Transcription
****Please forgive any and all transcription errors as this was transcribed by Otter.ai.****

[intro music]
Shark 0:16
Welcome back and thank you for joining A Shark's Perspective. I am Kenneth "Shark" Kinney, your host and Chief Shark Officer.

Shark 0:22
First let me tell you about two amazing sponsors that make this show possible.

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Thank you to Invoca and Drips! And now back to the show.

Shark 1:17
When you think about professional speaking, you know, most of the advice on the business of speaking comes down to the marketing and packaging, but it's not what often moves the speaker's career forward. Then what is the formula for building a sustainable speaking career? Is it marketing with a great sizzle reel and a website a heavy outbound push? Or is it focusing on a great speech? So what is the secret? What's the formula? What will make you a referral speaker Michael Porter is the CEO and co founder of heroic public speaking and NYU acting program graduate and former professional actor with guest starring credits including law and order Sex in the City, the Pelican Brief and the New York Times Wall Street Journal usa today and Publishers Weekly, best selling author of Book Yourself Solid it's still the show, as well as his newest, the referral speaker which he co authored with Andrew Davis. And on this episode we'll discuss the referral speaker being a surprise and delight, speaker stageside leads, referral trees, going from expertville to visionary town, actionable takeaways for the audience hierarchy of needs, moving from breakouts to the keynote stage. Carol Waltons LinkedIn requests, a funny economist, Seth Godin is famous and going to the mall, and a lot, lot more. So let's tune in to a referral speaker with me the referable Shark on this episode of A Shark's Perspective.

Shark 2:43
Michael, thank you so much for joining us today on the sharks perspective. We'll dive into the book shortly. But tell us a little bit about you and your background. You're on your what your seventh book now.

Michael Port 2:53
I honestly think it's the ninth book.

Shark 2:55
That's what I read.

Michael Port 2:56
I'd have to check myself. Although I didn't start out as an author. I started out as an actor. I have a master's in acting from NYU and then I worked professionally for only about five years after that. I didn't shows like Sex in the City third, watch all my children law and order 100 center streets. I did films like down to Pelican Brief, brief last call. Yeah, the believer, lots of hundreds of voiceovers for radio and TV for companies like at&t, Coors beer, Braun, and, you know, television commercials. But, you know, unless you're really working on interesting projects all the time, you spend most of your time auditioning, and I have never been accused of having a lot of patience. And you may need to have a certain amount of patience when you're waiting for other people to give you jobs as an actor. And so I thought, well, maybe if I go into business, that'll be more in line with my sensibilities. And I went and worked in the corporate world for about five years. And after the first day of those five years, I went, Okay, not doing this for too long. But I built up my my bona fide ease, I think on the business side, through that work, and then went on my own and started consulting and did not plan on becoming a professional speaker. I didn't even really know there was a circuit. I didn't plan on becoming an author. I didn't actually know if I could write books. But when you start as a consultant, often the way that you build that business, especially in the early 2000s, before there were social media platforms, his you wrote, and you spoke, so I started working on the craft of writing and speaking and it turned out that all of my years as an actor, as a professional performer, gave me insights into the craft of both writing and performing, speaking, that could be leveraged and so I was able to develop a really substantial, professional speaking career and author profile over the years last two decades, and now we focus entirely on speakers at her own public speaking, we believe that speech has the power to change the world and the people in it, including the speaker. Because if you're going to deliver a transformational experience for an audience, it generally requires that something about you changes in the process of creating that deliverable for the outcome for the audience, rather than the outcome that you create needs to be a transformational experience. And so we focus on changing the performer, then the performer can go out and change the world, one speech at a time.

Shark 5:37
So I got a chance to witness your HBS program that you streamed online for free, completely blown away, I was so impressed with the things that you don't normally see people get in this business to be speakers. And I'm curious, how did all of that developed? I mean, you've come up with an amazing business to teach something well beyond acting. I mean, you're talking about, well, literally, you're incorporating so much of acting and performance into that, why did you make that focus? And where did you see the ability to really make that a business for speakers?

