World of Speakers E.35: Ivan Misner | Telling stories that stick

Today I'm very excited to have someone who humbly doesn't admit that he is the godfather of BNI, but he likes to be known as the founder and the chief visionary officer of BNI.

If you don't know about BNI, you will learn all about it.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Ivan Misner to the show.

Ivan, how are you doing today?

IM: I'm doing fantastic, thanks for having me on.

RF: Excellent.

I like it when people say “fantastic”, it's better than “good” and it's just a little bit below “great”, so it's enough to believe that it's true.

IM: I'm doing great!

RF: Would you think the “fantastic” is above or below “great”?

IM: I thought it was above, but I'm great either way.

RF: Excellent. Let's first dig into your backstory.

For those people who don't know about BNI— they probably live under a rock or they have no interest in exploring professional development and networking on a business level— what is this BNI thing?

Then, let's take it back and understand who you are and where you came from.

IM: BNI is a business and professional networking organization.

It's a referral marketing platform, people who want to build their business to referrals join.

I started it in 1985, we're now 33 years old.

We have 8,230 groups in 73 countries around the world.

Last year the organization passed 9.1 million referrals and we generated 13.1 billion. 13.1 billion dollars worth of business for our members all around the world.

RF: That's impressive.

Let's go back to you and where it all started. Where did you originally come up with this vision?

Was it accidental? Was it as a child? Did it just sort of come to you in your sleep?

IM: I'd like to tell you I had this vision of an international organization, but the truth is, I needed some referrals for my consultant.

I was a management consultant, I did a lot of speaking even back then, but they were all free presentations at the rubber chicken circuit— the Rotary, the Lines, the Qantas.

I was looking for more business, and the way I got most of my business was either through speaking or from referrals.

I put together a group of people who I trusted, I hoped they would trust me and we would refer each other.

From the very beginning, we only allowed one person per professional category.

Someone came, and couldn't join, and they asked if I would help them open up the second group and I did. And we opened up the third one and then the fourth one, and then the tenth one and then the twentieth one.

We really opened twenty groups by accident, the first year, I didn't have a plan.

At the end of that year, I created a plan, and we're now global: 73 countries all around the world.

RF: Wow, that's impressive.

Now, were you always the gregarious speaker of a kid?

Was getting up on stage natural for you or was that also an invention of the necessity of getting more leads in business?

IM: I'm what's called a “Situational Extrovert”.

When I'm in the right environment, I come across as an extrovert, but generally, I am a little more introspective.

I did always talk a lot. I wish I had kept one of the report cards, I think every report card that I ever had in elementary school, the teacher said, "Talks too much in class."

It's really funny that what is in our way oftentimes becomes our way.

I got in trouble a lot, my mom was not too happy when she would get these reports.

Now I get paid really, really good money, I get just stupid money to talk.

What's in our way often becomes our way.

RF: I think that's an insightful spot.

Maybe these challenges that people face, they come full circle, and maybe it's because those challenges that you pay particular attention to and they just keep popping up— you find a way to solve them.

IM: Right, absolutely.

RF: Explain to us the dynamics within the group.

Maybe for people who still don't understand, it's a group of individuals that there is only one spot per professional industry, right? There are no duplicates?

IM: No duplicates, but maybe specialties, you might have a residential real estate agent and a commercial real estate agent.

You might have several attorneys who specialize in different areas, but nobody is doing the same specialization as you.

RF: So, you're tapping into individuals’ existing direct and loose networks as you meet in groups.

And then, one person gives a little presentation each time to some extent, and then you just sort of refer people to each other, right?

IM: Right, and it's really about building relationships over time.

Every week, every member has a chance to do, depending on the size of the group, anywhere from a half a minute to a minute, every week, on who they are and what they do.

Then, we have a speaker or two every week, and it's always members, we don't bring in outside speakers, and they go for 10, 12 minutes to talk a little bit more in-depth about who they are and what they do.

Even though we're not a professional speaking organization, I'm here to tell you, BNI members around the world have told me I have greatly enhanced my speaking ability.

You go to a meeting and talk about what you do 50 times in a row— you get better and better at it.

