Transform Your Speaking Career: The Secret to Earning More as a Hero Maker

They love being a speaker, but not for the accolades, although that does feel nice. Most people I know love helping people. When we get the clap at the end, it's like the audience saying, thank you for helping us grow ourselves or our businesses. Sure, there are a few thinking, you know, I'm amazing. I'm the best.

I'm a legend, but in my experience, they don't last long In the speaking business, if you really want to succeed, You need to focus on making other people the heroes in their own journey. Being a good speaker is all about presenting your information effectively. Being a great speaker is presenting your information in a way that makes the audience feel that they can go out and apply what you've shown them. So how do you do this from stage number one? It's not about you, it's about your.

When you're on stage, you gotta keep an outcome in mind, and when you are prepping your speech, the same thing applies. So you need to think about what you're trying to achieve when you are writing your speech and practicing it long before you get on stage. I recommend you have at least one main thing that people can do them. As a focus, this is really important because they have to be able to do it themselves. You can't do it for them. You might never see those people again.

So if you wanna succeed and you want them to succeed, give them something that they can do themselves. When you're on stage, use stories to reinforce how this will help them. Okay. Stories are really, really powerful, and I'll talk about it again and again and again, but if you can show them how through story, they'll find it easier to apply. When you're speaking include testimonials from a range of people or business types.

This allows the audience to picture themselves as the person who succeeded. So it's all very well to stand on stage and say, well, I did this and this bunch of lawyers did that. If you got guy that's a plumber, He may not relate to a bunch of lawyers. Whereas if you pick someone in a profession, a story about someone in trades you know someone who's in a service business, mix them up a bit through your speech. You'll relate to your mixed audience more effectively.

Now, obviously you can tidy this up a bit. If you are talking to an audience that say all from the one industry, so you have a room full of electricians, well, you can tighten that. But if you've got a mixed room, like a, a networking group or something like that, remember to talk to everybody in there. You're talking to the whole audience, not just targeting one person.

Another thing you can do is you can take an example from the floor, so ask them a question and get some information about their business, and then give them ideas on how they might apply your main focus in their business. This is really powerful, but you've gotta be confident in what you're doing and confident in your ability to solve people's problems. But in my experience and I love doing this this is a great way to demonstrate why they need to focus on fixing this one thing.

Another thing you can do before you get on stage is make a list of common questions that people ask you and build in the answers throughout your speech. So this is really important. We talk about sales processes and you say, you know, you answer their objections before you know you get to the actual sales section. Well, the speech is no different. In a way, you're trying to cover those objections because you want people to succeed. You want them to become the hero, okay?

So make a list of those questions and build them into your topic. When you're on stage, don't talk about me or I talk about you, or. You know, become one of them. You know? Now when you do this, you'll see this. Now as a business owner, myself, I did this. Okay? And this is how you'll be able to use that. So you can use I, but, you know, keep that focus on them or, you know, relate to them on multiple levels. Voice include a short exercise that everyone can successfully complete and learn.

Okay. A little short thing, whether it's, you know, write down three things that you could do tomorrow or write down three problems you're having in this area, or based on this information, right? On three things you could do today that will solve that in your business. These little tiny exercises, you only gotta give them two minutes. We'll give them a win so they see some wins there on the page. And also if, if you're looking at problems, you can also solve a few of them.

So you can kinda mix it up a bit, but it gives them a win that they can use in real life. So number one, how do we you know, help people and relate to the audience and make them the hero? It's not about you, it's about your audience. Number two, when you are, when you help your audience become the heroes you grow. And this is really important. The more successful your audience is in doing what you are telling them to do, the more they'll refer you to others. Okay?

When they see that they're getting a result from what you've taught them, they will buy from you. So it's really important that it works both ways. You help them succeed, they help you succeed. It's a symbiotic relationship. Both sides have gotta have a win-win, and I truly believe in win-win. It's really, really important. In my case, being a volunteer firefighter. Most of my, you know, call outs and things like that, it's win or win. We have no choice.

We either win or we fall back and we win at a later stage if it's a big bushfire. But in business, it's definitely win-win for everybody. If you can do it. If you are not getting a win for you and for them, then you really need to think hard about your business because it, it's not working for both parties. Another thing you can look at is if people love people who make them the hero. And this is really important. When you help other people look good, they're gonna love you for it.

You know, if you can teach someone something that makes them look smart to all their colleagues, they're gonna remember you. Oh, that's the guy, or that's the girl that taught me this particular thing. So helping people become the heroes helps you grow in other people's minds. And last for this little section, the speaker booker, or the event organizer will appreciate you making everyone feel. Okay. They brought you in to talk about a particular topic to help their audience.

