World of Speakers E.57: Lou Diamond | Using podcasts to build your business

Lou Diamond: Ryan, I am so excited to be here.

We bonded a long time ago, not too long ago, I guess a little over a year ago.

It's about a year, actually. Oh my god, it's really almost a year.

Ryan Foland: Crazy.

Lou Diamond: I said, "Wow," I go, "He's like the redheaded version of me, and I'm just the bald version of him."

So it worked out really great.

Ryan Foland: Yeah and a quick shout out to Josh Linkner, if anybody wants to trail or follow somebody who's just crushing it in the speaking space, Josh Linkner has these workshops, all-day programs that he puts on under his 3 Ring Circus.

That's where I met Lou and we connected, we are brothers in kindred from offset sides of the hair color.

Lou Diamond: And we always will make fun of the fact that for anyone who's speaking, no one is speaking as much as Josh is, no one is traveling as much as Josh is, maybe is the right way to say it.

Ryan Foland: Yeah, it's like if you want to be inspired by the level you can achieve as a professional speaker, you follow him.

If you also want to be continually humbled about the amount of effort and time and expertise it takes for that to happen, then follow him, it's a double-edged sword.

I'm always checking out his website and checking out what he's got going on and it's this duality of like totally inspiring and totally intimidating, but he is such a nice guy. I think I’ll stick with the inspiration.

Lou Diamond: Yeah, I would also add if you happen to run into him at the airport, don't expect him to stay too long as he's actually trying to get on another plane to go to another speaking gig.

Ryan Foland: #Jetsetter.

Alright, well for people who are just like, "Wow, these guys have all this energy, who are these people?"

They know who I am, but I want them to know who you are.

And instead of reading off your bio, we're going to pretend like we're at the campfire in Catalina, and we're going to tell a story.

If you had to choose a story from your past, and this is something that pretty much is an opportunity to encapsulate who you are as a person, no pressure by the way—

Lou Diamond: None.

Ryan Foland: What would a story be from your past, if that's the only thing I had. I'm like,

"You've got to meet Lou, this one time he _______," and all of a sudden, they're like, "Lou is cool."

Lou Diamond: It was really funny because I have listened to other episodes in the program and know this is how you kick things off.

And I said, "Which way would I ever go in this and what story would I tell?"

I'm now going to tell a story that I don't believe I've ever shared. I think that is going to be really interesting.

It was my junior year in high school, which interestingly, I have a daughter who's now a junior in high school, this goes back around 32, 33 years.

I was watching my fellow classmates do a musical production of Grease in our high school class, so these were the kids were the seniors and I was a junior at the time.

I had played sports throughout high school. I played basketball, I was in track. I was always a very fun guy in lots of clubs, a very good student, worked really, really hard.

And I'm sitting there watching these people on stage going, "I feel like I need to be up there before I graduate. I need to see what this is about."

There was a sense of camaraderie of them doing the play and the musical—and I, by the way, don't really sing that well. But there was something about the energy that they had.

The next semester begins and now we're senior and I did something ridiculous—I decided not to go back and play basketball.

I did not want to go in my senior year and be on the team and all that stuff.

I wanted to get involved with the plays and the musicals, and I wanted to be on stage because something inside of me was calling to come out.

There was also another part to this too: this was a group of people that I had not yet connected with at the school I was in.

I loved getting to meet as many people as possible, but for whatever circles you're in, or just the limitations of your schedule and your work, this was an area where I did not connect with people. I just never overlapped with them.

And it was maybe the best decision I had ever made, at least at that point.

Because one: I got a very small role in this play, having never been involved before, and obviously, they had had many people who'd been on stage before for many years and here comes this guy that's never been involved with them who they're looking at as kind of, like, I guess, the jock.

I guess this is my own sort of high school musical version of my own life or whatever you want to call it.

Ryan Foland: Yeah, you're the FNG, for sure.

Lou Diamond: I'm Zac Efron, trying to get into the play.

By the way, I related to all that because what this was was two things— one was getting to meet these great people who, many of them I'm still friends with today.

It also instilled a level of confidence in me. Something else, and that was:

Performing and communicating is such powerful means.

What those people in that cast from when I was a junior, and the year before I went out for this, what they did on that message and that stage, it wasn't the singing or the acting or whatever it was, it was the way that they were connecting a great job of a performance.

It's always been a part of who I was, but it had never come out, and now I got a chance to act, be conscious of what it's like to be on stage, to communicate.

When I went into college I continued doing that. Not as actively, but it certainly led me to double majoring in business and communication.

