Maximizing Speaker Fee How To 10X Your Speaker Fee In 12 Months – with Sally Hogshead

Want to know how to 10X your speaker fee in 12 months or less? In today’s interview James Taylor talks with keynote speaker Sally Hogshead about

The four types of speakers that get booked How to 10x your speaker fee in 12 months Ways to insanely overdeliver

Resources: Sally’s website: Sally Hogshead LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hogshead

Please SUBSCRIBE ►http://bit.ly/JTme-ytsub ♥️ Your Support Appreciated!

If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on YouTube, iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW

Apple: http://bit.ly/TSL-apple Libsyn: http://bit.ly/TSL-libsyn Spotify: http://bit.ly/TSL-spotify Android: http://bit.ly/TSL-android Stitcher: http://bit.ly/TSL-stitcher

CTA link: https://speakersu.com/the-speakers-life/

FOLLOW ME:

Website: https://speakersu.com LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/JTme-linkedin Instagram: http://bit.ly/JTme-ig Twitter: http://bit.ly/JTme-twitter Facebook Group: http://bit.ly/IS-fbgroup

Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/sl053-how-to-10x…h-sally-hogshead/

James Taylor Hi, it's James Taylor, founder of SpeakersU. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Speakers Summit the world's largest online event for professional speakers. And if you'd like to access the full video version, as well as in depth sessions with over 150 top speakers, then I've got a very special offer for you. Just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yep, that's right 150 of the world's top speakers sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to launch grow and build a successful speaking business. So just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com but not before you listen to today's episode.

Hey, there is James Taylor here business creativity keynote speaker and founder of international speakers summit. Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Sally hogshead. And she's talking to me about how to fascinate, persuade, and captivate. Enjoy the session.

Hey there, it's James Taylor, and I'm delighted today to be joined by Sally Hogshead. Sally Hogshead is an internet keynote speaker two times New York Times bestselling author and member of the CPA speaker Hall of Fame, the speaking industry's highest award for professional excellence. She's the creator of the fascination advantage assessment the first communication assessment that measures your personal brand. Sally began her branding careers one of advertisings most highly awarded copywriters, and after researching 1 million participants, our algorithm can pinpoint your most valuable differentiating traits. Using his science based fascinated system, she teaches audiences how to instantly persuade and captivate. When you fascinate your listener, they're more likely to remember you respect you, admire you and take action. From the moment she steps on stage. Sally captivates her audience studies and stories outlines startling new perspectives on how our human brain are hardwired to be influenced. She reveals why we buy certain brands but not others. Why we follow specific types of leaders and even why we fall in love with certain people and it's my great pleasure. To welcome Sally today. So welcome, Sally.

Sally Hogshead Thank you, James. I'm super excited to be able to be here with you.

James Taylor And I'm sure of all the guests that we've got. Every time I tell people about like, I've got this different guests and say, Oh, you've got Sally. Awesome. I'm so excited. You go, Sally. So, so first of all, thanks so much for coming on.

Sally Hogshead Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm super psyched because I love speaking so much, but I don't get to speak about speaking. So this is really fun for me.

James Taylor So share with me, what's your focus just now what projects you currently focused on?

Sally Hogshead Well, I measure this measure what makes somebody fascinating and one of the things I've learned in my research with a million people is people think they're less fascinating than the average person. In other words, people aren't confident in their own ability to fascinate. And I couldn't understand why. And finally, what we learned from our studies is people aren't confident in their message. They don't feel like they have something significant to add to the conversation. And so they imagine if you're a speaker on stage, If you're asking for people's attention, it's crucial that not only do you have a message, but that you're responsible for making sure that message is heard, remembered that it makes a difference that people aren't just inspired. But that people know how to take action differently that they can connect differently. But if we don't think that we're fascinating, our message will fail. And so right now I'm working on a new book named you are fascinating. And it is about being able to identify your most fascinating traits so that you can build your message around that and make a bigger difference.

James Taylor I'm a huge fan of I got this one early on, well, before we ever met, how the world sees you, and I think this is like required reading of speakers. Because it feels like in a world where there's so many, so many speakers out there that event planners and organizers can choose from, is that differentiation piece, that's really really, what a lot of speakers struggle with your show.

Sally Hogshead Yes, yeah, we can get into that today. I mean, that was a that was a big part of what I studied that I had to, I had to not just do it for my clients in the past when I worked in advertising. But then the sudden realization, oh, I need to contain myself.

James Taylor I mentioned earlier you You came from the world of copywriting from advertising. And then you obviously move into speaking you're one of the most successful speakers I'm going to speak a Hall of Fame. But in those early years of you kind of moving into being a professional speaking and speaking, is your main thing. Who those early mentors and people that can have inspired you.

Sally Hogshead There are a lot of people within NSA that that they didn't just inspire me, but I found that I it by watching them, I could see what a true professional speaker does. A lot of times people think if you know how to write in other words, if you know the language that you can then become an author. They also think if you know how to speak and you can command a crowd that you can then be a speaker, but being a speaker, and mastering the speaking business, the business end of it are completely different. And so I started by looking at great speakers like Michael Port Rene Brown, You know, a lot of the people that are actually going to be part of our summit. But then I took a step back and I started looking at business models to understand people behind the scenes, like people like Michael Hyatt, Marie Forleo. How do they build a tribe because being able to surround yourself with people who are passionately devoted to your message is a key part of being a speaker, because the message is more important than the delivery.

