Jun 18, 2020
Exactly What To Say - Building Your Public Speaking Business
James Taylor interviews Phil M. Jones and they talk about exactly what to say to build your public speaking business.
In today’s episode Phil M. Jones talks about Building Your Public Speaking Business.
What we cover:
- Building the base of your public speaking business
- The 6/6/6 rule
- The one phrase you need to sell yourself as a public speaker
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Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/sl067-exactly-what-to-say-building-your-public-speaking-business/
James Taylor
Hi, it's James Taylor, founder of SpeakersU. Today's episode was first
aired as part of International Speakers Summit the world's largest
online event for professional speakers. And if you'd like to access
the full video version, as well as in depth sessions with over 150
top speakers, then I've got a very special offer for you. Just go
to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com,
where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit.
Yep, that's right 150 of the world's top speakers sharing their
insights, strategies and tactics on how to launch grow and build a
successful speaking business. So just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com
but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey, there's James Taylor. I'm delighted today to be joined by Phil
M. Jones. Phil Jones has made it his life's work to demystify the
sales process reframe what it means to sell, and help his audience
to learn new skills and power, confidence, overcome fears, and
instantaneously impact bottom line results. Author of six
international best selling books and the youngest ever winner of
coveted British excellence in sales and marketing award. Phil is
currently one of the most in demand speakers and advisors to
companies worldwide. It's my great pleasure to have Phil join us
today. So welcome Phil.
Phil M. Jones
Great to be here. James. Thanks for inviting me on.
James Taylor
So share with everyone what's going on in your world just now.
Phil M. Jones
Oh, what's going on in my world? Like always, my world is chaotic
and busy in an organized mess of travel quandaries and, and client
demands and different types of audiences in different ways. So I'm
forever putting my hat on saying what group of people is it that
I'm serving today? So I've just just come off the run of of six
weeks worth of an abundance of different types of events across the
world in different ways. So what's happening for me right now,
today Here's the first day I get to breathe in a little while. So
I'm kind of excited about that.
James Taylor
Now, I'd love to know your journey into speaking because I was
looking very early on in your life. You've also had a very strong,
entrepreneurial, bent to what you do as well, I think I saw that
you by the age of 15, you're actually earning more than your
teachers school, because you hear out some friends now. So tell us
that that journey from from budding entrepreneur at school into
what you do today is really known as a keynote, keynote speaker and
author and trainer.
Phil M. Jones
Yeah, I mean, I started in business from a very young age. So I
wanted to make some extra money to better get some of the things
that my parents decided they didn't want to buy for me. So I
started a little cleaning business at the age of 14, like we
realized there by the age of 15. I was kind of not going to school
as often as I should. And I remember getting invited in by my
school teachers questioning my attendance. And I responded to those
guys with the questions like how much money are you making, and
they refused to tell me at the time but I was making more money.
than most of my school teachers by my 15th birthday. And I
continued like on an entrepreneurial journey through my teens still
built studies around my businesses. So I still took school pretty
seriously. But I viewed them as quizzes and puzzles that was a was
a fun thing for me is that I had to kind of get these these puzzles
dealt with in the most efficient period of time. And at the age of
18, I had a dilemma, big university opportunity in front of me to
go to one of the best schools back in the UK. I didn't want to go
and I became the youngest ever sales manager for business called
Debenhams department stores that you'll know from the UK. And I
guess even from my early kind of corporate days, I had a speaking
inspired background even though I didn't know that's what it was at
the time. So I did a lot of store openings, a lot of trainings
towards store openings in those retail world. So I guess my first
gigs was me at 18 years of age stop stood at the top of escalators
in a new department store environment, addressing an audience full
of employees, getting them inspired about what we're going to go on
and achieve over the next six weeks and then keeping that updated.
So that got me very, very comfortable. But also going through that
environment of being a very aspirational employee in a leadership
role is we'd have a lot of leadership conferences, we'd have a lot
of guest speakers coming together to talk to our audiences and I
thought one day I'd love to be able to do that. Now I continue
through a number of a number of kind of things with my career where
I became a store manager sales training consultant for DFS
furniture group, went from there to become head of retail at
Birmingham City Football Club. And from there to do the same at
Leicester City Football Club with Mila Mandarin, then I built a big
property business, property business was were quite a lot of our
clients through seminars. So again, that always had me stood in
front of rooms full of people and in fact, every one of my
entrepreneurial career choices or corporate lead career choices
always have me speaking to a roomful of people. My property,
business and a bump in 2008 I'm sure some people might look to be
able to have some memory towards that too. And we had a great
business on a Monday. By Friday, we had a product we couldn't give
away. So wondering what I was going to do next, I was being invited
by business networking groups to say, can you come and help some of
these local business owners? through some of these recessionary
times by delivering back some sales skills, I was at quite a strong
voice in those small business environments, of offering advice and
guidance. And I was delivering those education slots for free
didn't think about it being a speaking career. And then I thought,
well, there were just so many people in this world are good at a
thing, but don't know how to acquire customers or grow that
business so they can get to really be good at the thing. So I wrote
a one day sales training course. And I started to invite people
from that small business environment to my one day program. And
that was, yeah, back into 2008. So almost 10 years ago, and six
people became 12 people became 20 people became 30 people became
Can you come deliver this to my team became me then speaking
externally to sell places on my workshops. So I'd speak at larger
events for without fee to be able to drive people towards my
workshop that then became a coaching business, then became a
consulting business. Then I wrote my first book in 2012. And then I
went on the road internationally delivering more of what we would
now call speeches. But my business here today is I deliver
somewhere in the region of 100 paid presentations a year takes me
all around the world, written six best selling books. And I do
anything from a from a 12 minute keynote up to a three day program
with audiences and then have somewhere like 30 different revenue
streams in my business around that to the that have now become
remarkably fun, but it's been a it's been a beautifully organic
journey driven by ambition, aspiration, and a simple belief that if
somebody else can do it, can somebody else be me?