Speaking was one of the areas that I loved doing, and communicating messages and delivering that, and knowing about presence and how to deliver that.

This was something that had always been in me. I'd always wanted to perform. I always was the one trying to grab certain things but never actually did it.

It was one of those moments that I think it was like, "I need to do that."

And here's the funny thing: I did a lot of other things that never led me to constantly performing until I was much more senior in my career.

I worked in consulting right out of college, learning about business, but I was always the one communicating and that led me to sales. This was what I ended up doing.

I came from a sales background, a very entrepreneurial family, I worked in my dad's retail jewelry store.

I learned about sales through that, and then I was doing that in consulting, and then I was doing that for an internet development firm when the Internet first came to be. Interestingly, then I went to Wall Street.

And similarly, in my career working on Wall Street, I was doing all these great things but I was missing something.

I was missing the chance for me to get a better message out. I had learned how to connect with people throughout my entire life. I had mastered how to connect.

I wrote a book about mastering the art of connecting, and I needed now to get more people to understand that this is something they can do.

I could train salespeople how to do it, I could train organizations on how to get that message out.

And just like I was that 16-year-old kid wanting to get on stage, I wanted to get back on stage.

That's what led me to leave Wall Street and pursue what is my business, Thrive, and helping work with companies. Basically, get the most amazing people in companies to thrive through this power of connecting.

And doing that is one, and working with organizations, indicating with them in workshops and leadership methods. And the second, which brings us to why I'm on this program here today, toward speaking and communicating that message on a stage in front of others. So that I can deliver that powerful message to as many people as I can.

We'll bleed into this conversation later that this message needed even a larger platform and that was not just on the stage or working with those clients, but via a podcast which is what we're doing right now.

So all of that has kind of been coming out in full force as another late bloomer in my career, Ryan.

Ryan Foland: Wow, what a great start. Thanks for sharing it.

This is going to be funny, but we're even now more similar than you'd think. Stories are great to get to know people.

I actually ended up with a business degree and a dramatic arts degree and I didn't even know that theater existed in high school.

But when I got to college I got stressed choosing my first set of classes, so I had my mom choose. I showed up to the first day of class and it's this DA 101, whatever, Dramatic Arts.

I had no idea. Like, talk about being sheltered, I don't think I'd ever gone to a play before, and I sat next to a cute girl of course.

And then the teacher offered extra credit and I said, "Are you going to go get this extra credit?" She's like, "Yes," I'm like, "Okay, I'll be there."

I show up, she doesn't show up. I hear somebody call my name, I think it's her, I'm like, "Yeah," and it was somebody who handed me paper, put me into this sort of dance studio that was empty with a chair in it, had me read it. I read it, everybody laughed at me, I got upset, and I skateboarded and cried on the way home.

And then they called me back and they said, "You got the part." I was like, "What are you talking about, I did terribly." They're like, "No, it was supposed to be funny and you're really funny."

I just didn't even know. So I show up to the reading and it's like all these juniors and seniors, but like in college and they had all this beer and everything, and I am like,

"This is going to be great."

So long story short, that was my entryway into the theater.

And the words that you chose to use when describing like community and energy, and for me what I just absolutely fell in love with was the power of communicating in live form, with a live audience, without digital interface, and you're just like, there's something about the willing suspension of disbelief that is so powerful.

It's giving me the chills now and it's hard for me to find a theater that I like because I'm not too into musicals. I'm not going to lie, I like more the nitty gritty stuff, but there's something so powerful about that connection.

It's amazing how you knew that that was there once you tasted it, and you sort of had those elements of it, but you've made that full circle to kind of go back to it.

I'm proud of you for chasing that feeling back down.

Lou Diamond: Thank you.

I'll say this, and I talk about this a lot in the way you connect and a lot of the messages our mentors, top CEOs and top sales performers, and how they can better sell and I will often ask them what their superpower is.

Many times when they try to use words that describe themselves, just as you were asking me to describe my story, your body will physically bullet-point, for lack of a better word, the keywords that are there, almost like staccato hitting a drumstick, it's your body jumping out, saying words like "thriver", "motivator", "connector" and when I do that, my hands almost pump out.

Ryan Foland: I was definitely flailing around when I was talking just now.

Lou Diamond: Oh yeah, because those words come out from you and that is that inside energy.

It is how we connect with people when people tell that story. When you hear those great stories from the guests that have been on this program, the other speakers when you have shared your story, those bullet points of our lives, those are those superpowers, they are coming out.