James Taylor And with you so you can start you can start getting out in the road going speaking, but I don't know Well, no, well, but like all of us, we all start somewhere in those in those early days, you know, you were up quickly though, you started to kind of build over speaking but they got a point where you hit a little bit of a plateau. On the on the on the fee side, you were kind of getting near you out. You were getting the calls and everything but it was like weird, and now you're in the stratosphere as a speaker. So what happened around that time?

Sally Hogshead It was it was actually a really difficult A difficult transition for me because I had come from advertising where I felt complete confidence. And I felt like it was I was very much in the flow of that side of my career. And when I wanted to transition into becoming a speaker, it was very easy to get from, from zero to thousands really easy, from 1000 to two or 3000 is pretty easy. But then all of a sudden, my speaking fee plateaued at around 4000, which is not nothing. But the problem is, if I'm going to be traveling and leaving town, I need to be able to make it worthwhile so that when I'm away from my kids, that I can still have a growing, thriving business. And so I took a step back and I started looking at the speaking industry about what drives the engine of how is one speakers decided over another. And I started looking at this as though I was looking through the lens of branding. And what I saw was the traditional criteria to have a speaker succeed. It goes through a laborious process that takes decades. For example, it's you, you master your speaking skill, the actual delivery of the speaking skill, and then you you contact with a beer. Rose, and then you write a book and you write another book and you read another book, and then you schmooze clients and you build your social media following and it's like, God, it was like that, you know that they're just there's got to be a better way. There's got to be a shortcut. And so I started looking, analyzing it. The the research behind why one speaker is chosen, and another one isn't one speaker can raise their feet and another one can't. And I found that every time you are being considered for a speech, you're essentially being considered with four other types of speakers. The first type of speaker is one who's a the Absolute Owner of a certain specialized niche of information like, you know, the the health care providers Association spokesperson. The second type is one who's just flat out more famous than you, the Malcom Gladwell or Seth Godin. The third type is cheaper than you so they're just gonna undercut you on price. And the fourth one is what I call the pet. The pet is the one that's like, oh, everybody loves Bob. We've had him every year for 10 years or my brother in law's getting into speaking Why don't we hire him? So I began to take a step back and say, Well, what do I have? That's, that's different than those and I realized there's a moment when somebody who's considering you for a speech very first sees your materials. If they've never heard of you, something's going to happen in their brain they're either going to say no or maybe no or maybe and I realized that all I had to do was stay in the maybe pile and not get thrown into the no pile. And so the first few moments that people look at this is so important that the police cars or

James Taylor what's happening here is the the speaker police are coming to get you But yeah, you're telling me the secrets you sharing the secrets you that's why they come to get you.

Sally Hogshead So I said to myself, what I'm going to do is make I'm going to present myself introduce myself to these these bureaus, these meeting planners, event planners, clients, in a way that they may not like my speech, they may not like my style, but they will not forget me. And so I put together a package in which I reached out to the hundred clients that I most wanted to work with. And I wrote I wrote them a letter They didn't talk about me at all. It said, Here's why I think you're fascinating. And for each one of those hundred clients, I went on look at their social media profile, look at their Facebook page, I researched them, I looked at articles they've written or been featured in. And I put together what my perception was of their personal brand. And then at the bottom, I simply said, if you'd like to talk more about your brand, and how it might be able to support you, in your work, give me a call. Well, long story short, within, within just a couple of weeks, I had basically filled up the next six months of my speaking and it was it was a huge transformational leap. It showed me, you don't need to just fascinate the decision maker. You need to understand how the decision making process goes through the system. And one thing I learned was the person who's going to be making the final approval, which speaker they use there but it's totally on the line. So they have to have something that allows them to validate their decision, especially if you're new or you're very expensive that they need to be To go to their board of directors or to their the meeting planner need to be able to go to their client, or the speaking agent needs to be able to go to the meeting planner and explain exactly why they chose you instead of somebody else. And so it's your job as a speaker, to give them everything they need to arm them with all the tools so they can do in advertising what's called selling up. Promise too often, we simply talk about ourselves and we don't necessarily arm the person with, with understanding the tangible, lasting benefits. A good keynote speaker can hold an audience's attention. A great keynote speaker can inspire and motivate them, maybe give them a few actionable takeaways. But it's really extraordinary keynote speaker can build a relationship not just between themselves and the audience, but between the audience members and the person who's paying for the speech. So if people are still talking about your keynote years later, and they use it, almost like as a, that that lightning bolt moment, when they like, Hey, remember when so taught us such and such. That's when you've really done your job because you've embedded yourself into the way that Think

James Taylor a little bit. I mean, you're because you come from that, obviously understanding branding at a deep level. So I think I think about the great brands I think about, you know, the Volvo, for example owns the owner word they own involves because they

Sally Hogshead say that let's say the word on the kind of three because I bet we both know what it is. Okay.

James Taylor & Sally Hogshead 123

James Taylor & Sally Hogshead safety. Yes.

