EP 523 – Confidently Communicating With Corey Poirier

Foreign this is the no Closer show where you get the latest developments in distressed note investing and learn the secrets of how you can control millions of dollars worth of property for pennies on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives to support you in achieving the same. Now here's your host, CEO of We Close notes Scott Carson.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Note Closer Show. As always, Scott Carson, your host, excited to be here today and really excited and jacked up to have a friend on the show here today that I think is going to add a lot of value to everybody that's listening out there. Or if you're watching this on the YouTube channel or you're listening to one of our multitude of radio stations that were syndicated across the country, we're excited to have you on here. And I think you're going to want to grab a pen and paper or pull out your cell phone as you're listening to this because you're probably get some great tips and advice on counselor for somebody who's the best in the industry. And who am I talking about? I'm talking about my buddy Corey Poirier. As he says, I pronounce his last name better than he does because it's French, but the English pronunciation Poirier I think is how he said it. But what's so great about Corey, Corey is a multiple time TEDx speaker, the founder of Blue Talks and the Speaking program. He's also an award winning keynote speaker and best selling author and he's been featured on television specials, podcasts, radio shows and is a Forbes and entrepreneur columnist. I had the good fortune of meeting him at the New Media Summit. Like we've had some of our other guests on there before and just this guy just has a big heart. And what speaks loudly about it is I've met some of his friends and some of his clients beforehand who have become friends and just seeing how well they do and what they're doing and how they talk and brag on Corey. So without further ado, we are honored to have Corey joining us today. Man well, good morning. Good afternoon, Corey. How's it going?

Oh, it's going fantastic, Scott. And thank you so much for that humbling introduction. It is so appreciated.

Hey, no problem man. When you're good at what you do, you should be have a good presentation. Why don't you share with our audience out there a little bit more who Cory is and kind of how you got into what you're doing.

Yeah, I'm happy to do that. So it's funny, I usually share this these days. I never used to think it was that significant to add, but I grew up in a small town, and I add that now because I didn't realize that was. And maybe this is a good thing. I didn't realize it was meant to be a detriment. But people saying all the time, you grew up in a small little town like me, and I can't believe he was able to do this or this. And maybe that's a benefit that I didn't. I may be ignorant to that. I just thought, what's the difference? Wherever you grew up, you can always. And, you know, the interesting part is, back then, I'm 44. The truth is, though, when I was younger, I mean, as you know, the world wasn't as small as it is now, so it was harder. But my point is, I grew up in a small town, raised by a single mother, also kind of co. Raised by my grandfather, who kind of became a second father to me. My father lived nearby but wasn't active in my life. And so my mother, being a single mother, I got to witness all the things that. All the ways that she struggled, but still carried herself with grace and compassion. And then my grandfather was that grade three education, Carpenter, bag of nails, and a hammer. Word is as strong as his bond. And he taught me a lot of life lessons that I didn't realize at the time I was being taught. So that's a really big part of my backstory and background now. But again, when I was that age and even early in my career, I didn't realize that was a part that should be mentioned. But I guess especially at that time, to make it. Growing up from a small town was maybe a little bit harder. So I. I don't know how deep you want me to go, Scott, but that's the start of my backstory.

Doesn't matter. Wherever you're at, how big or small. I mean, I grew up in a town of 3,500, where if you got in trouble, your parents knew about it.

Faster than you did.

You know what I mean? And so I think it's. And I enjoyed growing up in a small town. Look back at it, it was really a great opportunity because the bigger the cities, the more overlooked you get. I mean, more opportunities. But I think it's. You become a number, whereas a small town, I think if you are active and obviously you have been, it builds those characters to take action when others are just kind of I'm not going to take the opportunities. And I think we realize that if there is an opportunity to grab it because they may not come along as often. Right?

Yeah. And I think we're talking similar sizes too, because when I was growing up here, at least there was 3,000. Now it's considered a city. And I think it's like 10,000 now. Like it's grown. Yeah, it's. I mean, that's. In 30 years, it's tripled in size, 3,000. It was still considered big from some of. There's nearby places that are quite a bit smaller. Hundreds of.

But.

And of course that still means you're growing up in that area. But I think because it was a small town, part of a smaller region, I think it still had that small feel. But you know, one of the things that, like I say, when I started realizing how important it was, one of the things that made that happen was to hear somebody grew up in the same town as me and said, I was just telling my grandson about you the other day as proof that you can make it even if you grew up in our little town, rather than having to move away somewhere else. And now, in fairness, full disclosure, I mean, I moved away, I did all that stuff, found my way back. But I think the big story to me is that I still chose to move back to the small town.

Where's the small town at? For those that are listening.

So I'm in eastern Canada, as I think we've had it before. At least I've shared openly before. I travel 300 days a year. I'm in the US as much as I am in Canada. But I was born in this little tiny town called Summerside, which is in the smallest province of Canada. So it's just small all the way around. It is a gorgeous place in the summer. You're surrounded by beaches every 15 minutes. It's almost like a little island like Hawaii or something. But the catch 22 is we're in Canada. So the other six months of the year, you're trying to dig yourself out of snow and you get cold wind.

Slicing through veins and everything like that too for you. Well, good stuff. How'd you get started? How'd you become a multiple TEDx speaker? Because I think one thing we were talking beforehand is public speaking is what the second biggest fear or biggest fear besides dying, I guess, or whatever. And most people really let that fear kind of. They fixate on it and really keeps them from really going out and accomplishing big things. You want to talk about That a little bit, Corey, and how you got so big into what you're doing.

