Steve Gordon: Welcome to the Unstoppable CEO Podcast. I’m your host, Steve Gordon. Today I’m really excited. We’ve got a fantastic interview for you. We have my good friend David Newman, who runs Do It Marketing, a 10-person marketing firm dedicated to helping executives and entrepreneurs speak more profitably. I think this is a huge topic.
You’re going to love this because David’s got a really unique approach. He’s also the founder of the Speaker Profit Formula mentoring program, and he helps thought-leading professionals get more leads, better prospects and bigger sales through the power of speaking. And he’s got a new book out which he’s going to tell us all about. David Newman, welcome to the podcast.
David Newman: Hey Steve. Thanks. It’s great to be here.
Steve: I’m excited about this. This is a topic that, over the years, speaking has made me an awful lot of money. I’m excited to share all of your wisdom with everybody that is with us. But before we get into all those details, give us a little bit of background. How did you get to this stage of your career?
David’s Path to Becoming an Author and Professional Speaker
David: Sure. Well, I started out doing professional theatre in New York City, believe it or not. So I have an undergraduate and a graduate degree in stage directing from the City University of New York. And I did four years of off-Broadway off-off-Broadway, stage managing, directing, assistant directing, literary managing really hard to make a living at that, by the way. So at the same time, I was doing some graduate teaching at my university.
Friend of mine says to me, you know, you could do that teaching thing for companies, and that’s called corporate training, and you might be able to make a living at that. So I took that very good friend’s advice, and I did in fact, start my first corporate training job in 1992. And I had worked, I had a succession of three jobs actually, in HR and management consulting and technology consulting firms doing internal and external consulting, training seminars, workshops. January 1, 2002, went out on my own figuring how hard can this be?
I know how to consult. I know how to speak. I know how to do a training workshop. Well Steve, as you know, it’s not about doing the work. It’s about getting the work. I went out, and I made every mistake in the book. It was a total disaster. I hit every brick wall, every dead end. I went out with 30 different workshops, jack of all trades, master of none. Not fun. took me about three years, three years of school of hard knocks, figure some things out, stop doing things wrong, start doing things right.
Along the path, here was the big turning point. I had a client who was in the information publishing industry, and they wanted to get into live events. They wanted to get into conferences. And they connected with me. Well, David, you’re a professional speaker, you must know about live events. So they hired me to do a one-year assignment as their VP of product development. And I got them into the live conference business and I manage their teleseminar and webinar business.
It was about a $5 million company and I was responsible for about $2 million of revenue, that little division that I ran. So within two weeks of getting that job as a meeting planner, conference producer, hiring other speakers and experts like myself, I realized I wouldn’t have hired me. I saw all the things that I was doing wrong from the buyers’ side of the table. And then at the same time, I was hiring all these, so I had hired about 160 experts, speakers, employment law attorneys, all kinds of different people.
And I studied each one of them. What’s the DNA of their business? How do they convey their expertise? How are they niched? How are they specializing? At the end of that 12 months that was basically a master class and how to do it right and how to stop doing it wrong. And when I got out from that assignment, I changed everything. I changed my website. I dropped all those different workshops. I was marketing and sales for professional services. That was it. And then I even niched further down that I was marketing and sales for thought-leading experts.
So it was going to be the face and the voice of the company, whether it’s a company of one or whether it’s a CEO or a managing partner of a consulting firm, law firm, accounting firm, but it was that guy or gal who had to build their personal brand as a speaker, as a thought leader, as an author, as an authority so that they could go and they could just get more leads and get better prospects and get bigger sales without doing all the monkey work that commoditizes them. I know that Steve, you’re a genius at this.
And you’re a huge believer and a huge proponent of education-based marketing and education-based sales process. So many of these professional services solopreneurs and entrepreneurs didn’t get it that I could just specialize in that little niche and that little corner of the universe and I started doing some scaling strategies.
I was able to scale this with at first that was online courses, then it was with mentoring, then it was hiring a fabulous team and as you said in the intro, I do now have 10 amazing, awesome people that work with us. You know, coaches and mentors and copywriters, and people like that. We do videos for speakers, we do speaker mentoring and marketing programs. So all of that evolved because I decided to become a true specialist and leave the generalist commodity business that I’d started all those years ago, far behind in the rearview mirror.
