33: Thought Leader series - Paid speaking with Taylorr Payne

We have a special guest joining today’s episode. Taylorr Payne is the CEO and co-founder of SpeakerFlow, a software and coaching company that helps professional speakers grow their businesses by providing them with the coaching and systems they need to stay focused on booking more speaking gigs.

Taylorr shares with us two primary ways to grow thought leadership in the digital marketing world, content marketing and partnership marketing.

To display more credibility in your content marketing, create your own studies and statistics by reaching out to individuals and gathering your own information. This makes your content more reputable and more likely to be shared.

Partnership marketing introduces you to someone else’s audience as an expert they can trust in your area of expertise. Examples of this are guest speaking on podcasts, YouTube channels, as well as social media platforms. You can also write guest blogs, speak at conferences, host combined webinars, and more.

Keynote speeches are the big kahuna of the paid speaking world. Curious if your keynote deserves the big bucks? Learn Taylorr’s definition of what a keynote is to make sure you’re presenting what event planners and audiences expect.

Tune into today’s episode to hear more about the wealth of information Taylorr Payne has to share with us all on paid speaking and keynote speeches. You can head over to speakerflow.com to learn more about Taylorr and what SpeakerFlow offers.

This episode at a glance:

>{3:17 - 12:55} Guest speaker, Taylorr Payne, shares a deeper look into the experiences that shaped him and his business, SpeakerFlow.
>{13:00 - 18:29} Taylorr gives his outlook on what it means to be a thought leader, including two great ways to grow your thought leadership with digital marketing. Get his specific approach as well as his process to grow a strong paid speaking business.
>{18:59 - 20:38} Find out exactly what a keynote speech is, how to price yours (this may surprise you!) and how to maximize your pitches to book more high-paid speaking gigs.
>{23:10- 24:42 } A look into speaker bureaus, a few big ones to know, as well as how and when to utilize them.
>{24:43 - 26:51} How to build a smart process to get booked as a paid speaker.
>{27:13 - 31:36} What is the expected timeline from initial research to payday? Plus, a technique that will sometimes help you shrink that timeline.
>{33:22 - 36:00} Learn more about speakerflow.com and how it provides the systems, tech, and coaching needed to grow paid speaking businesses.

Links in the episode & ways to reach Christie

https://speakerflow.com
[email protected]
https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorrpayne/

www.christiebilbrey.com
[email protected]
Download my free guide: 10 Tips to Grow Your Business as a Podcast Guest
Instagram: https://instagram.com/christiebilbrey
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiebilbrey/

Episode Transcript

00:00:04:08 - 00:00:31:08
Speaker 1
Thank you so much for joining today. I'm really excited about today's interview. We are in a thought leadership series, and today we have Taylor Payne. He is the CEO and co-founder of Speaker Flow a software and coaching company dedicated to helping experts leverage systems to take control of their business and stop spinning their wheels as an award winning marketer and sales professional.

00:00:31:16 - 00:00:59:10
Speaker 1
Taylor's core philosophy is that systems, the technology, people and processes in your business are key to your success. If you want a business that's predictable, one that you have full control over, one that empowers you and one that continues to grow systems are the answer. On a personal note, Taylorr's a car enthusiast, musician and extremely left handed. I'm left handed to really no way.

00:00:59:10 - 00:01:00:06
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.

00:01:00:09 - 00:01:11:10
Speaker 2
Super cool. Like. I notice that there's like, a spectrum of left handedness. So, like, are you capable with your right hand, or are you, like, one of those people that use your mouse with your left hand? Or, like, how far do you go left handed?

00:01:11:20 - 00:01:30:18
Speaker 1
Well, OK, so I will cut. I was taught to cut right handed because it was easier for my parents. I do use a mouse right handed just because that was like, yeah. But I can play tennis. I can bat I can do it. So I can do sports and things either.

00:01:31:05 - 00:01:33:06
Speaker 2
Wow. Either. That's impressive.

00:01:33:06 - 00:01:40:21
Speaker 1
Either. Yeah. And writing is pretty sketchy right handed but I have definitely tried for sure.

00:01:40:21 - 00:02:00:15
Speaker 2
I totally hear that. Yeah. What about you? Yeah, pretty much. I'm not one of those left handed mouse people, but I am like, like, really on the, like, the musical side. Extremely left, useless on the right hand, it ends up. Really? Yeah, to a point where I had this violin and violins. They're meant to be held this way, I think.

00:02:00:21 - 00:02:16:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. Where your left hand is the thing controlling it, and you're using your right arm to bow, but you can't really, like, just flip the strings on a violin to play Left-Handed the way I want to. So I had it, like, reconstructed. So they flipped the bass board on the inside just so I can play the violin left handed.

00:02:16:11 - 00:02:28:11
Speaker 2
But I realized in that moment, I'm never going to go, like, be at an orchestra. I'll never be able to play for that, because I to be like that one violinist pointing in the opposite direction. So yeah, that's basically where I land.

