Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - How To Become A World Class Speaker with Gary Vaynerchuk’s Partner Zach Nadler, CEO of Vayner Speakers Episode 131

Episode Date: July 20, 2021

It is like the wild wild west out here in the speaking business! The industry is constantly changing and I know from experience how crazy it has been in the last 2 years ALONE! How do we navigate this business? And even better, how do we LEVEL UP?! Zach Nadler, CEO of Vayner Speakers, speaker agent, and partner of Gary Vaynerchuk, joins me today to give an insider perspective on where the industry is going and how to become successful. Listen in for invaluable advice on how to put in the work, embrace patience, and take constructive criticism to totally transform your business!   About The Guest: Zach Nadler is the CEO and co-founder along with Gary Vaynerchuk, of VaynerSpeakers, a disruptive speakers bureau built to help the modern event planner, consulting with organizations hosting events to help provide speakers that will impact audiences in a meaningful way. Prior to working with Gary, Zach worked at CAA for almost 11 years as a Speaker Agent, managing politicians, athletes, nobel prize winners, and F500 execs.   Finding Zach Nadler: Website: https://vaynerspeakers.com/  Email: [e-mail]  Twitter: @ZachNad Instagram: @zachnadler   Review this podcast on Apple Podcast using this LINK and when you DM me the screen shot, I buy you my $299 video course as a thank you!    To pre-order Overcome Your Villains NOW and get the bonus bundle click here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com     See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and grab one of your favorites that pack a punch. Explore all of the delicious flavors at Snapple.com. People expect that well if I get 100,000 Instagram followers, I put out a couple of videos, I get paid once or twice, I can start commanding $50,000, I can be the best speaker in the world. It just takes so much more than that. And I think people aren't patient enough in this business and I think that that's the number one thing you gotta be. You gotta be patient, you gotta listen. When you go and realize's the number one thing you got to be. You've got to be patient. You've got to listen.

When you go and realize that somebody's paying to have you up on stage, you have to deliver for them and things change. And you've got to take their feedback to heart. You've got to think about what you're doing. You've got to internalize your message. And listen to your criticism. Because it's not going to be 100% positive. The negative stuff is what helps you improve.

I'm on this journey with me. Each week, when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity and set you up for better tomorrow. Faster, no fear, please. I'm ready for my close time. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet my guest today. This is crazy.

My first episode ever of creating confidence was with Gary Vaynerchuk. And today we are lucky enough to have his partner, Zach Nadler with us. Zach, thank you so much for being here. It's a pleasure to see you, Heather. Thanks for having me. Okay. I have to read your bio because it's super impressive and I want everyone to understand

what you're all about, what you've accomplished. Co-founder and CEO of Vayner speakers. Holy cow, CEO, it's a big deal, has built a career helping luminary share their stories of impact and inspiration. With his longtime client and now partner, Gary Vaynerchuk, who got a dig into that, Nadler founded Vayner speakers in 2018, a speakers bureau for the Modern Event Planner. He represents bestselling authors, entrepreneurs,

CEOs, thought leaders, taste makers, basically so many ballers that we can't even name them all. Zach spent over nine years serving as leading agent in the speaker's department at CAA. Guys, that's a huge freaking deal. His journey representing talent began in 07 as vice president of sports and entertainment marketing for premier management group representing Olympians during the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing, where his clients brought home over 20 gold medals. A graduate of NYU, his career began working in operations for the celebrity players tour. A native of long-matter, mass, I'm a mass person too, got to love that that Zach resides in New York City now with his wife daughter and their puppy Lucy and his hundreds of classic vinyl records. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you and I've got

Lucy here with me to make sure I'm on my disbehavior. Wait, I have to tell you the funniest thing when I read your bio. I'm like, he doesn't name his wife. He doesn't name his daughter. He names the puppy in the bio. Very, very funny. Of course, the only one that doesn't have a social media account. That's important to note. Okay, Zach, there's a lot to cover here, but I want to take it back to the beginning. How did you even break into this business? How does someone even decide they want to run a speaking company or be an agent? Yeah, I mean, it's kind of funny. I think no one with their 9, 10 years old says they want to be a speakers agent, right? Most people are firefighters, police officers, doctors, things you actually know about. Most people don't even know this is a kind of industry or a career path

that you can take. I didn't know it was a business until two years ago. It's so crazy. Yeah. And it's evolved. I mean, 20 years ago, it was not what it is today, right? 20 years ago, it's so crazy. Yeah, and it's evolved. I mean, 20 years ago, it was not what it is today, right? 20 years ago, unless you were a, the guy who started famous Amos, right? If you were a politician, right? With someone like kind of a cottage industry, you weren't really doing this for a living. Now, there are hundreds of not thousands of people

who do nothing but speaking. So it's completely evolved. I didn't really see it as a career path myself. I actually, I was pursuing a career in sports, as you mentioned, and pretty quickly saw that path as it's extremely tough to break in. While I was having success, when I started working with Olympians, a lot of what you do is speak in engagements, right?

They make not that much money from the USOC, from the Olympic teams. So in order to stay competing and keep training, you have to work and you have to do speaking engagements and clinics and take endorsements. And so I was doing a lot of this and then eventually got recruited to join CAA and pursue solely this. And that was one of my eyes really

opened to what this industry could be. And even since then, the industries evolved. Call that 12 years ago. The people who were out there doing speaking engagements aren't the people who are out there doing it now. George Clooney, you can book and first speaking a gig, and he wasn't doing this 10 years ago, little on 20 or anything like that. So the industries have all been quite a bit, created a lot of opportunity. And so it's

a path I didn't expect myself to be taking, but I'm certainly enjoying the ride while I'm doing it. Well, I'm glad that you're enjoying it. Definitely is a bumpy ride, and I want to get into that given that we're both in the vent business during a global pandemic. Certainly. Definitely is not ideal. Okay, so here's something that stuck out to me when I read your bio.

