Ep. 133 Game Changers 2022

Hey there, Mark Brown. It's 2022. Lots has changed and I think one of the ideas is we all need constant game changers if we're in the business of speaking. If we want to be unforgettable offstage, we gotta get on stage, whether it's live or virtual. So, Mark Brown, let's dive in. For you and me, what have been some of the game changers recently? This year, let's do this.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable presentations podcast with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation. Ahas, let's dive right in.

Hey there, Mark Brown. I didn't even give you a chance to talk at that opening and that's okay.

I get to talk now about game changers. It's fun. You mentioned that. A couple years ago, I realized I had to make one particular change and it was to my website. It was, to use a nice word, it was archaic. And the cool thing is once a year we get together with some really awesome top notch speakers and presenters, literally experts in the field of communication and speaking and all that. And one of our leaders is our business guru. And it is Ford 6 for those who are watching the video in the graphic behind Darren, he is third from the right under the word all. And Ford is literally a business guru. Anybody who follows speaking knows about Les Brown. Ford used to run Les Brown's business and he can teach you how to really make it work. And Ford is not the most soft spoken, easygoing guy in the world. He just slapped me upside the head, give me a Swiss kick in the pants. Say, Mark, you got to get working a functional website, not just a website. And with Ford's advice, I sought out initially a friend of a friend who does websites. No, that did not work. I had to consult a professional web developer who specializes in speaker websites. I got with them and put together a more functional website. And a funny thing happened. Darren, you know Ford at stage time doing a business mastery calls. And even in our live events, he'll do hot seats. He'll say, let's see your Facebook page, let's see your YouTube page, let's see your website. And Ford gave me a hot seat on my website. He said, mark, pretty good stuff. Here. Now, how do people contact you? What is the contact page? Great. Can they call you? I don't think so. Well, why not? Well, I got my personal phone number. I don't want all these calls coming in. I got a thousand Facebook requests. People are going to call me. He says, well, if they can't call you, how can they ask you a question? And I said, I'm Ralph crammed in from the Honeymooners. He says, listen, a simple solution is this. Get a Google phone number and assign that to your business. I was like, duh, why didn't I think of that? So now I have a Google phone number assigned for business. But wait, he says, there's more. Put it on your website. Cool. Wait, not on your contact page. He says, put your email address and your business phone on the homepage at the top. Anybody can call you right away. And it was a game changer for me because now when that particular line rings, I know it's about business, it's not personal, and I know how to. I can now streamline my contacts from business calls to personal calls. One simple game changer on top of the website. My goodness, how transformational. That was one piece of how the website served me well.

Yeah. Mark, let me ask you a question, because I think when people are listening to this, usually we're talking about the onstage part, but this is critical. Like, we gotta get on stage. But Mark, bring me to the moment where you made the decision. I need Ford's help.

Well, first of all, I had a website, but I didn't face the fact it was archaic, it was old fashioned, it was not functional for what I wanted to accomplish. And I'm so thankful for Ford and his hot seat approach because he's helping not only me, but our stagetime family worldwide to. To look at their websites differently. To ask the question, is it functional? I had to face the truth. It was not serving me well and I needed help. So trust me, if you're a presenter right now and you have a nice website and nothing wrong with wix, you can build your own website. But ask yourself, is it functioning in the way I want it to? And part of what? Part of my process was to go look at other websites. And I couldn't afford the 25,000 sites that Ford creates. But he said, within your budget, you can be functional without spending all the money in the world and going into debt for it. And that for me, that mindset was also a game changer. And I thank Ford Sakes tremendously for doing that. And of course, he said, hey, do me a favor, give me a video review on Google. I said, sure, but the idea is I did not realize how much I was leaving on the table, leaving behind by not having a. Here's a keyword. Not having a functional website. Your website may be there, but it is not serving you. So ask yourself, is my website serving me in the way I intend it to? If the answer is no, you might need some help. And of course, Ford Sakes was a great help to me. And I got with cynthia lay@speakerwebsites.com and she helped me tremendously also to put it in place where it was now functional and serving me. And that was only the beginning. Darren.

Yeah, I think a lot of presenters, they want to play in the big dance, they want the high fees, but they don't realize that you don't have to invest $25,000. If you have it, great. If you don't, what can you do? What can you learn? And I encourage you, if you're listening to this, sit down with one of your friends on Zoom, have them pull up your website and shut up. Like, tell them to tell you what they're thinking. What you did is you also automated it. So, Mark, I know you've had a moment or two where now you wake up in the morning and you have coaching clients and they already picked the time and date on your calendar because you've now automated the process. Tell us about that game changer.

