionate about both.

I'm gonna get, uh, so speaker reel first.

Okay.

And then if you've got any other observations or things that you want to throw in generally around their brand or image or anything like that, then feel free.

Because the personal brand, I would almost say, is more important than the speaker reel. But I will get into their—

yeah, let's go for that. I think we've had a lot of tips. If there's any that come to mind that you haven't covered, chuck them in. But let's talk about their brand from your perspective. Yeah.

The one tip for speaker reel is if you're on just a flat ground and you're not on a stage, just get rid of all that footage. Don't use any of it. Go record new footage of you on an elevated stage. Don't use— because like you want to look like a celebrity. Celebrities don't talk on the ground, you know, whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah. Going into perceived value of you as a speaker outside of the reel, I would say LinkedIn is like kind of number one. Your website is number 2. Your photos is probably going to be number 3. And then your speaker reel is kind of the culmination of of all of your positioning work and whatnot. But you need to make sure that you're nailing those 3 because event planners and most of the speaking industry, from what I find, LinkedIn is everything. And I'm going to shamelessly plug Caitlin Doan's 30-day course where she goes through and audits your LinkedIn and make sure that it is clear what your positioning is. Because like, if people don't know that you're a speaker that talks about a specific topic, the moment they get to your LinkedIn or the moment they get to your website, they might just go to the next person because they're pattern matching to find somebody that solves their problem because they're looking at 20 speakers a day, 20, like 20 speakers a day. Let's make sure you're differentiated enough and that your positioning is so stupidly clear enough that as soon as they get to your website, as soon as they get to your LinkedIn, as soon as they see your photos, they're like, of course, that's what they look like. Oh my gosh, I like this person. And if your photos look like it was taken on an iPhone, you're gonna look like a $500 speaker. Yeah, go to any professional speaker's page. Are they posting iPhone pictures? None of them. Get professional photography done.

Cool.

Get a professional website, which you could probably do through Squarespace, but like, if you have the money, get it professionally done. Use the photos throughout the website. Make sure your positioning is clear. Make sure your LinkedIn is optimized so that when people get there, there's a button that they can click that and say contact me, make sure that you have your speaker reel attached as a pinned post on your LinkedIn. There's so many things, so many things you can do. Is there any of those where you're like, let's dive in? Or do you want to move on to the next question?

No, I think they're all pretty, pretty clear. So, no, that's really good. Now, I guess my last question before we head into the standard questions is, if a speaker is at the early part of their journey, and maybe they haven't got the footage in to the extent that they would be able to work with someone like you, but they've got to put a reel together. What's the top 3 bits of advice you would give them in the interim, in the hallway between where they are— to use, uh, Angela Gargano's, uh, point before— where they are to where they want to be? They're in that hallway. What's the 3 tips around their speaker reel?

Okay. So tip number 1, you have to get footage of you on an elevated stage, no matter what's— no matter what it takes. And it's easier than you think. And I have a lot of meetings with people who are not qualified to work with me, but I still want to give them advice. And the number 1 advice that I give out is you probably know somebody in your local area that works at a church or high school or college where you could probably get on their stage. You could probably say, hey Dave, I'll buy you a drink. Can, can I use your stage for 10 minutes? Just like, please come on, dude. And you could probably get on a stage and if not, you could probably buy a stage from that high school, church, whatever, for, you know, 20 to 30 minutes. Then you get on that stage and then you film your optimized 10 minutes of your keynote speech and you make sure that you film your positioning statement and a couple other key lines, which I have a massive resource that I can send out to your audience if they want it of like, how do you make your first speaker reel kind of is what it's called. How do you make your first speaker reel that doesn't embarrass you?

Yeah.

It's like, that's kind of the goal. If it's embarrassing, don't even put it out there. It's better to have nothing than to have one where it looks like you're teaching to students like, like 10-year-olds in a classroom with a chalkboard behind you. You got to make sure that at least it's semi-decent. So you got to get on a stage and then you got to hire probably somebody on Fiverr or on, you know, Upwork for around $250 to $500 to make you a speaker reel. You probably aren't as good of an editor as you think that you are. And $250 to $500 will get you like 80% of the way there if you hire somebody to do it. The thing that you can't really teach these people that don't charge a lot of money, though, is musical taste. That is so important. And really hard to teach. So you have to make sure that as you're going through it, the music is on point because that is going to be one of the clear— for me, one of the clear qualifiers between like your, your $1,000 speaker and your $10,000 speaker. If your music is amazing, then you're probably amazing, which is so dumb, Sarah. Okay. It's so dumb, the games that you have to play, but it's just true.

Yeah.

So make sure that your music is on point. Tip number 3, get on another stage.

Yeah.

And another and another and another. And just find the free stages around you that are elevated. Just think about the elevated stages around you. If you can get on 1, 2, 3. 1, again, going back to the beginning, 1 stage, maybe you've only done this 1 time. 2 stages. Oh, interesting. 3 stages, you're a professional. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think going back to what you said previously as well, Don't miss the opportunities that arise to get that B-roll footage.

Yes.