CAA is massive, right? I mean, I think everybody knows CAA. And if you don't, probably George Clooney is with CAA, right? I mean, they literally have the biggest names in the business. That's right. So why would you, when you're at your top of the game, at the lead premiere agency say, you know what, I'm just gonna roll the dice

and go out and start a company, a offshoot with Gary Vaynerchuk. Yeah, it's a great question. Wasn't the easiest decision, but at the same token, it wasn't that hard when I really thought about it. Obviously Gary, you know Gary, he's a serial entrepreneur, he's not that everything he does is perfect,

but he has a pretty high success rate. And I started working with Gary in 2009, but he has a pretty high success rate. And I started working with Gary in 2009, but it wasn't a Gary that you see today. So back then, he was a tough guy to sell. And I think that the more he developed and more key built VaynerMedia and his business side, as well as his investments matured, I think he became a different person. And over time, we kind of aligned more and more in terms of how we approach sales, how we approach customer service, how we approach the speaking industry.

And so we did a lot of things that I think a lot of other clients might weren't doing, a lot of other people weren't really considering whether it was creative deal making, the travel, the crazy, crazy travel he was doing back then. You know, there were a lot of different things that we did that just weren't traditional. And this is a tired old industry. It's been around 50 years, not much has changed. So Gary and I looked at it and said, well, if we just apply a little bit of innovation, we could probably make an impact.

At the time, he had already built VaynerMedia. It was extremely successful. Now it looks like all these other companies that he's built. And so it was one of those things, we said, if we just apply the kind of innovation and disruption that you've applied to the advertising industry, we're gonna be fine. And so we built this business thinking,

don't first off, the last thing the world needed was under Speaker Spiro, as we said, if we're gonna do it, let's do it right. And of course, we didn't realize you were starting the company 18 months before COVID started. So that was a nice little wrinkle, but at the same token, it gave us a lot of direction and opportunity to kind of build it the way we wanted to. And so we set out to do just that. We try to be a Speaker Spiro unlike any other.

And we try to just be a little bit different and think about the customer a lot more than I think our competitors tend to do. that's something that Gary's always done So it was a it was a natural fit so the more I thought about it. Well, it was definitely plays like CAA I don't remember the last time I wore a suit COVID or otherwise So I think there are some some silver linings to it. That is a very exciting point And that's one thing I love about VaynerMedia is that you can show up in jeans and know that Gary's showing up that same way. That's pretty cool.

So what is it like to work with Gary? Because I know my listeners right now are what they want to know the answer to that question. Yeah. I always say that Gary you see on video is Gary, right? You know this. You've seen even one before a podcast. He's the same person before and after, right? And during.

And I think that part of that is the camera's just always on him. But I think that's also just he doesn't have time to try and play a part. He's just always himself. And so I always love to tell people this when people think Gary's just like, you know, extremely exuberant guy, he of course is. But he's also the most empathetic person you'll ever meet. And he's just human to the core. So I can remember plenty of times where I'll, you know, hop into the car with him. We'll have a 10 minute meeting going between other meetings he's just human to the core. So I can remember plenty of times where I'll hop into the car with him,

we'll have a 10 minute meeting, go in between other meetings he's taking, right? And I hop in and he'll look at me and he's like, hey, I was going, I'll just go right into like this crazy thing. I got this going out, we got to talk about this. This is the thing, you got it. You're going to Australia, you're doing this. And it's like, I don't know, how's it going?

And he's just so grounded to know that like, yeah, there's all this stuff going on, but like there's a relationship. And so I think that that's something that I'll often get lost. And people don't necessarily always see that side of Gary, especially because it's probably not, you know, the best 30-second snippet for Instagram. But that's really who he is at the core. And I think everything else he does just stems from that. One of the things that surprised me most, I just hadn't thought about it, and having just had the opportunity to meet him a couple of times.

He's so intense and so busy. Those are the two things that stuck out to me that you know things that like you like what you were saying They're doing this and doing this and everyone presents themselves maybe on social, but you wonder if it that was the one thing I have just being around him those couple of times saying wow. I mean, it's overwhelming. I would imagine because he's so busy, he gives you a lot of autonomy in running this company. Yeah, I think he is, you know, he's an extremely amazing person to work with because anytime you ask of him,

you get whatever you ask for, unless it's something crazy. But if you're asking something, you know, that, you know, he has no problem doing it and dropping everything to do it. And at the same time, he is there to kind of support you

in whatever, you know whatever you're building. And I think that goes for any of the VaynerX companies. He's also to your point, he's so busy, but what I give him more credit for is just not wasting time. You arrive, we'll walk down the hallway to go to the bathroom or go get a glass of water. And maybe we just collect our thoughts as we're walking down the hall.

He's down on his phone. In his DMs, checking his emails, checking his TED messages. That's something that I think is so intense about him, but it's such a dedication. He programs everything in five minutes. I always say, you can do the fastest consulting as anyone, you can talk to him for 30 seconds. I know your problems, I know what you're going through,

I can figure out here's what you gotta do. People want that from him, but he knows how to listen and actually hear what you're saying really fast, which is tough. Also look at him, just the way he's built his businesses and seeing him, the way he's traveled, the way he's worked. For a long time, he was doing, you know, basic up at six, go to the gym, and then from seven until 11 was programmed with meetings.

