Ryan Foland speaks with Kim Orlesky, a thought-leader, writer, and speaker. Kim’s courageousness to quit her life and backpack solo around the world inspired her to use her mastery in sales to help entrepreneurs create better sales processes.
Kim is an expert in sales, and in this conversation she and Ryan look at key selling tactics for 2018: such as transparency, storytelling, empathy, and building strong relationships with event organizers. This podcast will help you learn how to connect with event organizers on a more concrete level to get more bookings.
Listen to this podcast to find out:
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Kim Orlesky: Hey, it's Kim Orlesky.
I just finished an awesome podcast with Ryan from World of Speakers.
I am excited to tell you all about how the suffering and the bleeding of event organizers can be resolved by you— yes, you!— through the use of storytelling and empathy. Listen here.
Ryan Foland: Welcome back everyone to another episode. I am super stoked because we have Kim Orlesky here.
Now, aside from an awesome accent because she's Canadian, we are going to learn about her tips, her tricks, her travels around the world, the books that she's written and the advice she can have for you, to become the speaker that you want to be.
Kim, how are you today?
KO: I'm doing awesome! Thank you so much for having me, Ryan.
RF: I'm glad that you're here.
Today, I want to find out first more about you, because you've got this crazy story, you were a corporate Xerox, successful behind the desk.
Then, you dropped the desk, you ran around the world for however many months, you wrote a couple of books and now you're teaching everybody the soul of sales essentially.
Is that a wrap up of your whole life?
KO: That's it, this is the end of the podcast, thank you.
RF: On your site, it says “Sell More Faster” and there's the brief outline of this travel and this nomadic lifestyle.
I'm curious about that dichotomy because there's this nature, peace-loving environment and then, there is “Sell More Faster”.
I love that you've got this weave in between, which is like the soul of sales— do it faster maybe so you can get out there and travel. I don't know.
KO: You are right, it is such a dichotomy.
The interesting thing about it is— in order to sell more faster, you actually have to slow down the process.
It comes back to this whole idea of that mindfulness and everything, and beyond just all that buzz behind it.
When we are present in a conversation with a prospect or a client, we understand their problems and we can create the solutions that they need in a faster way.
They truly feel like we understand where they're coming from, we're not just going ahead and trying to push our product or service.
We're providing them with value on how they can best address whatever their challenges are.
RF: Sneaky. That's good, that's legitimate right there.
That's not selling more faster as in speed. It's increasing your speed at which you can figure out what problem needs to be solved and the speed at which you can solve it, which ends up doing more sales.
KO: I think there's a Japanese proverb or something on that, where it talks about if you want to go fast, slow down.
RF: Right, and we all know whether the horse— not the horse, the rabbit or the hare? No, those are both the same. The turtle and the— what am I looking for here?
KO: The tortoise and the hare.
RF: That is a good example, I should have just slowed down so that I could have said it faster.
KO: Yeah, absolutely.
RF: Did you always have this mentality of sort of thinking twice, measuring twice, cutting once?
Were you the analytical type of kid?
Were you the rambunctious kid?
Where did it all begin?
KO: Yeah, no, and yes.
The first part was like “God, no.”, I was never the slow down person.
I was a super analytical person, I had my life in a spreadsheet and I wanted everything yesterday.
I look back on trying to get awards with school and becoming class president all the way to my relationships. Whether we're talking relationships in sales or actual physical love relationships.
When I'm on a stage and speaking, I talk about how a sales conversation is a lot like a dating process, and we never try to propose marriage on the first date. I mean, the person would think, "No" right off.
And yet the irony is, years ago I remember being in these relationships and I'd be like, "Okay guys, time is ticking, we're getting close to the two-year mark, are we getting serious or not?"
Now, the whole travel changed all of that, and it allowed me to say,
"You know what— you're right, I need to slow down that process, enjoy the moment that I’m in, creating valuable relationships with people and the rest will truly follow."
When you do not just live it and breathe it, but your entire life and the way you converse with prospects and clients contain that, it's amazing how much quicker, yet at the same time, how much more fruitful those relationships become.
RF: It makes me think of the letter, I forgot who wrote it, but there's a long letter and it basically apologized for not having enough time to write a shorter letter.
KO: Oh my goodness, I actually said that quote today! That's so funny, I was like, "Had I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter."
It's very much that case where we take our time, we understand not just the idea behind everything that we say, but the reason behind why we're saying it.
I was on another podcast this morning, we were talking about phone calls and I asked the host, "What's the number one reason people make phone calls?"
He was like, "I don't know, to get people to know." I said, "No, it's to get the next meeting."