I'm rubbish at doing stuff like this, but like, you've got to think strategically, what is this event going to give me? And this— I talk about getting strategic free gigs. Sometimes having a professional videographer, having the opportunity to get some of that B-roll footage, will be worth a fortune to you.

Yes.

And, you know, Do those gigs where those opportunities can give you something for the future. So I'd probably add that in based on what you said earlier.

So I totally agree. If you're, if you're getting on a stadium and you're not hired for— if you're getting on a stadium and you're doing it for free and you're not spending $1,000, $2,000 on an amazing videographer, what are you doing? Yeah, spend the money on that videographer because that could literally last you the rest of your career. That could catapult you into the next phase of your career if you can get proof that you were— good proof that you were on that stage. Yeah, because once you, once you're on a stadium, you're worth $10,000 to $20,000, which is so dumb. But it's like the perceived value. If you're on a stadium, yeah, you are worth more. So make sure that you capture those really cool stages.

Yeah, cool. Brilliant. Well, listen, Max, thank you so much for what you've shared so far. I'm going to come back to where people can find out more about you, where they should go, and so on in a minute. I just want to ask you a few standard questions. The first of which, may always be interesting to ask you this because you must do speaking yourself at some points now. The question that I ask is, what's the best thing that speaking has done for you?

The best thing that speaking has done for me has taught me how to prepare answers. And state them clearly in situations like this. I didn't have the opportunity to really dive into a lot of the questions, but the fact that I'm able to even think clearly and put things into like frameworks and other things is like a requirement of being on stage. You have to be able to like remind people, oh, this is what we're talking about.

Yeah.

Because when you're doing it for 60 minutes, you don't, you don't want them to get lost. lost.

No.

And I do that all the time in everything that I do now, thinking frameworks.

And you make some really cool videos. I think, you know, hop on to LinkedIn to have a look at some of Max's videos as well. If you want to see—

I spend so much time on LinkedIn content, it's unbelievable. But that's where I get all my clients.

Is that— is that been a recent thing for you shifting to focus on LinkedIn?

I take— I took Kate Ladone's 30-day I was trying to do LinkedIn before, no idea what I was doing. After I took Caitlin Doan's 30-day— sorry, unbelievable amount of shameless plugs—

It's fine.

I all of a sudden started getting crazy amounts of engagement from people that I wanted to hire me. So the fact that you even got me and found me is probably because of my content. And if that's not true, don't tell anyone. But, but I'm getting now— I'm now the speaker reel expert because I wear a hat that says speaker reels and because I make speaker reel videos. So then I always tell speakers like, how do you become the speaker expert? How do you make it so clear that this is the problem that you solve and this is your— this is what you do? And that's typically through LinkedIn.

So the interesting thing is, I would say what's interesting is that someone actually mentioned you to me. A previous guest mentioned you to me, and then independently of that, you reached out to me in messages. Uh, and then what your content did when I kept seeing it was build trust and build curiosity. And I think that's, you know, it warms your audience up.

Yeah.

And, and validates you. So as, as you know what you're talking about, and it was, it was interesting. So yes, it definitely worked. Um, next question. Have you ever had, uh, a speaking— when I say speaking, I mean anything really, you know, uh, on a podcast interview or on a stage or wherever— that didn't go well, uh, that you think, oh my God, I wish— I want to put that out of my memory? Has that ever happened to you, Max?

Yeah, that's definitely happened to me. I was on a— I was teaching a group of 30 students And it was through Zoom, and one of them didn't mute their microphone, and they started chewing on some chips. And I'm so ADHD that I was like, oh my gosh, I can't— I literally don't know what I'm talking about anymore. I'm just focusing on these chips. So I had to be like, hey Eva, can you, can you mute that person? And I just, I got off my, my train.

Gosh. Yeah, yeah, because we haven't discussed your ADHD, which you're quite open about.

Yes, super ADHD. It's just a superpower and a curse, and it's— I love it.

It's to see all those things and bring things together. But yeah, it can, uh, it can make you easily distracted by the sound of things as well. Cool, cool. Okay, next question: what's the book that's had most impact on your life and why?

Oh goodness gracious, there's so many. I think that this one's a little bit polarizing. Okay. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I read that a couple of years ago and it just opened my mind to what was possible in my life if I just believed that it was.

Cool. That's a brilliant book. I'm just going to give you, if you like that.

Yes. Give me more.

I'm going to direct you to a book by a lady called Elsie Lincoln Benedict.

Okay.

who wrote a book called How to Manifest Anything You Want. Uh, and it's not— she was literally the precursor to Napoleon Hill. Napoleon Hill referenced Elsie Lincoln Benedict.

No way!

It's an amazing book. Um, but yeah, if you liked Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, you'll love that one as well. So yeah, it's a great book. And it— what was the biggest thing you took away from that?

If you don't believe that you can do something, you probably can't.

Nice.

And if you believe that you can, you probably will eventually.

Yeah.

But you never will if you don't think that you can.

Love that. That's great. What's the best bit of business advice you've had and why?