Yeah, for sure. And actually interesting. The stat, Scott, that I've heard over and over again is it's the number one fear above death. And so the joke, Jerry Seinfeld, is this joke where he says what that means is that the average person, if they were at a funeral and they had the choice they'd rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy. That's how I always resonate with the idea that it's the number one fear is because you'd rather die than do it. I'll say this in terms of how I get into it. I think this is important. And I'll tell you why it's important. I wasn't comfortable speaking on a stage when I started. And I'm saying, like, not only, like, not comfortable, and I video of this, I gotta actually convert it over to. It's on the old camcorder thing, millimeter or whatever. I gotta convert it, though, because I want to start showing it when I say this story because people can see the backup to it. But I was that guy that the first talk I ever did was in school. And I mean, I say talk loosely, but public speaking, the first I did, and I turned shades of color. Like, one guy said, you turned every color except for your own skin color. And that was the first time. And then I got invited to do A Young Entrepreneur. And this will tie into how I get into this. But I got invited to a talk for young entrepreneurs about the difficulties we face. And that's because when I was 19, I launched a newspaper. And so they saw me as a young entrepreneur and said, we want you to tell other kids what it's like. But I had no idea how to prepare a presentation or talk or speak or anything. So I just went in and just kind of talked about stories, but I had no coherency because I was so nervous. So there was no closure to stories. I would jump from one to the other. And I asked people, what was I talking about up there? Because I didn't remember. And one guy said to me, he goes, dude, I don't know what you're talking about, but you were so excited. He said, you sold me. I said, what did I sell you? And he said, I don't know. But I was just excited when I left. And that was obviously a tip about speaking, right? I mean, the fact that my content sucked, really, But I had so much passion that he still bought in. And we can talk about that later. In terms of passion versus content. But the third time, and this is the one, I mean, that I have a video. I actually got tricked into performing stand up comedy and that's how I got into speaking. So this ties into your question too. But basically we got. I was so scared of speaking that I wrote a play for a fringe fest. I was the writer, director. I was really creative. Like, I wanted to do stuff with content, but I didn't want to be in the mix. And I wrote this play. The actor, lead actor, injured his ankle. He actually broke his ankle on the way to one of the shows, like halfway through. It was too late to get a new cast member. A cast member. He continued to do the show. Credit to him, but we need to give him more time to do his costume changes. So I had to write a character, but who else would know all the lines? It was only one person, so I had to write myself apart. I actually came onto the stage for the rest of the play, my back to the audience, wearing a wig and wearing a triple H wrestling T shirt. And I was literally covered in sweat. And only person I could see that were the other actors. So the audience never saw my face. Said to one of the actors, how can I get comfortable with this thing? And he said, I don't know if this will help, but I'm doing a stand up comedy workshop in a week at the university. You want to try? And I said, that sounds horrible. Yeah, let's do it. And I jumped in, did two weeks of that. All we got taught was how to adjust the mics. Then third week, we were told we were going to watch people entertain us. We went to the comedy club. We found out five minutes to showtime, we were in fact, the entertainers. Eight walked out the front door to 15. I stayed, jumped on the stage first, bombed horribly. I actually told the first two jokes so that the mic turned on. Didn't know that, found out, turned the mic on, told the same jokes again, and bombed again. So I said, I'm the only comic I know is bombed with the same material twice in 10 minutes. So that was how I get started. But why I bring this all up is because I have that first night on tape. And anybody watching that show like I'm the deer in the headlights, pale white skin, sweat streaming down. There's no question that I wasn't comfortable on a stage. So for me, I bring this all up, Scott, because a lot of people think you have to be natural as a communicator. And I'm here to tell you I was the furthest thing from natural. And then I moved on to this speaking journey. And, I mean, there's a whole story there. But basically I started teaching a college course in sales. I had to sell them for a year on teaching it, but that was my first time actually in front of an audience other than my comedy stuff. And between the two of those, I started building a comfort. But what I can tell you is I ended up performing 900 shows in comedy over seven years. And I've now spoken over. I would say we haven't looked at the number in a while, but I'm going to guess close to 3,000 times. And what I can tell you is those first two or three years, it wasn't solid. I had evaluation forms, and I would say my average approval rating was about 55%. So just above half would say, we liked your talk. Others would say, you don't belong on a stage, all that kind of stuff. So I bring all this up solely to say it's a learned skill. And that also tells you quite a bit, I think, about my journey as well.

I totally agree. It's definitely a learned skill. And the more you practice it and work your script or whatever you're going to say, the better you're going to get at it. One thing that I love is sometimes you just got to be thrown to the deep end and swim.

Right? My second TEDx talk I did was about that. And if a person listening to this wants to go check that out, or you can go check that out, it's my TEDx talk called crushing your fears and expanding your comfort zone. And it's really about that whole situation. I mean, I tell that. I actually tell the whole comedy story I just told you, but I tell it a lot more fluid, and then I explain that was me stepping outside my comfort zone. Now here, after 5,000 interviews with high achievers, here's what I've learned about how they step outside their comfort zone. And so I take people through that process. But what I can tell you is that it all kind of started there. And then when you ask how I kind of got to where I sort of am today, I really feel it's in those comedy trenches. What I learned, it's on those stages. What I learned that allowed me to eventually secure the first TEDX talk, the second, the third, and even get into interviewing people and get obsessed by that. It all sort of, in my opinion, grew from those early times on the stage. But again, a lot of people, it's getting off their butt and or facing that major fear. But it doesn't start until you take action. And there's ways you can take action so that you can ease your way in. I call it baby stepping your way in. But none of it happens until you start.

