Ep. 167 Unforgettable Connections With Thom Singer

Hey there, Mark Brown. I think one of the ideas that people forget about and I honestly poo pooed early in my speaking career is about connections and relationships. I just thought, relationship marketing, I don't have time for that. Just how do I market myself? How do I get my name out there? And this guy that we're about to have, CSP Tom Singer, like, he is just the epitome of relationships and creating connections, and he's got some unforgettable stories.

Well, I haven't had a chance to talk with him much myself, but I am so eager to hear about connections and relationships from Tom Singer. Let's do this. Darren.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the unforgettable presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers 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 Grohn. And when I go back and look at some of the successes I did have, all of them were about connections, Mark.

And today we're going to meet the master of connection, csp Tom Singer. Tom, how are you, sir?

Hey. Hey, Mark. Hey, Darren. Good to be here.

Hey, thanks for being here, man. You do this right and you talk about it and you have unforgettable stories, and I got choked up watching your TED talk. You belong here.

So many ands, right, Tom? Yeah. I mean, brother, knowing a little about you, but seeing the way not only you talk about connections, but the way you actually connect with people is really a sight to behold. And, you know, for our listeners and viewers, it's important to understand that an unforgettable presentation isn't just the words you deliver, it's also how you connect with people. We've been talking about it for a long time, and I'm curious to know when you got started speaking. How did you land in the area of connection?

So my background was in sales and marketing. Right. I worked for law firms, banks, and consulting firms in this role of sort of a hybrid marketing and business development sales role. And I worked for a couple of companies that either went out of business entirely or they closed their office in Austin, Texas. And every time it happened, and it actually sadly happened several times, it was never my fault, but every time it happened, I was offered a new job within about two weeks. And I barely had made an outbound call. People would call me and say, hey, you're available. We want to create a position inside our company. Would you be interested in doing that? In one case, a company that I had been kind of engaged with as like just networking partners, they offered to hire me part time for six months while I looked for a job just to thank me for the work that I had done. And the truth is, who does that, right? So my friend started saying, you're the only person I know who gets laid off up because I would get better opportunities. I was working for a law firm and the managing partner said, you're really good at being connected in the community. He said, I'd like you to create a class for the lawyers on how to network. And I literally thought, oh my God, they're going to hate this. And at the end of the 90 minute presentations, one of the partners, a guy named Ronnie, raised his hand and he goes, I have a complaint. And I remember thinking I'd only worked there a month. I thought, oh my gosh, this is how we do it in the law firm. In front of the whole office. He goes, this was the best training I've ever been to in 15 years as a lawyer for non legal skills, for soft skills. And he said, but it shouldn't have been one class for 90 minutes. You should be doing this quarterly for all the lawyers all over the country in our firm. And that's how it started as I started training the lawyers on how to network, how to get involved in the community, how to collaborate. And then the lawyers started giving me to their clients to speak to their teams. And the, the rest led to, hey, maybe this could be a career.

Wow. I thought of the old commercial, they'll tell their friends and then they'll tell their friends and they'll tell their friends. So it started with just giving one presentation. And he thought, ah, this could be a career. Not everyone starts in that way, but your whole career started with connections, which I find really interesting. Darren.

Yeah, so so many questions. And by the way, Mark and I are taking notes. We're jotting down. Yeah, we're going to recap it at the end. So, Tom, I want to dive right in because there's so many things and I don't want to miss it. And one of the things that you do, you have this powerful story about your daughter Kate. And if you could just give us some of the backstory on that or tell us a little bit about that story. If you're listening to this you can look up Tom's TEDx talk and talking about the art of giving small. But his story, I get choked up. I was doing my research and prepared and I got choked up and little bit of tears. But you tell that drama, traumatic story so well, trauma can happen in somebody's life, but actually telling it in a way that serves the audience and serves your message. Tell us a little bit about what happened and then a little bit about how you crafted that unforgettable story.