Steve: I love that. That’s, I tell you ya, you know, and you know this from working with your clients, we see it all the time too. Getting someone over the hump of making that decision to specialize. That’s a nontrivial decision for most business owners. They grapple with or they struggle with it. It’s hard because you feel like you’re giving up so much opportunity out beyond this narrow niche that you’re defining for yourself.
But it clearly has worked out. In my experience. With all the companies we’ve worked with, it always works out because it makes you something unique. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So as you know, at the beginning of these interviews, I always like to kind of dive deep into your journey and not specifically all the steps you’ve gone through, but what wisdom you’ve gained from all the roadblocks all of the wrong turns, the missteps. You had to persist through all of that. What wisdom can you share with us? What kept you going through all that? What helps you persist now as you run into challenges?
Action Eliminates Fear
David: Well, I would say that my one inner bumper sticker with the mantra that gets me out of trouble, refocused on the positive and out of any rut, no matter how deep, at least, professionally, no matter how deep, is three words. The three words our action, eliminates fear. Action eliminates fear. So there’s no accident, Steve, that the name of my company is Do It Marketing. It’s not think about it marketing, it’s not obsess over it marketing, it’s not sit on your hands, fret and worry marketing.
It is Do It Marketing. So I’m such a huge believer that anytime that you’re faced with uncertainty, anytime that you’ve got fear, anytime that you’ve got a problem a thorny, big, nasty complex problem, rather than retreat, rather than be a deer in the headlights and freeze and then go into analysis paralysis and talk to 17 different people, take one baby action. Take one little baby step. Do something to get in front of that problem, ahead of that problem.
And maybe it is call a friend. Maybe it is hire a mentor. Maybe it is have a huddle with your team. Maybe it is to implement one new strategy or one new tactic or one new initiative. But I think where people really start to get stuck, it’s not about having problems because every successful entrepreneur, every successful person is going to feel stuck at some point.
But the truly successful people just don’t stay there very long. So action eliminates fear. The only way to get data from the marketplace or from your team or from an employee, the only way to get data is to take some action. And when we’re trying to make a decision, there’s a vacuum of data. And we don’t know and we start to tell stories and we start to create catastrophes in our own mind that have no external validation. What I’m going to say is, make some validation, take some steps, ask some questions, connect with someone.
You know, test something on your website, in your marketing, in your sales script in your next in-person meeting with a prospect. Test something, change something, pivot something, it will give you data on what’s working and what’s not. So it’s almost like playing that game where it’s like hotter, colder, cold. Oh, freezing cold ice cold. No, don’t go there. Okay, warmer, warmer, ooh, hot. Ooh, scalding, oh, you’re on fire. If we don’t move, if we don’t move our body, we never get to that spot that’s hot, on fire. So please, please, please take this one mantra from my playbook. Action eliminates fear.
Steve: I love it. That is fantastic advice. And, you know, here we are, we’re heading into a new decade. And things are pretty good right now. But we’ve had times in the past when they weren’t so good and will undoubtedly have those again. And I love that. So folks, put a bookmark on this. When you run into a challenge, I want you to come back, I want you to listen to what David had to say and then I want you to do something.
That’s fantastic advice. Thanks for sharing that. I want to take a quick break. We’re going to be back with more from David and we’re going to dive into how you can use speaking in your marketing to get clients, to position yourself as an expert, an authority. And David’s the man to take us there. We’ll be right back.
Commercial Break: Hi, this is Steve, I hope you’re enjoying this interview. We’ve got more to come in a minute. But what I’d love for you to do right now is rate this podcast. Leave us a review, rate us on iTunes. It will really help others discover the podcast and help us help other CEOs, other business leaders become unstoppable. So if you go to unstoppableceo.net/iTunes, you can find instructions there and links that will take you right to where you need to go to review the podcast. Thanks so much. Now back to the interview.