00:02:29:01 - 00:02:47:22
Speaker 1
When there was a time I was attempting to learn guitar, and so it was restringing everything. So it was already starting to right hand it. And I was kind of like, Yeah, this is going to be a pain. I have a really good piano. Yes. Because, you know, I play with both hands, but no no guitar for me.

00:02:48:02 - 00:02:54:12
Speaker 2
So I hear you. Yeah. My first three years were spent upside down on a guitar, basically. So I definitely know a man.

00:02:55:21 - 00:03:16:17
Speaker 1
Well, Taylorr has a very interesting background, and so I would love for him before we really dove into the meat of what he's going to share about thought leadership I want you guys to just learn a little bit about who he is, where he started, and how that has progressed. So take it away Taylorr.

00:03:17:08 - 00:03:35:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, thank you so much for the intro and stuff, too. You know what's funny is like, I don't know about you, but like, it's not like I ever planned on, like, being here, you know? Like, it was never like, you just kind of stumble into this crazy world of, like, thought leadership. I find. And my story very much is is like that.

00:03:35:10 - 00:03:57:06
Speaker 2
But basically, I had all these instances growing up where I was entrepreneurial, but I never knew it. Like, when I was 12, I went door knocking on all 20,000 homes inside of the town that we grew up in to mow lawns. I landed two clients, not very good at sales at that point in my life. I just wanted to make some money because no one would hire anybody below 15 years old.

00:03:57:06 - 00:04:16:04
Speaker 2
So I was like, All right, I'm going to go knock on doors and see what happens. So let's keep on going. Clients, thank you very much. Yeah. And then, you know, throughout the journey, I also got into like, I don't know, like computers and stuff and having them basically pay me to do that. And so I started doing that when I was like a young kid and I was like a teenager.

00:04:16:04 - 00:04:32:14
Speaker 2
And anyway, I had all these moments of being entrepreneurial that I didn't really notice. I didn't even realize until I was in my mid twenties, basically, because I wasn't even like it really exposed the idea of entrepreneurial ism or anything. And growing up, my family was very poor. My dad had renal failure, so he was like, Oh, wow.

00:04:32:24 - 00:04:52:08
Speaker 2
My mom worked gas station jobs. Basically, we lived in these like tiny apartments that were converted from like old army barracks and like the now then like as a kid, it's not that I was really like fascinated with like having money that wasn't like my core drive, but I wanted a better life, just generally speaking, and the one I was growing up in.

00:04:52:08 - 00:05:08:03
Speaker 2
And so I was kind of on this path of like, how do I create that? And I had some different role models and life was like, how do I create that life for myself? And so I think that's probably been the thing that was beating in the back of my head. From the moment I was knocking on doors when I was 12 to the entrepreneurial spirit I bring today.

00:05:08:03 - 00:05:24:01
Speaker 2
But basically my parents said, and this is the only word of wisdom I had, they said, Well, if you want to get out and you want to be successful, you've got to go to school. You got to study and find a high paying job that ranks on all that school where, you know, the typical kind of stuff, which is fair I think that's sure to some degree.

00:05:24:12 - 00:05:47:00
Speaker 2
And so I knocked it out of the park in high school. I had a 4.3 GPA. I was lettered, I had an associate's degree before I graduated. Like I hustled in school because in my mind, that was the only kind of way out. And basically in that process, because we were kind of, you know, under we weren't as privileged as far as being able to apply to schools because it was expensive to apply to all the schools I wanted to be at.

00:05:47:08 - 00:06:10:00
Speaker 2
I was a part of this program. It's called Quest Bridge. It's an amazing program that basically allows under high achieving students who are kind of poor in poverty, basically get access to applying to these larger colleges, Ivy League level schools. Wow. So you don't do interviews with them and it's kind of this whole two year long process. So I did that.

00:06:10:00 - 00:06:37:20
Speaker 2
And the idea is that if somebody says on the other side says, hey, yeah, we're interested, you get a full ride. So if you interview with one of those colleges, they say they're interested. You get a full ride. Wow. I interviewed with eight Ivy League schools, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Northwestern. And it was my spring of senior year. Everyone around me was figuring out what colleges they were going to because I had already applied earlier in the year, and I was still kind of waiting for the decision and none of them came back.

00:06:38:06 - 00:07:01:23
Speaker 2
And so this is kind of like my first like dang, like I was kind of put all my eggs in one basket type of situation. And there are reasons for why that happened. Basically, the program is designed to boost the ethnicity of different universities around the world, basically, which is incredible. But I'm a white, straight guy interested in science, so like I wasn't hitting all of the criteria basically.

00:07:01:23 - 00:07:17:12
Speaker 2
And there were thousands of way smarter people out there who got into these amazing colleges. And this was a lesson I needed to learn, though, because I hadn't yet learned to not maybe like bet everything on kind of one outcome. And so I was like, well, now I got to figure out a college, where am I going to go?

