Ep. 291 GET FOUND GET SEEN GET BUSINESS WITH FORD SAEKS

Hey there, Mark Brown. If you want to be unforgettable on stage, you have to get on stage.

That's right. And for us, you want to get seen, you want to get found, and you want to get business. And today our guest will teach us how to do all three in a very short time. Insightful. You don't want to miss us, folks. We're going to meet Ford Sakes today, a business guru. 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 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, lets dive right in.

So, Mark, I think every speaker is looking for that magic bullet to just fill their calendar. They don't realize it's a process and things are changed. It's different from what it was a couple years ago. So, Ford Sakes, welcome hall of fame speaker, fellow faculty member at Game Changers along with Mark. Glad to have you here, Ford.

Well, thank you. I love being a featured speaker at Game Changers. And for those of you listening, this is all about action steps. So get your pen and paper out and your next action step is get to Game Changers. All right, welcome to the episode. I'm glad to be here.

I think we're done.

Thanks, Ford.

We appreciate you. I met four years ago through Darren Lacroix and he has given me some simple guide and simple wisdom about how to use my website to get business. When the pandemic hit and my speaking business dried up, Ford said, start coaching, Get a page up, start coaching. And Ford, I haven't told you this. I do more coaching than speaking now because of you. And you know, somebody comes to Ford and says, okay, I want to get more business. Where do I begin? What's your first bit of advice for them, Ford?

Well, you know, I. Thanks for having me on this episode. You know, first, unforgettable presentations. You know, the best marketing you can do is be great on stage. And on stage is on stage, on screen, and on demand. So no matter what you're doing, there's two phases of the business. You have to always work on your craft to be better, to add more humor and timing and pause and storytelling. But then you also need to get found if someone's looking to solve a problem. Are you findable? You know, for those of you listening right now, go to Google and search for your keyword and see if you come up. Nine times out of ten you're probably not going to be found. So how do you get found? Once they find you, how do you get seen? And I mean not just your picture or your speaker demo preview reel or your trailer but how do you really get seen with your digital footprint? What's your website look like? What does your social media look like? Are you active on YouTube and LinkedIn? Because if you're going to get in the speaking business, Those are the two platforms. I believe TikTok is just as important now because more people spend time on TikTok and then of course you've got your Google reviews and business directories. But are you going to get found? And then once they find you, how are you going to get that business? How do you get people to crawl over broken glass to sign up and use your expertise? Because there's no shortage of expertise out there with AI Right now everybody can go to AI and find seven keys to leadership. Three secrets to team building, five secrets to Content is a commodity. But how do you become a personality that you get paid to speak?

I don't even know if we need to ask questions. I think we just let you go because.

Yep, that's typical. Now I appreciate being here. Now one of the things I'm going to give you as a tip was with your first tip, everybody, do you remember what it was? Sign up for Game Changers. So I'm sure in the show notes below this episode there's going to be a link. Now if you sign up using my promo code, Ford 20F O R D 20 yes you get 20% off. But more importantly, everybody who signs up with that code gets a one on one marketing makeover strategy session with me. Now I charge a lot of money for that. You can Google it, you can see it. So I'm doing that as a bonus to those people listening to this episode or the replay. And if you've you're listening to this episode and Game Changers is already over. Sign up next year for Game Changers and and I'll give you the same offer. So that's your first action step. Second action step is to go back to something Darren said in the beginning and I'm honored to be here with my mentors and colleagues Mark Brown and Darren Lacroix because one of the things he said is we're going to teach you how well I'M going to recommend that you remove teach from your vocabulary. It depends on what you're selling. But I want you to help your audiences discover and reveal, because when they're paying my kind of fees, I. They're not looking for a teacher. A teacher is a commodity. They're looking for an expert to share ideas and insights to uncover and reveal. So if that's applicable to you, that's your next tip. Darren and Mark, back to you.

Yeah, and even a great tip, too. Ford, we were sitting here talking about, what do we call this episode? And then you said, okay, well, and I love some of your wisdom, Ford, when you say, first, we got a diagnosis.

Wait, Some. Some wait. I.

We've got it.

This is live and unedited. All right, so start again. Darren, you love what?

