Ryan Foland speaks with John Lawson, an international speaker who with a wealth of knowledge on online retailing and digital marketing. He has been called one of the Top 100 Small Business Influencers in America, and uses his expertise to teach speakers how to build a business sharing their message with the world.
Ryan and John talk about how you can start making more money as a speaker. They offer practical advice on how to become an authority, pitch yourself effectively, build a sales funnel and start adding to your bottom line.
Listen to this podcast to find out:
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John Lawson: Yo, guys! this is John Lawson a.k.a. ColderICE.
I am about to tell you and share with you, and I guess with Ryan, and the whole World of Speakers, exactly what you need to do to be a better speaker and monetize your content.
Are you ready? Listen now, here we go.
Ryan Foland: Alright everybody, you are back, and I am here with John Lawson.
John has a fun story because he’s got a path to speaking which you might not think is a path to speaking. That is sometimes the greatest path.
John Lawson, how are you doing today, sir?
JL: Super fantastic, man.
RF: If you were ice, how cold would you be?
JL: I'd be the coldest.
RF: Colder ice than anyone else?
JL: Yes, my ice is definitely colder than the guy's next door.
RF: "My ice is colder than the—," no, I am not going to go there. It just so happens that you're a cool guy, and your company is ColderICE Media.
I am really excited to meet you, get to know you, learn your tips and then learn how you are actually monetizing this message, which I'm excited to dig more into.
Tell us how it started, how did you become a speaker?
JL: I was just thinking about that. I've always wanted to be a speaker. I always knew I was pretty good at speaking in public. That's one thing.
How it actually came to fruition was— I had helped an organization, they were trying to find a place to do their next event.
I said, "You should do it in Atlanta because I live in Atlanta, I could help you with the groundwork and all this kind of stuff."
RF: It makes sense.
JL: I did all that because I figured they would let me speak, they would give me a slot.
When the time came, the guy was like, "Hey John thanks for all your work, you really helped us a lot, and I would like to have you—"
RF: “Pass out the tickets,” or something? Bellboy?
JL: Not quite. That would have really been bad, it was to host a panel discussion, "You'd be the host."
RF: Yes, you have 30 minutes, each person makes an intro of 3 minutes each and you have a chance to ask one question.
Then by the end of it, nobody has gotten real value, and you look like somebody who couldn't control a bunch of people trying to speak at the same time?
JL: Yeah, pretty much. They are all the experts, you're just there, doing a questioning.
RF: Right, okay.
JL: They had to set it up, and I got all the people up on stage and everything. I said, "We're going to get to you guys in just a minute, I got these five slides I want to tell you about."
RF: No you didn't! That is the best intro, ever.
JL: I did this Boot Lake speech and there happened to be a guy in the room and his friend, he ran down the hallway and said, "Man, you need to listen to this guy."
From that literally, I was invited to do a keynote, and it's just been a pretty wicked ride since then.
RF: I've heard a lot of stories and honestly, that's probably one of the funniest. I'm trying to contain myself.
I do a lot of hosting and MC-ing, and I talk about people getting there— why not host, it's a great way to start?
JL: I was not feeling the host position.
RF: "Before I get into these amazing panelists, let me step you through my 5 slides."
JL: Yes exactly.
RF: Wow, that just goes to show you that the path to the stage is not always the most direct. Then when you're on stage, you still have a chance to own your own destiny at that point.
JL: Pretty much. I will give you a little bit of background on that just thinking about it. Inside of their group, I had already done some very educational posting and sharing.
It was already in their brain that, "John is pretty good at doing that," but they had never seen me speak.
That's why I was like, "Well, let's just give them this and see how it does." It worked.
RF: I'll tell you what, from a perspective of your voice— it has a nice, melodic, deep, rich, entertaining, soulful vibe to it.
You've got a voice for radio, and those are all specific words that sort of trigger. Some people are a sommelier, and I just know if the wine is right, is it white or red.
