Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Leisa Reid, Founder of Get Speaking Gigs Now-CEO of the International Speaker Network

Episode Date: March 20, 2024

Leisa trains entrepreneurs how to use public speaking as a SOUL FILLING business growth strategy. As a self-proclaimed “Talk Doula” she facilitates the birth of new talks all around the world in her “Get Your Talk Ready to Rock” sessions.Throughout her years of working with speakers, the most frequent confessions she hears are: “I’ve always wanted to be a speaker,” but “I’m still working on my talk,” and “I’m not sure where to get booked.” It is her mission to collaborate with her clients so they can quickly and easily create their talks and deliver them to audiences that are a right fit.Leisa has booked and delivered over 600 speaking engagements, is a 7-time author, podcast host and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate. Although she has both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s Degree in Speech Communication, she assures her clients those degrees are NOT required in order to be a speaker. She is a mom, a wife, a dog-lover, and loves live rock concerts.Learn more: https://getspeakinggigsnow.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-leisa-reid-founder-of-get-speaking-gigs-now-ceo-of-the-international-speaker-network

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with us, Lisa Reid, who's the founder of Get Speaking Gigs Now and the CEO of the International Speaker Network. Lisa, welcome to the program. Thanks, Mike. Great to be here. Hey, so I'm looking forward to talking with you because I think that in this day and age of business,

it doesn't matter what industry you're in, people realize that when you can communicate one to many, that's a whole lot more effective and efficient than just going out of talking to one person and then the next person. So I want to learn from your years of experience, but before we get into that, get us started with your story and background and how did you get into this industry? Actually, when I was in college, my degrees are speech communication. I have a bachelor's and a master's in speech communication. I even taught interpersonal communication at the university I attended Cal State Fullerton when I was in my 20s. But then life sometimes takes us on a different tour than we originally attended.

And I did not become a speaker until I was 40. And I started speaking for a personal development company that I totally love what they did. And they said, we want to fill our workshops and how we do that is we go out and teach people experiential methodologies of how their mind works and then how they can actually start to have some change in their life. I thought, well, that would be great. And I started speaking my first year. I booked 83 speaking engagements in my local area. And I did that through a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, realized that maybe there was an easier way. So I created a speaker community, which is now called the international speaker network so that I can start networking with other people and making it easier.

What I didn't expect was to actually start a business around it because people kept asking me for help all the time. They said, I want to get on that stage. How did you do that? What are you doing? So that's how Get Speaking Gigs Now was born. I love it. And I'm sure you've seen this a billion times like when we watch Shark Tank and they go,

oh, how did you create your product? And they said, I had this problem. I looked for that solution. I couldn't find it anywhere. So I went out and did it. And that's what you were talking about is blood, sweat and tears. That means you had to make mistakes and you had to fix things and learn. And then when you kind of look back in the dust settled, you probably had a nice little blueprint checklist, you know, do this.

And then when people started asking you, it then begged the opportunity to turn it into a business. And that is just spectacular, which obviously means that you also need to stay updated because some of the tips and strategies, and techniques probably change these days in business pretty rapidly, right? You know, it's funny. My book came out, even though my business started in 2017, my book wasn't published until January 2020. And so, of course, March 2020 happens and I had a pause. Oh, my gosh, is this relevant anymore?

Do I need to change anything? We have a whole different world. And what I realized, Mike, is that it's nearly the same. The difference is virtual. But like, just like anything, you've got to adapt. your audience, adapt to the technology, things like that. Other than that, it wasn't really, really different. Now we have AI, so that's a little bit different. But again, another tool doesn't replace you as a human being, but how do you use that tool? Yeah. Yeah, that's a really,

really excellent point because it kind of gets down to who are you? What are you all about? What problem do you solve? And when you can do, like I said, before that one to many, that just that public speaking opportunity is huge. And I think that it reminds me of the old Stephen Covey teaching, begin with the end in mind. So you can't just speak for the sake of speaking. You have to have a goal. You know, why are you going to speak just for branding? Well, hopefully not because it's hard to quantify that. So what do you recommend your clients to think about when they're beginning laying the groundwork for their speaking career? I tell you and I are of the same mind there.