James Taylor
Well, I've always looked at what a great journey well, fascinating
journey through all those everything. Obviously, sales is Been that
has been the kind of golden thread that's kind of gone through a
lot of that as well. And I'm wondering, like, as you were kind of
going, you mentioned, almost 10 different types of presenting. So
there was the more kind of workshop training style, then there was
more platform selling style, where you're giving a talk for free in
order to get people to come to your workshop or consulting. And
then there's more keynote speaking. So which I can know you for for
today, who are your mentors, because they're all slightly different
flavors. And and they require slightly different skills I would
imagine.
Phil M. Jones
Yeah, it is hard to define specific mentors if I if I'm to look,
early days, I was always hugely inspired by Guy new call Peter Lee
and Peter Lee was somebody I collaborated with and work with and
was taught by when I was part of a management training program back
in, in the furniture days, maybe 1520 years ago, and he was the
first guy who bought the Dale Carnegie programs to the UK. So I got
to study Dale Carnegie's work quite in depth for that and I loved
the way that Peter would engage Ah, and would facilitate within an
audience and had both the gravitas of a powerful speaker, but also
had the charm of, you know, the guy in the pub that would be able
to have a conversation. And quite often when you say these audience
didn't matter how many people were in it, you felt like he was
talking just to you. So I love that. There's also a guy in the UK
called Richard Denny. Richard Denny is kind of like the godfather
of professional speaking when it comes to UK background. And I
remember being in a conference that Richard delivered and I may
have been 17 years of age at the time, and I thought that guy's
cool. And I got to know Richard quite well through the years and
got to learn a little from him. And then on the marketing side of
the business, and we might link into this shortly is is a guy
called Peter Thompson. So Peter Thompson is somebody who's been
around a long, long time. When we then look towards role models
outside of of those three, there's two other categories I would
consider. One is is the people that have mentored me from a
distance, so I might not have had personal conversation with them
but I've studied and and and then model their behavior. So that
could be as much as as a Jim Rowan. And but it could also be the
fact that I'd stick myself in the audience as often as I possibly
can about the people performing to say, what would I like about
that? What worked well? Where can I get some role modeling from
other people's efforts, and then also stand up comedians. So I've
got like an abundance of stand up comedians, because I think in the
world of professional speaking, stand up comedy is about as tough
as it gets. So to look towards that, to to push the envelope was
huge. And then the flip side of all of this role model stuff is all
the negative role models.
James Taylor
So you basically look at them and say, This is not why I want to
become not the kind of Correct,
Phil M. Jones
correct and I think this is important to look towards those groups
of people as it is towards those that you have aspiration towards.
Because there are hundreds of ways you can build a business as a
professional speaker hundreds, and it's very easy, particularly in
today's marketplace where information is so easily and readily
available. That what you do is that you think you have to be all
things to all people that you that you think, well, if somebody
else is successful, I need to be more like that. And we end up then
seeing copycat speakers. And the trouble with that is you can't be
what you're not. It's like an impossibility. You can take influence
from other people. But if you're trying to be what you're not, then
what happens is one that you get found out or you feel bad, because
you don't feel like you're being you and what it is you're doing,
but you've built a reputation for being something you're not and
you can't break out of that shell. So a level of authenticity is
important, but you need to discover that through looking at what it
is that other people do. I'll take a piece of that. I'll try it on
for a while. And I view it like, like, if you went out shopping for
a day, you might have an idea of what you would like but until you
put something on, and you take it for a walk or you look at
yourself back in the mirror with it. You don't decide whether it's
something you like or not. So, people early on in their career, I
think they should they should just soak themselves up. In the
world, and learn it, learn the different business models. And the
business models are as important as the as the presentations
themselves. Because without a business model that supports your
ability to get to speak regularly, then the game gets over real
quick.
James Taylor
What do you use? I mean, on this summit, we've got there was a
thing I was a little bit concerned about when I'm interviewing so
many different speakers and they have such different role,
different business models and what they're doing. Yeah, was that
for the for the someone that's watching this, just now they can
feel a bit discombobulated, and they can feel that, oh, that's what
I want to do. Any advice that you would give in terms of helping
the speaker that's watching this, or the aspiring speaker that's
watching this, to have some kind of compass to kind of help them
guide themselves so they can know? Those things are not, you know,
they're interesting, but I don't necessarily want to want to do
Phil M. Jones
in order to be able to successfully speak you need a number of
audiences and then clients that would pay to put you in front of
those audiences. What often people don't do is put themselves in
one singular box. When it comes to winning business, you can't aim
at just one thing any one period of time because what you need is
you need some business that will feed your family on Friday. You
need some business that can sustain you to be able to live for a
year and then you need something to be able to chase. I'm a big
believer that the in the world of sales, you cannot manage any more
than 18 prospects at any one period of time. And having trained
over 2 million people, I've still found that same thing to be true
18 prospects is the most that you could ever have. So if you can
get yourself laser focused on 18 prospects, you can become what I
call devilishly productive. And the reason I call it devilishly
productive is because we split that magic a team into groups of
six, six and six. My advice would be at any given period of time
when you're looking at what kind of speaking business you want to
build is give yourself three different categories of types of
events or types of things that you might want to do. So say for
example, it might be where the low hanging fruit is at that bottom
end. Is this is what I have within arm's reach right now this is
where I have some wind at my back. This might be the industry that
you've grown out of this might be the geographic location of where
you based it might be something you deliver online because you've
already built an audience, low hanging fruit, which was when with
easy reach that you can get a yes to relatively quickly put some
money on the table for Friday. For me at the early stage of my
business, that was my one day sales workshop. always working six
prospects towards my one day sales workshop. What did I really want
to do? Well, when I first started, I wanted corporate training
events that could give me 40 5060 people in the room, pay me a
handsome fee to be able to deliver a half day or a full day
workshop. What that would then be is a slightly longer pipeline but
always be working six prospects there. And then my dream gigs at
that point in time when I was first starting was i'd love the
keynote the main stage, the 45 minute keynote the 60 minute the 90
minute the big fee, everybody like loves you. You love them. You
sell a load of books every Things beautiful then you disappear
again for the next day. So always be working six prospects in those
camps. What then happened though was is as your career progresses,
is what was then my low hanging fruit now becomes something we
don't do anymore things then start to be able to shift through that
moment. So always what you're looking for is to say, what is going
to feed my family right now? What is going to give me some
sustenance to mean that I can have peace of mind and reassurance
and then what am I shooting at big time. So we're playing three
different business models that potentially feed each other at the
same time. And then try those three on if you then find something
that doesn't work, switch one out, play with something else but
three target markets, three different types of businesses
progressive step two business model, and you'll find what you love.
