90 1 percent of consumers of any type want to see more video from brands. Video content is only climbing right now. We've seen a 250 percent increase in video consumption in the past 5 years. Accessibility is usability. And there's a lot of people out there, right, who have invisible disabilities. Right. It's color blindness, dyslexia, sight impaired. We're talking about, like, really basic things. That's gonna help most of your audience no matter what.
My two year old she was 0 to 9 months, and it was the most difficult time probably in our 20 years of being together. My wife and I. And so it's like, how do you still keep everything going for you? What's been your experience? Me too. Same thing. I've never had less sleep than I've it now. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Gathering the Kings podcast. I am your host, Chaz Wolfe. And today, I have an incredible voice in the professional speaking industry, Cam Boden.
Cam and I talk about his experience, not only in the accessibility movement, but how also to use video content, get more sales in your business, and the realities of starting a business when you have kids. Make sure you like this video. Comment on how you use video content in your business. And, of course, hit that subscribe button if you have already, your engagement helps us bring on amazing guests just like Cam. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the King stage, my brother Chaz Bodwin.
How are we doing today? I am fantastic. Any better? And I and I, you know, don't even think I'd be here. This is so great today. We were just talking kind of fun stuff about we're gonna we're gonna get to all kinds of cool topics today, but we were just a few minutes ago talking about starting a business. When you already have kids. And so I'm hot on this topic as well along with all the other cool things that I know you're gonna bring tons of value on. So hang tight listeners.
We're gonna get to some cool stuff. Chaz, tell us what kind of businesses that you have. Sure. Sure. So I run a creative agency for professional speakers who are kind of realizing that they wanna take their business from Chaz. This is a hobby. This is a side gig. This is my hustle. Turning it into let's make this a full time thing because I think there's a mental shift. There's a there's a mind shift you have to do when you start to shift that that side gig into your main thing.
So really, I I like to focus on speakers at that point and start to help them with marketing, sales, branding, but a lot of focus on delivery and around video content. I love it. And so just to be really specific there, you have business owners that have been successful, and they think, well, I'm just gonna start speaking. But it's it's not just a side thing. There's actually like a formula to being a successful speaker is what I'm hearing you say. Is that right?
Exactly. And so The one thing I see a lot of speakers, they don't treat their speaking like its own business. Right? Like, what are the core elements of a business? You need sales. You need marketing. You need a bit of branding and, you know, you can take all those things whenever you need to to focus on them. Right? Like, I wouldn't say that everyone needs to start doing that, start doing marketing right away. Or or folks who are branding.
Although all those parts are important, but at some point, you're gonna have to say, okay. What is this? Is this is this a way that I can get leads? Is this a way that I can build my brand? Like, what is speaking and starting to think about how I can turn this into something with meats, like, really, like, this is this is an asset to me and my brand and my business. That's what I love talking about. Like, that's really what I love to to help people with. That's awesome.
Well, we're definitely gonna get to that. You you came to this place being able to help others with their speaking business by not only starting 1, but you got kinda started with a speaking business in an interesting way. Can you give us just a little backdrop on on how this even came about for you? Yeah. Sure. I'm a developer by trade, and it's it's really funny. I like to say that when I was so a lot part of software development is is demo day.
Okay. So demo day is when you invite your clients in and you say, Okay. Like, this these are the parts that we built of your system this week, and and it's it's a, you know, big not not always a hoop plot, but there's usually pizza involved, which is, which is always good. And pizza, hoopla, of course. Right? And and I was always the developer when they said, like, okay. Well, who wants to present this week? It's like, I will. Right?
And I was the least shy developer out there, and it is totally against what people think of as the traditional dev in there. Now that was at IBM. And so, you know, you think of large tech companies and really traditional kind of style of building stuff. And here's Cam. Yeah. I'll go and present this week's demo day. And I start to say, you know, maybe there's something there that I can work on and grow. During that time, I was actually specialized in something called digital accessibility.
In fact, my hat slash hashtag a11y Chaz actually stands for accessibility. There's 11 characters between the a and the y. And accessibility really is making sure that stuff, websites, environments, museums, things are usable by people with disabilities. That was my niche. That was really the thing I focused on. And I became a specialist in disability inclusion accessibility. And so I said, let me help with that. That is my specialty. I can go and speak on disability inclusion.
And accessibility, especially from the technical angle. So that took me around conferences, and I was able to go speak in front of large crowds about disability, inclusion, accessibility. Don't forget this large part of the population who has a disability. Don't forget that we need can't exclude people, and that became a thing that I was known for. So inside that world of of speaking. You know, it's funny. You start to see the same speakers on the circuit.
If you go to certain conferences, the same people keep showing up, and and that's a good thing. But the main thing I I I kept hearing this pain point, this problem that people kept talking about was I don't know how to do video because video is technical. Right? Like, let's let's be real. Video is technical, and I'm sure, like, you've gotten better on video from your podcast day. Right? Like, These are all things. These are skills you need to grow, and people get so afraid of it.
And when you think of something like a speaker reel, a demo reel, something that you can go and use as a marketing asset. That's even that's even more scared. You know, people don't realize that you know, they've got a lot of content that they can use or they, you know, going to hire a videographer, that that's stressful. They've got all these business requirements. Not gonna go spend 8 hours to go find a good videographer and all this kind of stuff.
So when you keep hearing the same pain point being repeated over and over and over again, you know, that's new as a sign. It's just like, you know, someone's gotta go solve it. There's no one else who can solve it. Like, I'll be the guy to solve it. So that was the birth that's started it. And, yeah, it was over the pandemic where I started to really take courses on on public speaking, professional speaking, and found that, oh, this is, like, this is a path. There is a structure.