We forget that that's supposed to be the outcome. When we focus on what the outcome is supposed to be, everything leads in the right direction, and with the right pieces in place.
RF: Now, you are Canadian, is that correct?
KO: I am Canadian, yeah, and you'll notice it when I say things like “processes” and “niche”.
RF: How was growing up in Canada? What part did you grow up in?
Were you in the really cold area, or were you sort of next to the ocean? Where were you?
KO: No, I wish I was next to the ocean. My parents made me grow up in the dark prairies, if you've ever heard of a place called Edmonton? If you are an NHL fan.
I grew up in the heart of the Gretzky and the Messier days and everything else.
Edmonton is a cold place, I think we would get darkness 16 hours a day in the middle of winter, but on the flip side, the summers were exactly the opposite — the days were so long.
I remember as a kid we were allowed to play in the summertime until it got dark which would sometimes be like 11 at night.
Then we would have to come in, but it was brutally cold in the winter time.
I think the only reason I know this is because -40 is the same in Celsius as it is in Fahrenheit, and we could get down to -40.
If you can even fathom how cold that is — and there was lots of snow.
Canada is a beautiful place, I love it here, I don't know if I would ever move.
I love also getting down to the States as often as I can, sharing my message, going down for various speaking events, whenever I'm invited or making those happen.
RF: When you were traveling and sort of picked up and just became a nomad for a while — was there an element of exploration?
Is that something that you hadn't been able to do and you wanted to? Or were you doubling down with that?
You're also not only experiencing, but scoping out these different areas and possibly living there?
Or was it just truly a pickup, get away, take a breather and then come back and hustle?
KO: When I traveled, I wasn't expecting to come back and become an entrepreneur, that was something that just naturally evolved through that process.
The intention of the trip itself was something that I had always wanted to do. At the time, I wasn't young by any means, I had passed my ridiculous 20’s where you can really do anything.
At the time I was 31 years old. I was well established with a six-figure career. I had a 4- bedroom house. I was doing quite well. I was on the right path that somebody should be on in their 30's.
I woke up one day and I said, "What am I doing?" I knew when I started asking myself deeper questions, like, "What do I really want out of life? Where do I want to be?"
Travel kept coming up as one of them.
At the time, one of my biggest regrets was never taking that opportunity to take that gap-year between the university and starting my career.
I was in such a hurry for everything. I was in hurry, hurry, rush, rush like, "Get your career started, build up your equity, buy that house."
And I said, "Why was I in such a rush? And what is really stopping me right now?"
At the time, I was not married with any kids and I thought, "This is probably my most perfect opportunity to be able to go do that."
When I had spreadsheeted out my life like I did, I realized on two-week vacations it was going to take me well past retirement to see all the places that I wanted to see.
I said, "I'm going to do this now!" I was so glad that I did.
I had made this list of countries that I wanted to see with the whole intention. I was just going to say, "Yes" to every experience and opportunity that presented itself.
My entire life was all about restrictions and limitations and saying, "No, for now, because something greater might come,” as opposed to saying, "Why not say, 'Yes' in this moment."
The experience itself ended up opening doors that I had never thought possible.
That was only because I was willing to throw caution to the wind and try something completely different for myself in that moment.
RF: I can't tell that you're excited about the experience at all. Your tone of voice does not give it away, it sounds like it was terrible.
KO: Jumping on planes and jet-setting all over the place.
RF: What's interesting is that a lot of people want that international speaking lifestyle, but I don't know if everyone understands what happens when you travel.
There's a big part of traveling when you're speaking internationally, just even speaking across the border, something like that.
How are you feeling about traveling?
Is it something like the travel part of traveling, getting to the destination?
KO: I love it. If I'm not on a plane at minimum of every 6 weeks I start to get really itchy.
I had my first born in February and so the travel portion has kind of been put on the hiatus for a while.
I love going to destinations, I love really experiencing the culture.
One thing that I took away more than anything else on that trip was that before that point in time, most of my traveling had included all-inclusive in Mexico and the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, and I never really felt like I had explored the culture.
Then, all of a sudden, I am in countries like Vietnam and Turkey and Egypt, and I am actually staying in little local two-star hotels, type of thing, and immersing myself in the food and the language.
I remember going to one place in Thailand and not understanding a single thing on the menu board.
Somehow on an iPad app that I had I was able to say, "I'll have that,” and I pointed to some random dish and I had no idea what it was.
It ended up being beef balls which I was like, "Well, at least I didn't know about it at the time."
RF: That's awesome. Beef balls, I've had meatballs but not beef balls. I guess beef balls are still meatballs and meatballs are beef balls.
KO: I'm glad I didn't know about it at the time.