James Taylor Safety. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, we think about something like BMW, and they own that kind of engineering and almost own, you know, their own feelings almost. You own fascinate that word. I'm sure that when people leave that conference hall, when they're having those discussions in the offices around you, you own that. So was that a very conscious decision? An early stage was to go find that that word that you wanted to own you wanted to put your stake in the ground said, This is me the only remember one other thing they know. That's the fascinating person.

Sally Hogshead Yeah, yes, of course. I love that question. Originally, I had been studying branding and then I was studying Why we pay attention to certain people and not others? And then finally I saw in a medical journal I saw a passage that said the one of the oldest words in written language in ancient Latin is the word fastener a fastener a means to be which or hold captive. So your listener is powerless to resist. I thought man that that is cool to be which are held captive so your listeners powerless to resist and the more I began looking at it, I saw there was this open space, this this unclaimed territory conceptually not just as a word, but as a rich history in a science and a context that I could that I could dig very, very deeply into. And I think that's one of the things that's so important is a speaker, you have to be able to have a topic not not just like a word, but you have to be able to speak about something that if you took your name off the speaking description, that nobody else could put their name in there because if you're talking about say, time management or customer experience, you've got to be able to deliver something else. Otherwise, you're just a commodity. Otherwise, you'll never be able to become truly perceived as the expert, because somebody else can come in and just deliver your content and do it. To speak more specifically about that, I want to make sure that I cover one of the things that we're talking about which is having a word. BMW is one of the first clients I ever had, in advertising the ultimate driving machine. Later, I worked on the United States launch of Mini Cooper mini Coopers owned by BMW but it's not at all about ultimate driving machine. It's about participation and, and the experience in the same way as BMW Mini Cooper differentiated that's part of what my research showed me is how do you identify exactly how somebody differentiates themselves and that's where I created the fascination advantage, the that assessment that we were talking about, that measures how other people see you, and so that I can give you those words the words that define how you can Make sure that you're not a commodity you can rise above the competition. And we'll be talking about that later, right?

James Taylor Absolutely, I'm going to be we have a very cool thing for everyone here as well, we're going to tell them about, I heard an interview with you recently, and so much of what you do and you talk about on stage, it looks extremely effortless, and you're kind of shine you're fascinating, you're staging here, but there's, there's a, there's a science as a background, this there's things going on there. And the and I remember hearing you talk about, you looked into you read very deep into the science of, you know, neuroscience and all kinds of different different areas of science. And one of the things you talked about was us as humans, I think we like only one 1% difference in terms of our DNA from from chimpanzees, and you know, other things. So it's like so when I come to think about differentiation, I've got like a 1% differentiator, and then we think about us as human beings and what attracts me to my wife, for example, she has a differentiation in that that that one person You know, can go and going down as well pray. So when you kind of did that, with Where did that kind of lead you in terms of the way that you can study that in the science. And then where did that take you in terms of the kind of information you can share with your audiences. Now,

Sally Hogshead it's crucial for you, especially if you are an aspiring speaker, or a less established speaker, it's really important for you to be able to say something that nobody has ever said before, in a way in which nobody has ever said it. Every time you communicate, you're doing one of two things, you're either adding value, or you're taking up space. The problem is too often speakers speak to speak, all they're trying to do is book an engagement, they, they don't actually have a transformation they're trying to create for the audience. As a result, it's very hard for many speakers to raise their feet. And that's the problem that I was having. I was saying in 2010 when I could, I couldn't even I couldn't seem to break through that barrier. And I had that plateau and I was so frustrated and I was traveling all the time trying to make ends meet and support my family. What I saw was, I was trying to mimic other speakers. I was trying to outdo other speakers at what other speakers were doing. And I was trying to be like, you know, the the most authoritative or the most polished? Well, you know what, that's not me. I can't out Michael Port Michael Port. Right. And, and so I took a step back and I began to see that if I can identify in what way is not just me, but the experience that I'm delivering completely different. Not only does it make it more fun and energizing and confident creating to be on stage, but it helps with bookings tremendously, because remember, if you think about it, giving a speech is easy compared to getting the speech. If you have a message that matters, though, it's not just about speaking for the sake of speaking, if you if you can't get in front of the audiences, if you can't get in front of audiences that can take action and spread your message and become evangelists for what you have to say, then you've done a disservice If you have a message that matters, you almost have a duty to make sure that people are fascinated by that. And it's not just audience members, it's the decision maker before the process even begins. And so so that's why I spent so much time looking into this How is that decision made? One of the things that I saw, I couldn't even believe this. I looked at on speaking websites on bureau websites, you know, how do they have that drop down menu, you know, what I'm talking about where you pick the category leadership, entrepreneurial ism psychology, etc. And I started comparing those topics to the fee that the speaker charge and I I started looking at what is the relationship why it how much more can a social media person charge than a marketing person? I found with creativity and innovation, innovation speakers, on average charge $5,000 more than creativity speakers. And the reason is because innovation has a perceived outcome. Innovation is seen as a bet as an ROI person who's writing the check. Whereas we all know it creativity, innovation, they're like, you know, siblings. But creativity seems like a process that's an end in itself. So that's why it's so crucial for you to understand what does your end decision maker need? That's going to be the change. And that's why every time I do a free speech briefing call, first question I always ask is, what is the biggest problem that's going on in your company right now? In other words, what is stressing out your employees or what's causing conflict on the team? And the answers will be something along the lines of people are totally overwhelmed, or our prices are falling, or our competitor has come out with technology that's better than ours. Or we were not getting enough new leaves with the transition to millennials, etc. And once I have that piece of information, I can plug my topic into solving the need. So if the need is commoditization, well, then the solution is you have to be fascinating and differentiated. If the problem is that there's bad community Then I can structure my entire piece of content is just slightly shifting my topic to say, in order to have better communication, you have to understand the hidden patterns within the person sitting across the table so that you can create resonance. And that's that, it's things like that, that helps speakers get booked more quickly. So by the time the, my goal is that by the time they finished the briefing call that I have just delivered, I have just delivered the experience of what it's like for me to be on stage. In other words, what the experience that an audience has, when I'm on stage for a huge keynote. I want my client to have just had that on the call that aha epiphany. And one of the reasons that is so great having you on this summit, especially at the start of the summit, something I was very conscious I was doing all these interviews, speak with these great speakers is I was quite conscious that if you just kind of came into you know, just