RF: Yeah, absolutely.

You have shared with me that you're now the Chief Visionary Officer.

Tell me about how that role works?

IM: I ran the company for 30 years, it is a long time.

I think an entrepreneur is either working in their flame or working in their wax, and when they're in their flame they are on fire, they are excited— they love what they are doing.

You can see in the way they act, you can hear it in their voice.

When they're working in their wax, it just takes all their energy away and you can see it in the way they act and you can hear it in their voice.

And what was my flame for many years building a company eventually became my wax.

30 years, it's a long time.

So, I really decided that I wanted to work in what had become my flame and my flame really was speaking full time and writing.

Speaking, writing, doing interviews, podcasts like this, that was really my flame.

I really wanted to become sort of the Colonel Sanders of BNI and be the brand advocate and continue to speak.

I was already speaking a lot, but I wanted to do it really as my primary role.

The chief visionary officer is really the brand advocate for the company and I talk about culture wherever I go in BNI and outside BNI.

RF: How many speeches did you give last year, to give people a reference of how full time this is for you?

IM: Easily on stage 150. On a really busy year it could be 200 or more, on a slow year there would be 100 presentations.

I spoke last week at an event with 2700 people in the audience.

RF: Wow.

Did you foresee that this was in your future when you first started this BNI group?

Did you have that vision at that point, did you know it would become this big?

IM: No, I wish I could tell you that BNI was going to be this big, I didn't see that.

But I've always enjoyed speaking.

I took speech courses in high school and in college, I recommend organizations like Toastmasters, although I've never been a member of Toastmasters.

I had 5 years of school in speech so I've always been a fan and I knew that speaking would be big. As BNI grew, I knew it would become a bigger part of my business.

RF: Now within the organization, you're not particularly helping people to learn the fundamentals of speaking, you're just sort of trial by fire and like you said, you speak about your business 50 times and by the nature of practice, you do it.

But there's not an integrated curriculum or so, like in Toastmasters?

IM: There isn't, not for the members.

However, I've done many podcasts on how to do a good weekly presentation, how to do a good feature presentation.

I train BNI directors on how to create a really good presentation. So, it's not part of the BNI curriculum for members, but it is something we definitely teach on.

I've taught hundreds, if not thousands of BNI directors on what I think are some of the fundamentals of doing a great presentation.

RF: Before we jump to the fundamentals, I want to pick your brain on the concept of the elevator pitch.

I want to know your opinion, your thoughts on it because you're probably in a unique position to have influenced hundreds of thousands of people who are taking this small stage in front of a small group.

I want to pick your brain about the evolution of the elevator pitch.

Where it is right now, how necessary it is if it seems like it's contrived and canned and inauthentic?

What are your thoughts on the current state of the elevator pitch?

IM: First of all, never do an elevator pitch in an elevator!

RF: Okay. That's great, gotcha.

IM: You're right, it comes across as too contrived.

The concept of an elevator pitch, and I've written about this, is to be able to say who you are and what you do in a short period of time and in a way that gets people's attention and gets them to ask questions about you.

RF: Perfect.

IM: The problem in elevator pitches is that people use networking as a face-to-face cold calling opportunity. "Hi, my name is Ivan, let's do business," and then jump into immediately trying to do business as opposed to building any kind of relationship.

What I tell people is, before you even think about giving your elevator pitch, find out about the other person first.

A good networker has two ears and one mouth and should use them both proportionally.

So shut up, ask questions and listen— a great networker is like a great interviewer.

You're asking me questions and you're allowing me to elaborate, that's what a great networker is.

Now, when you've asked a lot of questions and that person has talked, then you want to say who you are and what you do.

I think that it's very important that in an elevator pitch you use a unique selling proposition, something that is very concise about what you do and gets people to pass what a good friend of mine, Sam Horn calls "The eyebrow test."

One my favorite unique selling propositions is from a company assentive— we help people work less, make more and create referrals for life.

And when you use it, your unique selling proposition, watch the person's eyebrows. If they go up, you got their attention. You passed the eyebrow test.

