Ep. 267 YOU KICKED BUTT, NOW WHAT?

Hey there, Mark Brown. You were just coaching in Sydney, Australia. From the reports that we got from the event planners, you kicked butt. And I love that. And I think sometimes we talk about being unforgettable, we talk about how to kick butt, but I want to make sure people understand how to capitalize on the kicking.

Let's do it.

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 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.

All right, Mark, so just so this isn't me bragging about us, I want to read this testimonial about the event. So if you're listening to this, here's the event. Mark and I coached these three CEOs. Was it three? Yeah, three CEOs in Sydney, Australia, for YPO Young Presidents Organization, just like we did globally. If you've been following along, this was at a chapter. So this was a whole different level, a whole different setup. And yeah, there are some challenges, but look at. Listen to what was said. They had never done this before. This was kind of an experiment. But here, and I'm reading this verbatim, this was entered into the Executive Speakers Bureau website. Mark was an absolute superstar and a pleasure to work with. Nothing was ever too much. He went above and beyond to make our event a 1010 success. I have been doing this job for 13 years and have worked with countless resources. Mark and Darren were by far my favorite. Spelled the Australian way.

Thank you.

Thank you to the Executive Speakers Bureau team. All the questions were answered promptly. Service was wonderful. Than thank you for the seamless support. Catherine Isaac, ypo, Sydney Pacific Chapter. That's kicking butt, in my opinion. And we all have times where we were connected to the audience. We kick butt. It was good, but are you thinking bigger? Are you thinking huge? Are you asking your question? How can we multiply this? How can we multiply this? And Mark, give us a little brief overview of what the event was like.

Well, we have been coaching these three CEOs via Zoom for several weeks, and that in itself had challenges with schedules and who was busy doing what. Our work involved finding the right story, crafting this presentation, and working with them on every nuance of script writing. So we work with Them from concept, idea or all the way to presentation. And if you're watching the video on YouTube, you'll see a photograph of me with our three speakers, Alex, Monica and David. At the event in Sydney. We were focused on storytelling and helped them craft their stories and include the ingredients that we teach here at stage time about how to make a story unforgettable. They had their challenges, but I also met with each of them individually on the ground in Sydney to make sure everything was ready. One of our speakers happened to be able to go and scope out the venue beforehand. We teach that principle. We all saw the photographs of the venue, but to walk in and see it gave that particular Monica, that speaker, the greater confidence that she needed to be there. We worked with the technical team to make sure that our confidence monitor was set up. We saw the room layout. They worked with Darren Lacroix patented stage plan to make sure everything worked. I met with one speaker. I ubered to his office and met with him. Monica came, picture of an hour and a half, met with me. We had to rent a work group space, Darren, to simulate the arena.

Oh, wow.