All of your content. Most of your content. No, wait. But you always say to. Before you can prescribe, you've got to diagnose. And you said, okay, what's the context? What is the problem? And. And I've heard you say this over and over again, which we need to hear. I think a lot of speakers don't step back, step back and say, what is the problem? You know, we have. And I won't mention a name, but we have one of our members who comes to our business calls, asks you and I questions, and he's got this. Who wants to be a leadership speaker? But leadership speaker is not a problem that you solve. So go a little deeper in that, Ford, in terms of what's the problem? How do you solve it? In terms of us standing out to get seen?

All right, great question. So first of all, everybody, do not tie your identity to your delivery method. Speaking, training, coaching, consulting, books, masterclasses, Those are delivery methods. So when you say, what's the problem? It could be problem or desire. What's the problem or desire that you solve that other people will pay to make go away? So if I come to Darren, and I'm going to invest in Darren Lacroix, it's because I want to add more humor to my presentations. I want to understand the craft of effective narratives in a story. I want to know how to break through my imposter syndrome and my limitations and have 17 minutes to my dream. Although I still think I should do 10 minutes to your dream. I'm just teasing him, but, you know, I'm going to come to him, solve a problem. If I'm coming to Mark, I'm going to come to him to learn how to present more effectively and have the confidence so people are paying for the result of your services and products, not for the delivery method. Now yes, I'm a speaker if a meeting planner asks. But you always want to lead with the benefits. You want to substantiate your claims with features. You want to give them the headache and sell them the aspirin. You need to lead with 80% around your alignment that you understand what the top pain points are so that they can then invest in your services and products for their and their organizations. Whether it's a non profit or for profit. B2B, B2C it doesn't matter. You want to be looking at how you can be of service. And I know a lot of people are like I don't want to sell, I don't want to sell. I'm a great speaker. I get stand ovations if you would just sell for me. I, I have my dreams and I'm like, you know what? It's not about selling, it's about serving. And if you care about helping people that will help motivate you to push back that 900 pound phone to pick up the phone to do the post on social media. You know, watch Darren subscribe to his TikTok. Darren just, I think he's got it, you know. First he butt dialed me on the call for this episode today. Second, he'll just, he'll put up a TikTok anywhere he sees value. See, it's like some people see dead people. Darren sees value everywhere. He can turn on his computer or turn on his phone. Excuse me, he can turn on his phone in a parking lot and say I just rented from Hertz rental car. Let me tell you the three secrets of what they did right and what they did wrong. It doesn't matter. He can walk into a room and see people and say Johnny did this and Sandy did this. So he's taught himself to be insightful and to be of value. And he also puts himself out there. Not everything has the greatest sound. And the grass, sometimes he doesn't shave. Oh, that's his new look. It's okay, you know, but the point is you want to look at how you can add value and then make a profit. If there's an action step and you're taking notes again, forward 20 is the discount code for game changers. Second action step is not teach its reveal or insights. Third action step is lead with benefits, substantiate with features. And the next action action step is you got to believe in yourself. The first sale you have to make is to yourself that it's not selling, it is serving. Look at all those nuggets of wisdom we're just throwing out there today on this episode.

Wow. Mark, did you have anything?

I'm still writing. I'm still writing. I'm trying to capture everything. I really.

It's like we're gonna. We're have to invest in massage therapy for Mark's hand. All these keepers. He's coming up with carpal tunnel Ford, Fordham Ford syndrome.

Yeah. You mentioned about getting found and getting seen, and I know we talk about getting business. It's a big bucket. And you could. Knowing you and your expertise, you'll spend a lot of time on this. But are there any simple tips you would give to someone who's emerging, who wants to get business that is accidental right away without being high tech?

Sure. There's five areas of focus. I'm not going to go and do an hour here on this episode because we kind of keep this to the timeframe that Darren suggested. So a full disclosure there. This is for information educational purposes only. We're not giving you legal advice. But if you asked me where I would start, Mark, I would start with the value proposition. I mean, before you understand anything else about this business, getting paid, getting found, you have to know. And we're going to go deeper on the value proposal proposition. If you just think about those two words, people are going to take money out of their pocket and trade it for that. Now, I believe this episode is also a podcast episode, but it also goes live. Are we doing video, too? Right.