James Taylor not having a sense of who you are and knowing know, knowing thyself, right, it'd be really easy to get confused. Because, you know, Michael Port will give you an example of that. This is what I suggest here, someone else might give another to someone else might give another suggestion. And one of the great things about you and we have with a fascination advantage, and we'd like to kind of just talk about that. And how that works just now is it kind of goes back to that sense of like, what are your strengths? What is that thing that fascinates you? Yeah. And I think once people want speakers know, that piece is actually so much easier, then to the side, it's like knowing your customer avatar, once you know your customer avatar who your ideal customer, a lot of the noise just goes away, you could just focus well, would sue read that would know would Bob read that? If not, it's not looking to focus on Right, right. And to the fascination advantage, and we're gonna we're going to talk again, we'll have some links. We're gonna discuss that in a second as well. And how does how does it work? What's it all was all about? We talked about, you know, we're the precursor to coming to it, but But what is the fascination advantage?

Sally Hogshead fascination is an intense focus. So remember a moment ago, we learned that the It's one of the most ancient words and written language from the last infest era to be which are hold captive. So your listener is powerless to resist. When you're speaking to an audience, when that audience is fascinated, their brain is just focused on you. They're not thinking about their iPhone and thinking about their next meeting. Sometimes, from a body language perspective, their job becomes slack. And they put their hands they unfold their hands and put them on the armrests because they're, they're completely in the zone with you. And it's during these times when your audience is fascinated. They're more likely to listen to you and remember you. But more importantly, you become embedded in their conversation the way that they think. So when you fascinate somebody, what our studies show is that you can charge far more for your prices, you can, they're more likely to refer you to respect you. Let me give you a quick example. I did a study in which I gave women two pairs of sunglasses that were exactly the same. On one pair, I put a Chanel logo and I said to people How much would you be willing to pay for these two pairs of sunglasses? They were willing to pay 400% more for the pair with the Chanel logo, even though they were exactly the same glasses exactly the same. So I thought to myself, well, what they're saying they're buying is a pair of sunglasses, but what they're really paying for it is the logo, the difference but the the value of branding is that if here's a commodity, but people are willing to pay this much, this right here is the value of that brand. And the same is true for speakers. There are two he could have two speakers who have the same quality network, the same type of content or the same level of experience or credentials. But if one speaker can brand themselves as being very clearly associated with it with certain certain traits, certain ways that they add value, and most importantly, certain ways that they differentiate themselves from the pack. Those speakers can rise far more quickly within within the world and the key here is not just being able to charge more money. mean, you know, that's nice, but that's not really the point. The key is that you can get in front of the audiences that you most want to speak to, so that your message can resonate. So there's this ripple effect, so that you speak to the people who are most likely to become your advocates. And those people will spread your message further. And if you believe that your message matters, then, like I said before, it's your responsibility to fascinate the audience so that you can get the best engagements that you want with for some for me, I want big, big audiences to thousand or more high level decision makers who can go back and change their culture based on what they learned with me. Other people have different types of audiences they want, but the, the more that you you're differentiated, you become irreplaceable. And that, imagine it like this. If, if, if somebody really wants the concept of, of how to be fascinating how to avoid commoditization, and overcome through differentiation, there aren't a lot of other speakers that you can just be plugged in there, whereas, if my topic was basic psychology or basic branding, well, you know, we've got 10 different speakers we can look at. And that that, that takes away your power as a speaker and as a business owner,

James Taylor and how much you think your your successes because also due to the fact that you have created intellectual property that is really you know, it's very powerful that the the assessments very powerful. There's all the other things around that as well. But this is something you had to really work and put together that you own

Sally Hogshead and invest in, invest dramatically, right, even during the period of time. When I wasn't, I wasn't, it wasn't like I was I it wasn't like I was being able to command a high fee in speaking. So therefore I did research it said I did the research first. One of the things that I learned is especially for women speakers, of the audience of the pool of authors, only 10% of business authors are women and Only 10% of those women business authors are speakers. So that's why it's so easy to see why it's very rare to see a woman keynote speaker during the opening session or the closing session and why it's so important for me to empower women speakers, one of the one of the one of the worst mistakes that women make is they brand themselves as a woman rather than brand themselves as a as the content. So what ends up happening is imagine we're looking at it on the axis. If you have high quality content, low quality content, highly entertaining, dry, dusty academic, most women, either they don't have great content, honestly, most speakers most because either they don't have great content or they don't have great delivery. But if you can live in the upper quadrant, we have great content, meaning you have proprietary research you have you have great concepts that nobody's ever heard before that people can actively implementing get excited about and you have great delivery, then it makes it the audiences fall in love. Because you're irreplaceable and meeting planners seek you out.