When I help people, what I call get your talk ready to rock, we start at the end. I always say we're going to start. The end is the beginning and the beginning is the end. So we start with a call to action, with that clear invitation that's going to help drive business to that person. And that could be different for everyone. We want to do what makes sense, what fits in your skill set, what are you comfortable with?

Because if you aren't in love with your invitation or your offer, then the audience will not be in love with it either. It has to be authentically genuine. So we start there and then we work backwards. So at the end of creating that talk, then we put the title on top of it. So sometimes people come to me and they come with their title. And I'm like, well, we'll see if that's still the title when we're done. I don't know.

We're going to have to make sure it makes sense. But I think getting your talk done is a great place to start as a speaker because once you say, oh, I'm a speaker. The very next question is, oh, well, what do you speak about? And if you don't have an answer that you can just whip out real quick, you already, I'll say failing before you get started, right? It doesn't feel, you don't feel confident, you don't feel empowered. We're like, oh, I need to look it up or I speak on anything. We don't want to, we don't want to start off that way. Yeah. Start with a really strong impression.

Now, I know in my business of marketing, I really harp on picking a really dialed in target audience. What do you do when you're working with your public speaking clients? Because you could say, oh, I'm a public speaker and I speak about some really broad topic. I don't know. Now, let's just pick AI as an example, you know, how to use AI in business. That is crazy broad. What do you say regarding how deep should a speaker customize their, you know, proprietary talk for their target audience? I think it depends on the person and what they're bringing to the table.

I have yet to meet any speakers who are exactly like another speaker. So what we do is really figure out where is your comfort zone, where are your contacts, where does your knowledge serve a certain audience? And then let's start there. I call them like pillars. Like do we have three pillars, for example, that we could start looking at. So then they can start to test out, hey, is my message really well received at this in this industry? What about this one? Sometimes we assume our topic is going to be well received in a certain industry. And then we get in there, we're like, oh, that didn't really, I don't really work out so well. I'll give an example. One of my clients used to be an accountant and is now a life coach. She started speaking to a

accounting groups because she can totally understand their obstacles, their challenges, and she can get right in there and speak their language. But she's offering a way out, a way out of that struggle and stress. And so that when I see actually just sent her a lead. Yeah, they sent her a lead today because it was an accounting conference coming up. And I know that she can bring a ton of value to that. So that's one example of like, you might want to look back and see where have you been in the past. What kind of group could you chameleon into if, of course, it matches the offerings that you have?

Like, are those your potential clients? That's a good place to narrow it down. Yeah. And I think part of that, in just my opinion, is where does your passion lie? Because what if you could give a talk on some topic for some target audience? And it's like, okay, you know, I could do it, but it doesn't really get my light. You're 100% right. You know, it really, and people can sense.

that when you step on stage, whether it's virtual on stage live, and you come out and even if you just, you know, I'm sure there's 10,000 speaker tips, but even that pause at the beginning, you know, before you even say a word, they can just tell you are ready to go. So, so how does someone figure out like their true, like passionate niche to make sure that they're solving a problem for that target audience with their solution? And then and only then are you going to start creating your talk? Yeah. And, and, I talk to, I serve clients sometimes who are new or in their business. So they may not always know that yet, especially in the coaching business. Sometimes they think they get very excited.

They have their certification. They're ready to go. And they haven't quite yet figured out who, who are my people. And oftentimes I'll hear general things like, oh, my clients are women over 50 who are burned out, you know, which that could count as a niche, but I think it's just overused. So I like to encourage people to really get deep on their what I call client confessions. What did someone confess to you before they agreed to work with you? What were they sharing with you? That is where we get detailed on the actual languaging of the clients. Instead of it being something marketing-ish sounding, it's like, no, that's the true like issue that they're having. For example, mine would be clients come to me and they confess they've been thinking about being a speaker for

decades. Like, oh, my whole life, I know I see that person up there. I should be up there. I know I can do this. I get positive feedback. I just don't know how to, you know, get my talk done, figure out where I should go speak. How would I even get on stage? Those are the confessions that I hear all the daily basis. That's, that's really huge. And it's almost like, oh, what is that tool that I've heard? Is it ask, ask the audience or anyway, it's one of those things where it's like, okay, here's this question. And then it gives you, you know, this whole. wheel full of variations of that that you can then start crafting responses for. And like you said, maybe if some of your clients are newer to the industry, you can't go back to your 10 years of experience and go, oh, well, just ask 38 of your last clients, you know, but you can be keeping that in the forefront of your mind and weaving that into a conversation so that now you're learning from every single person you're communicating with.

