The 85% of Your Speaking Business Nobody Talks About

Hey, what's going on? Dan Irvin here. I have a question for you. Do you want to get more paid bookings? Well, I assume that the easy answer to that for you is, of course, Dan, of course, I want to get booked and paid more often. And guess what? I want to help you do that. I'm a professional speaker. I'm also the CEO of the speaker lab, but I do about 40 or 50 paid gigs every single year. And I want to help you get more paid speaking gigs. And I made it super simple. All you have to do is go to the speaker lab.com/sba. I'm doing speaker business assessments. You don't need to type all that out. I'm going to make it super simple for you. Just the speaker lab.com/sba. And those calls are with me. Now, they're 15 minutes. So bring your energy, bring your excitement and get scheduled today, the speaker lab.com/sba. You do not need to be more talented. You do not need a better demo reel. You do not need thousands and thousands of followers. You need to know on any given day how many conversations you are in and what the next step is for each one. That's it. That is the 85%. I'm excited to be dialing back in with you. What I'm referring to is just like conversations. These coffee shop conversations. Imagine you and I sitting across the table for one another, drinking a cup of coffee, just having a conversation. So I just want to walk through some of the things in this series that I'm hearing inside of the speaker lab and to help you to encourage you to shift your perspective. So get something to take some notes on and just settle in here with me. I'll tell you this is meant to be unfiltered. It's meant to be we don't go in and edit this around. It's just me connecting, engaging directly with you on a topic that has come up recently. I wanted to share this with you just so that way you can be encouraged as you're walking through the process, whether you're a student of ours here at the speaker lab or not. What I'm seeing as a full-time professional speaker and the CEO here at the speaker lab. So get something to take some notes on and let's have some fun. Let's dive into this topic around this idea of what happens between gigs. Everybody wants to talk about the stage. Oftentimes people, that's the kind of what they lead off with. That's what they want to share. That's what we always hear about is what's going on on this stage, the standing ovation potentially, the packed room, the moment that you nail the clothes of your talk right. When that happens, oftentimes you can feel the whole place shift. I've had these moments myself. Again, stuff is incredible. Those feelings are memorable and I love them and I have built my life around it. I've built my business around having those outcomes for audiences and myself. But here's what nobody posts about the day after or the morning after the gig. You're back in your home office, the adrenaline is gone. The photos are up and the thank you messages have slowed down and you're staring at your calendar. It might be wondering where the next one is coming from. Pretty normal. By the way, like every speaker has had that Tuesday. Every speaker has had that day, that day after the gig. Here's the thing. The speakers with full calendars and the speakers who are stuck, they had the exact same Tuesday, the exact same day after the gig. They just did something different with it. Today, I want to talk about the part of the business that nobody romanticizes and nobody thinks about, but everybody needs. The stuff that happens between gigs. Let me describe a pattern. I want you to be honest with yourself and think about whether this is you. You land a gig, you ride the high, you might tell everyone about it, you're not even post about it, and then it goes quiet. A few weeks go by, maybe a month. One day, you look up and realize there's nothing on the calendar. You scramble. You might send a bunch of emails. You post something like booking for the fall or booking for whatever the next season is. And you might DM a few people. You get something on the calendar and then the cycle repeats. So let me say this clearly. This is how most speakers operate, by the way. And if you've ever experienced it, it's exhausting. If you have an experience, it just trust me on this. It's exhausting. And I talk to speakers all the time who are living in this loop. And they don't even see it as a loop. They just think that this is what the business is. Feast, then famine, then scramble, then feast. And listen to me, it is not the business. It's actually the absence of one. And I will say this, like a lot of speakers in that loop, they feel busy. They're posting, they're updating the website. They're working on their talk. They're at a networking event every other night. I actually wrote an entire book about this. It's called Stop Being Busy. Be More. Because Busy is one of the most convincing lies that we tell ourselves. Busy feels like progress. It is not progress. It is motion for sure. But it's not progress. And in this business, the question is never, are you busy? The question is, are you booked? Those are two very different things. And most speakers are working really hard on the wrong one. Here is why it happens. At least why I think it happens. Speakers treat booking, getting booked and booking as an event instead of a process. Outreach can happen in bursts. Like when you are scared, you do a lot of it. When you