We're going YouTube.

Okay. So this will be an episode live on YouTube or a replay on YouTube. It's also audio. Becomes a podcast. Right. So I keep. For those listening at home, I'm putting this on the video. I keep $10,000 sitting in front of me at all times. And I keep that money there to remind me if someone's gonna. And my fee's a lot, a lot higher than that. I better get a. I better get three stacks because my fee is a little bit higher.

But.

But what I. What I would tell people is if they're gonna spend, you know, $30,000 on me as a keynote speaker, they're expecting value. Right. They're not paying me for. For my time. They're paying me to get on the airplane, but they're paying me for the impact and the result. And so you went back to your question. When you say, what should I do? People, everybody here should look at what do you do? And how do you provide value that solves the problem, because that's your foundation. I mean, if you, if you build your house on sand, it's not going to be very stable. But if you have a desire to improve your, your skill set and your knowledge, there's no such thing as knowing it all or perfection. It's only improvement. And so, and there's plenty of business out there for everybody. If you say, oh, well, I don't want to be a leadership speaker. There's so many leadership speakers. Yes. And there's an epidemic right now in industry where organizations are struggling to find, attract, retain and engage top talent. They're losing brain trust, there's communication issues. So there's no shortage of opportunity for the people that are open minded, critical thinkers and coachable.

Bam. Look at that. Yeah, I think. What would you say to speakers who, they've been really good, they've been around a while, but they're just not getting booked the way they used to be. What advice would you give them?

I would say they need to take a look at their digital footprint and is their online presence congruent with their offline presence? Have they gotten stale or are they still doing what works? You know, a lot of people will say, we know we're in this industry. People will say, I've got 10 years experience in speaking. But they really don't. They have one year, they've repeated 10 times. They haven't really grown. One of the things I like about Darren and, and Mark here is you guys are always growing and learning. You're open minded, you're coachable. You know, the people who are the scariest people in the world are the ones who think they know everything but don't know what they don't know. Right. And so you really want to look at, you know, if you're seasoned, professional and you feel like maybe your business is stalling. When was the last time you picked up the phone? When was the last time you created a lead magnet? When was the last time you sent it out? What is, how is your activity on LinkedIn? Are you putting things on TikTok? Are you getting on regular media? Have you written a new book? Are you getting on podcasts? And I can go on for days and Darren knows I could, but I will stop there and just say maybe it's time to revisit your action steps and are you spending your time on the highest and best use of your time? Are. What do you, you know you can only control what you can control, right? I can only control my attitude because without the right attitude, all the ideas in the world won't work. And Darren and I and Mark, we know people are part of the stage time community where they have a fixed mindset and they don't believe that there's opportunity. They believe there's too much competition. Well, that belief is holding them back. So if you have a belief that isn't serving you, it's time to get some new beliefs. Right? So one is your attitude, two is your allocation of time. The reason Darren is so successful on YouTube and TikTok is he takes the time to record, edit and publish videos. He understands what his market wants, he looks at the top 25 questions that his ideal customer has and then he creates 25 videos and he does it consistently day in and day out and he's, he's work. You know, I would say it's not about quantity, it's about quality. But when it comes to social media, there's kind of both. You kind of want quality and you want quantity. And not everything's going to be a viral hit with a million people. But Maybe there's only 20 listeners or viewers, but it might be the right 20 listeners, right? So it's not about that, it's what resonates. And then the third thing of you got your attitude, your allocation of time and then your actions. And for those of you listening to this episode, if you're a fan of unforgettable presentations, podcast, it's not about doing more. What do you want to start doing, what do you want to stop doing and what do you want to continue doing? And you measure that by what's working. And so often Darren and I are with people in the community, in the business mastery side of stagetime where they're not doing anything. They show up every Tuesday for the or a couple times a month for the calls, but they're not executing and the best way is to fail fast. That's nothing I invented. Right? You've heard that from any successful person is forget the mistake. Pardon me? Forget the mistake. Learn the lesson. So if you're not where you are, want to be, if you don't have the business you want, if you're not getting the revenue you want, look in the mirror. It starts at success, starts at home. What is it that you could do to start, stop and continue doing that's going to help you get found, get seen and get paid. Yay.