There's a system. There there is there is something in place here that people can use and follow and and and walk that path. Yeah. The I appreciate you sharing that backdrop. I wanna spend just maybe a couple minutes on your your, obviously, you lit up when you talked about it, your kind of your niche as far as accessibility.
Give us just, like, a couple of 2, 3 minutes on why the, you know, average entrepreneur right now and maybe not average because they're listening to this, but the typical entrepreneur who who maybe doesn't even know what it means to be accessible or to you said don't leave out those that have a disability. What does that what does that mean in real life? For the entrepreneur listening today. Sure. The easiest thing I can ever correlate to is accessibility usability. Okay?
It's really, really simple. Do you want your app usable by as many people as possible? I don't know a single developer or a single entrepreneur who's relaunched a new app and new product who's like, no. I would love for a subsection of the population to not be able to use this. Right? Like, like, the the concept just doesn't make any sense. So think of Yeah. Accessibility is usability. And there's a lot of people out there, right, who have invisible disabilities, right, simply.
Color blindness, dyslexia, like site impairment, site problems. Right? So we're talking about, like, really basic things, like making sure the colors pop on your advertising making sure that when you build an app, like, how many apps have you ever seen where there's, like, a dark background? And then the text on there is red. And you're like, squinting to try and read it. And it's the caption. So it's going super fast. So it's making sure things are legible.
That's gonna help most of your audience no matter what. So so by just focusing on that idea of, okay, usability is important. And if it's usable, generally, it's going to be accessible, not always, but, like, that's a good primer to it. So these are things like, you know, your captions when you caption a video. Are they legible? The colors that you're using, do they do they make things pop? The speed at which you you have text displaying on screen or the information that's being related out.
These are all just, like, really basic things that if you took a second to QA your your content, then you'd be like, oh, right. If I can't read it, then probably everyone else can't read it either. So just fix it. Change the colors up or or do things like Chaz. I love the simplicity of that. Obviously, I'm I think there's probably a large well of information there that we can get into when it comes to, like, separating things out and and making sure that you know, all the things can be included.
And and not every business owner can, you know, make their product usable by everybody. Sure. But I think that the the heart there is you just paying attention enough to just, like, double check it or at least be open to the idea of making your website or your product or your service accessible or usable, as you're saying, to to more than peep more people than Chaz just maybe the the first go at it. Sure. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. Well, do you want a general stat?
Like, here's something really interesting. So Facebook did some research a couple years back. And they found that 8 out of 10 people who are just doomed scroll, like, you know, at 11 PM at night, they're watching video without sound. Now let's be real. What when when someone's working at a job and they're spending a bit of time at lunch, you know, looking around to they're probably not turning their sound on to watch a video on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, you'd people aren't doing that.
What are they doing instead? They're turning on those captions. Right? So by default, if you're not adding captions, which is a an accessibility features for people who have hearing impairments or or or or the disability that way, right, or cognitive disabilities. But think of how many other people, you literally, we are leaving 80% of the people who are just watching video aside. And that doesn't always include people with disabilities. I know I do it. Here I am, you know, 11:30 at night.
I can't sleep. Babies awake, something like that. My wife's sleeping. What am I doing? Wolfe, I'm watching videos, scrolling at night. I've got no sound on. I don't wanna wake her up. So, you know, catering to everybody, but I'm I'm we'll definitely be scrolling past videos that don't have captions. So just think about that. Think of these little things. Chaz total usability.
Love Okay. So let's let's get to the heart of of you and your function now is helping entrepreneurs get to this next level in their brand. We're talking about video we're talking about being able to speak and and kind of elevate your brand. Let's let's go video first. Charters is it's almost even now. Like, we'll everything you just said about watching video, even without the audio. Like, this makes sense. Like, we all we're we're living this.
And I would even maybe go as far as to say that every entrepreneur listening right now knows that important for them to do video and possibly maybe they are, but they're in that, like, you know, like, function of, like, it's not smooth yet. Mhmm. How does an entrepreneur Chaz you give them some, you know, practical tips here? How do they make it smooth? Sure. As far as video content? I think we all just have to admit we're gonna suck at it before we're good at it. Right?
Can we just get Chaz out first, like, no one is born good on video. I spent the 1st 2 years of being on video removing Um's and ah's. But the thing is I was only able to remove ums and ahs from my speech by getting on video. So it's this catch 22. Right? You know, oh, I don't like how I sound. I pause too much. It takes me too long to edit the video. Yeah. That's just part of the process. So one thing I like to recommend people to do is gun lives. Right?
You can turn on YouTube live, Facebook live, Instagram live, and just getting comfortable. First off, no one's watching you. Right? No one cares, but even if you've got a following of of 8,000,000 people, the first time you do a live, probably no one's tuning in. So it's okay to to just use Chaz as And then you know what? You can delete it afterwards if you're really afraid of it. Like, it's it's totally fine. Getting comfortable in front of a camera is is almost required these days.
So imagine if you're an entrepreneur, okay, and you're just starting out your journey and you know you're getting to that destination. By the time you're 5 years in, there will be people calling it for podcast. You may be show showing your product on, a a news, like a media source, something Chaz you may be interviewed for for something else. You may be going up on stage. Participating in a panel.
You don't want to be in that situation fumbling over your words, not understanding your message, complicating and or delivering a convoluted message you probably also don't wanna be paying somebody to help you rehearse 2 weeks before your your content is delivered. Right? You wanna start getting comfortable, and I say that this is the the best way to practice all of that.