If they scrunch down you just failed the eyebrow test and they did not understand what it is that you said.

No matter how cute it is, you lost them. You failed in explaining what you do.

Say something that gets you pass the eyebrow test where people go, "Oh, wow, that's interesting, tell me more."

That's what an elevator pitch should be.

Don't use networking as a face-to-face cold calling opportunity.

Talk about them first before you stop pitching your own business.

RF: Now, I am trying to visualize in my mind a different word or a different phrase instead of the elevator pitch, like the rollercoaster pitch or something, where you're getting to know people.

And then based on whether the hands fly up or whatnot, you've got unique selling proposition on the way down and then sort of around about.

It's murmuring in my head, but I think we should come up with a new name.

IM: Yeah, why not come up with a better term. In BNI, it's the weekly presentation.

RF: ...That doesn't lift my eyebrows.

IM: No, it's what you say during the weekly presentation.

RF: Right.

IM: That's the key. The elevator pitch in BNI is the weekly presentation, they have a minute.

In a minute, they have to say something about who they are and what they do, and in that minute, especially if there are a lot of people who don't know them, that's where you want to use a unique selling proposition that gets people's attention.

RF: Interesting.

This idea of getting people to talk more, there's a research out there, I can't name it on the button, but I've read it before and I'm curious if you've heard of it— where they take individuals who don't know each other, they put them in a room and they're just supposed to talk, and then they exit interview.

They found a correlation, a strong correlation between the amount of time that someone physically talks in a conversation and their positive reflection upon the conversation, right.

It's like this concept that when people talk more, they feel more connected which is sort of against what you would think, but it actually makes sense.

So getting somebody else to talk more, they get comfortable with you and then that has a chance to try to raise their eyebrows.

IM: Yes, absolutely.

Ideally, you have an equal amount of time to talk or something equal.

If you're only talking to somebody who wants to just talk, talk, talk, you're probably trying to network with the wrong person.

But I have always found it best if I'm trying to build a relationship with this person, let them talk first, ask questions, there's a whole series of questions that I've written about in many of my books.

It is just basically an interview, just, “Tell me more about what you do, what do you love about what you do, what is your favorite thing about it, what is your target market”, just get them to open up and talk.

And then, when you've exhausted a lot of the conversation, then it's your turn. And at that point, they're more receptive to listening.

RF: You can probably use the information that they just gave you, to create a very targeted sales proposition to them, because you know what they are already interested at this point.

IM: Exactly right.

RF: I dig it.

IM: But the problem is, people are so desperate to sell that they just launch into sales mode instead of listening mode.

By the way, I did a survey of 3400 people recently, all around the world, not just BNI members and I asked them what are the top characteristics of a great networker.

Number one was listening.

The people who are good listeners make better networkers, it was the number one characteristic that thousands of people from all over the world identified as an important characteristic of a great networker.

RF: That's great, I dig it.

All right, let's talk about the opposite of listening which is talking.

Let's dig into some of your top tips for people who are comfortable presenting but maybe want to step it up a notch.

I know you've got tons of these tips. In your filtration process what is really bubbling up to the top that maybe isn't as common ground?

What are the things that maybe you realize are very powerful but they sort of get swept under the rug or it's not what you'd find on your normal list?

IM: Well, now let's move away from the one-to-one conversation and now you're on stage. Is that correct?

RF: Yes.

IM: Okay, so now you're on stage.

Different context, you've got the audience there, they're all yours and you have a chance to communicate to them.

There's a number of things I think people need to do in order to be effective in doing great presentations.

First of all, you've got to be a great storyteller.

I think stories are the best way. Stories, particularly for me humor, makes people absorbent.

When you say something funny, they open up.

You can pull at their heartstrings too, that's an effective technique, but I like humor probably more than pulling on the heartstrings.

There's really good book on storytelling called "The Elements of Persuasion" and in there they talk about the formula for a good story.

And this is the formula— a story is a fact wrapped in an emotion that compels people to take action, that transforms them in some way.

And I'll repeat that— it's powerful. A great story is a fact wrapped in an emotion that compels someone to take action and transforms them in some way.

