276 Grant Baldwin

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast where you learn how to extract your business and personal Deep Wealth. 

I'm your host Jeffrey Feldberg. 

This podcast is brought to you by Deep Wealth and the 90-day Deep Wealth Experience. 

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As founder and c e o of this speaker lab, Grant Baldwin has helped thousands of people build successful and sustainable speaking businesses. Over the last 15 years, grant has become a sought after speaker, podcaster, author, and accomplished entrepreneur, featured on the Inc 5,000 list. Forbes, Inc. Entrepreneur and the Huffington Post. He has committed his expertise and [00:02:00] insights to equip others to share their meaningful message with the masses. His leadership and dedication to creating a one of a kind organizational culture are evidenced by the impact of the team. He leads Grant lives near Nashville, Tennessee with his wife Sheila, and their three daughters. 

Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. And while we have a fellow podcaster, entrepreneur, author, thought leader, you name it, he's done it. Success is his middle name. I'm gonna stop it right there. You heard it in the introduction. Grant, welcome to the Deepal Podcast. An absolute pleasure to have you with us.

And Grant, I'm really curious because there's always a story behind the story. What's your story? What got you to where you are today?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, so thanks for. Let me hang out with you, Jeffrey. So, way back in time, back in high school, in fact I was really involved in my local church and my youth pastor had a really big impact on my life and I was like, I wanna do that. Like, that seemed like a really rewarding, fulfilling profession.

I kind of felt like if I could make kinda impact in others' lives that he had made in my life, that seemed really satisfying. And so that was kinda the path I was on. I went to bible college. I was a youth pastor at a different church for a little while. [00:03:00] That gave me opportunities to speak and speaking was one of those things I really enjoyed, felt like I was decent at, wanted to do more of.

And so ultimately decided I wanted to pursue a career as a speaker. And this was 17, 18 years ago or so. And at the time there were no books or resources or coaches or trainings about speaking. And so I found myself emailing other speakers, harassing other speakers, stalking other speakers, can I pick your brain type stuff?

And learned a few things. Started booking some gigs, and eventually got to a point where I was doing about 60, 70 paid speaking gigs a year as a full-time speaker. then about eight years ago I started having a lot of people asking me some of the same questions that I had initially.

Things like, how do you find gigs and what do you speak about who hires speakers, and how much do you charge? Like, how does the speaking industry work? And so, started the Speaker Lab, which is a coaching and training company for speakers in those interested in, in understanding how to get paid to speak and make an impact in income from speaking.

And that's the core of what we do today.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Grant, before this whole podcast was set up and when we first got introduced, what really got me excited and for our listeners who are saying, okay, Jeffrey, listen, Grant's a successful [00:04:00] guy. I get it. I love his story. I'm not gonna become a professional speaker, so you know, why are you having this podcast? Jeffrey, Grant, no offense to you, but what's in it for me? Let's tune into W I I fm, the What's in It for Me Radio station, the world's favorite radio station. And so for our listeners, as you know, in the Deep Wealth nine-step roadmap, I'll go to step number two, your X-Factors, your Rembrandt. This is what differentiates your business.

You create a narrative for the marketplace, a narrative for your future buyer, a narrative for all of your advisors, a narrative for your clients, and the list just goes on and on. And part of that narrative has to do with talking and presenting and, grant, you'll tell me if I'm on base or off base, you can have the best narrative in the world.

But if you're not great as someone who's getting up there to talk, it's all for not Would you, a bit of a rhetorical load of question, but nonetheless I'll throw it right back at you. I mean, what are your thoughts on that of why is it important whether we're become a professional speaker or not?

That we really nailed it on the [00:05:00] presentation side.

Grant Baldwin: No, you're exactly right. Like some people listening right now say, Hey, I absolutely wanna do 30, 40, 50, 60, 75, a hundred gigs a year. Tell me what I need to do. And other people are going like, Hey, that does not sound appealing at all. I've got a good thing going, but I wouldn't mind doing five gigs or 10 gigs and I've done some speaking before.

It's very fun. It's very rewarding. It's very satisfying and gratifying. So, but I don't know, how do I. Those gigs and what steps do I need to be taking? So again, regardless of how speaking fits into your business, whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish I would definitely encourage people to consider adding speaking to their repertoire.

So one of the things you kind of touched on there, Jeffrey, is that. In this day and age, and as part of our culture speaking is a very high esteemed type of career and role. And so we look at it in a similar way to like a, you meet a surgeon, for example, like, oh wow, that's a very prestigious and so very, very similar whenever it comes to being a speaker, there's just a a level of of cachet and admiration that, and respect that we associate with speakers.

And so, Whether you're trying to use this for influence or networking or whatever it may be being a speaker can be a really effective [00:06:00] tool for anybody at any point in their career.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Grant for our listeners and for this episode, why don't we take the position, we'll just put the foundation there and then we'll do a bit of a deep dive on your strategies and techniques. Whether a listener says, you know what? I wanna transition into becoming a professional speaker and go down that route.