Best way to practice speeches, best way to practice your your vocabulary, your intonation, your your voice inflection is just get on camera. Just start recording. Hit record. You don't need very much. You need to use your phone. That's it. Like, you can just put that up in front of you. Talk to the camera for for 10 minutes, and you'll just start to get better. That's always the very first step. And that's for anyone across the board, brand new in business. 10 years in business doesn't matter.
Yeah. I love I love the the just authenticity of Chaz, that that's an overused word. So I hesitate even using it. The realness Mhmm. Of just going, hey. Look, it's okay. First off, I love what you said there as far as no one's to watch no one's listening because it's so true, especially when you realize that as you're starting, even even guys like you and I Chaz that have spoken or building, audiences, you know, you look back and you're like, oh, dang.
I thought that was gonna hit a little different, and it didn't. Or something that you didn't think at all. And it's usually the ones where you're just being real. Yep. Take off and people really resonate. And so I think that there's a lot to what you just said. How does the, you know, like, I'm, again, I'm thinking of the business owner who's listening right now. They're probably driving in their truck. Maybe they're in between clients in their office. And, you know, like, they get it.
They get what you said, but there's this mountain of, like, What do I say? And how do I do it? And, hear what you just said. And I I get it, but, like, it's just it's just like, I gotta sit myself in the seat, and it just it's just a lot of work. It's a big boulder to push. Yep. Give them some mindset before even saying all you need is a phone and just talk and, like, Give them some mindset ahead of time. Sure. That red button on your, like the record button is the hardest button to push.
But as soon as it's pushed, all of a sudden, you know what's already started. Right? Like, the the activating that button is the hardest part. Like, oh, you were so worried about what you're gonna say. But once it's on, You can't stop. It's just like this recording that we're doing here right now. You know, I I don't know where this is going. You don't know where this is going. We're kind of building this as we go, and that's the best part of it.
Like, that is the absolute it's the most fun part of it, and you will get better at it as you go. So just start hitting record even if it's just a record and then you dump it later on. Now you mentioned something that are going Chaz a business owner going between clients and stuff like that. Video is so underused in the sales process as Wolfe. That that's where I got a lot of practice as well.
You know, if I had a script, I I I just used hit record and do a live, you know, just as one example, for thinking more but let's think about this more as a business practical sense as well. Why don't you write up a script? It's it's one minute that's maybe, you know, 60 to 80 words This is a pitch that you're gonna do to a client. You can make it hyper personal. I had people thank me after I send them a video. Have you ever been thanked for a sales call before, like, cold sales call.
Oh, thank you so much for cold calling me. Never. But people thank you for a video. Thank you for such a personalized video. I really appreciate it. Not interested right now, but let's get on the phone in 6 months. Then you get the other side where people actually do book a call with you. They do wanna get on the phone with you because they've seen you.
You establish trust, video builds, trust, and if trust is at all part of your brand, if trust is all important to your brand, then I think under like, just using this this as a one more tool in your arsenal is is so valued. It's so so important. Yeah. I'm even thinking about one of my companies is a general construction company. And general contracting. And we use video even in the process different markers. Like, when they first come in, as a lead.
Of course, our team is reaching out to them booking an appointment. But as soon as that appointment is booked, they get a video from me as one of the founders saying, hey. Here's who we are. We're not just your average contractor, and here are our values, and here's why the next couple steps are gonna be really important. And then before the guy comes out that's gonna come to their house, boom. Get a video. Here's who he is. Here's a little snippet of his family.
Here's his favorite color or favorite food. You know what? That type of thing. And those little touch points along the way to your talking, which, you know, is the trust that you're referring to. Even for the maybe more traditional, maybe blue collar type of businesses, And in fact, I think it's actually even more valuable for for businesses like that. Right? Let let's let's break that down because because I love that angle.
And I think that thinking about video and let's say the non traditional businesses, blue collar businesses, things like that is is so good because, yeah, it's easy to say it's from, oh, video marketing. You're a video sure. Like, of course, the video is easy for you. But do you remember when a couple of years back when Instagram was just starting to get big? Remember remember watching people do I remember watching people doing dry walling, right, because I I suck at dry wall.
It's it's I I I I don't ever wanna do it. I love doing DIY stuff, but I hate dry walling. Mudding is just paint. But then you watch guys. Right? You watch guys doing mudding on video on TikTok, and you're like, I want I want that want that guy. And I remember one guy was talking about how he how respecting the client by mixing his mud in a bucket first with the lid on, and he would he cut this this slot out, and he had the big drill that would mix it separately.
And he's like, you know, you do this because you don't want it to spill over onto your client's floor. And just take a mo like, let's let's take a moment and think about that. Let's put this into the perspective of the client for a sec. Clients, generally speaking, especially in general contract, maybe they're not they're not comfortable tools. Maybe they don't have enough tools. Maybe they're a single mom.
They got 2 kids, and and they, you know, they don't want to get, like, invest you know, they're they're hiring somebody to do a job for them that they are not able to do for whatever reason. You show them a video like that. All of a sudden, they know that, wow, this person's gonna respect me. First off, they're not a weirdo. I don't, like, I don't know who's coming to my door. Right? Maybe they live in an arut.
Think of all these little elements of trust that you're building just by sending, what, 30 second video. Hey, I'm Chaz, you know, I'm the owner of the company. Here's the guy who's coming to to see you, and here's his video. These are little building blocks that all of a sudden when someone at her door, a stranger to her door. They're saying she's saying, wow. Okay. I get it. Like, I know this person. I I know who Chaz person is. Know they're gonna respect me in a certain way.