are busy, you do none of it. And the problem with that is that the work that you do today shows up on your calendar, three, six, nine months from now. So when you stop prospecting because you're busy, you're not feeling the cost of that today. You feel it next quarter when it's quiet. And you can't figure out why. Are you tracking with me? Is this connecting with you? Because listen to me, the famine is not caused by the famine. The famine is caused by what you did not do during the feast. I want to be honest with you on what this actually costs because it's not just stress. It is unpredictable income. You cannot plan. You cannot invest in your business because you do not know what next month is going to look like. It is taking gigs that you should not be taking. Like the wrong rooms, the wrong fees, the wrong audiences, because you need the money and something is just better than nothing is what we tell ourselves. And I'll say this, like every gig you take out of panic teaches the market something about you that you did not want it to learn. And the biggest cost is momentum. You don't end up ever building any. And every quiet stretch resets you back to zero. And you're always starting over. That is not a career. That is a treadmill. Let me give you a conversation. This is not one person. This is a version of a call I have every week. Every single week. So speaker gets on. They're excited. They got really great fun, good energy. They might tell me, "Hey Dan, I had a really great year. I did more gigs than I've ever done. I finally feel like this is actually working." And I say, "Oh my gosh, that's incredible. That's awesome. Congratulations." And then I'll ask them a question in a genuine authentic way. So talk to me like what does your pipeline look like for next quarter? Nothing. Not, uh, I got a few things working, then I'm working on, I got a few things in that that's cooking like a, not a, uh, a couple of proposals out, nothing. And here's the really hard thing I have to say to that person. That was a great year. That was not a business. That was luck. And hopefully by the way, I'm not, I'm not hoping I didn't upset anyone. I'm not trying to upset anyone. Uh, but if you just had a great year and you cannot tell me what's on the calendar three months from now, I am talking to you. And here is what I tell that speaker on the call, like, listen, you are not behind. You just built the 15% and skipped the 85. And when we go back through the year they just had every gig who booked it, how they found you, who was in the room, who came up to them afterwards, uh, almost every time there are 15 or 20 warm leads sitting in that list. People who have already seen them speak, like people who have said, uh, we should have you at our next event. But nobody followed up not because they were lazy. Just because no one told them that was part of the job. That is what a great year with no pipeline looks like, not a lack of opportunity, but listen to me, a lack of a system to catch it. So here's a number that I share with, uh, every speaker, every student that we work with, um, the talk, the thing on stage, the thing that everybody sees is about 15% of the business. The other 85% is everything nobody sees. For instance, like the prospecting, the outreach, the follow up, the proposals, the relationship building, the systems, 15, 85. And most speakers spend 100% of their energy on the 15. They polished the talk, they tweaked the slides, they rehearsed the clothes. And then they wonder why the calendar is empty. Let me say this clearly, like, no one, nobody is going to see your incredible talk if the 85% is not working. So here's the shift. Again, um, if you don't have something to take some notes on, this is the time. Grab something to take some notes on, all right. A speaking business is not a collection of gigs. It is a pipeline and a pipeline has stages, right? Every single conversation you are having is sitting somewhere in it. Uh, it starts with prospecting, right? Consistently identifying organizations, associations, events that are a fit for your topic, not once, not when you are scared, right? Like every week, every day, okay? It's one of the things that we coach about in our book to pay to speak program that this is a consistent daily habit. Then outreach, right? Personalized outreach, personalized contact with the actual decision maker, not a spam blasted AI email, not deer event planner, right? A real message to a real person. Remember when we used to only do this on a regular cadence. And again, I see this all the time. Speaker sent a message that's entirely about themselves like, uh, here's my bio. Here's my real. Here are all of the topics that I speak on. Look how great I am. I, I need you to think about it this way. I need you to flip that mentality, make it about them, their event, their audience, the problem, their people are dealing with and end with a question. So, so they actually have a reason to reply to you. Very short, very specific about them ends with a question. That's the whole formula. Then you actually have to follow up, right? And I'm, I'm going to spend a second here because this is, in my opinion, where the money is most speakers send one email, they don't, they don't hear back. And then they just quit and listen to me. The speakers who are, uh, who book consistently follow up three, four, five times, not, not in an annoying way. Please hear that the