When it comes to things like voices and tonal inflection, I'm a total geek when it comes to that, and you've got a powerful tool in your throat there, buddy.
JL: Thanks, man, I appreciate that. I need to take care of it, that's all.
RF: Yeah, well you know what, you've got the raspiness, I'm sure a couple of your favorite drinks wouldn't hurt, it might just add a little bit more jazz do it. I love that as a beginning story.
Do you remember your first miserable public speaking experience? Did you have one of those?
Was there a classic moment in your youth or in high school or something where things just went wrong?
JL: No, never.
RF: That's what I like to hear.
JL: In all, of course, we've had jokes that might fall flat or an event that just didn't go the way you wanted.
Most of the times with the audience— you think you're going to be in front of 600 people, and 7 people show up.
Those things happen all the time. I think for me, from a little kid, anytime I was able to take the stage, I was ready.
RF: Awesome. Taking the stage when you had the stage time and making your own stage time, that was where it started.
Where did this ColderICE come from, and what is it that you are doing now with your ability to speak and take the stage?
JL: What is it doing with the ability now? Say it again?
RF: Where you're at now, I'm assuming you being host— that was a long time ago.
JL: Yes, that was a long time ago.
RF: Bring us up to the medium route.
You took that and you got your next gig, and you just started running with it, right?
JL: Yeah, and started building the cachet of, "He is the expert in this subject matter." Pretty much— it's e-commerce.
RF: Okay, e-commerce.
JL: Right, and so for people that don't know, that's selling stuff on the internet.
RF: I take you had at least some success so you're speaking from a sense of authority in that?
JL: Yeah absolutely. I started my own company, and that's not the ColderICE Media, but I've got a shoestring company, I sell shoelaces on the web now.
I started in 2001 selling anything I could find on eBay, grew that into a business, left my corporate job in 2004, 3 years later, and never looked back.
It's out of that experience, around 2009 that I started speaking and started teaching and training others.
RF: You're teaching and training them to basically be masters of the e-commerce environment, is that what it is?
JL: That would be the beginning of when I started doing it. I would talk to other sellers and give them tips and tricks on how to emulate some of the success that I had.
Today, I am more of an industry expert. I get to speak in front of massive audiences, a lot of times at user conferences, and things like that.
They bring me on as a keynote who's going to do some visionary stuff about where we're going in this Amazon laden society, how that's going to affect all of us in e-commerce, what's going on with AI and chatbots.
That's where I'm at now, but definitely, it was the people to people kind of thing at the beginning.
RF: Very cool. It's an interesting path that you've had.
I love that it started just from a selling position and then communicating how you're selling.
Now you're communicating to a room full of people trying to sell where the markets are going, that's a pretty hockey stick trajectory for stealing some stage site, right?
JL: Yes it is. Now I am the guy that the corporations come to and ask, "Well, what's going on?" I'm like, "Really?"
The stock guys come over and ask me, "Where do you see this thing going?"
That's cool, when you just have your understanding be valued by others.
RF: Would you say that you've invested in a personal brand?
Is it that you just are top of mind? Is it just that you spent so much time as the person at that position?
What do you attribute to the inbound marketing of people just reaching out to you?
JL: I definitely think that is all personal brand. From day one, I was a personal brand, before it was cool.
RF: Yeah, exactly.
JL: There are people right now that sell personal branding courses.
I couldn't even find a personal branding book at the time, I didn't know what it was, but it's always been there.
Zig Ziglar talked about it, it's been there all the time, but it was always related to being a salesperson. You had to have—
RF: Yes, the sales skills.
JL: I was going to say you had to have those salesperson skills, and part of that was being a good personal brand.
RF: I love that you are a big fan of the brand before it was popular.
Now it is getting popular, people are realizing that they have to stand out in this noise, especially when it comes to trying to fight for that spot on the stage.