RF: Yeah, I was in the Philippines and I had my fair share of just about everything, chicken feet and whatever they're selling off the corner. I would always prefer to eat stuff off the streets.
It definitely is eye-opening, it fills your stomach with interesting food, but definitely with the culture and perspective.
I am assuming you bring all that now worldly perspective into the sales training that you do?
KO: Yes, I do. I do a lot of talks, and a lot of stories that I tell from the stage are very travel related.
It creates that moment of inspiration and whimsy with the audience.
I do incorporate a little bit of the travel in the actual sales training, but I mostly save all the travel stories for the moments on stage.
When I am in the training portion of it, I talk a lot about empathy and connecting with people and understanding where they come from, from all walks of life, which is a big appreciation I took from travel.
RF: Talk for a second about the types of sales training that you do.
Are you just teaching people to craft their sales tools in general?
Are you specific to any industry?
Tell us a little bit more about how you are honing this craft and helping people with it?
KO: From my personal experience, working with Xerox and American Express and even a little bit in medical sales, I learned very quickly that the hardest sales out there were the intangibles.
Those sales where you weren't necessarily selling a product, a widget, something that somebody could hold on to. It's anything that was service related.
Software was always a big one, anything where your client really doesn't necessarily understand what they're getting, because there is nothing for them to hold on to.
I love spending a little bit of time with people, understanding what “that value” conversation is.
I don't work with any specific industry, but the people that love taking my training, whether they're entrepreneurs or small businesses, are typically selling their products to other businesses, so it's a B2B type of conversation.
They need to understand what that entire value discovery is.
Finally, myself, I love to practice what I preach; I also believe in premium product for a premium price. I don't believe in discounting or negotiating.
I believe, at the end of the day, in showing the client the complete picture of what they're going to get, what that solution completely looks like for the client.
If you are currently having, or you know anybody that is having those sets of conversations where I need to create crazy amounts of value for my customer on something that they're not going to be able to touch and feel, but at the end of the day is going to impact their business significantly — that's the type of training that I do.
We go through the entire sales process, as opposed to other types of training that are out there, where this is driven on e-course.
Personally, I am not a huge fan of e-courses, specifically when it comes to the sales conversation, because sales are something that you need to do — knowing is not doing.
I've transitioned my courses now to be a virtual classroom environment, so you learn a little bit and then you have to practice in the sandbox a little bit.
For things such as cold calls, it's amazing, because people will be as nervous pretending to make a phone call as they do actually making the legitimate phone call.
If you can get all that nervousness out in the classroom environment, it becomes so much easier and more effective when they're out there smashing those phone calls, getting those meetings and essentially being able to sell more, faster.
RF: Smashing phone calls, I love the smashing element here.
I'm going to assume that there's a big part of the sales process, at least the way that you teach it, that has to do with the confidence getting in over those nerves.
Would you consider a big part of the selling process smashing your public speaking skills?
KO: At the end of the day, it comes down a lot to confidence. It becomes understanding your message so well.
We're talking about relating, selling to public speaking, there are so many similar elements, everything from storytelling.
There is so much scientific research done nowadays that a story can help sell a product faster and for a higher profit.
There's a great story I saw on Twitter a couple of days ago and it's about a woman who is selling her Honda Accord, it was a 1996 Honda Accord, ridiculous.
I think she was trying to sell it for £700, and so her boyfriend went ahead and created this little 90-second video about this vehicle.
It's currently listed on eBay for people who wanted to pay up to $100,000 for this car, because of the story.
And there's other scientific research done on this; there was this one group that went ahead and they went to thrift stores and they bought all these little items off the thrift store shelves.
I think they ended up spending a total of $100, but for every item they bought as they listed it on eBay, they told this wonderful story about it, about how it reminded them of their grandma and everything else like this.
And these items went for like 20x the amount that had originally been paid, because storytelling is so important and we know this from public speaking.
The other thing is just really connecting with your audience and your message through the use of empathy.
With public speaking, when we're selling on stage, we tell not just stories, but we try to get the audience to understand how we were feeling in a very specific moment, and by doing that, they can then resonate within themselves.
When we do that, the prospect is willing to engage with us even further and continue on with our story and our journey with them.
RF: What I love about the type of advice that you're giving — it's my favorite type of advice.
I really believe successful people are not successful because they're doing things everyone else cannot do. Successful people are doing things that everyone can do, but not everybody does.
It's just so powerful to have things like empathy and storytelling continue to come up as like some of the best pieces of advice that people can give.
For somebody who hears that, they are like, "Yeah, stories, great. Yeah, empathy, great," but they're still not connecting with it.
How do you get people to tap into their own stories or convince them that their stories are still cool?