So from a humor perspective, when people open up their speeches with a joke, well, a joke is generally presented as some kind of fact, it may not be a fact, but it's presented as a fact, and it's wrapped up in an emotion— humor. That's it, end of story. That's the joke.

Jokes are a waste of breath in a speech in my opinion— unless they compel someone to take action and transform them in some way.

I've used jokes to do that, but I wrap it back around to the message I'm trying to give.

I really use stories more than jokes, but I've been able to use jokes as long as that joke ties into the message I'm trying to give, which you compel someone to take action and it's all about transformation.

If your message transforms your audience, then you've got a powerful message.

So that's one tidbit.

Here is another one. It's three words but really powerful— relive, don't retell.

Relive your story, don't retell your story.

I've seen speakers who stand and they go, "Well, and then, and then I said this to that person and you know what they said to me, they said that to me," and they're just basically retelling their story.

Don't retell the story, relive the story. "Can you believe this, I told him this and you know what he said to that—."

You've got to relive it like you're right there, experiencing it right now.

Describe the situation, describe the people you're talking to, the room you're in. Describe something, so that people in their mind's eye create this vision of the story you're giving.

The more you can relive a story rather than retell a story, the more effective your story is going to be if you follow that formula of the fact wrapped in an emotion, compelling to take action and transforming them.

Does this make sense?

RF: Yeah. I like that.

IM: Okay, so here's some more— you've got to make stories sticky. So there are some things about making a story sticky.

RF: Sticky stories, let's hear it. #StickyStories. Are you active on social at all, are you on Twitter?

IM: Yeah I am on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn.

RF: We're going to throw on a Twitter challenge or a platform challenge.

If anybody who has a sticky story, #StickyStory tag Ivan, tag me and then we'll let you know if we think it's sticky.

IM: Here is a number of things that make it sticky. It doesn't have to be all of these but it should be at least one of these.

I've already talked about one, emotions. If you can tie it into an emotion, either tugging at their heartstrings or making them laugh, that makes the story sticky.

The sound of your voice and the look on your face are important ways to convey that. Your voice and your facial expressions help to make the story sticky.

Also, the type of story that gets remembered is the one that's anchored in a narrative. You've got a beginning, a middle and an end, and that end has got to tie back around to compel people to take action.

When you get to the end of that story, you should have people going, "Yeah, I get it, all right, that makes sense." And when they get it and it makes sense, that transforms them.

Next, the visual elements and verbal repetitions are powerful mnemonic devices and they should be used whenever possible. Verbal repetitions are powerful mnemonic devices.

I'll give you a couple of sentences out of a speech I do in BNI. Here's a verbal repetition,

“If you could get the people in the organization rowing in the same direction, that organization could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”

BNI dominates this industry in almost every market against all the competition for almost a decade now.

Now, that's an example of verbal repetition, it's powerful.

If it's said right, it can be exciting, if it is said to the right audience— it's really exciting.

Verbal repetition like that is a simple tool, simple technique that is really powerful at standing out in doing your presentations.

RF: Then if you add in more stickiness and you've got the voice, you've got the visual of your face, you've got it tied into a narrative, and you're throwing emotion on top of it, that's a super sticky story.

IM: Super sticky story, no question about it.

Another thing to always remember in the stories is that context is king. You've got to tell stories that fit the context of your discussion. Find a way.

I have got the most obscure stories that I've been able to tie into the message that I'm trying to get across.

Get creative with that message and that story, it's amazing how you can take a story that doesn't seem to fit the context at all, but you can make it fit the context incredibly well.

I have a great story in one of my books, "Masters of Sales," where I talk about getting hit by a Portuguese man o’ war jellyfish and everything that happened after that. It's scary and it's funny and how the heck did I tie that to sales?

Well, it was actually pretty easy to tie it to sales, because had I just listened to the people who gave me advice after I got hit by the Portuguese man o’ war, I wouldn't have gone to the hospital.

But because I didn't pay attention to the experts, I ended up having paramedics come, and I tied it to sales where — listen to the experts, don't reinvent the wheel.