00:07:17:12 - 00:07:35:17
Speaker 2
I need at this point, I had no idea I was going. So I did some research and I found out ASU had the biggest science budget north of $200 million a year in the entire U.S. And I said, OK, well, I want to be a scientist. I want to go and study some electrochemistry and, you know, nerd out, basically.

00:07:35:17 - 00:08:02:10
Speaker 2
So, yeah, I went down to ASU and I'm from Minnesota, so for all you listeners, that was a challenging transition. But I basically got into a lab right away and I started actually teaching a college success course, all because I had network with my professors around me and realized they needed help. And I was kind of just networking with all of the faculty at the university, and it was unlocking one of opportunities that I wouldn't have otherwise unlocked as a freshman.

00:08:02:22 - 00:08:20:07
Speaker 2
And this is when I first realized the importance of relationships and communication and just being a human being, rather than kind of expecting things to necessarily just happen, you just kind of stay top of mind with people and then they'll open some doors for you kind of the whole idea. It's not what you know, it's kind of who you know.

00:08:20:07 - 00:08:22:03
Speaker 1
And huge lesson to learn.

00:08:22:13 - 00:08:50:16
Speaker 2
Yeah, for sure. And so I got into a lab my freshman year. I was in there 16 hours a day, though. Working on papers for fuel cells, and she has a certain personality that does really well in a lab. You can tell so far I am not that personality and so I didn't really realize this, but I realized I walked into my professor's office one day and he had this kind of heads in his hand and he was kind of rubbing his temples and he looked, he was 80 years old, emeritus status at the university.

00:08:50:16 - 00:09:13:17
Speaker 2
He's been there for decades and now he's frustrated and I'm like, Hey, what's going on? And he was like, the university is giving me a ton of pressure to bring in grant funding for the department, basically to get more research going. And I kind of just like, I don't know what happened, but in that moment, I fast forward in my life and I realized like, this is a giant business, like as cool as the university is like and the opportunities that can unlock for people.

00:09:14:04 - 00:09:31:19
Speaker 2
I didn't want to be 80 years old getting pressure from the university to bring in department funding and produce more research. And like I kind of just had this epiphany in that moment that like leading up through my entire life, like I was a hustler and I would go get after it basically and share what I had learned with relationships.

00:09:31:19 - 00:09:43:18
Speaker 2
Like, I just kind of it all came together and I realized I want to be an entrepreneur. Like I want to create my own thing. Wow. I didn't know what that was going to look like, basically. But in that moment I decided and I dropped out the next day, basically, I was like.

00:09:43:18 - 00:09:44:14
Speaker 1
Oh, wow.

00:09:45:02 - 00:10:02:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, so I said, OK, well, how am I going to do this entrepreneur thing? And I realized, well, in order to make money, you have to learn how to sell or at least have some premise for it. And that's an expensive skill set that I don't necessarily want to hire out or be clueless about. So I got an entry level sales position, and this is actually where I met Austin.

00:10:02:00 - 00:10:29:19
Speaker 2
I'm a co-founder of Speaker Flow. He was my boss originally and together we trained thousands of salespeople and kind of built these sales offices around the nation. And then I went into marketing because I wanted to figure out how to do that at scale rather than building trust one on one. How do you build trust one too many things like SEO and paid ads and websites, and this combination of sales and marketing experience basically allowed me to create a marketing agency.

00:10:29:23 - 00:10:47:13
Speaker 2
And then somebody approached the marketing agency and said, Hey, well, would you guys market for a thought leader? Speakers, coaches, consultants. We're like, What? You mean like speakers you listen to? And they're like, No, like people who get on stage. And we're like, So the people that we go conferences and watch, they get paid to be up there.

00:10:47:21 - 00:11:03:06
Speaker 2
Because in my mind, as a marketer, I thought it was just a marketing vehicle. Like, only you get up on stage, you get exposure and you don't get paid for it. They're like, No, no, they get paid tons of money. Five, ten, 15, $20,000. I said, Well, great, sure. I mean, as a marketing agency, that's like best case scenario.

00:11:03:06 - 00:11:26:00
Speaker 2
We booked one, two, three gigs. Our entire cost is paid for for the entire year for them. So why not? Let's give it a try. What could go wrong? It turns out a lot of most people speakers, coaches, consultants, they're solopreneurs. They're very small teams. They come from places of incredible experience and incredible like life that they've lived, who knows what?

00:11:26:00 - 00:11:49:17
Speaker 2
But most of the time it's not in running a business and developing systems and knowing how to sell and knowing how to market, it's there really good at their solid leadership, their core expertize, their speaking. They're transforming of people, but they sign up to run their own business, and now they have to wear all of these hats and be a salesperson and a marketer and run the operations and manage systems and all of these issues.

00:11:49:17 - 00:12:10:21
Speaker 2
And so when we turned on the digital faucet for these experts, all of those leads just fell through the cracks because they didn't have proper sales process or marketing process. Or even if they did start closing a lot of deals now, they'd be so inundated with delivery that they couldn't focus on growth anymore and they'd be on this constant like roller coaster, basically a feast or famine.