This is the most the best job in the world and the worst job in the
world. If you're not with your people, if you're not serving
audiences that serve you back, if you are putting yourself into a
situation Where your travel schedule is overwhelming your life,
then it takes over your ability to better enjoy what you do on the
platform.
James Taylor
So wondering that terms as you as you have been building that, and
now where you are in your own career, thinking about the kind of
the sustainability. So moving out of the, I just need to get
speaking gigs, where it was workshops, public workshops, corporate,
you're now at a stage in your career, where you're making different
types of decisions. And wondering the weather. Let's think like the
recurring type of models start to come into that. So going up and
keynotes is amazing. But it's like a little bit like being the kind
of rock star going to a gig and you're doing those shows, and
that's great, or being that comedian going doing that live tour.
But when you're not on the road, there's maybe nothing happening.
So how do you start to think about like building in sustainability
and things that those revenue streams that could be coming in when
you don't necessarily have to be on the road?
Phil M. Jones
Yeah, and I think that's what you're always looking at in that
middle group of six people that you're working with. different
things for different people. And if I gave a child a cupcake, what
is the only part of the cupcake but they would like to eat
James Taylor
that nice cherry sitting on the top there.
Phil M. Jones
They want the cherry on the top of the frosting and sprinkles but
they don't want the cake itself. They want all the stuff that's on
top of the cake. Now most speakers are the same. What they want is
they want the cherry they want the frosting, they want the
sprinkles on all the good stuff. Trouble is you can't live on that
sweet tooth piece alone, we needed some substitutes. So I encourage
anybody looking to build a speaking business to go build the base
of the cupcake first. The way I look to do that is firstly
understand what your what your livelihood personal expenses are,
whether it's 3000 a month, 5000 a month, 10,000 a month, 15,000 a
month, whatever it might be, build a sustainable business model in
that place that says my bills are covered, I can live my life. from
that position. You can have a down sell and upsell from that
position. So for me right now my author business sustains my life.
I make it recurring revenue based revenue from my books and the
work we've done to mean that I can pay for everything we have in
our life. And it doesn't leave me a comfy comfy life. But I don't
have to worry about paying a single bill based on the author
business that we built. Historically, that used to be a coaching
business. Historically, that used to be a retained number of
training events like a 20 gig contract with one client that the
paid me out. And it's also been recurring revenues off online
coaching programs too. But I've always had something in that space
that says, I've got something working here that pays for
everything, and I focus on that but it's not sexy. What that means
though, is then when I get a hifi speaking gig come in. It feels
like it should feel it feels like Rockstar money because it's on
top of what I need if I had to take that Rockstar money and then
use it to pay my bills this month. I don't feel like the rock star
should feel like it feels a little incongruent with that rock star.
So it's worth building the base to give you the feeling of saying
that the good stuff is the good stuff. Now the down sell there also
could then be the good stuff. So then means you could start to look
at it and say well when I do these workshops or these training
events, what can I do to get extras? I was at an event yesterday in
Rochester, New York, it was a small group full of people it was
like 35 people. My down sell for fun was that we did a book for
everybody in the room. Like 35 $15 now I don't care and the fact
that I get big six figure fees and things on occasions for
contracts, I still love walking out with 500 bucks extra on the
back of an event. I still love it. It's like a buzz. But we can
then look at say how do we commercial be commercial? As we build a
business but getting your speaking business right means that you
should try on different models but always be working three always
work the base of the cupcake then you enjoy the sprinkles love that
love
James Taylor
that analogy. And what's your cause your background, you have such
a strong background in the sales piece. I wonder what advice you
would give To the speakers out there when it comes to, I mean,
actually, I see sales. But one of the things I've noticed about you
is actually how brilliant your branding is. And so that's kind of
going but I didn't, I class can, like marketing moving into sales
in this kind of place in between. But I can look at your book, I
can look at your website from standing at a distance. And I know
it's you. Right? And because there's a look at some feel it pulled,
some people may not appeal to others, but I'm guessing for your
target audiences. It's this the thing that connects and it's very
it's kind of a classy kind of thing. Does it have a black
background with orange writing, it's kind of feels like New York
Times there's a there's a substitute like a substantive there. So
I'm interested to know a little bit the branding piece of what you
do, how much you kind of thinking about that for what you do, but
also how the the any advice you would give to speak as in terms of
the sales especially as they starting to just be speaking more and
they're getting more and more band coming in and how to do those
inquiries?
Phil M. Jones
Well, let's do the two things is is to develop the piece of the
brand. It takes forever of trial and error like like you. I mean in
this game 10 years right now we are on website iteration number 23.