I love that idea. What do you need to start? What do you need to stop? Sometimes it is that simple. But I think for to agree with me or let us know how how do we take inventory on what we're doing, like where we're spending our time? Like, you know, and I'm guilty of this too, I'm doing some of the wrong things, but I've always done them, so I keep doing them. And I'm a hard worker, but I might not be a right worker. I could probably do better doing exactly what you said. So how do we take inventory, Ford?

Well, I think the first thing you do is you go to Amazon and you get Darren's book, 17 minutes to your dream. And in chapter three it talks about knowing where you are now and where you want to go. So you have to take inventory and you have to, you know, be realistic. And what I would do is I would start with yourself. This is where I think I am now. Then I would talk to your inner circle, the people that know you best, that are willing to call you on your crap and crap is a technical term, and that are willing to give you constructive feedback. Not the people that are trying to cut you down or tear you down or keep you stuck, but people that will call you on your, your ideas and more importantly that you trust to give you critical thinking advice. And again, it has to be applicable, right? So you want to know where you are now. You want to look at it. Then you want to look at your inner circle and then you want to look at from the eyes of the prospect. You want to put yourself in the mind of the prospect and say my fee is X. It doesn't matter if it's 1500, 15,000, 150, it doesn't matter. And then go look and see is my website congruent with someone who charges what I charge? So I charge 25 to 30 grand. Go look at my website at profitrichresults.com you can see it right here on the microphone stand. Profit rich results.com and I'll put it up on the screen for everybody. That's, that's profit rich results.com and ask yourself, am I congruent with someone who charges that? And I am because I've taken the time to invest in the quality website in the professional photography. I'm constantly updated. In fact, I just got done speaking for 3,000 people. I spent $2,000 to have them film my 90 minute keynote and take 300 photos. I did that because I want 15 seconds of time with the right 15 seconds to show me in front of thousands of people that I'm still current. Because it. Here's the next tip. Used to be, don't make no honey.

Used to be, I thought I was bad. Darren used to bees don't make no honey. There you go. Thank you.

I think you've been hanging around with Mark Brown and his puns too long.

Now, now, full, full disclosure, I'm not appropriate cultural appropriation. I grew up in the projects. I'm not trying to offend anybody. And, you know, for the purpose of this podcast, if you love the epis, thank Darren and Mark. If you don't like it, you can, you know, tell me, but, you know, don't take yourself so seriously. Don't let the messenger get in the way of the message. Look at what's important. So if you want to make this change, you've got to take inventory. You got to know where you are now. And then you have to have a clear vision of what does success look like, how much do you want to make, what kind of impact you want to make, and what's lifestyle friendly for you? So Mark just said he's spending more time coaching than speaking to. Darren runs two businesses. He runs stagetime University, which is a community for helping people improve their stage presence as well as their business. And that's why we're talking about Game Changers. If you're not signed up for Game Changers, what are you doing? Pause this episode. Go to Stage Time University. Go sign up. Keyword for 2420 gives you the one on one with me and make sure you get registered because it's not just the experts that are going to be on there, and Mark Brown and me and, and Michelle Villalobis and Jennifer Lear and Ed Tate and, you know, there's, there's a lot of other experts. If I haven't mentioned them, don't worry. But you're also going to learn from the crowdsourced community, the conversations in the hall, the conversations at networking. So the reason you go to these events is to get that one idea that will change your whole life. You know, years ago, I used to buy all these posters that you had bought from a company called Successories. Now everybody thinks they're kind of tacky, right? I mean, it was, you know, because I wanted to be reminded of persistence and motivation and what success looks like in Eagles versus, you know, turkeys. And I wanted to know what that was. And I remember I had a poster on my wall that said once your brain is stretched by a new idea, it never regains the same shape. And it was a picture of sand dunes, right? And I've always remembered that as part of my success system that I only need a catalyst. I just need a. I need. Sometimes it might be not even something a speaker says. It could be something in passing. It could be something in an introduction or in the hallway, and that can transform your life. So the reason you should invest and get to Game Changers is because it's called Game Changers. If you want to stay stuck, go to the event called I'm Stuck in a Victim. But if you want to get Breakthrough, you sign up for Game Changers.