I haven't traveled around the world, but do you have any exercises for people to really take those pieces of advice and find something that's within them that they can do without, I guess, being intimidated by that process?
KO: Everybody has a unique story, no matter what.
At the end of the day, it's about what your personal life experience has helped you to do to contribute to where you are today.
You might not have been able to experience traveling with a backpack across 17 countries in 6 months.
However, you went from an accountant to an artist; it might not seem very glamorous, but at the same time, there's another accountant out there who completely resonates with that, and they are like, "I have this creative piece in me, and I never got the chance to be able to open that up before."
I think when it really comes down to stories, the first one is when you find something that makes you emotionally charged, you practice it, play around with it a little bit.
Ask yourself for every story that you tell, "Why am I choosing this story and what's the purpose behind it? If I tell this story, what do I hope somebody will learn or gain from it?"
It doesn't have to be a life-altering moment that these stories can have, we know these even from when we tell jokes.
When you tell a joke to somebody you talk about how you were sitting in a bar and like a rabbi, the Easter bunny and Popeye all walked in—
RF: Or Elvis.
KO: Yes, Elvis type of thing, but people are caught in, they know that it's not completely real, but they're like, "Oh my goodness, that's awesome," or whatever.
We have all experienced, whether that is sitting at a bus stop and having the person next to us tell for 5 minutes something really powerful that just happened to them.
Or a life experience where we've all been completely moved by something, sometimes so mundane, and at the same time it was so memorable in our lives.
I think no matter who you are, there is something you can share that will move people beyond words, and it's not about what the story is, but what you hope people will learn from it that makes it a powerful story.
RF: I think that's a good distinction.
There are all kinds of little lessons learned in stories, the stories might not be glamorous, but the lessons might be on point with what you're trying to train on, or you're trying to use as an example, or how you came up with whatever you came up with.
KO: Yeah, absolutely right.
Even when I created my own story, when I'm standing on stage, I could have told 100 000 different stories of my travels. But I asked myself, "What do I want somebody to learn from them?"
One of my signature stories that I talk about is this hike up Kilimanjaro and how it took me several days and I had this guy that was trying to slow me down.
I go into extensive details about the summit day and how dark it was and eventually getting up there and celebrating with all these people.
But I chose that story not because — number one, everyone thinks it's pretty cool, but when I was actually determining which stories I want to tell from the stage, I asked myself, "What do I want people to take away from this?"
One of the points for me was that it takes a village essentially to get you where you need to go and that it could seem easy at the beginning, but it's always really tough at the end.
That's why I said, "Okay, that's the point I want to make. What story has that parallel to it? What elements can I pull to make those parallels?"
That's why I specifically chose the Kilimanjaro story because I knew what was the point I wanted to make.
Then I just asked myself, "When have I experienced that in my life, and what can I tell to make that connection?"
RF: So reverse engineering storytelling tactic?
KO: The analytic piece of me comes out again.
RF: Right, get your spreadsheet, come up with what you want and then reverse engineer and patch it in.
You could probably create a system or an app where people are traveling and they are entering stories or moments, almost like a journal, that can have some sort of an emotional relevance and then maybe they also have a comment about their lessons learned.
Or as a separate exercise, you have them type in, like, the messages that you want to share and then you could figure out the app.
Basically, it's a dating system between your stories and the output so that you have an arsenal of stories that are real, that back up what you want to say.
KO: I think it's a brilliant idea!
The interesting part is, even when I was in those moments, that was part of one of the first books I wrote, it was actually my daily blog from traveling and then I condensed it down and turned it into a book.
But I found that, we know this from nostalgia, we don't remember events exactly as they occur.
There are a lot of lessons that I learned from the travels that I didn't fully resonate with, until years afterward.
Maybe part of that is that nostalgia portion of it, but the other part might be it is just how it came about.
RF: Alright, so storytelling empathy.
Let's round off your big advice, it's an interesting combo because you are really helping people with the technical skills of the sales, and there are these parallels between public speaking, or speaking, or whatnot.
What is the best type of element in your speaking arsenal that you need to hone to be the best salesperson?
We talked about stories and we talked about empathy, but is there any other type of actual skill, like whether it's your tonal inflection or whether it's how well you can maintain a consistent speed or relate to different people in different ways?
From a sales strategy, what is the best piece of public speaking or presentation skill-set that you think people need?
KO: When we tie in public speaking to the sales strategy, I think the last one is really about gaining commitment.
RF: Gaining commitment, okay.
KO: You have to have some type of call to action with your audience. Otherwise, all you've done is just told them a really good story.