James Taylor And when you mentioned those, those 100 organizers that you contacted with that, that I have, I love that. Here's why I think you're fascinating. You can go into them in that way. It's just like, no, like no one else does that. So I think it's absolutely amazing that you did.

Sally Hogshead Can I give you an example? Yeah, I get what I when I get really excited, I like I love this conversation, because all this is happening in the back end in my business, but I never actually get to talk about it. Anybody could do this. If you if, you know, pick a topic, any topic What if you don't make it about you? What if you start applying it to the person that you're talking to if somebody studies finances, if you could say not like, Hey, I study finance, but instead of it could be hey, here's the three trends that are going on in your industry right now that you should know about maybe a handwritten letter and just have your phone number on there or your website. If you're in real estate, say hey, I sent a private investigator to stalk you. I'm kidding. If you could say in I noticed you lived in New York, here's three things that are happening in real estate right now in New York, that that that would be helpful for you. Because remember, every time you communicate, adding value taking up space, if you take up space in front of a meeting planners mind, they're just gonna ignore you the next time you try to reach out but if you add value, then they personally become invested in you being their chosen speaker.

James Taylor And how did you kind of slice and dice when you when you have those hundred? And obviously, there's so many conferences, so many events happening? How did you target in on you mentioned, like the two those two sides 2000 plus type events, but where did you go for any particular industry or any particular niche or? Yeah, absolutely. What How did that work

Sally Hogshead there? It's very important to think of your content to think who has the biggest problem you can possibly find for which your content will solve that problem. For me, people who are sitting in the audience if they don't think they have a problem with disruption, if they don't think they have a problem with competition and distraction and commoditization, I'm really not the right speaker for them. So there's certain industries like I've learned, for example, agriculture. When I speak to agriculture audiences, there isn't a sense, among the ones I've spoken with, where they have an urgency that, wow, my industry is totally getting disrupted, and I want change. And I personally have a vested interest in listening to what Sally saying, because my butt is on the line. On the other hand, salespeople, creative professionals, real estate agents that those people understand, man, the world is changing, and I've got about a year because the way what has served me up until now is not going to continue to serve me. So they're really hungry for the message and they value it and they take it very seriously because they, they want to go back and apply it immediately. So that's why organizations where I have the decision maker sitting in the room, they're very creative. They are they're not change adverse. They're brand safe. They, they don't just want to be entertained, they don't just want to inspiration, they actually want to think or do something differently when they walk out of the room. And then they want to go share it with their teams. That's my ideal client.

James Taylor And was interesting as from my perspective, having just having you on as a guest. And so we're talking about you could go showing the back office stuff and, you know, opening the kimono and type of thing and the level of detail both you and your team have put into this event that we're doing together just now. has been, you know, it's been exemplary.

Sally Hogshead Thank you. I try to say my team totally rock. Kate Beth, rich. Emily, everybody. Great. Can I show you a geek?

James Taylor Yeah, give me a geek get off. Oh,

Sally Hogshead when I okay. So I am not a detail oriented person. And so this is what Beth and Kate put together. For me. This is my AV kit. And when you open it, here's everything that I need. But the so I have three clicker. Everything is marked. With my name. And so one thing is when I show up to do a speech and the AV guys, like, you know, this is called wireless love, I can I just silently unroll, you know where it has my mints It has everything that I could possibly want. It allows me to come in with complete credibility immediately. And that allows me to be confident. Another thing that I do, it's like that hyper detail oriented thing that my that we have learned is really helpful is before the keynote. But before the keynote, I take a screen grab of my slides, I send that screengrab to myself. So that before I walk on stage and that like awkward moment where you're kind of pacing and keeping your energy contained, I can be looking over my slides visually. I think those a certain degree of micromanagement really helps be walking on stage and being completely confident in that moment. And I thank my team for helping Do that. But

James Taylor as an event organizer, it just gives you so much confidence that that that happens

Sally Hogshead in this Speaker

James Taylor year a competent speaker employ you for you on the stage. And, and especially in that last week, before something happens, like the when everyone's going, Oh, is this gonna is going to work? Are they gonna turn off? They're gonna catch your flight, you know all these things. And I know that I'm sure that when you do your live events, your team, if anything like this event, and this is obviously an online event, but if it's anything like that, then it's just that that that attention to detail makes a huge, huge difference.

Sally Hogshead I haven't my AV writer is a full page long, and it's not like I want green m&ms. It's just anything that could potentially be a problem. I'm just letting them know. When example is. When I if there's iMac, I let them know, say here's my clicker. I like to have my computer on the stage. And I say to the person who's doing the iMac, you know whether it's image magnification where it's a huge billboard size thing either behind you around the room, if I'm holding the clicker Show the slide, Don't show me show the slide on the screen. When I put the clicker down, show me. So it'll be like, I'm going to give you three points. 123 showing them on the slide. And then I put the clicker down, I say, now I'm going to tell you a story about those three points. And it's, it's thinking through all the things that are going to help the audience connect with you and make the meeting planner feel confident, that make all the difference in the world.