I think a lot of speakers are running into that problem, where they're looking just like the next person, or there's not enough social proof to elevate them so that somebody's contacting them.
JL: Absolutely. Trust me, I do not need another social media speaker. There's plenty of them.
You are going to have to bring it in a different way.
I've always figured that it's always part of it, it's the package it comes in, not necessarily the message.
You could have the best message in the world, but if the packaging is not right, they're not going to be as interested.
RF: I dig that. Let's transition into what would be your tips.
If you were to put together your epic piece of content that is your legacy when it comes to the top three speaking tips that you learned, your Zig Ziglar “Red Book”— the good stuff.
Not to put any pressure on you or anything, right?
JL: Top of mind is, you can speak from experience, that trumps a lot of other things. Maybe it doesn't have to be your experience.
If you can speak somebody else's story from their experience, and you bring people in— that's going to teach and make you stand out in other people's minds, as a speaker.
If you can put yourself in these people's shoes and take them through a story where they're going to be emotionally attached to that issue or that struggle that you're going through, that's going to make you stand out.
That's going to require authenticity, it's going to require you to have some kind of knowledge and understanding of your subject matter, and then bring it with your own personality.
There, that's three.
RF: That's awesome. That was good. Now you can be not only a “Little Red Book”, but you can make a keychain out of that, that's solid right there.
JL: There you go.
RF: Or a bumper sticker at least, right?
JL: Exactly.
RF: Let's dissect that a little bit, let's get into it. Let's first talk about this experience.
There are books of thoughts [Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers] and people who claim that there are 10,000 hours to be a true expert and understand.
There are other people that say being an expert is just being a little bit more knowledgeable than the people around you or in an area.
What are your thoughts when it comes to experience?
What would that definition be?
Granted you could take a course on something, you could spend 12 hours on a Binge Netflix documentary search, become pretty knowledgeable about certain things.
I am curious about your thoughts on that.
JL: Okay, remember we talked about the messaging and the packaging, right?
RF: Yeah, the message in a bottle.
JL: The deal is, you can be an authority if you speak like one.
RF: That's a good one.
JL: That is a good one. What I mean is, if you want to teach third grade English you just have to have read the chapter before everybody else to teach it. That's the absolute truth.
But, if you get up there and you speak as though, "I really don't know what I'm talking about, but I've read the book last night, and I'm going to teach it to you guys." That's going to fall flat.
If you get up there and say, "I am the expert, and I know I am the expert because I know you only read the chapter three. I know that."
And you speak with that authority about what's going to happen in chapter 4, and you're able to answer their questions and concerns.
Or at least be able to say, "I will take that offline, meet me at the book table right after this"
RF: It reminds me of the adage that, "It's not only what you say, it's how you say it," and this "how" is a very authoritative, not in a bad way, but in a confident way, I guess.
JL: Right, I just told you that confidently, and I just made that up!
RF: I know, that was good. What's interesting about this is that it's maybe like an Achilles heel for most people. When they get in front of other people, they get nervous.
Even if they own the material, they are already through chapter 7, the nervousness kicks in and then they just turn into somebody who knows what they're saying, but the delivery, the “how”, the package, is just crumbled on the floor, blowing in the wind.
JL: Look, we all get nervous. I haven't met anybody that tells me they never get nervous; do you get nervous?
RF: Absolutely!
I have a move for it too. Obviously, I have high energy, I'm a ginger and my red hair and freckles are like a super-powered little nitro boost to my system.
I'm already pretty excited and then when I get up on stage, every time that reality hits it's like, "Oh crap, here we go, the adrenaline starts going."
When I was in college, I accidentally found theater as a crazy form of communication, but not musical stuff, more like nitty-gritty.
I would do a handstand for as long as I could before I go out on stage, and it would just get all my blood going crazy and it would release that energy.