And there were certainly, you know, faced out with the kids and called dad, things like that on the calendar, but he programs every minute out. And then there's stuff that happens every day that gets thrown in the middle. And so his admins are incredible because they're able to navigate all that, but he gives them a ton of autonomy too. But I think for Gary, it's so important just to stay available to everyone and honor your word. And I think that to do so, you have to start programming minute to minute. And so he really does that. And I think he's certainly changed the last 10 years. He doesn't work weekends the way he used to. He's not traveling, you know, even pre-COVID wasn't traveling quite

the way we used to do it. The first time in Australia was three cities in 36 hours, right? Or that was the second time. The first time he flew there for eight hours to be in the country for eight hours. So, like, he doesn't do that stuff anymore. But I think he knows how to be efficient with his time. And that's what's made him so successful. He's, I think 45 now and work probably as much as a 60 year old CEO. So I think when you kind of compare it, it's it's pretty wild to think about one of the things that when people get a chance to see their face, they're going to say, how did this guy, he's so young, how did he get so lucky to get this opportunity?

You know people are going to say that. However, I do want to add just my own experience in this business and this speaking business over the past couple years. You have an unbelievable name and reputation that you've built on your own has nothing to do with you. I mean, I hear it from everyone, Zach, and then I've had the opportunity to directly work with you and see it.

So what is it about you that you think you did things differently that you were able to advance so quickly and create opportunities in a reputation like this? Yeah, well, first off, I'm not as young as I look. It's just daily Botox. I think, you know, it's something where we kind of built the business around a simple idea, right? No two events are the same.

That's not treat them the same. No two speakers are the same. Well, it's not treat them the same either. And I think that's something that's lost in the shop with a lot of our competitors, right? I think a lot of competitors are looking to just scale their business, just rinse and repeat, do the same thing over and over again. 45 minute speech, 45 minute speech, 45 minute speech. You know, you know this having gone to a million events, not every event the same.

Some of us want to do things differently. Some speakers want to do things differently. So we just try to adapt that and that's kind of been always been my mentality, right? I've always tried to understand what makes this event special, what makes this speaker special, and different, and what do they want to do? And how can we make that happen? And it doesn't always work. But if you understand what the goal is, you can get a lot closer than just trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. So we built the business off that, but that's something I've just always done in my career. Personally, I just work hard all the time. I think it's just important to know, obviously, have boundaries that you can step away from work.

But at the same token, I've been working since, I was working 50 hours a week in college to get to where I am. And I think that it's what's the old expression, luck and opportunity is when chance, right? It's all coming together at the same time there. You have to be ready for it, but you also have to put the time in. I know our mutual friend, Jesse, it's always talks about it, the bus ride, right?

You gotta be ready when that bus gets there. And I've always just, you know, worked hard, kept my head down, done what I was supposed to do. And then there was obviously a lot of right place right time, right? You can't predict things like COVID, you can't predict things like the 0809 recession, 9-11, hurt the hospitality industry right before I jumped into that.

I think there's a lot of things that you can't really expect. But at the same token, you gotta be ready willing and able when the opportunity's there. And that's something I've always tried to pry myself on. National security experts are warning. Our aging power grid is more vulnerable than ever. January marked a third time

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NetSuite.com slash monahan. I want to speak to, I love giving examples or story to back up comments that people make because it really brings it to life. And I have one experience with you that really illustrates, I believe, how you do operate your event business, speaker business differently. I will never forget this. The first time you and I met was on a conference call with a number of people.

I had no, I mean, I knew who you were, but I didn't know you. I didn't know your personality. And I'm definitely a creative person. And I remember we were going into this where I was going to interview Sarah and Jesse on stage in Boston at Hyper Growth. And it was you and your team, Sarah's team, and me.

And I remember we were talking about how this could play out and what this could look like. And I remember I wanted, you know, can Jesse and I come out and have a rap pop? Can we, you know, let's not make this the same boring conversation that we've all heard 200 times? How do we make this a little bit different? And you sound, you don't know this,

but when you don't see you, you sound extremely professional. And more CAA, right? Like more, I was picturing you in the suit and you know, you know, representing Jesse Itzler and your Gary Vaynerchuk's partner. And so what I loved about that was, listen, we didn't say yes to all my ideas. However, what I loved is you guys came back

with your own ideas and we ended up in my opinion, but be back that we also got. That was such an exciting interview because we did it totally out of the box, completely different down to Sarah revealing that video of her scaling, that hot air balloon with Richard Branson that Jesse had never seen before and he almost lost it on the stage. He couldn't even watch the video. And then that

rapid fire round question round with them at the end was literally the funniest thing I've ever seen at a live event. And I just love that you embrace. Let's run with this. Let's make this unique and different. Well, I for those listening and not watching, I'm smiling year to year as, as Heather's talking and nodding with her because she's 100%. I think that was such a killer event. And I'm like, I'm actually right now probably about 10 miles from where it went that took place. And that was, that was such a tremendous conversation.