Steve: Welcome back, everybody. This is Steve Gordon. I’m speaking with David Newman. And David we left off promising everyone that you were going to give them the absolute guaranteed formula to become the world’s greatest speaker. Maybe I ever sold that? I don’t know. But where should we start? If somebody’s listening to this, they go, I gotta, you know, I need to fill the pipeline and this speaking thing has a lot of promise for me. Where do they begin to wrap their head around what they should be doing?
David: Great question and I don’t think we over-promised. I think we can deliver on that promise. So let’s give it a shot.
Steve: Awesome.
You Are the Face and Voice of Your Company
David: Let me, I’ll give you a strategic background and then some very specific tactical steps. I think the strategic background is if you look around at today’s landscape, you will realize that we are in an environment where your personal brand is actually more important than your company brand. So who you are as a person, the leader of your agency, the leader of your company, the leader of your consulting firm, whatever it is, you are the face and the voice of your company. And I even share this with corporate executives.
So C suite leaders, sales leaders, they are also the face and the voice of their company. It becomes really important to expertize your business, and I’ll tell you why. There’s two facts, two pieces of research, both from Rain Today, raintoday.com is one of the big professional research kind of, I’m sorry, professional services research think tanks, and the two pieces of data, they did a lead generation study a few years ago, and they found that the number one source of new business, no big surprise, making warm calls to past clients.
That was number one. But hot on the heels, number two and number three, were speaking at trade shows and conferences of our target market. That was number two. Number three was putting on our own seminars and events. Putting on our own seminars and events. So they saw the one to many marketing power and the one to many selling power of live in-person speaking. Since that, of course, we can also expand that into Facebook live, webinars. Obviously, Steve, you specialize in a brilliant podcast strategy. All of those things would fall under this umbrella.
That’s a completely brilliant lead generator and it’s a completely brilliant non-selling way to sell what you do. Research piece number two is they did a professional services buyer study and they asked buyers across a whole different category of service professions. How willing are you to switch? How willing are you to switch accountants? How willing are you to switch lawyers? How willing are you to switch your engineering company? Between 52 and 72% of professional services buyers are willing to switch at any given time. And there’s a spot here for a lawyer joke, which is not really a joke because the data is true.
The 72% the high end of that was they’re willing to switch their law firm. Sorry to all the lawyers, but it’s true. So think, combine those two pieces of data that the number two and number three right behind warm calls to existing clients is speaking, either at a conference trade show or your own hosted event, and 52 to 72% of any audience is willing to switch, willing to consider switching to a different service provider.
What that really means is that you are always one speech away from getting new business. That is so profound, that is so important for people to understand and realize that that’s what the landscape is that we’re operating in right now. So that’s the motivation. That’s the strategy. Steve, when you say, Well, how do we get started? I would say the best way to get started is to understand that this is a process.
And first, we gotta walk before we run before we fly, but I’m going to give you the process right now. Step number one, is you need to make the decision that I made and make the decisions, Steve, that you always encourage your clients to make, is decide and define who are you trying to serve? Who is that target market? Who is that specific subset of the universe where you want to do your best work and you want to do most of your work? Because you can’t boil the ocean, just like you can’t market to everyone, you also can’t speak to everyone.
But once you’ve made that foundational decision of where am I going to find those high probability prospects, start asking around. Start asking your existing clients. Hey, what events do you attend? What associations do you belong to? What professional trade groups do you feel are valuable in your industry? And then when they tell you then you’re going to ask for an introduction. You’re gonna say, hey, might you happen to know someone on the staff or on the board of directors of the AICPA, if you’re an accountant, for example.
Of the local bar association, or the Philadelphia Bar Association, the New York Bar Association, the San Francisco Bar Association, you know, do you happen to know anyone who works there in the office or who might be on the board of directors? Would you be wonderful enough to introduce me? I would love to do a program for them. So just the way that I’ve been helping you, I would love to do a presentation for that chapter for that group. Might you be wonderful enough to team me up with an introduction? So once you do that, then you need a client magnet speech.
And the client magnet speech is being of good service and good value to that audience. So give them a lot of meat. Do not hold back, do not make it pitchy, do not make it salesy, do not make it slimy. And by the way, if you work for a larger company, toss the corporate pitch deck. Nobody wants to see the corporate pitch deck. Nobody wants to see the talking head, head on a stick presentation. Make it valuable. Make it about your personal experience, expertise, recommendations and insights.