Michael Port 6:07
Sure. So for the first decade of my career, I focused on the Book Yourself Solid, intellectual property. And many of your listeners may have read that book or heard of that book. And then six, yeah, yeah, thanks. And, and, you know, there's multiple editions of that book, there's an illustrated edition of that book. And, and, and Matthew, Kimberley now runs Book Yourself Solid. But about 2013, I started piloting, doing a two day workshops just on speaking. Because every once in a while, and in the years prior, when I would do a Book Yourself Solid event, and I had an extra hour, I would put somebody on stage. And I would give them some coaching and direction on their speaking. Because it's something that I had a lot of facility with, given that I was a trained professional actor with a Master's from NYU. And every once in a while, I would turn to the audience and, and they would have their mouths open, literally open. And they would often look stunned. And I remember saying to them, once, I said, you know, you guys look like you've you've never seen anything like this before. And someone said, Yeah, it looks like magic. I don't understand how they can go from being that. And they said, I'm sorry, no offense, but that boring to that compelling and exciting and in theatrical so quickly. And I said, Oh, well, isn't this how everybody teaches? Speaking? I mean, isn't this what everybody does when you know, because there are people out there who are teaching speaking and and a number of people said, we've been to those kinds of speaking programs, nobody does this. I've never seen anything like this. And I said, Oh, well, this, to me, is the most normal thing in the world. Because this is what professional actors and directors do on a regular basis. as a performer, your job is to change to transform, to make different choices that create a different outcome for the audience, immediately, that is your job. And so once you develop the craft of performance, you can make a very quick and strong choices that will create an entirely different experience for the audience. And the and the people that had I was doing this with had never seen that before. So that's why I started piloting it. And then my wife and I decided to put all of our focus on her own public speaking, move the running of Book Yourself Solid over to someone else. And then, you know, we built a 10,000 square foot training facility in lambertville, New Jersey, and now we're running programs all throughout the year for professional speakers, soon to be professional speakers, entrepreneurs, and we use speaking to advance their brand. And then of course, mission driven folks who are out there trying to advance a cause or change the world in some way.

Shark 8:57
So the new book is out that you co authored with Andrew Davis, the referral speaker, which is a really, really, really good read. How is this a departure from your other books especially steal the show, which is an amazing book that I've read as well. But how is this a departure from those previous books?

Michael Port 9:12
So steal the show I wrote in 2015. For a broader audience, and steal the show is focused on how to play the right role in any situation, based on what's required at that moment, it's also a tour de force on public speaking from the perspective of how to give a great speech. But a great speech is not a referral speech necessarily, meaning if someone reads steal the show, because they want to learn how to give a great speech at a company event or they want to give a great wedding toast, or even if they want to give a one time TEDx type talk. They don't necessarily need that speech to be referral, but a professional speaker needs their speech. To be referral, they need to develop into a referral speaker if they want to build a sustainable career because Andrew and I have been working together in one way, shape or form for many, many years. I've worked on his speeches. As a director, he's advised my company on branding, he's worked with our senior students on different aspects of the business. And I said to him one day, you know, I think we've got to do a book on the business of speaking, because most of the material that's put out about the business of speaking, is driven by sort of typical marketing hacks and tips and tricks. And, for the most part, it's not really what moves a speaker's career forward. And he understands. I think my feeling was he understood what really truly made a speaker's career move forward. So we decided together to try to do a book and answers one question, one compelling question that had never been answered before in our industry, from our perspective. And the question is, what's the formula for building a sustainable speaking career? Because what we saw most people in the industry, advancing was the idea that if you want to become a speaker, you just need to market yourself more, you know, just write some more really good posts on LinkedIn, or, you know, really put a great website together and a great sizzle reel. And then, you know, maybe you could buy some ads, running some clips of your videos, you know, maybe if you just did enough Chamber of Commerce, you know, lunch and learns, well, that'll, you know, build a successful career. And it just doesn't really work that way. There's nothing systematic, there's nothing. There's no formula that somebody could use, it's kind of a crapshoot. And most speakers who have been working for decades, will give you that advice. Because they've tweaked so many things so many times, in so many ways that they're not exactly sure how they've actually produced a referral speech, or created a sustainable speaking career. It just seems to have happened. But we do now know what formula they use, even if they didn't realize they were using it. Because we took two years to go on a significant investigation and really research it and, you know, parse the data to figure out is there a formula and there is, in fact, a formula, it doesn't mean that every single person will be able to do it, because it is still hard. And it's nuanced. But it exists, there's a big difference between a great speech and a referral speech. And for those people who want to build a sustainable career, long term, their speeches need to be referral,

Shark 13:00
that point, one of the things that really fascinated me in the book, though, is how much you push back on that packaging of the speakers and what we just talked about, I mean, the the direct marketing tactics that may work well with large brands doesn't work the same quite with speakers, but it's so much of the conversation day, and I know 99% of the speakers out there, you can tell them about their followers, their follower counts, their packaging, maybe some thought leadership, like you talked about what they might post on LinkedIn. But it's very rare that you know, if someone is an actual great speaker, and with a reversible speech, how do you balance the two of those with having a great speech? That's referable. Because although you do want to be a referable speaker that gets paid as well, you also want to be known. I mean, think of Andrew Davis, for example. I've seen him speak he's a great speaker and a referable. Speaker both How do you marry the two together and really kind of hit both buttons? Sure. Okay. So