So my second daughter, Kate, was born with a condition where the bones in her head had fused together in the womb. And this should have actually been identified and diagnosed via sonogram. And it wasn't when she was born, it should have been diagnosed. Your head, when you're born, is five free floating plates. It doesn't become a solid skull until you're about 13 or 15 years old. And that helps you be born so it can be flexible. It also allows you to grow because your head will more than double, triple in size from the time you're a baby till you're an adult and the brain grows and pushes out. But in Kate's case, it was as if someone had soldered it shut from the soft spot in the front to the soft spot in the back. So her head could never grow from side to side. It could only grow front to back. And they misdiagnosed it. They just missed it. And her head was a little bit shaped more like a watermelon than a cantaloupe. And we kept asking about this, you know, and if you have children, you know that they're always measuring their heads the first year. And the doctor kept saying, heads are funny. I remember at one point he said, go to the mall and look around. Everybody has different shaped heads. And I thought, wow, there's a fun game. But when she was four and a half months old, the doctor finally said, you know, there is this thing where the bones could fuse, but 80% of the time it happens, it happens to boys and it's very rare. So he didn't think this is what it was, but we were concerned and he said, let's do a CAT scan and, and find out. And sure enough, the CAT scan came back positive for this thing called sagittal synestosis. And it was the what, what? Right down, right down the center of her head. It's, it looked on the CAT scan exactly like someone had soldered it shut. So her head, she was going to have an elephant man like deformity because her head would more than double in size over the next, you know, decade. But it never could grow side to side. And they gave us two choices. And this was, she was almost six months old at this point. And they said, you can do nothing and raise a kid with a socially limiting handicap, maybe some brain damage from the pressure that's created inside the skull because it can't expand. The nickname they said on the, on the playground would be hatchet head because her head from the side would, would look like, like a hatchet. And it's hard enough to be a kid. You don't want your nickname. You don't want your nickname to be hatchet head. But the other choice they gave us was by the time she was six months old, and this was only a few weeks out, by the time she was six months old, they could remove the entire cap of her skull, allowing the brain to grow. And they said that if we do it before six months old, the bones probably should grow back together normally. Now, what part of that isn't really reassuring?

The keyword probably.

Yeah, probably really, really didn't do it for us. But my wife and I had a lot of conversations about both options. And we realized that when Kate was 20 years old, even though there were risks with the surgery and there was about a 10% chance of something pretty serious to catastrophic if we had not taken that risk, which was a big risk, but it wasn't, you know, 90% risk, it was a small chance something could go wrong. What would 20 year old Kate say to us at that point if she had been teased throughout her whole life, if she had this deformity?

Ouch.

And so we opted that we had to do the surgery. We started interviewing doctors the city we live in didn't have at the time. We do now a state of the art children's hospital with the best doctors in the world. So, you know, my wife would get on airplanes every couple days and take Kate to see another doctor. And then one night at about 2 in the morning, the phone rang and I answered it and it was somebody in my network and, you know, not necessarily a 2 in the morning kind of phone call person. And they identified themselves. And I was like, yeah. And they said, I just, I just got off the phone with my first cousin and I'm like, and yeah, turns out their first cousin was one of the top three or four pediatric neurosurgeons in the world. And you couldn't get in to see him for months. And because we were diagnosed so late, we had tried to reach this doctor, and it was Never an option. And he said, no, he wants to talk to you tomorrow. So, you know, to shorten a very long story, a couple days later, my wife flew to San Diego, spent the day with this doctor and his partner, who was a pediatric plastic surgeon. She called me and said, get Jackie, our older daughter, and get out to San Diego. He's the first doctor to show any urgency. They want to do the surgery on Friday. And it was a new type of surgery the doctor had, was pioneering a way to be less invasive in the surgery that instead of opening up the whole scalp, they would go in through little cuts and take the bones out so there'd be less swelling, less time in the hospital. But they'd only done the new surgery 13 times. So it was a little bit nerve wracking, but we decided it was the right place to be. Through that connection, we got in to see one of the best people in the world pioneering this surgery. And that Friday afternoon, we handed Kate over to the doctors and they called my cell phone three hours later and they said the words that we'll never forget. And that was, kate is gonna be fabulous. And Today Kate is 20 years old. She was a straight A student in high school. She's a junior at Dartmouth College, and she is. She's an ecology major. She's looking to make changes to save the planet and the world. She had a very normal life. Her head looked more like a cantaloupe than a watermelon. The bones did grow back over that first year. So it was a remarkable thing. But that story, in my TED Talk, I talk about how we created a giving plan that we tied to my speaking business to be able to give to charity for research for kids born with craniofacial abnormalities. In my regular, in my keynote that I do for corporations, I tell that story as an example that the reason we connect with people and that we build human connections and that we network, for lack of a better term, isn't just so you're going to get the next sale. It's because all opportunities in life and all solutions to problems really can come from people. And so you want to be connected with the right people. And that story was something that at first I didn't tell it because I thought, well, this is Kate's life. It's not my place to tell that story. But as I started to tell it, as Kate got older, we realized as a family that that was a story that had to be told. And a little sideline. More than once, we've received calls from people who had seen me speak five years earlier, who had tracked us down, who had a baby born with a similar condition, and wanting to know how to find the right doctors, whether it was our doctor or somebody else. I'm a big believer that if you put things out into the universe, you're going to be able to help and serve other people. And so, you know, the story has been a great story to talk about why people matter and your relationships matter, but it's also, I believe, helped some people.

And real quick, you didn't point out that Kate, at 15, did her TEDx talk as well. Right, Kate.

Kate is. She's a big personality. Kate is awesome. Kate did a ted talk at 15 years old called called Go youo Own Way. Because as a teenager, Kate didn't listen to us or her teachers. She figured out her own plans of what she wants to do in the world and decided that that was a message worth sharing at a TEDx youth conference.