At the end of that client magnet speech, there needs to be a call to action. Explicit, loud and proud. Show them what the next step is. A lot of people do a speaking strategy. They say, David, I’ve been speaking, I’ve been presenting, I’ve been doing workshops. It hasn’t done a thing for my business. I say well, show me your slide deck or give me the last five minutes of your presentation.
The last five minutes of the presentation, and that’s my last point. Thank you, everyone, for coming. Well, of course you’re not going to get business. What do you want them to do after they’ve heard you speak? Book a call, ask for a demo, come into the office, get a free strategy session, whatever it might be. Come in for a design audit, right? Whatever that call to action is, you need to put the juicy bait on that hook front and center. Make sure they know exactly what to do and exactly how to do it.
You got to fish where the fish are, but you also have to show them where the net is. Show them where the net is. No. Come in. Come in this way, this is what I want you to do. And then a tremendous amount of people will do it compared to when you don’t tell them what to do, don’t tell them where the net is, don’t even tell them that there is a net and then they go and have the prune danish, drink the coffee, get back in their car and go home. So that second kind of speaking strategy is not going to help anybody. The first kind of speaking strategy is going to fill your business and fill your practice with pre-qualified eager, hungry buyers.
So that’s how to get started understanding the mindset and then having that tactical breakdown of what I just walked through so that you can start to do some of these presentations in your local area, online, offline, in front of targeted trading professional groups where your very best clients are gathering probably right today somewhere. Today, there is a group of 5, 10, 20, 50 people, that is gathering around. Sadly you’re not in front of that room so you’re not going to take leads home today. But if you’re there tomorrow, you’re there next month, you will absolutely take home leads and close business when you get in front of them.
Steve: I love that. And your point about having a call to action about what they should do next. Boy, my early speeches, I’m going, you know, going back now 25 years, we did not have a good call to action. Now we still did Okay, we got some business over time out of those but not in the way that I know that you teach people were, you know, they’re really creating real and very quick conversions to clients, which is important.
I think people are, they’re looking for, you know, ways that they can create opportunity for themselves. And I think this is one of the most valuable ways that you could possibly do it. You said something, I think before we started recording, you said something about, you know, speech is really a demonstration. Talk a little bit about that. I think that’s particularly relevant for folks that are in a service business.
David: Absolutely. So think of speaking as a test drive, speaking as a test drive. So you would never buy a car without a test drive. 99.99% of people would never buy a car without a test drive. When you’re giving a presentation, even a short presentation, 20, 25 minutes, let alone 45 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes that most professional trade association chapter meetings might be, you are doing the two most important things in my opinion in marketing, which is offer value, invite engagement.
Offer value, invite engagement. Once they’ve seen you speak, they are no longer wondering well, I wonder what this Steve Gordon character would be like to work with. I wonder, you know, does Steve have a sense of humor? Is Steve really smart? is Steve a little bit funny and a little bit wry? You know, does Steve really know what he’s talking about?
All those questions go away because you just did a 25 to 90-minute audition where you got to show them, not tell them, how smart you are, but show them and be of good value to them and teach and convey all of your expertise on a particular topic. So at the end of that presentation, they’re not thinking Hmm, do I hire this guy or not? Do I get into a relationship with this company or not? Their new thinking is, oh my goodness, this was awesome. This was so valuable. This was so helpful. Do I want to continue learning from Steve?
Do I want to continue having Steve teach me and advise me and guide me and mentor me? Do I want to work with Steve and his company? You know, do I trust Steve? Do I like Steve? Yes, the trust, you know, know, like and trust factor that’s been taken care of. Do I want to continue is a much more compelling question then I wonder what I’ll get if. So speaking, if nothing else, it eliminates that I wonder what I’ll get if I hire this company. I wonder what I’ll get if I hire this expert. I wonder what I’ll get if I work with the company that this is the CEO of and they go, this was great.