We, you know, I rewrite my copy. I have a recurring piece in my
schedule every six weeks or a story look at things seasonal needs
to tweak what needs to change and if your career is doing this,
your BIOS out a day every three months. Right and so things need to
continue to look to change. What you do want to look at though in
terms of setting your stall out is the biggest thing that a
potential buyer is thinking when they're looking towards booking
somebody it's not Will you be brilliant? It's Will you not suck if
this risk mitigation, correct is is what they're looking at is to
saying you know, if I'm putting my reputation on the line, is my
reputation potentially going to be tarnished by this not is my
reputation going be amplified by this. So what they want is
anything that can give them some confidence that you've done this
before and people like them have had a pleasant experience in the
past. This means getting real authentic testimonials. This means
getting great photography. One of the reasons that my branding
materials look so good is that we've been photographing and
recording every event since I first started and I've been putting
my own people in to be able to do that most of the time. video
content is key. So don't think you have to have all of these things
in the first instance But no, it's your quest to get them and
continually be on the quest of being able to make it better. And
model off somebody if you need to write is find somebody that you
quite like this stuff and you draw influence from it and say how do
I make my stuff at the same but the brand is key and build it out
on everything you know, business card, email signature, your thank
you cards that then follow up towards other people. If you're
running your own events, what do your banners look like in the
room? What are the pens look like that your your delegates Using
what are the pads look like that they're working on? We see we
control that entire process. And I have done since my very first
workshop to create an experience that says, This guy looks like
he's done this 100 times before even my first workshop, we look
like a giant organization. But what did I spend? I spent a few
hundred pounds on making you look like we've done that before.
That's the goal of most of your branding.
James Taylor
And then when it goes like when I think about something like
Debenhams, for example, they've always been very good at that the
aim of a certain type of customer My wife is probably like the type
of customer and and everything you go in has a certain kind of feel
as a certain quote, you know, certain kind of quality. You can see
it trends and it has obviously changed over the years. You can see
it being replicated in their print their TV as they're online, you
can stand a distance you can go into the store, there's all those
little triggers that you get to see that it relates to that
brand.
Phil M. Jones
Now when it comes to the sales piece, there's two things that I
want everybody to think about is First things first, there are two
questions that you need to know the answers to before you Entering
into this world of professional speaking. And I think many people
forget this because what they want to do is want to be a speaker,
they can speak on anything to anybody about like almost any
subject. That's where they think often. Two questions that people
should know the answers to ahead of time is number one, who are the
people that they serve. And the narrower that position is, the
easier is to start going out hunting and looking for opportunities.
And the second lowest questions is which problems do you solve for
them? I'll share this super quick with an analogy is if you are
looking to open a tin of beans, what would you be looking for to
better help you on that quest? You know, not a Swiss Army knife.
Yeah. I might. I might do a few in a pretty desperate thing. You
take a Swiss Army knife. Yeah. But first thought is I want to open
a tin of beans. I need a tin opener on open a can of beans. I want
to count out right. That's what you're looking for. And the same
thing is true when it comes to people looking for a speaker. So if
you're a leadership speaker, well, there's 1000 leadership speakers
in the world. If you're a leadership speaker that helps independent
retailers and you're an independent retailer, it now becomes easy
for me to pick you if you are a you know an innovation speaker, but
you're an innovation speaker for the accountancy profession they
can't see professional looking and so you get me what an audience
is looking for to get the show me that you know me type vibe. So
the more that you can say these are my people, the easier it
becomes to find business and I know that's kind of
counterintuitive, but when you're aiming everybody you're not the
right fit for them and they're not the right fit for you. When you
say I'm aiming here, we can find a perfect match a little bit
easier.
James Taylor
Can you mention those those two the six six and six years so can
would you advise the someone who's maybe just getting started to
fitting say people that are already up and running with the
speaking of those those those three buckets? would you advise that
maybe it's the same same kind of problem that they're solving, but
maybe do you choose different audiences or should you go that's
that's maybe the way to do it.
Phil M. Jones
Yeah, yeah, the the problem that you solve is is, is really kind of
straightforward. And the problem is, for example, the problem that
I solve for my audiences, and I help them make more of their
conversations count. But that's what I do for people. And I help
them understand how the importance of the right words at the right
time can drive the right kind of actions. Now, as my reputation is
growing, that means that the breadth of audience can start to get
wider because I get bookings, because I'm Phil Jones, not because
of the problem that I solved. But it's taken 10 years to get to
that point in time. I started saying I helped small independent
business owners that didn't understand the sales process to
understand how they could sell more effectively to try to have a
recession. So that was the problem that I helped solve. That was a
group of people, small, independent business owners that were
looking to trade our recession. Well, I'm a small independent
business owner, I'm looking to trade our recession, this guy could
probably help but positioned myself as a sales trainer that think
they didn't need it. sales training was what I delivered. But the
people I helped in the program myself are two completely different
things and see I changed the conversation.
James Taylor
Yeah. As my friend said, recently, you had something you have to
hide the broccoli in the cake. So, so that I'm interested as you
were kind of going your own journey, because I think this is one
that maybe maybe platform speakers can struggle with when they can
start to move out into the corporate world. So you were even that
small business owner. It's It feels like more of a b2c type of
relationship because they don't have the credit card.
Phil M. Jones
their money.
James Taylor
Yeah. How do you when you started moving, so you develop that
market? And as you started moving into the more the corporate
world, which is more of a b2b relationship, so it's in on invoice,
let's say, and yeah, how did you did you? What did you have to
change to make that make that move?
Phil M. Jones
The biggest commonality is more apparent than the differences. The
commonality is, is you're in the people business. What starts to
happen though, is that Firstly, you realize you're spending other
people's money so instead of them investing money with you to mean
that they might be able to send the kids on vacation this year.
You're they're spending money with you to help And get that
promotion. So so what happens is the motivation in the individual
that's responsible for making the purchase changes, that's the only
thing that changes, you're still helping people. The other
difference is, you've got to be aware that the procurement process
is sometimes different that you're going to wait 90 days on invoice
or that you have to then have more rigid procedures in your place
when it comes to having things like your insurances, your
contracts, your just your procedures in place to say that I'm going
to play your game when it comes to getting paid in terms of doing
the work, what doesn't change that much, just how you pay gets
James.