They're gonna respect my house, and we can move this forward in a way. And that's probably gonna, like, add referrals later on down the road. Like, think of all these, like, little benefits that are adding up when you when you just send those 2 little short videos. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I can even just going back to that construction business, and I was referencing a few minutes ago, the clients that we worked with before those things.
Of course, we we still we still did, you know, good work and we were, you know, even even in the newer days when when things were a little rocky, it it just is a is a difference when when you can show the human factor. Mhmm. Right? Because that's really what we're talking. Yep. Yep. Is if I could show you that I'm human, that I'm not a company or that I'm not out to just, you know, get your money Yep. That I have a family.
In fact, a lot of what we say is, like, look, we're we're families here in Kansas City. I have a wife and children just like you. And and I've had contractors come into my house, you know, prior, and I get it. And and so it's not just a marketing ploy like a no, like, I'm a human. Mhmm. Like you, I get it. And and so I think that in any business, even for those who wanna become speakers, how does that apply apply here. We're talking about the human element.
How do I use that in what you do for your clients? Sure. Okay. So can I can I give you some stats here? Cause I think this is really important to kind of set the stage for for good speakers. So 91% of consumers of any type want to see more video from brands. Okay. So just just think of that numbers. Everyone wants wants more. Video content is only climbing right now. We've seen a 254% increase in video consumption in the past 5 years. Think about that as well.
When you're going on well, you're gonna search up something, anything in the world. What are the two places that you're gonna search on? You're gonna search on Google, then you're gonna search on YouTube statistically, that's where you're going. When you wanna learn something, you're going to YouTube. You know, as good as TikTok and all that is, you're not using that as a search reference. You're getting you're consuming long form, mid form, long form content generally on YouTube.
And so, you know, it's it's just a given now. Now imagine you're an event planner. Okay? I'm a speaker. I wanna go and speak on your stage. You're an event planner and you have a stack of somewhere between 40 to 80 different applicants to this stage. Maybe it's a bigger stage. How is the what's the fastest way to filter? What's the fastest way to understand who this person is, who's gonna come on my stage? Right? The fast way to do that is just to look at, well, who's got video?
Who's gonna show me who's gonna lower that barrier to entry to understand of, like, what, like, what is this person gonna be like on the stage? Because event planner has one thing that they care about, only one thing. Is this person going to respect my crowd? Is this person gonna respect my audience? And that's really, really important to remember because an event planner has their job on the line. Right?
Like, there's gonna be someone above them who says, you know, we need this many speakers on this topic, and we're gonna need to have people who who who do this. So they don't want some just someone who who can't present themselves properly. They don't want someone who doesn't know their topic very well on stage. So by you showing them, demonstrating that you could do that through video.
And and that's kind of what we special we specialize video demo rules, which I can talk about in a moment, by showing an event planner, what you can do is way better than just sending a a a cover letter saying, you know, I speak on this. And this is my text abstract. So that's really what we're talking about here. It's like the the element of showing not just telling. Yeah. I like that you have given it specifically for how you help your clients.
But again, I'm gonna translate this to a couple different businesses, again, whether we're in the blue collar trades or whether we're in marketing, like you mentioned earlier. I can reach out to someone who I'm trying to earn their business. And I can say, hey. I was thinking about you and our conversation from the other day, And here were some things that I was thinking about. Bingo.
And whether that be, like, physically showing them a that someone else's bathroom that I'm in, that I'm remodeling, or it's a marketing campaign that is crushing on, you know, cost of acquisition. And I'm like, hey, I could I could probably do this for you, but let's talk a little further and and I'm and I'm making it real right there in front of them. Mhmm. Talk about this just a little bit further because you said you've got some, like, this demo reel. Talk to talk about that.
So I so a demo reel is a two and a half to three and a half minute video that's that's your movie trailer. Like, it's it's really that there's 2 really important things that a speaker must have when they start their speaking business. No one's a website, a speaker website. Number 2 is a demo reel. Because, again, no one's gonna go watch your your 18 minute TED talk.
Like, let's be if if if my job is just to go find speakers, I'm not watching 20 TED Talks and spending all day watching TED Talks, you know, my boss is gonna come around my shoulder and be like, what do you like? Could you get to work, please? Like, stop watching the videos. But that 2 a half to 3 a half minute marketing video, like, that's really what it is. It highlights you. It sells you as an expert in your field.
And you you show different scenarios that you've been in, on stage, in an interview, on on, paid media, like, all these different kinda areas, it shows your expertise that you dominate and you are, an expert in that field. So so that's what it's for. That really is it's a marketing tool to do that. Now I coach my clients. I say, you don't only have to use this to send to event planners. Think of it. It's a promotional material for your socials. Right? It is on your website front and central.
I can't believe the amount of speaker websites I go to, or if I gotta dig down deep into the website to go and find their speaker reel. Imagine you're imagine you're somebody actually looking for for a speaker. I'm I don't wanna look 20 website 20 pages deep just to find who you are and what you speak on. It's too much. Gotta think of the flow, and you gotta think of, like, who, like, what people want these days. And gone are the days of 8, 9, 10 minute demo reels.
No one's watching those anymore either. All influenced by TikTok. We're all influenced by influenced by Instagram. We want that hard hitting fast. Who is this person? Do I see the month stage? Do I want that? So that's kind of your static areas that could go website, socials. But I I called message people my speaker real. When I'm looking for speaking gigs, I say, hey. I don't know if you're looking for anyone on stage right now. Here's me. Here's my speak real.