James Taylor And for those people that are just coming into the world of of speaking, and I guess we kind of think about that, that being being a disadvantage because you have all these great speakers and they get the stages. But someone like myself has come in relatively recently in this kind of is of the of the scrappy, like, Okay, well, that's interesting how the wave has been done, but like, I'd like to change things a little bit. I like like rock things off and make some not necessarily go from the typical A to Zed. What tips would you give for those people that that maybe there's things that they can do that actually They're an advantage because they are just getting started.

Sally Hogshead Yes. Listen, less experienced speakers or speaker speakers who see isn't as high as it could be. I'm speaking of details, I made a little made a little list. There's certain things that speakers can do that I did that, that I really recommend because it comes straight from the textbook of branding. First one is, find one way that you can insanely over deliver for the decision maker, something that you don't have to be great at every aspect of speaking but you do need to be extraordinary in one area of content and one area of service. And as an example, we give huge level of service to the event planner, sometimes we even send if we are if we are not booked, but the agent has inquired, sometimes we'll send a thank you gift or a note saying thank you for considering us. So what happens is we build a relationship. We for clients who booked me in Orlando in my hometown, we give them a MacBook Air. Because we want to be booked more in Orlando MacBook Airs are a great incentive. And, and over deliver in your in terms of your content find one way that you can just blow the face off every other speaker for me, that's proprietary research, measuring a million people and being able to serve that, that content to my clients. So when I do the speech on, I can show them all the analytics of their organization in their group. High, highly paid speakers also have certain disadvantages that are important. As soon as you hit about 10,000. and above. What I noticed is speakers, they're less likely to experiment because they feel like oh, I've I've got it handled. And so what they, they, they, they're kind of doing it from memorization. And the problem with that is then when somebody sees your keynote, they don't see how they could continue to bring you back. Because it's like they don't want to hear the same stories again. They get in, they're less willing to customize, being able to customize what the client is not reinvention of your material. But it's it's crucial that the person sitting in the audience feels as though although you're not an expert at their content, that you know their language and you're not calling them, like say with salespeople, they either have customers or clients, it's really important for you to know, does the audience refer to them as customers? Or do they refer to them as clients, or maybe even consumers? Because if you say clients and their customers, then you lose credibility. One thing that I do is I always go online before a speech, I look at their mission statement. And I look at the About Us page and I deconstruct the tonality. Are they using words like, we create an empowering workplace in which we want our employees to rise to the highest level? Or is it more like we've been we've, like, say an at&t or a GE, we figured it out 100 years ago that excellence is the most important thing. Well, that they're going to interact differently in in the audience in the keynote situation then the empowered Wellspring on

James Taylor And so you as you're kind of researching them, I'm guessing because you you know, so much with it, you know that you've done a million of these assessments. So that was great data brings great power. And I am wondering if could that Oh, would you be able to use that information? If you under if you know, like that event conference organized, you've done something in the past and that you kind of have you had the DNA, you have that code of Oh, almost at that person? would you use that and you definitely have the code for an organization in terms of Yes, there's more than this type of archetypal, this type of archetype.

Sally Hogshead Yes, when when I speak to a specific industry, like let's say it's multi level marketing or insurance. We compare that group to our average population of of people that we've measured within that same industry, so I can I can say to a group, okay, the average within the insurance industry, according to our research is a pie chart or a graph that looks like this. You New York life look like this. And then that's really meaningful data because it's already telling them how their organization can differentiate themselves. Doing data like that, though doing, doing some kind of like heavy number crunching requires an algorithm a team, huge investment. But he doesn't have to take that it you can also get that information through briefing calls, online research, interviews, and knowledge. Not only is knowledge power, but knowledge is the ability to differentiate yourself by bringing something new to the conversation. And within the fascination advantage. You have these 49 different archetypes that you taught, you kind of cover

James Taylor and I'm wondering when you go like, for example, the National Speakers Association, is there one type of archetype, that archetype that really dominates overall, but also is One, you're you're in that elite group of speaker Hall of Fame inductees. And I don't know how many, you know, Speaker Hall of Fame that still are just now out speaking by some very small number is to those people have a different archetype from from the the, the general generality of National Speakers Association members?

Sally Hogshead I love that question. And just so people understand what I'm talking about, here's the book that we just looked at. And then this is what this is the matrix. So when, when people take the fascination advantage assessment, we what we're measuring are, what we're measuring is how other people perceive them. In other words, if you're a speaker, how does your audience perceive you? It's not like disc or Myers Briggs or Colby, which is how do you see the world based on psychology? This is turning it around based on branding. And when we go in and we measure groups like National Speakers organization, MCI, even speaking bureaus, what we find is they tend to score very high On the power advantage, which is about confidence and focus and goal orientation, they tend to score very high on prestige, which is excellence and improving results. They tend to score very low on alert, which is detail orientation, and they tend to score very low on Mystique. Mystique is standing back listening, thinking before speaking, asking questions rather than talking. Now there's nothing wrong with that every industry from people in technology score 30% higher than the average population and Mystique, whereas speakers we haven't measured, we haven't measured the percentages, they score way lower. And so what that means is, if you when you take the fascination advantage, if you score the same way, you're going to have to work harder to differentiate yourself. You don't want to model yourself after top speakers. You want to be identify how you're most likely to add value. You don't have to change who you are. You have to become more of who you are, and then do it on purpose.