When you make them feel good, it makes the person running the event look good too, because everyone goes, oh, that was a great event. Had such a great time. Definitely coming back next month or next year, or whenever the next conference or meeting is. So think about that. Okay. It's about doing the right thing by the person who brought you.

One of the things I was actually told was that often, you know, you'll get brought into a room to talk about a topic because the, you know, the leaders in that organization want to impress that topic on people and they don't wanna have to say it themselves. So there's all sorts of reasons why you could be in a particular room speaking.

When you make the event great, it gets great feedback to the person who organized the event as well, and you're more likely to get referred and they're more likely to book you again to talk about a different topic or to run a workshop or something like that. So number three, when you focus on you, Instead of making the audience the hero, you'll run into a wall sooner or later and you'll kill your business. Look, I'm, I'm sorry to say it, but people don't want to hear about you.

Yeah. Okay. We tell our life story sometimes when we're on stage, but realistically, people just want the quick version of it. They want to know about how you can help them. It's all nice to talk about ourselves and it makes us feel good, but if it doesn't help the. Put it away and you know, put it in your autobiography, okay? Don't waste time on stage talking about how good you are and what you've achieved.

If it doesn't relate to helping people in the room move forward, when you talk about your all the time on stage, the audience will just tune you out. They'll be up, you know, straight away. It's that thing, especially in Australia. This guy just loves himself and well, you know, this person just loves himself. You know, they don't care about us. They don't care about me, they don't care about my business.

They're just standing up there hearing themselves talk and thinking how good they are, And that's, that's not why you're a speaker. Another thing, your message will become clear that you're all about you. And as people only care about yourself, they're not gonna come to you for help. So, if you come across as all about yourself, no one's gonna come to you for help. You're not gonna get any business. you know, and in the end, yes, we're speaking to help people, but this podcast.

It's all about making money as a speaker because I truly believe this is important. Making a difference is important, but making money is also very important. Cause you need to feed yourself or you need to fundraise through your organization or whatever it is. But in the end, there's always some sort of transaction involved, so people see you as talking about yourself all the time. They're not gonna come to you because they just don't feel loved. Word gets around if you are.

it's pretty soon Everybody knows, oh yeah, that person talks about themselves all the time. You don't want them on stage. The audience doesn't like it at all. Now, yes, you will get some business if you do that. I have no doubt. Some people will come to you. Some people will be attracted to that. But the long term business, the big money business and the people you really, really want to be working with, they're not gonna be interested in working with. Okay. That's just my experience.

You might find something different, but my experience is if you wanna get into those corporate rooms, those big rooms where the big contracts, the big money is they care about their people and they also want to be a hero to their people. So think about that when you are talking about yourself, people want to feel that you care about them. And when you focus on you, it seems like. You know, that's pretty simple, isn't it?

You know, they wanna feel you actually caring, you know, like, I care about you, Joe. I care about you, Mary. I care about you, Steve. You know, I, I look around the room and I care about everybody's businesses. It's important to me, and I've made it a focus when I'm on stage to try and, you know, keep eye contact with people, smile. Them, you know, walk over and have a look. If they're writing something down for an exercise, you know, I want people to feel that way, and you should too.

So just reviewing those three things. The first one is it's not about you, it's about your audience. The second one is when you help your audience become the heroes you grow too. And thirdly, when you focus on you, you'll run into a wall and kill your business Even. making your audience the heroes, doesn't detract from you as a successful person. It actually elevates you in their minds.

So when you do that, they'll talk to others about how good you are, and that's when you'll start getting the leverage you're looking for to grow a large and successful business from your speaking no matter what you're selling. I was once speaking in New Zealand to a group of business owners. The speech went well, but it was the after lunch slot, which is notorious for people being well fed and drifting off for a little afternoon snooze.

I look, I did my best to keep them awake, and I tried to keep it interesting by building some success examples as I covered my tips, et cetera. Happily. A few people came up to me after the trade show and said how they felt like they'd seen a way through a sticking point in their marketing, and that felt nice. But the real excitement came a couple of weeks later about three weeks later, I got a call from one of the audience and they were pumped. like you could really tell. They excited.

They'd have blown my tips and saw 150% growth in their website, traffic and conversions in that very short time. And I gotta say he was stoked. What really made him. Was the fact that he was able to make the changes himself. So he looked really good to everybody else in the business. And I mean, this was the owner of the business in this case, and more often not those sorts of changes might come from someone lower. So he felt good. Everybody saw results and they all learnt something.

So it was great. Needless to say, I ended up getting some amazing work referrals from him all because I made him the hero in his business. Never underestimate your. To make someone feel great about themselves. Well, that's it for another week. I look forward to helping you succeed in the next episode, and until next time.