00:12:11:15 - 00:12:27:10
Speaker 2
And so we loved working with this group, though. And so we tried to figure out like, well, where are the gaps? And every single person that we talked to was basically I don't know what I don't know when it comes to running the business. There's tons of coaching out there for how to do speaking, how to do coaching, how to do consulting, how to write a book.

00:12:27:21 - 00:12:50:01
Speaker 2
But there's nothing around how to run the business of this thing. And so because of our systems mind and our scientific kind of mentality, systems are at the core of our businesses. We kind of ran people through a trial run, like, what if we built out these systems for you? And then built these core processes in place that you could then handle a lot of leads and sales volume and delivery and hiring people.

00:12:50:10 - 00:12:55:16
Speaker 2
And that's when we saw a lot of transformation happen. So that's kind of how the core idea of speaker flow kind of came to be.

00:12:56:10 - 00:12:57:08
Speaker 1
What a story.

00:12:57:21 - 00:13:00:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. Thanks. Bear with me.

00:13:00:17 - 00:13:28:02
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, that's very interesting. And so now that's where you're at. You're at Speaker Flow and just kind of getting into you thought leaders said that's primarily who you work with. Yeah. What do you think it means to be a thought leader? And then when you started this business, what was your approach coach to really become a thought leader in this space in terms of like which strategies did you employ?

00:13:28:11 - 00:13:52:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, man, this is a great question. So really a thought leader like I'm going to this is controversial. So bear with me. I honestly don't believe any idea hasn't already been said like I mean, the some of the stuff that we're on stage talking about has been iterated and repeated and gone through a giant game of telephone for the last 2000 6000.

00:13:52:05 - 00:14:14:14
Speaker 2
10,000. It's, it's life basically right now. So but what what that means, especially now that we're in an age of information I think thought leadership was very different in maybe even 20 or 30 years ago is today all of the information we ever need in the world around these tiny rectangles that we carry around in our pockets and we can find out any bit of information that we need.

00:14:15:03 - 00:14:46:08
Speaker 2
What a thought leader does though is distill information down and act as a filter basically and guides a group of people or an individual. Ideally, if you're a thought leader, though, you're helping many people, guides them through transformation to achieve something to solve a problem. Basically, they're taking all this information that's out there, these really abstract ideas and making them simple to comprehend, taking the complex, distilling it down, to simple, easy to understand things that people can take action on and see transformation by.

00:14:46:08 - 00:15:11:06
Speaker 2
Basically, then I think that's really what makes the difference between maybe somebody who's just out there producing content versus actually a thought leader. They're taking all of these ideas and this information that we have and changing the way we think about them, basically not rather going with like the status quo, but being controversial in nature and having ideas that push back from what the normal way of communing about communicating about something is.

00:15:11:16 - 00:15:32:03
Speaker 2
And so this is largely what happened when we were starting speaker flow, because we would have to what we realized is like if we want to attract thought leaders, we have to be thought leaders about this idea of of running a better business, basically. And how do we start producing that content? How do you create a brand that's perceived as a thought leadership brand basically.

00:15:32:06 - 00:15:52:18
Speaker 2
Right. And in the digital marketing world, there are really a few ways to do this, but the primary two are primary two, as you can tell, not very specific, but the two you want to think about, these go hand in hand are content marketing and then partnership marketing. So the idea of content marketing isn't just like writing blogs, but it's producing research.

00:15:52:18 - 00:16:11:17
Speaker 2
So for example, at Speaker Flow, we have something called the state of the Speaking Industry report that we run every single year. That gets really into the weeds of the metrics of people's businesses who volunteer this information forward. No one else creates this research and then we can get some extrapolations and understanding from it. So that's one way to be perceived as a thought leader.

00:16:11:17 - 00:16:41:00
Speaker 2
You create your own research, something that somebody else doesn't have, and you get known for something the other way, which a lot of your listeners probably employ if they're actively speaking or have these models, if you will, is they'll label a process like the three CS to success or the five Fs to I don't know what you know, like there's there's a name to a process, basically something that you've kind of coined that guides somebody through solving a problem that they have that's a form of thought leadership and content marketing.

00:16:41:16 - 00:16:58:16
Speaker 2
But really where people have trouble is the masses. How do you get this in front of people? It's pretty easy these days to set up a website, set up a YouTube channel, set up social media, and the number of times I've heard people say I've been just on social media all the time and I'm not getting any business from it and my website isn't doing anything for me.

00:16:59:16 - 00:17:21:10
Speaker 2
There are many reasons for all of these things, but the core issue is that like it requires tens of thousands of people to hit your website before you start generating an insane number of leads that start feeding your business because you're generating trust blindly cold. People are hitting your website, making their assumptions, and then maybe or maybe not submitting a form.

00:17:21:10 - 00:17:37:13
Speaker 2
And even if they do, they're still you have to build their trust from Ground Zero, basically. So our partnership marketing comes into play, which is the whole idea of speaking, by the way, is you leverage somebody else's audience who has trust in you to come in and provide information on.