Michael Port 13:53
there's a number of really insightful questions in that question. So let's start with the fact that you can market your way into first gigs, you can sell yourself into first gigs, you can position yourself as really impressive from a marketing perspective, and you can get people to hire you for first gigs, but that does not mean you will book second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth gigs. And so, I think about it this way, when I'm trying to convince people to stop focusing on the marketing of themselves as a speaker and instead start focusing on producing a referral speech, what i what i what i one of the things I say is look, you can spend the next year getting a lot of first gigs, you may be such a good marketer that you can spend, you can get 51st gigs this year, because you put together such an incredible, you know, impressive package that makes you look really, really neat and cool. But what happens after you do 50 gigs, that nobody wants to hire you again for how sustainable is that? Speaking career, it's not at all. So it's a trade off, you only have a certain amount of time. And so we suggest, in the beginning of the career, you put the time into the speech, because when we parse the data, here's what we found. before you're famous, this is critically important before you're famous meeting planners, first by the speech, then the idea that is, supports that speech and then you but when you're famous, the inverse is true. meeting planners first by you, then the speech then the idea, for example, if a meeting planners interested in nothin, Gladwell, they'll say, Mr. Gladwell, are you available on March 23? of 2022? And what's your fee? And you're glad will say my, my fee is $19 million for one hour? And yes, I'm available, but of course, you're gonna have to send a helicopter. And they go, that's great. Oh, by the way, what would you like, speak on?

Shark 16:10
What's the title in session description?

Michael Port 16:13
Correct. But if they if you're not yet famous, they say to you, can we see the speech? And if you say, Well, no, or no, it's not, you know, I don't really it's not ready, or why I can show you this little clip from, you know, you know, it's just not happening now, for the big keynote spots, you might be able to book a bunch of breakouts. But then how do you get from the breakout stage to the keynote stage is one of the things we address in the referral speaker, the difference between a breakout session and a keynote session, and how to move from the breakout room to the keynote stage. That's an incredibly important transition for speakers to move from the breakout rooms to the keynote stage. But what we found is that there are three primary factors and 10 sub factors that make a speech referral. And there are a few key factors that really make a significant difference. For example, you might be able to give a great speech once because you were really on that day, you rose to the occasion, and for some reason, you just felt like everything was working. But that is not a reliable speech. Meaning one of the things one of the main factors that the meeting planners are looking for, is reliable deliverable delivery, can you deliver that same speech reliably, every single day of the week? Because when a meeting planner sees that speech, they want the same speech, they don't want a different speeds, they want that speech. And so this is the paradox of customization, which we address in the referral speaker. Very often, speakers think that they're adding a lot of value when they customize their speech. And they think it's a great selling proposition. So they get on the phones, they listen to other speakers who's going to come in and do a canned speech. Ah, however, the magnificent me will do a custom speech just for your audience. Now, what's that telling the meeting planner, telling the meeting planner, a couple things, number one, that the speech that you already have and do is not yet appropriate, relevant or important for the people in their audience, you have to change it to make it work for them. That's a first problem. The second problem and that an experienced meeting planner will no will see or identify as Oh, ah, I say, if they have to customize it, that means they can't deliver it reliably, because they're making up new stuff just for this speech, and how much time Are they going to give to that new material? So if you're constantly customizing new speeches, you're going to constantly give first speeches and you won't get what we call stage side leads stage side leads are the number one indicator of a speeches future success. So think about stateside leads, like futures, of of stocks or bonds, commodities, etc. Because if you get stateside leads every single time that you deliver that speech, the only marketing you need to do going forward is picking up the phone. Because it you know, Kenneth, if you do a speech tomorrow, and you get four stateside leads for people saying listen, what's your fee? And are you available on this date, we're really interested in you we'd love to talk to you. That stateside, lead will close faster at higher fees with fewer objections than any other type of lead. Why? Because they saw you Speak. Speak Inc. did a survey of meeting planners with Jay Baer, who you know, was a guest on your show. Together, they did this survey. And what they found is the top three, the top three ways that meeting planners book their speakers is drumroll please

Michael Port 20:27
by referral. So they either have seen them speak somewhere themselves. Someone else in the industry told them to hire the person because they saw that person speak, or someone in the organization they're working for saw them speak and wants them to speak at their event. So the top three ways that meeting planners book their speakers is by referral, which is why the only measure that you should be focusing on initially when you produce a speech is do you get stateside leads, because if you get four stateside leads Kenneth, and you book two of those leads, guess what, now you've got two more gigs. Each of those two gigs produce another say four more leads each, that's eight leads, you produce four gigs, those four gigs produce 16 leads, which produce eight more gigs. Next thing you know, you're leveraging the power of compounding gigs. And you can build a healthy referral tree. This is a fundamental that exists in any type of service business, the most successful service businesses are always referral based businesses. Because if people when they see what you're delivering, or when they read what you've written, or when they buy what you've created, the most important question that you can ask them is, would you refer this to someone else? Or would you hire them again? And if the answer's no, well, then whatever you're creating is not yet ready for primetime. And that's why the referral speaker is always somebody who is going to work because they're producing content, they're producing a product that other people want.

