848: Impact Speaker Academy: Communicate and Monetize Your Message with Odell Bizell

announcer 00:00 marketer of the Day episode 848 impact speaker Academy, communicate and monetize your message with Odell Possehl

Robert Plank 00:13 Welcome back to the podcast, we're here with Odell Vissel from Odell speaks.com. And Odell is a business coach who teaches entrepreneurs and small business owners how to double their income with public speaking. He's the author of 10 books, he's partnered with over 240 colleges as a motivational speaker. And he even has worked with the military to teach communication skills to emerging professionals in 45. states. So Doug, glad to be talking to you.

Unknown Speaker 00:42 I'm happy to be here happy to be amongst the people for sure. Yes, let's get into it.

Robert Plank 00:47 Let's get into it. Indeed. So what do the people need to know what has been your your passion, your motivation, what is missing out there in the world that you have been putting out there?

Unknown Speaker 00:58 I think and I don't know if if your audience will really fully grasp what I'm about to say. So I'm gonna try to say it slow, is if you can't get your customer, your client to feel something, then the likelihood of them buying from you is very low. So that's really, overall, anything connected to communication, public speaking, motivational speaking, is really just a mechanism designed to get people to feel something. And so that's kind of been my overall thing ever, I would say, since the US really started honing in to the business part of speaking about 2016 2017.

Robert Plank 01:37 Okay, and you know, that subject has been on my mind quite a bit, maybe the last couple of years of a lot of what people like you and me do as marketers is we take something that's maybe boring or uninteresting, and then add the emotion to it. Like what comes to mind is what when you say people feeling something, sometimes you think like, you know, like the feed a kid in Africa for nine cents a day, and you hear the Sarah McLachlan song. And yet you feel heartwarming. But also, when you say like feeling something what comes to mind for me is Dollar Shave Club, those types of guys where they have funny commercials, and you're taking something boring, like shaving equipment, and then adding in a story adding in characters adding in relatability. And so as far as what you have been specifically doing people you've been working with, specifically, how do you add that feeling to your messaging?

Unknown Speaker 02:27 Well, first and foremost, it's about understanding how you feel about whatever it is you're offering. And if you can feel something, I'll give you an example, as a speaker, and I'm using air quotes, for those that can't see me as a speaker, you would think it's all kind of rah, rah, or lecture type stuff for people on the outside looking in. And people can become successful speakers, if they really feel something for their audience. So that's the first thing that I do when I when I talk to clients or talk to individuals, small business owners, what do you feel about it? And if you're a service based entrepreneur, if you're an internet marketer, how do you feel past the money because this is one thing straight here, we're all in business, you want to make money, but pass that? What do you feel and then we kind of take that feeling and figure out how we can transmit that feeling or the feeling of getting that result or that outcome to the client, then it's less about if you're an attorney, making sure that they feel good about that process, but feel better about let's say, estate planning. And you you feel more relieved, you feel like you've taken care of business accounting, that as of this recording is the end of the year, my my accounts are straight. And I remember when it wasn't like that, and everything was frantic. So getting them just that core feeling as it relates to the result that they get. And then you add your personality. So I love Dollar Shave Club when the guy he it's funny at right is just hilarious. And he's talking about all these different stories, but that's probably his or the brand's personality. So what's your personality? It doesn't have to be funny. It could be thoughtful, it could be the Sarah McLaughlin all look at the puppy, right? It could be that, but you have to tap into that for you. And that's what I feel like the deepest part of communications, interpersonal communication, and what you say to you about what you have to offer.

Robert Plank 04:34 And the way that you present that it's, it's doable, because otherwise you say, well, I give you all to buy from me, how do I get people to feel something? But if you say, Well, let me look inside first and how do I feel and then maybe translate that or, or more fat into getting someone else to feel something similar? And then you say, add this layer of your personality on top of that, to me, that seems like easy. Baby steps of saying, well, here's, here's my goal. Well, here's I want people to be so excited. And I want to figure out how to, you know, make estate planning fun or make accounting fun. And then you kind of go through the steps to to figure it out here, so and so you mentioned some examples. But is there a fun case study success story that you feel like sharing that is like it really happen? It's a real client, you have just to sort of show you off a little bit and tell people how, how amazing you are at this whole message crafting process?