This was a fabulous little sample. I want the whole meal. I want the whole dinner. I’m ready to sit down at the table with this guy. You know, in politics we talked about, the candidate who wins is the one that most voters would want to sit down and have a beer with. Well, in consulting, in agency work, in professional services, it’s the expert who you would also want to sit down and have a beer with. And this is the best way to preface that, you know, bar conversation over the beer is for them to see you in action, learn from you be guided by your experience, your personality and your sense of humor.
Steve: Well, you know, it makes sense because we know we talk so much in business these days about the experience, right? Starbucks is famous for creating this experience around coffee that’s allowed them to sell coffee, I don’t know, 500 to 5000 times what it would have sold out prior to Starbucks existing, right? So the experience has got some value to it. Clearly people will pay for that. But in a service business for professionals, right? We’re in a business where we are the experience.
And what you’re, I think what you’re describing is a way to not only let them sample what that experience would be like ahead of time but also maybe to kind of define the experience a little bit. So you’re on stage, you’re creating a persona, you’re creating some expertise and some authority and that’s part of the experience too. And they get to sort of sample all of that and see what it would be like.
David: Absolutely. And I think what you’re, the way I’m kind of picking up what you’re laying down right now is that teaching is such a powerful first experience. So if your first experience of an expert or of a service professional, first experience is a pitch. First experience is spam. First experience is some random piece of direct mail cold call what have you.
That is completely on a different planet than my first experience with this company was a teaching and learning experience because I think today’s buyers are savvier than ever to sales pitches, old school sales techniques. You know, everyone is screened. They’re screened behind bulletproof glass. They don’t take calls from unknown numbers.
They have someone filters through their email, they probably have someone filter through their snail mail. You’re not going to get through. It’s like most of our buyers are behind bulletproof glass. The only time they come out from that bulletproof glass is when they want to learn something, when they’re researching something, when they’re trying to solve a problem that they or their company has, that’s when they’re available. So you show up as an authority. You show up as a teacher. You show up as a value-first kind of person, that’s how you win attention.
And in today’s economy because everyone’s kind of shielded and they’re so, you know, averse to any kind of sales pitch and sales angle, that’s probably our only, our best shot, our only shot to winning their attention. And the companies that win the most attention also win the most business. I also want to just, you know, really differentiate this speaking first strategy versus getting a cold call, getting a piece of spam, getting some random postcard in the mail. I mean, it’s literally night and day. It’s literally night and day.
And I think in order to bust through the noise and to de commoditize yourself, it’s very important to establish that trusted authority factor. And, you know, when I see you know, consulting firms, they’re a commodity of speakers trying as coaches, marketing agencies, oh, they’re a commodity. Isn’t it terrible how the market has commoditized these people, the market doesn’t commoditize you. You’ve commoditized yourself by not doing these teaching first strategies.
Steve: So, I’m with you 100%. Two questions came to mind. And I’m trying to channel our listeners here, David, with the questions and I’m going to guess that the first two questions that they would have is okay, great. I’m buying into this, or I’ve tried it before, but I want to get it going again. What do I say? And how do I get on stage?
Show Up With a Relevant Value Proposition
David: Well, I think the first part, so let’s talk about the second part first, about how do I get on stage. The best way to get on stage is to show up with a relevant value proposition. Get introduced from people who already know you, like you and trust you, your clients, your friends, your colleagues, your professional circle. What do I say?
Think of this, think of a good client magnet presentation as pretend money has already changed hands, you’ve already been hired. And that first meeting, that first exchange where you’re putting all your effort, all your energy, all your creativity, all of your smarts behind, I want this client to know they’ve made the right call. I want this client to be super impressed with what we do. I want this client to immediately even before the work has started, refer two or three of their best friends to us.
Give that presentation. Give that presentation in public to your prospects because that’s what they’re hungry for. So I think that when value is exchanged, real value before any money changes hands, you’re gonna make a lot more money. So don’t do, that’s why said toss the pitch deck, right? Toss the kind of a typical kind of corporate yadda yadda yadda presentation. The problem with those pitch decks is they’re generally value-free. The other problem with those, Steve, as you know, because I’m sure you help your clients fix this all the time, the main subject of those pitch decks is the company, right?