It had always been inside of me and how it jumped up onto the stage literally like to actually get up and go do that. It wasn't a matter of confidence, it was more of a calling, and recognizing that I didn't want to go work on Broadway as a professional actor, but recognizing that giving and connecting the message from the skill that I have of wanting to connect. Because going back to it, it was me wanting to connect with that group.

And now it's sharing that power of connection and how people can do that and how they can better connect to improve their lives, their businesses and fulfill their passions, that is what gets people to thrive and gets me to thrive each and every day.

Ryan Foland: Very cool. Let's talk about how you can thrive as a speaker.

Now I love the fact that you've got experience from Wall Street all the way to the stage, to selling, to all these things.

If you were to put together a 10- to 15-minute curriculum that is the non-obvious advice that you have gotten, that you have discovered, that you have found, what would those bullet points look like?

I want to know your best advice when it comes to the art, the skill of presentation, of speaking to help connect with people.

Lou Diamond: I am going to start off with maybe the most obvious one, and it's kind of funny. I'll give all 3. It's a sign-off from my show and you've heard it. We talk about be brief—

Ryan Foland: And I've been on it too!

Lou Diamond: You've been a guest. Quick plug for the show!

By the way, go back listen to episode 130 Ryan Foland, Brand-o-lution was our topic. We recorded that last June on Thrive Loud, those are the thriving in their lives, their businesses, and their passions.

Ryan did a kickass job on that show. I will tell you that after that episode I incorporate it and give you credit every time I do it, the 3-1-3, wherever I can because it was such a game changer.

Ryan Foland: I love it. Back to your advice, the obvious, right there in front of us, what is hiding in plain sight?

Lou Diamond: Be brief, be bright, be gone.

Let's talk about that as it relates to how you speak on the stage.

We think that we need to be up there, whether, "Hey, we need you to be the keynote speaker for an hour," or whatever that time slot is, or the 90 minutes.

And by the way, that time can go by very quickly for those who've been on stage, I know this. It is really important within the messages that you're delivering that brevity is presented.

Podcast shows, we can go on and we could talk about the specifics and there's more of a storyboard, but there is a difference when you're on stage about using your voice in that brief component so that when you deliver, you pop with those key points.

In that same example of your superpowers coming up of the bullets of your life, you want to be respectful of everyone in that room that you're about to provide them with a lot of information.

And for people to learn, you need to give them short bits that will work.

Being brief around those key points—you can tell your stories, you can tell your great messages and how that all connects, but be brief in the messages of the key points that are there.

I cannot stress this enough because we know when people go on just a little too much it might get us a little distracted, but also you want them wanting more. Let them know if you're a speaker and you also, by the way, might give workshops afterward or other things, that keynote is a chance to deliver and give the main pop and the main message and there could still be something behind it.

I always want people to remember that brevity, being brief is really, really key to start when it comes to the stage.

My next part here is be bright. And that has 2 meanings. One, and I will use you as the example because it's such a great one. For those who have never seen Ryan's TED Talk—

Ryan Foland: Wait, wait, which one, because guess what, my fourth one is now live.

Lou Diamond: I know you have more than one, I know. I am talking about the one where you are dancing all over the place.

Ryan Foland: How to Not Get Chased By a Bear.

Lou Diamond: Exactly, How To Not Get Chased By a Bear.

What is so bright about that is not only his eyes, his energy, his movement.

When we think of bright we think of brilliance, it's all related to that, there is this unbelievable thought creative idea that if you put your message together and you are bright and sharp, you don't have to be over complicated, you just have to hit that one major brilliant point to shine at that moment.

And make a component of your keynote shine. And you do it great, there are many folks who do it and they hit that point.

I just got a chance earlier today to interview Bob Burg, and he makes a wonderful point about being bright about the importance of helping somebody buy, versus selling something to them.

It's a really great message and his other message, which was just in my head—Bob is one heck of a speaker—you are not responsible for the audience, you are responsible to the audience to be bright and to deliver that brilliant message.

I also want to use the bright for the little words, shine, shine and be a star. You are a star up there, that's what we remember.

When people walk away from a great event or a great conference, if you have a really long winded message and it's not brief and you didn't hit those points where you were sharp and bright at that shiniest moment, whatever that key message is that you need to deliver, no one's going to walk away remembering it.

You need that to be the bright light that shines in the moment. Be the star, be the one who stands out, you are allowed to be up there.

I think a lot of people don't want to give that permission or they want to give credit to others to do that. There's at least a point in there where you can be bright.

My last point is, what I finish off with: be brief, be bright—be gone.

What I mean by this is not just run off the stage to do a mic drop. Because it is tempting.