Unknown Speaker 05:32 For sure, so one client that sticks out to me is actually somebody that is, I want to say ahead of me in my profession. And so this is a lesson for anybody listening. If you feel some some type of way, or you have any impostor syndrome, well, I'm new, or I haven't been in this for a long time. What can I help somebody else do this case study is from somebody who's been in business longer than me who's made more money than me. And his big thing is he loved to act. He loved the arts, but it wasn't making them any money. And so the specific advice that I gave him was, well, why don't you do an anti campaign? Again, using air quotes. So whatever the majority of people think about something, you just say, Well, no, that's not how it is. And so in the speaking world, there is an international organization called Toastmasters and Toastmasters. They, they've been in business for a long time, helping speakers learn how to speak but they don't help speakers or how to make money. And so my client, we were going back and forth. I said, Why don't you kind of intellectually talk about about Toastmasters? See what they don't help speakers? Do you talk about that in an anti marketing type of way, anti Toastmasters type of way. And the way that he said, we came up with burnt Toastmaster, burnt toast. And so just little skits online, he does a lot of Instagram stuff. So just a little skits we're talking about, well, this is what a bad speech looks like. showing clips of that. And this is what a good speech looks like. So with that case, study, the example I want to bring out is a commentary on what's already out there. And so if you're listening to this, and you're trying to figure out how you can position, your service, or your brand, or your company, look at what's already out there and commentate on it. You can do it creatively on social media, you can do it creatively on YouTube, you can do it in an email campaign. But all you do is you observe and you need to be a very, very, very intentional observer in the marketplace to see what's going on. And then you say, I like what they're doing. But if they added just this one point, they can do it a little better. So you have a split screen commentary on whatever that is. And that's a good step. Because then you start creating content around that, then people will be drawn to the initial thing. So in my clients example, it was Toastmasters. Oh, I've heard Toastmasters. But I never heard of this guy. So I've heard it tells me that Oh, Bert tells he's trying to make fun of let's see what he's saying. And then it gets them into what you're talking about whether good or bad, for better or for worse. And then once they're into that, if it clicks, if it attracts them, then that's a client. If it doesn't, then it's not a client right now. So that's what I would say add some commentary that was already going on. Maybe do a little anti campaign respectfully, and intellectually Of course.

Robert Plank 08:43 And that's a fun template, I can see how the humor is maybe not built in not guaranteed, but easier to get to and what you're reminding, and especially with the the observational humor, because what you're reminding me of is, you always see these skits that are like, like, it's like every, every conversation about blank or like the five people you meet in New York City, or like when COVID-19 first became a thing, and all these companies sent out all these emails that just said nothing. And they say, well, here's our COVID-19 policy, how we care and I saw some YouTube skit that was like every COVID-19 email and then you're reminding me of some of these channels that do like the Honest Trailers where they'll they'll show the trailer of a movie or show clips of a movie, but then the commentaries instead, like all the the times that the movie went to this trope, or this cliche or like this observation, or like, they have a thing called, like pitch meetings where it's these, these two guys and they're reenacting, like how such and such movie came to be like, how, how a latest Terminator movie came to be, and then they're saying like, Well, should we do this thing that smart about the movie? Oh, no, we'll do this other thing thing and so that doesn't make any sense. And so it's you're, you're bringing to mind like five different examples at the same time of the observation. humor, and then kind of doing the anti campaign which as you mentioned, it draws in all kinds of people, right? If someone is already in Toastmasters or already likes Toastmasters, they might tune in just to say, Well, what like, what are they saying bad about it. And then if someone is not in Toastmasters, or they tried before and quit, or they're reluctant about it, they might be drawn for their for their relatability relatability. So that's interesting to think about as far as observational, anti that but also respectfully, and then you kind of seeing where it goes from there. And so as far as the mistakes people are making the things that they are not doing correctly, that just drives you crazy, but they could fix some of these things up since that was even the topic of your your little Toastmaster a skit right is what could be improved? What could be better? So as far as the speakers, presenters, entertainers that you see where people missing mark? And where could they do a lot better with minimal effort?