If you want to be great at sales, there are a lot of people out there who know what they're doing, listen to them and follow their advice, don't find excuses, follow their advice.

And that's how I tied the story into sales.

There are so many ways to take a great story and make it contextually relevant. That's important.

Do you want some more?

RF: Yeah, but really quick on that one, Gary V, whether you're a fan or not, he's definitely got a loud mouth and likes to phrase things in a certain way.

I was in Hong Kong recently, listening to his talk at Rise and he was saying,

"Content is king and context is queen. And we all know who runs the house."

It was pretty funny.

IM: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, that is absolutely correct.

RF: Yeah. Bring us some more, let's go on it.

So, we've got the super sticky stories with all of the stickiness combined together.

You've got the ability to tie all of those sticky stories to even stick to your context, whether it's getting attacked by an over-sized jellyfish as long as it relates to a core message that's in the story, which delivers value inside and transformation.

This is getting really sticky here.

IM: Yes it is, it's just a way to make it even better.

I have people who I meet years later, they heard me speak and they say to me, "I love that football story you have."

Or, "I love that jellyfish story," or, "Oh my goodness, that time that you did the magic trick in a TV interview."

They remember the stories and, of course, they remember the context of the story but they remember the stories, they come very, very sticky.

Here's a couple of other things that I recommend for my people in BNI.

Preparation is so important.

I am a real believer in writing, rewriting and creating, and practicing your presentation before you do it, practice content on people.

Stand in front of a mirror and do the talk. I did that for years and years and years.

Preparation is so important. People ask me, "How much time does it take you to write a one-hour speech?"

And I tell them to do a one-hour keynote presentation on the low end, it is 40 to 50 hours of preparation.

RF: Bam, yeah, that might sort of lift some eyebrows.

IM: Yeas, and it should, because people do a two-hour prep and do a one-hour talk.

They don't understand why people aren't giving them standing ovations at the end of their talk.

So you want to get standing ovations— you prepare, prepare, prepare, tell good stories, make them sticky; choreograph your presentation, choreograph the timing.

If you're someone like me who likes to use humor more than pulling at the heartstrings, you've got to choreograph it to know where the laughs are and know when to shut up and let people laugh.

And, if you're ever speaking to international audiences which I do a lot, and you're doing simultaneous translation, learn how to stop longer.

Because, you get two waves of laughter when you're speaking internationally.

The first wave is the people who understand you in English, and what I started doing early on when I was speaking internationally, was I waited for the laugh, got it and then I would start.

And a halfway through the next sentence I would get a second row of laughter, for everyone who was listening to the translation.

So when you're having your presentation translated simultaneously, that means it's being done on the spot, there's actually two rows of laughter that take place.

So choreograph your presentation and know your audience and if you're talking to an international audience, make sure to choreograph that so that you're giving it a longer pause than normal.

Let's talk about powerpoint presentations.

RF: Let's do it, and hopefully how to avoid death by powerpoint.

IM: I love PowerPoint presentations, I use them for all my keynotes.

But here's the deal— for me, my PowerPoint presentation is a character in my speech.

RF: Wow, that's sticky.

IM: Yeah, they are a character in my speech.

There's very little visual content in terms of verbiage, there's very little verbiage in my powerpoint— 3, 4, 5 words is a lot.

Generally, it's one or two words or no words.

On a one-hour speech, I may spend 6-10 hours looking for photographs.

They are a character in the speech, sometimes just a photograph makes people laugh and it's got to hit the point that I'm trying to make, but then you show them the photograph and just sometimes at the photograph alone they laugh.

I have one presentation I do where I talk about doing a book signing and I talk about how everybody always thinks book signings must be really awesome and exciting, and how so many people show up.

And I say, "Well, that's what a lot of people think but this is what they really look like."

Then I show this sports’ stadium with a completely empty line and nobody is in line. It's just a photograph, I say,

"I know people think that this is what a book signing is like, but here's what it's really like," and then I show the photograph.

I don't even have to say anything! And people laugh and they get it.

RF: It's your punchline essentially to some extent there?

IM: It is. And many times the powerpoint is the photograph, is the punchline.

Other times, it's simply a photograph to show what I'm saying.