And that's right in your wheelhouse. Grant, you can talk all about that. Or maybe some listeners saying, yeah, I do want to become a professional speaker. But you know, I want to talk at my industry conference. I wanna really make a name for myself in my industry and I'll give Keynote and I'll be out there on the podium speaking to all the industry peers.

Or I'll get out there and maybe even clients are asking me to come to some of their conferences to talk about the state of the union of what's going on in the industry and how we can help. So whatever the strategy is for our listeners out there, and you can dream it, you can think of it, you're.

Really the sky's the limit in terms of what you can think of. Let's just take the position that you will at one point be speaking in a group of people for any number [00:07:00] of reasons, because best practices are our best practices. And Grant, the one thing I'll throw out there as well, just some food for thought when it comes for a business and evaluating a business and time to sell a business.

I've had evaluators on the show and they've shared things that they don't generally share in public. One of the things that they've shared, When it comes to the value of a business, 80% of that value comes from the narrative. And when you think about, well, what is a narrative? Well, a narrative, yes, it's a story.

And yes, you have to the facts and the data to back up that story. But the narrative is also how you deliver. It's a speaker. How do you deliver that narrative? 

Am I boring you to tears? Am I bringing you to tears from an emotional side in a good way and everything else in between? So if we wanna be effective, grow the business, get new business, get the highest enterprise value, our ability to speak in a professional way is absolutely everything.

So from that foundation and a lot of words in there, and I'm gonna stop talking and have you as the expert now start talking. [00:08:00] Let's start. And you and I were both glasses always half full, but let's take the opposite of that. So for the benefit of our listeners, where are we getting it wrong when it comes to public speaking?

What aren't we doing that we should be doing? Or what are we doing that we shouldn't be doing?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. Well first of all again, kinda going back to one of the things we touched on where there's some people that wanna speak, a hundred times a year, some people that wanna speak five. One, you gotta be really clear for you about what you want to accomplish with speaking and how speaking fits in.

So a mistake that some speakers will make is just going like, I just love speaking speaking's fun, and I just kind of go into it with no necessarily forethought or strategy about why you're doing it or what it is that you're hoping to get out of it. So whether you're trying to gain new clients or you're trying to network or you're trying to sell books or services or coaching or consulting or you're just trying to build your brand or your reputation in your space, or you're trying to, drive some type of enterprise value for a potential, sale or liquidation event at some point, like all those are gonna be different variables and factors that are gonna ultimately inform.

How, where, why you might wanna be speaking in the first place. So again, [00:09:00] being really, really clear about how speaking fits into the mix. Another thing I would say would be a mistake that we see with SP speakers sometimes is where someone who's already been successful and they've done well.

I know people listening to this there's no slouches here. You've already done well. sometimes a mistake is that thinking that I've been successful in this type of field, and therefore it's gonna automatically translate into speaking. And so you can absolutely be successful at speaking, but it's no different than anything else where you gotta practice it.

You gotta put in the reps, you gotta put in the work on it. And so a good example is if you go back in time when Michael Jordan was with the Bulls and he's playing basketball and he's on the top of his game and he's an amazing basketball player, then he is like, you know what? I wanna try baseball. I bet I would be pretty good at ba, I'm amazing at this sport.

I'd probably be amazing at that sport. And he really struggled. He struggled through the minor leagues, never made it to the big leagues. And just because you're great at one thing doesn't mean it automatically translates to everything else. And so the things that you put in the people that are successful with as speakers are the people that put in the work, they put in the effort.

And so you cannot expect to put in amateur effort and expect professional results. It just doesn't work like [00:10:00] that. So recognizing again, why you're speaking what you wanna accomplish and gain with speaking, and then making sure that you're putting in the work accordingly to get to that result.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So some terrific advice. Right off the bat, what I'm hearing you say is what's your objective? What's your goal? And I suspect what's the why behind that? So you wanna become a world-class speaker? Okay, great. Why? What's gonna be the difference for you? Why do you wanna do that? I. And so for whatever number of reasons that could be, we've now established that, why don't we focus on the technique?

Because I suspect what you're gonna share with us is technique really plays a big role into how we come across, how people perceive us, what they take away. Do they like what we're saying? Are they falling asleep in the first three seconds or 

are they riveted to their seats all the way through? So what would you want us to know?

Grant Baldwin: I think one of the, best things that any speaker can do is really spend a lot of time practicing and preparing behind the scenes. You know, I think a big misconception is that, the best speakers on the planet, they just scribble some thoughts on napkin and hop up there and just wing it and shoot from the hip and make it up as they go, and it all just magically works out.

Like, it just [00:11:00] doesn't work like that. Like the best speakers, the best comedians, the best singers, the best artist, performers, athletes, they spend a ridiculous amount of time. Behind the scenes practicing and preparing. So by the time they get up on stage or wherever it may be, it looks like they're just winging it, but they've spent the effort behind the scenes to make it look like that.