right way. And also not in a desperate way, just present, just present. Because here, here's what I've learned. Silence is almost never a no. Silence is usually just busy. Think, think about the planner on the other side of that email, right? They're running events, they're running a business. They're, they're running, they may have a team, right? And if they're running an entire event, they're dealing and working with the venue and the catering and the registration and, and likely dozens of vendors and probably a manager or a boss asking for updates constantly. And your email came in on a Tuesday afternoon between multiple fires, right? They, they did not reject you. They did not even read you. So when you follow up, you're not bugging them. You're giving them a second chance to see something they wanted to see the first time. And I, I have watched it play out over and over. The reply comes on the third message, the fourth, like, so sorry, Dan. I meant to get back to you. Yes, absolutely. Let's talk like the booking was always there. The only question was whether you were still in the conversation when they, when they finally looked up, when they finally had a moment to breathe. Then closing, the pricing conversation, the contract, the logistic, logistics, like actually getting it on the calendar. And then the one everyone forgets, rebooking and referrals. Every gig that you do should generate at least two or three or more warm leads for the next one. If, if it's not currently doing that, you're leaving the, the best part on the table because that is the pipeline. Prospect, reach out, follow up, close, and rebook. And by the way, it never stops. Now, let me, let me show you why this is not as hard as it sounds. All right. So let's, let's just say that you reach out to, I'll make up a number. You reach out to 10 organizations a week, 10. That's two a day, okay. That's not hard. And say 20% response. That's two conversations out of the 10, right? And say 20% of those actually book. If you do that every week, you're looking at roughly two bookings a month, 24 paid gigs a year from a system that you run for two or three hours a week. Did you hear me? Consistently every day, two or three hours a week. Now, your numbers will be different, right? Your response rate, your close rate, your fee. But the shape of the math is the same. Consistent input, listen to me, consistent input produces consistent output. And here's the things like, cut my numbers in half, half the response rate. Half the close rate, you're still looking at a gig a month from a couple hours a week, 12 paid gigs a year that you did not have before. Are you getting this? Is this sinking in? Now compare that idea, that mentality to the scramble, right? Like three weeks of panic, a burst of 40 emails, right? Or, and two replies, one, maybe that comes back. And then nothing again, until the next panic, same effort, completely different outcome, the only variables, whether it is consistent. And here is the key. This is not grinding. Grinding is the scramble. Grinding is the panic email blast that we send out at midnight or we schedule for the next day or something like that. This is a system. And once it is built, it takes a fraction of your time and produces results that you can actually predict. So let me, let me pull back the curtain for a bit on my own speaking business, just here for a moment, because I do not want you to think I am describing something that I read about. I do a lot of paid events a year, I also run a company. I have a full calendar. [BLANK_AUDIO] and I still do my own outreach. I do not outsource it. Every week, there is a block on my calendar. It does not move. I treat it like a client meeting because in a way, it is. And in that block, I am prospecting. I'm looking at who I've spoken for and who is connected to them. I'm sending real messages out to real people. And then I'm following up, right? Following up to depending on the outreach, depending on the stage that they're in, it might be a week, it might be 30 days, it might be 90 days, it might be a year. Like every planner I've ever worked with is on a rhythm somewhere in my system. Not because I have great memory, because I have a system that remembers for me. And after every gig, I send a handwritten thank you note every time. Because, partially because nobody does that anymore, and it actually stands out. I also schedule a post event call on Zoom every time. And that call always has a few parts to it. First, I talk about the performance, like how to go and this is the plan we had going in, how do we nail that, how do we knock it out of the park? And also did I deliver what we talked about? Did I meet the expectations? Did I move the needle for their people? Because before I ask for anything, I need to confirm I did what I said I would do. And then I shift, right? And then I say something like, okay, as you think about your other events this year, or partners and organizations that you work with, who else comes to mind that could benefit from something like this? That's it, no pressure, no awkwardness. And I'm usually looking for two or three names. And then one more question. The one most speakers never ask, which is when is the best time for me to follow up with you about your future events? Because that timing is different for everyone. Some plan a year out, some plan a quarter out. And if you ask, guess what, they will tell you. They