Professional Speaking: Known. Booked. Paid.

Over 70 years ago Dale Carnegie released the self-help classic called How to Win Friends & Influence People. Since then, it has gone on to be read and applied by many people, some of whom accredit their success to this book. I have been planning for a while to bring a series of book reviews back into my regular content. At first, I was planning a new show, then maybe just on YouTube and now I...

What's one of the best, cost-effective, time-effective ways to build a following these days? Podcasting. My guest Alex Sanfilippo is a podcaster with an entrepreneurial eye for opportunity. He's the founder of PodPros.com and PodMatch.com , both sites I enjoy using as a member and he is also a super nice guy. We chat about the opportunities in podcasting and what we see happening as it hits a huge...

People do business with those they know, like, and trust. Yet likeability is one of the most underrated influence skills in professional speaking -- consistently overlooked in favour of flashier tactics that rarely work as well. Jackie Goddard has spent her career bridging the worlds of theatre, communication, and presentation training. With a background in the dramatic arts and a passion for help...

He got to the part of his pitch where he asked for the investment -- and they laughed. When he spoke to his team afterwards, one of them said: did you go in dressed like that? How we look affects how others see us before we say a single word. For professional speakers, that first impression is part of the performance -- and most people are leaving significant credibility on the table without reali...

If you don't know how to effectively talk about what you do and who you help then how can you expect others to be able to talk about you? Brand Face is all about helping you build authority and influence through your brand and connect with and persuade your ideal clients and customers through having your professional brand dialled in. I'm happy to say they have become sponsors of Speaking Influenc...

How do you deal with genuinely difficult people without becoming one yourself? Jeremy Sherman has spent years studying the psychology of what he calls psychoproctology -- the science of understanding the asshole mindset. Drawing on multiple disciplines across the human sciences and years of study at some of the US's leading academic institutions, Jeremy has developed a rigorous framework for under...

Body size and body image are important to influence and persuasion, whether we like to admit it or not. As someone who has always struggled with my weight, I thought it would be fascinating to have a chat with someone who is using influence techniques to help her clients lose weight and keep it off. In this episode we will look at weight loss coaching from the inside and the outside. Renee Jones h...

Getting paid to speak may be more achievable than you think -- but most speakers are going about it the wrong way. Grant Baldwin is the founder of The Speaker Lab and author of The Successful Speaker, one of the most practical and honest books on building a paid speaking career available. He has helped thousands of speakers find their niche, land their first paid gigs, and build sustainable speaki...

The curse of having a common name is that you can be mistaken for someone else but on the plus side it can be easy to remember. This is something I have in common with my guest Steve Smith. Our names may not be so distinctive but the knowledge and conversation really was. Steve is a business coach, keynote speaker and podcast host, so we had a few more things in common. In this episode: Why the ri...

Mentioned in this episode: Speaker Fee Audit Find out in less than a minute if you're undercharging for your speaking and where you need to look to fix any leaks with the Speaker Fee Audit. It's free to take and find out if you're missing out on money.

Your bio is often the first thing a podcast host, event organiser, or speaking bureau sees before deciding whether to book you. Get it wrong and you never hear back. Get it right and doors open consistently. Nancy Juetten is a speaker, Amazon number one bestselling author, and podcast guesting specialist who has spent years helping speakers, experts, and authors craft the bios and positioning that...

What's the most important to your customers and clients? My guest Greg Kihlstrom is an expert on applying agile principles to things like customer experience and we have a great chat about why we should all consider customer experience and also a good chat about which professional assets make the biggest difference to your industry status and clout? In this episode: Bootstrapping a business How in...

She walked up to him on the street and said, "Hey you! You were that trainer at the event I went to last year. Because of you I left my job and left my husband!" He gulped audibly and said sheepishlly, "Yeah, probably." "Becuase of you I am now doing the work I love and with my soulmate. Thank you, thank you, thank you." There is a lot of power and empowering influence to delivering events and per...

How can someone go from making people's eyes glaze over when they start a presentation to having the wrapt attention of an audience and a rush for referrals with just a few hours of work? It's all about finding the silver bullet. My guest Neil Gordon helps speakers and authors become the face of their movement. With years of experience in publishing and a flare for performing arts, he realised tha...

What's the worst thing that has ever happened to you in your professional life? Would you change it? If you did, would you be the person you are now? In this episode, we take a look at conflict in our own lives and conflict situations as a means for growth and also as an opportunity to persuade. My guest is a former weather presenter and has been the host of some home renovation shows in Canada. H...

Today's professional needs to be able to communicate effectively, whether it's in the boardroom, on Zoom or from the platform. My guest is a professor of communication, the founder and lead trainer of Professional Presentation Strategies and the author of the brand new book 'The Effective Presenter'. His name is Ryan Warriner and I'm delighted to bring you our fascinating conversation. In this epi...

Q. What has always been the best form of promotion and probably always will be? A. Word of mouth marketing, ie. getting people talking about you, your product or your service. Happy new year to you! Would you like some good PR? Let's get 2022 off to a flying start with one of the best ways to help you build influence and become known, without having to compete for keywords. Welcome to the world of...

How do you go from public speaking to professional speaking? What does the life of a professional speaker look like? How important is it to have a book or two published? As an author of multiple non-fiction books, an experienced speaker and a former president of the Professional Speaking Association in the UK, Lee Jackson knows a few things about what it takes to become a paid public speaker and h...

Is there a way of holding yourself that displays influence? What are the covert signals of power? We know about Aristotle's rhetoric but was there a school of movement that went with it? Can you tell if someone is lying just from their body language? All this and more will be answered in this special Xmas edition of Speaking Influence, and believe me, there's a lot to unwrap in this episode. Mark...

Authenticity! We keep hearing it. Authenticity! What does it really mean? Authenticity! It's become so overused as to become almost meaningless. My guest today believed that what we're looking for is not really authenticity but more self-awareness and vulnerability that lets people in and lets them know who we are. He is an actor, professional speaker, speaker trainer and veteran podcast guest, Ty...

Imagine being on your commute to London, the usual crowded train, thinking about what the day ahead holds, wondering if you'll get a chance for a cuppa before you get to the office and then, you hear a crash, get thrown from your seat and wake up about 3 weeks later in hospital with 3rd-degree burns and your loved ones around you, not having known if you would make it. Finding out that 31 people o...

In the middle of delivering the report, he noticed that not only was she not really paying attention, but she was also playing Yahtzee on her phone. How did he know she was playing Yahtzee? The phone screen was reflected in her glasses.  There could not be a surer sign that the data was not connecting and was less interesting than a phone game of Yahtzee. Hear the full version of this story a...

There was only one thing I knew for sure when I first connected with Brandon Eastman about him being a guest on Speaking Influence, which was that we were going to have an interesting conversation. In fact, I would say this episode is probably THE most conversational episode I've ever published and I felt like I was getting interviewed as much as I was interviewing, which is perhaps a testament to...

This was their moment of truth. They needed to face the biggest challenge their company had ever faced and it was going to take powerful leadership to bring them through it. As they entered the room for the emergency meeting, the CEO took to the platform, over 30 expectant and stress filled faces stared up at him, hungry for a morsel of hope and inspiration that they could get through this and win...

What does making people laugh have to do with influence and persuasion? Quite a lot really. Comedy and humour can be very useful tools in your influence and persuasion toolkit when employed well and sadly, it's an area that is often overlooked in studies on influence and persuasion. It can be a powerful rapport tool. We tend to like people who can make us laugh and we are more likely to remember t...