And I think you had so much energy coming into it. And it was like, great, let's use that energy. How do we make this happen? How do we make this special? Because when you have people like Sarah and Jesse, like, great, let's use that energy. How do we make this happen? How do we make this special? Because when you have people like Sarah and Jesse, they're not boring. They're anything but, but it's really easy to make them boring. And I think you coming in was like, great, we need a match that energy. We got to figure out what we can do to make this special because oftentimes, and as an

agent, I don't get any opportunity to get created, right? It's more about just figuring out how do we get it done, right? It's really more just the mechanics and the functionality. But for something like that, you came in and you were also so knowledgeable, you understood a new Sarah and Jesse, you came in and you did your homework, and then on site, you matched and then overcame over the top with energy. It was just so tremendous that when all three of you were on stage,

it just came out and I think it was already audience. I think they loved it. I think that that was something that is hard to replicate. But that's obviously it was a great example of when it all works. I think in certain circumstances, we're not able to get quite so creative and it is a little bit more functional. But I think we do our best to try and figure out what can we do to make things special. Because plenty of people,

I will tell you, saw that event and then that we want to do something like that. But then they're there, but the comma but becomes something we're like, okay, but then it's not to be anything like it, right? It's like totally different. And so it's always those things that's every every event has their little things. They just want to be special, different and unique. And you got to kind of lean in on those things. And you were one of those things for a drift hypergrop. And I was such a tremendous event. It kind of makes me a little sad now thinking in

the last how long ago it was and how seemingly close in time at proximity I am right now to it yet it seems like it was so long ago. Oh my gosh it was almost two years ago which is so crazy. I'm here in 2020. 2019. 2019, 2019 right before the pandemic. One thing I learned from your speaker that day which I want to share with everybody because it was a really powerful lesson. I am a rookie speaker, a professional be your with only two years in this

business. Jesse, it's their obviously has a much longer career in this business. And I do, I'll never forget, I was so proud of all of us, all three of us, all the team, everyone. And as Sarah and I got up to walk off stage, we were high-fiving and so excited, you know, smiling ear to ear. What I didn't realize is we got back to stage and I said, what happened to Jesse? And I looked at Sarah and she said, oh, he's out there shaking hands with everybody in the audience. I said, what? And I came back out around to stick my

head out to see. And he was literally walking the perimeter of the stage to shake and high five. Everyone he could reach before we had to be off of that stage. And it blew me away that all I could think about was me. And I'm so proud of me. And all he could think about was imparting more gratitude on an audience. I just thought that was really powerful lesson for me. Well, and just to make it even more extreme,

the context of that. And this was something that I didn't know when we had put that event together. But timing was, I guess, I don't know if you want to call it our friend or foe. But Jesse had run 84 miles, as 84, 85 miles, like that the day before, two days before. So when he showed up,

he was wearing sandals with socks on, and he didn't know what he was gonna do. Like, he was barely able to walk. Yet, that entire interview took place in a seated position and he stood up and was standing and shaking all those hands and didn't go grimace, wasn't complaining. But that's just who Jesse is. I mean, he, you know, I think he had so much adrenaline going and had such a good time. That was such a great crowd.

It was in the theater. It was a really cool environment. Okay. So now let's cut to COVID. Literally the worst thing, I mean, first world problems and I recognize that as I know you do, but our business disappeared overnight. How does Zach Nadler manage that

when you're leading Vayner speakers walking into a global pandemic? Yeah, it wasn't fun. I'll tell you that much. I can tell you, we, first off, virtual stuff, we've been doing virtual since 2012. I remember Gary and I did a virtual event. We streamed, it was either hungry or Poland, and he streamed on a Sunday morning at five o'clock

in the morning. I'm meeting him at my old office, and he's streaming in using Cisco telepresence with this big screen and all this technology. It wasn't like a laptop or a simple computer on a webcam, right? It was really 2012, but it was't like a laptop or a simple computer on a web cap, right? It was really 2012, it was intense. So we've been doing this for a long time, but also when you're doing video conferences

for the last couple of years, Gary's office is a studio. He has like a cameraman who can come in and just stream to anywhere he wants right away. But when we're in COVID, we're all in different places. So we had to really adapt to that. And I think more importantly, we had to allow time and be patient for our customers to adapt because it was, you know, if you remember that March, April, no one wanted to do anything virtual. First, you had, you know, FaceTime with your grandmother and your sister-in-law and figure out all these things how it works. And then you could be like, okay, now I think I can make this work and I'd pay someone to actually

be on a Zoom. So it was certainly a heavy lift. Again, just in context around it, you know, my personal world, you mentioned my daughter. She was born March 6th last year, five days before New York City went into quarantine. So I was also on paternity leave. As all of this stuff went down, I give a million thanks to my entire team because everyone picked me up. We were working crazy hours because that first month was just moving dates. It was just, all right, great, this isn't happening. So let's figure out what we're going to do. And I think it was really something where what we learned during that time was the importance

of flexibility, right? We tried to say very early on, we don't know what's going to happen now, we don't know what's going to happen next. Let's try to be resourceful, let's try to understand where people are coming from, let's be flexible and reasonable, right? Because some people are going to come to us and say, oh my god, the sky is falling. Other people in the comments say, we're just going to wait this out. But we have to understand that this is affecting both the customer and the event as well as

our clients. It's really important to just take a step back, take a deep breath, and figure out what was right for each and every opportunity. Thankfully, I would say 99 times out of 100, we wound up with great success in terms of either postponing an event, rebooking it, turning it into a virtual opportunity. There were a few that just fell apart for one reason or another. And like you said, it's first world problems,

got to be businesses to fall apart during that time. People died, there were real things that were going on in the world. And we just tried to kind of do our part. And I think there were some speakers who were as I heard of one bureau that literally turned into a podcast agency within six weeks. And we're like, well, your business probably wasn't going to work if you were converting into a podcast agency within six weeks of, you know,

a pandemic. And now we look at it and we're doing better business than we were before the pandemic. So whatever we were doing clearly was working, but I think if also is a testament to all the people out there, we're just ready willing and able to kind of turn things back on when it was possible and get back out there. And I think that the one thing this event's industry has shown time and time again is that we are ready and willing to have a good time. And people wanna be back together.