Unknown Speaker 11:01 Yeah, I think the big thing for everybody, no matter what industry, you think you're in, no matter what business you think you're in, there is an element of public speaking, involve, if you want to get paid, if you don't want to get paid, and you know, you don't have to involve it. But there's always an element of it. And if when you're doing public speaking, there's always some sort of performative act. And so I just wanted to say that for anybody listening, you don't think well, my business has anything to do with speaking. Yes, it does. Your business has everything to do with speaking if you want your business to do really well. And the biggest mistake that I see is that people are talking at their customer, and not speaking with their customer. Here's what I mean. Talking, I have a five year old son, he can talk he Oh, boy, you, you could have had him Rob on your podcast, and he would just be talking talking talking, you'd ask a question, he wouldn't respond to it. He just be talking because he's five. And he just wants to let you know everything that he knows. That's what a lot of entrepreneurs do. They want their customer know everything they know, and not speaking with them. And so the very first thing, he drives me crazy, because I used to do it, is I used to raise my hand stand up on the platform and say, I'm so great because of this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this? No, don't do that. Talk about your clients speak with your customer. Listen to them, I'll give you a real life example. I just came back from a mastermind retreat. One thing that I've I'm always super intentional about in my business and helping my clients is you find your ideal client. Everybody knows that everybody's heard that. But you interview your ideal client. And so instead of pumping out all of these guesses, lead magnets that might work. Why not offer a lead opportunity. And here's what I mean by a lead opportunity lead magnet, it ideally I attracts your ideal client, because it's a topic or something that they're already thinking about. A lead opportunity goes a step before that. It's a prequel to that, where you're literally asking them, hey, what's going on? You're asking them about the conversation? Well, how can I set up a lead opportunity to do it? Well, if you're listening to this podcast, or you listen to podcasts at all, you could create an entire podcast specifically for your customer. and interview them. I'm saying this slow, because I wanted to sink in what works on you can work for you. So if you're listening and consuming podcasts, your customer probably is too but maybe a different genre, maybe a different topic, find out what that is. And when you start interviewing people, and Rob, you know this all the episodes you've created, you get to know people, certain people get to like, and we all know this we buy from people we know, like and trust. So instead of you just saying, Well, I am so great. Hey, let's see what makes things so great about you. Look, what's your job, like? What's your lifestyle, like? And then you have all the data. And then you can create lead more appropriate, more targeted lead magnets, and then you know what they want. And after you know what they want, you just give them what they want with the feeling that they want. And it makes marketing so easy. So that was that's a long answer to your short question about biggest mistakes. But we as marketers, especially those that don't have the big bank rolls and trust funds and all those different things. We've got to speak with our customers versus just well I think that they will like This, let's see, let's spend a lot of money testing this versus I would rather test my hypotheses in intimate conversations at scale, versus let me just throw some money at Facebook ads or whatever and see if that works.

Robert Plank 15:14 It makes logical sense that and you're mentioning your your son where he can talk and talk, you reminded me of me when I was at age, same deal, and talk and talk. And then you get into junior high high school and you're trying to date girls, and you're talking too much. And you're talking yourself out of a date, or you're ruining the relationship. But then I'm a married guy now. And I have a kid. And after a while, it clicked with me with this whole dating thing to stop and listen and ask questions and give her what she wants, instead of just trying being crazy and throwing every single idea at the wall, and having kind of more of the back and forth. And it's such a cliche, but it makes so much sense the way that that you talk about it. And even I was in Toastmasters for a few years, but I quit when the pandemic and zoom kind of you know, headaches happens. But what I think what I got a lot out of that was in the teasing the actual information and hiding the information in a story, making it fun dealing with the audience feedback, asking for permission to say this or as or, or identify this problem or kind of involve them in some way, even if that audience was not speaking and just having a lot more fun with it. And as you say, people have so much information that they would just love to give you a tidal wave and dump it all out. But there is a way to repackage it and make it fun, and make it stick and make it not just be a laundry list of all these things to know. And so kind of keeping that in mind. You're all about public speaking, and increasing your income with public speaking. So if someone came to you and said, Oh, Dale, I've heard about this public speaking thing. What do I have to do? Do I need to come up with a sizzle reel? Or demos or my TED Talk? Make a Website? Do I need to make a spreadsheet and contact venues? What is the condensed master plan for making money with public speaking?