00:17:37:13 - 00:17:38:16
Speaker 1
So, yes.

00:17:39:00 - 00:17:54:04
Speaker 2
This is what we're doing right here in the podcast. You and I have a great relationship. You said Taylorr has got to come on the show. I say, Yeah, great. And now I'm leveraging your audience to potentially get people. And no one's no one's like not in tune with this idea, but to get people interested in speaker flow and vice versa.

00:17:54:11 - 00:18:20:05
Speaker 2
We bring people on our podcast to do the same. You get on stage to speak, you do webinars, you produce blogs for people like this idea of using partners and their audiences to then generate business just expedites your ability to generate trust. You combine these two things together content marketing and partnership marketing, and this is how you get the perception of being a thought leader, whether or not you believe that to be true about yourself, there's always that imposter syndrome that could happen.

00:18:20:11 - 00:18:29:03
Speaker 2
Those two things combined will really elevate you to that status of thought leadership because you're combining your content in volume for people to get acquainted with.

00:18:29:16 - 00:18:53:07
Speaker 1
Love that you said that so well. And now specifically paid speaking. So for a lot of people who either, you know, just had a one or two fall in their lap but don't necessarily have a strategy or for others who would love to pursue that route, but it can seem a little bit intimidating and aren't sure how to get started.

00:18:53:17 - 00:18:59:06
Speaker 1
What are some tips that you recommend to to pursue that?

00:18:59:22 - 00:19:19:11
Speaker 2
Who? Yes. OK, so I think let's go to the most common example, which is relative we like ground zero. Like let's make some assumptions, though. Let's say you've got a website, it communicates something of how you solve a problem. You've got a keynote whether or not it's perfect is up for debate, but you've got something that you can sell.

00:19:20:00 - 00:19:22:02
Speaker 2
So we've got that taken care of. And, you know.

00:19:22:09 - 00:19:33:15
Speaker 1
We back up. Can you can you define keynote so that people know, OK, I speak on these things. How do I know if this is a keynote or not? And if it's not, how can I button it up?

00:19:34:06 - 00:20:04:00
Speaker 2
That's a great question, and thank you for asking for that definition. So the definition of keynote is actually in the name key note. It's one thing, one idea to help somebody solve a problem, basically. And so a keynote is basically like your main offer, if you will. Now, some people might have multiple keynotes multiple topics that they speak on, although I do recommend really establishing your niche at some point or maybe each year you kind of refresh your keynote to keep it current or something.

00:20:04:00 - 00:20:23:09
Speaker 2
It the idea of a keynote is that it's kind of like the the big kahuna of the speaking that you sell that five, ten, $15,000 thing and then you can branch off of that if you need to and the different topics or smaller presentations. But when I say keynote, I'm talking really largely about any talk that will put you on stage for a paid amount.

00:20:23:09 - 00:20:52:03
Speaker 2
And sometimes this will be in the format of a breakout or a workshop or a master class or actually on stage speaking. But the lens I always like to think things through is like you're sharing one idea one process to help people change their action, basically. Does that help? OK, cool. So let's talk about just getting paid for any one of those things keynoting breakouts, workshops, and I think somebody starting from Ground Zero keynotes aren't the thing that like opening keynote closing keynotes.

00:20:52:03 - 00:21:10:12
Speaker 2
Like at big conferences, you can land a few of those, but there's just no denying that you kind of have to cut your teeth for a little while doing breakouts and workshops and maybe training, as it were, still kind of getting your content out there. But this is really where you're polishing your craft basically while getting paid for it, which is awesome.

00:21:10:23 - 00:21:29:06
Speaker 2
So if you're open to this idea of not just keynoting but breakouts, workshops, masterclasses, trainings and so on, now we just need a process for how do you actually price your keynote? What do you need to reach out to and how are you going to reach out to them now for pricing your talks? What you want to do is not undervalue yourself.

00:21:29:10 - 00:21:57:02
Speaker 2
A lot of people will be like, I can't even get hired to speak for $500 or $1,000. The big reason is because people aren't used to paying that amount for a speaker or a breakout presenter or workshop presenter. They're used to paying five, ten, 15, $20,000 for these people. And so if you undervalue yourself and you put that into a sales conversation, the person on the other end is going to be scratching their head asking Why you're so inexpensive versus what they're used to paying for.

00:21:57:03 - 00:22:18:15
Speaker 2
And so my very first advice to anybody out there who wants more paid speaking gigs, be it be it keynotes, breakouts, workshops, is competitive research, look at bureaus, other speakers are listed on what are their fee ranges, how long have they been doing it, what are the gaps that they solve and where do you come in, who's similar to you and who's not truly understanding your market?

00:22:18:15 - 00:22:35:12
Speaker 2
So many people just dove in. They come up with an idea and they say, OK, I build it, they will come, you're wrong, you market it, they will come. But in order to market, you need to understand your market. So the very first thing that needs to happen is a true understanding of your market. Who you're up against, what those prices are, and not to undervalue yourself.