For example, let me give your listeners a recommendation for another book.

It's a great book on doing powerpoints. It’s called "Presentation Zen." That book changed the way I did powerpoints.

Let me give you an example.

I had a keynote for a book I wrote called, "The 29% solution". The subtitle was "52 Weekly Networking Success Strategies."

The original version of my speech had a PowerPoint that said the following— all of this completely contradicts what I told you earlier because I did this before I understood this concept.

Before I understood this concept, this is what the slide said, "Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, six degrees of separation, what do they all have in common? They are all urban legends.”

The six degrees myth stems from Stanley Milgram's “Small World studies."

At that point, this is your death by PowerPoint comment, right?

I knew it wasn't working, so I changed it to simply 6 words. 6 words were, "What do they have in common?"

And there was a photograph of Santa Claus, a photograph of Easter Bunny and a photograph of an image related to six degrees of separation.

I just asked, "What do they have in common?" And then I said, "They're all urban legends."

So the photographs become hard, they become characters in my speech, literally.

I didn't need to write Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, six degrees of separation, I didn't need to write all of that stuff.

All I had to do was write, "What do they have in common?"

And frankly, I probably didn't even need that, I could probably just put up the three photographs, and say, "What do they all have in common? They are all urban legends."

Then I went on to talk about Stanley Milgram, on the revised presentation, I had one photograph, there was a picture of Stanley Milgram, that's it.

I did have the words at Stanley Milgram's “Small World Experiment” and I talked all about the small world experiment.

“Presentation Zen” helped teach me to stop putting verbiage in my powerpoint. Put photos. Put images, that's what you want to do, use images.

Later I realized that those images really are a character in my speech.

RF: Yeah, I like it.

The concept of your PowerPoint being another character, makes me think of some of these Late Night TV shows, where you'll have like the main host, Jimmy Kimmel or someone else, then you'll have the guy in the microphone on the side who’s just there to sort of like cut in every once in while, change it up a little bit and sort of create a dynamic.

IM: Yeah.

RF: I dig it.

We talked about sort of the listening component as a great networker, then we talked about while you're on stage and it's a one to many presentation to make super sticky story stick.

I want to transition into how do you get up onto the stage to have a chance to stick your story? To have a 150 to 200 keynotes a year? That's like busting through the computer, big old fist bump right there.

How do we help people either start on that path or set their goals to get there?

What would be the 15-minute run down to bring somebody as fast as you could to a speed that helps them get on stage more often and maybe even get paid for it?

IM: Look, I'm a 20-year overnight success.

It took me 20 years to build a successful business, and to be doing as many speaking engagements as I do today.

For many years, I did the rubber chicken circuit like I was talking about, I did a lot of free presentations for many years. That really honed my skills.

I felt like I already had some skills, I had high school and college courses.

But it's different when you're actually out there in the trenches and you're talking to business people. It's a different audience than a bunch of students.

It was really a training ground for me. I'll give you a technique that I used. I got a 125 speaking engagements in about 14 months.

Here is the technique I used, and I wrote about this, it's on Entrepreneur.com.

If you do a search on Entrepreneur.com, I wrote an article years ago, “Referrals for the Difficult-to-Refer Business”, that's the title of the article.

I used this all the time, it was a great way to get business, I used speaking engagements. If you want, I'll be happy to send you a link to it.

RF: Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes for sure.

IM: Okay. In that article what you see is the letter I used. And the letter basically was a letter that I handed to my fellow BNI members, this was when I was a member like everybody else.

I was the founder of the organization but I was also a member of a chapter. I would give a letter to all my fellow members and the letter basically said,

"Hi, I am Ivan Misner, and I do a presentation entitled, 'Entrepreneuring in the 80's' and it talks about how to manage and motivate employees. Here are some quotes from some people who have heard me speak,"

I would give this to my fellow BNI members and I would say,

"I know I'm not easy to give a referral to, I'm not the easiest guy in the room, because you all belong to other organizations, give this to the program chairperson of any organization you belong to, and if you think I'm a good speaker, tell them, 'This guy is a good speaker,' bring them in."