And people love stories, don't get me wrong, but if you are using your speaking platform as a selling from stage opportunity, like many of us do, whether that is actually selling into a program or selling your book or just sign up for my newsletter to get even more information. At the end of the day, that's a sale.
We have to provide that gaining commitment and not just putting out that big ask, but it really ties into what's that value.
If I sign up for your newsletter, if I loved everything you said, Ryan and I need to connect with you more and sign up for your newsletter.
What am I essentially going to get every single week that I didn't get from a one hour talk where you were on stage?
What am I going to get more from you and why do I want to do that?
And when we help our clients make those connections, that's how we can engage them further.
You start talking and selling from the stage, that's just one platform.
Eventually, we need to get them outside of a one-to-many conversation and at some point on to a one-to-one, if that's virtual, or if that's just them feeling like they are one-to-one.
I mean, you could still be selling an e-course program, but they still need to feel like it's specifically tailored to them, in some way.
RF: I like that, the call for commitment or something.
You're right, if you're just up there, you're telling stories, but if there's no secondary step or a call to action, then what right; and then — what?
KO: If you are a keynote speaker, where you can't essentially sell from the stage, what are they going to have to do today or tomorrow to implement what you just taught them?
They're not there to solely be entertained. At the end of the day we want them to take some type of action in their life.
We want them to be inspired and we inspire people by them, whether that's picking up the phone the very next day and thinking like,
"Oh my goodness, Ryan encouraged me to do this, I am going to live everything Ryan told me on stage and I'm actually going to make this phone call."
All the way to maybe they make some type of drastic change in their life, maybe they at that point decide,
"You know what — based on Kim's story, I'm going to go in tomorrow and quit my job and travel the world." You never know.
We want them to take some type of action and we want them to hold that whole moment where we have created this emotional charge and let them do something with it.
RF: I think that's a great concept because I don't think a lot of speakers consider themselves the "s word', it's kind of dirty sometimes, but at the end of the day, you have to have something for people to take after the fact.
Let's put on our sales cap now, and let's pretend that you are teaching someone who is in the speaking business to sell themselves.
I think it's one thing when you're selling this intangible product for a service, but it is another thing when you are an up and coming speaker and you are selling yourself.
There's this, I would think the dynamic between selling a product for a company that I'm with, versus, "Hey I'm actually that person that you're trying to buy."
I'm curious about the process that you go through to help somebody get more gigs.
I love this concept and I want to hear more about the right customer not really negotiating.
How do you get that premium rate?
Because speaking and getting $10 000 versus speaking 10 000 times right, there's definitely a parallel there.
What would your advice be, from a sales perspective, for speakers that are out there and they don't have a big bureau behind them?
Or they don't have a full team of assistants to help them out, or they don't have a sales crew?
Where would you start somebody to get them to move the needle?
KO: If you want to get started in speaking, whether that is the big stages or get to a point where you're being paid — it's so difficult, but we have to ask and we have to put ourselves out there.
When I'm going ahead in finding my own speaking gigs, I end up using programs like SpeakerHub, which always is a great collection of places to go to.
I am also Google searching constantly and I am looking for alerts.
I find out not only where the events are, but who's hosting them and I connect with them on LinkedIn and schedule a phone call with them to tell them, not necessarily who I am, but what I can bring to the table in terms of their audience interaction.
We have to make sure we're making that connection between what we're actually giving the other person, not what we're getting and receiving, and when we can help somebody solve a problem,
For an event planner or perhaps somebody who is hosting a conference and they're looking for speakers, for instance, their biggest problems are,
"How am I going to fill the seats? How am I going to maximize my revenue for this and how am I going to create even more exposure?"
"Even if I don't get 200, 300 attendees this year, how do I ensure that next year I already have that sold?"
If you go to somebody and you let them know that you're going to help relieve one or many of those issues, all of a sudden they're like, "Oh, okay, now I'm going to listen."
And they're taking in that information. It's not just about telling them exactly what you're doing, but holding yourself a little bit with humility.
At the end of the day, you become a $15,000, $20,000 speaker because of number one, what you can provide, but number two, because you're willing to help out.
When I go ahead, and now that I'm actually at that point, I'm at that level, it's interesting because I'm still willing to help the event organizer out in whichever ways I can to help make their conference, their event, a massive success.
I don't know if I have answered your question?
RF: You did, we're starting here, we're just getting warmed up.
This idea, I think the main point that I took from that was you're not telling people about you, you're telling people about the problems that you can solve for them.
I'm a big proponent of this. You know I talk all the time about how I don't care what you do, I only care about the problem you solve and I really, really care about it if I have that problem.
The ability of not really focusing on yourself, but on the problem that you saw, really takes you out of the equation and makes it more like you are actually selling, not a service, but you're selling solutions to their problems.