I would do this pre-stage sway whether it's like Bruce Lee karate moves or wiggling as funky as I can and shaking every limb out, and I actually process the energy before I go on stage so that it's not built up when I am on stage. That's what I would do.
JL: Absolutely. You've got to have your pre-warm-up, whatever it is that you might go through that routine, that ritual, have that.
Part of mine is I just take, and I can just bundle all of that nervous energy up and then spit it right back at them with just energy and excitement.
That's where it all comes from, it was all my nerves beforehand.
RF: What was your sport? I am sure you're an athlete, you sound like a strong man, what was your sport?
JL: I used to play football, but that was a long time ago, that was when I was a kid.
RF: But imagine when you're training on the track field, and your teed up for your whatever, what's the short sprint that you guys get timed on that we reference—
JL: 100-yard dash maybe?
RF: Yeah, I bet you just imagine you have this built up energy, you're right there, all this anxiety, and some people may stretch it out like shake it out.
I just see you as like the first person on the blocks or whatever, just like, "Arghh."
It's like coming out of the gate fast and then you get ahead and you've got that momentum and you probably build off that?
JL: Yes, and you build off your audience, and if they're missing it, then you're just going to have to build him up to where you need them to be.
RF: Right, that's a good point. Some people, you'll hear complaining like, "Oh that audience didn't get it," or, "Things weren't going right."
I would say that the audience is a reflection of you, and they're not always understanding that.
You've got to bring them to where you want them to be, and it takes some people a while in that process.
I like that concept of bringing people with you, whether they want to go with you or not, right?
JL: Yes, because if you are expecting people to give back to you all the time, you will be in some play.
I speak around the world and I know if I'm going to Asia, I'm not going to get the same kind of response that you get in America.
They are different, they're culturally different. They're not going to laugh at your jokes and applaud and do all the things that a US audience would do.
That's just not the nature of them as a people.
What do you do then? Do you stop what you're doing?
You did that joke before, why is nobody laughing?
All these kind of little things, you can't totally depend on the audience to respond the way you want them to respond.
RF: Wise words, sir. Okay, so we're breaking down this concept of experience.
You're talking about when you speak with authority about the experience, you could be in chapter 3 when everyone else is in chapter 2.
You also can have just a sheer amount of life experience in a certain avenue or business, like you for example, and then you know it so much that you still go out there and own it to the audience.
That helps to build you as a top of mind when it comes to the authority who has the experience.
JL: Here's one thing I think we underestimate: our own self-worth.
I am just saying people in general. I'll talk to somebody, I'm like, "Man that's some good stuff, have you ever wrote a book about it? Have you ever done a blog post about it?"
They go, "No, everybody knows that." I'm like, "No, everybody doesn't know that. You know that, and there are people out there that don't know what you know."
You can always be somebody else's teacher.
RF: Yeah, I dig it. And that should be an inspiration for people that might be selling items on eBay or on Etsy or something that's very far from the stage, right? Anything behind a computer is pretty much far from the stage.
It's inspiring I think for people to give themselves a little bit of credit.
I think it also goes back to limiting beliefs. If you don't even give yourself the chance to think through it, then it's not going to be there.
JL: Yes absolutely.
RF: So, we broke down this concept of experience.
Now, I want to dissect the next thing that you said, which had to do with stories, but more particularly stories about experiences that might not have gone right, this whole vulnerability concept.
We just talked about, "Go out there and freaking own it," like, a 100-yard dash sprint. "Say it like you know it, even if you read it last night."
I think that also snags people if they may come across as inauthentic.
My question to you is the importance of stories, but when it comes to telling stories that don't make you look so good, or the stories that a lot of people hide because maybe it wasn't the most pleasurable experience, but in your keychain of advice you were like, "Be authentic."
So I am curious just to know your insights on that?
JL: Yeah, I'll give it to you from my old experience with e-commerce. I used to have all these people that were on eBay or Amazon after you buy a product you can leave a review.