What we're doing. Yeah. I didn't tell you this part of the story. We tried to get a meeting room at a hotel where I was staying, and the cost, shall we say, was a thousand percent more than the work group. And for those who aren't familiar, certainly we have shared workspaces where you can rent a room for a very nominal fee for an hour. So I did 90 minutes of time with her in a. In a rented room. We had lunch together. She was more relaxed and just having the time to be together with the client in a social setting was good. When you say the event, Darren, friends were not just talking about on the ground on the day. We had the event on a Thursday. On Wednesday, I had dinner with the organizers, the team, the trio and their spouses. And the day of the event, we actually met the three speakers and I had lunch in a restaurant. Four of us just being casual, just being conversational, getting all the bugs out and having that time face to face to relax them. Now, I'm going to confess, this may not seem obvious, but part of my job at lunch was not to have a nice expensive meal. No, my job was to make sure where they were in their mindset, in what I call their heart set, am I prepared to serve my audience. So to me, it's a working lunch. To me, it's how I serve them beyond what happens on the platform. So please hear me carefully if You're a coach out there with a client who's working on a project or a program. You think about how can I best serve them? And here's the cool part. Darren and friends in a social setting, they're that much more relaxed. We get to have conversations, they get to meet each other. It was a very cordial, very sociable environment and it helped them to relax a whole lot more before the event. Remember now, our clients were not public speakers. It's the first time telling their stories. And quite frankly, they had also some personal concerns. One particular speaker says, I can't have my kids here because it's very heavy and they don't notice part of my life yet. It wasn't right for them to be here. So think about this. We don't know what speakers go through sometimes when they serve audiences. And you as a speaker may be going through your own situation and you want to handle that, navigate that well. But as a big picture, I wanted to be sure. Darren. Everybody was comfortable, everybody was confident, and everybody was relaxed. So for me, having lunch with them was going beyond but for a purpose. And a couple of hours later, we had the event. One speaker was asking, can I stay outside to get ready? You may not have to. But we walked through their presentations in the room at the venue beforehand. We teach this, we preach this, we do this. And as an aside, we had a couple of technical challenges for a while. There was no audio on their intro videos. And I thought we had a team of people helping us. We had one individual, I'll call him James. And James was literally an octopus. He was up in the booth behind the seats. He was down connecting my laptop so I could do my first program, my talk. I did a one hour training. I did my training with my laptop, with my own confidence monitor. He had a secondary monitor for the, for the speakers for their program. He had a switcher. He was running wires. And it got pretty close to showtime and he was getting finishing touches on. Now I am the guest speaker from the usa, Mark Brown, world champion certified speaking professional celebrity guest. But I saw a need. And Darren, you know, you and I both know our own events. We, we run cable on the floor. We use black tape and tape it down. I was on the floor taping down cable to make sure nobody tripped on it. It ran right across the speaking area. Now let me pause. I'm not telling you that to say, you know, I am super special. I'm saying again what we always say as a professional. If you see a need that you can Meet you need it. I knew the speakers might be concerned. Oh my gosh, I don't want to trip on these wires. I got down on my knees and I ran black tape and I taped the wires down because that made them feel more confident and comfortable on the platform. And here's Darren's heart and my heart. Please hear us carefully. The intent is, how do I serve them best? And we made a. We made a promise to our team, the leader. We said, we want to be your favorite in the way we serve you. So we are gratified and pleased with the review, but it came with the work we're willing to put in to make sure we kick butt. So I'm going to invite you all to think about this. Ask the question. Darren says, how can we multiply the effect? Also ask, how can we best serve our client to meet their needs? When I asked myself that question, it was easy to get under my knees and run tape because I wanted to make sure everybody was comfortable. My job is to serve them. Never lose your servant's heart when you do that. You're on the way to kicking butt every time.

And here's part of the cool part. Here's how we know Mark kicked butt and the speakers obviously kick butt. And that's the thing. It's like you don't have any control once they're up there. As a coach, it's like, okay, fly, be free and you hope they flap their wings. One of them had grabbed a screenshot from the YPO feed and he said Shorty was is his last name. So thanks. Shorty was awesome. Hands down. It was one of the most impressive YPO events I have been to. Powerful and soul searching. Love that. Such, such great stuff. And then if you've heard us tell the story of hey, talk to pick a child in your life. I love that Shorty, Dave Short is his name actually took it literally. He said, before I got up, I said to my 10 year old son, this is for your grandchildren. If it's the last presentation I make, enjoy. He said, Joey loved it. Your note that Mark passed on was epic and reinforced the learning that you talked about, which made such a big difference. You know, as a coach, it's our job to go meet everybody where they're at and help them with what they need. And not everybody is the same. They each had their own challenges. And again, these are not just, hey, here's my story, These are deep dive, gut wrenching stories of abuse of business, massive business failure of doing the impossible, five marathons in five days without eating. What? Yeah. So we hope to get them on as guests so we can kind of go deeper into each of their individual story. So, yes, it was a great event. We kick butt. Notice one of the things that I did is I will. I grabbed the testimonials, I grabbed the screenshots because those are gold, Jerry. Those are gold. And what was really cool is Catherine, the event planner, was so motivated that she did put the testimonial on the speaker bureau site. So now that makes us look phenomenal, unforgettable to the speaker Bureau that we worked with. Well, guess what, we just got some more street cred for sure. And so we've been working with this bureau for a while, but we're still, you know, working our way to the inner circle. So one idea is get testimonials, but whether it's video, text, but grab screenshots, because now you, you have that. And I have a little folder, Mark, for the YPO testimonials as proof. Because now we did it for Global. We were hoping we'll get to do that again, but the Global led to this. So make no mistake that we had to do well. The speakers we coached had to do well. Again, Mark, it's like just once they go out on stage, it's like my little controlling mechanism has to shut off because I can't control it, you know, but that's why we have to help them prepare. So this was a spin off from just somebody I met. When you and I spoke, we did little 20 minute sessions at the same event. We said, and. And Mark, if you backtrack, that came as a result of, hey, we're gonna be there. How else can we serve you exactly if we're gonna be there coaching? And we weren't looking for any more money for this. We were just looking for exposure to be on the stage rather than backstage. And so it came with questions, it came with the. I think. So we're kind of laying the groundwork of how the kicking butt happened.