Unknown Speaker 17:18 Yeah, the condensed master plan is this, you have to decide which route you want to go, there are two major routes. So the one major route is the route that in which I've made about a million dollars speaking through speaking fees, so it's just somebody pays me to come in and speak to their group. There's that route. And then the other route is if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a small business owner, and you want to use public speaking, as a marketing medium, there's that route. And so depend, first decide what route you want to go if you want somebody to actually pay you to come in and speak. Choose that route. If you have a business and you're successful, you just want to increase your revenue, you want to do something that way, then you choose that. If you want to get paid to speak, if you want somebody to pay you money to speak for their audience, the biggest thing you have to do is identify who is hosting events that call for speakers. So before you get your sizzle reel together before you put on your website, that you're a speaker. And a lot of people don't like this, but it's the absolute most critical thing to do. And it doesn't take long. So when I say do research, when you hear that word, a lot of people goes back to if Well, if you were in college, when I was before the internet is what it is, we had the internet, I graduated 2007. So we had the internet, but I still had to go to the library in the stacks to find stuff. So if you think a research like that, you might be thinking about it. In that vein, no. You just have to find events in which they call for speakers, then you look at those events based on your expertise and your experience. So I was I am but I was really big in the college market when I first started because I was super young. And so I was 2223 years old, fresh out of college, speaking at colleges, about how students can be successful in college. So I was really big there because my expertise and my experience was directly connected to the outcome that the booker wanted. The Booker wanted students to graduate from college successfully matriculate into a career. So I was the living embodiment of that. So think about what you're the living embodiment of. And then you identify what events are shaped around that outcome. So if it's entrepreneurship, what do people want entrepreneurs to do make more money faster with less effort? So you just find events that have that and then you reach out to those event It planners. And the way you reach out I suggest is you create some sort of lead opportunity for them like we discussed before. So I mentioned these steps before you go about, well, I'm putting together my sizzle reel or all that. Now, if you have that stuff, that's great, but you just have to shape your message around it. So that it gets to the sales process. And the sales process can be made super easy if you're looking for people to pay you, because they're looking to know just a few things first, that you can speak and you're not going to bore their audience to death. That's the first thing they're looking for that second, they're looking for some substance to the speech. So if you have that expertise, that experience they're looking for what that is. And then lastly, they're looking for some personality. Because unless you're a big name a big celebrity or something like that, they don't, they don't want you to just be a robotic speaker. So once you identify those elements and get them together, so much easier to sell, because you can then speak to the outcome, because you've done that research or what have you. And really quick I'll touch on, if you already have a business, and you want to use public speaking to further your business, here's the biggest thing you have to do, identify who your customers have been, and assemble them and create more environments in which they want to buy for you. That's the biggest thing. So host an event host a party, a party or a party, I'm doing a party for my VIP clients, you name whatever VIP is in your book, it could be virtual, because depending on where you are listening to this, there's another variant. So you can make it virtual to make everybody feel better. And this is something Rob that most people won't get. I hope they get it though, give them a monetary incentive for coming to set event initially. Here's what I mean by that. So you don't host the super famous public speaking seminar where they pay $1,000 to come see you. Remember, we're talking to your existing clients, people that have already put money in your pocket, giving you give them a 2030 $50 gift to come, the way they qualify to come to this event, is by doing steps that will allow you to eventually go deeper with them. So you have them fill out a form. And you say, Hey, pass this form along Via email through social media, with two or three other people that might could use my services, you do these things, you come to the event, you get $50. Then when you do that, you assemble them, you're the star and however you put it together. But most companies, especially small business owners, they don't do that. Just assemble a small group of people who can be 50, people can be 100 people virtually or in person and do that. And you just get in the rhythm of doing that. And you'll bring in more revenue than you ever thought about.