Shark 22:11
Yeah. And the referral tree you write down in the book, I think, with some really good examples, especially with Andrew with how he had taken one speech and grown exactly that way in the economic impact. I thoroughly enjoyed it. But you know, one of the things as well I was thinking about too, is I really enjoyed the story in the book about the event organizer, Carol Walden, and the email she had gotten received from speakers who'd always declare themselves a perfect fit. It's like every LinkedIn pitch we get about everything. But from a marketing standpoint, then if somebody hasn't been seen, if they don't have referrals, where do they go to convince somebody? You've got a great speech? Yeah. Okay. Especially when you think about the last 1518 months where people have been in sheltered?

Michael Port 22:56
Yeah, yeah, it's really important topic. So let's discuss that. I want to say one thing about Carol, that I think you'll get a kick out of. So as you mentioned, one of the things Carol said is her pet peeve is when she gets unsolicited emails from speakers who say they're perfect for her events, when they actually don't know anything about her events. And so she sent us an email, about a week or so after the book was released. And she said, Oh, hey, what's up guys, I can tell that the book is, is really getting out there. Because now I'm getting a ton of LinkedIn contact requests from speakers all of a sudden, and the only reason I can think that that's the case is because your book is out there. And my name is in your book. And I said, wrote back to Carol is like, Carol, clearly, we still have more work to do. Yeah, they haven't read the whole book yet. So So yeah, okay. So you do need to get first gigs in order to get second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth gigs. And there are many different ways that you might stumble into first gigs. But here are a few things to do right away. And you want to, you want to do these things as quickly as you can, once you have a viable product, meaning a minimum viable product, as you're, as you're developing this speech, because in order to produce stateside leads, you need a certain amount of momentum. You need a consistent flow of new leads a high flow, and you need a quality flow. But you need those three elements to create this, you know, sustainable formula for success as a professional speaker, or even as a speaker who's earning a lot of money on the back end because they're picking up clients but they're speaking regularly all over the world. And so you want to create momentum. So what we suggest people do are the following things. Number one, reach out to as many executives as you know, who can just put you in front of a lunch and learn no fee, you're not trying to get paid to do this, but you're trying to book as many of these lunch and learns as you possibly can within drive. driving distance. So it's easy. And you want to try to see if you get these on the calendar within the next three months. Fast. And if you can call 10 people and you can get seven lunch and learns that's a huge win because you need that momentum to start working out this material and to start picking up these stateside leads. Additionally, you want to contact companies that you've worked with in the past in any capacity, if you still have a relationship with them, if you haven't talked to them in a while rekindle that relationship, and do the same thing. Ask them to get in there and do lunch and learns to say Listen, I'm working on a new speech. And, and I do a certain number of free gigs per year I want to come because only X amount of distance I can get there, do a lunch and learn for your folks, it's going to be a great, here's what it's about, here's the session description, etc, etc, the goal is great, a free thing for us really, really helpful. And, and then if you have any kind of audience of your own, you can put together these kinds of little events for free for your own audiences to start creating momentum with the speech. And if you do enough of these over, say, a three month period, you're going to start to produce stage side leads that will then produce second, third, fourth and fifth gigs, which will then become paying gigs. So you know, there isn't a perfect science to getting the first gigs. But anybody that has been in business long enough, understands that you are going to have to take a certain number of you know, of at bats, you know, swings at pitches. And and you know, hopefully, maybe you're getting 30% of the of the you know, of the hits, you know, of the swings that you take. But it's enough to produce momentum to produce those second, third, fourth or fifth gigs. Because once the speech is a referable speech, then you're not calling anybody up asking them hey, you know, can I speak? Hey, can I speak? Hey, can I speak in a speech we'll do the work for you.

Shark 26:56
Later on in the book, I really enjoyed the story about Jay Kenzo at content marketing world and how he was the keynote, it also reminded me of seeing Dru Davis speak at content marketing conference with with a virtual event. The the common denominator was those actionable takeaways and what was expected per survey responses, which I thought was great explanation, would you help explain how to create a speech, especially referral speech that answers to the audience hierarchy of needs one that goes from practitioners to the C suite, because you've got to make as many practitioners happy to get booked again, as you do C suite one time that will pull you in to speak for them at their gig.