And we kept going.

We kept going back to putting the Patricia Fripp principle in place, which is, how can we be your favorite? How can we be your favorite? And Mark, when you ask yourself that question, that's why you were more than happy to get down on your knees and tape something down, just for the sake of the event and the experience. And I have no doubt one of them or all of them noticed you doing that, which goes to no ego. All in. And then I love that she even put it in her Testimonial. You are my favorite. We beat that into her. But. But A, it worked. But B, you know, that became your guide. So Mark, what else do you think? There were some great testimonials, but these are, what's cool is these people are influencers.

Yeah.

Within ypo, you and I listening to this, we need to figure out who are the influencers in the organization or outside of the organization. Who are the influencers. It doesn't mean we treat them special, but we might go a little extra to give them what they need or arm them or have a conversation with them because. Mark, what did Ricky say?

Oh, Ricky. Ricky said this should, this should be an initiative that is used all over the world. I'm like, whoa, thank you. And Ricky was, Ricky was the lead. He's the cheesy chapters learning, chief learning officer for the chapter. So it was his call to put this program together. And the chapter manager, Kath was the event planner. But he saw the value in this. And if, if someone you serve tells you we should put this initiative worldwide after you kick butt. Now what? Well, we're going to meet with Ricky and Kath within the next 48 hours. We pre plan to meet with them after the event. And we always talk about having a post event debrief call. And to be honest, you know, a post event call is not just a debrief. A post event call can be a relationship building call. Some may call it a sales call. I think there's a different term for it, Darren. But the post event debrief call is not just. Okay, that was good. Thank you so much. Good seeing you. It goes back to how can we multiply our service to you? How can we do more? What else can we do for you or for others whom you know? So we're going to have that call later this week and see where that leads. In addition, we were blessed to meet Errol Moody. Some time ago we had a podcast with Arl Moody who's in charge of a company called Talk a dot and he has a simple way of giving you the opportunity to stay in touch with people in your audience. I got over 35 responses to my one hour program. So in context. I did a one hour teaching. We had a break. We fed them. If you feed them, they will come. Feel our dreams reference there for you. Younger ones, look it up online and they will stay. And they stayed. And what we did was I did a training and I even pointed out in my training, I said, now I'm showing you these techniques. I'm going to invite you as an audience to look for some of these techniques in your own peers presentations today as an engagement tool, they were leaning in, looking for the vax, the visual, auditory, kinesthetic and the smell. They were looking for it. And afterwards I interviewed the presenters and people said yes. I noticed that Monica did this and Alex did that and he was using the backs in that way, you know, and the audience were able to learn from it, see what they did and in their responses. The Talk it out tool, we have a podcast about Talk It Out. The tool allows them to tell you what they thought of your presentation, to make specific comments and, and let you know if they're a cold lead, a warm lead or a hot lead. I may know someone who's doing a program and I could use your services. So nice. You get a 10 out of 10 rating. That's great. But what do you do after one is the follow up? So it's not just testimonials. Yes. Grab screenshots. Yes. But use tools like Talk a dot to extend the conversation with people in the room. There's something else I didn't know. I kicked butt at the time, but I was in the room during the break having conversations and giving ideas to attendees to give them a reason to stay in contact with me. Particularly if they said, oh, that was great, man, I never knew you could do that. Having the hallway conversation will tell you in that particular forum, I spoke first. They hadn't seen my coaching results yet. They saw my presentation and in the hallway doing, doing the canapes and the hors d' oeuvres and the wine and the wine and the shrimp. I was able to have conversations that set me up for additional conversations down the road. So who's hallway time as well to be aware, to begin to build relationships. Because I'll be honest, I love the kick butt comments I got from the organizers. But you can tell in the room or in the hallway when people appreciate what you do. Have conversations, build relationships. I exchange emails and contact with two people in the hallway while thinking I gotta get for the speakers. But I put myself in the hallway for a purpose and I got contact information and I gave away some ideas. And I saw light bulbs go off in the hallway in the, in, in the, in the social area. I saw one, I called him Alex. I saw his eyes go, oh, that's good, I can use that. And here, I'll give you my information. Boom. Here's LinkedIn, here's phone number, here's email. I can now have an Additional personal conversation with him. You get comments on talk of that, they'll give you their email, their phone Number. Connect on LinkedIn.