Great words of advice there and counsel there from somebody who's knows their craft inside out and doing some good stuff there. I agree there. I mean, one of the things that speak all the time, traveling in my niche and on podcasts, stuff like that, and people ask, I'm like, hey, the only way we got better at this is that we bombed or I screwed up on things. Practice really does make perfect, makes you better. Maybe not perfect, but better in this craft, right, Corey?

Yeah. And you know, there's a Zig Ziglar quote that I love, and I'm probably paraphrasing this at best, but it's along the lines of you don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to become great. And Zig Ziglar's an example that he was the salesman that was starving, that couldn't sell door to door, that ended up becoming, I think, the top three out of a 5,000 salesperson company. How did he do it? He did it by working at his craft. What I will say, Scott, because this is the other question. Somebody would say, well, why bother, you know, if it's the number one fear, if it's such a tough craft. And let's be honest, you can get on a stage and there's, there's always that chance you're gonna have a horrible day on a stage. So people might say, and probably are saying, well, why bother? What I can also tell you on the other end is there's no skill I've discovered that will be more responsible for your long term success than effective communication. And that relies. That ties into closing notes, that ties into selling. It ties into communicating with your family. If you want to sell somebody, your girlfriend or partner or husband and why to go see Star wars with you, you know, those skills, communication skills will serve you. We want to go into a place and get a better seat on a flight. And like we had this happen the other day whereby our son, I mentioned to you off air was, is battling the flu and we're going on a flight and one of the flights, because we had to change everything around. We couldn't get our seats together. We had to basically go and sell them. On why it made more sense for him to sit with his father. And let's be honest, I was in an aisle in somebody else's aisle. To me, that's an easy sell. Because if you were that person, would you rather have this kid away from his father, crying for his father and getting sick on you, or just switch with his father? There's nothing you're giving up, right? So it was an easy sell. But my point is, what if we couldn't communicate? Me, my girlfriend, and obviously my son can't yet, but what if the two of us couldn't communicate? We would just sit there and go, oh, this is going to suck. So there's so many ways that communication serves you that I think it's worth going past the fear. And let's be honest, you don't have to jump on a stage to start conquering a fear of communication. You can start by going to a Toastmasters class and learning how to communicate one on one with your client. But I digress. But I'm passionate about the fact that it's worth the effort, even though there will be fears involved.

Yes, the force is strong with this one, everybody. But that's the thing is you brought Toastmasters. I brought networking groups. Like, I. This morning I was at a networking event and I had a minute and a half to get up and share my message and get it across. The first time I did it a couple weeks ago, I bombed at it because it was something new and I got called on. Suddenly I kind of expected something, but it kind of bombed. But the point where you practice it and practice it and practice it, now you got your elevator pitch down, it's done, and people are like, whoa, you really know your stuff. I want to find out more about what you're sharing. That's the big things. I don't think you always need an hour. You know, you've got sets that are 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes long. That's a typical TEDx is about 20 minutes. Right.

Never more than 18. If you see one more than 18, it's because TED kind of decided. I'm going to use an example, but they decided that they want Brene Brown's 27 million views enough that they might. And I don't think it's a hard, fast rule, but there is within their guidelines, says it can't go over 18. So the answer to your question, yeah, under 18. And one of my three is under five. So they can be pretty short.

That's definitely. What are some tips that you would give somebody out there who's starting? I mean, besides going. What are some things maybe when it comes to their presentation or Their pitch, things that you would tell them to focus on versus I think a lot of people get over analysts, and then they get diarrhea of the mouth. Right. What are some things that you'd recommend?

You know, the biggest first thing that pops into my head is. And actually, I'll say there's a few that I think are necessary, but the first one kind of ties it all together, which is storytelling, learning the craft of becoming a storyteller. And again, this is another misnomer or myth. People think that you have to be born a storyteller. I was a terrible storyteller. And why I'm a type A. I call it in. If you go in the Discworld or, you know, the personality type, I talk color type. So yellow is the social butterfly. That's who I am by nature. And I had to become the reds, I call them, which is the director who gets a little more business focused. But I'm a social person. And so it would not be abnormal for me to start a story and then go whoop and move into another area or start a story and get so caught up and excited that I missed the best points of the story. So I had to learn the craft. Reeling the story in. I told you about the comedy on the stage and bombing. You notice I didn't tell you what color shirt I was wearing, but I would have back in the day. So my point is, I had to learn and comedy. I'm not a natural comedian. I had to learn to write funny. And so my point of this, Scott, is that I think storytelling is crucial, but I also think it's. What happens is a lot of people say, I'm not. I can't tell jokes and I can't tell stories. Trust me. Yes, you can. Toastmasters is a great example where you actually go and learn how to tell a story. It's one of their modules, but you're actually. You get the craft and they guide you and say, okay, here's what you did wrong. Here's what you did right. So first thing I would say is learn to tell stories. And by the way, this relates to sales. This relates to doing Facebook lives. This relates to video one on one communication. If you can pull somebody in with a story and hold them in the palm of your hands, there's nothing quite like that. So I would say learn the craft of storytelling. And how do you get the stories right? Because that's another thing. I'm a big believer in taking notes and journals. I have journals beside me. And you can also do it on your phone, if that's the way you work. But note, if you see something observational that gives you goosebumps, that's a story. Give you a quick, super duper quick example. But I had this gentleman who I brought on my show years ago, and he hosted this show where he told stories on his show. And so then he did a live version of his show, invited me to it. I went there. He asked if any of the audience members had questions. A young little kid, 8 years old, put his hand up and said, yeah, I have a question. Can I come up on stage and interview you? And so the interviewer brought the kid up on stage. They had set up two chairs, and the kid asked two questions. And at the end of the two questions, he put his hand in his pocket and he pulled out two quarters, and he started handing them to Stuart, the guy that hosted the show, and said, stuart, here, I want to give you these. And Stuart said, what's that? And he goes, well, it's two quarters because my parents said, you always need to pay people for the value of their time. And I feel those two questions have to be at least worth 50 cents. And then Stuart grabbed one of the quarters and handed it back to him and said, how about this? And the kid's name was Malachi. How about this, Malachi? We'll each keep one of the quarters, and we'll never forget our night together.