If you'd like to have a conversation, I'd love to pick it up. And and then I just sent it to them. Right? Like, just like that. And I coach speakers do that. And I when I hear speakers come to me and say, Kam, I got speaking gigs because I just sent just sent them my speaker real. And we know these days in automation and all the tools that you can use, you could cold message event planners, your speaker real, just that. And again, what are we talking about?
Building trust, understand who you are, maybe they have a fit. Maybe they don't, but what did that cost you? That one investment in something like a speaker reel instead of demo reel pays off so much. Like, there's so much you get out of that That that's a really valuable piece of marketing material. Hey, Kings and Queens. Chaz Wolfe. I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort.
We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast, into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too. So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again all of the things on social media on all the different platforms or even on the podcast mediums, Apple and Spotify.
We would love to be able to get our content into more hands, more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick as possible. To we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So let's do this. Let's help each other grow. Yeah. I love how you've you've distinguished it as a piece that's reusable. It's not just a piece of content, although that's reusable as well. This is like, no. We're gonna go in.
We're gonna put it like, some some system to it. It's it's speaking of specific message. Mhmm. But again, I think I think you gave a good picture at the beginning of this where it's like, they could do this with their phone. Just hooking it up right there in their office or even in their car, you know, like, it doesn't it doesn't have to be well done. Now for a speaker, probably so. Like, if you're interested in becoming a speaker or you're already a speaker and it's not going well for you.
Cam's your guy. But for maybe the other business owners that are listening, they're just like, I wonder how I do this. Mhmm. Turn on the camera, work out the kinks, create a video that shows your stuff. Right? Right. Right. Because all you're doing is you're demonstrating expertise. Right? You're demonstrating Right. Let let's let's let's go back a couple of years. Right? So So imagine, hey, dad, can you come over and help me fix my whatever? You know, like, I I wanna change a toilet. Right?
Like, dad, come help me fix a toilet. Like, you're giving that that same kind of attitude when you're showing someone, your clients, you're saying, let's maybe move away from, I know, contracting. Let's let's pick a different to business, like, accounting. Right? Accountants. Yeah. Right? Let any accountants out there, I'm so sorry. I I I I hate my tax season. It's the worst. It's right now, and it's been so long since recording how to do taxes.
There are people crushing it on socials, talking about spreadsheets and how to make your spreadsheets more effective. Like, total. We're talking about the most dull topic in the world. Like, how do we make spreadsheets more efficient? And I signed up for them because, you know, there's all these, extra functions that you can do that I didn't know about and just talking about, hey. If you did this, you could save, you could you could benefit this way.
Oh, you're just you're just passing a bit of information, passing it in You know what? The first time you you first time you do it, you're gonna get 2, 3 likes, and it doesn't matter. But you got this this corpus of information. And now how can we reuse that? Let's talk about visibility for a moment. What if one day you want to release a course, right, subscription based courses?
Wolfe, you've got this entire library of video that, maybe didn't do so well on socials because you'd Chaz no following. Now, Allison, you can build a course with that information. You've already got it recorded. You don't have to go back and record all that content rewrite that you can say, you just plug in a bunch of your your reels. And you've got a $27 course per month that you can start to sell. Oh, wow. You okay. Now we're replicating this information.
Now we're gonna go and get it in real. You gather a couple of those pieces of content together that that start to I don't know if you talk about bathroom renovations. Maybe you talked about cocking in 1 and fixing the bathroom tiling. You you you gather up all the same ones. You say, here's a mini course. Right? Here's ten bucks and here's a bathroom remodel mini course. You've already got that content built.
And the only thing that you need to work work that work out of yourself is that fear of pressing that red button. That's it. Like, it's really that one step. Just hit record and start talking about what you're doing, and and and you will see how how much easier it gets over time. That's it. Yeah. That word fear, and I'm gonna use this to parlay here in a second to starting a business when you already have kids, because we've already kinda joked about that, and I think it's super fun.
And but important. I think I think there's a lot of people that start businesses when they have kids, and it's, like, different. But that fear word is probably the the connection piece. It's like thinking about all the things that maybe could go wrong or that that someone might not like it or I'm not gonna get any likes. You know, how does someone overcome that piece, the fear piece? I know that you're saying just just hit the red button.
It's the hardest one, but are there any other pieces around the fear that you've worked with your clients So I think we all have these innate fears. And that's why when you go and buy a mastermind, when you go and pay for even some like sales courses, you know, what is the 1st quarter of every single sales course out there, every mastermind? It's so mindset. Right?
What they're trying to do is show other people who have overcome those challenges before and and kinda like, you can work through it too because if they've done it, you can do it. To me, when I started to meet entrepreneurs, Tyler, but one of my clients actually is a is an entrepreneur. Any exited his company for $450,000,000 a couple years back. Like, I was afraid to go and send him a video. Like, then when I started to think about he probably puts his pants on one leg at a time every morning.
Right? Just like everybody else out there, there there's no one who who doesn't do that. Right? So to to start to reframe things in a different way. You know, everyone started. You go watch Mister Beast's first videos. Right? $500,000,000 a year, a year, you two. Right? 25 years old. And now there's videos out there of Mister Beast roasting his first videos, and I think that it is a hilarious. If you ever want a good video, go watch Mr. Beast roasting his first videos.
Like, he goes in and starts chitch chime to put it. You look at a guy like that who is who who is doing nothing for 4 years, and then all of a sudden his rise to fame was just out of Chaz, you know, reframing is so important in, and I think any entrepreneur's journey understand that other people have gone through it before. And if they can do it, you can do it. And I look at that too.