KO: Absolutely.
Going back to one of your other topics: that we're selling ourselves.
The reason why we're so frustrated and we have a hard time selling ourselves is because we're trying to think of ourselves as this human entity, "How do I sell Kim, at the end of the day?"
But it has nothing to do with who Kim is, it has to do with the problem the other person has and, "What's the problem that I can solve?" And that has the value associated with it.
If you're hosting an event, for instance, let's say you're hosting a massive sales and marketing event and somebody comes to you and they are one of the best-positioned speakers in the world.
They have all these accolades and Nobel Peace Prize and blah blah blah blah, and they said, "Listen, I'm the best in the world."
As a person holding a conference for sales and business people, it doesn't matter how good or how amazing they are.
If it doesn't resonate with their audience, they wouldn't be interested in it.
Whereas if he says, "You know what — I'm not only going to tell you about how I got the Nobel Peace Prize, but what it did for my business and how this could help other people in other ways, and so on."
All of a sudden, the person is thinking like, "Oh, actually, that would be a really cool perspective, it would kind of get us into a different way and it might draw in a new crowd."
We need to help make that connection, join those dots for them so that they can actually see the bigger picture with us.
RF: Now here's a question on that — what are your thoughts about digging up what the problems are and assuming and/or asking them what those problems are?
Because it can get a little sketchy, let's say, for example, there's a 2- or 3-year-old event that's in, let's say, Portugal, for example, and you check out their Twitter presence and they've got less than 1000 followers.
Are you in this process of selling yourself, getting them to identify what the problems are or you also coming in there saying like,
"Hey, I know that in general, you're trying to fill seats, you're trying to gain revenue and you're trying to get an exposure."
Do you build off of those foundations or could you be straight up and be like,
"Look, you have a terrible presence on this platform, I've got a strong presence on this platform, I think I can help you there."
That balance between calling people on what problems they have, versus letting them tell you or asking them — what about that investigative research process to figure out the problems that need to be solved?
KO: Both.
Number one, we already pretty much know what the main problems are for anybody that's organizing an event.
If you've done a little bit of research and said like, "Listen, you only have 1000 followers on Twitter, and my 20 000, 30 000 Twitter followers who are based on these geographies, could actually help you increase your exposure even more. Can we have a greater connection and find out more?"
The initial conversation engagement with somebody is to get them on another conversation.
Nobody's going to go ahead and read your Twitter bio and be like, "Oh my goodness, that is the person we definitely need." Unless you're already sitting at a Guy Kawasaki type level.
But if you're starting to build your business, the intention is to then get on a phone call so that you guys can talk in a collaborative way, be able to say,
"Okay, tell me more about what you're suffering from, let me see if I can help and determine."
When we were starting to offer that premium product and premium price, the bigger the problem you can solve for somebody the more they're willing to pay for those services from you.
When we uncover more of the problems and challenges that they have and you provide them with a solution for that, before you even get to what my speaker price is, once you've solved all that, now you can start asking for 10 000, 15 000, 20 000 or maybe something completely different that you're asking for, which many speakers are starting to get in the process of doing.
But you want to poke holes a little bit, show them you've done the research.
If you haven't done all the research, at least have them recognize that you understand some of the challenges that they're facing. You immediately differentiate yourself as soon as you contact them.
RF: It's very consumer-centric focused sales, as opposed to just throwing in some application and focusing on your site being amazing and focusing on publishing your blogs and having your videos.
This is a very hands-on sales approach.
You're saying that you're kind of getting your hands dirty, you are actually maybe identifying a call for speakers, but then, not necessarily just submitting the application.
You are getting in front of the organizers, connecting with them on LinkedIn, getting them on the phone trying to figure out what they're— I love the word suffering right, what are they suffering from, without making them feel bad.
It's kind of a balance, it's almost like a compliment sandwich, like, "Hey, this looks like a great event, but here’s one thing that I noticed that it looks like you're going to have a problem with, I can maybe help you out with something."
KO: Yeah, absolutely. Zig Ziglar said it, he's like, "You can have everything you want in the world as long as you help enough people get what they want."
At the end of the day, is it not worth 20 minutes of research time if it's an opportunity to get you in front of a 20,000 person audience or a $10,000 gig?
From a speaker application process, think about the person that's having to actually go through all those speaker applications. How many are they receiving — 20, 30, a couple of hundred?
They're going to be paying attention to the ones that completely differentiate themselves or the names that they already recognize because somebody's actually reached out.
They're going to be like, "Oh my goodness, I just connected with this guy on LinkedIn. He's done his research, let's take a little bit of extra time reading his application above all else."