Nice.

So when I witnessed that Scott that gave me goosebumps, I made note of that story. And by the way, I've open talks to that story. And of course, I gave you the very abridged version. As you probably know, as a speaker, when I'm telling the story, I take time to dance with it. But my point is, that story, afterwards, I have people telling me it gave them goosebumps. I've seen people cry because they thought of their children. I've had people say, because one of the things Stuart says in the story is, how many people here would have loved to come up on the stage with me tonight. And they said, you notice the kid's the one that asked, well, guess what? If you don't ask, the answer's always no. This is a lesson for you audience members. And so I have people say to me, wow, that was such a great lesson. I need to teach my child to ask for what they want. And so my point of this is that I. I make no to those stories, and it gave me goosebumps. So I'm like, if it gave me goosebumps, my friend, I Brought with me, gave her goosebumps. And then I heard people whispering beside me and I saw people look at each other, go, oh my, that was so amazing. So all of a sudden you go, that's a story. And all I had to really do now is just tell the story. But because I've been telling stories a long time, I know which parts to leave out. Again, I don't say what color shoes Malachi was wearing. So my point, I guess that was a long tangent to say storytelling crucial. And then beyond that, I would say learn how to emotionally connect, engage. And this, if you're with an audience, if somebody listening to this that wants to start getting in front of audiences, probably one of the most important or best things you can do is ask a question to the audience early on in your talk. Because now you've got them thinking you pulled them in, you've broken away the distraction from their phone so you could start out. And you were at, actually at the New Media Summit. You might remember this, Scott, but my first thing I did was I said, how many people in the room here would love to land a brand of Talk like a TEDx talk? The hands went up in the room and that engaged the audience. You knew. Now they're all listening.

So.

But you can ask if you're doing, if you're across from a client, same idea, ask a question to start things out. Could you say, you know, I know we're talking about this. Have you ever had this happen? You know, and all of a sudden you're getting them talking, thinking. So I would say to leave it at 2 for now. I would say storytelling. First and foremost, learn the power of storytelling. And secondly, find ways to engage. And I think questioning is one of the best ways to do that.

Yeah, I think so. The last thing you want to do is just go into your my name is Scott Carson with we close notes and this is what we talk about. You know, that's the worst thing you see from people out there. You want to ask a question, get people involved, and that's, that's a huge thing because that's the buy in. That's the. Okay. Because let's face it, these are a killer. When you're speaking from stage and you see people on their phone, that's the worst absolute feeling. It's like, hey, man, I'm up here giving some stuff. Let me help you out with that. You know what I mean?

You're right. 100% is the worst. And I guess that. And then the equal worst is if you See someone sleeping. In fact, I'd rather them on their phone than sleeping. At least on the phone, I feel they're taking something in. And that's something I used to pride myself on. And then I thought, it's risky to say that forever. But I said, and I stand by this day. In 17 years of speaking, I haven't. Like I said, my early talks weren't great, but I was still passionate. I haven't yet caught one person sleeping. I've seen people on the phones, but not sleeping. I'm going to knock on wood.

I would agree. I think I will. That's a good thing. I was teaching a workshop one time, and somebody was dozing off, and I walked behind him and pulled the chair out, but caught him on stuff like that. Or you walk up and slam. Everybody start clapping is one thing I've done. Everybody start clapping. And a guy wakes up and starts clapping.

That's almost entertainment for you as well, to watch that person. Like, you know, like, almost like, I heard what's going on. That could happen. That's why I said, I mean, I haven't seen it yet. And. And I'm not even gonna say it hasn't happened. I mean, I'm keeping eye contact with the audience, but you never know if you're missing somebody or they're doing a good job. I've probably seen a couple times where people were starting to. And like you said, I found a way to ask a question to the audience, or I have a question for one of you. Can I point out to one of you? And then that person's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I better look. Could be me. But, yeah, I mean, it's a matter of knowing how to engage and pull the person in. But I think that comes into learning the skill of reading the room. And reading the room can mean knowing your audience. Like, to your point, it could be when you're on the show here, knowing what your audience is looking for, knowing how to ask a question. I'll give you an example of knowing the audience that I learned by mistake. In Canada, there's a person who's really well loved in one part of the country and really hated in another. And so I left him on my screen one time in the wrong part of the country. And so the challenge is somebody said, well, just ignore it. And I'm saying no, because that room now, I could feel that energy shift. And if I ignore it, it's either a. They think this guy doesn't know that he just lost his connection with us. I Think I thought, no, I'm going to embrace it and actually bring it to the surface. And so I actually said, now, here's. I'm going to teach you guys a point about knowing your audience. And then I basically went into a story about the guy and said, and this is true how I left him on the screen one other time, and on my evaluation form, somebody turned over the paper and said the guy's name and said, he sucks. Don't ever put him on the screen again. And, you know, so I made a joke out of it and all that, and they all laughed, and they're like, yeah, he does suck, or whatever. But the point is, he's so loved in the other part of the country, it still makes sense to include him. And now, Scott, sometimes if I'm teaching presentation skills, I'll include them on purpose and wait to feel the energy of the room and work with it. But you need to know how to read the room, because you might not know in that area. You might not know that this is a no, no. So if I felt the change in the room on something, I put on a slide immediately, I would actually ask a question or two. Like, I wouldn't just ignore it. I'd say, there's something changed, and I don't want to lose them for another half hour. So I'm going to find out what that is. In a perfect world, like I said, in this case, I knew what was going on, and so I embraced it. But, yeah, know your room.