So, that's one thing that again, any speaker can do is really spend the time to practice and prepare. Versus like, ah, I just like to just kinda make it up on the fly. I'm not a fan of that. I don't recommend that. I think it's just kind of a lazy cop out way. And the audience deserves better than that.

Another thing that I think anybody can do, you've kind of alluded to here, Jeffrey, is to include a lot of stories. Stories are one of the things that people resonate with. That's humans. We are drawn to stories. We connect with stories. So if I said right now, hey, let me tell you a quick story. Like as humans we're immediately drawn to something like that.

I don't know if this story's gonna be funny or sad or motivational or inspirational or depressing. I have no idea, but it's a story. So I'm in, sign me up. Where are we going? People love stories. I especially like using first person stories. So you can tell stories about, lemme tell you about this [00:12:00] story from the 18 hundreds, right?

Lemme tell you about this case study with Netflix. You can. Tell those type of things, but it's something different to say, Hey, here's a first person to experience, right? So when I speak, for example I've used stories about a time I went skydiving. Tell a story about a my first car tell a story about going on a trip with my family to Disney World one time.

Some funny interactions that my my daughters had with myself. Tell a story about a yearbook I had in high school, like just some of these, like just random. Funny stories that, again, people can relate to. Everybody had a first car. People have been to Disney, people have gone sky to, I mean, they know what that's like.

And so connecting the dots there. So, using a lot of stories and making sure that you spend, again, a lot of time practicing and preparing are two things that any speaker can do.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Grant, I know you're sharing from the trenches, you've literally flown around the world given too many speeches to count and keynote and everything along with that. So when we're thinking about personal stories, I guess two questions, but we'll start with one question at a time. So, okay. People resonate more with personal stories.

I think I know why that is, but I'd love to hear from you the expert. Why is it that a [00:13:00] personal story over a general story really resonates with the audience more so than, oh, let me tell you about so and so, as opposed, Hey, let me tell you about myself and the time that this happened. What's going on there from a psychological or social programming side of things?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, I think a couple things. One is that as a speaker, you are a human talking to a collection of other humans, and so act like a human, one mistake. That speakers make sometimes is whenever they're preparing a talk or working on a talk that they have like a script that they're trying to memorize.

And maybe you've seen a speaker before that it's very robotic. It's very formulaic and you can tell that they are so deep in their own head trying to think about what their next line is, that they're not present with the audience. And so again, as a human talking to a collection of other humans, like people, as an audience member, you want to relate to that person up on stage.

And even kind of going back to what we touched on earlier where. Speakers have this level of recognition and prestige that we have in culture and in society. I mean, from, in an event a speaker's literally on a platform above the rest of the people and the rest of the audience.

And so part of what you're trying to do as a speaker, trying to [00:14:00] remove some of those barriers and just trying to relate with and connect with that audience and just show like, hey, Even though I may be up here, like, here's just a normal human experience type of story that I've had. The other thing from an audience perspective is audiences oftentimes try to find themselves in those type of stories.

And so, if you're telling a story about, Hey, here's my first car and here's something that happened to me some crazy thing, you want the audience to be like, oh, no way. That happened to me too. And so there's a lot of times where after I speak, I may have audience members who will come up and be like, oh, lemme tell you about my first car.

you mentioned this. And like, I had that same type of thing and Oh, this happened at Disney in no way. That happened to me too. Like people again are looking for those connections, those human connection points. And so even like right before you and I started recording, we're making small talk.

Where do you live? What do you do? And. We're looking for those human connection points with other people. And so as a speaker, you're trying to provide some of those human connection points that the audience can latch onto. at the end of the day, like people do business with people they know, like, and trust.

And so if I'm watching you on stage and I feel like [00:15:00] I can trust this person, I like this person, then I'm gonna be a lot more tuned in to what you have to say versus just like, ah, this person's at a totally different place, they're unrelatable. And it's hard for me to connect with them.

Then they're gonna be a lot more tuned out.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And I'm wondering because you touched upon it and it's a terrific point and perhaps it's just the human condition, grand. It 

seems as though, to your last point, whether it's in business or in life, whatever the case may be, if we come across as perfect. People not only can't relate to us, some of them may hold it against us.

you know what? It's too perfect. I'm not gonna trust them as opposed to doing something that, can, some people say is hard. I'm gonna be vulnerable, I'm gonna 

be open. And we're showing, Hey, you know what? I'm not perfect. I really messed up in this one situation, but somehow we become more likable, more relatable 

because of that. So what's going on with that? In your experience, what should we know about that?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, I fully embrace that in terms of just being vulnerable. Now that doesn't mean like one mistake that speakers will make sometimes is they think that what they should be doing is performing therapy on stage. And lemme just pour out my, woes and everything and my trials and tribulations that have happened.