It’s the seller’s company. Well our CEO has been baba baba been our agency’s been around for 27 years and our clients include baba baba, your prospects are going to sleep, my friends. Imagine coming out and doing a completely, I’ll give you the first 10 seconds of your presentation. The first 10 seconds is you walk out center stage, you stand stockstill, you put a big smile on your face, you look at your audience, and you say something like Barbara was one step away from breaking down in tears.
Barbara is one of your client success stories. Barbara was one step away from breaking down in tears. She had gone to other accounting firms, she had this complex tax problem. She had no idea. She was getting conflicting advice from her CPA, her bookkeeper, her lawyer and her team. She was facing jail time and gigantic fines. She did not know where to turn. Barbara came to one of our presentations. We sat down, she just about broke down into tears says I don’t know what to do. Maybe you can help me. Here’s my situation.
The way that we ended up with Barbara, not only did she not have to pay any tax, not only did she avoid jail time, we got her an $83,000 refund. Now you have that audience and you have them in the palm of your hand. So if you start telling clients success stories, give people strategies, tactics and principles they can use. Pretend that they’re never going to hire you and you’ve got 40 minutes or 60 minutes left on the planet, to convey the best wisdom that’s going to be your legacy. That’s what you put into that presentation. Make it personal, make it human, make it valuable.
Make that, so your client magnet presentation is not crappy stuff that you do for lead gen. It is your best most treasured strategies, ideas, tactics, principles, youisms. You know, so think of all the things that you’re famous for saying, think of all the things that your clients say back to you. Well, Steve, I learned from the best and I realized that fill in the blank. That’s what Steve would put in his presentation. When people remember what when I do my program, one of my sound bites is that marketing needs to be easy, effortless and enjoyable. Little bit of alliteration there with e’s.
Years after working with me, clients say Well David, you know, I thought I would do this marketing strategy, but I found it really hard and frustrating. And I heard your voice in my head easy, effortless, enjoyable. Well guess what, my client magnet speech contains easy, effortless and enjoyable. So it is your best and highest level of ideas. It is your best thinking. It is your most strategic nuanced insights that are going to be immediately helpful to that audience. And they’re going to be humanized and peppered with your client case studies and your clients’ success stories.
Because then your call to action is if you’re like Susan, if you’re like Jim, if you’re like Brenda, and you’re struggling with problem A problem B problems C, I’d love you to book a demo of our software. I’d love you to come into the office and have a 30-minute chat with us. The coffee and donuts are free. I’d love you to opt into this web page, download our special report for a lot more detail. Whatever that call to action is, when you humanize that client magnet speech, you transcend being a consultant. You transcend being an agency, you transcend being a speaker or an expert, and you become the human that they want to do business with.
Steve: But David, if I give it all away, why will they hire me?
David: Well, I, and you and I both hear that about 17 times a day. Thank you for teeing me up for the softball here. The only way that they are going to hire you is if they see it, taste it, touch it, feel it, have a personal visceral experience. If you save the good stuff just for your paying clients, you’re gonna have a hard time getting more.
If you share with your prospects, what your paying clients value the most, those prospects will become your next batch of paying clients. I know it’s 180 degrees opposite of what most people think but Steve, I know you’ve proven it thousands of times with your clients. I’ve proven it thousands of times with my clients. Two smart, handsome guys like you and me cannot possibly be wrong.
Steve: Absolutely, absolutely. You know, I break it down in this way when I get that objection from folks that, you know, there are always going to be people who when you put out educational content are going to take that and they’re going to try and do it on their own. And my argument is that do it yourselfers were never your client in the first place.
But the ones who really value the added expertise that you bring to the table are going to come and hire you anyway and actually more so if you show them that you are a true expert, that you’ve got a methodology, that you’ve got deep expertise. So putting it out there the way David’s telling you and demonstrating it actually helps you attract the ones you really, really want and it sends the other ones away. You’re giving them value. It’s sort of good karma to the universe, I think. But you’re not being hurt by that. They’re not taking anything from you because there was nothing there to be taken.
David: Totally agree, completely agree.
Steve: So David, tell us a little bit about the book. I know you’ve got a new book that as we record this, is on pre-order at Amazon, by the time this is out, it will be out as well. So tell us about the book and how it will help people.
Do It!