Wow. And so when you first started crafting that story, I know we just kind of put you on the spot. You weren't on stage telling it the way you tell it. But when you first started crafting it, did you make any mistakes along the way or what were your thoughts when you were putting it together? What do I say? What don't I say? Because I'm sure there's so much more to the story that you didn't tell.

Yeah. I mean, the first time I ever told the story on stage, I didn't intend to tell it. So I was speaking for a company that a friend of mine owned, and we were talking about that you never know where business relationships are going to have an impact on your life. And I had some other examples that were more generic and maybe not even my examples. And my friend who was in the front row mouthed, like, Kate's doctor or something to that effect. And I nodded and proceeded to tell the story.

Wow.

And it was very raw. I got emotional. Kate was probably 5 years old at the time, so this is probably 15 years ago. I hadn't told the story very publicly like that. And I got teared up. The audience got teared up. And as I told the story, nobody really knew where it was going. It just got heavier and heavier. And handing the doctors this baby at 6 months old, that there could be problem. And I realized early on that when I tell the story, I now tell it as I start, I stop, and I kind of break character. I look at the audience and say, before I tell you the story, I want you to know Today, Kate is fabulous.

Hmm.

And then I go back into the story because it can be very emotional. I told it one time early on, before I learned to prep it, and a woman in the front row who was an executive at the company I was speaking to started crying and left the room.

Oh, wow.

And she came up to me later, and I said, I am so sorry. And she said, no. She goes, I had a miscarriage last year, and I haven't dealt with it very well. She goes, and you just touched a nerve. She goes, but that was good for me. But I realized that I can't drop that level of a bomb without some sort of previous stuff. So that's one of the things. And part of it also was when you tell a story on stage, you don't have to put every piece of it in. There's so many parts of what we went through in that time and what Kate went through, and you just had to streamline that story.

And one of the things that I loved, too, is when you gave the TEDx talk, you also talked about how she had to wear a special helmet when she was an infant after the surgery in order to help form her head the proper way. I remember that's one of the reasons when I started getting choked up. And then later, you show a picture of her in her teens, late teens, and the audience actually cheers, which is amazing. Like, how cool is that? You show an image, and they're like, oh.

And I do that in my standard keynote, where I'm just talking about the connection to the doctor through my network. When I get to the point where I say, they called and said Kate is going to be fabulous, I again, break. I looked at the audience, I smile and I go, and Kate is fabulous. And I start listing all of her accomplishments. You know, that she's in the Ivy League, this and that, and pictures of her come up on my PowerPoint. And oftentimes the audience will have that same reaction because, you know, it's. It's emotion. But that's what being a speaker is, right? If we. If we touch the emotion of the audience, then we can take them to take action. We can get them to remember. And that's the thing about stories, is ancient man didn't pass out spreadsheets or pie charts. Ancient man told stories that were relatable. And when our emotions, you know, they've done studies of the brain, we react to story more than we do stats and figures and pie charts. And so by having the emotional piece of that, really be something that resonates with people. It not only makes the message drive in harder, but it also, it also makes, you know, you as a speaker, you know, memorable, because that's how people have found me who've had issues years later is they'll, they'll call the company who had brought me in and they'll say, who was the speaker three years ago? Who had the daughter with the head thing? They don't remember my name. I was, I was getting on an airplane once and I'm putting my, my baggage in the overhead bin and a person said to me, are you a professional speaker? And I said, yeah. And he turns to his wife and goes, this is the guy I always talk about. And his wife said, he's had a successful career in sales because he's all about relationships. And then his wife said, how's Kate doing today? She wasn't in the audience, but she knew the story of Kate because her husband had shared it so many times.

Now, real quickly, I'm going to cut Darren off because I always tell our clients that you never know the impact of your story on someone in your audience. And sometimes it's a third, it's a second step. In this particular case, you mentioned the power of the picture of your daughter with the head apparatus. You know what came to my mind? This is gonna sound kind of weird, but what came to my mind was a picture of a kid with a club foot having an apparatus on his ankle when he was very, very young. Kid named Darren Lacroix. And you showed that picture, Darren, of your story. And I connected what Tom just said to my memory of you and your story. And the point to our viewers and listeners is this. You never know. Not only the first person impact, but the second person impact of your story. Much like a man on a plane whose wife asked about your daughter by name, even though she has never met you. Friends, your stories can be so powerful. And as Tom says, they'll make you memorable. Wow, wow, wow, Darren.

And from this story tomorrow, the doctor that you got connected with, what is the takeaway message for the connection part? The fact that you created the connection and ended up finding that doctor, what is the main point that you make from this?