Then I would go in, I would do these free presentations, but then I'd talk about how you manage and motivate employees, and it was a behavior profile that I would give to them for free which would then bring me into their office so I could show them what I did.

I cleaned up, I got so much business by doing these free talks, they were loss-leaders for me.

I gave away my time but I made tens of thousands of dollars every time I got a client.

I was happy to give away the loss-leader, a free speech.

Now, as business went on and BNI became larger, I stopped doing those and I did many, many BNI presentations.

Now I'm a paid keynote speaker and I get paid stupid money to go speak.

But it took a long time to get to that point, it doesn't happen overnight.

Start small, I did free, then I went to $500.

Over the years it is thousands of dollars, over time, it adds up, you increase it.

I went to $500, I went to $1,000, I went to $5,000, I went to $10,000, and for my keynotes now, I get paid a lot more money then I did when I started.

It's okay to hone your skills without charging. Once you have a knock it out of the park presentation, start charging.

Here is what you do, call it a statement, "I charge a small statement, $500." It doesn't feel like much.

Start there and then as you get more and more popular, raise your fees.

Also, write a book. You want to be a professional speaker— have a book on your subject matter.

It's so crazily easy to do books today, you can publish something on Amazon. Every keynote speaker I know has a book, so you definitely want to have a book.

And by the way, the book becomes a real profit center for you when you do keynotes.

RF: You either get them to buy a bunch beforehand or you're selling on the back of the stage right?

IM: Right.

And oftentimes what I do is I'll give away books, so sometimes people will say, "That's not on my budget, that's higher than my budget."

And I'll say, "Okay, I get that. However, I don't discount my prices, this is my price. But I'll give you 100 books for free." So I do a value-add rather than a discount.

RF: I like that.

So let's clarify that really quickly, instead of discounting your book, you're simply giving some of them away from free, which doesn't dilute the market price of your book, it doesn't make them feel like they're getting something at discount.

They feel like they're getting a favor and then that might just spark more attention, everybody sees that they have books and there you go.

IM: Right, and here is the deal— especially if you self-publish a book or if you publish on Amazon it's costing you $4, unless it's a really, really big book, it's $4, $5.

So your cost per book is $5 dollars but your retail on it is $29.95. So from their perspective, you just gave them a $3,000 discount.

RF: Yeah, totally, which helps justify the saving.

IM: “Give the books away, you can sell the books, I'll stand there and sign them for you, do whatever you want with it.”

So it only costs you know $500 but you're giving them a value of $3,000, it's a great technique to not have to bring down the price of your speaking engagement.

RF: Very cool. I haven't heard the, "I'm going to hold my price firm, I'm just going to give them to you for free."

I see a lot of people who either do the discounts or it's part of the deal, but that's a nice way to keep the value there versus discounting.

IM: There's a point from which I just don't go lower, I don't care if you're a brother or sister, this is it, this is what I charge.

But then I sweeten the deal by throwing in books.

RF: Right, it's very cool.

So you've got this traction momentum and when you're speaking around the world, these 150, 200 talks, what is the main message?

Is it leadership, is it connecting, what is your message up on stage that people do want to pay you for?

IM: Well, generally my paid speaking engagements are networking and that's what I talk about in BNI.

Now, I don't charge BNI, obviously, I'm the founder of the organization, so I don't charge BNI, but generally, it's on networking.

I'm being asked more and more to talk about how I scaled my company, "How did you scale a business to 80 thousand locations?"

There are over 5,000 people who work for BNI worldwide, there are either employees, contractors or franchisees, there are 5,000 people.

We have two 230,000 members.

People ask, "How did you do that?"

I developed a presentation called, "Garage to global" on how I took my business out of my garage to a global enterprise. I talk about that a lot.

I talk about networking, I have some self-development, I've got a book coming out pretty soon called, "Who's in your room" and that's really a personal development, self-development topic and I've been speaking on it for a few years, people love that, I get hired to do that.

But my wheelhouse is business networking.

RF: Gotcha.

And when people are coming up, I've heard different theories of targeting basically organizations that have money to actually pay you, right?