Oh, man, I cannot tell you the automation piece. Where do I begin? Okay, I realized that through Ed Tate, who was on the right of that graphic behind Darren. For those who are watching the video, Ed's on the far right. Ed talked to me about using a calendar program and automating my process for booking coaching clients. When Covid hit, I was doing less speaking and I went more into coaching and I would have a PayPal account. And I had them go to PayPal and pay me there. And they let me know and we would coordinate our calls. And my clients are calling from Barcelona, Spain and Milan, Italy and India. And with Ed's advice, I researched. I chose to go with Calendly, which allows me to book and schedule. I had to do all the back end setting up, but it's automated now. It integrates with Zoom and my calendar. It also integrates with my payment method. I told you before I was using PayPal, but some bald guy in Vegas recommended I use program called Stripe. Darren was the one who got me. See these people on that picture? These people are the ones I count on to help me to make my business right. So Darren says, integrate Stripe, Stripe, Zoom, Calendly, my Google email, all coordinate so I can literally wake up in the morning, it could be two in the morning and I'll say, okay, what's going on today? And I look at my phone and I find out, oh, somebody has just bought a coaching program with me now. They did. My email says they logged on at 2:17am My time because they're in Nairobi, Kenya. But I see the calendar event, my calendar says, you got this client on this day, at this time. And in the email that I get, it tells me, tell me who they are, what they want, why they're going to meet with me and they're told to send me a video or send me a script. It's all automated while I'm asleep. And the cool part is when Stripe says you've got money in the account. That was done while I was sleeping. And I still get to serve my clients effectively. And this Monday I had clients coming in from India, from Egypt, two from Japan, one from Canada. I don't know what time it was there for them. But the cool part is that Edte taught me this. He'll work with you during your business hours. And it's so wonderful to not have to go tracking things like Darren, you said with your calendar program you were trying to coordinate when to meet with somebody and they put the money in it. Kind of difficult, but I realized thanks to Ford Sakes and to Ed Tate, simplify your life but still serve your clients in the best way possible. For me, that automation part was a massive game changer. Massive 1.

Caution on websites, if you're an emerging presenter, consider this. People who are friends who have web design experience maybe limited, maybe they're just new friends, are easy to hire, hard to fire, easy to hire, hard to fire. You lose relationships. But if you don't have somebody who knows what they're doing for our business, for getting clients, not just the website, but the marketing side. So Mark, you had a website, but you didn't necessarily have one that led people with a clear call to action. Like you had said when you and I were doing the Facebook Live earlier that Ford asked you about, your phone number wasn't even on the contact page. And now he's like, dude, that needs to be on the front page. Nevermind the contact page. And so even though maybe someone listening to this, maybe you can't afford Ford Sakes to build a $25,000 website for you, if you can call him primeconcepts.com and if not, you can still tap in and learn from him. So we got some experts coming in. In fact, Chris west is Ford's video guy. So Ford builds websites, but he hires a demo video guy, Chris west, who we're having at our event, Game Changers, coming up soon. Real soon. By the time you listen to this, we're bringing him in because he is one of the team that we do business with. We bring in people for Game Changers, the people we do business with. Why? Because we know them, we trust them, we know they do good work, we know they help you. So we only bring in and we only do business with people that we do business with. So Chris west is coming in and he's going to do a program. Mark, on the first day, I don't even think you know this about the habits of successful speakers. What did they start their day with? What are the first things they do in the morning? I want to know that.

As do I.

Maybe there's a habit or two I need to change. And then on the second day, he's going to talk about demo video. So if you can't afford hiring Chris west, you can still tap in where you're at, at the level you're at, with the budget, you have to, the wisdom to be able to create that demo video that is compelling enough to get you hired. I love when we do these events, I take notes. I know Ed Tate takes more notes than anyone, but we do this only once a year. We bring the whole faculty in. And what's new this year, what worked two years ago doesn't work anymore. So it's not just Game Changers. It's the Game changers now. Like Mark, you learned from Ford. I think it was at last Game Changers when you guys first started really getting serious about talking. Right?

You mean with. About.

For looking at your website?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Ford was. Ford was like, get it freaking done. You know? You know, Ford can be right. And he, but he was, he pushed me because he knew I needed it.

And you had the value already. You just weren't presenting it exactly the right way.