James Taylor
So you talking about this moving into the sales piece, as those
speakers once they can identify, you know, who do they serve? What
problems they're solving for people as well. Where does it need to
go? Where does it need to go next on that
Phil M. Jones
we're going to find yourself in conversations with people and what
we must firstly understand is what selling really is and selling is
earning the right to make a recommendation. What selling isn't is
is isn't embellishing a product or service with features or
benefits hoping something's going to stick. The mistake here is
what people do is that they were looking for is we're looking to
get validation that the problem that we believe that they have is a
problem that is true to them, and then find credibility towards the
fact that we might be the people to fix it. Take for example, a
typical inbound inquiry for speaker, typically inbound inquiry for
speaker. Isn't the phone ringing. It's a web contact form or an
email coming in. And that email typically asked the same two
questions. Number one is are you available number two is what you
see. That's the typical kind of doesn't matter how it's flowered
out. That's the typical inquiry that comes in. We're going to know
the answers to those questions. And Firstly, we don't actually know
the need to know the answers to those questions. Because who's the
person who's in control of every conversation?
James Taylor
It should be you as the as the because you don't have almost no
have enough information at that point?
Phil M. Jones
Yeah, the person who's in control of every conversation is the
person who's asking the questions. So what happens is when you get
questions asked of you, if you want to gain control of that
conversation, it isn't an answer that you need. What it is that you
need is a question. Yeah. So the answer to the question isn't an
answer at all is the question to the question. That's what we
should be looking to better think about. Okay. So inquiry comes in
and says, Are you available? What's your fee? What the typical
response is, is yes, hell yes. I'm definitely available and what's
your budget? That's what many people come back with, which is the
worst thing we could do. Something every speaker needs to know for
certain is their fee. What is your fee? Now I don't care what that
number is. But you need to know that you have a thing or not,
you're prepared to accept whatever you can get. What is it you
place a value of your time in now you might get paid different
numbers to that fee, but you've got to know at every given period
of time, what your fears. I also don't want you necessarily to
disclose this at this point in time inquiry. He comes in, what I
would like to do is to respond to that inquiry using a different
means of communication to the one in which the inquiry came in. So
if the inquiry comes in via an email, my first response would be
via telephone, I'd be calling them myself, because I want to be
seen as demonstrably different to every other person that they have
put a an application out towards. So I would respond, my words
would be something along the lines of it's just a quick call. Why
would I say it's just a quick call, because I don't want to get
into the meat of the discussion right now. Thank you so much for
your inquiry coming in. I've checked my schedule. And as I can see,
right now, I do have some availability on that date. I'm happy to
be able to place it on hold for you. But answer me this Just tell
me what is it about me in my work that makes you think that I might
be the right fit for this kind of event?
James Taylor
So I responded with a question what do they now do that providing
more information to you as well and you're getting more nuance?
Phil M. Jones
Yeah, and I'm getting the whole backstory more often than not, they
do my job for me.
James Taylor
So they start to almost tell you the things and you're sitting
there, able to able to speak that but actually to speak This is
what any good salesperson is doing. It kind of goes back to Dale
Carnegie's, seek first to understand then be understood,
Phil M. Jones
same difference. And what we're doing is we're getting, we're
getting some backstory on it. So I think it's remarkably important
that we ask those kinds of questions of people. We can then go on
to ask kind of ongoing questions. We can ask things like, so what's
your experience of working with a paid professional speaker?
James Taylor
That's an interesting one, because that's, that's. And that's a
very interesting one, because you're basically pulling it you
mentioned earlier, they're just speaker's negative role models as
well. So you're in their head, you're getting all the things that
they really really dislike about working with speakers,
Phil M. Jones
I'm getting the whole thing but also just like the new ones, and
I'm one of the world's leading experts when it comes to writing
intelligent questions to avoid objections. It's like the thing that
i doing any of my consulting work and I love it for fun. But that
question there is what's your experience of working with pay
professional speakers does a few things. Number one, it positions
you as a paid professional speaker Yeah. The other thing is is you
find out where you've been out with things in the past so they say
things like well last year we booked someone so and we've had this
person in the past etc, etc, etc. They want to have a conversation
with you about money so you say well what have you paid your
previous speakers? Now I get some form of benchmark if they choose
to be able to tell me I haven't said what's your budget I've said
What did you pay your previous speakers? What I can now say is I
can say things while you're looking for this your speaker to be
better or worse. They could say things well, hopefully better you
could say well, would it be fair to say that you want it better
than you've had before that it would make sense that you might need
to pay a little more
James Taylor
you're having a very very different conversation there and and, and
obviously, it was important that you switched modalities got
switched mediums in terms of going from someone on email to going
on the phone. I wonder about that question or that part there.
Where you know, we hear more and more, maybe less on the CEOs but
maybe on the on the event planners, maybe younger, they might you
know, phone is not such a Big things. How do they feel when they
get that call from you?
Phil M. Jones
More often than not, they feel great. I mean, I had one yesterday,
right? So yesterday inquiry comes in via referral for a multi gig
event across the US. Join email goes in, somebody might want to
consider for the event is Phil Jones, response comes back. Thank
you for the introduction. Phil, can you let us know some times that
we might need to get together to have a conversation? What do I do?