In your perspective, what would maybe be the low hanging fruit than the medium hanging fruit which you need a ladder for, and then the final fruit that you've got to get a crane to get to, from an organizational standpoint?

I would assume maybe join the BNI group, that's a low hanging fruit to then have an opportunity to speak in front of BNI groups, or Toastmasters group.

But what would be those three levels for people to approach the organizations that might help them get in to speak for free and then maybe get a small stipend and then the larger, more of a maybe corporate brand that is able to pay the thousands?

What would you say those look like?

IM: So for me, it was what I said the article, and I'll send you a link to that.

I spoke to non-profit associations and whatnot, and I did those all for free with the idea that I would pick up clients, which I did.

I did that a lot, I think I told you 125 in 14 months.

That's the low hanging fruit, that's easy, especially if you can get some people to say some nice things about what you've spoken of.

Then you want to go to the people who you know and hand that to them and ask them to take it to the program, so you are getting referrals. If you can do that on a referral basis, it's powerful.

Something in between is when you start then breaking into the market, so you just ramp it up a little bit higher, you get these service clubs that heard you speak and they want you to come in and talk to their companies, but it might be small, it might be 20 people, it might be 30 people.

At some point, there could be 50 people, at some point you should start charging a statement. So the mid-ground is that statement idea, $500.

Or if you have to fly, you charge a small number for the airfare and accommodation, so they pay for the airfare and for accommodation in a small amount. But they are usually speaking to small audiences.

The big audiences, that's where the money game is, that's where it gets a lot harder. I have gotten to the point where virtually all of my speaking is now referral.

And most of the people I know were professional speakers, it's all referral.

You want to let people know that when you do speak someplace that you're happy to speak somewhere else, and oftentimes I'll say,

"If you are part of an organization and you want me to come in and talk about this, see me after my presentation and I'm happy to talk to you about speaking in your organization."

And people always come up to me, get my card and then they introduce me to the person who is the decision maker.

You want an in to the person who is a decision maker and if that in comes from somebody already in the company, then it's way easier to get the job, than if you call them cold.

Cold calls just don't work anymore.

RF: Yeah.

Wow, well, I can't believe this has already been our show.

I think we've had a lot of insights here from when you're initially meeting somebody, forget the elevator pitch, get them to talk first, use that information in a way that you can target your message to them, hopefully getting their eyebrows to lift.

Then when you're on stage, it's about creating super sticky stories with emotion that are facts wrapped in an emotion that has a tie-in with a narrative, making sure that the other person on stage is your powerpoint, who is a character in the story.

And then, this slow growth to an overnight success, the overnight might be 15, 20 years.

You've got the low hanging fruit, you've got the middle hanging fruit and then you've got sort of the fruit and the berries that are at the top and you need a crane on it.

That was a nice comprehensive, down and dirty, super sticky element.

We've got these books to check out, “The Presentation Zen”, “Elements of Persuasion”, “Master of Sales” and then your Entrepreneur article, we'll make sure all those links are in the footnotes.

If somebody is going to try to track you down and do a light cyberstalk online, where would you like them to stalk you at?

IM: Two places, my blog Ivan Misner, I have more than a 1,000 blogs up there, tons of content.

Then I'd see on my Facebook page, so go to Facebook, look for my public page you can't get on the private page it's full, but the public page Ivan Misner.

Of course, anyone who is interested in BNI, Bni.com, we've got chapters all over the world.

RF: Very cool.

Well hey, thank you for the time today and I'm sure everybody is just going to go jump online, find you, find the BNI and figure out how they can listen more, talk less, but when they talk, talk more sticky.

IM: Thanks so much, this was a great interview.

RF: Yeah, thanks, it was a lot of fun.

We will talk to you soon and I'm going to see you online.

I am going to take my own Twitter challenge, I'm going to look for my own super sticky stories, throw it out there and see if we can get some feedback on it, and then continue the stickiness with humor and make people laugh and all kinds of good stuff like that.

IM: Fantastic.

RF: Alright, we'll see you around buddy.

IM: Thank you.

A bit about World of Speakers

World of Speakers is a bi-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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