A line like [00:16:00] the audience isn't there for that. touched on it earlier, that. Audience wants to know what's in it for me? What does this have to do with me? They don't care about your story. They don't care about the obstacle that you've overcome. They don't care about the triumph that you've had.

They wanna know, how does this help me? So that's absolutely going to be a factor that, that you have to be aware of as a speaker. But that doesn't mean that you need to have some type of shield up or, guard up. So one thing I was. Help, just people just in general is, like, as entrepreneurs, you and I are both entrepreneurs, like every entrepreneur that, that you look up to, you admire, you, respect.

Like every single one of us, we are all doing our best. We are making it up as we go. We're figuring it out. And I think that's just refreshing. I'll give you a quick example. I remember Just last week or so, I was hanging out with a friend of mine who just started doing some consulting with two different people that are kinda big names in, in our little spaces, in our little bubble.

And people that you're like, ah, those two they've got their act together. And he said, Hey I got into it. And they are a mess. They got all kinds of stuff going on there. it's just, you know, in some ways we're kind of joking about, like, it's refreshing to hear like, no, no they don't have it together.

They're doing their best, [00:17:00] making it up as they go, just like everybody else. So, think that's helpful. It's encouraging to be reminded of that, again, every speaker, podcasts are entrepreneur, everybody. They're doing their best. Some days they got it, some days they don't, but they keep showing up.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so as you're going through that grant and you're making the case, and it's a terrific one, make it personable, make it relatable. 

And so as a listener, I'm listening to us talking, saying, okay, I get it. You've sold me on that. Absolutely. As we begin to think about stories, whether it's in the prof, Professional context or the business context, what are some of the elements of the stories that I should be thinking about, of what to incorporate?

So I'm not gonna just tell any story, a story, I'm making this up Grant and you can fill in the blanks with your expertise. A story ideally should meet A, B, C, and D in, in terms of criteria of what you should be thinking about. What would that look like? So when you're. Giving a keynote and you're gonna be up in front of who knows how many people and you're gonna share a new story.

What, in your mind, what are the check boxes that you're checking off? Okay. Yeah. This story meets that criteria. Yeah. Thumbs up. Let's use that in the upcoming keynote.

Grant Baldwin: [00:18:00] Yeah, a couple things. So one is that I would recommend. And for anybody, if you're doing any type of speaking, is to get in the habit of capturing stories. Because it's very difficult when you're staring at a blank screen and a blank flashing cursor going, like, what should I tell a story about?

I'm supposed to tell stories and I don't know what to do. So get in the habit of capturing stories. So I mentioned for example, like this Disney story with my kid. So this happened several years ago, and as soon as it happened, we got to the car in the parking lot at Disney, and I immediately pulled out my phone and I just typed out a.

A couple thoughts about that, so sometimes we'll be in the car and something will happen. I'll write it down, or if someone will say something, I'll make a note of it and you're just capturing it and maybe something comes of it, maybe nothing comes of it. But capturing those stories.

So then when you're at a point going like, I know I need some type of story and here's kinda the point I'm trying to make out of it. Then you can kind of look through that list of stories and kind of figure out are there some there that you can work with. The other thing is to be really clear, like what is the point of this story?

As an audience member, you don't wanna be hearing some type of story and being like, that was, you know, that was nice or it was funny, or was inspiring or sad or was whatever. But like I. What was the point of that? Like, why did you tell that? So the audience is always asking themselves [00:19:00] two questions. So what, and now what?

So what? And now what? So what why does that matter? Why did you tell that? What does that have to do with me? And then now what am I supposed to do as a result of that? So when you are thinking through a story and how it fits in, then always be thinking through that frame. If so, what?

And now Why does this matter? And what am I supposed to do as a result of it? The other thing is whenever you are creating a story, whenever you're creating a talk, You are making an educated guess. I think this is funny. I think this will make sense. I think this will resonate. I think this will work, but you ultimately don't know until you get up in front of an audience.

Now, the longer you speak and the more experience you have, the better you start to get a good idea of, I think I'm pretty confident this is gonna work on how this is gonna work. make sure that you have enough details in there to move the story along, but not too much where it's not going to be relevant.

If you've heard someone tell a story and they're like, okay, the other day we went to this restaurant, it's over on such and such street, and this was on Thursday, was it Thursday? Maybe it was Friday. Anyway we were there and you're just like, all these details that are just like they don't move the story forward.

They don't make any difference. I heard a [00:20:00] friend say one time, when you watch sitcoms, have you noticed like nobody ever goes to the bathroom? Nobody ever goes to the bathroom in a sitcom. They go to the bathroom in life, but going to the bathroom doesn't move the story forward, so they don't include it.

So making sure that whatever you're including ends up moving the story forward. So yeah, those would be a few tips. And just in terms of when you're telling stories, how to make sure that you're incorporating them and using them well.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So if I'm hearing you, it's the two questions the story should answer. Okay, so what? And then now what? And then the details around the so what now? What? Keep on moving forward. Keep the momentum going, keep out the unnecessary kinds of details. I guess that's where we could lose the audience or we bore them or why are you sharing t m I?