And you also mentioned that the, the video piece, the demo video. And I'm going to confess something publicly now to our listeners all over the world that I had tried to prepare my own demo video by calling from videos I had put together and create my own, you know, five minute demo video. And it was okay for people to see what I did, but it wasn't the kind of video that was at a level that is commensurate or equal to the quality of work I try to provide to all my clients. So here's the cool thing. There is someone else at Game changers this year, 2022, who has been here before, Jennifer Joseph Leer, who has run a speaker's bureau. And she said, listen, if you want to be booked. And she's wonderful. Long hair on the picture for those who are watching this on YouTube. And she said, listen, if you want to be get people's attention, get a demo video, but put it together. We want to see you in action. We want to know who you are are not just what a credential may be on a piece of paper. One sheets are nice, but people want to see what are you like on stage, how can you interact Fine. And I. And the thing is she was gracious enough to actually help me to find the right clips, to condense them and to create the right kind of video. And she gets paid very, very well to do this. But to partner with her was so helpful for me. So I put a video together and of course back to what Ford Sake said. Where's my demo video now? It's on the homepage of my website. So somebody says to me, hey Mark, can I see what you do? Is there a video? Yeah, go to my site on the homepage. Oh, wow. It's amazing. As a matter of fact, someone gave me a fairly cold prospect about a week and a half ago, two weeks ago, and I reached out to them on LinkedIn. I hear you have an event coming up. I would love to serve you. Well, yeah, well, great. Can I see a video? Hit my website, go see that. They send me a message back. That was amazing. Can we talk next week? So I'm in the pipeline now with the potential engagement because somebody saw a demo video that I was inspired to do and helped by Jennifer Totiflair and I was kind of pushed to do, thankfully by Ford Sakes and to see how this team we talk about helps us to do what we do better. When we say game changers, the advice, the simple advice but these experts gave me have been for me significant game changers. What's going to be a game changer for you?

Well, for me, it's been the guy all the way on the this side, the left. I don't even know which way it's showing up online. But anyway, Henry Devries, I have known Henry. We've had Henry speak at our events before. He sponsored our events and I always had in the back of my mind. And then last year I said, you know what? I need to. I need to write a book. I need to write two books in fact. One with you and Patricia Fripp and one a motivational, inspirational one. 17 Minutes to youo Dream. But here was the challenge I had. I couldn't bear to take on another project and be the project manager of something else. I had enough with my own running stagetime University, running our events, updating our events, teaching our events, and my own keynote, my new keynote demo, just like you said, having Jennifer look at it, look, come to Game Changers just, just to hear what she has to say. And you can join us live or virtual, just go to stagetimelive.com but she advised both Mark and me on our demo videos. But Henry, I thought about what he does and how he does it. I like him, I trust him. Smart dude and he's a book guy. And I love Henry. If you look at him, if you meet him in person, you're like, yeah, he's a book guy. And that's who I want managing that project. My head would explode if I had to manage another project. And I love this. It's a book that Ed Tate recommended and the title of the book alone was A Game Changer. For me, it's who not how, who not how. I have one self published book or actually two self published book that did years ago. The Speaker's Edge and my original one Laugh and Get Rich. And I realize how much effort it is to self publish a book. Look, if you want to do that, there's nothing wrong with that. But it's a project and you got to manage it. Here I can hand it over to Henry. Him and his team, they know what they're doing. I don't have to learn how to have the page count right and the.

Chicago style of editing and all of that.

I don't want that. So I have to do my work. I have to write the book, I have to go over the edits, you know, going through the galleys. I've been through my own book three times. And Mark, when I was reading my book I was like, this is actually pretty good.

There you go.

But they are the project manager so I can do my part and hand it back to them and then I can go back and focus on what I'm doing. I love that. So hiring Henry was a game changer for me. He's going to be talking about writing the right book, the right book to help market yourself. So I have mine 17 minutes to youo Dream for my motivational, my new keynote. Because I want to get back to where my heart is and then deliver unforgettable presentation with you and Fripp. That's still my brand. It's still Stagetime University. It's still this podcast that you're listening. But we really don't have a book that really shows people how to deliver, create and deliver an unforgettable presentation. So Henry is the guy that Mark and I and Patricia Fripp go to. Well, we're having him at the event again. We just bring in the people that we work with so you can tap into it. Like, hey, you can find other people, but now you've got to vet them. We vetted all the people we work with. Are they perfect? No, but we trust them. They do quality work and they've been doing it for years. So, look, I'm going to invite you 12 times on this podcast to join us for stage time. But Mark and I are telling you, what are the game changes for us now? The speaking industry is changing so much, so rapidly. Talking to Jennifer Lear as the speaker agent, she's like, now there is in the contract, if we have to go to virtual. A couple years ago, that wasn't even in the contract. That that's the backup option and you have to do it virtually. So demo videos now have to have a hint that they can see that you have a studio and you can do it from home if necessary. Just a hint, just like, prove it. Okay, you got this. You get a nice studio, your sound quality is good. Boom, done. At the beginning of the pandemic, it was 80%. We had to know that you could do that because that's the only way they have a meeting. That's what I mean by things are changing. So it isn't just Game Changers 2022, it's Game Changers what's working now? What are the adjustments? The people who operate at the highest level, what are they doing now and why? And that's why I love this event. I love attending it as much as putting it together. Mark.