There were people that were obsessed with having 100% positive feedback.
I remember the day that I had my feedback, somebody had a negative experience posted it, I could not get them to remove it.
No matter what I did, turn car wheels they would not remove it.
I had to live with this bad, negative review, I've had thousands of positives and this one negative, move me from 100%t to 99 percent.
That 1% difference, that 1%, I always thought was going to make me not as good as the other people that were 100%.
What ended up happening is that 1% made me ten times better than everybody else, because I don't care who you are, even your own mother who gave birth to you is not 100% happy with you.
When they see this perspective story inauthenticity screams at them. Even the earth wobbles, it's not a perfect circle, there's nothing perfect in our universe except your story!
And guess what— suddenly I don't believe it.
There has to be struggle; if there's no Darth Vader who cares about Luke Skywalker.
RF: Oh my goodness.
JL: You've got to have that, there has to be that struggle that you have overcome.
It doesn't have to be that deep in there, but there has to be some portion where I can feel like you are human just like me.
RF: This is I think one of the best pieces of advice that I've heard, in the way that you delivered it, because you set it up with something that was your own personal story, you brought in everyone's mom.
You had a crescendo to this power punch point with the even cliche that one percent made me ten times better. It's like, "Damn!"
JL: You're killing it today boy, I'm telling you.
RF: This is good, let's build on this.
Now, here's another riff on that— what about the difference between storytelling that's authentic about your true self and connecting with people and then self-deprecation?
Like making fun of yourself. Because I think people sometimes confuse the two, and it could go one way or the other, what is your thought on that?
JL: That's good too, because you can be overly open sometimes.
I think I've had that happen before, I can't remember the exact feeling that I had on stage when I was like, "Oops, I think I went too far." It was like, "Okay, I've got to reel it back in, reel it back in."
There are limits to certain things that you just don't want to reveal.
Everything— it's weird, I think everything about me has at least in social or on online, there is a percentage of that that is a persona.
The guy that's on stage is not necessarily the guy that you would go out to dinner with every night, you'd go out to dinner with them that night because he just got off stage and I'm in that mode.
With my kids at home, I am not that same guy all the time. All that to bring it back to the self-deprecating humor, as— I'm just good at self-deprecating humor.
Because I know it sets other people at ease.
RF: I think that that's the thread that it sounds like is getting your audience at ease, and if they feel connected with you then they're more at ease.
Especially culturally, when you're talking about being a speaker worldwide, this same principle concept of storytelling that has elements of self-deprecation for the purpose of getting people to lower their guards, right?
JL: Right. Here's a thing— if you think about it, if you go back to talk about us as human beings, individuals.
There was always a storyteller in our midst, right? They would sit around in our pre-cave days or our cave days, and somebody would be the storyteller around that fire, that night.
And then there's somebody that's like, "Oh! I can't wait until uncle so-and-so tells the story at Christmas time." We innately will sit and listen to a good storyteller.
If you can become a good storyteller, people will listen to you.
I talked about Zig Ziglar at the beginning, because that's my guy, I used to listen to him all the time when I was young and he always told stories, he was such a great storyteller, and people learn, we learn best with stories.
That's why Jack and Jill went up the hill, Dick and Jane ran, we would teach through stories. If you can teach a story, people are going to get it, and if you can make them laugh, they're going to remember you.
RF: Wow, that's pretty much the entertainment business meets the education and some sprinkles of empowerment on "Destiny's Island" with Tony Robbins, or something like that, I don't know.
JL: I can't wait.
RF: While we are selling pens to everybody on the island, straight Zig style.
JL: You've got to go for it.
RF: Anybody who has not read Zig Ziglar or listen to his plethora of just gold nugget knowledge, his swaying of going door to door and selling pots to people, it's epic, right?
JL: Epic. What's so great is, I'm aging myself now, but I used to have to go out to the Library and check it out, just to listen to these, I couldn't afford these tapes.