Why are you sharing this? I don't really care. 

Why Stop. Let me know what I need to know. Is that more or less where we're going now with the story?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, totally. And also I think it's important to note that every speaker's gonna kind of just have their own style of how they communicate. So for example, I personally use a lot of humor. Whenever I speak, whenever I tell stories, I like to think to myself as using a lot of humor and just kind of a funny guy in life.[00:21:00]

And so it translates well on stage. Now, if you're someone who's like, oh, do I have to be funny and I don't know that I'm funny, I'm pretty serious and boring. Like, that's fine. Don't feel like you have to do something that you're not. So if anything like speaking should be an extension of who you already are in real life.

So you don't want someone to meet you off stage and be like whoa. You are totally different. Like there's this massive disconnect. Between who I just saw on stage and talking to you now, like you want it to feel like no, like , this is the same person. They are who I thought they would be and who I hoped that they would be.

So, making sure that whenever you are telling stories that you are incorporating just your own personality into those stories.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So really it sounds like. Play to your strengths. Don't be somebody that you're not. If you're not a funny person, don't try and be a funny person. Show up as you are. Be authentic so that on stage, off stage, there really isn't a difference. It's you playing you. And Grant, as I'm listening to you Taka, I know some listeners are saying, Okay, I hear you.

And maybe it's a myth. Maybe it's faction or fiction or fact or whatever the case you'll tell us. So myth or fact, grant, [00:22:00] are speakers born or if someone who says to him or herself wasn't born a speaker, I'll never be a speaker, just not gonna happen. What would you say to that?

Grant Baldwin: I mean, there's certainly gonna be people, my wife would be an example of. She said, Hey, you go do your dog and pony show up there. There's zero chance I'm ever getting up on stage. Age, don't you dare call on me. Like the idea of speaking is something she absolutely hates, okay? And there's nothing wrong with that.

So you, there's no need to try to fit a square peg into a round hole. Now again, having said that, for people who are going like, Hey I've never spoken or have spoken a few times and I wanna get better and it's something I enjoy, like absolutely, like you can spend a lot of time and energy. Working on your craft as a speaker.

So if you look at let's again, shift gears to athletics. You look at someone like a LeBron James, and LeBron is a, very large athletic human being, but he also has spent a lot of time working on his craft. There's a lot of large, tall, athletic people who suck at basketball. And so just because you have some type of skillset or you're charismatic or whatever it may be, doesn't necessarily mean like, oh, that person should absolutely be a speaker.

Which again, kind of ties back on one thing we touched on earlier that. Just [00:23:00] being your own personality. I think it's a, a misconception that in order to be a speaker you have to be this big extrovert. You have to be this life of the party. You have to be the super charismatic, larger than life personality, this Tony Robbins type character.

And like that's not the case at all. There's in fact a lot of speakers who are actually I know who are, myself included, who are actually fairly introverted and they like people, but they're also totally fine being in a room by themself, and that doesn't bother them a bit. So again, it's important to be who you are and not feel like, well, if in order to be successful, I gotta be a speaker.

No, absolutely. If that's not your jam and that's not your cup of tea, like there's nothing wrong with that at all. But if you're someone who says, I enjoy speaking. I've done some speaking, I wanna do more of it. You have to treat it like as a craft and a skill like anything else, if you wanna get better as a writer, you write if you wanna get better as a singer, you sing.

If you wanna get better playing an instrument, you play the instrument. If you wanna get better as a speaker, you speak. And so, it's no different than anything else but you really have to take the time to commit to the craft.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And in committing to the craft, you've been very generous and you've shared some strategies. Okay. Stories. Make sure that you include stories, [00:24:00] and you talked about what kind of stories and what that should look like. What about the delivery side of things in terms of tonality? Am I speaking really slow like this, or am I speaking really too fast like this, that people can't follow and everything in between?

And I suspect, grant, you could say, well, it really depends on the person and the personality and what they're really like. That said though, generally speaking, are there some best practices on the delivery, the tonality, the speed that works really well, things that we should be doing and really ignoring everything else.

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, so for example, I, as people may have picked up at this point I, talk fast. And so I recognize that can. Be a good thing cuz it forces people to lock in and pay attention. But I also recognize if I'm gonna say something deeper and meaningful, then I probably need to slow down. Maybe pause a second or two and give people a minute to process it.

Because if I go too fast and people are still thinking about the thing you said 30 seconds ago, then they're not hearing anything, you're saying no, and they're lost. So it's important to recognize that if you're also, if you're gonna talk fast, it's really important that you enunciate, [00:25:00] that you be super, super clear.

Because if you're talking fast and people are like, I can't keep up. I don't know what they're saying. Their mouth is moving quicker than my brain is processing, that's not a good thing. So it's okay to talk fast, but just make sure that you are speaking at a speed and with an annunciation that people can actually hear.