That's a funny thing. I was speaking in Philadelphia a few years ago, right before football season was kicking off, and I'm a big Dallas Cowboys fan.

All right.

Of course, Philadelphia is big. Philadelphia Eagles. So I get in front of the audience, and as one of my first rides, I pull up a picture of the Philadelphia Eagles.

I'm like, who's ready for some football?

And everybody's getting excited, and I have white T shirts that are wrapped in rubber bands. I'm like, hey, here's a T shirt.

Throw it out.

And they open up, it's a Dallas Cowboys T shirt. So people were laughing about that. I had three of them throwing back at me, which was kind of funny, but it got the audience kind of cracked up engaged to see what the hell I was gonna say. Cause I was like, hey, this is a good joke. Let's have some fun for 30, 45 minutes, right?

So was that intentional?

Oh, totally intentional.

Okay. When you said, let's have some fun, and I was like, were you recovering? Cause you brought the Wrong shirts or it was intentional. Okay.

What's funny is I went to the Dallas Cowboy store here in town and actually told them what I was doing.

They gave me the T shirts for free. That's good branding for them, right?

It is. It was a good thing. I mean, I think that's the big thing you say before is you want it. You ask a question, you identify your audience, whether it's what their relief, their focus is, and how to get them connected besides the emotional stuff, but also get their brain engaged. That's not always the easiest thing to do sometimes when you're starting off as a new speaker, right?

Yeah. And can I give one piece of advice for people that this is a big one because we're talking about as well, those people that are scared to get on a stage. I feel sometimes the reason people are scared is because they're scared of the unknown. And I feel sometimes that if you can get rid of some of the unknowns or cover for what could happen, that will give you extra confidence. And that's what. Now, what I teach people that have been on stages, they're somewhat comfortable, but they still don't know how to craft it at a world class level or get on the stage in a certain way. And so what I really believe is valuable and powerful is if you want to try things, that is, if you want to insert humor, let's say. And that's a risky area. You know, it's coming from somebody who's performed 900 shows as a comic, I can tell you. And humor gets easier. If you're willing to go the stand up comedy route, it gets much easier to use humor in a corporate audience. After you've done stand up on a stage, if you know how to politically correct the humor, it gets much easier. But most people don't want to go that path to learn humor. So if you're going on a speaking stage and you want to learn humor, there's all kinds of ways you can learn it, like listen to interviews with humorists or read books and all that. But here's what I'll tell you that served me well early on is if you don't know if the joke's going to work, and of course you can test it, and I recommend you test it on friends, test it on a smaller audience. But if you don't know for sure or if you're concerned it may not work, what I always say is have a backup funny within the joke. So, for example, I told you the story about the stand up and I Didn't have the mic turned on. Well, when I deliver that, normally I dance with that story and it has a whole bunch of purposes. I ask the first way I open that is I say, how many people will get on a stand up stage tonight if I get you a gig? So I'm getting, I use that story in five minutes to do a whole bunch of emotional trigger things. But the last part is to say, and the guy calls me over in the corner and hits me in the back of the head, the guy that brought us into this mess, and gives me a smuck and says, you idiot, we don't even have the mic turned on yet. And then that's when the audience realized the reason I wasn't getting last because the mic isn't turned on. But that joke, almost like that bit, it's not really a joke because it's a true story. But that almost always goes over, right? But what if it doesn't? And so I had to plan for what if it doesn't. So the what if it doesn't? And that's where I can add I told the second part is. Then I say, so you're probably wondering what happened after we got the mic turned on. And then that's when I tell the part I just told you about how I then told the material and it bombed again. And then now I'm the only comic I know that's bombed with the same material twice in 10 minutes. So what I did there, Scott, is I had the main laugh. And if I get that main laugh a lot of times, if it's strong enough, I move in because I use it as a metaphor to say, we should have our mic turned on today and keep it in the moment and present. So I use it as a metaphor, but if it doesn't get anything, then I go to the next one to give myself a backup plan. So why do I say this is, I'll even go one step further. I had a client secured her TEDx talk and was getting ready to deliver it and I was coaching her through it and she said, I'm going to ask this question. How many people here have seen Snow White by the time they were 6? And the reason she was asking the question is she had done this survey on Facebook and she found that like 95% of people had seen Snow White before the age of six. And she had done the survey quite a while ago and she wanted to use it as part of her story because she wanted to talk about how what we see in the mirror when we're young is what we think of ourselves. And so I said, this is great, but. And she goes, yeah, when they respond that they had seen it, here's what I'm going to say and say, okay, but Kelly, here's my question. You said, when they respond that they had seen it, you're speaking in front of a university crowd who is half our age. What if they haven't all seen it? In other words, what if you ask that question, three hands go up. Are you prepared for that? She goes, I never thought of that. So here's my point of that. What I would suggest is have a backup plan so what she can do there. All she has to do is switch her way if she responds. So if she asks how many people here have seen Snow White by the time they're sick, if the hands go up like she expects, she can say, it doesn't surprise me because I did a survey on Facebook and here's what I found. But let's say she asked the question and hardly any hands go up. She can say, interesting. It almost surprises me because I did a survey on Facebook. But if she doesn't think of that, then all of a sudden she could be the deer in the headlights going, what do I do? And I saw a perfect example of it on our third Blue Talks day in launching the event, we had a speaker and I never coached her on this. And she asked this question to the audience. She said something like, you know how many people here have found that you struggle every day you do this and that? And the challenge was in the audience, almost everybody was conscious people, speakers, what have you. So they were like, no, I don't speak negative at all. And so she was expecting all the hands go up saying, we speak negative because she was thinking of speaking to any audience. But when you're speaking to an audience of speakers and people who've invested all this in professional development, they may not spend as much time, they may not have. They may have done the work already to get rid of some negative self talk. So she didn't get the answers. And she said, she said, oh, wow. Said not as many as I'd expect. I will tell you normally. And so she recovered and she didn't miss a beat. But that could have crushed somebody. Hopefully that makes sense what I'm getting at. But the thing I would tell people that are nervous about it, if you have a backup plan for what if, then I think you're going to be a lot more comfortable getting on that stage in the first place. And few Speakers have a backup plan. They just go up and practice the speech and then if it doesn't work, they go, oh, what do I do?