Yes, yes, absolutely. And that helps to them narrow it down. It really does. And so here's then I wonder if you experience this with working with your clients. They go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do this talk here. And then here's this whole laundry list of keynote speeches they can do. And it's, you know, 17 bullet points long. And it's like, wow, that's almost overload. How many like main keynote talks would you recommend a client kind of polish up and dial in and focus on? Well, most of the time I'm working with someone. as they're at the beginning of their speaking career. And when I say speaking career, meaning using speaking as a marketing strategy, not becoming a professional speaker, although a couple of my clients are professional speakers. So I say, they'll say, well, how many do I need? Do I need three? Do I need five? Do I need seven? Do I need one? I say, we need one first. We need one that you've given a bunch of times. You know it inside and out.

Start with one. There's nothing wrong with starting with one. Because if you start like say your brand new speaker and you all of a sudden start with three that means three messaging things that means three PowerPoint slides if you're using PowerPoint or some kind of slides that means three times the amount of practicing and you haven't even gotten on stage yet i just don't think that's a great plan get deep into one know it like the inside out back your hands and then add another one often i'll say we for me i use my intuition i don't know if this is true for you mike when I'll know when a new talk is coming because I'll be driving and I'll start thinking about it. I'll be in, you know, getting ready in the morning. It's coming out. I'm waking up in the middle of night. It starts to come to me. I'm like, okay, that means the new talk's coming. I just start listening to. I start jot notes down, starts to formulate. But it's not out of desperation because I think someone else wants me to have a new talk. It's because no, I have something that's actually powerful to say that is a different perspective. And that's totally fine. I think sometimes people think it's like you have to have everything. from the gate. I'm like, no, you got to start somewhere. You just got to start somewhere.

And starting with one is a great plan. Excellent. So now let's say that they figured out target audience, their message, their solution to the problem that their target audience have. They've got that one talk. It's polished up. It's, you know, you got to go give it 127,000 times. We know that, but they've started giving it. Where do you start looking for speaking gigs? Because I think if you Google that, you're going to get overwhelmed and feel like you're out of a fire hydrant. You are 100% right on that. That's one of the reasons I started the network as the international speaker network because I have met so many speakers who are suffering from soul-sucking activities like Google searching, rabbit holes, applications that lead nowhere,

just striving and trying to scramble and find something. And I'm like, no, no, no. That's why we, you know, get clear on where are you looking. I want people to be clear on their yeses and their nose, what's worth my time, what's not. And how do we actually create a, you know, a way to have that consistent speaking referrals going without all that hard work and Google searching. And I have found the best way to do that is to hang out with other speakers because all of a sudden, you get an introduction to the decision maker.

You get an exact link to the peers fill out this forum. This is a great venue for you based on what you told me. And that relationship building and that virtual handshake is so powerful. That's how I've given over 600 talks. Most of those hundreds, I don't cold call anymore. I haven't cold call for eight years in my business because of that strategy. I love it.

And I think that that would relate to a statistic that I give many, many, many times outside of the speaking industry. But about 85% of all jobs are gained through your specific networking, not I filled out an application here, filled out. And not that you shouldn't go fill that. applications, but networking and strategic connections are just critical. And the more people that know what you do and why you do it and, you know, we could spend another four and a half hours on the why, the story behind, you know, but what do you do? Why do you do it? They might not be the one that books you, but they might be someone that introduces you to someone. Have you seen that as well? Absolutely. And I think a lot of times people are just looking, or that phrase, stepping over a

dollar to pick up a dime. They're not realizing. So what I try to impart upon the members of the international speaker network is like, everyone in this room is super connected. Everyone in this room has spoken a bunch of times. I mean, some hundreds, some thousands. So you want to be in with these people. You want to like get to know them.