They wanna congregate. They want to be at an event next to person, experience something live. And that's something you just can't replicate. And I don't think we needed a global pandemic to prove that. But I think we're all now completely aware of it. So, Zach, you're in such a better position. I have such a myopic opinion on what's happening with the event business because I only see it through the lens of me. You're dealing

with so many speakers, so many companies. Where do you see the speaking business going? Where is it right now? Where do you see it moving that? Yeah, it's interesting because I think we're in a couple different places. I think over the last year and a half, we've seen that different parts of the industry are rebounding at different times. People were kind of reacting differently. Now we're looking at it and internationally, I think there are going to be things that are slower to come back than domestically in the US because the vaccines are more prevalent here and they aren't internationally. So, some places where it's not safe to have an event. But what I've seen is that the event's industry has a whole, it's been very resilient. And first off, that's going to be like

the number one conference theme. So, to any speaker out there, if you're working on a speech topic, resilience is going to work, right? So, just work around that. But I think that we're going to see, and we already have that this fall events are happening. There already started to happen. I think the larger events are going to start coming back this fall. I think the full-scale festivals and things like that will probably trickle in a little later. I think a lot of people are waiting it out and saying, let's just be safe about this. Maybe we have our employees back this fall, part-time. Maybe we start doing events again in January. But I think that there is a real demand for events and for people to get back out there. And I think people have been wanting to,

we've seen this. I mean, we have some events that we booked in 2019, we're supposed to be spring 2020, right? Then they get pushed to fall, then they get pushed to this spring, then they push to this fall. And I think people just don't want to give up. People want to have their event, they want to bring their teams together, they want to be with other people.

And so that's just gonna happen one way or another. It's just a matter of when and how. And I think some events are saying, we're gonna take all the precautions in the world, spoke to someone last night and they said we are going to require everyone who attends the event. Speaker and attendee is vaccinated. That wasn't something I've heard before. Some events are saying we're just literally doing whatever the government tells us to do, like what we have to legally abide. So we see everything in between and

I think that it's coming back and I think it's coming back strong. Everyone I talked in our industry, they're all saying the same thing, right? We're right back where we're pre-pandemic and I think that that probably will cool down a little bit once we get to Thanksgiving because just like we've had, you know, Zoom fatigue will probably have burnout again in the fall. But I do think that this event's industry, this is something that that'll be right back where it was. I think January 2022, as long as things don't get worse, as long as they get better and then people stay safe, I think we'll be right back to hanging out together, grabbing drinks at the bar after the keynote session, making plans to have breakfast with someone

the next morning. I think that's really here right on the horizon. But I think the thing that I'm most curious about is what happens to the speakers world, because I think some speakers are saying this is great that I can stay home and do this. Well, are there going to be opportunities virtually? Probably, probably more than they were pre-pandemic, but would there be as many as there are today?

Probably not. And I think the other events are saying we need to have the biggest invest event ever because now our attendees are telling us we're only going to one or two events a year. We're not going to five to ten. So I think that there are going to be things that change and we're just the beginning of that. And I'm really curious to see and excited because I think this is one innovation has really come out of problems. It's when people react and respond to a problem and then it allows for new things to pop up.

And so we haven't seen everything shake out from it, but what I can tell you is, from my point of view, things are looking up. So glad to hear that. And it definitely is consistent. I'm still getting book primarily for virtuals, which like you mentioned, is disappointing to me because I want in real life. I want to be with people, right? still getting book primarily for virtuals, which let like you mentioned, is this

a point to me because I just I want in real life. I want to be with people right. I'm so ready for I need it. I need it. I'm definitely missing it. However, you know, like you said with the asterisk, as long as everybody's being safe and does what's right, you know, to make themselves comfortable, I did an event for entrepreneur organization South Florida live about a month ago in person. So it was my first one in about a year and whatever, you know, three months. It was like magic. That's the one thing that I do want everyone to know. The energy, excitement, the gratitude that I just felt from every single person there.

It was truly magical. So whenever you can get to an alive event, get there and are you seeing that as well at the events that you've gone to so far? Yeah. The first event I went to, the first time I saw Gary since the pandemic started, he was recording an event in a corporate studio and happened to be around the corner of my apartment. So I was like, how can I miss this opportunity? So I go over there. There were seven people in the audience, okay? The production team was as big as the audience. And yet that felt like there were 7,000. It was just incredible how energized everyone was. Just being in a room together,

and I think it's something we all missed. And so I think you're 100% right. And that's why I don't have major concern about the industry is because once people see it again, they're just like right back into it, like, oh my God, I've been missing this. So I think it will be there. And I think you're gonna still see virtual stuff booking

even at the 2022, but I think the longer we go, the more events will happen. I think what's going to be really funny, all these virtual events that started during the pandemic are going to then convert to live. They're going to go in person, right? Because then they're going to be like, we're missing something. Our attendees tell us they want to get together. They want to meet in person because they've only had this virtual relationship. So I think that's what's going to happen next, which I think is great because that just

means more events. I've already heard of some places saying they don't have availability in certain cities at certain times So like I love hearing that because that just means like if there's no venues There's a lot of events happening and so it's exciting to think that people are already ready to get back together And so you know, I think it's some people are probably take its slow and wait till next year Maybe even mid 2022, but when you're ready, I think you'll see that it's just, it's tremendous to be together again. You should know what that means already. That's the best kind of notification. That's the sound of another sale on Shopify, and the moment another business dream becomes a reality.