Another thing when it comes to delivery I could ask about this sometimes, is people who have, let's say an accent people in the south or a Boston accent or from overseas or something, and they're going, ah I'm self-conscious about my accent and should I downplay that? No.

Absolutely. If anything, play that up. I have a buddy who lives in middle of nowhere, Kentucky, and he is just a good old boy, and he was worried about this. No. People love that. That's amazing. Like lean into that. That is who you are. If you didn't talk in an accent on stage and then you got off stage and you were talking with people, there'd be a disconnect.

Wait, Wait, that's not the same dude. Or, Or someone who has, let's say, a British accent. Like, Hey, having a British accent makes you sound 10% smarter than you actually are. So lean into that. Use those things. So be aware of speed, be aware of [00:26:00] pauses, be aware of volume of your voice, where maybe you're getting louder at some points to make a point, and then you're also getting slower or getting softer.

Another good exercise for anybody is when you are speaking, is record it on video and to watch it. Back because there's going to be things that you say, or catchphrases or go-to lines or kind of these safety words that you go to that maybe you don't even realize. I didn't even realize I was doing this with my hands, and then I washed it back.

I'm like, whoa, why didn't someone tell me that? So watching those things back and recording yourself also helps you to see some stuff with delivery that maybe you were just completely unaware of.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Some great advice there and I suppose, granton, you'll tell me again if I'm on base, off base with this at either extreme. If you talk too slow, if you talk too fast, if you talk too quietly, you talk too loud all the time, that's an issue.

Grant Baldwin: Totally. Yeah. One of the thought here is to make sure that your delivery matches the size of the room. Okay? And what I mean by that is how you would speak to a room of a thousand [00:27:00] people is very different than how you would speak to a room of 10 people if you're delivering the exact same content and material to 10 people, but you pretend like there's a thousand people in there.

You just seem like a whack job. But if the opposite is also true, if there are a thousand people in there and you're. Delivering as if there's 10. Like nobody's can track you. Like it's hard to understand you or follow you because there's just so little of you there. So good exercise or experiment is if you're speaking at something bigger, for example sometimes during like a sound check, I like to just sit in a couple seats around the room just to kind of get a sense of when you're sitting at the last row looking out there and you're like, wow, that.

Stage is really small, that is much smaller than I anticipated, and that person up there seems really small. That just means everything you do has to be bigger and so that the person on the back is tracking with you. If you're in a bigger room and there are video cameras and it's being broadcast to screens if you watch people, it's very fascinating that you can have people in the front.

Front row who are right there in front of you, and they will still watch you on a screen. And so [00:28:00] realize that probably 90 plus percent of the audience is not looking at you. They're looking at you on a screen. And so spend time when, especially when you're making a key point, you're delivering something key that you look in the camera, because that's where people are actually looking.

They're not looking at you, they're looking at the screen. So talk to the camera in those situations.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Ask some terrific examples. And so I'm wondering, when you're in a, a bigger crowd, you gave the example of a thousand people, it could be 500 people, 200 people or 10 people. What would be some other differences? So how do we know in size of audience what we're doing, what we're queuing into, what we're not doing for a bigger or smaller group?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah. One thing that you wanna do as a speaker is you want the room to be as small as possible. Okay? And what I mean by that is I'll give you an example. A few years ago I was speaking at an event in New Jersey and it was a, I did a keynote in a room for about 2000 people in a room that set about 2000 people.

Okay? So it was packed. It was great. I. And then right afterwards they had me do a workshop for about 50 people in the same room that seats 2000 people. And so that felt [00:29:00] awful. It was a mess. And what you wanna do in that situation is you don't wanna say, Hey, we got 2000 seats. Everybody's spread out.

No, no, No. You want it to be as small as possible. So you bring everybody to the front row, first two rows. I think even in that situation, we just had everybody make like a semi-circle or two. Cuz you want to shrink the room down. You want it to feel crowded. Think about if you go to a concert.

Okay, so at the time of this recording, we're in mid-May or so. And a week and a half ago or so, my family and I went to the Taylor Swift concert. I've never been to a Taylor Swift concert, but I was like, I'll tag along. My girls are all into it. My wife's into it, sign me up and I'll tell you what, man, it was a awesome concert.

Three and a half hours, shoot, 45 songs. But what was great was it was in Nissan Stadium, here in Nashville where the, Tennessee Titans play. You got 70,000 people there. It was. Packed and this, the energy of that environment was insane. Whereas if you had half the crowd, it's a completely different feel.

You do the exact same show with half the crowd, and it's just night and day difference. And so you want a room that feels too small and so, anything [00:30:00] that you can do as the speaker to make sure that you shrink that room down can be very, very effective. Again, moving chairs around or. Let's say you're in a I remember recently speaking at something where they just I was getting ready to speak and they had, there's a lot of weather in the area and so they thought the crowd was gonna be a little bit, a little bit lower.

