Kent Julian has worn many hats throughout his career. He’s been a youth pastor, a meeting planner, a youth speaker, author / co-author of seven books, and now, a corporate speaker. Making the transitions needed to pull off a multi-role career isn’t easy. But, if there’s anyone who can do it, it’s Kent. Kent has seen the stage from many angles which gives him a “big-picture” vantage point of what it means to have a successful speaking career. In this episode, Kent talks about how it all comes to together.

Here’s some of the highlights:

• How did Kent get started as a youth speaker?
• “If you can speak in front of young people, you can speak in front of anyone.” It can be challenging to reach a student group…but when you do reach them, it’s phenomenally rewarding.
• What are some of the challenges of marketing to a youth market?
• Revolving door marketing strategy…what is that?
• Here’s a solid tip- bring value early on in the client interaction!
• Kent goes back to his days as a youth pastor in which he also had to play the role of meeting planner. He talks about the difference between the speakers he would never hire again versus those that he couldn’t wait to work with again.
• What are the parallels between a youth and corporate audience?
• How does Kent know when he’s nailed it with an audience?

If you can speak in front of young people, you can speak in front of anyone.Click To Tweet

And finally…

What are 3 things speakers can do to get more gigs?

Here’s the links I promised in the show notes:
Kent’s Youth Speaking Site
Kent’s Live it Forward Event

Don’t forget to submit your questions for my upcoming Q&A episode. Leave a comment or shoot it to me via email at derek@getthegigs.com.

Thanks for listening!

It makes sense that someone with a career like Benji’s would be an interesting and lively podcast guest. Benji Bruce has been on stages since he was 10 years old. Benji mixes his mentalist and mind-reading performance with solid ROI for his unique brand of infotainment.

Benji drops by the show to talk about his journey from a young performer to a sought-after speaker and speaking coach.

Here’s a little bit of what we tackle:

• Benji talks about his early days on the stage and how being a child performer has instilled a sense of comfort with being on stage.
• The age-old question, to cuss on stage or not to cuss.
• When did Benji make the decision to go from performer to speaker? What did he do to make sure there was plenty of ROI in his presentations?
• Benji offers his take on what makes a good speaker website.
• What extremes has Benji gone through to get gigs throughout his career? (This is a funny story- make sure you catch this part!)
• Find out how a brush with death at an early age changed Benji’s outlook on life.
• In hindsight, maybe I should have asked Benji to read my mind.

I had a lot of fun interviewing Benji. He’s funny, opinionated, and genuine. Make sure you take a look at a couple of his site:

His corporate speaking engagement site
His Speaking Lifestyle coaching site

Beni really does video well. On both of his site, I highly recommend watching a few of his videos.

One last thing…I’m working on something that I think will be pretty cool and I need YOUR help. I’m putting together a Q & A episode of the Get the Gigs podcast. If you have some question that keeps you up at night regarding speaker websites, branding, or marketing, then I want to know about it. Any way you decided to get me your question is fine. You can leave a comment below, email me at derek@getthegis.com, Tweet me at @getthegigs or shoot it to me on Facebook. I’ll take the best questions and compile them into a Q & A-filled episode.

Thanks for listening!

Do you have a speaking advantage or do you have an UNFAIR speaking advantage? Dr. Michelle Mazur of Communication Rebel drops by to talk about finding your unfair advantage.

Michelle’s journey as a speaker started in a high school speaking class. Despite being a mediocre speaker at the time, Michelle made an effort to improve her speaking skills and make speaking a cornerstone of her career. From there, Michelle went on to earn a Ph.D. in Communications and worked briefly as a communications professor for the University of Hawaii.

Today, Michelle is a speaker with over 10,000 public speaking hours under her belt. She also coaches speakers through her company Communication Rebel. Michelle has shown hundreds of speakers how to find their unfair speaking advantage.

Here’s some of what we cover in this episode:

• Michelle became a communication rebel by questioning everything around her. In her words, “If you follow all of the rules all of the time, you’ll look and sound like everyone else.”
• Some of the DUMB advice for speakers that Michelle has heard over the years.
• Michelle is a big fan of Sally Hoghead’s “How to Fascinate” system. Sally’s system highlights 7 styles of communication and helps you find your strongest style.
• What does an unfair speaking advantage look like? In other words, what’s that .01% that makes you stand out?
• We talk about Michelle’s website which is brimming with personality.
• There’s more of that “branding with a capital B” stuff. Remember that episode?
• Brand damage? That sounds bad!
• Stand out or don’t bother.

Make sure you check out Michelle’s site.
And her Facebook group.

Finally, I issued a call to action at the end of the episode. What’s your greatest strength as a speaker? How can you leverage that to your advantage, particularly in your website and marketing?

If you haven’t done so, please subscribe to the show via iTunes. While you’re there, leave me a review. The reviews help get the show to more ears and they let me know how I’m doing.

Thanks for listening!

Social media … it’s a big, untamed, and potentially intimidating world. It’s also a world that’s full of potential when it comes to networking and getting more speaking gigs. We know about the potential because my guest has been getting the most out of social media for years. Phil Gerbyshak is a speaker, trainer, author, and social media advocate.

Some of the topics we discuss:

• How can you deliver a relevant social media message?
• How can you use social media as a networking tool?
• How can you use social media to be seen as a thought leader?
• When do you for ask for the sale versus asking for a conversation?

Also…

• • Phil offers some valuable insight on tempering expectations. Should we really compare our social sharing content to light-hearted viral content? What is the difference between and engaged social audience versus one that is just massive?
  • Email lists- Social media can be a great way to build your list.
  • You can use social media to package yourself as a potential solution.
  • What are the 3 categories of people you will interact with on social media?

Finally, we have a real conversation about being real. Authenticity is a big part of social media. How can we make sure that we’re sharing the right kind of content? Where is the fine line between sharing and oversharing? How can we be clear about what we’re selling?

Hey, speaking of social media, if you get some value out of this episode, chances are someone else will. Would you mind sharing this? Also, if you haven’t subscribed to the podcast yet, you can head over here. While you’re there, it would be great if you could leave a rating and review. The reviews help me with valuable feedback on how I can make the show better and helps promote the show.

If you want to engage with Phil, you can check him out at: philgerbyshak.com

Here’s the bad news … most speaker websites have at least one serious issue that’s hurting that speaker when it comes to getting booked. Now for the good news … if you fix these website issues, you’re on track with some serious potential for separating yourself from the pack. Want EVEN MORE good news? Fixing these issues doesn’t have to be an intimidating ordeal. You just need to know what to fix.

My friend and business coach, Gene Hammett is back as guest co-host for another foundational episode. We’re going to focus on the five biggest mistakes we see speakers make on/with their websites. These are issues I see come up over and over with speaker websites. We’re not here to bag on anyone, we just want to highlight some of the pitfalls that many speakers fall into at some point.

Some of the topics we’ll hit upon in this episode include:

• Clarity: How can we avoid being vague and confusing?
• Style guides: What are they and what are they good for?
• Good design vs. bad design: What are some of the tell-tale signs of bad design? Also, how do we avoid the “ransom note” look?
• Mobile layout: It’s kind of a big deal! I promised a quick video to show you how you can test your site’s mobile layout so here it is.

Also, I recently got a chance to ask Scott Stratten, of UnMarketing, a question on Facebook Live. I asked him what he thought was the most common mistake speakers make with their websites. What was the answer? Click play to find out!

I have one last request. Let me know what you got out of this episode. Hopefully, it spurred you to take action and fix those nagging issues that keep a website from being as good as it can be. Also, is there some topic you would like to hear covered on the show? Drop me a line and tell me all about it.