I pick up the phone. So I don't respond saying hey, sometimes meet
my meet my assistant, Bonnie, I'll get something set up for you,
etc. I respond with a phone call. Hey, Leah, it's Phil whenever an
email dialog right now. I got 45 minutes before I go on stage in a
second. And I thought I'd try and catch you right now without
clogging up some future time. She says Well, that's great. Thanks
for jumping on this. I wish more speakers would do this. Where am I
in this negotiation. Now,
James Taylor
you're in a very strong position because you're set yourself apart
once again, from all the other speakers that probably would just
done an email response. Or unfortunately, we hear a lot of speakers
that don't even respond as well. So you're, you're instantly at
that top of that, that that line now,
Phil M. Jones
and I want the listeners in to understand something really
important right now is there's nothing that I'm sharing today that
will work with all of the people all the time. So it's not like oh,
feel free to call and I try to call them and they didn't pick up or
they didn't like it. That's a load of rubbish. It's this is stuff
that works with more of the people more of the time, should you
choose to apply it. So it's not for everybody. But what would
happen if I didn't get to connect on that phone call? Well, I might
shoot a quick email, I might do it deliberately from my phone. So
it says sent from my iPhone on the bottom as opposed to with my six
email signature. My response might be, hey, received your inquiry,
just try to reach on the phone. Just so you know, I'm free between
four and six this evening. And I'm going to be traveling to the
airport on my way back from a gig it might be a great time for us
to be able to connect, shoot me know if we can make that time work.
So I'm moving out of that. Corporate piece and out of that
scheduled formality rigidness and moving it towards a more friendly
conversation and showing that I'm in on this too. And that they're
going to have a conversation with the person as opposed to be
pushed through the process.
James Taylor
And on that call, sometimes, if that email has come initially from
let's say, not the final decision maker, let's say it's come from
the persons organizing the conference. So you're calling back the
person that has organized the conference, not as a decision maker,
how are you? Are you are you trying to get onto that, get that
decision maker then on the call after that, so that you can do that
or you just happy to go with just the the person who is contacting
you initially?
Phil M. Jones
Well, what you generally find in the speaking world is the decision
maker is the person who's going to sign off on it, but that
decision maker takes 95% of the influence over that decision from
the person that you're speaking to. Okay, so, you know, they might
not be signing off the purchase order or the check, etc. The event
planner or the initial inquiry person is somebody who actually
carries a huge amount of influence in that The minute I try to
disregard the level of influence of that first person has and go
over their head, I actually lose their support. So what I want to
do is I want to train this person to have an effective conversation
internally to mean that I'm the only choice.
James Taylor
So how do you do that? And when you're having one of the things
that you want to ensure this person understands, and all that
they're going to when they have that conversation with with their
boss, then they can ensure that they're helping you in doing your
job?
Phil M. Jones
Well, the things that I want to understand from them is not what
they need to understand about me is I want to get them to have the
confidence that I understand what they need. So what I'm looking at
is, those series of questions again, is tell me what's your
experience of working with a paid professional speaker in the past?
So how many people you've got coming to the event? Is this the
first time that you've done an event of this nature? What is the
theme or the outcome that you're looking for? Tell me if somebody
was also what could they deliver in this session for you right now
that would mean that you would go away feeling them and Be proud of
you choice. No, I'm asking series of questions that they get this
other person to say, I understand your problem as well, if not
better than you do. So there's no Let me tell you how freaking
awesome I am. What there is, is let me discover and understand what
it is you're looking for and see if that see if these fit is right.
Now sometimes I go through this round of discovery with the client,
and I'm like, I don't think I'm the right guy. Sounds to me, what
you're looking for is somebody that's more like this. Would this be
fair? Well, yeah, that's kind of what I'm looking for. All right,
somebody you need to speak to is, yeah, would you welcome an
introduction to somebody like that? Because I think they might be
able to deliver your brief slightly better than I can.
James Taylor
So it's almost like what you're doing there is instead of going,
this is me, I'm brilliant. Here's the problem. here's, here's,
here's how I solve your problem. Here's how I deliver the solution.
And then finally, you this your problem. You have basically flipped
around the other side, you're focusing on one Your challenges,
what's your problem? Finding out from then? Like, how has the waste
of solute, solve that problem? Maybe not just the keynote, maybe
there's other things that you can also be doing in terms of
training and other stuff. And then finally, you're coming to
yourself.
Phil M. Jones
It's got it's kind of flipped. And very rarely do I need to tell
somebody about my ability to be able to train and deliver from the
stage because they already knew that that's why they reached out to
me in the first place. Yeah, that's we think about the way the
world is right now. It's rare that somebody jumps into a
conversation or reaches out to somebody or finds themselves
considering a conversation with you, without them, having a look
across your website, checking out your LinkedIn profile, watching a
video or two. They understand that you've got something about you.
What they're looking for is, is Do you understand the problem that
we have? And do you feel that you've got the ability within your
toolkit to go out and be able to do over deliver in this
environment? Is that something you feel confident about? And I've
learned to walk away from more opportunities recently. Then Then
try and force myself into something that isn't right. And the
busier you get, you start to learn so I probably have room in my
schedule for around 50 keynotes a year that limitation is fun
because it means what I could do is I could be on stage in the
wrong gig delivering the wrong message to the wrong audience. And
okay Am I got paid and they might have been like a solid
performance or I could have took that same day that same moment and
made a real difference with people that really have a need and a
requirement for the problem I solve and I could have had a blast,
the day would have passed regardless so
James Taylor
one of the things that helps you do that is kind of going back to
what we spoke at right at the start is your belt that base so that
you can you're having those conversations from a position of of
confidence of strength and feeling you can you can walk away You
don't have to be taking this if you're not the race speaker, they
don't say I'm already speaking you may suggest someone else for
example, but your if you didn't have that base, it might feel you
might feel okay, just Yes.
Phil M. Jones
You have to Yeah, and I've been there too in the past but and
that's what taught me the importance of the bass. So I you know,
every year I want to start every year saying my bills are covered.
And and you know, I do 20 gigs a year with the same client year in
year out, that isn't my dream work. It isn't like me doing the
thing that I love. I just quite like it. Like I quite like it. I'm
really good at it and it delivers a result. It isn't me living my
dream. But it is me getting a regular recurring revenue coming in
every month teaching teaching, teaching teaching, which allows me
the freedom to go find the things that make my heart sing to make
those decisions.