RF: Sneaky sales getting to the soul of the purpose, which is their problem that needs to be solved. I dig it.
KO: Absolutely.
It will make you a winner every single time, but it's a win-win-win, all the way across.
Because you are helping the other person in their events be able to attract a bigger audience, be able to create better audience engagement, whatever that is.
You get on stage, and the organizer is happy, and the audience is even happier now too, because they get to hear your personal story.
RF: I think a lot of speakers forget to add the value after the event is done, thanking those people, sending LinkedIn recommendations, writing an article based on your experience.
Even showcasing some of the feedback that you get, back to the organizers and things like that.
The sales process, the way that I see it with a lot of these events, they're yearly events, and you have a really good opportunity of building this relationship and rapport.
I encourage people, if you don't get the speaking gig that you're after — go to that event, invest in it, go see and then actually spend some face to face time, you might be able to connect with other speakers.
I like this idea of "it's not all or nothing," it's just a constant sort of grappling to get the most value that you can, as you continue to build your speaking snowball I guess.
KO: Absolutely.
If you have decided that public speaking is either your new career or part of a bigger career picture, whatever that looks like, you owe it to yourself to invest in attending the events that you want to be featured at, connect with the people that are somehow going to host you, and support them in whatever way possible.
That stuff builds one on top of the other.
Nobody ever wants to deal with somebody who is just going to take everything they can, "Give me another gig, give me another gig, give me another gig."
They actually want to have people be part of their tribe, the same way as us, we want to have individuals as part of our tribe.
We want to get to the point where when Kim Orlesky is announced people are rising to their feet and giving a standing ovation before I even walk on there.
The only way I get to that point is because those people feel you have given them so much crazy value before that point in time that they're so excited to see you.
It’s no different than sending off "thank you's"— appreciation and gratitude, whether that is after the event or even before the event.
When I was at HubSpot's inbound event, I spent a few hours just writing a really good article about the top speakers that you need to see at the event.
I shared it with all the speakers that I featured and everything, and I was giving back, not only to the event but to the other speakers even before the event, helping to create brand awareness and exposure.
They invited me back already, because they're like, "We want people to be part of our tribe" either before or after.
Find the time, whenever you can, to express that gratitude in whichever ways you can.
RF: When they're going to write their article, guess who comes top of the mind to call or be mentioned there, the same kind of things, pay it forward.
KO: Absolutely, it's a give-back.
RF: Assuming a lot of this works across the board, are there any particular tweaks that you would advise for people who are trying to get international gigs, really trying to break outside of where they are and make the big jump?
I know that a lot of the principles are the same, but there's kind of a cultural divide sometimes, maybe there's a language barrier sometimes.
Are there any other tweaks to your method of attack if you are trying to get into that international speaking scene?
KO: I think the best advice is as we have already talked about — reach out to people that you know. It doesn't necessarily always have to be the event organizers.
Start connecting with people.
I love LinkedIn, I think it's a powerful tool and if you are not currently using it to connect with people, you should. You can just search for a speaker on LinkedIn in maybe some of the countries that you're interested in speaking at whether that's Australia or Portugal or England or wherever else it is.
Connect with other speakers, be like, "Listen, I want to go speak at events, do you know of any?"
Typically, as speakers, we're happy to help each other out because we know that we can't be everything to everyone all the time.
I have one gentleman in England, he's constantly reaching out to me, he's like, "Listen, if you ever find out of any really good events in the U.S., let me know, pass them along."
You have to stay top of mind with people, remember to follow up with them every so often, every three months, six months, just be like, "Hey, how are things going?"
Create that relationship with it, and they will stay top of mind.
It's not just a one time reach out and then disappear forever, it's, "Hey, I saw this article and I thought of you, hey I saw this event application and I thought of you."
And we're giving to them. In exchange they're going to come back and give to us.
Event organizers also love this, where they're like, "Listen, there's an event exactly like yours or similar to yours in Pittsburgh."
"We think that is going to be a great opportunity, is there any way that we can see if we can connect you with somebody, or whatever else."
They might not be interested, but they're like, "Holy crap, this person actually is taking a little bit of time out of their day to help me out. That's really cool."
And that stuff spreads like wildfire.
RF: It's that abundance mentality which I think is so important because one of the things you said that I do often is I'm always scraping and looking for different opportunities, but they're not always ones that I'd want to speak at.
I sit there and I think and I forward the same call to speakers to 2 or 3 or 4 people where I know this would be up their alley, and it's amazing because they get so stoked.
When somebody sends you a call for speakers that is not on your radar, that's like really in your swing zone, that makes somebody so stoked.