Yeah, that makes really good sense. There is. You got to adjust your intro depending on what's going on so that ties in. Lastly, I've had to happen before, ask questions and it was like, oh, wow, I'm speaking to a different audience and I can't use the same tie in. Let me go to something else and pull it out of my ass if I can.

Not everybody's comfortable doing that though, right? So that's why I say if you're not comfortable pulling out of your ass, then go the other route and just have a backup option. And the key thing there is you don't have to use the backup option. Like I said, if I get the thunderous laugh for the mic not turned on, then I don't go to the rest of it. Sometimes I read the audience and go, I got a great laugh. But now I'm going to use it not as a laugh point, but I'm just going to use it to build upon the fact that even after sometimes you take the action, you still don't succeed, you know, or whatever. It depends on what message I feel that audience needs.

Yeah, that totally makes sense there. Now you've helped quite a few people with you being on multiple TEDxS and stuff like that and helping people get on there. What's is there a. Without giving away the golden goose and your secrets, what's some things that you would recommend? Cause I know a lot of people that's on kind of their bucket list. I want to give a TED Talk of some sort. What's kind of the secret to being picked or getting on that list.

So I would say it all comes back to understanding the TEDx. I'm going to say infrastructure. Now, TED and TEDx would tell you there's no system to landing a TEDx talk. But anytime you have a lot of, I'm going to say organizations because it's all separate organized events that all operate under the same mandate, there's going to be little shortcuts, shall we say, or hacks. And so what I'll say is this, I'll say get to know the system. A lot of people, what they do is they go online, they say, oh, here's where you apply to speak. They start typing, they press send, and fingers crossed. Now here's the numbers, Scott, which nobody wants to hear, but if you. And I'm just telling you the numbers just based on Core numbers. But if you go and look at a main large TEDx event, they could have as many as 2000 applications. Now they write this on their website. So I'm not saying stuff that's hidden information. And then you can go to small rural ones where it might be 200 applications. But here's the thing, it's almost never more than 10 spots that they pick. So just think of those numbers. If you have 2,000 applications for 10 spots, that means less than 1% chance. Well, if you just go on and type on their nominate me form, you can expect that you're probably not in that 1%. Now here's another thing. A lot of TEDx organizations have told me they make the decision after the answer to the first question. So what I would say is you need to research what they're looking for in that first question. So how do you do that? So this gets, I'll give you some tips. I go within, obviously teaching people. There's a lot of really high level shortcuts that I have. But just to give you some smaller stuff, one thing you can do for instance, is start attending TEDx event. Because if you're in a, it depends where you're at, but most places have multiple TEDx events near them. So I would go to one. Even if it's the one, you're not going to apply it. Start talking to the organizers, find out what they're looking for. Because you're going to find probably other TEDx organizers are looking for similar. And you might even get conversations with them and say, oh my, I was looking at your application online. Well, that first question is a doozy, you know, and kind of try to drive it. What are you looking for in that first question? And I always feel if you want to know the answer, go to your audience. They'll tell you, right? So research. They'll figure out what they're looking for in those first questions. Sometimes they only have four questions. So think about that. If there's only four questions, then if you just take two seconds to answer, you're not doing a good service because there's a reason there's only four questions. They're looking for really specific answers. That's the first thing. Second thing is in researching it, you need to know what their theme is. Now they won't always tell you what their theme is, but you can kind of get a feel for it based on what their wording is and then look at who they picked last year. So that'll give you a feel for the type of speakers this specific TEDx organization looks at. I mean, because there's a whole backstory to what we're talking about, which is when I say this organization looks at, some people might say, well, where do I even find them? So I'll say the easiest answer to that is go to Ted.com and look under. And I don't remember the exact title because it changes. But basically you're looking for TEDx events. And there's an actual tab where you can look up all the events and you just type in your area. And then what you can do is you can go, okay, do they have websites? You copy and paste that on Google. Because I still think you're better off to go to the local organization's website because that'll tell you more. So what I'm really saying here is do some research. You want to research what type of questions they're asking on their form. You want to find a way to engage with them. So maybe it means, and this is the second part is you find them online, get on their radar, and you go study and watch what they're sharing and watch the things they're putting out. You look at their theme and you say, how am I going to build my title and my description around their theme? So I'll give you an example. My third TEDx talk was. No, sorry, my second one was the comfort zone one. And I want to speak on comfort zone. But the talk, the theme was about nature, something about getting outside or whatever. And you go, well, okay, there's obviously ways within nature you can teach getting outside your comfort zone. But I'm like, no, I want to deliver a certain specific talk. And if you looked at it normally on paper, it wouldn't fit the nature thing. So what did I do? I called it unleashing. And I don't think it was exactly these words because I didn't steal Tony Robbins thing, but it was almost like unleashing the warrior within or something like that. Or unleash your inner warrior, I think is what it was. And so the warrior prior, I think I even when I submitted it, I put a picture of me with like the things to show, like warrior, whatever. And then by the way, what's really cool is after I did the talk, they said, I said, does it have to say that title? And they said, no. And then I get. Because they don't error with the other talks, they are separate. So I was able to get my title changed to what I wanted it in the first place. But my point of that, Scott, you Probably see is I found out what they're looking for and I customized my entire nomination to what they were looking for, but still kept with the core of what I wanted to deliver. I jumped a few different areas there, but hopefully that's making sense in the sense of it's the pre research as we talk about in any kind of sport, it's the pre game. Most people, and I'm going to tell you from experience, most people jump on, type it out, press send and that's where they make the mistake. I think you need to spend 90% on the pre game and then only 10% on the actual game. And I say this knowing that again, your odds are low but the rewards are huge. So if the rewards are huge, isn't it worth maybe a week doing research before you press send?