Michael Port 27:35
Yes. So first of all, I just want to say thank you, Kenneth, because you clearly have read the book, clearly done your homework, you know, I get a, you know, like many authors, I do a lot of interviews. And I can't I've gotten to the point in my career where I say, I'll do the interview, but I need you to read the book. Because otherwise, it's like, you know, you're it's just not as interesting, I think. And so I just want to really thank you for you know, for on your own doing the work that I think means it makes your show great, and your audience really appreciates. I have no doubt. So thank you for that. So you bring up, you brought up a story that we included in the book about Jeff Koons Oh, who's a marketer and a podcaster, himself. And I think it's a really important story that highlights what it takes to move from the breakout rooms to the keynote stage. And that's something that a lot of folks, especially folks in marketing, who use speaking that to advance their business or brand or or pick up business would find helpful, because often, they would love to move out of that breakout room into the keynote stage, because there's a lot more people watching when you do the general session in the keynote slot. So Jay, applied for a breakout spot a content marketing world, in hopes that he would be able to use that breakout spot to get on the keynote stage. Because as you may know, content marketing roles does something very interesting. Where they award a fully paid keynote spot. I think it's 25k for the keynote spot to the breakout speaker from the previous year, who received the highest rankings, feedback and the most positive feedback on their emails. So his goal was to try to leverage that breakout and get the keynote. And so he worked pretty hard on his speech, and he delivered it to the audiences, you know, appreciation. In fact, throughout the rest of the conference, people were coming up to him and telling him how great a speech was. people heard that he gave a great speech. And he really felt pretty confident that that the things were going in his favor and then when he got his email forms, he was even more excited because he had a 4.82 out of five which is pretty good score, and he had 100% positive feedback. There was no negative feedback. The feedback however, was things like That was really helpful. Thank you great tips, lots of great hacks, and you know, really appreciated all the best practices that you shared. Great. He delivered a good if not great speech. But he did not get the call to be the keynote or for next year, it was not yet a referral speech. And he realized that what he did was delivered a how to speech filled with lots of best practices, which is typical for a breakout session. It's absolutely appropriate in a breakout session, but it's not going to get in the keynote spot. Because generally, the keynote spots are reserved for the how to think speakers, the speakers who can change how you feel, change how you think and change what you do. That's a very different type of speech. So he said, I'm going to go back next year, and do another breakout and try to get the keynote again, this guy does not quit. So this time, he went and delivered a how to think speech, people once again, were thrilled. This time, they were surprised and delighted, rather than just appreciative. They were surprised and delighted because they saw the world differently after this speech. And when his feedback forms came in, he got

Michael Port 31:20
just amount of 4.9. So it's just statistically a little bit different than the original. It's a little bit better, but not, it's not a five, perfect, it's just a little bit better. But here's the thing. The comments were different. This time, the comments were things like best speech ever. That should have been the keynote, totally changed my mind about how I think about speaking totally blew my mind. I'll never think the same way about marketing. Again, that's visionary thinking, rather than expert thinking. So what Jay was able to do is make the leap out of expert Ville where your your information has been commoditized. Because there's an expert around every corner. Just as soon as someone releases five secrets. Someone else goes on there six, and they release six secrets, then someone else comes in goes, Oh, no, I can do it in four, here's four secrets. But those speeches generally don't make the keynote spots, because there's only a couple keynote spots, many, many breakout spots. So can you deliver a how to think speech, so that you get the keynote spot, that changes the way people feel the way they think and what they do. So it is a speech that changes the way people see the world rather than just delivers best practices. Because in closing, I'll say this, a how to break out speech generally shines a light on the current best practices. Here's how we do things now. It's just a reflection of the present day. But how to think keynote speech, creates the future. It says, here's where we can go. You may have to go on a quest, you may have to go on a journey, you may struggle, you may be challenged. But let me tell you something. Look at what it looks like in this world if we go here together. And so the keynote spot is designated. It's dedicated it is given to the visionary who can come in and help people change the way they see the world. And that's what Jay did on that day.

Shark 33:23
Yeah, I've struggled with this as well. I spoke at a large conference and got a 45. And my OCD kicked in, and I was immediately obsessed with who is the idiot that didn't give me a five. But then when I got over there, started focusing on me in the speech, you could not have described my own failings what I ran through, Chris, I would have loved to have had that $25,000 fee from CMDB. But maybe maybe this year when I'm there. Yeah. I remember asking Jay Baer this question once though, and I asked him who he thought was the best tactical expert he had seen as a speaker. And I was primarily asking him about the marketing space he gave me, gave me several really good answers, of course. But it got me to thinking again, about how if you're an industry expert, providing this tactical knowledge on something, you still have to make it thought provoking and visionary. And by the way, I love the title, how to get out of expert Ville into visionary town, but do you think we're relying too much on the visuals, the PowerPoints and not the speech and the content itself?