There's a big.

Who wouldn't want to spend three days with me in Las Vegas? Come on.

Here you go. All right.

Nice.

Yeah.

And there's a big support group for that. Victimhood. It's easy to get caught up in that, that's for sure. And it's like, wa, Wa. Well, guess what? All right, so hang around with us. Spend some time with us. And Ford, you're going to be talking about AI. What are you going to be covering? And Mark reminded me you gave one of the most brilliant lines about AI that we've got to treat it as an intern. We still got to check its work. It's going to do work for us, but it's still us. And that was a game changer for me, literally. So, Ford, what are you going to cover?

Well, first of all, it's been elevated. Just like any good expert elevates their stuff, their insights. We don't want to use stuff. Right.

Patricia, she may pop by.

The elevation is treat AI as an expert, but monitor it as an intern. So you do want to. It is an expert. It's 500 times smarter than the smartest person. So you want to give it the respect it deserves. It's smarter, but monetary. Sometimes it's going to get you 60%, 70%. Sometimes it gets you 90% there. But you have to go back and edit it now, right now, every speaker who can't make it as a leadership speaker, a trainer, a consultant, a sales. They're all AI speakers now. I mean, you can't swing a dead cat. That's a professional term. Without hitting 10 AI speakers. I do not care about AI. I care about business growth. And there's only four ways to grow everybody as we wrap this episode up. Number one, get more customers. But we don't want more. We want quality customers and clients. Number two, increase the average transaction. AI can help you find and get more customers. It can help you increase the average transaction by adding more value. Number three, it can help you increase repeat or referral sales. It can help build and nurture the customer experience. And number four, it can improve operations and automate processes so you can spend more time on the highest and best use of your time. So when someone asks me what am I going to talk about? AI how to get more business, how to make better decisions and how to shorten the sales cycle, how to reduce the cost to acquire a new client, how to maximize the average transaction and build a brand that's lifestyle friendly and a business that's lifestyle friendly to accelerate growth, make a better impact on the world. So it's never about money. Somebody say oh, it's about money. No, it's not about money. It's about adding more value and making an impact. The money will follow. Who?

Well, hey Ford, thanks for jumping on spontaneously to help us out and help people. It's just you, you're so brilliant. It's ridiculous and I, I learned so much from you. And you got to join us at Game Changers and use the code Ford 20, Ford 20. Get 20% off. Go to Stagetime Live. By the way, Stagetime Live.com you'll see everyone else who's going to be there, what they' about. But really this is about you. If you're not happy, if you're not getting booked as often as you want at the price you want, well guess what, we can help you with that. You get one paid speech out of this and it's going to pay for its itself. So Mark Brown, what do you got for keepers from Ford?

So much he said look, you got to be great on stage, master your craft. Thing is you got to get found. Google yourself, you might be surprised what you see. Have a solid little footprint. LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok. Remember, content is a commodity. You must help the audience to discover, uncover and reveal. Never tie your identity to a delivery method and lead with the benefits. This isn't about selling, it's about serving. So listen, your first sell is to yourself. And when you sell yourself, start with a value proposition to grow, be coachable at times, revisit your action steps, invest your effort in the best use of your own time and use social media wisely. It's about quality and quantity. And forget the mistakes, but learn the lessons once in a while. Pause, take inventory of yourself, consult your inner circle and put yourself in your prospect's shoes. See what they see. By the way, go back, check and vet your own website and remember used to be's don't make no honey. Define a clear vision of what success will look like and view AI differently as an expert but monitor it as an intern. And don't forget it's 420 is the discount code at Game Changers and the.

Site again is what Darren stagetimelive.com stagetime.

Live everybody want that one on one with me?

You only do this once a year and if you sign up you get a one on one with Ford and that will be invaluable. Super cool Ford. Thanks for joining us. Mark Brown thanks for taking notes. Sorry for the carpal tunnel that you've developed over this. We will get you a hand therapy cast. Ford sakes. We'll see you in a few weeks in Vegas. Thanks for being here.

Take it easy.

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