Yes, that's. I couldn't. It's all about in the preparation, getting it and making sure you're hitting the right spot. Why don't you share a little bit about your company Blue Talks and what you're doing with that and how you're helping people out there.

Yeah, I'm happy to. It's a brand new thing. I mean, I'm going to say it started launching say four months ago. It's still pre launching now to some degree. When I say that, what I mean is we're doing live events but it's ultimately going to be a branded series where we're releasing videos. Exactly what you would see with Gold Cast or TED or what have you. And so we haven't hit that stage yet. So we're kind of like, it's a weird situation. You're in pre launch stage, but you've actually launched as far as the public's concerned because you've announced that you have the events, you have speakers running. What it is, is essentially I had to ask myself, is there room for another branded series? And here's what I came up with is there's really not a lot of them that have really kind of gone nationwide and people are saying to me, I'd like to be able to speak on this and this could be. I want to speak on. I'm just going to use an example, but I want to speak on nlp and I don't know if you know this or not and you know, it's not a negative or positive, but within the guidelines, Ted, there's certain areas that they know that they're not necessarily looking for these type of talk. And a lot of that would be, you know, we were at the new Media Summit, we hear the word woo woo. A lot of, a lot of that would be in the world of woo woo. And so I'm a person that's merged those two worlds. Like, I understand the importance of meditation and I also understand the importance of practical business. So I've always merged those two. So I said, people kept coming to me saying, corey, I'd love to land a Brand to Talk, but I found out I can't talk with this. What do I do? And I just started saying, maybe there's a fit for that not to do. Not to say I want to do what they're not doing, but just to offer something that's not being offered in general. And so here's what Blue Talk stands for. It's Business Life Universe. And so the idea is you can come up on our stage and talk about anything related to the three of those, which encompasses a lot. So you could come and talk about business strategy, you could come up and talk about your life story, you could come up and talk about Reiki or energy healing. And so basically it was a way to offer something I didn't feel was being served in the market. But also, Scott, I wanted it to be a speaker friendly branded series where the speakers walk away with footage they can use at the end of the videos you're going to see when we release them. That it says, here's how you contact our speakers. Like, I want it to be. So speakers and audience are both the number one customer. And the other part is I felt when I would watch a Brand to Talk, there's some that it's a lot of times it's speaker, speaker, speaker. We have that approach. But I wanted it to also be Q and A at the end. So that way the audience feels like I have an hour to ask a question of Corey if I want, rather than just he's on the stage and then gone out of my life forever. And so I really just said I wanted it to be its own unique thing that is actually bringing something to the market that's not currently necessarily being brought to the market. And the last part I'll say about it is what may surprise a lot of people is I'm talking about it now and we're really just getting started, but we'll have done four talks by the end of this year and the next one's at Harvard and then we launch. I've been holding back on saying this, but I'm going to say, depending on when a person's listening to this, the plan is to launch in April of 2020. So they might be listening to it saying, Corey, that was last week. But depending when you're listening to it, we're planning to launch in April of 2020. But here's the really neat part is by then we'll be launching with probably say five to six events under the belt. So let's say probably 50 to 60 speaker videos. But we're also launching the Blue Talks podcast and we're launching a book series all day one. So what I'm getting at, Scott, is I'm going all in.

Oh yeah, you're definitely hitting there remains. But it's kind of that ramp up. You've built yourself a Runway to get to April. Whenever people listen to this, this will probably be out in November 2019. So it's basically four months. But that's a great way to do it. Now, where are those events going to be taking place, those four or five that you're expecting to have done by then?