James Taylor But I'm also guessing that in those industries where maybe that's the power prestige isn't that high you will stand out in terms of going it let's say if you're targeting an industry that you want to go and speak out specifically and I'm so I'm trying to think of what the opposite of this would be detail accountancy conferences, I'm just bragging right there the thing. So, you would if you can have your strength that you have them build upon your strength, but also be understand understanding very well, that the needs the demands of that audience and what their 2am right problems all, then you can stand out, maybe more so than other speakers they might have. Yes,

Sally Hogshead your goal is not to mirror your audience because first of all, that's going to be inauthentic. You're not going to feel confident you're going to be trying to you're not going to be able to come out and, and and communicate your message in the most authentic way. But it is so I'll give you an example. I speak to a lot of Financial Services groups who tend to not be the whoo lose, you know. And so at first I would, I would kind of dumb myself down, water myself down, it would be inhibited. And I would try to do it the right way. And then what I realized was, I'm not having fun, they're not getting the message. And so I score on the fascination advantage, I score very high on passion, very high on innovation. So before I go on stage, I need to say to myself, right now, I may feel less confident that I'm going to be able to bond with this audience over the course of the next 60 minutes. But it is my responsibility to make sure that I do not dumb down my passion and my innovation. So that means I'm going to come out I'm going to engage quickly. I have big body language, I love to be able to tell them stories that make them feel emotionally engaged with the content so that then when I give them data and research, they feel like there's an emotional context for it. I'm not just throwing up slides, and to be able to be creative. You know, I like to push it a little bit. I love to go into the audience and and talk to people about their result of the fascination advantage, which is a, that's a competitive advantage of mine ad libbing is actually easier for me than going off script. Whereas for a lot of people that's not the case if there's something that that you as a speaker if there's some area of speaking that you know that you can excel in that becomes almost like your secret weapon then by all means, put that in the speech give yourself license to totally break the mold of what a speaker traditionally does.

James Taylor Yeah, my background being originally a jazz musician, the the improvisation thing is kind of hardwired hardwired in dance, I'm struggling to do the exactly the same speech every single time. So let's start to kind of finish up here I want to come because we're gonna have we're gonna have a link here just under this video where people can click on that and get good you know, go through that assessment and find out what their own archetype is before any other kind of parting words of wisdom for for speakers, anything they should be thinking of, to really you know, maybe that the speaking already and you're doing that the one k two k three k in that level. But they know that there's so much more this possible for them any advice there,

Sally Hogshead I'll just give a give a couple of quick things. When when you have a conference call with a client, find their picture, learn as much as you can about them so that you immediately come to the call with a sense of connection. In the same way that it's hard to give a speech if you can't see the audience's faces. neurologically, when you look at another human face, you feel more connected to them that the next thing is make sure that you micromanage every detail before the speech that is most important to you. So for me, for example, it's really important that I don't have to make decisions within 24 hours of giving a major keynote, so my whole team knows decisions create Stress, Stress creates uncertainty. I don't want any uncertainty coming anywhere near me when I'm getting ready for a major presentation. So we just block off time to make all those decisions in advance. And then finally, you need to find the aspect of your content that makes You passionately care. The world isn't changed by people who sort of cares, or speakers who sort of care or clients who sort of care. So it's your job to make the audience passionately care no matter what your topic is, even if your your topic may seem dry and dusty, but not only should your delivery emphasize how crucial your topic is, but to also make them feel the urgency of applying it, and the epiphany of what it's like when they understand it.

James Taylor I yeah, I mean, we're in that space now, aren't we, where the medium the middle just doesn't read. It just doesn't resonate. You have to be

Sally Hogshead frankly, nothing below the top 5% resonates you know, it's like it's it becomes spam. And as a speaker, you don't want to be human spam.

James Taylor But what I love about what you do is it's not about it's not about being inauthentic or being something else. It's just like, like supercharging what you already are, and just you know, getting the best of what you already own. So

Sally Hogshead being more of who you are There's something really liberating about

James Taylor that. Absolutely, absolutely. So let's, let's finish up here. And you showed us your lovely speaker bag, which is absolutely is a work of art. So congratulations. You're

Sally Hogshead directed to Kate and Beth and Stephanie who puts it together every time we go out the door, we actually have two of them so that if I missing something, we just trade out to the other speaker. But

James Taylor is there anything of a particular note in there that you absolutely really couldn't do without

Sally Hogshead I travel with backups for me if I have any increment of stress, and if there's anything that throws me off kilter, in the moments while I'm doing the AV check it, it's like it infects my confidence. And if I don't feel confident, my keynote isn't going to be as good because I'm going to be mentally trying to think through the concepts of you know, kind of trying to say the right thing, kind of like I am right now, instead of it just flowing because I'm in the zone. So I always travel wearing the exact same type of uniform so there's no ambiguity I travel with three different outfits. So that if Whether changes or if the level of, of dressing this changes, I carry three of everything, VGA, HDMI, Thunderbolt, three clickers. After the speech, I always talk to the AV guys, I usually bring the AV guys a gift, like donuts in the morning. And then I give them a thumb drive. And I say, Can I download my presentation right now, because it's always really hard to get it afterwards. In our contract, it says that the client has to send it to us, I think it's within like 30 days. But it's really hard. You don't want after the after the event, you don't want to be going back to the client, like, Hey, remember me? Because then that becomes, you don't wanna leave that taste in their mouth. You want to keep the happy bubble. So manage all of those details in advance so that you can be in their happy bubble and you keep your client happy.