David: Absolutely. The book is called Do It Speaking. It’s the follow up to my book from six years ago called Do It Marketing. And since I’ve really embraced these speaking driven strategies as the ultimate marketing tool, it made sense to kind of zoom in on just the speaking driven revenue-generating and lead generating strategies. That’s why it’s Do It Speaking is the follow up to the Do It Marketing book.
In the book we talked specifically about how any professional, any C suite leader, sales leader, professional services firm, owner, managing partner, etc, can borrow plays from the playbook of a professional speaker to immediately expertize themselves and elevate and escalate their marketplace positioning way above the crowd. So for example, let’s say that we’re in a small seminar, 20, 30 people, and there’s one person at the front of the room and there’s 30 people sitting in chairs.
If I just showed you a still picture and I asked you, could you please point to the expert? Could you please point to the smartest person in this particular room? Most people instinctively whether they’re right or not, they would point to the person with the microphone. So well, you know, we’re space aliens. It looks like there’s one humanoid talking to 30 other humanoids. He must be the chief. He must be the head guy. He must have the biggest brain.
Okay, yes. And then to our tribal human, right, our human evolution, the storyteller is always at the center at the campfire. So think about what would that positioning do. Much more sophisticated than campfires filled with cavemen. But what would that positioning do to you versus your competition? I think most people have seen a situation where there are other people in their field or in their local region that they’re the ones that get all the PR. They’re the ones that get all the attention. They’re the ones that get on the morning TV show.
And it’s like, we do better work. And we’ve been at this longer and we have bigger clients success stories. Why are they getting all the attention? Well, the strategies in the Do It Speaking book will help you rectify that situation so that you can truly claim the authority and the expertise and then use that borrowing plays from the playbook of the professional speaker, whether you want to get paid to speak or not. So I think that every speech we get paid to speak, even if you’ve never gotten a dime because we either get paid in leads or we get paid in cash.
And for the professional speaker, of course, they’re used to getting 5000, 7000, $10,000 speaking fee as a matter of course, They might get some spin-off business, they might get some clients from that audience, but most professional services firm leaders, they’re just there for the leads. And I know, Steve, you said that man, I’ve made a ton of money speaking. I’ve made a ton of money speaking. Only a small percentage of that time have I gotten the check because I choose to do a lot more lead generating speaking than paid speaking.
Even though I do both, and I teach both, my personal preferences, I would love to fill our agency. I would love to fill our programs with all of the right kinds of people. And, you know, why would I do this for one x when I can go over here and do this for three x or five x or 10 x? And so I think the intersection of where the lead generating speaking and the fee-generating speaking, where they come together, you can borrow plays from either playbook and I put them both into the Do It Speaking book that’s available now.
Steve: I love it. And, you know, I’ve been paid for speeches in the past but I’ve made far more money, and actually, I prefer to go and speak when I’m doing it for lead generation. I get paid great, you know, but really, that’s peanuts compared to what you’re going to get in future business. And this is a huge strategy for any professional, anybody that has got a business where you’re selling something complex, I think It’s particularly well- suited for that because you’ve got to make a case.
And when you’ve got somebody in a room, you’ve got this captive audience. It just gives you an opportunity to really take them through an experience that will show them the kind of transformation you create for them. So that’s fantastic. David, how can people find out more about you, more about the book all the work you’re doing?
David: Couple of websites, couple of resources for folks. If you want to grab a copy of the book, there’s a little web shortcut, doitspeaking.com that takes you right to the Amazon page so you don’t need to figure out what the magic Amazon URL is. That’s doitspeaking.com. And then there’s some companion tools and bonuses that you can get by going to our main website, which is do it marketing, doitmarketing.com/speak. That’s where all the bonuses and companion tools are. And the third one, final one, Steve, is for some free web training. Doitmarketing.com/webinar.
Steve: Very good. We will get all of those linked up in the show notes. And check out the book. David knows this better than just about anybody I’ve ever talked to. Go check out what he’s put together and figure out where your next stage is. There are leads there waiting for you. There are people that need your help. Go figure out where that stage is. David Newman, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today. I’m so grateful that you were here and I look forward to connecting again soon.
David: Thank you, Steve. This was great.