Robert Plank 22:56 That's amazing. These are great ideas. And these are things that they're very easily implemented. And maybe a lot of people just haven't thought about these simple events that could be created, even online, you don't even have to rent out a venue, you just, you know, figure out that this like Zoom meeting or this webinar or something like that, and and just connect with people, because how will the heck else? Are they going to keep you on their radar? How else are they going to know what new? What new things you have going on? How else will they know to buy from you if you're not creating those opportunities to network with them, and be there with them and have the lead opportunities and have them on your podcast and all that fun stuff. And so I'm filing away in the mental filing cabinet, that question you said, What are you the living embodiment of I think that's really powerful. And you're reminding me in general, the importance of reverse engineering and of saying, well, here's where I want to end up in people who have succeeded with public speaking, they've made on one of these two tracks. So I decided which track I see what that that end goal is, which is their speaking at some event, and then I backtrack and say, Well, what does that event organizer want out of the event and then a back shot beset from that and say, how do we reach out to them? And how do I get the conversation started? And it's all very doable as long as we keep in mind what you're telling us to begin with the end in mind and then backtrack from there. And I think that you mentioned that the internet developing I think that such an important internet skill is this reverse engineering thing like you want to have a profile on a on a speaker site or a freelance site or you have like an E commerce setup on Amazon. There's some kind of some kind of intangible skill there of seeing what seems to be successful right? You look at an Amazon page, someone's selling some ecommerce product and then you reverse engineer will how did they develop that? How did they get those reviews? Are those products screenshots? Not to be an exact copycat but to model what seems to be working and then adding in some of your own minor nuggets to stand out and then taking those things and then looking at the feedback from the marketplace, you're getting a ton of ideas fired off your Odell from just by speaking to you. And so we're nearing the tail end of our conversation and people connect with with you, if they had that know, like, and trust that you mentioned earlier, and they say, Man, oh, Dale has a lot figured out, I want more of what he is putting out, I want to find out more about him. What's the company? What's the website? Where do people go?

Unknown Speaker 25:35 Sure, you can go to public speaking profits.com. When you go to public speaking profits.com, there is a free mini course, that basically walks you through this. And as of this recording is free, we might have like a $1 trial or something like that. But it's very low, low barrier to entry. Because we want to get it out there and realizing and understanding that there's a message connected to whatever you're selling. And that message is a part of the solution. And we want to put as many good messages and good solutions out there. So you go to public speaker profits.com Get that mini course. It'll be the best way to contact me if you're on Instagram or LinkedIn, I'm on there. I'm the only Odell bazille on the planet I think. I think I'm not sure but pretty sure. So feel free to connect with me on there. And if you say that you heard me on the marketer of the day podcast, then I'll respond. But other than that, my system probably won't respond. Because I get a lot of DMS about some weird stuff.

Robert Plank 26:43 Yeah, it's the internet that's just built in. Yeah, so, so wonderful. So Fine. Odell Buzzell, on all the places where social media platforms are where your favorite one is mentioned, the marketer of the day podcasts. That way you can jump to the front of the line, be the VIP be the person that actually gets the messages read. And at the very least, I mean, so many people appear on podcasts, and they don't really know what's coming back. They don't really get the thanks that they deserve for taking the time and dispensing this knowledge. So why not take a second out of your day to thank Odell for going on podcasts such as these and spreading his message and send him that quick message and think about when someone sends you a quick message and you feel pretty good. Do that for him and you'll feel good by sending it so everybody wins. And then public speaking profits.com is the place to take the next step. If you've made it this far in the podcast conversation, you know that this is something that has you interested in whether you have a career or you're an entrepreneur or you want to focus on speaking in general or you want to improve your public speaking skills, whatever you are doing to get yourself further in life can be so much easier if you are an interesting, interested, exciting, excited public speaker and the place to take the next step is public speaking profits.com and we will see you there and thanks so though for solving by and dropping some excellent knowledge bombs on us. D of wine podcast.com forward Slash Free. Go there right now to see what you could be missing in your podcast. Maybe you aren't active enough on social media? Are you writing and broadcasting an email for every episode of your podcast? Do you follow up with your podcast guests? Do you do things to make your podcast interview and content creation easier? Go to do fly podcast.com/free to claim your gift right now.