Amen.

Connect on LinkedIn and make make mention of something that they said that they said to you in the hallway. Use their words in a brief note. Hey, it was great to see you in Sydney. Let's connect here. I particularly appreciate when you said you like the vax boom. Now you're personally touching them and you're following through on a good experience. And the key is to do it in a timely manner. Do not wait two weeks or a month to do it. You know, for me it was traveling from Sydney back to Georgia, usa. I had a couple duties take care of the last two days. I had medical appointments but I was on my laptop today I was on LinkedIn today, I was using email today. I'm staying top of mind. If you do that well, give your audience and attendees a reason to stay in contact with you. That's what you should do after you kick butt.

So Mark, you actually did some pre butt kicking preparation work by setting up the Talk A Dot. I'm so proud you used it. I'm going to cry here.

Stop you. Yes, exactly. I put the Talk A Dot slide near the end of my deck to make sure I give them time to respond to it and then spoke to them afterwards. I didn't close on a Talk A Dot slide. They got to hear my words last and then I set up what was going to come from the presenters. So the unique setting was I was a presenter for an hour, but as also a coach of the three speakers for their section and as also the moderator of a discussion panel afterwards. So they saw me in a couple of different roles as a speaker, as the coach and as a moderator and I elevated the speakers in that moment. I was the opening act, the speakers were the highlight and I elevated them for their audiences. So how do I serve my speakers? I made sure they look good for the audience and by default I made sure the meeting planner looked good for what she had planned for the event. So that was a big win for them and hopefully it'll translate to a win for us as well.

And if you're not clear on the structure, so just to give you structure of what Mark's talking about is he delivered a one hour program on telling unforgettable stories. Then they took a break, they had hors d', oeuvres, they got a copy of our book Deliver Unforgettable Presentations. And then after that, at the beginning, the people we coached, delivered their stories, and then they had a panel. So they were like 8 to 10 minute stories. Then there was a panel where they brought them up and the audience got a chance to interview them. Is that correct? And you did as well.

Most of the interviewing, I said open for a few questions, got a couple of questions that came towards me, but I interviewed and allowed them not to answer me so much so as respond to the audience as well. And I kept calling back to what they did, what I taught them. So the key was to make sure everything was seamless, but everything was connected, was benefit to the audience as well. And I was looking at my talk it out report, and I saw comments like, fun, engaging, entertaining, you know, actionable. I mean, just wonderful comments. Because the experience the audience had was not just me giving a workshop. Darren and I worked really hard to create an environment where the audience got an experience, not just. Not just three or four presentations. And when you choose to give the audience an experience, not just the presentation, that elevates the quality of what they get. And that's also how you kick butt. You will experience.

And the debrief call is so important to the now, what if you hadn't listened to our previous couple of episodes? We had an episode recently that was, do they know? Do they know what else you can offer, how else they can engage in your expertise? It's our job. But what's powerful is the debrief call, is you had a chance to prove yourself. And if you did kick butt, you did build a relationship, you did elevate yourself in their mind's eye, in their perspective. Now they're much more opened to knowing what else you do. But it's a conversation. It's not selling, in my opinion. It's a conversation about, hey, where else could we help? I mean, that's how this one came about, was by offering, hey, come talk to us if you'd like. The lab session, which is what we did at Global for your chapter, and we talked to many chapters, and most of them thought it was out of budget, per se. But this was an experiment. Now that we have this proof, now we can go back. So think about this. Who else? Let's just say you're speaking to a finance organization. What other finance organizations could you go back to with that testimonial from the event planner for the company or the finance organization you just spoke to? So now you have a reason. So write that down. Mark, what's your reason to reach back out to other clients? Well, because you kick butt with this client. So now, again, a reason. And Mark, I don't know if you already did this or you plan to, but did you send the survey to Executive Speakers Bureau that they got Talk.