You know, we're just about to maybe touch on this whole idea of being dads and and and those starting a business, you know, other dads have done this. What if other people had to overcome to get through this too? If again, if I'm a contractor, if I'm someone and I look at someone else and say, man, that person is not any better, more qualified, has any special talents. They're no better than me.
Sure. Maybe they've practiced a little bit more Campcher doesn't have any, you know, the way he speaks on cameras a little bit more casual now. Yeah. Because I've done, you know, a 150 podcasts before. No wonder I'm going camera. Like, it's just pure practice. I put 2000 hours into this this craft. So, yeah, it's just about tackling that one step. We'll we'll put one foot in front of the other, and, yeah, just start to do it. I love the reframing idea.
Good. Good. Let's talk about starting a business and what having kids. It's a little different. It's not like you help people start businesses with kids, but this is something that you're going through. Something that I even in the last 2 years, I've started 2 new companies. I have 4 kids. And so we we were talking about the limits of time leaving the limits of capacity mentally just because there's other things going on when you have young kids. Like, real pieces.
I mean, just not that long ago, my two year old, she's almost 2 now, but, you know, she was 0 to 9 months, and it was the most difficult time probably in our 20 years of being together, my wife and I. And so it's like, how do you still keep everything going for you? What's been your experience? So me too, by the way, you know, I've got an I've got a nine year old and a nine month old. Okay. So I restarted this whole journey and I'm like, I was I'm done.
Like, they don't have to worry about, you know, 9 at at nine years old, they pretty much know what they're gonna do. Like, you know, you you can leave them. If if I gotta work for an hour and put them in front of Nintendo, it's like, no big but the 9 month you can't leave him anywhere. Same thing. I've never had less sleep than I've had now. The first one's a great sleeper, bad either.
2nd one, you know, they're gonna listen to this in 5 years and be like, what the hell's dad You know, they 2nd one, he's he's a terrible sleeper, but great either. So you you you flip him. Maybe you can tell me the experience about that. But Yeah. You know, I I think a lot about risk when I when I think about starting business with kids because my risk aversion Like, I'm I'm very risk averse now, right, compared to what I was before I had kids.
But I think we need to get back in that mode of saying, you know, this level of risk, I can tolerate it. I'm actually now more resilient and stronger as a dad now because I've got all these things and I have more at stake. Right? I think that as as as men, as as as providers, as as people like this, I think that we have this ability to to shoulder more right. Not Chaz not that women don't or women can't.
I don't I don't want everyone to put that, but I think that it's kind of my role to to shoulder that kind of of responsibility as as the head of the family or something like that. So when I think about that, if I say, well, I am growing something and it's not going to be at the expense of my family, I've gotta figure out how to work out together. And sometimes that means I only work 4 hour days, and that sucks. Chaz sucks me.
They don't see the growth speeds that Alex or Mozy or or suck these other these guys like, I I cannot work more than 40 hours a week. And, unless I wanna really pull in evenings and weekends into that a lot. And I don't really want to do that. So it's really dedicating to how much risk am I willing to take? How much am I willing to risk my finances or or time with my kids? You know? And and I think that's that was something I had to plan out very early on.
And what I wanted to do, it was this is how much I'm willing to dedicate to the business Chaz 40 hours a week, and that's it. And so sharing it with my partner and saying, hey. Look. Between 9:5, yeah, I know that's a typical office workers, to ours, but Yeah. Between 9:5, I can't I can't help with the kitty. Yeah. Of course. If you can upstairs something like that. Yeah. Go go help out. But by and large, that's on you. And she said, okay. I agree.
And then I'll so I'll do that 9 to 5, and then maybe I'll put in a couple of hours at night as well. So it's where do I find that time to make up my 40 hours and and That's it. Yeah. I think that everything that you just defined, whether someone is in alignment with that particular view or not, what you did specifically with your spouse was I defined what I wanted. Mhmm. And if you want faster growth, potentially, it might take more hours. Or just a different vehicle, maybe.
Maybe it's the type of business. And you're like, well, I don't I don't want that type of business for X Y Z reasons. And so I have to then resonate with okay. Well, what is it that I want? What does fit that? And I think that frame right there actually makes the most sense for entrepreneurs. Once you can grab a hold of what Cam just gave to you, gave you some personal examples there, but it's like this frame of what do I want. Like, really? Mhmm. Cam has just defined.
I do not want and a bigger paycheck at the expense of no time with my family. Now are there ways that maybe Kim hasn't figured out yet to be able to have the bigger paycheck and not give up his family. Maybe. Maybe he's open to that. Maybe he doesn't have to have just the time frame, but my my point saying is that he's defined it now he's going after it. Just like, I think we can do the same thing in our businesses.
If I wanna be a speaker, but I have no speaker real, and I'm not sending it to anybody. Do you really wanna be a speaker? Right? Yeah. If I go back, I think the the best clients have ever worked to really understand their mission very well. Right? They have it so crystallized and so defined. And if we go back to something like, who's your avatar? Right? That's something that everyone kinda defines the very beam. Like, who is my ideal client? Why do I help them? Why do I serve them?
And, you know, there's an idea that it's only who I was 6 months ago or a year ago. And and that's that has some merit to it. But I think that a lot of of understanding needs to happen first and going back to who do you serve and why do you help them is is really a good thing to define. And I add that into into the speakers right create, but also, you know, we're talking about family, you know, getting crystal clear on what I want. Like, what do I want this life to be?