Well, the point is that when you network and you build relationships in business, that it's not just about business. Sometimes we forget when we go to a business conference that everybody there is all business 100% of the time, 24 7. But we're not, right? I mean, you can't silo out people. We all bring the good stuff in our life. And the bad stuff in our life, and the truth is, is that we all have that. The good stuff. Somebody got promoted. They're out in the audience, they're excited about their promotion. They're getting married, they're having a baby, they're having their first grandchild. Or we have to also remember that sometimes bad things happen to really good people. They got divorced, they got fired, their company's going bankrupt. They're having mental health issues, which, you know, are higher now than at any time in recorded history. Or they're dealing with aging parents or, you know, their spouse or their kid is sick. And so that's one of the things we have to remember, is that people in the audience are a whole person, and they have all pieces of themselves. So 15 years ago, people were like, well, you can't tell that story at a business conference because it's about your kid, and. And it's about surgery, and it's kind of heavy. Well, that story became my signature story. I got booked because people remembered, you know, that. And they were like, oh, we want the guy who told the Kate story is what it's been referred to as. You know, it's one of those things that the message, the reason I tell it is, is that this isn't just business. We are human beings that have so many levels to us, and if we forget that we're just there to teach them marketing or sales or stage skills or whatever it is, then we're selling our audience short that everything we do comes back to people. And I say, look, all opportunities in life are gonna come from people. We live in this world over the past 15 years where social media has taken over. But a, like, a link, a share and a follow is not a relationship where someone's willing to pick up the phone and call you at 2 in the morning and say, let me introduce you to my cousin. They don't do that because they followed you one time on Twitter.

That's right.

I like a link, a share, a share.

I love that.

That's like a keeper right there.

Bam.

And I'm gonna find. Let me use that. That's awesome.

Kate sounds like a remarkable daughter. You must be over the moon and. But I also know daughters are daughters. And has she ever asked for a percentage every time you tell the story?

Yeah, we joke about that all the time. That, you know, her sister was a business major. I had a story about her sister, and I never told her I was using it. And I say that's because she would have wanted a commission.

A sales, a sales background, family. That's, that's pretty awesome. I noticed that your style also, Tom is one of. You don't lecture, you don't go to a conference and just talk. Yeah, you have your slides when you need them and your notes when you need them. But your, your style also is the manifestation of the idea of connections, comes when you leave that platform. You go out into the audience, you interact, you bring your bag of tricks and you know your goodies and they literally interact. You get the audience to come on stage. You had an audience member on stage with a vending machine at one point in time. Tell us about that real quick.

So that was a client. I was emceeing a conference and they always would come up with something that would be part of the show. And I'm not, I'm not an entertainer, but as the emcee, they would always give me some sort of a bit. And Seattle is where the conference was taking place was famous for this vending machine that has been out there for like 50 years. It was a 50 year old vending machine in Seattle and Cokes were just like a dime or a quarter. And nobody knew who owned it, nobody knew who was staffing it. It just always had drinks in it. And it was like this well known thing. And then it vanished. And so it was all over the news that it had disappeared. And so they wanted to tie something to Seattle. So we told the story of the famous vending machine and then we had sort of a replica of it and it would give out prizes. Of course there was a person behind it. It was an empty machine. And at one point the person won a submarine sandwich. And instead of just a six inch submarine sandwich coming out, we had a six foot sandwich that just came out. And it took like three people backstage to push it out. And so it was just a sight gag. But I'm, you know, whatever the client wants to do. My attitude is let's have, let's have some fun. And my style as a speaker is to be conversational. The best compliment I ever got is I spoke to a big convention, 900 of the top mortgage people in one of the biggest mortgage companies in the country. And unbeknownst to me, and unbeknownst to the person in the audience, it was one of my college fraternity brothers from over 30 years ago who I had not kept in touch with. Right. I mean, I was in a, in a, in a fraternity with over 100 people. I hadn't kept in touch with everybody. And he didn't know I was going to be the keynote speaker and I didn't know he was going to be there. So when they introduced the keynote, he thought, oh, I went to college with a guy with that name. And he looks up and it's me. And so he start, he starts texting all of our mutual friends like, oh my God, you're not going to believe who the keynote speaker at my company meeting is. And afterwards he came up and reintroduced himself to me. Of course I did remember him. And he showed me his phone and there was this group chat with like seven people just totally making fun of me. They're like, oh, is he like Tony Robbins? What does he, you know, oh my God, who does he think he is? Blah, blah, blah. They're being fun like fraternity brothers might do even 30 years later. But one of the people said, is he any good? To which Gary replied, he's very good. But more interestingly, he's the same guy you would have had a beer with at the frat house while he's on stage, as he would have been if we were having a rush party or something like that. And so that to me was the biggest compliment I ever got, was that I'm the same guy talking to you from the stage as I would be at the bar.

Is that in your bio?

Should be.

So I have two questions. One is a follow up, but I'm just going to feed you one at a time. So first question is what mistake or what's one of the big mistakes that you see people making about connections other than the links to share? The I can't even.

Likes links, shares and follows.