And I said, Hey, can you do me a favor and just make sure as people are coming in, like, let's rope off these last X number of rows. Don't let people sit there until we need them. You want to fill up the front row as best as possible because energy is contagious and so the more spread out people are, the more things start to die out.

But the more people are together, the more energy it creates.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Amazing, such subtle things, but they make a huge 

difference in terms of your delivery, how people are receiving that. And so now that you've talked about some foundational strategies, Grant, I'm wondering where, okay, I want to improve my craft, as you say. And Grant is the expert here. So yeah, I'm gonna now work with Grant.

So what does that look like, Grant, in terms of. What's going on? How long does it take, and what should I expect?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, [00:31:00] we've got a couple different programs depending on what people are looking for, where they need help. The core of what we help people do is understand how to get booked and paid to speak. And again, whether you wanna speak a hundred times a year or five times a year we can work with you on that.

A lot of people would say, Hey, I'm interested in speaking. I like speaking, I wanna do more speaking, but I don't really know, what exactly I would speak about or who I'd speak to. Oftentimes the mistake is we try to spread the net as far and wide as possible, and. Who do I speak to? I don't know, man.

I speak to people, I speak to humans. My message is for everybody. And what do I speak about? I don't know. What do you want me to speak about? I can speak about anything like that doesn't work. And so we wanna help you narrow that down, get really clear and focused on who you speak to, what problem you solve.

Be clear on your marketing assets, how you can best serve and support people through speaking, and how speaking ultimately fits into your business. So, yeah, we've got a variety of different programs, depending on what people are looking for, how much help or handholding they may need.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so whether it is signing ourselves up to have people welcome us as speakers or delivering the speech of a lifetime, I'll, throw this year away. For every episode. We want something actionable that the listener before going back to a meeting, [00:32:00] a phone call, an email, whatever it is. They can do one action item.

So what would be some low hanging fruit Grants for someone who's saying, you know what? Okay. you know, Speaking's not necessarily my strongest point, but I wanna improve my craft. I want to become a better speaker. And perhaps over time I can be at industry events or start speaking or become known as the subject matter expert to gain a following and to get some respect to further whatever my goal is.

What would be a low hanging action that someone can do right now today to start that?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, so we've talked a lot about stories. let's take that and kind of pull on that thread for a second. So, one thing would be to find a story. Look for something that happened today. It could be something. Totally mundane, but just grab that, write it down, capture that story, and then look for some type of angle to that and look for ways that you can share that.

And you may be saying like, well, I don't have some, big keynote or presentation coming up. No, you don't. But you're probably gonna have a conversation with your spouse. You're probably gonna be talking with someone at work. You're probably gonna be giving some presentation in the next week or two at work in a meeting or something, some opportunity where you can just kind of incorporate and share [00:33:00] that story.

I've shared a lot of different stories and examples of things today. And some of the things are things I've shared for the first time, and some of it's stuff I've shared a hundred times. But just share some of those things and look for the feedback and response that you get that you can kind of, uh, lean into or ways that you can just get in the habit of identifying stories and then sharing those stories.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Great suggestion and one quick follow up question in regards to, sorry, since that's been such a focal point of a conversation. You know now with social media, we have the ability to put messages out there and it's no longer such a large world. It's really a small world through technology. It just shrinks it.

You'll talk about a smaller room of the world is really a smaller room. Because we have access to pretty much everything. So, as a speaker, you're out there. Do you ever worry that someone's gonna hear the same story from me again? And they just heard that, maybe different context, but same story.

mean, how often do you change up stories or are you really honing in on a few stories? You just master that and you have a terrific delivery. How do you balance that out ground?

Grant Baldwin: I think it's important to do both, so you [00:34:00] can have. Some key stories that you tell and that you've told hundreds and hundreds of times, and you just know those stories are really effective and they work. But you also don't want those stories to become stale or irrelevant. And there's gonna be some stories that are kind of classic, timeless thing that telling a story about your first car doesn't really have any expiration date on it.

But if you are, so for example, I used to tell A bit about American Idol and specifically around the original judges of Randy, Paula, and Simon. And some people listen and going like, yeah, I know exactly who you're talking about. And other people may be like, I know what American Idol is. I don't know, have any idea who you're talking about.

So there's gonna be some stories that just become, they have a shelf life, they become irrelevant over time. And so you've gotta attention, but also like any type of muscle you're trying to develop and stay strong and sharp is continuing to work that muscle and look for new stories and try new things and try new material.

Any opportunity that you, get. I a speaker friend of mine, he calls it the new two. The new two, meaning every speech he gives, he's a full-time speaker. He does a dozens and dozens of keynotes a year. So a lot of it's the same material that he's really polished and shined over time, but every single talk he's [00:35:00] committed to doing two brand new minutes.