Because what are we doing other than crafting our our own lives, our own lives that we desire, right, as entrepreneurs. And we are really holding the reins, and I think that sometimes we forget that. Yeah. Because sometimes, you know, you show up at work, whether it's in your basement or at the construction yard or wherever you are in your office that you own with multiple employees or whatever. And sometimes I know I can forget that. Oh, yeah. I actually I'm actually steering this ship.
Like, this ship is mine to own and and and my life, and and that's a whole idea. You know, we can get into, like, meditation and mindfulness too. About the whole thing of remembering Chaz, yeah, I am here and I am literally driving this car. And if I veer if I just let it drive itself, it's gonna green off the side of the mountain and and fall down.
So going back to that whole idea, understanding your mission, understanding your why, It gets thrown a lot around a lot just like authenticity, but it is so critical to remember Chaz. So critical to remember and define that. Write it down. I like to you can redefine it. Like, that's one thing I I end up speaking to a lot of clients with. As a speaker, you may be constantly redefining your audience, right, as your audience gets bigger, Who are you actually helping? And it's it's funny.
Have you ever noticed that as you get bigger, actually, your niche gets more narrow? Have you ever noticed that before? Like, I I definitely found that, you know, for myself, you know, I used to help all speakers then all of a sudden it was like speakers making a pivot. Then I'm talking only to speakers who make $5000 per speaking gig or wanna get there. Right? And so these are all little things, and I am narrowing down but that gets I can deliver my message even clearer at that point.
So I don't know. I think of it like a dark dark point. You might you might you might aim for the middle, but then even if you get around that, it it so pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. But if you're not defined, if there is no board altogether, then where do you where do you even throw? Right. Which most likely means you never throw. Mhmm. Which means you never score any points. You never become more than what you are currently. There's never any growth or change.
I don't think anybody listening to this wants that. And so, you know, this this family dynamic piece starting a business, it's it's a big deal for us. You know, I I was probably the opposite I spent many years saying family was important to me and but yet working like 18 hour days. Right. And maybe more. Mhmm. And so the the flip flop there is at some point, a the the alignment of what you want has to come into place.
And so and also with with what you are doing, like, your actions can't so speaks so loudly that it, you know, it overcomes what you're saying. They have to align if you actually wanna, you know, achieve what you're saying. So what would you you you I've heard you speak. I wanna kinda go back to, you know, this idea of helping a speaker kinda really get to the next level and increase their brand.
What was to be the one thing that maybe if it was a go you going back to talking to the younger you, or maybe you're just talking to the guy who's listening right now is just like, man, I've been trying to crack that code would be Chaz one thing that you would give to them outside of, obviously, they need to work with you. That's that's a given already. You've you've proven that, but What's that one piece?
I think it's treating your your speaking like a business and not being afraid to spend money on it either. Once I really start to see this as like a business. Right? We we talked about that a little bit about marketing piece and understanding that. And but maybe we talk about money just for a second here because that's a big unlock. Right?
When you start to change your your mindset around money, whereas money is a tool to get where you want and your personal money and your business money are 2 very different ways you treat that. Right? You know, I save my personal money. We spend it wisely. Not that I don't spend my business money wisely. But there's a different flow to it. You know what I mean? Like, you spend your business money to make more money, and that is the only way I really see business money now.
So all the revenue that make for business, like, I spend every penny of it. I'm I'm I'm sure every business owner spends every penny of their of their business money to either get more clients, hire better staff, do more advertising, get better marketing. And these are all things that you do with your business money that you wouldn't do personally. Like, I wouldn't just go and and and throw that around Wolfe Nilly in in my personal.
But understanding that there's there's a time and place to be to be putting things in different buckets. And even if you're strapped for for whatever reason, I'm not getting enough speaking gigs, Wolfe, that to me usually means you need an injection of of of finances into that area to see what you can do with it. Because I think a lot of speakers undervalue themselves.
And I think that comes from, again, a bit of mindset, a bit of fear, a bit of of uncertainty of do I really have a good message, And the truth is everyone has a story and everyone has a message. You know, I'm not special. I'm I'm telling that special. We're sitting here, and I'm not sure how many people are gonna listen to this, but I'm not special, maybe somebody resonates with this message.
And so understand that somebody out there will resonate with you, and it's all it is is refining that and getting better at your craft. It is a craft. Chaz will that that'll really help out. So I see so many speakers come through with with fear of, you know, I don't think I have a message to tell. I don't know what my message is. I don't know who needs to hear from there. And therefore, I'm not gonna invest any money into it. And I'm like, wait.
Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. You wanna be a speaker, but you don't wanna invest in it yourself. And to to me Chaz, like, like, you know, you're you're framing that all completely wrong. Go invest in yourself. Go go put some money into that. Go go and invest in in in your speaking business in yourself Get out your craft. Go go give your talk to a bunch of of people. We can talk about that in a moment and see what you can actually deliver to the world.
Like, give yourself permission to go and deliver the best you you can to the world and see what resonates. And it and improve on it. Yeah. I think that you said it. I don't know if if we were recording when you said this or not, but Chaz you said was, like, the the barrier to entry to speaking is kinda like Uber. We're like, I just hop in my car and turn the app on, and and now I'm a driver. And Mhmm. Or now I'm a speaker.
And and, yeah, although that may be true, they're that's a that's a side hustle. That's a side gig, and it's and you're not trading it like a business point. So when you think about it and you sit down, you go, okay. I'm gonna generate revenue. Mhmm. How many speaking gigs do I need? How am I gonna get them? Who am I talking to? What's my message? You can help them with all of that. Right? Yeah. Absolutely. And so I don't think any you maybe not any Uber driver.