Links, shares and follows. Likes, links, shares and follows.

So there's two parts to that answer. The first one ties directly into that whole social media. They think because you're connected on LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter or TikTok or whatever it is, or they watch your videos that there's a relationship. But those things are push out, right? They're one sided. So you could watch all of my YouTube videos or you could listen to one of the podcasts that I host and you can say, oh, I know you because in, in those things, I might talk about Kate, I might talk about my wife Sarah, or my daughter Jackie, or my son in law Thomas, you know, and you'd be like, oh, you know, I better throw in. Or Kate's boyfriend Wyatt, in case this is listen to. Don't want to leave that out. But I may talk about my family. So you get the gist of I have these two Daughters. The son in law actually son in law to be Covid actually postponed their wedding, but I just started calling him my son in law because they were supposed to be married two years ago. It's coming up real soon and Kate has this great young man that she's with and my wife and I like being empty nesters, but we miss the kids. You might know that about me, but I don't know anything about you. If you just heard me say that. So we're taking one sided relationships and thinking, oh, I have something with this person. So the first mistake is that these digital connections aren't the same as shared experiences with people where you're at a conference or you're on a trip or you have a cup of coffee with them. So that's the first thing. And I think the second thing is, is that they think just because they meet somebody that they have a relationship or that people like them. We don't know what people think of us. There's a lot of people who I'm sure don't like me and I don't know that I run into them in business and they put on a nice, polite societal face. And you know, I talk to people all the time and they go, oh, you know, so and so loves me. And then that other person's like, God, I can't stand her. And you know, I think that self awareness to the fact that just because you know somebody doesn't mean that they like you. They trust you or they respect you. And that's okay. You know, don't tell our moms, but not everybody's going to like us. And that's okay. You don't have to be friends with everybody. You just have to have those few uncommon connections. And by the definition of an uncommon connection, you can't have 500 of them or 5,000 of them. It really can only be 10 to 20 people who know who you are and what you do. They like you, they respect you, they give you leads, they want to help you. And then vice versa, you do the same for them. That's the other thing. A lot of people go out to network because they want something. And when you say, well, how are you serving other people? They're like, I'm too busy, I have to grow my business. Well, if you showed up and said, I am not going to help a single one of you in this room, in fact, I'm going to ignore you, I'm going to throw your cards away when I get home, however, would you please promote me to your network? And yet that's what people do.

You're pretty freaking smart, I just gotta say. And my follow up question, going a little deeper because our audience, the people listening to us are pastors, presenters and speakers. What would you say maybe a mistake a speaker would make. You know, they meet a speaker's bureau or an audience or a CEO. What's a mistake that you see speakers making?

Well, I mean, the first mistake I think that a lot of speakers make is they show up, they speak and they leave. Their greatest skill on the platform is getting to the airport 18 minutes after they say thank you very much. Or like they get invited to the board, the board dinner the night before. They're speaking for a company meeting and there's a special VIP dinner and they're invited. And I talk to speakers all the time and go, I don't go to those things, things, I don't want to socialize with people I don't know. So they skip the board dinner and I always go. And it's so funny because the meeting planner and the CEO of the company or the president of the association will say, we're so glad that you were here. A lot of speakers blow us off and say they have other plans and then we see them getting room service or whatever. They know when you say, no, I'm not going to attend your special VIP networking thing that you've invited me to, they know it's because you don't wanna. It's not because you're like, oh, well, I'm actually trying to finish my book. They're not going, oh, that's so awesome. They know that you're choosing not to do it. And yet most of the spin out referrals that I get come from the people I sit next to at those dinners or the people I meet at the happy hour or when I go to their luncheon after I speak. I try very hard when I'm involved with a conference to remember that not everybody's gonna come up to the stage and say like, oh, great speech. So if you go to the networking thing that happens an hour or two later, some people will be more apt to come up and talk to you. And when they do that, you've shared an experience. It's not just you on the stage. They're more likely after you talk to them, one on one, to take your card, to save your card, and call you six months, a year, five years later, when they're planning a different event. So I think the biggest mistake people make is they, they think that giving the Speech is the only part of being good on stage or being good at the conference. Meeting planners will say, we like speakers who engage with our audience on social media in person, before, during, and after the event. So my answer to your question is most of them just speak, get their check, and run to the airport.

Brilliant. Smart.

And I want to reiterate this. Meeting planners will say, very often we hate it when speakers leave, but they realize that they don't have any control over it, so they just let it be. But behind the scenes, they like it if you stay with their people, at least for a little while, even if just the next break after your speech.