And those two minutes are just, I'm gonna try something. It may become something, it may become nothing. It may never, ever see the light of day again. It may become a 10 minute story, but I'm just gonna try something. And so get in that habit of exercising that muscle.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Great advice. Well, Grant, let's do this because we can go on and on about strategies and stories and how to publish it and get this and get that. But all of that said we need to start wrapping up. And speaking of a story, I have a story for you in the form of a question, and it is a fun one. So let me set this up.

When you think about the movie Back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car, and the DeLorean car is, you know, it can take you to any point in time. So Grant, the fun part is this, you look outside your windows Tomorrow morning. Not only is a DeLorean car there, but the door is open. It is waiting for you to hop on in.

So you hop in and grant, you can now go to any point in your life. Grant as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time that would be, what would you tell your younger self in terms of life lessons or life wisdom or, Hey Grant, do this, but don't do that. What would [00:36:00] that sound like?

Grant Baldwin: I gave you a two answer. All right. Two things that come to mind. One is I would go back to probably when I was early twenties. And so my wife and I, we were high school sweethearts. We started dating when I was 15. She was 17. We got married when I was 20. And we were just kids just trying to figure it out.

Right. And you're just broken in love and just trying to figure it out. And I think like, especially early twenties you're just trying to wonder like, man, what's life gonna be like? How's it all going to work out? How's it all gonna play out? And so one thing I would say would just, would be to say, Hey man, chill out.

It's gonna be okay. It's all gonna work out. it's gonna be fine. And so fast forward, my wife and I, we've been married 21 years, and we have three beautiful daughters. An amazing family, an amazing life. I wouldn't trade places with anyone. So to that point, the other second answer, I'd say, Is I might be tempted to get right back out of the DeLorean and not go anywhere.

Because I gotta be honest with you I love my life. I love where I'm at. I love how things have ended up. It doesn't mean that things are perfect by any stretch of the imagination. There are days that are amazing and days that absolutely suck and are miserable, but I know that every mistake. Every good decision, bad decision, everything in between that I've made previously has led to [00:37:00] this moment.

And in this moment I'm really grateful and happy for where I'm at. So, there's nothing that I would change or do differently that has brought me to today.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Great suggestions, insight, strategies, really on both counts and Grants. You're in terrific company. If there's one theme, one common theme that I've seen and answer that question, it's exactly what you said on the second point. You know, Jeffrey, I've had some low times, I've had some high times, and yeah, the low times are really tough.

I don't know if I wanna change anything because I love my life. I love where I am, and if I change one small thing, maybe I wouldn't be the person I am today. Maybe I wouldn't be with whoever I am today. So I, hear you loud and clear on that. And granted, as we wrap things up here, we'll have everything in the show notes so our listeners, they can go, they can be a point and click.

It's really easy. But that said, a listener, they wanna reach out, they have some questions, they wanna start working with you. Where's the best place online that they can find you?

Grant Baldwin: Yeah, everything we do is over@thespeakerlab.com. The speaker lab.com. We got a podcast by the same name, the Speaker Lab podcast. Got over 450 some episodes there of content. So, definitely check that out. We got a, a book called The Successful Speaker, five Steps for Booking Gigs, [00:38:00] getting Paid, building Your Platform.

So, yeah, a lot of free resources, tools, anything we can do to help you, support you on your speaking journey, wherever you're at on that journey we're happy to help.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. And for listeners, it won't be any easier. Go to the show notes. It's a point and click. It's all there for you. Well, Grant, it's a wrap. Thank you so much. I really loved your insights, your wisdom, your strategies, and as wrapped things up here at Deep Wealth, we always love to say may you continue to thrive and prosper while you stay healthy and safe.

Thank you so much.

Grant Baldwin: Thanks, Jeffrey. 

Sharon S.: The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me. 

Lyn M.: This course is one of the best investments you will ever make because you will get an ROI of a hundred times that. Anybody who doesn't go through it will lose millions. 

Kam H.: If you don't have time for this program, you'll never have time for a successful liquidity 

Sharon S.: It was the best value of any business course I've ever taken. The money was very well spent.

Lyn M.: Compared to when we first began, today I feel better prepared, but in some respects, may be less prepared, not because of the course, but because the [00:39:00] course brought to light so many things that I thought we were on top of that we need to fix. 

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Sharon S.: There was so much value in the experience that the time I invested paid back so much for the energy that was expended. 

Lyn M.: The Deep Wealth Experience compared to other programs is the top. What we learned is very practical. Sometimes you learn stuff that it's great to learn, but you never use it. The stuff we learned from Deep Wealth Experience, I believe it's going to benefit us a boatload.

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Sharon S.: Hands down the best program in which I've ever participated. And we've done a lot of different things over the years. We've been in other mastermind groups, gone to many seminars, workshops, conferences, retreats, read books. This was so different. I haven't had an experience that's anything close to this in all the years that we've been at this.

It's five-star, A-plus.

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Deep Wealth is an accurate name for it. This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth, not just deeper wealth. I don't think there's a dollar value that could be associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table? 

Please visit [00:41:00] www.deepwealth.com/success to learn more.

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