00:22:35:20 - 00:22:54:23
Speaker 2
Now, if you're curious about pricing, just start at five grand, just blanket statement, start at five grand, and then increase that fee by $500 every time you get into a sales conversation. And then once you start getting a lot of friction, you learn how to sell at that higher level. You move on to the next level, basically. So start at five for every sales conversation.

00:22:55:13 - 00:22:56:03
Speaker 1
Excellent.

00:22:56:03 - 00:22:57:14
Speaker 2
You get the sales conversation.

00:22:57:15 - 00:22:58:00
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:22:58:11 - 00:23:00:01
Speaker 2
How do you how do you get on the phone?

00:23:00:12 - 00:23:10:12
Speaker 1
Well, and bureaus you and you're talking about speaker bureaus who are can you just name like who are some of the biggies just so people know? Yeah. Yeah.

00:23:10:12 - 00:23:35:15
Speaker 2
Washington Speaker's Bureau champions, they're based out of the UK. Goodman speakers is another one. We actually have a blog 30 plus speaker bureaus you should know about as you're on your journey but I've interviewed a lot of bureau owners, a lot of speaker agents. And the thing about a bureau is they need to you need to be so crystal clear on your message who you serve, what gaps you fill in the market because they're selling on behalf of you and you need to stay top of mind with them.

00:23:36:00 - 00:23:56:00
Speaker 2
And most people, most bureaus, agents and so on, they want to see a speaker doing 100 to $200,000 a year of their own business before they really start booking them on a regular basis. And so if you can start your own active revenue generation yourself, you can go to a bureau and say, Look, I've sold this this many times.

00:23:56:00 - 00:24:14:19
Speaker 2
My fee is 15 grand. I only work with these people. And that's the type of relationship that a bureau wants to have with you. And we should have a whole conversation about that if you want to at some point. So bureaus though, don't pursue them too early and don't think that an agent, a bureau is going to like solve your sales problems because they're not.

00:24:15:01 - 00:24:19:24
Speaker 2
Because if you can't sell yourself, somebody else can't sell yourself, which is going to be a huge problem. Right.

00:24:20:15 - 00:24:22:17
Speaker 1
But there's things for research are.

00:24:22:17 - 00:24:42:03
Speaker 2
Good place for research. Correct. And that's where you want to be digging in early on. Plus understanding the market to like where there are gaps that you can fill in for that bureau later on. Because if you realize wow, champions has all of these speakers on this topic, but they don't have someone like me on this topic, you can kind of know how you can fit into their marketplace when you do that outreach with them.

00:24:43:11 - 00:25:07:17
Speaker 2
So the question still is how do you get sales conversations, like if a bureau is going to do it for you, if you can't just sign up and like speakers can get job board listings, although that can happen occasionally, how are you going to generate your own business? And really this boils down to just prospecting, doing research, what conferences are coming up that you could be a good fit for finding a decision maker, at least your best guess of who that would be.

00:25:07:17 - 00:25:30:08
Speaker 2
Director of education, meeting an event planners, chief marketing officers, depending on the company and all of that, really doing research, taking time every week to find maybe ten or 15 new prospects and then reaching out to them. And this is where most people go wrong. Most people, they realize I need to find leads so they get some leads, they sign up for a list or whatever, but their outreach falls short.

00:25:30:08 - 00:25:52:23
Speaker 2
They'll do one email and their first email is their entire life story and they might follow up a second time. And often they're not going on beyond that point. In sales, it takes seven to 12 touchpoints to generally get a reply from somebody because there's a trust that needs to get built for them to be interested in having that conversation with me.

00:25:53:09 - 00:26:19:23
Speaker 2
And a reply is the first step after a reply, you've got to get them into a sales conversation right and so there is no magic wand to generating your own business. I promise you, if you're authentic, you're providing value when you're doing your outreach and your consistent thinking about your mindset is planting seeds rather than harvesting. The harvest will come later and you're consistent with your outreach that seven to 12 touch points may be over 12 weeks or so.

00:26:20:07 - 00:26:40:17
Speaker 2
You're just maintain that without ever faltering on it. You do it every single day that you're open Monday through Friday, 30 minutes a day you don't falter, you will book sales conversations, and then you've figured out how to generate sales calls. Now you've got to figure out how to close your sales calls on a regular basis, and that's kind of the next level.

00:26:40:17 - 00:26:51:02
Speaker 2
But usually what I've found is people are so passionate about what they're talking about that closing the deal isn't as hard as getting them into the sales conversation at first.

00:26:51:15 - 00:27:12:21
Speaker 1
Now, that's such an excellent description of kind of the lay of the land, and I think, you know, we live in such an age of instant gratification. I like how you talk about it is going to take a while, is going to take a lot of follow ups. You mentioned 12 weeks even kind of be prepared to reach out to this group of people for 12 weeks.