Yeah, I'm guilty of that, too. Mark, I don't know if you heard this story, but I just spoke at the Rio to fleet pros, guys, mostly guys, 95% male, who they are work, and they're in the accounting area. They buy fleets of vehicles for communities and, you know, the police cars and blah, blah, blah, et cetera. And I was up on stage and I was feeling like I was dying because they didn't emote. And so I'm beating myself up and I'm just like, giving, giving, giving. And then the president comes over after and he's like, you know, would you come to the networking dinner? Just like you said. And I didn't wanna. Just like you said. And then I was like, sure. And then he goes up on stage and tells everybody. I'm like, ah, now I have to. And then, like you said, exactly. I just want to reinforce with an example that just happened. I go to the networking meeting and they're coming up saying, this was the best opening we've had. Da, da, da, da. And they just go on and on. And one guy said, I want to get you in front of some other audiences that I know. And he was a vendor. He said, every vendor should have. Were you guys not in that same room? But that was just me wanting the love and wanting the emotion. So I'm so glad I got guilted into going up there. And it was just a positive experience. And exactly what you said, Tom.

Yeah, I want to go back a little bit, Tom. And a rewind. Okay, rewind. Old school. I know. I'm sorry, Darren. I didn't have any bad puns today regarding your style. I really want to hammer this home. Witnessing what you do on stage, your actions are congruent with. With your message. Your message is about connections. You're engaging, you're interactive, and you choose to go into the audience. You choose to bring people on Stage, you choose to have people physically communicate with each other. So the congruency of your message just heightens the impact. What lesson? I mean, it almost sounds obvious, but how would you articulate that as a lesson, particularly for the emerging speakers who are hearing our podcast tomorrow?

So if you're an emerging speaker and you're listening to this and you're thinking, I want to do this business, I want to find my way out, don't fall into the trap that so many of us, myself included, fall into when they start in the business, and that's. They think when they take the stage, they have to prove something. So they're one person backstage, and when they're with their family and their friends, and when they get on stage, they become speaker man or speaker woman, and they have to put on this air because they want to prove that they're so smart. Smart. My answer is just be yourself. You know what? Be vulnerable. Make mistakes. Tell a story. Sometimes I go off on tangents on a story, and sometimes they don't work. Sometimes they do, but they're. They're legit. I'm not worried about trying to put on airs. And I was early on, I wanted to look like the smartest guy in the room. You know, I was very concerned about what I wore on stage.

Three p. Suits. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, in the day, you had the, you know, they expected you to be in a tie. Now, I'm more comfortable in a, you know, a T shirt and a blazer and jeans or khakis. But here's the other thing is I always ask the client, how do you want me dressed on your stage? To which it's interesting, because a lot of clients will be like, what do you mean? And I said, well, it's your conference. How would you prefer I'm dressed? Would you want me in a suit and tie? Would you want me in khakis and a blazer? Or would jeans and a T shirt with a blazer be okay? So often they're like, oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for asking. Our CEO would love it if you would wear a suit and tie, because he's a suit and tie kind of person. But he gets mad when speakers show up in a jean and jeans and T shirts. But that's the world we live in, so we don't say anything about it. I ask them. It's their. It's their stage. Now, I'm comfortable in a suit, and I'm comfortable in jeans, a T shirt, and a blazer. So either way is fine for Me, but it's their stage. So, you know, I think that thing is, you don't have to prove anything to anybody, but you also have to remember that, you know, you've been hired to do a job and that meeting planner and that organization have some expectations. So ask them.

Well, you know, I'm thankful, Tom, that you brought that up because I know very often we think of unforgettable presentations purely as our content. What you've done today is kind of point us in a direction of who we are as a person for the client. And I will confess, I have asked the same questions. And I asked the same question my free conference call with every client. What appropriate dress? Even for a virtual keynote, I'll ask that question. And I encountered once and an association, well, you know, some people are going to come in suits, others come in jeans and T shirts. And we got some people off the farm and they probably overalls. And I asked, so what's appropriate? Well, whatever you want. When you have a wide range of clothing options, Tom, and you are given the choice to make your own decision, how would you advise someone for the first time who hears that, what would you recommend that they do to be more unforgettable on the platform in terms of how they dress?

So I think the general answer is find out how the audience is going to be dressed and take a half step up. So if they're all going to be in, you know, jeans and a T shirt and a blazer, then maybe you're in khakis and a button down and a blazer. If that's their dress, maybe you're in, you know, a suit, no tie. If they're, you know, there, maybe you're in a suit and tie. So like a half step above the audience. Now, if the audience is going to be all over the map, I would go for the high middle ground on that. So, you know, asking that question is important.

Yeah, it is. You know what, I chose to go with slacks, loafers, a button down and sport coat because some were in suits that had a state secondary kitchen was there. But others are going, you know, I had T shirts, somebody had those button downs, no jacket. So I figured if I wore a sport coat, that would be casual enough with a half a step up. That was my choice. But it's good advice because you want, you want to be unforgettable for the right reasons and not for the wrong ones. And that could be a small thing for us to consider.

Or you could do the Jay Baer thing where he actually puts the different suits on his website for the meeting.