Then they're going to be looking and keeping an eye on and sending something right back your way.
I think that's a really, really powerful tip, especially for the international gigs.
KO: You're absolutely right.
I do the exact same thing, they feel honored, "Oh my goodness, I can't believe you thought of me."
But when they are accepted to be a speaker, it changes their game and the rising tide raises all the ships at the end of the day.
RF: Yeah, another thing too is if you actually get accepted or when I get accepted to speak somewhere, I'll ask them just very nonchalantly, "Are you having an issue filling any of the other roles?"
Or, "Are there breakout sessions that you would like some referrals to?"
Oftentimes, at these large events, there will be a number of breakout sessions and it's sometimes a challenge to get them all filled, even if they have hundreds of applications.
So if you are already in and the deals are already signed, at that point I've just said, "Is there anybody that you're looking for?"
Then I'll send those profiles to the organizer first and the organizer will say, "Wow, introduce me to A, B, C," so you're not setting people up for failure.
They actually check with the organizer first, and I've definitely placed a handful of people in conferences that I'm speaking at and it's a double whammy because then you can hang out at the conference and everybody is super happy.
KO: The organizers love that, they love when they see so much camaraderie between the speakers and the attendees and everything.
The last thing they want is to bring a speaker in that is going to come in, speak and then take off.
They want the speakers to be engaging with the audience, they want them walking around the floor.
We forget sometimes as speakers that people are afraid to come up to us, they see us on a different pedestal and when we just approach somebody and you just have a conversation and they ask you what you're doing, you're like, "Oh, I'm a speaker."
But that stuff goes so long because the organizers get word of that and they're like, "Oh that is cool."
They are interacting with each other because they're creating a tribe and every member of the tribe has to be fully bought in.
RF: The opposite works as well.
If you get somebody who's a nasty speaker, talking and after the fact, if they're just like, "No, I don't have time for you," that circles back to the organizers and that puts a bad wrap because at the end of the day, the organizers, as you said, are trying to solve their own problems.
They are suffering, though the "Kim way" is to find that suffering, politely let them know that they are bleeding and offer them a band-aid, the right size for the right finger.
If you get the wrong type of band-aid it just does not work.
I think that this is a great solid basic approach from a sales standpoint making sure that you are focused on your stories, you've got the empathy and you've got that commitment at the end, and getting stories from your own life. You don't have to be fantastic or fabulous, it's the lessons learned.
Kim's going to be releasing a new app soon it's called The Story Reverse Engineer App.com.
KO: I am also getting all these emails like, "I'm in app development."
RF: Actually, if you're out there, I have a tweet challenge — if you want to see Kim's program that she puts together to help you journal and then reverse engineer stories, I want you to tweet her and tweet me.
She's @kimorlesky, and I'm @ryanfoland, and tweet us and if you create enough traction on Twitter to create enough noise, then Kim is going to develop it, I am going to call it right now.
KO: And Ryan's going to get his cut.
RF: Yeah, we'll figure out the deal, we'll to talk after this, we'll negotiate beforehand.
KO: Yeah, absolutely, go ahead and tweet us.
I would love to hear from as many people. If you tweet me I do re-tweet you back, I love having people tweet me.
RF: Me too, I'm a big Twitter fan as well.
Hey, well, let's continue the conversation on Twitter.
This has been so much fun, I love the energy I like Canada even more, when I already loved it.
I'm excited to maybe share the stage with you sometime if I come across a call for speakers that works for people who are trying to revolutionize the sales process, I will let you know.
Let's just keep solving problems. I really appreciate the time, it was a lot of fun talking with you.
KO: I love it Ryan, thank you so much, I really appreciate it.
RF: Before we go, where would you want people to find you online?
We know that they're going to teach you already, so you get a bonus.
Would you like to drive them to your website or to LinkedIn, what's the favorite way for you to get in touch with people?
KO: If they want they can go to either of them, definitely.
If they want to reach out to me directly, I want to give people my email address, feel free to just send me a message.
I love it, I will respond to you, it's [email protected] and I will reply to you as soon as I get your message.
RF: Nice, and you said you have a podcast too?
KO: I do, it's currently on hiatus right now, because of my little boy he was born in February so I wanted to give him some time just for some Mommy/Marcus time.
It should be re-launching again in February but there are several episodes already out there, it is the Kim Orlesky Show.
Go ahead and listen to that. Sales advice from some of the biggest entrepreneurs and sales leaders.
RF: Awesome. Alright, so everybody, check it out.
Kim, we'll continue the conversation thanks so much and we are out.
Everybody, tune in for past episodes and future episodes of the World of Speakers.
This is Ryan Foland. Bye Kim.
KO: Bye.
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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