Oh, okay. I'm extremely passionate about this one. The number one thing for my business and for me is that I tried to sell a product to a market that wasn't starving. This was before SpeakerReels.

Mm-hmm.

And I don't think that there's anything more important than a starving market for trying to sell whatever you are selling. And if you're not in a starving market and you're really frustrated, Why your business isn't working, that's probably why. If you go to a movie theater, you can sell popcorn for like $14. That same popcorn at Costco is like 30 cents, but people are starving at a movie theater for popcorn. They want it. They expect it. They're gonna spend more than the movie itself in just popcorn.

Yeah.

So Find your starving crowd, find your people who really need what you do. I was a documentary editor that got paid maybe 10% of what I make now. And it's the same skills, same amount of time. But I found a starving crowd because people really, really value having a good speaker reel.

And I think the other thing that you did, which probably you probably do recognize, is that you positioned yourself differently from everyone else in the market.

Yes. Yeah. My positioning is like speaker, real strategist. I don't even put that I'm really an editor.

Yeah.

Even though that's my trade, I'm the speaker, real strategist, an Emmy-winning filmmaker. I'm not an Emmy-winning editor. I'm not an Emmy-winning cinematographer. I'm a filmmaker, even though I got it for editing. I want to be positioned as a filmmaker because then people go, oh, interesting. I want to learn a little bit more. You know, they'll learn that I'm an editor, but like speaker, real strategist, I wear a speaker, real hat. I'm extremely I'm extremely positioned and I've gone all in on speaker reels because I just believe in it.

Yeah.

So find your lane and go all in.

Cool. One last question then. If you can have one mentor and they can be alive or dead, fictional or nonfictional, who would you choose and why?

Oh my gosh, dude, this is crazy question. This is a crazy question.

Just the— normally the first one that pops into your head is the right one for now.

I mean, I hate to get religious, but if like Jesus was like super real, then it's like, yeah, I would like to have a mentor that knows everything. That'd be dope because then they can just tell me everything. But if I were to get more like modern-day thinker, I think that would probably be Tony Robbins.

Cool.

I think that he is a fountain of wealth and knowledge and lives a beautiful life.

And he was actually a proponent of modeling Brilliance. So, uh, it's probably a good, a good choice. Well, that's brilliant. Look, Max, thank you so much for everything that you've shared generously, uh, today. This absolute gold. And I think opening up people's eyes to a different way of looking at their speaker reels and what they can do and, you know, what, you know, how they can leverage them to position themselves in a way that gets them the results that they want. So where's the best place for people to go to find out more about you, maybe work with you, um, even just have a look at your amazing videos, where's the best place for them to go?

Best place to see me and learn more about me is LinkedIn. I post on there every day. I respond to every comment. I am such a LinkedIn fiend and I love it.

Excellent. Excellent. Well, they will find you on there and they can always give you, send you a message if they've got something from this as well. So, thanks so much. Any parting comments that you feel might finish the show in the right way?

Sarah, you are a pleasure. Thank you for asking me questions. This was so fun for me. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you for sharing so much. Really appreciate it. And I look forward to catching up again in the not too distant future.

Yes, anytime.

All right. Take care, Max. Bye-bye.

Bye.

I think one of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that we have to be more strategic and intentional about positioning and packaging our speaker showreel. It's not enough to just throw some footage together of us on stages. We need this asset to tick the boxes of the target buyer and also inspire a bit of the reaction in them that we are promising that we'll deliver for their audience. And as Max shared, you can do that right out of the gate with what you've got, but being mindful along your speaking journey of creating more strategic footage to enhance your reel as you move further along your speaking journey. On that note, I wanted to remind you about the 2-day Stagecraft and Showreel live event I'm running later this year. We'll be working on the delivery of your keynote to get it on point, And then a professional filmmaker and videographer will be coming in to take footage of you on stage so that you have that asset to use in your speaker reel. And as I mentioned, spaces are limited, but if you'd like to work with me to nail your delivery and get that footage, you can save some money by grabbing one of the early bird price spots, and you can have a look at the details and find out more about that over at saraharcher.co.uk/speakerreel. And I really hope this episode with Max has inspired you to rethink, you know, your positioning and your presence or the way you go about putting your showreel together, and if it has, do go and let him know. You'll find him on LinkedIn, he's quite prolific and his content is really, really engaging. It'll give you a really good idea of what he's all about in case you want to to work with him, because in a noisy market, looking bookable really, really matters. And Max has shared some gold on how to do that. Now, before I head off, I want to thank you so much for watching or listening to the show. If you're watching on YouTube, it'd be amazing if you subscribe, uh, and definitely leave a comment. Let us know what you thought about what Max said, anything that I shared. Um, we'd love to hear from you. If you've got any suggestions for other guests, do put that in the comments as well. I'm always open. Or you can go and find me on LinkedIn as well. I'm over there a lot. And if you're listening to the show, then do leave a rating or review and also subscribe. And if you know anyone else that might need a bit of help with their showreel, do share this episode with them. I'm sure it'll give them some more food for thought. So that's all from me until next time. You know what I'm gonna say. In the meantime, go out and 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 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!