That's the best marketing tool any speaker has ever done. For those of you who don't know what Darren's referring to, Jay Baer always wears plaid suits. And the reason he does it is he says as a middle aged white guy, when he gets off stage, if he was in khakis and a blue blazer, nobody could find him. So he wears really loud plaid suits on stage so that when he is networking afterwards, everybody goes, there's the speaker. So they can easily identify and find him. But he owns like, I don't know, 10 different loud plaid suits. And he actually has a mix and match click here of picking his shoes, his tie, and his suit at the meeting planner can do. So they can match it to their colors, they can match it to the season. It's. It's brilliant. And meeting planners love it.

It's fun.

He's. He's brilliant for doing that.

That almost. Yeah. The dress me dolls my kids used to have. My daughter is 38 years old, you know, but you get this pattern. You get the pattern. Put this blouse and these shoes in. These are going back a lot of years now.

That's exactly. But that's what he does. And, and it works. And the reason it works is because it's true to who he is. I mean, he's, he's a plaid suit kind of guy. I couldn't wear a loud plaid suit. That's not who I am. It's true to who he is and it's authentic. And I think that that's the thing is if you copy someone else and try to do that, then all of a sudden you're not being authentic. You're being a copy of somebody.

Yep. Quick shout out. You host speakonomics for the podcast for the National Speakers Association. What's it like being on the other side of the microphone?

So I started my own personal podcast, which is called Making Waves at Sea Level. Like CEO, cfo. It was originally called Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do. I changed the name a couple years ago. But Making Waves at Sea level is now 8 years old and almost 800 episodes. And so I've been doing podcasts before most people. People, right. I mean, it wasn't. I wasn't a super early adopter, but I was before all the celebrities and everybody else got involved. So I like doing interviews because it's like a personal university. I get to learn so much. When you sit down with really smart people and get to ask them whatever you want. So two years ago, we Created with the National Speakers Association, Speakernomics. And the idea is it's a show about how to make more money as a professional speaker. So I don't ask a lot of questions about how'd you get into the business or what's your background. It's. It's literally, what are your tips? How to make more money or be better on stage, which essentially will lead to make more money. It's a lot of fun. We've done. I've done it for two years. We've just. I don't know if this is public knowledge, but I'll just say it. They've just asked me to do a third year. The original plan was three. At least three years. Because you can't have consistency if you're changing your hosts all the time. And I don't pick the speakers. The staff at the National Speakers association picks the. The speakers. But we try to cover a wide variety of topics about how to do this business. And it has been like my own little speakers university. And everybody who comes on the show has to have a tip on how to be better or actually two tips. And so I've probably now heard, you know, 350 tips on how to be a better speaker and make more money. So I should actually be doing better now.

Yeah, that's great. But haven't you also done something similar in Clubhouse as well? I mean, and I've heard you and Lois Creamer and Clubhouse. How's that work?

So we're not doing the Clubhouse anymore. But when we started Speakernomics, it was during the pandemic, and Clubhouse was blowing up as, like, the hottest new app. It's sort of dwindled since then, but I said, look, a way to promote this podcast, Speakernomics. Let's go on. Because they wanted Speakernomics to be a top of the funnel podcast so people could find the National Speakers association because they found the podcast they previously had had, like, a CD that came with the magazine called Voices of Experience that was a great product for, like, 30 years. I guess it started as a cassette. Cassette tape. Before my time.

And we had the albums before. No, just.

Yeah, there you go. So. But it was. It was a member benefit, so it just was for members. So it was very inside baseball. And people would talk about things about the last conference or this and that. When we created Speakernomics, I said, look, it's the official podcast of the National Speakers association, but we very rarely talk about nsa. We talk about how do you make more money as a speaker? And so you Know, the idea was to create that. Well, then we want to promote the show. So we started a weekly clubhouse room where we would talk about the speaking industry and we would always plug what was on Speakernomics that year. And I volunteered to do that for about a year and a half and until we just weren't getting the same amount of people as we were before. So clubhouse had kind of lost its edge. People weren't on the audio apps as much. But it's been a great way to help promote speakernomics, which in turn promotes the National Speakers association, which my commercial for NSA is. I never would have succeeded in this business 14 years ago if I hadn't joined the National Speakers association because, you know, there's a lot of places you can get information, but it's those relationships and meeting people who are doing the business and building friendships. I tell people all the time, if you want to be a professional speaker, the secret sauce is how many speaker friends do you have? So this goes back to everything that I talk about, right? It all comes back to the people. If you have a lot of speaker friends, who. And by friends, I don't mean somebody who you follow them on, listen to their podcast. I mean, yeah, you don't have plans for Thanksgiving and they invite you to their home. That level of friend. When you have friends in the business, you're going to find out. And you guys know this from the outside looking in. The speaking industry looks like one thing. You see a lot of the celebrities and a lot of things. When you get on the inside, you're like, oh, this is a whole different business. And your friends will help you avoid the holes and the bumps in the road and the doubt. And so got to have speaker friends.