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So for the speakers that are out there, because I know you get asked this more than anyone, what advice can you give someone who isn't up in coming speaker, how do they break into the business, how do they become the next Gary Vaynerchuk? Well, Gary's a great kind of role model for a lot of speakers because of how famous and successful he's been, but also how long it took, right? People look at and say, well, you know, in 2010, that's, you know, 2011, we thank you

economy, these books are coming out, crush it, and that's how we got famous, and that's when he started doing like, speaking, well, he had been on YouTube for 10 years prior to that. So there was so much that goes into being and building the brand of Gary that become the speaker of Gary. And I think that people don't necessarily see it that way. So I think people expect that, well, if I get 100,000 Instagram followers, and I put out a couple of videos,

I get paid once or twice, I can start commanding $50,000, so I can be the best speaker in the world. It just takes so much more than that. And I think people aren't patient enough in this business, and I think that that's the number one thing you gotta be. You gotta be patient, you gotta listen. When you go and realize that somebody's paying

to have you up on stage, you have to deliver for them and things change. And you gotta take their feedback to heart, you gotta think about what you're doing, you gotta internalize your message, and listen to your criticism. Because it's not gonna be 100% positive, the negative stuff is what helps you improve. And I think, you know, things like the Q&A you can learn so much from.

You also have to kind of realize you can't just go out there with the same speech every time. You got to tweak it a little bit here and there. You got to make yourself special, unique and different. And the hardest part of that is it's a lot harder to do that now than it was 10, 5, you know, two years ago. There's more speakers than ever before. So how do you make yourself different

from the next person? And your personal story is yours and yours alone, but you have to really bring that out in a way that's gonna impact an audience. So it's not easy, but I think the more time you put into it, I think I'm sure you've seen this yourself, they're like the more you're out there, the more comfortable you feel, the better response you get.

Sometimes you feel it, sometimes you don't, but even the fact that you feel that there was better energy from yourself or not, that is like part of the process. And I think Gary hasn't written speech and gotten us how long if ever, right? But every time you get some stage, I think he still feels he's around on an excitement. And I think the more you get out there, the more comfortable you are with it. And then you can just kind of jump out during dive into it. But I think people try to do that right at a gate and you're not ready for it. And that's why the reps are important. So it's all just about really giving yourself the opportunity to get better, the list

into the feedback afterwards. I completely agree with you. And one of the things that I do and I encourage everyone to do this, and it doesn't matter if you're a speaker or what you do, ask for reviews and recommendations of your work. That's when you'll find out what someone really thinks. They might not offer it up that, you know what, she didn't nail that or she didn't connect to the audience the way I thought she would. If you don't ask, you're not going to find out. I have found out some constructive criticism that I don't believe I would have received if I wasn't so, I didn't follow up so much with a client

To hear and I ended up getting on a phone call and and she said to me. She said Heather You're a great speaker of blah blah blah. However, you know The butt we didn't feel there was enough actionable advice given you know very specific things that I could have that I could have fixed But I didn't go into it with clarity on what is the ultimate goal? What it, you know, so that's one of the things that I've learned is it's setting expectations the same way you wouldn't have business deal, right? Is it just because you're going to give a speech and can't plug and play? Who is the audience? What is their ultimate goal? The person in charge, what do they want the audience to be saying when

you're finished? And it had I known, I want them to have three action steps that can go put into play that's gonna drive more revenue for 2021. Boom, now we're clear and you can accomplish that, but you don't find that stuff out if you're not asking. You're 100% right, and I think that it's hard to do because sometimes you wanna kinda just go in and say like, well, they clapped for me, so I must have been great.

And you don't wanna hear anything negative. And it's hard because I think no one wants to be told they did something wrong, especially if they're working for someone right? If you're getting paid to be somewhere, you want to deliver and usually over deliver. But I do think it's important. I think, you know, one of the things I often ask groups and I'm working with them is whoever you had in the past, what did you like about them and what didn't you like about them? Because it really speaks to it speaks to kind of what worked and what didn't. Maybe there was an amazing speaker, but they didn't like that person because it was an actual item. Or sometimes I hear this all the time, there's too many lessons.

It's just point after bullet point. And it's like, okay, well, then that helps me understand. You want someone who's more concrete or someone who's more abstract. And I think that these are, there are different styles, there's different content, there's different context. And I think that all of that stuff goes into play.

And I think people also need to realize they got to be authentic to themselves and I think a lot of people try to be someone else from their on stage and I think the audiences they can see right through that. So you got to be yourself and I know like Heather you are a hundred percent unabashedly yourself on stage the same energy you always have and that's what kind of brings it to life right and I think if you come out then you try to be someone you're not the audience sees right through you and then you start to feel that and you start to pull back or you start to lean into it and it go the other direction. So there's so many different things that can happen,

but I think you're 100% right because if you ask and also I was, remind people, be respectful of event planners, right? Usually when you walk off the stage, they still have an event happening. When they're done with the event, they still have to do the event recap. So if you give them a couple days, then you can usually get their attention. You can get a couple of minutes with them and really understand what work to what didn't. And then you just have to figure out how you can make yourself

and your speech better the next time around. Have you ever been in a situation which, and just so everyone knows, you and your team are very involved behind the scene, day up, you're there, you're on site, you're managing everything, I think people often forget of what's happening behind the actual stage or so much going on. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you've had a speaker about to take a stage freak out and say, I'm too scared, I can't do this.