00:27:13:05 - 00:27:50:20
Speaker 1
But I think beyond that, because I see this on the podcast booking site as well, if you can maybe just get into because people want to know results, well, when do I get the results? When do I get the money? And so from the time that you first start doing research and it's going to vary for everybody, but from the time you first start doing research and first start getting responses and maybe getting some sales calls, how far in advance typically will people book for a conference like is this three months, six months, 12 months?

00:27:51:12 - 00:27:59:00
Speaker 1
I want people to understand this. You know, it takes a while. And so you share a little bit about that for sure.

00:27:59:00 - 00:28:15:18
Speaker 2
So everyone listening, I want you to put yourselves in the shoes of an event planner. You've got a huge event, one that you want to speak at, which means there should be a lot of people there. Let's call it 200 to a thousand people. So you've got that many people to show up. You've got a place to host it.

00:28:16:01 - 00:28:36:03
Speaker 2
You've got enough programing over the number of days of that conference to keep them interested. There's so much work that goes into planning an event and think about like the contracts that need to get signed with venues even before eCommerce. It's not like I can call up a hotel and host an event with a thousand people next weekend. Like they're booked out for a year.

00:28:36:03 - 00:28:57:24
Speaker 2
Right? So a lot of the time the planning for conferences particularly happens at a minimum six months out from the next conference. Basically that's like usually at a minimum, larger conferences might take time and some events they already know their venues years out, like the National Speakers Association has their conferences negotiated for like through 20, 25 or something.

00:28:57:24 - 00:29:17:18
Speaker 2
Right. And this isn't uncommon. So because associations, particularly their whole job is to keep people engaged and put on events and so on. So they're usually thinking about it well in advance. However, COVID completely changed this when things were going virtual and people needed instant help like I saw buying windows as short as two weeks.

00:29:17:18 - 00:29:18:04
Speaker 1
Wow.

00:29:18:04 - 00:29:38:23
Speaker 2
Somebody would call up and say, Hey, we need to speak your stat now. I think as the world has kind of unwound a bit and virtual and hybrid and live as a more part of our everyday lives, we're kind of going back to that like three to six month buying window. That's definitely the most common. About 90 days out is when they're making the decision, but six months is when they're planning, basically.

00:29:38:23 - 00:29:47:07
Speaker 2
OK, so if you're reaching out for events, you want to build that relationship before everyone else thinks about it. So I'm not even talking six months. I'm talking nine months.

00:29:47:11 - 00:29:47:16
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:29:47:17 - 00:30:06:04
Speaker 2
So if I know somebody has an event June of next year, I'm reaching out three months from now to start dripping content, providing value. And then as it gets closer, I might tighten up how often I'm reaching out so that I can get somebody on the phone six months from it and I'm one of their first speakers on their roster rather than their last one.

00:30:07:00 - 00:30:16:21
Speaker 1
So when you are just starting to do that research, you're looking nine to 12 months at that point kind of to see what's, what's going on.

00:30:17:07 - 00:30:32:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, and I wouldn't rule off anything sooner, like a year or six months because I mean, obviously if you feel like you're a really good fit chances are you might not have everyone booked up yet because if you start your outreach for some that you're really interested in that may of like that are really close to happening, you might be surprised.

00:30:32:04 - 00:30:49:02
Speaker 2
You could always use the Hey, a speaker falls short and you need an emergency. Call me, I'll be here for you. I just walked off the dates, right? So you can really add value for somebody that has an event kind of coming up sooner rather than later. But also those events are great for next year. They might say, hey, you know what?

00:30:49:03 - 00:31:19:08
Speaker 2
Like, we already booked our speakers. OK, great. Christi, do you mind if I reach back out in a few months to talk about your next year's event? Yeah, not a problem. That sounds great. Well, now she's already expecting my follow up, right? So they're kind of already waiting for me when I follow up next time. So if you're looking to start and want to have their best chances, I would say look for events six to 12 months out so that you have space to nurture those people, then anybody that has events coming up soon, you know, try and sprinkle in additional value that can get you potentially booked.

00:31:19:08 - 00:31:36:12
Speaker 2
Like that whole idea of if you need an emergency, let me know but focus more on those people to get ahead of next year kind of knowing they chances are already planned everything but building a relationship now so that when you do follow up with them four or five months from now, they're kind of expecting it.

00:31:37:06 - 00:31:55:21
Speaker 1
Yeah. Now that's great. You've given us so many amazing tips before we go into more about what exactly what speaker flow is, is there anything else that I haven't asked about that you think is like a really important tip for people kind of starting out in this space?

00:31:56:16 - 00:32:16:19
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think I don't think there's anything you missed. Something like I want to like really reinforce like running a business is arguably the hardest thing you will ever do in your life. I mean, truly, like, are granted some other hard things, don't get me wrong, but it's the thing that will go on forever and there will be always different problems to solve.

00:32:16:19 - 00:32:46:04
Speaker 2
There will always be different challenges to overcome. And none of it is a light switch. It just takes iteration and planning and executing and plan execute test plan execution. It's like truly the scientific method here comes all the way back to that for us. Like if you're patient with yourself, you take a process like the one I outlined seven touch points over a period of time and you just focus on making that polished rather than looking for all of these magic wands and silver bullets and shiny objects that are out there.