Now you can get them, they're all on YouTube, free, go listen.
There is no reason why we can't attach ourselves to some of the great speakers of our time, and they're all out there on the internet, it's awesome.
RF: Yeah, it's awesome but it's also crazy that there is so much information you get the "The Paradox of Choice" which is another good book by the way, and you just sort of seem to look at everything or get a bunch of courses but never finish them.
One of the things that I try to weave into, the stories that I can tell at the end of the day, is that successful people are not doing things that everybody else cannot do, successful people are doing things that everyone can do but not everyone does.
That's why I get excited about the type of advice that anybody can pick up, and they can listen to and implement, because it doesn't cost anything, there's no doubt, there's no software to download right?
You might have to do a handstand if you're trying to copy my move of doing a handstand.
Other than that, for the most part these tips that you've given on your keychain of advice, which by the way, the book that you're going to write is going to be called like "The Little Red Keychain," and it's going to be a throwback to Zig and you can probably have it printed on a little tiny book and have it on a keychain.
It can be a little tiny pocketbook for speaking tips for people who don't think they are speakers.
JL: Bam! I'm ready.
RF: If you need it illustrated, it I'll draw stick figures for you.
JL: You're going to draw to stick— there we go.
RF: Yeah, I am a stick figure drawer, that's one of the things that I do, you didn't know?
JL: Okay, I didn't know.
RF: Maybe these stick figures haven't reached to your side of the universe yet, but they're out there somewhere.
JL: I'm going to go find them as soon as we get off here.
RF: Awesome.
Okay, so the timing couldn't be better, because I want to talk not about stick figures, but I want to talk about how you can turn whatever stick figure drawing on stage and manipulate those lines into dollar signs.
What kind of experience can you speak from, that would be valuable to people who are experts, but maybe are not sought out by companies to speak at large conferences of few thousands of people?
JL: Right. Well, I meet so many speakers on the road, and then you'll be like, "How do I hire you today?" And they're like, "Oh, let's set up a call and—." And I was like, "No, what if I want to hire you right now, how can I hire you?"
If you don't have an answer to that question, it is going to be impossible for you to really be successful and turn this into a dollar sign.
The first thing is you've got to have is your thought of a sales funnel.
You need to be able to take people's money as soon as they are ready to give it to you, whether that be in a book form, whether that be in a training class.
If you can come and set up some consulting, all of that, you want to start just thinking about that right now. Because it's the backend that's going to really keep you in this business.
If you think that people are going to pay you thousands of dollars to be on stage in 2018, 2019, 2020— I'm telling you, it's not going to happen.
It's getting harder and harder, because there are more and more people that are selling this dream that being a speaker is the “be all and end all”, you’re going to be just rich because you're speaking.
No. Speaking is the top of the funnel, that's totally the top of the funnel. You need to have all another backend ready.
RF: Hey, you are colder than ice my friend. He is colder than ice, he's got the hard cored advice that will pop your bubble. But, it's better to know that going into it.
JL: Yes, here's truth— I am going to give some more truth. If you think writing a book is going to do it— I know so many broke authors, it's sad.
Trust me, all of that, the book, the speaking, all of that is top of the funnel, those are just your business cards, that's getting people aware of your business and wanting to do business with you.
RF: I was just going to say for the people that are wanting to go to Eis Hardware after this and go buy a funnel. When you say that, like I'm thinking,"Yeah, top of the funnel, I know exactly what that is."
Maybe elaborate a little bit more, because that's a piece of nugget knowledge, it's like giving the gold miners the machinery to mine the gold.
What is the basic ideal funnel for a speaker that would get you comfortable when you ask them that magic question, "How can I hire you now," they give you an answer and you are like, "Dude, I love that answer that's what I was looking for, you're on the way."
JL: I think the best thing you want to do is start thinking about what you can sell on the backend.
If you're teaching me something that I need to know, after you teach me that, is how to implement it.