How do you coach someone who gets last minute nerves? I've never had someone not go on stage. That would probably be, that would be pretty bad. I mean, I've had people with last wardrobe, just to this decisions, you know, whether it's Jesse deciding, do I wear a t-shirt or a polo shirt or Al Pacino deciding whether they're not to wear a scarf, like little things like that. Usually once they get on the plane, they know what they're getting themselves into. But I certainly have had people with last minute, like we need to change this, we have to add this, or I don't think I could use this slide anymore,

or I changed my mind, and I want to add this video, like that stuff, I this, we have to add this, or I don't think I can use this slide anymore, or I change my mind, and I wanna add this video, that stuff I think happens all the time. It's just about reassurance, right? I'll never put someone in a position to fail. My goal is to make sure that it's a success for my client, for the speaker, as well as for the customer, and their event. I want their attendees to walk away happy,

and I want the customer to walk away happy. And I think that it's just about setting the right expectations and then what we try to do is make sure that we have the information Before we even present an offer to someone I want to know all the details about the event so that when I'm going to a speaker and saying hey This is what they want from you. It's what they actually want and that the speaker understands right out of the gate I'm comfortable talking about this right because sometimes I say I don't want to tell that story I don't want to go down that road. Or this team isn't neat.

And I think that that's something that I think it's tough to do when you try to be flexible and malleable with a customer. Because we want to be able to say yes to everything. But the reality is that not everything should be said yes to, right? Gary's not going to come out and talk about, you know, of the economy in France. Jesse's not going to come out and talk about microbiology. But if somebody were to ask that, I actually, this was a scary part. I once had someone book the wrong person.

It was a very simple day. It was like John Harris or something simple like that. And they booked the wrong John Harris. When we found out pretty quickly, but it was a very funny moment because had the wrong person showed up to talk about things that they were going to talk about, that was what threw the whole thing off. They were like, you sure this is meant for me. This isn't a topic I've ever spoken about before. I could probably work on something, but it's just not something I've done before. And that was what we started to figure it out.

So it certainly happens, but we try to get that stuff out of the way before they hit the side of the stage because I could get pretty scary, pretty fast. Oh my gosh, that would have been a complete tobacco. Okay, so two things that come up a lot for me, I'm sure they come up for you, is people who want to be speakers, one, they don't know what to charge.

So how do you work with charging, pricing, virtual, on-site, and taking someone to the next level? And then people want to become a Vayner speaker. People want an agent. What is your best advice to those people on how they make that happen? Yeah, I mean, I think there's no formula

for success in our world, right? You know this. It's something where everyone has their own path for success. Some people, it's a lot faster than others. I think it's just important to kind of put in the work and do what you got to do, but be patient, right? Not everyone even needs an agent. There are a lot of amazing speakers who don't have a speaker's agent, right?

Magic Johnson, one of the legendary speakers in our industry. It's just not of a speaker's agent. Now, Kessey always been Magic Johnson, probably, so I think that's a little bit different, but I think that there are a lot of successful people out there who have done this, made it a career out of it, and that an agent. So I think there's a lot of people who think they need an agent that don't. I also think it's something where in terms of what you price yourself, it's really the value of your time, right? Are you comfortable hopping on a plane, laying over in Chicago on your way to Farmer, North Dakota for a, you know, a 45 minute talk in, you know, to an association in the

middle of February, right? Like, if you're not willing to do that, right? That's a miserable trip who wants to get on the, like, stay overnight, both then, like, that doesn't sound like fun. So if there's not a number that gets you excited to do that, then your, your fees too low. So it's always about just kind of setting expectations and what it makes sense for you. So most people, they speak on the side of doing other things, right? Whether they run a business, right?

Whether they're an author and they're constantly writing or always doing something else. So it's what else would they be doing and where's the value proposition? So if I'm running a business, well, I can't go out for 5,000 or 10,000 if I have all these customers and employees I'm beholden to, and the company would lose that kind of money if I'm not working.

So it's about what the value of your time would be otherwise. And I think a lot of people try and set fees arbitrarily. And I think it's important to have a number that makes sense for you, but shows that this is what your value is and this is what you're willing to do. It's something where you want to be competitive if you want to be up there a lot. You don't want to be out there a lot. Raise your faith. Less people are going to come calling.

But if you're not getting calls and getting inundated to where you're getting asked, are you free for the state? Can you do this event and you're saying no, I'm booked already? It's probably not right to raise your faith. Because what are you raising it for? But when you get so busy that you have to turn things down, you're like, all right, wish I could do your event, but I have two others that day. That's when it makes sense to raise your fee.

An old adage in our business is always easier to raise your fee than lower your fee. So if you raise it too early and then you try to lower your fee, people are obviously not that busy that they just make sense, right? They're not that good. So there are little things like that that I think go into the psychology of it, but it's important to be intentional with your decision-making. Thinking about what your time is worth and pricing yourself accordingly. One of the things that I'm finding difficult, go back to my time in corporate America. I

knew how to forecast. I knew what my pipeline was. I knew what the trajectory was. It was so clear. Now, especially because of COVID, this business, I feel like it's much more challenging. I'm so concerned to say yes, because I'm getting requests for 2022, on-site requests. And I'm so concerned to say yes, because I'm going to say my fee is'm getting requests for 2022, on-site requests, and I'm so concerned to say yes because I'm going to say my fee is probably going to be a lot higher by that point in time. It's difficult as a speaker and what advice can you give us, when do you know that tipping point is going to come in at?