Michael Port 34:25
Oh, yeah, I think that very often, we think that if we just have the right information, or we share enough information, that's, that's going to be a job well done. And for any people, it is very helpful. The information that experts share is helpful and it's, it's meaningful. You know, I needed to fix some holes in the drywall in my house and they were bigger holes than I'd ever fixed. So what did I do I go into YouTube, I watch a video how to fix you know, big holes in drywall. I don't remember the guy's name. I don't know the name of that channel. But I've felt very thankful that I learned how to do it. And I spent a couple of days doing drywall work. But, but that's a very, that's a very different image that's but if you're looking at your work like that, then you're going to stay in that expert fill in that very tactical place, which is fine. Again, there's nothing wrong with it. Unless you want a bigger platform unless you want the keynote spots, or you want to be a thought leader in your space. So another one of the factors that we looked at, is fame. Because the three primary factors that influence the value that you provide, and the way that meeting planners evaluate what they should pay you, is based on fame, entertainment, and expertise. Those are the three primary factors. What is your level of fame? What is the level, the entertainment level of the speech or the entertainment value? And then what kind of expertise do you bring? And so, by the way,

Shark 36:08
thank you for asking my next question, per book. That's exactly where I was going. Perfect. Perfect.

Michael Port 36:15
So this is, this is interesting, because it's provocative for folks, this idea that, Oh, wait, there's a formula for how meeting planners evaluate how much they should pay you. And once you understand what that formula is, you know, there's certain subjectivity to it, of course, but now, it gives you the ability to evaluate yourself in relation to any other speaker that you may be in competition with. So if I was a marketing speaker, I would be running you Jay Baer, Andrew Davis, and handily and others through this fee formula to try to determine, okay, what's the value that they bring to an event? And what's the value that I bring to an event from those three perspectives from a fame perspective, entertainment perspective, and then a expertise perspective. And there are sub factors in each one of those primary factors. So for example, in fame, there are three categories. There's worldly fame, and domain fame, and fractal fame. Now worldly fame is our the Will Smith's of the world. They're the actors, athletes and astronauts, they're the category that gets paid a ridiculous amount of money for a speech or for a conversation in a chair where they ask a few questions. But they're not getting paid for that what they do on stage, they're getting paid for everything else they've done as to produce their celebrity because they put butts in seats. We should never try to compete with people that have worldly fame, because we will always lose. There's you cannot fake your way into being as famous as well. Smith, you're either famous, or you're not simple. So then there's domain fame. That's another type of fame. Seth Godin is more domain famous in marketing than Andrew Davis says. But Andrew Davis still has some domain fame. I think he's very well known in his domain, but Andrew, but Seth Godin gets a lot more money than Andrew does for a speech because he's more domain famous, but but Seth Godin has no trouble going to a mall, he can walk into a mall, and Oh, another bald white man, great. He's he's not gonna get mobbed the way that will smith might get mobbed, or George Clooney would get bought. But there's a third type of fame that all of us can earn. And that's fractal fame. fractal fame is a new concept, probably because the term fractal is a new concept. But we had to use this term, it was the only term that would do even though we knew that people are going to go fractal what's fractal? Why don't you just saying Nisha, target market, etc. Because what we realized is that a fractal is a self repeating, self sustaining pattern, a self repeating self sustaining pattern. So if you become fractally, famous, meaning famous in a small fractal, a small subset of a larger market, you can build your fame much more quickly. So for example, Kenneth, how many different types of marketing experts are there out there?

Shark 39:22
I don't know. Doesn't

Michael Port 39:23
any 3050 100

Shark 39:25
Yeah, I mean, there's SEO experts. Exactly. There are influencer content marketing.

Michael Port 39:31
Yeah. Expert means that the list goes on and on and on. Just like all of the fractals inside a particular market. So for example, let's think about finance. Finance is a huge category. Well inside a finance, you're going to have banking, well inside of banking, you're gonna have commercial banking, private banking, you're going to have investment banking, you know these fractals just keep I'm getting parsed out one by one by one by one by one. And so what we recommend you do is look at these really narrow fractals, so that you can get and then do just the just some effective marketing in those fractals. But then once you were giving speeches in those fractals, you're going to become the go to person in that fractal, for what you're speaking on much more quickly. And then you can hop from fractal fractal fractal fractal. So for example, we give a we give an example do case study of Dr. Elliot Eisenberg who was an economist. He's also a funny economist, which I suppose is an oxymoron. But when we asked him, What do you do to market yourself? He said, I do nothing except pick up the phone. We said, How many games do you do a year? We're thinking well, maybe he does like 10 gigs a year he's 115 fully paid gigs. Now he's not doing his gigs at Davos. He's doing his gigs for jobbers. jobbers are the the people who sell home heating oil to the distributor, or you know, it's like they're these little intermediaries. And that's one of his fractals. But when somebody is at a jobbers conference, it's also likely that they may be connected to the refinery fractal. And so they say, listen, we've got an event for refinery companies, this would be perfect for them, can you come on over there, boom, you just jumped over to that fractal. And now you start building your fractal fame inside that fractal, and you become better known. And so we use the example of a tree because a tree has a big trunk, and then bigger branches, and then smaller branches, smaller branches, smaller branches, all the way out into twigs. And most people look at the trunk of the tree and say, Oh, I want to go there. Like I want to be famous in marketing. So that's the trunk of the tree or finance. I wanna be famous in finance, that's the trunk of the tree. But the people who get booked the fastest, go to the tiny little branches at the end of the tree. Those are all those little fractals, like jobbers, refineries and then they work their way down to the trunk of the tree, because they keep getting new stateside leads, jumping them into different fractals until they become so well known that they now are domain experts, because they've got the whole trunk. So Seth Godin worked his way down all these fractals until he became the domain expert for marketing on the trunk. But most people try to start with the trunk and then compete against people like Seth Godin, and you're not going to get there, it's just not gonna happen. So we say pick a few fractals focus on those fractals, all your marketing is there. But then you design the speech for those fractals. And then you'll start to hop into other fractals as well.