James Taylor
So when when you when we don't have too much time this because I'm
conscious of your time just now as well. And when we start to you
get on the gig itself and you get there to the to the place other
other things that you're looking to do, when you're actually there
to ensure that you really over deliver on outside of just that the
keynote, there are other things that you're enjoying that you want
to try and do there,
Phil M. Jones
there's a few things that I do is number one is I always like to
get to my venue the day before the event. Like it's not always
possible. And I want to see the room before I close my eyes. sounds
stupid. But if I've seen the space that I'm going to work in, then
what I've got is I've got some familiarity to how I'm going to use
that room, how I'm going to work that room, what potential
constraints could exist to me, I want to get there early, I want to
shake the hands of the AV crew. I also do something that almost no
speakers do. But I think for me is absolutely essential. And every
time I do it, I get further positive reinforcement. That's the
right thing to do. It doesn't matter what time I'm speaking,
whatever that audience have heard that day. Ahead of my speech is
imperative to me. So if I'm on at 4pm, I'm in that room from 9am
fly on the wall at the back listening to everything was delivered
before me. Because my job is to serve that audience not to deliver
my speech. The mistake could happen is that if I deliver something
out of context, but don't tie it back to something That was said by
somebody else earlier, don't link those examples. I could be in
conflict when in fact, so I'm actually saying the same thing from a
slightly different angle. Yeah. And that is disservice to my
audience. So I do that without fail ahead of time. I also plan how
I'm going to utilize the stage. What am I doing in terms of props,
I come on and off the stage, you know that I kind of actively work
in audio. That
James Taylor
was one of the things I really enjoyed about your I mean, there's
last thing I enjoyed about hearing you and seeing you speak before
but one of the things that I thought made a really big impact in
the room was that you were you were moving around, you were having
that and it feel much more interactive. And you you were going and
spending time with an individual person in the room having that
conversation. The whole room was then transfixed on you having that
that conversation with that person.
Phil M. Jones
Yeah, so that requires prep, too. So what I might need to do is I
might need to find the types of personalities in that room that if
I'm going to pick on somebody individually, how do I get the right
Love energy or vibe? Or do I see somebody as a as a strong
influencer, particularly in a smaller room that I think will if I
can sway that person and get engagement from them then I'll change
the energy in the whole room. How am I going to map if I'm going to
work through a set of tables or down some some rows and alleys etc?
Where is my safe places to walk? Have I tested the microphone
towards any potential feedback spots with speaker systems etc? What
am I doing to be other than get back onto the stage because that
could be Crikey embarrassing, like I jump off the stage, realizes
no steps, and I've got to get back on elegantly in some way. And I
I live in this fear of rip in the back of my trousers or pants, and
that being the thing that I get remembered for so I I try and
mitigate any any kind of risks there. And what I'm looking at is a
really simple principle is that I always want to control my
controllables there's so much stuff that you're at sea with so much
stuff that you rely on your experience you rely on being able to be
in the moment. And the more that you control your controllables in
your performance, the more you can actually find freedom and
enjoyment in the delivery of your performance. Because what you've
done is you've anchored down everything you possibly could do to
allow you to be able to bring your true brilliance in the
moment.
James Taylor
So on that control your controllables wasn't your speaker bag, what
is in that bag that you carry with you to all of your speaking
engagements that you'd never, never leave home without,
Phil M. Jones
um, I have three slide clickers. Because I'm always fearful of one
guy and wrong. Replacement batteries. I have two versions of every
adapter that I could possibly ever need. If I need my slides to go
on. I have photographs of my passport in case I ever lose it. I
have multiple thumb drives with presentation decks on them as well
as the things that I've sent across. I carry throat coat tea. I
carry entertain the secret to be able to lubricate my throat
sometimes if I'm struggling a little bit on the road I carry
airborne or Baraka, you know like the vitamin things in order to be
able to take care of my health when I travel what else is in my bag
and extra extra charges I got this great little charger In fact I
was gonna show it to you where it's like a portable pack that has
multiple USBs in it as well and replaces the need to be able to put
an outlet in the wall. So anything I can that I'm kind of gadget
like, like mad it can save me save me time. In fact, I got this
little thing as well I bought the other day this is kind of super
cool. So this is like an outlet and then it's multiple USBs and
things so if I want to work on a plane, instead of having like
something plugged in somewhere I can plug this little thing in that
doesn't fall out that then allows me to better plug multiple things
in on my desk when I'm traveling and compression socks to make sure
that I don't like lots of stuff to be able to make sure I'm still
healthy on the road. Yeah, more Other than delivering the
performance, thank you cards. And then I have a bag full of thank
you cards, because there's always people I meet on the road. And I
want to say thank you to. And I carry stamps for both of us in the
UK with me at all given times to if I want to mail something to
somebody.
James Taylor
And what about apps? Is there any particular apps, online tools,
online resources, you find really useful for yourself as a
speaker,
Phil M. Jones
I guess probably the biggest resource for me as a speaker outside
of all the ones that you're going to hear from everybody else is I
use an app called I talk. And I talk is a voice recording app that
directly syncs up with Dropbox. And sometimes if I'm working on a
new bit, or I'm playing with the idea of a new opening, or perhaps
even that I want to take a recording of my own speech, then
sometimes what I do is I I run I talk recording in my in my pocket,
or I talk into ahead of time, and then what I've got is it is an
audio file of my speech. Some of the things I can then do with that
is if I deliver something that I really liked, but I didn't know
what he was I've got the audio track to better go back to I'll then
push that through rev calm. Yeah. And rev.com is a transcription
service. There's lots of others out there. And I'll rip out the the
transcription word dot play with that, dial it up. Now sometimes
I'll get blog articles from there. Sometimes it's just for my own
reference. And you'll know what it's like as a speaker. Sometimes
you do something in the moment, and it's brilliant. But you can't
remember what you did.