What you get up there and you tell people, "Here's what you should do with your product and here's how you do it."
RF: I like that.
JL: That's real, because that's what you're going to do.
Speakers that are in business do too much, they start teaching them how to do it, you just need to teach them what to do, and they'll come to you and ask you how to do it.
That's when you say, "You know what, I have got a training course, we're about to start, eight weeks right now and it’s X amount, that's great for you.”
“Oh, you can't afford that, here's my book, it's only $25, and you can go through that, and then give me a call if you get stuck."
RF: Yeah, and then pack them into the next eight-week course once you're done.
JL: Yeah, they're going to come, because you've already demonstrated that you are the expert.
RF: Telling them how to do it versus what to do, if you tell them—
JL: Huge, huge difference.
RF: Okay, so clarify this again: you want to tell them how to do it or what to do first? What do you want to speak from the stage?
JL: What to do.
RF: You tell them what to do—
JL: This call right now, this interview right now, I've told you everything that you need to do. I haven't told you how to do it. How do I get an eight-week course together?
RF: In the book that I'm going to illustrate and you're going to write that is on a little red keychain, I can visualize it now, in the very end, we're just going to tell people everything what they need to do and that the end it will be like, "If you want to find out how— click here."
JL: I don't want it to feel like it's a game, I'm not really trying to game people, but the thing is that's the information they want first.
See? That's the information they want first, is what to do. You go to the doctor, "I don't feel good, what do I do?" "Okay, well here's what you do."
Look, if you are overweight and you go to a doctor and you say, "I don't feel well, I'm losing breath all the time, what do I do?"
He's going to tell you that you need to probably eat better, and you're not going to really want to hear the diet plan, right?
You're not going to really want to hear that, but you just want to know what it is, so he will tell you-you're a little overweight you need to lose some weight.
"Okay, cool," you're satisfied until the next time and you're like, "Dude, I've tried, how do I do, I want the result, I want the result now, I've tried what you told me to do on my own and I just can't do it.”
”How can you help me get there faster, better than if I try to do it myself?"
That's what I'm here for, I'm here to help people to get the result that they need faster and better, without having to go through all the learning steps that I had to go through to learn the stuff.
The reason why I'm the expert is that I've done it all, I've done everything I'm telling you about, I've already done it, I know how to do it.
I can save you a lot of time doing it, but I can tell you exactly what you need to do. Google's free, google it, everything I tell you— google it, you can get it done, trust me it will just take you maybe seven years like it took me.
Or we can work together and we can get your result in six weeks.
Am I selling you?
RF: I'm sold, but I'm one step further, I'm trying to figure out a brand for this thing, so you got the John Lawson WWHH. That's the “Want, What, How, Help.”
JL: You're good.
RF: Then maybe next time I have a chance to steal some stage time, my five slides are going to be the "Want", basically identifying that this is what you want, and I'm going to tell you what you need to do— slide two.
Then slide three, I'm going to say this is how I can help, and then slide four is going to help you, the action. Then my last slide will be the call to action, top of the funnel that will basically move people to the next spot.
That is, ladies and gentlemen the John Lawson WWHHS, because we had to do a sale maybe at the end, I don't know. #WWHH, if you're listening out there and you want to hit up a John Lawson and myself, why don't you tweet us and just say either a big fan of, or want to give a shout out to the #WWHH, I don't know— is this a method or a theory, what is this?
JL: This has to be a method, I like methods.
RF: Alright, this is good, this is a #WWHH method, born here, so shoot us a tweet, and I guarantee that I will re-tweet and John I'm sure you will.
John, how do people find you on Twitter?
JL: ColderIce, one word, ColderIce. You can find me everywhere, just type that in Google and you will find me.
RF: #ColderIce. Have you been using the hashtag #colderice?
JL: Yes sometimes, I am that so I don't have to ask.