Shark 42:56
Question four is we get to know you a little bit better. Who's the greatest speaker you've ever seen? Who's your favorite? And you can put you can put in a couple names if they're friends of yours, and you don't want to leave anybody out?

Michael Port 43:07
Well, so here's the thing I actually don't do. I never actually say who my favorite speakers are. I never do it as a rule. And I'll tell you why. Because I work with so many of the best professional speakers in the industry. And, and I have so many students who are like the next generation of

Shark 43:26
speakers. I don't want to put your bed person asked that question. Yeah, that's very true.

Michael Port 43:31
What Kenneth is the same reason that I don't speak on the circuit anymore? Because I don't want a conflict of interest. I don't think like if I'm coaching you on your speech, you shouldn't have to compete against me for a spot. It would be weird.

Shark 43:42
Yeah, no, that perfect makes perfect sense. Somebody asked you this question that asked everybody that's been on the show, what is your favorite kind of shark and why you're on a sharks perspective with a speaker nickname shark?

Michael Port 43:54
Well, first of all, that your Opening Music of your show is less scary to me, which I think is cool. I just think it's cool. It's like, Oh, my God, I'm scared right now. But I'll be okay, I'll hang in there. I would say I love the I love the Great Whites because they got to keep moving. You got to keep going, keep going keep going. It's it's I don't know if it's a myth that they have to do that in order to live. But I like the mythology around it. Because I think that that's how I think about the creative process. The creative process, it doesn't mean that you always have to do you could just sit and do nothing and think, right, that's fine. But you're always moving forward by making stronger, bigger, more compelling choices that may be risky, but give you an opportunity to produce something really quite transformational. You're never done with a speech. You got to keep moving it forward. And so one of the methods you can use to do that is the five minute rule. Basically, you just take five minutes for the five minute method rather you take five minutes of your speech, the worst five minutes work on those five minutes. For a month, so you do your next speech, and then boom, now that's much better. You take the next five minutes you work on those for a month. And then you know, after six months or so, you actually have the same speech. That is a total new speech because it's that much better.

Shark 45:16
Well, Michael, it's a special time in the show you're reading for the five most interesting and important questions that you're going to be asked today. We'll see what way all right number one better speaker speaking coach, Michael Port or Amy port.

Michael Port 45:30
Oh, Amy port if you're asked who's better at anything? The answer is Andy port. Period.

Shark 45:35
Happy wife happy life. Yeah, I know. She was she's fantastic as well. So she is she has

Michael Port 45:39
her master's from Gail and acting. So we have the same background we do the same work.

Shark 45:43
Alright, number two, sort of heroic speaking question. Because with heroes anyway, Iron Man or spider man. Oh my gosh. Absolutely. Spider Man. Yeah, spider man. I do too, except that they've screwed up the acting with it quite a few times. Now they've got one. It's true that if you're asked Robert Downey Jr. was the greatest, you know, here superhero actor of all time to In my opinion,

Michael Port 46:12
correct. If you're gonna if you're gonna ask me, who do you like to watch playing the video? Like better fight? Yeah, well, definitely gonna go with Iron Man, for sure. But I like one of the things I really really liked about Spider Man is that is the transformation that he goes through emotionally. When he when he discovers that he has powers and I think that that transformation is what's so interesting and exciting to me about this creative work. And so that's that, that's why I resonate with Spider Man.

Shark 46:42
Alright, number three, of know what you're doing now, this compared to before, but what did you enjoy more being a speaker or being a speaking coach?

Michael Port 46:51
For me personally 100% directing speeches working with speakers, primarily because and I'll be, I'll share something personal here. I, I, since I was a high school kid, I would get a get episodes of depression. Now I can work through it, I can manage it. But I found that when I was on the road, that was the toughest time and you're on the road so much as a speaker, generally by yourself. I need to be with the people that I'm closest with a lot. Just personally, it makes a difference for me. And so because I get to do such intimate, personal, connected work with the speakers that I work with, I find it better for my mental health personally. And I think i was i think i was i was i think i was a transformational speaker. I mean, I gave referral speeches. But I do think that I'm a better director than I was a speaker.