will actually tell you. Now you're not guessing you are on their calendar. And I ask if I can also, one of the things I do ask them, if I can add them to my leadership newsletter that goes out multiple times in a month. So even when I'm not actually reaching out directly, I'm still showing up in their inbox with something useful after I've already given them value at their event. None of that is glamorous. None of it makes for good Instagram post. But that is where the calendar comes from. Not the stage, the Tuesday, the Wednesday, the every day. So what do you actually need? And I'll be honest, it's going to be less than you think. Okay, you don't need fancy software. You don't need a place to track conversations, a simple CRM or a spreadsheet, who you contacted, when, what's the status? And here is the test that I have for you. Like, if you cannot tell me, like right now, how many active conversations that you have in your pipeline, that's the first problem. Not your real, not your website, that, right? You need a weekly outreach block on the calendar. And what we actually coach and train inside of the, our program, the book to pay to speak program at the speaker labs that you have a daily component to this, right, on the calendar. And you treat it like a meeting that you cannot cancel. And you need to follow up system. You got to set reminders. You cannot rely on memory. Memory is how leads get lost. That's how leads die. And you also need a post gig checklist. This is a reminder, collecting the testimonial, asking for the referral, connecting with the planner, right? Sending the thank you, like every gig should plant seeds for the next three. That's it. Like a tracker, a weekly block, reminders, and a checklist. That's the whole infrastructure. Now, I know what some of you are thinking, Dan. I did not get into the speaking business, speaking space to be in sales or to be a salesperson. Totally normal starting thought process, I promise. I've heard it a thousand times and I get it, right? But let me reframe it, okay? You are not being a salesperson. You're being a business owner. And by the way, you are already selling. Every time you walk on stage, you're selling an idea, right? You are asking a room full of people to think differently, to act differently, to believe something new. That is persuasion. That is influence. Guess what? That is sales. You are good at it. You just have not pointed it at your own calendar yet. And here is where I want to get serious with you. Like I remember what it felt like to build something for somebody else. I did that for years. I gave a company everything I had. And one day, it did not matter. I was laid off. And I made myself a promise. Never again, will I build something for someone else without building something for me? That is what a pipeline is. That is what 85% is. It is you building something that is yours. No one's coming to book you. No one's going to build your calendar for you. And the sooner you embrace that, the sooner this actually becomes a career. The best speakers that I know, they do not just perform well on stage. They run a tight business behind the scenes. And so that is the difference, by the way, between someone who speaks occasionally and someone who has a full calendar. And let me say this one more time, maybe a little bit different, unique way. You need to know on any given day, how many conversations you are in, and what the next step is for each one. That's it. That is the 85% and it is completely learnable. It's a skill that you can learn. So let me be clear about something, the stage is the roar. The pipeline is how you earn it. At the end of the day, this is not about becoming a machine. It's about freedom. The freedom to say no to the wrong gigs because you already know where the right ones are coming from. It's about the income that you can actually plan around. It's about the calendar that fills up without you panicking every quarter. And most importantly, that's where the impact will come from. Because when you are not scrambling, you show up to every room, fully present. You're not thinking about the next booking. You're thinking about the people that are right there in front of you. And that is the speaker that you want to be. And the pipeline is what lets you be that speaker. So if you listened to this and you realized that you do not have a pipeline, you do not have a follow-up system, you do not have a daily and weekly outreach habit, that's okay, pretty normal by the way. But now you know what's missing. And I want to help you with that. Our speaker business assessments is where we map this out for you. Our team is offering 15 minute speaker business assessments and I'm actually on some of those calls myself. And where we look at what you're doing right now, where the gaps on and what your system should actually look like. We want to connect with you. It's a real conversation with somebody who does this every single day. So where can you go? Let me tell you, you can go to the speakerlab.com/sba. That's SBA stands for speaker business assessment. But again, you do not need to type all that out. It's just the speakerlab.com/sba. You can also check the link in the show notes. Listen to me. The stage is the reward. I can't wait to see you on the next episode here on the speakerlab podcast. Thanks for spending a little bit of time with me. Go do the next brave thing, and we'll talk to you soon.