I was gonna say if you're not, you know, if you're an Uber driver, you're not a race car driver. You know what I mean? And I think there's That's a very clear distinction. If I want to become a race car driver, it's not spending time in Chaz an Uber driver that's gonna get me there. Right? So the same thing as a speaker just because I go and speak on small stages. And, like, I'm not a speaker as a result Wolfe that.
Now I can become go and start to invest in it, just like an Uber driver who wants to become a race car driver, you gotta invest in in the time and the coaches and the practice. You gotta go and spend time doing that. With with the right types of people. So understand that, like, every like, everything is a process. Everything in life is that process, and we can bring this back to you even just getting on video, getting comfortable on stages.
You go and watch some of the big, like, Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Amel Robin, you know, like, some of these really big motivational speakers. Go watch their first go watch Tony Robbins videos in the nineties. You wanna see a guy who did you know that, like, here's here's some fun guy? Did you know that Tony Robbins paid and booked his own brooms to to to get to deliver his first speeches. This guy, like, paid $5000 or whatever it was.
Maybe it wasn't $5000 bucks, but he went He found found a conference room, paid for the conference room himself, and then put up posters to go and see who went, like, four people showed up, and that's how we got started into it. It's rough. Like, this guy, like, like, let's think about this. He's a six foot seven guy. Like, he's he's got huge hands, and he doesn't talk like he does now, so he wasn't nearly as confident as he was, but he was always loud.
And the, like, it was rough, but he got to where he is today with a millions and millions of followers really confident doing what he does, like, only through deliberate practice and deliberate efforts. I think that's the same thing everywhere. Using your your the spoken word to grow your business is also really powerful too. You can go and speak from stage and sell from We didn't even talk about that. Selling from stage is super powerful. Many, many people do it. Russell Brunson does it.
Alex Sermonzi does it. Going on stage and actually delivering your product from stage. There's gonna be a lot of opportunities to be able to do that as well. You can go and do a trade and say, hey. I would love to speak on your stage and, but as long as I can sell my So I now no longer speak for free, monetarily, but I if I go and I if I speak and I can sell my product, then I'll go and talk. But if someone just says, hey. I don't have any budget. Would you come on? Then that's trade.
That's right. Yes. I'd love to come on your stage, but you had to let me sell my product too. And if they say no, then it's like, okay. I'm sorry. I'm not a fit. That is a great segue into start seeing value and going to speak as well. Maybe you're doing construction. Maybe go to a a home show, a home conference. They crave people in a with ex with expertise to come speak on stage. They I don't think you I don't think you realize it. People who are or blue collar, and I say that very lightly.
I don't know if that's a that's a bad term, but blue collar workers who can stand up on stage and speak are, like, the amount of extra money they make, it is it is it is insane because you can go and share your expertise with multiple people and they all sit in the crowd, no one's gonna sit in a home show in those chairs in front of the stage who is not a potential client, right? Think about You've you've been to home shows before.
We've been to those, like, renovation shows before things like that. No one is sitting in front of a 30 minute redo your your bathroom faucets a learning session who's not interested in redoing their like, you didn't, like, think about that for a moment. Just think about that. Sharing your knowledge. We'll put 50% of those people on your on your contact list to, you know, to to wanna call you back. Right? Like, you you'll be able to gather clients like that as well.
And then finding a way to to do lead gen is take a picture of this QR code to get my 10 steps to to redoing your bathroom, something like that. There's gonna be people out there they're all leads that you can get there. You just got paid to go to go in stage. It is it is a an avenue that is overlooked by so many people. Love it. You're hitting pieces from multiple angles and you're and I think that this is applicable. I don't want the listener to think, well, I'd I don't wanna speak.
Everything that that Cam has given you guys is usable inside the business. Mhmm. Even if you you don't wanna become that speaker. Cam, how can the listener find you? They're intrigued. They're like, I don't know. Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can't. That kinda sounded kinda there at the end, maybe talking at trade shows and stuff, maybe it's even a different type of industry trade show. I want your help. How can I find you? Sure. So Best place to just chat with me is on LinkedIn.
Just find me Cam Baldwin. I'm sure you can find the spelling of my name and the show notes, or you can go to the frequent speaker.com. That's my website. And we'll help you out with everything. Okay? So you may have no content. You may have a little bit of content or you may have lots of content. I don't care. We'll help you.
We'll even help you book a videographer to go cord you on stage in an interview to help build up that content content to craft something that's gonna earn you money to go speak on stage. This is a whole other avenue. It's gonna and my sales background is gonna help you sell through that video as well. It will help you everything from soup to nuts. Like, the the whole thing to to craft something. It'll make you look like a million bucks on stage. I love it. I love it.
I've enjoyed my time with you. You're clearly a an articulate individual, but you've got a background that speaks that anybody can do what you do. And I just love that message. Thank you for doing that for us here today. Blessings to you and all of the people that you're helping here in 2024. Thanks for being here, brother. Thanks, Chad. Hey. And you do you have an ex amazing craft as well yourself. Thanks for having me on. This has been great. Thanks everyone for listening.
Thank you for listening to gathering the Kings today. I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away. More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself doing it on your own, tearing the weight all by yourself. What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple businesses and multiple different industries, and now interviewing over or 300.
Other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is that it's tough to do it alone. And so gathering the Kings exist to bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1000 kings, specifically who are great full, but not done. We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities.
And here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of influence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy. So if that relate and resonates with you. And you know that you need people around you sharp, qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go gatheringthekings.com. I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Toxin.