Well, Darren, one thing you said just now really began to resonate, and I hope everyone catches this. Yes, Ford said get a website, but get a functional website. Darren, you said get a good demo video. But now a good demo video proves to the buyer that you can do virtual as well and that you can do hybrid. That's really important now. Two years ago, anymore video didn't think about having virtual on it, but now you can not have it because it has to prove to the audience to buy it. You can serve them live in person or you can serve as effectively if you're doing a virtual presentation. That's also a subtle but significant game changer. If you already have your demo video and it was freshly done and there's nothing there for virtual, you might want to consider adjusting it, modifying it to broaden your appeal and offering to a wider audience because now some are still going virtual. And please also note the addition to the agreement Darren says, where the contract says in case we have to switch from live to virtual, we will do it and you will serve them. Matter of fact, Darren had a program in November live in another state and they were prepared for the full live event, but just in case it went virtual, they were still going to do it and that was also in my agreement with them. So these are minor but significant game changers yet to be aware of. Because I don't think we're going to go back, Darren. We're simply going to plow ahead, move forward and show them what we can. Bob and weave and swerve and negotiate the minefield that is now the world of speaking. But these simple game changers can be very, very effective and they can transform the way you do business. You could flatline or you could simply exponentially increase your value. If you understand the power of these game changers and implement them effectively to serve your audiences.

Yeah, you want to stay on the pulse of what's happening in the industry, join us for this event live or virtual. Stay on the pulse. What do game changers do when the game changes? What the game changers do when the game changes and mark a potential game changer. I can't prove it's been a game changer yet, but I've been spending a lot of time investing a lot of time on TikTok. I think of Ford. I don't know if Ford originated this, but I've heard him say it. But fish where the fish are. Fish where the fish are. And I just kept hearing TikTok, TikTok, TikTok. And I hear it on late night shows. I'm like, this is becoming a mainstream thing. And it probably has for years. It just wasn't on my radar screen. And I thought about it. I was like, it's video. I have so much content on video already. It's fun. The clips are short, Mark. Some of mine are 7 seconds and they have like 1500. It's crazy, but short, I guess.

Yeah.

And here's the key fish with a Fish are more and more people are talking about. And on TikTok now, I'm not saying Facebook is going away. I still kind of keep my foot in the water over there, but I'm experimenting with a potential game changer with my content on TikTok now. Started from nothing a few months ago. I have like 492 followers now. That's not, that's not huge at this point, but I'm gonna consistently do it and it's fun. So it's a little bit of time, no financial investment, but a little bit of investment in my time and going back first, I'm repurposing. You know, that's one of the things we've always taught. Repackage, repurpose, repackage, repurpose the content that you already have. So I can't tell you it's a game changer yet, but it's a potential game changer and I'm dabbling in that. Look, there's so much that's happening in the speaking world. If you want to be unforgettable, remember, you got to get on stage to become unforgettable, to have the potential to be unforgettable. Mark, any final thoughts?

I'll say this. We really don't know what our game changers may be. You may get a little nugget from today's podcast or having a competition in some way, or you'll come to Game Changers and walk away with, wow, I had no idea I could do this small tweak or try something this way, or maybe go back to an old idea with a new perspective and that could be a game changer for me. Either way, for us all to increase our level of influence, we need to apply some of these game changers. I encourage you, if you're hearing it before March 18th and 19th, join us in Vegas. It could be live or virtual for the Game Changers event because these game changers will help you and I go from good to great to unforgettable.

So join us at Stagetime Live. At least go check it out. StagetimeLive.com would love to have you join us. If you like our podcast. If you get something from our podcast, please, please, please pass it on. You know we do this for free, right? There's no charge for a podcast, but we love what we do and it also is the bridge to spending more time with us. Come into our events. Join stagetime University if you want to get some coaching from us. But you can check out stagetime workshops that shows you the schedule for the year. Whenever you listen to this, the current schedule is always up on stagetimeworkshops.com but really would love to have you join us for Game Changers. We have fun. We tap into what's working now. I know Ford is doing a program on how to monetize and build a seven figure business. Ed Tate is going to be about finding, closing and keeping more coaching clients. Kevin's going to be covering how to be authentic. Once you can fake that, you can do anything. Mark, what are you going to be talking about?

Yeah, your story staircase. We have a tool called a story builder. I'll teach you how to use that tool. Really build on your story to create an experience for the audience, not just one more story that they hear. Because I believe you don't tell a story, you give an experience. I'll teach you how to do that.

So thanks for joining us for this episode. Thanks for letting us tell you what we're doing now. What are the game changers now? We hope you join us at the event. We love what we get to do. We love this podcast. It was so cool to be nominated or find out. We had the best presentation podcast of 2021. Hopefully that's staying there in 2022. We're now in the top 100 of all how to podcasts on Apple.

Yay.

And I hope you know obviously we're promoting our event. Look, we're promoting our event. We hope you join us, but mostly we want to help you become unforgettable.

Unforgettable.

See you next week.

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