About from Talk about? I opened it today, so I'm going to send it to them. Definitely. Cool. Yeah.

Well, and I just wanted to bring that up as a question to you, but also to us. The cool part about Talk A dot is it gives you a beautiful. And you don't have to design it. It does it for you, which is what I love. A beautiful report that you can send to the event planner and send it to Kathryn as well, too.

Yes.

So we'll send it to Kathryn, the event planner, and Ricky, but we'll also send it to the speaker bureau as well. Because that's a challenge is every time we do an event through a speaker's bureau, their butt's on the line, Their relationship is on the line. But who do you think they want to work with and have trust in? So we're trying to build our trust catalog, if you will, with them in order. Why? So we are at the top and they think of us first. So when you kick butt, there's a lot to do with it. There's a lot of opportunities. We wanted to use our real life example of exactly that. So, okay, here's what we're going to do now. By no means do we have the market on this. If you have an idea that maybe we didn't think of or bring up, you know, let us know. Maybe we'll turn that into a podcast or maybe we will interview you and we hope to have some of the people that we coached in Sydney as well on this podcast. Because it's just, you know, Mark, the contrast is I went to a TEDx event this weekend. I won't mention the state, the city, the name of it, but. But it was a cute event. The event was well run. I was Mark. I sat there with my notebook. I'm like, well, in case any of them want feedback, I'm going to just take notes on each of the presenters. And they were. There was eight presenters. There were two that were good. There were one that was exceptional. I hope to get him on the podcast. The other five were meh. And I just. I tried not to be judgmental, but I couldn't help it because I wish they came to us. I wish they came to us. And I feel good that. I feel bad that we weren't able to help them capitalize on that stage. This is why we have stage Time, which is why we do coaching, but we can't. Like, I reached out to everyone to offer them free feedback if they wanted it, just because I was there anyway. And it. Good feedback could lead to a client, could lead to a stage time thing. And it was, you know, it wasn't charging them for it. And Mark, I got my first. My first reply to the feedback. Thank you for the feedback. I was like, are you kidding me? There's gold, Jerry. But, you know, not everyone is coachable. Not everybody wants it. And I just trying to do what's best to help people, but doesn't mean they want it and doesn't mean they're open to it and maybe they shouldn't be, but trying to do what I can to help people tell their stories.

Well, you know, look, we want everyone to be unforgettable. And we're hoping that throughout your career, wherever you may be right now, you will have those days when you kick butt. But we invite you and ask again. Think about what you can do beyond the event. It's okay to bask in it because sometimes it. If you go through a stressful event and it's a successful event and you're like, from stressful to successful. Bliss, tranquility. Yes. But what more can you do for them? And who in the audience might be able to use your services or your skill set for an event that they may be planning as well? So find ways to have that second conversation or an additional conversation or a new conversation. And sometimes the individual you talk to, people may not be for themselves. It could be a spouse, a partner, a friend they know who could use your skill set, follow through with that and do all you can to go above and beyond and never be afraid to ask the question, in what other ways can we continue to serve you and be your favorite? Because if you keep doing that, not only will they become accustomed to seeing you as a valuable resource, you'll be forced to ask yourself, okay, how do I top that? And that desire to serve again will almost push you to up your own game and get what happens when you up your game from good to great to unforgettable. You'll be the one they cannot help but call when they need someone who provides what only you can give.

Yeah, don't just ride the love. Ride the enthusiasm that high. Which we want you to do, and we want you to capitalize on it. Why? Because that's when it's best to ask. That is when it's best to ask for more ways to create more awareness. Of what you do and how you did it. So you kicked butt. Now what? Take advantage.

It's up to you.

See you next week.

Take it easy. All right?

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