Hmm.

Well, Tom, we want to honor your time here. As Mark puts together the keepers for this episode, I always ask two things. Number one, how could people find you? If people want to have you at your convention, recommend you, or check out one of your podcasts, what's the best way to find or follow Tom?

You can find me and my own podcast and my speaking business stuff@tomsenger.com that's T H O M S I N-E R.com if you want to find speakernomics, it's on all the podcast apps. It's just Speakernomics like it sounds. And that's the NSA podcast. So those are the best ways to find me.

And last question before we wrap it up here. If you were sitting down for over a cup of coffee with one emerging, eager presenter, who really wanted to be unforgettable, what advice would you give them?

Wow, that is a great question. So if I was sitting down with somebody who really wanted to do it, the first piece of advice I would give them is, as we said before, stories are so important, but your story isn't your speech, and it's not what leads you to that world. I've talked to a lot of people who are like, oh, I had this incident. I want to be a speaker. How does that incident relate to the topic that you're passionate about and that you know can change lives? So you have to have stories, but the story, the speech can't be built around the stories. The speech has to be built around the advice that's going to impact the lives of people and give them takeaway actions that they can put into play right away that will impact their life, whether it's business or personal or whatever it is that you speak about. But then you have to tie it together with powerful speeches. So don't think that the story itself is going to make you famous or get you booked. You got to have an actionable message. And when those two come together, it's awesome. And then the last piece of advice would be get involved around other speakers who are working, not just people who say, here's my tips, but make friendships with people who are actually getting paid to speak. And, you know, success leaves clues. If you hang out with successful people, they can't help it. They're going to drop an idea, a nugget, a theory, a concept along the way. So the more you hang out with working speakers, the more you're going to be able to build your speaking business.

Wow, Tom, seriously, this way. Above my expectations. Thank you so much, Mark Brown. What do we got for keepers? What's the wisdom Tom dropped?

There's a question for us. Is Tom a singer?

Oh, gosh.

Oh, you would. You would not want to hear my voice. I'm the only person that a priest has ever said, don't sing in my church. Gosh, really? Grading. No, that is not. I'm a singer by last name only.

I apologize.

That's not. I. Yeah, I had nothing to do with that comment. Don't hold that against me.

Well, Tom, I'm known for my really, really bad puns and bad dad jokes. So you aren't a singer, but do you sew? Singer Sewing machine. I'm so.

Okay. My only regret is I'm not an heir to the sewing machine. That would be great.

Here are our keepers, and they are many Tom, thank you so much. Thank you very much. Your network isn't just about your speech. Our lives are enriched by the connections we make with others. And business relationships can have a profound impact on our personal lives. When you tell your stories, you don't need every piece, just the ones that are most effective. You must touch your audience's emotions and inspire them when you present. Business relationships are not. I said that are not just about business. Your audience are whole people. Bring your whole life to every presentation. It isn't about the likes, the links, the shares and the follows. And noticed that digital connections are not the same as shared connections. And just because they know you, it doesn't mean they like, trust and respect you. And please, as a presenter, don't just show up, speak up and then leave. Attend the VIP dinner, be a part of the networking opportunity. And remember, giving the speech is not only the way you is not the only way you. Connect with the audience, spend time with them. Be authentic, true to yourself and true to who you are. Ask clients about appropriate dress because how you dress is one way you can connect with the audience. Keep question for yourself. How many speaker friends do you have? Remember, your story isn't just speech. It must be built around immediately actionable advice and get around others who who are being paid to speak. Build those kinds of relationships, establish these connections and you will be unforgettable. Darren may have more.

I just have like one of my favorite lines and Mark is the wordsmith. I'm a work in progress learning big words. Usually when Mark speaks, I have to have my dictionary handy. But I love this term. This was brilliant and beautiful. Your polite societal face.

I love that.

Your polite societal face. And you also said this was educational. I learned that an infant's head doubles in size until they become a speaker. They get their first standing ovation and it doubles in size.

Then it doubles in size.

You're gonna use that? He would use that.

Yes, I will. Yes, I will. I will. But seriously, Tom, you changed the way I looked today on this podcast when we're recording it on how the client cocktail party is critical to building relations. Like you changed that. I poo poo it. I don't want to because I'm an introvert. You convinced me it's about the connection. Tom Singer, thanks for joining us. Mark Brown, take us home.

Tom. I want to tell you on Darren's last point, there are times I've gone to those events. I was dog tired, long two flights. But I realized that shows the client that you want to build that connection that'll make you unforgettable. And friends, it has been our joy to host Tom Singer today. We hope you take at least two or three of these nuggets and begin to apply them today. Because to be unforgettable, you're going to deliver immediately X level content. And Tom, you did just that. Have a good time. We'll see you next week. Be Unforgettable.

And it's Tom with an H.

Make.

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