I can say this, that we're working on now and again, we sometimes in podcasts, interviews, we talk about the present or past. But we're actually working on finalizing the website now. So I will tell because if people are listening now and they're going, well, if it's not available, and I know you'll probably have it in the notes, but bluetalks.com, pretty easy. So that'll be up and running probably by the time this airs. The other side is. It'll list then where we've already been as far as locations. And so far we've been in Western Canada. We did one event there, two in San Diego and then one the next one in Harvard. At Harvard, I should say. And then early in 2020, our planned locations. We're working on this now, but I can tell you the planned locations. One in Toronto, in Canada at a really historic venue. Another one in Vancouver and B.C. and the third one I'm looking at and it's not done yet. I haven't. I'm just reaching out to them now. So I'm speaking and hopefully I don't jinx myself. UCLA is where I'd like to bring one thinking of doing Scott with this. Another thing I didn't share is bringing them to iconic venue. You know, so Lake at Harvard or San Diego. One was at a place called Boulevard Hall. The Western Canada was at Arden Theatre. And so I want them to be at these places that stand out as well. Future might be different, you know, if we have people running Blue Talk for us, we obviously Might release the strings there because there's only so many iconic venues. But if I'm running the events myself, those ones, I want to bring it to places where people go, wow. Not only did I get to see this new thing, but I got to go to Harvard to see it.

Great, Great stuff there. That's bluetalks.com bluetalks.com out there is a great website. I look forward to seeing a schedule. We got to get you something maybe in Austin or something down a little bit. San Diego is not bad. Spend a lot of time in San Diego. But really excited for what you've got going on. Corey, is why we brought you on here.

It's a great opportunity that you're doing.

Hitting a niche or filling a segment that's not being touched by bigger brands. And I think there's plenty of opportunity for speaking out. We got a lot of people have great messages and great discussions and talks. They've got to get out and what a great way to do it is to go out and put some blue in the market there for you.

I love it. I'm starting to say bluesters. I'm starting to call them blues, hopefully as well. Scott, I'm thinking for those listening that, you know, are focused on closing of notes on sales, what have you. Hopefully when we talked about a lot of this stuff, they can see how this still applies. If it's one on one, you know, storytelling still applies one on one. I'm hoping they realize anything I talk about that you do it from a stage, even the backup plan when you're in sales. I believe that you should have a backup for objections. How do you. If you go and get the same objection every day, like I was in sales for going to say, like core sales for probably 12 years, selling photocopiers. And what do you do when a person says your price is too high? So I think you should have a backup plan and an answer for those things. Anyway, just a side note.

No, I think it's totally great because it's important whether people are in note investing or real estate. Oftentimes we're speaking to investors, talking about assets or speaking at investment clubs, talking about case studies or doing. I'm a big proponent of people doing videos and sharing case studies and tell them their stories so that they get it out. Because it is a niche aspect of real estate investing. But it's also a very popular one right now with what's going on in the market and things like that. So that's why I was like, I got to get you on, man. I think you've got some great nuggets to share with everybody, an opportunity because that's the thing is I think the speakers or people speaking, it's the highest paid profession out there, speaking in sales. It all deals in with the voice and how you present yourself and how you're able to hit those answers and tie in with your audience. Whether it's one on one.

We're a big group officer.

I know that all the trials and errors that I've had, even going the stand up route initially, getting my feet wet that way, we've got some similar stories that way. But it's been so beneficial in my life in the last 10 years, specifically as I've been more of a full time speaker doing other things. So that's awesome. COREY what's the best way for people to get a hold of you to find out more information or connect with you?

COREY I'd like to give a couple of I'll call it either value ads or even freebies if you will. And I think that's the best way to learn more about me, but also learn more in general. So I'd love to give away a free copy, a digital copy of my book, the Book of Public Speaking. And that's really easy to remember or even I know it'll be in the show notes probably. But the book of publicspeaking.com so the book of publicspeaking.com, i like to have domains where it explains exactly what you're getting. So that's one option. SCOTT and then the other option is if somebody has been listening to this, who says I'd like to explore this more, I'd like to learn more about what this guy does, maybe even more than a website, what I've decided to start doing and I haven't done this before, it's really new. So you can jump on and get this and I may decide it's too much and not do it in the future. So jump on while I'm doing it is to offer a 15 minute free strategy session with me whereby you'll learn more about what I do. But I'm always a big believer in giving more value than I take. So I'll make sure you leave with something that makes it worth both of our time. And the easiest way to schedule that I feel these days I need to get past the red tape is just to send me an email and my email address. Also, once again, easy to remember is thatspeakerguymail.com thatspeakerguymail.com I know, simple.

Awesome. You don't remember the correct pronunciation of Corey's last name? Thatspeakerguymail.com I love it. It will be in the show notes. It will be live here though and we'll make sure to put in the description on the videos as well for those out there. Corey, I want to say thank you so much. I know that you've got the kids and the family dealing with the flu up there after traveling and you just got home Sunday night from a trip, but I want to say thank you for coming on the Note Closer show. Really delivering some nuggets and we look forward to seeing you speaking at a Blue Talk near you sometime soon.

Right brother? Awesome. The pleasure is all mine, Scott and I look forward to seeing you speak in the future. I've seen you on the New Media Summit stage a couple times communicating, but I can't wait to see you speak live as well. So feelings mutual.

Thanks brother. We'll see you later. All right. All right, guys. Hey, that's going to wrap it up once again. Go out, take advantage, grab Corey's book or reach out to him and get that 50 minute strategy session@thatspeakerguymail.com Corey's got a great big heart and like he says, he loves to give more than he takes. And hey, 15 minutes of time, you'll walk away with lessons he can put to use immediately that will make you a better communicator, a better speaker and a better closer. So go out, take some action guys and we'll see you all at the top, everybody. Bye.

Sa.