James Taylor
Yeah, yeah. Or there may be as a camera sitting up up there, fixed
up to the back of the room. And the audio is lousy, because you
don't have anything near you to be able to pick that up.
Phil M. Jones
Yeah. So so so the ability to be able to do that. And equally, you
know, I'm often just dropping ideas into a talk for me just and I
might have my headphones on while I'm walking through an airport
and it's recording in the background. And I'm, I'm talking to
myself about, you know, planning in a new opening. I do a lot of
customized openings events, particularly given that I've listened
to the whole session in the morning on the closing keynote. I'll
read Work my opening, in order to be able to bring contrast or
something has happened towards the rest of the event. And it kills
because they realize this isn't a canned presentation yet, even
though so much of it is structured, the ability for me to be able
to create a level of tailoring in is is something that event
organizers really enjoy.
James Taylor
What that book is there one particular book, you would recommend
not one of your own books as Yeah, I've got your book. And it's I'm
actually starting to go through your book just now. And I would say
of this summit, if there was a one book that was recommended more
than any other book, it's actually been your book this year.
speakers, which is a great testament to you. So that's exactly
exactly what to say
Phil M. Jones
or exactly how to sell
James Taylor
exactly what to say. Yeah, exactly what to say. So if it was one
book, we're gonna have links to your book here as well. If there's
one other book you would recommend to speakers or aspiring
speakers, what would that book be?
Phil M. Jones
I think there's a book that everybody should read. And it's a book
called the coaching habit by Michael bungay stanier. Yeah. And it's
a really short and easy read. It's meant with the purpose of
helping busy managers, so Have more effective coaching, coaching
conversations. But the brilliance in that book is just about having
more effective meaningful conversations there is there is links
towards sales language in that that it was never intended to be.
But often what we're looking to do with our clients is to coach
them into doing what it is that we would like to be able to do or
to coach them into seeing that we're the right choice not to tell
them and Michael's book there, I think it opens up, maybe the
ability to look at something that you've previously seen as
something you might deliver to your clients, but learn to how you
can use it to have more effective conversations to get more of what
you want. That would be maybe a random but useful recommendation.
This
James Taylor
is a great book. I had Michael on the on the podcast A while ago.
And actually, if anyone is thinking about releasing a book and be
as an author, his description of how he launched that book is
fascinating because he didn't go the traditional route, especially
in the marketing so it's worth just checking out but we'll put a
link in here but guys a great book. So a final question. For you,
let's imagine you woke up tomorrow morning. And you have to start
from scratch. So you have all the skills, all the tools that you've
acquired over the years. But no one knows you, you know, no one,
what would you do? How would you restart
Phil M. Jones
a self hosted event that that fixes the problem I know that exists
within my locality. And, and I would charge for that event. So I
take the skill that I'm good at, I find groups of people who can
make quick decisions. And I'd go back to where I very first
started. And when it comes to being able to host a live event, then
what you do is you take the problem that exists. So let me talk you
through the exact language pattern here. So I wrote a sales
training workshop that helps independent business owners to get a
train out of a recession. I'd ask a series of questions to people
like me, and I'd network like crazy to better filters. First
question would be How's business? Everybody says business, you
know, yeah, that's good. So So I follow up with another question.
It's not really a question. I just phrased it as a question. The
question I'd ask is the word really And I said, Well, you know,
what things could you know, things could always be better? I'd say,
Well, what kind of things are you doing right now in order to be
either improve or grow your business? And you know, they'd say, No,
no law. I'd say how open minded would you be to running through a
program and spending a day together for us to better learn some new
skills you could put into practice that might help you improve your
business from where it is right now? Let's say Yeah, sounds good.
That say, well, when is it? I'd say, What do you free the 24th of
April? that say, Well, I'm not so sure yet. I'd say what are you
free on all? This? Oh, no, I could probably be free. I'd say great.
Well, I'm running a one day workshop. And these are the details.
Let me get your pencil in and out, go out and have those
conversations. And the thing that everybody needs to remember is
that questions, create conversations, conversations, build
relationships, relationships, create opportunities and
opportunities lead to sales. Everybody goes looking for sales, what
we should be looking to do. Where can we ask questions of the type
of people that we'd like to help? So the same thing that happens
here, right is that say, for example, that you know who it is that
you want to serve back to the point that we made earlier on? How
can you get into a position where you're asking questions of those
people? Because those questions were great conversations will build
relationships as relationships, great opportunities and
opportunities will lead to sales. could be as simple as a workshop
could be as simple as something like what you're doing here where
you're interviewing experts, that you could start asking questions
of the experts that you'd like to be able to serve. And chances
are, then that will result in you having some conversations,
building some relationships, create some opportunities, and making
some sales
James Taylor
asking better questions. I love that. I love that idea. And where
should people go if they want to learn more about you? We've spoken
about some of the books here as well, where's the best place?
Where's your central hub for all that?
Phil M. Jones
I'm PhilJones.com is my website. That's the site that you talked
about earlier on. And from there, you can find all of my social
channels you can link out to any of the other stuff that we do and
and I love to hear people when they put things into action, so come
find me on LinkedIn or Twitter or my Facebook page, any of those
things. Tell me what you'd like. Tell me what you put into
practice. Tell me what's worked. And I'll answer your questions. If
your questions relate to something you've tried, and you want to
learn how to do it better. If you're asking questions about
something you haven't had to go out yet, have it go in at first,
then I'll give you some time.
James Taylor
Awesome. Well, first of all, a pleasure speaking to you again, I
love the work that you do. I think you do. You're doing some
amazing, amazing, cool things just now. I look forward to getting a
chance to hear you again on stage really soon and catching up. So
thanks so much for coming on today.
Phil M. Jones
You're welcome, James. Thanks, everybody for listening. Real
pleasure.
James Taylor
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