00:32:46:11 - 00:33:05:04
Speaker 2
You iterating on your own process over time is more valuable than any transplanted process will ever be. So try to limit your distractions as you're growing your business and just trust the process and put all of your effort into refining that before you look for shiny objects that will over promise and under deliver.

00:33:05:22 - 00:33:22:21
Speaker 1
Excellent advice. And I feel like that's such a good segway into Speaker flow and why you do so. So share more like what exactly is speaker flow and how that helps with paid speaking and just the types of people that you work with for sure.

00:33:22:21 - 00:33:43:10
Speaker 2
So like, you know, an example is like of a system of a process is like what we outlined with business development right seven to 12 touch points over a period of time and what you're going to say that's one core process of about 50 we've identified that speaker flow that a lot of people need even things like email marketing or project management after you close a deal.

00:33:43:10 - 00:34:02:07
Speaker 2
These are all different processes a business will need and they need them at different stages. Right? So speaker flow is primarily a coaching company and we actually didn't even have our own software when we started. I didn't even know that we needed at the time. We said we'll just use technology, whatever is available to help enable people but really our bread and butter is the process.

00:34:02:07 - 00:34:21:01
Speaker 2
What are you going to follow in order to see results? And then people now that you follow process, who can do it for you if you don't want to be doing it or it's not worth your time. So tech process people. Well, we realized we were just reinventing our wheel with every new client we would bring on. We'd customize a CRM the same way every time, the email marketing tool the same way every time.

00:34:21:01 - 00:34:40:04
Speaker 2
And before you know it, our clients would have a small mortgage and all of this technology that they were paying for. And at some point we just said, why isn't there an operating system like one place to be able to run the business? CRM, email marketing, invoicing, surveys, contract signings, social media management, like all of the things we all need in order to run a digital business these days.

00:34:40:21 - 00:34:59:00
Speaker 2
So we found one. We partnered up with a company to custom develop solutions specifically for our industry, a custom CRM at the center of 65 different business applications so that people can centralize their small mortgage down to one system for $45 per month per user and so it's a.

00:34:59:00 - 00:35:00:03
Speaker 1
Significant difference.

00:35:00:03 - 00:35:21:22
Speaker 2
Right? Yeah, that's right. And so we got known for two things. The first is the implementation of our technology. Like if somebody has a process they've got people, they just want the system to be able to power up their business and go further, that's fine. But otherwise our coaching program just way leveled up because now we had our technology suite that we could just plant everybody into that was going through our coaching program.

00:35:22:04 - 00:35:44:08
Speaker 2
We could immediately talk about process. And since we designed the system, we also designed the analytics to help us improve our coaching clients businesses and so we can truly help them systemize. So Speaker Flow in a nutshell, is a coaching company designed to help Systemize Thought leadership businesses across every department they have, which is generally growth back of office stuff.

00:35:44:15 - 00:36:00:03
Speaker 2
And then their experience, which is their client delivery and so if we can identify those core processes, standardize everything, plug it into some tech and help people find the right people to help them as they navigate, they've got a systemized business that takes the guesswork out of running it.

00:36:00:24 - 00:36:05:24
Speaker 1
Love of it. And how long is. Speaker four Speaker Flow been around?

00:36:06:13 - 00:36:08:14
Speaker 2
We just passed our third birthday on.

00:36:09:00 - 00:36:10:03
Speaker 1
Congratulations.

00:36:10:03 - 00:36:12:14
Speaker 2
Six months prior to the pandemic. Really good time.

00:36:12:14 - 00:36:14:02
Speaker 1
Oh, wow. Yeah.

00:36:14:17 - 00:36:16:03
Speaker 2
That's a whole other conversation.

00:36:16:14 - 00:36:43:02
Speaker 1
Yeah. Exactly. Surviving the pandemic. Yeah, well, that is awesome. Well, you are such a wealth of information, Taylorr. Thank you so much. For coming on. Thank you so much for your generosity and everything that you shared. And you guys, if you're listening, they go to Speaker Flow dot com. They have just their library's a wealth of information. They have so many great free downloads that really don't even require emails.

00:36:43:02 - 00:36:58:05
Speaker 1
They just let you have it. So head on over there, you'll get a lot of questions answered. But if not, if you have more questions, we will have a way for you to get in touch. How would you like people Taylorr to get in touch with you?

00:36:58:07 - 00:37:11:16
Speaker 2
Send an email to Taylorr@speaker flow.com. You can talk with me on LinkedIn to or press the Strategy Session button on our website but if you want to have a one on one conversation, you can just give me an email.

00:37:12:15 - 00:37:14:22
Speaker 1
OK, well great. Well, thank you so much, Taylorr.

00:37:15:09 - 00:37:16:20
Speaker 2
Yeah, no problem. Thanks, Christie.