Lisa explains how entrepreneurs and coaches can build speaking careers through social media instead of traditional speaker bureaus. She and TJ Walker discuss deciding which speaking gigs to take, why daily video builds name recognition faster than the old gatekeepers, and how to pick a strategy that actually fits your comfort level.
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But if you could suspend that belief for just a second, think like, well, if you have something that's really valuable for people to offer and you're in the right room, it's probably going to work out. Like it's, it's a good bet on yourself. So it, you know, that depends on the person's risk, comfort.
But I agree with you completely. There's a lot of different ways of making money. I always ask aspiring speakers who makes more money, this speaker who gets $25,000 every speech, or this lawyer who speaks for free but picks up three clients who pay a hundred thousand dollars a year.
So that's what I mean. Like, it's just like we just, instead of doing it how you think it's supposed to be done, this is where, and you had asked me earlier, like, what should we talk about that I don't usually talk about? And it's your intuition, your own inner guide, what feels right for you and why. And get really clear on that because after you're done working with me, if someone, if someone works with me, they're on their own. They gotta like, my, my goal is that you have clear yes and a clear no. Because you are constantly going to be berated with opportunities. And it's important to know does this opportunity, is this a good opportunity for me or is this one? I say no, I don't think so. I'm going to pass on that because that's not in a line with, with what I'm trying to do. And that goes for paid speaking. Speaking where you're waiving your fee, speaking where you might be, have an opportunity to pay for it, like you are the one who's paying. That might be a great opportunity for you as well. Or not. This is where we all have to get really clear on our own yeses.
And no's of Alan Weiss's million dollar speaking. But it was written now what, a quarter century ago. Your book is much more recent and perhaps people should have both on their on their shelf. But tell us more specifically about how people get value from your book. Who is it designed to help right now?
It's designed to help an entrepreneur or, or business owner, small business owner who really feels called to speak. And you want to use that model to grow your business. So for example, you might be a coach or a consultant and you just get a lot of excitement out of speaking to an audience and maybe you teaching them something or sharing something really valuable, but you're not really sure. How do you put that all together? How does that. How do you create that machine? And that's what the book, who the book is for.
Okay, Lisa, I want you to rip me apart now. I'm being very sincere. I want to. I want to tell you the advice I give to people. I think you're going to say something different, and I want you to tell me where I'm wrong. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and certain biases. I've been speaking at some level or not professionally, whether it's hosting shows or whatever, since 1984. That's when I did my first training. So I've been at it a while. Went to the National Speakers association in the early 90s, was president of the National Speakers Association, New York chapter, I don't know, 15 years ago. So I've seen a lot of changes in the industry. So way back in the day, someone wanted to be a speaker. You said, okay, put together a one sheet, figure out what you want, mail it to every Rotary Club in your town, knock on doors, beg to speak for free, have some kind of freebie at the end to try to collect people's business cards, follow up with them and. And ask them if you can speak to their group. And over time, it can build. And you could build a professional business. That's. That's. And then you can take that video of that and send it to speaker bureaus, and then you can call speaker bureaus all day long. What I have told people in the last seven years or so is that model's completely broken. The people I see who are most successful at speaking and everything else, the people who seem to have the most fun speak in social media. They build significant followings. Doesn't have to be as large, large as Gary Vaynerchuk, but they figure out some core aspect, some niche, something they're passionate about. It could be on Twitter, it could be on LinkedIn, but they are creating content almost daily. They're creating video where people see them speak and they amass significant audiences. And that is the far and away the best way to get the phone to ring for you to call you people. Gary Vaynerchuk does not have to cold call anyone to get a speaking gig. He's got to have someone just answer the phone to say no to the 99 out of 100 people who can't afford his $200,000 fee. So my advice is, if you want to be a professional speaker on the stage, speak every day in front of one of these, build a community, and then your own fans will want to recommend you, hire you, and the number one thing most conferences want these days is someone with some name ID who if they announced Gary Vaynerchuk is speaking in our event, boom. Another 500 people are willing to pay the thousand dollar fee because they want to come hear you speak. So I tell people, don't waste time on the speaking for free. If it involves traveling somewhere, I'd much rather you make free five videos and share it with the whole world and build a social media following. Don't waste time calling speaker bureaus if you have to reach out to them. Almost by definition they don't want you for the most point. So that's what I tell aspiring speakers is there used to be a time when the only way to speak was to beg to talk to the Rotary Club. Now anyone can speak to the whole world. Mr. Beast speaks to hundreds of millions of people and he doesn't have to knock on a speaker bureau or have some gatekeeper come after them. It's this whole concept of don't worry about the gatekeepers. Speak to an audience in the technology of the moment, which is not a live stage, it's a video camera. Then the gigs will come to you. I apologize, that's a very long question. I'm going to be quiet and I want to hear from you why I'm wrong and what you think the better strategy is.
Well, I think that this comes back to a conversation you and I had had earlier about cookie cutters, right? If I suggest an idea to my client that they would hate and they would just be miserable doing, they will not do it. So I am much more of a fan of finding what suits you. What strategy is going to suit that individual that's going to help them get to that next step of where they want to go. There might be people who heard your, your advice, which is working great for you because you're great on video and you love speaking. You've been doing it for so long, right? You're not at the beginning of your speaking career. So for you, you're like, well, rather than get on a plane, I want to build up my YouTube channel. I want to go live on all the platforms and I love speaking and I want to do it every day. That works perfectly for you. For someone else, it might be super intimidating. Maybe the tech is too out of reach for them or they just don't know what to say. So again, we. It's not that one strategy is bad and the other one's good. It's more of like really finding the one that you're going to do and you're going to do consistently. Right. Not just a flash in the pan. Sure. You could go live one day. Is that going to make a difference? No. You need to build it up regularly. So I think it's important that especially as entrepreneurs, when you have your whole day, you just have this white calendar. It's this blank space. What am I going to do with my dad?