Shark 47:45
Number four. This is for a lot of speakers, not necessarily you but just in general, I think about some of the packaging, if you will, that so many love to put on their brand. If you had a choice of accomplishments and a way to describe yourself as a speaker, would you rather be described as an NSA Hall of Famer or a multi TED Talk speaker.

Michael Port 48:10
Neither really, the end of the NSA Hall of Famer thing is great. I've got a lot of friends who have earned it. But it's you know, it's a it's an inside baseball thing. It's it's not something that's going to actually, you know, for me personally, it doesn't mean anything.

Shark 48:27
Well, and that's a great point, because everybody that that inside baseball reference, everybody's trying to make the TED Talk moniker less than inside baseball thing. And it doesn't mean anything to most people.

Michael Port 48:39
Yeah. And then, you know, Amy, and I did a TED talk for TEDx Cambridge, a number of years ago, we also design the coaching program for TEDx. But, or for TEDx Cambridge, rather, but that was, that was enough for us. You know, for me, the only reason to do a TED talk would be to share an idea that I have not yet shared in a way that I have not yet shared it. And, and I don't think there's any for me personally, there's never been one thing or one event or one venue where I felt like I had to speak there like that would mean everything. Ultimately, you know, my, my, I put my value or my worth as a as an educator and as a teacher, in the accomplishments of the people that I serve. And if they're doing well, then I'm doing well then. And that's, that's what I focus on at this point.

Shark 49:31
Fair point. Number five. And the most important question that you're going to be asked today is biscuits or cornbread, cornbread. Why so?

Michael Port 49:41
Because it's so filling. I just had a piece of cornbread last week at a vegan place that we went to I had it before my entree, I could barely get by on track.

Shark 49:48
Nice. Nice. Sounds great. So Michael, fantastic book. Again, I encourage anybody read it. I've read it. Where do you want people to find out more about you follow your wrote public speaking sessions, get the book Looking more?

Michael Port 50:01
Yeah, so hero public speaking, calm, heroic public speaking.com is a great place to go. Lots of resources, you can find out about the programs that we offer, but you do need to be referred. So you may need to ask Kenneth if he'll send an email over say, Hey, can you recommend me to come in to HBS and do some work? And then you can go to referral speaker.com we've got some additional resources for the book on that sites and videos, the video trailer is there for the book. And then Amazon is a great place to buy a copy. And let us know how you deal with it. We want to know what you're learning what you're picking up what insights you have, please send us an email and let us know because that's why we wrote the book.

Shark 50:45
Well, Michael, again, thank you so much for being with stay on sharks perspective.

Michael Port 50:49
It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having

Shark 50:57
so there was my conversation with Michael Port, the CEO and co founder of heroic public speaking in NYU acting program graduate and former professional actor with guest starring credits, including law and order Sex in the City, the Pelican Brief and also the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly, best selling author of Book Yourself Solid and still the show as well as his newest, the referable speaker co authored with Andrew Davis. Let's take a look at three key takeaways from our conversation with him.

Shark 51:27
First, love his point on there being a big difference between being a great speech and a referral speech. And for those who want to build a sustainable speaking career long term, their speeches need to be referral, they've identified three primary factors intensive factors that make that speech referral.

Shark 51:44
Second, great reminder before you're famous meeting planners first buy the speech and then the idea that supports this speech. And then you the inverse is true if you're famous. But many planners often want that speech in air quotes, because it is a reliable speech.

Shark 52:00
Third, what I truly loved about this book, and what Michael and Andrew wrote is something that applies to speakers, as well as any business and that is focusing on your core. four speakers. It's literally the speech itself. It's not always the website, the packaging, the demo reel, but rather about having a great speech. The marketing may get you the first gig or first customer but that doesn't often equate to being sustainable. Even for me, I've taken a step back after reading this from the marketing and sales part of what I do for my business, and I'm spending a lot more time on the performance and the delivery of a great speech. Such an easy habit for us, especially in the marketing world but the audience, your customers if you will won't care about your packaging, the audience will be moved by and meeting planners won't care most about you delivering a great speech inexperienced to those we serve. And this book is definitely worth read because it will help you renew your focus on that performance.

Shark 52:56
Got a question? Send me an email to Kenneth at a shark's perspective dot com. Thank you again for the privilege of your time. I am so thankful to everyone who listens. Thank you to the amazing sponsors Invoca and Drips. Would you please consider writing a review and letting me know your thoughts in the show? I love to read them. And it sure does help me create better content for both you and me. So now I've got to get back into the water and be that referable shark. So please join us on the next episode of A Shark's Perspective.
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