When do you price yourself out of it or do you say yes to the business? Yeah, I mean, I, you know, a bird in the hand, right? Rather have dates than not have dates and regret the date you didn't take. And I always think too, we just saw this today. We got a group who reached out to us. They, one of my clients at an event in January 2020. It was January 2020 and they reached out and they said we wanna have that person back,

January 2022. They were our last speaker, we're not gonna be our first speaker next year, which is a really cool idea. And that person's fees have changed because they're how busy They were over this time. And I think that's something you got to take into account. And so you can't necessarily hope your fees go up, right?

You have to realize, is there going to be something that's going to drive my fee up? Is it drive a book coming out? Is there a particular opportunity that's going to change everything for me? Otherwise I'd say, keep booking. And then once you start turning stuff down, that's when you raise your fee. Because no good speaker will ever cancel an event for a higher paying event. That's just bad ethics and that's a faux pas.

You should not be doing that. We don't recommend that for any client. But I think the other thing is there are plenty of times where a client says, I wish I could do that, but. And that's where we try to get creative first off. Now with virtual, can we make that a virtual event? Can we prerecord something? Or what does travel look like? We're trying to shoo horn something in right now between an event in Boston and Chicago, we're trying to jam an event in Las Vegas for someone. These

things aren't so easy, but at the same token, it's all about what you're willing to do. And I always often say this when I'm talking to customers, like, well, can you ask this person if they'd be willing to do this? It's like, well, you don't have a date. You don't know what time it is. You don't know all the details. And those things make sense. Right? If I invite you to my wedding, you're going to say,

oh, sure, I'd love to come to your wedding. But if I say, OK, it's tomorrow. And it's in Guatemala. Then you're just like, wait a second. I don't even know if I can get to Guatemala tomorrow. So these are the kind of things that go into your decision making process. And I think it's better to have stuff on the calendar

and let new opportunity opportunity one or two of them go by the wayside you can't do it rather than say I wish I took those because I'm not as busy as I thought I would be right you can always make yourself more busy with other opportunities and things like that to fill in the blank. So my recommendation would be to take the good ones, don't say yes to everything but if it makes sense say yes and then when you're so busy if that's when you start raising your faith and I think you you're gonna see a lot of people are in the fiat of the pandemic, because they're gonna say,

you want me to get out of my pajamas? I gotta get on a plane. That's when things are gonna change. And I think we're on the precipice of that. So I'm not looking forward to it, but at the same time, customers won't love it, the clients will, so we'll make do.

Right, because then you're actually the bearer of the bad news and or the negotiator that gets so make that happen. Yeah. Exactly. It's a matter of getting ahead of it so that we don't have anyone upset, but I think it's also about being realistic and I think we keep telling people, you know, right now people are kind of all over the place. They don't know what's going to happen. So it's really about just being prepared for it and not being so fixed in your ways and really being ready for anything. And I think that's when you'll really be ready to

react when something changes is when you're just prepared that things are going to keep changing. So Zach, who are the people that should be reaching out to you? Because I know right now there's people listening there saying, oh, I might want to do an event in 2022. How do I get a hold of Zach? Who are the people that should be contacting you? Yeah, I mean, look, event planners change all over the place.

Whether it's an actual event planner and agency, we work with all sorts. We all sort of all their speakers, bureaus. But nowadays, I think what's so cool is, people in the events world come from all over. So we can be dealing with a VP of marketing somewhere, the vice president of sales, the CEO, or an executive assistant.

We work with people all over the place. And so we love to hear from different people and about their events and see what we can do to help. Good news really, I think it's fun. We learn things like just like that drift event. We've gone back and worked with drift and other events and their events and see what we can do to help. Because really, I think it's fun. We learn things just like that drift event. We've gone back and worked with drift and other events, and their events change. And I think that it's about adapting to it.

So we love hearing about new events and trying to find ways to make their audiences happy. So anyone and everyone should reach out. And sure, I mean, if you're a speaker too, we have a very small roster with 18 clients. We're always looking at the same token. We're a very small team. We've been around for two and a half years, so bear with us.

But I think it's something where we want to be the biggest in the world, but know that it takes time to scale the unscalable and that's really what we're aiming to do. How does everybody get a hold of you? Zach at vanderspeakers.com come to our website, hit me up on all social media. I'm always available, usually on the phone or in my emails, but I will check I promise. So by all means, we get back to everyone. So hit us off. Let us know what we can do for you. Back, thank you so much for your time today. So appreciate you and can't wait to see you in real life. Can't wait Heather. Thanks so much for having me. You don't stop them look around once in a while.

You can miss it. I'm on this journey with me. I hope you're enjoying this episode so far. I'm Jennifer Cohen, host the top ranking business and entrepreneur podcast, Habitson Hustle, apart the YAP media network, the number one business and self-improvement podcast network. So most people live the life they get and not the life they want. And I'm here to change all that. My goal with each episode is to give you the habits and hustle tips you need to show up to

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Once you've done listening to this episode, and get one step closer to boldness, one episode at a time. get there too. Head over to Happets and Hustle once you've done listening to this episode and get one step closer to boldness, one episode at a time.