James Taylor I think at that point, you mentioned the start there, where you're talking about having reducing decisions to so on that went on game day. You have that

Sally Hogshead reduced decision.

James Taylor Yeah, I met I had a good opportunity. Meet your When the former President Barack Obama there, I asked him a question about speaking. And then and then I know that he does exactly the same thing. He was the same suit. Every board has the same breakfast every single morning. He said, I've got enough decisions to make in my day, right? Yeah, I'd most

Sally Hogshead I don't know if it's an urban myth, but I've heard that athletes like Tiger Woods will replicate their living room no matter where they travel. And so I think, you know, obviously, that's, that's a bit much but stress reduction is as important as confidence maximization

James Taylor another any online resources or tools or apps you find particularly useful for yourself as a speaker.

Sally Hogshead Well, I'm building a new version of SallyHogshead.com right now and I love being able to look at websites that are not speaking websites. I like looking at branding agencies, photographers, even New York Magazine, things that things that kind of break that mold. You don't want to look and sound and smell like a speaker. You want to look like a thought leader or somebody with a with a very clearly differentiated brand throughout your entire experience. So in going online I try to match in what way does that online brand match the experience of the product or service itself so that I can learn and apply that

James Taylor and I think people that you mentioned the start like Marie Forleo that was poor guy, Paul Jarvis, who's a web designer, yours does Chris Carr as well. is great because it looks like no other website for other kind of people in that space. But it matches so perfectly with her audience in terms of the quality the style is you know, this is kind of cosmopolitan, you know, as a website so as I actually get I'm, you're singing to the choir on that one. What about if you to recommend just one book and it can't be your own book as amazing as amazing as this book is? If you recommend just one book about it could be about speaking it could be about branding or something you you think would be very useful for the all the speakers out there to be reading

Sally Hogshead National Speakers Association has a line of books I think it's um get the I think the one that I like best is get paid to speak really great thought provoking articles on on launching a speaking career. Non speaking books I love Made to Stick In fact I love anything by Chip and Dan Heath because it's all about how do you take concepts and make them make them sticky make them meaningful, but term coined by Malcolm Gladwell, but using that in terms of not just your your content during the speech, but the marketing ahead of the speech,

James Taylor and final question for you, and then we're going to just have that link here for everyone so they can get go through that assessment, find out their their archetype find out what makes them fascinating to others. Let's imagine tomorrow morning, you woke up and you have to restart. You have to start again. You have all the skills, all the tools of your trade, all the knowledge you have acquired over the years, but no one knows who Sally Hogshead is. You don't know one you have to restart. What would you do? How would you restart? I would

Sally Hogshead pick one way when one form of media, one message, one key benefit that I deliver that is that is extremely valuable to the person to whom I'm trying to reach. And then I would be extraordinary in that way. Look, clients don't hire you because you're balanced, they hire you because you're extraordinary. You don't have to be perfect. You're not perfect, you'll never be perfect, but you do have to be perfectly excellent in one particular way. So you don't need to be associated with everything, you know, the smartest, the, the the cheapest, you know, you don't you don't want to be associated with a bunch of things. You want to be associated with specific traits. Because if clients can't remember you, they can't refer you. They have to be able to describe you so that people can talk about they can they can explain why other people should hire you. Can I give you an example? Yes,

James Taylor absolutely. Okay.

Sally Hogshead This is an example of one I speak this is what my business card looks like. And you can see what Yeah, there you go. So you can see at the top it says, How do you fascinate? And then we have the seven different ways that people fascinate. So when I go to a speech, and I meet somebody, I say after I after speaking with them, I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about them. So I'll say, Oh, I think you I think you think creatively. There, I think you think creatively. And I think you connect, I think you connect with emotion. So when I give this to them, sorry, I'm, our webcam is like backwards. So I think you think creatively, and connect with emotion. And then I peel it off, and I give it to them. Then they have this amazing souvenir of the speech, but then they want to go and be like, wow, here are the two ways that I can differentiate myself. Well, on the back, it's my business card. So then it tells them how to how to be able to get it to be able to get in touch with me. So by giving them something that they don't want to shove in their pocket, or worse shove in the trash. My business card doesn't get caught up and all of those like so networking business cards, I think it's really great to be able to give your audience something something of value that is so intrinsically branded with with you and who you are in your message that they never want to get rid of it in fact they want to put it on their desk and display it because that's the best talk value there is

James Taylor absolutely today's episode was sponsored by speakers you the online community for speakers. And if you're serious about your speaking career, then you can join us because you membership program. Our speakers, you members receive private one on one coaching with me hundreds of hours of training, content, and access to a global community. They help them launch and build a profitable business around their speaking message and expertise. So just head over to SpeakersU.com to learn more.

#speakersU #speakersLife