RF: Right. That's cool, I hash my GingerMC, and so my new business cards actually that's all it has, just a #gingermc.
And remember back in the library days, you would find a book because they'd send you to the Dewey decimal system, little card project right.
JL: Yes, yes.
RF: The hashtag is a modern Dewey decimal system and just helping people find my information faster.
JL: You just care me such a great idea.
RF: Good. Let's put it in the little blue book which will be the second release.
JL: The blue book, which is the second, the follow up to the red one, because you need the series.
RF: Yes, you know what they do say about books— they say, "Your first book is important, but your second book is way more important."
Because if you're just a one-stop shop, that's no bueno.
JL: Yeah, I agree.
RF: Hey John, I want to know about the ColderICE, where did this come from?
What was the inspiration? You're selling shoelaces online right now, okay?
JL: Oh gosh.
RF: Is it because you're so cool, I could see that.
JL: No, but it's a very good, it's an American history lesson.
RF: Okay, tell me, we still have a little bit of time here, I want to know, it sounds like story time.
JL: Okay, great. Here's the deal. Back in segregation, Jim Crow era of America, there was an entire ecosystem that was dedicated just to African Americans.
They couldn't stay at the white hotel, they had to have their own hotel; couldn't ride the white cab, they had to have their own cab.
They couldn't go to the white store to get the shoeshine you had to go to the black store and get it; everything was segregated.
That means there was an entire economy that was a black economy.
The day that segregation was over an integration was the new thing, black shop owners would sit out and look at their customers walk past their store to go downtown to shop at the stores that they never could shop at before.
There was a saying among those black store owners that, "I guess the white man's ice is colder."
That's where I got ColderIce from, because when I was getting started, I didn't want people to think that I didn't have the wisdom that I had based on the packaging, it came and I was like ColderIce, boom and that's where it came from.
RF: That is such a cool throwback. It just goes to show the story behind the story behind the story, and it's just so compelling, like I've got goosebumps because you bring back these emotions of just things that are important to remember and how far we've come, but how far we have to go.
It's awesome to include that. I think that it just also speaks a little bit to the value of mystique.
JL: It's a conversation starter.
RF: Yes, like the WWHH, right?
JL: WWHH.
RF: Somebody probably already jumped on the domain by now, and grabbed it, right, but that's okay.
JL: That's okay.
RF: We'll do wwhh.io and then they can't grab us.
JL: There is so many now, are there?
RF: I have to tell you, John, this has been just a delightful conversation.
I am excited to have this be the first dot in a series of dots that eventually becomes a line which hopefully becomes a relationship to some extent, even if it's online or just getting to know more about what you have going on, because we're going to write this book together and then we have a new method. So it makes sense.
JL: It makes sense. We're onto something brand new.
RF: Awesome and that's the trick, that's the name of the game, is to create newness in what you're doing, because nobody wants another social media speaker.
Figure out what within social media you want to speak on, get that experience, find the authority and if you're nervous spit that out at the audience in the first ten seconds, and then they'll be spitting back at you by the end of it, right?
JL: You've got a mind that's like a trap, it's amazing.
RF: Well, like I said, I enjoy the verbal sounds.
I also enjoy the wine, I just can't tell you what wine is what but I can tell you that something happens with sounds in my brain, and it excites me enough to make it what I do every single day.
JL: I so appreciate your time and it was like the best interview ever.
RF: Sweet, and I'm going to hashtag and share that and look forward too, buddy.
All right, let's get out of here, you guys whoever is listening, get on with your day or jump to the next podcast, go do something and guess what— worst case John says google it.
Adios everybody, see you, John.
JL: Later!
A bit about World of Speakers
World of Speakers is a weekly podcast that helps people find their own voice, and teaches them how to use their voice to develop a speaking business.
We cover topics like: what works versus what doesn't, ideas on how to give memorable presentations, speaking tips, and ideas on how to build a speaking business.
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