Of course, you got to be nice. You got to be nice to people. That goes a long, long way. And being willing to serve and help someone else goes a very long way. Huge. And that ties into someone that I know you're familiar with, Bob Berg, who wrote the book with David Mann is John David Mann is the go giver. You need to give value. You need to serve. You need to provide something even before you even hint at asking for something because that's just the value proposition that people tend to relate to. People can tell when you're coming to sell them something. But when you are genuinely networking and providing value, boy, something just always comes back around, doesn't it? Yes, 100%. It has never done me wrong in over 20 years of networking. That has not done me wrong. So what would you say is the number one secret to getting booked and then staying booked as a speaker? I think it's even more refined than what we were just talking about, which you probably do this in business as well.

But I call it the speaker soulmate system. You find your speaker soulmate. And that means someone who, so it's kind of like a business referral relationship, right? But a deeper one. a soulmate, that's like your inner circle person. So you could have like three speaker soulmates, for example, and that's it. And then be booked for infinity. If you are all, if it's somebody that you, A, they speak similar frequency as you. So if you're brand new, maybe find someone else who's a little brand new. You guys are starting around the same level. Or if you're medium, you know, you find that person who's kind of on the same path as you. Two, you got to know like and trust them. When I say that, it seems obvious, but I don't mean you. you need to know them for years.

You didn't need to grow up together. But maybe it's just someone you just met. You're like, you know, that person, I really resonated with that person. I'm going to get to know them a little bit more, right? So you invest in that relationship. And then you trust, do you build trust? Like you refer a couple easy, peasy ones and then see how it goes. Did they show up?

Did they deliver? You know, did they, you know, reciprocate, right? That's the building of the trust. And then the last one is, do they speak to a similar audience as you, but they are not your competition? That's where you really get that massive exponential growth because now of a sudden you are creating a speaking referral machine just by hanging out with people that you love. And it works great. It's worked for years for me.

And I also give back to that. You contribute to the system just as much as you receive from the system. You know, I think that last point is probably something that people hear and they, yeah, yeah, I agree with that. and then they just ignore it. But it's probably the most powerful business development tip that anyone could ever implement. And I'll tell you, it's my number one business development tool. And you said you don't call call. I've been cold called in probably 20 years.

So, you know, I'm with you. But if someone were to quote unquote, air quote, cold call, I would recommend them cold calling strategic alliances that already have the no like and trust relationship with people. you want to meet and co-call them because you only need five to six or seven of those strategic alliances that you then develop relationship with, develop value for, so that then here comes the referral, you know, prime the pump there, rather than call calling for this one gig, and then you got it, now you've got to start all over. So those strategic alliances are just spectacular. And I think that people, that should be a whole masterclass right there.

Exactly. And that, yeah, that's something we will even do activities in the network where we call find your speaker soulmate. So like we're all in the room, quote unquote, the virtual room. It's like, okay, we, you know, we have a shared Excel sheet that we look at and we're like, look, you don't need to have a meeting with every single person in this room. That's ridiculous. Find the couple people that stand out to you. You're like, that's the person. I want to meet with that person. I think sometimes we get that scarcity mentality when it comes to networking. Like, I got to give every person my card. I got to give every, you know, call every single person,

add everyone to my list. Those are horrible, horrible things to do when you're in a networking situation. you got to use your time wisely. I couldn't agree more. I'll tell you, Lisa, it's been really powerful talking with you. I've learned a whole lot. I think that it's really amazing what you do and how you're serving your clients.

If someone is interested in learning more about everything you're doing to help them get started speaking and then the international speaker network, what's the best way that they can learn more and then also reach out and connect with you? Yeah, they can go to get speakinggigsnow.com slash tips because that will give them five top tips to get more speaking gigs now, and there'll be some information coming up at their way for the International Speaker Network as well. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure talking with you today. Thank you. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders.

To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www. www.com. Thank you.