Ryan Foland: I was going to say that sounds like a fun time.

Lou Diamond: Be gone, I like to think of it as, Ryan, take it to the next level. This is when we're gone, we are out into space and up and beyond.

That's kind of where you want to leave the audience lifted.

I think too often, people who don't know music very well, and we know you're a big music fan, I was so tempted to hit the play button and play a different song.

Ryan Foland: Do it!

Lou Diamond: We have to edit it appropriately.

Ryan Foland: No, it's fine. You don't know me, the Neverending Story is like, "Yes, Falcor!" This music has been brought to you by Thrive Loud.

Lou Diamond: With that, when it comes to being bright in a musical crescendo, if you ever look at a song, most of the songs that are hits, they're not that long, they kind of have a little bit of an intro built and then there's some crazy really good chorus that everybody loves and that's your bright part of it.

And then obviously the song actually reaches a peak in a point before it ends and drops off. That gone is to lift people up in that.

Your message should do that as well, whatever your message is.

I speak about connecting and the importance and how connecting is actually going to lift up and make you grow your business, change your life and grow and take it to a new level.

That's really what I want people to leave with, is I want them to go to another level.

So be gone is to leave the place that you're in right now and know that after the message that you've delivered has been given, that you've elevated someone to that next tier, you've raised the game.

You've given them that piece of brilliance that now is in their back pocket and is going to make them money, make them better, make them happier, make them connect with more people to share that same message so they can take things and be gone to the next level as well.

Those would be my 3 steps.

Ryan Foland: I dig it. I am going to do a little deep diving into this.

I always am interested in the connectivity or the transitions between things.

And just an example, when somebody is formulating a talk, yes, let's say there are sequential steps and there are stories and whatnot.

But for me the magic comes in the transition, in not what happened where and when, but what made that happen. I always look for this little glue in between, so I'm going to go and take a step here and try to find the glue in between these.

When you talk about being gone, you talk about this fact that you have to get people to be ready to take what you say and go off on their own and be gone with it, take the nuggets and go.

But if there's not connectivity with something that's bright, with something that stands out, the other 3 or 4 keynotes are going to be in direct competition for that attention space.

And if you are this person that is bright but overpowers and overloads them with tons of information, they have no chance to be gone because they're just bogged down with all the information.

How many times have you been at a conference when you see all these amazing speakers and you get so pumped up and motivated, and then you go home and you do absolutely nothing?

That's because there's just so much. I like the connectivity that individually makes sense, be brief, be bright, be gone.

But be brief so that your brightness stands out to give people not too much information, but just enough for them to take it and make it their own.

Lou Diamond: I agree with that and I'll take the be gone and give a little addendum and that is: I always give them a call to action.

There is an action item for them to do. I give them homework, for lack of a better word.

Because to your point, you cannot leave just being inspired and get that message and be like, "I feel good". No, "I've got to do something, I need accountability for that message."

I like to think a lot, by the way, about the keynote stage whether it's a big keynote that you're giving to a huge audience, or you're drilling down and you're working knee-deep and get it into the weeds within an organization.

It's like a big camera at the Super Bowl or any sporting event, you've got that bird's eye view and you could laser and drill down.

The reality is that if you're working with a team, you would work on those specific assignments to give them something to do.

You can still do that at that higher level in the overarching piece, people need to know that they have action items to walk away with.

It doesn't matter the level you work with them at, they know that the message has to have some accountability.

You can get up there and the biggest thing that I'm always about is, when I tell meeting planners or people I'm going to speak for: these are the takeaways that they will get from my message that they will have and I will remind them what they are.

It won't just be in theory and they'll have to try and figure it out.

No, I am going to tell them what to do and ask them to step into that level to be gone. These are the steps that they will need to take. So give them that accountability to connect that message.

Ryan Foland: Okay, so I've got a question for you, I'm hearing the word—is “takeaway” one word or two words, I don't know?

Lou Diamond: I think it's one word in my world.

Ryan Foland: Okay, for all the grammar police. I just tweeted something and I misspelled it and somebody came back and corrected me and the tweet was about not taking things seriously, so I was like, "Well obviously, I don't take spelling seriously."

And then she tweeted back a very unspelled thing that you can make out, she said, "Yes, as long as somebody knows what you're saying."

So yes, the difference between a “takeaway” and a “call to action”—I want to know more granularly on this.

Lou Diamond: Great question.

Ryan Foland: Because we always say, “here are the takeaways,” and typically they will say, "Alright, what's your title, what is your description, what are the takeaways?" Great.

But what is the glue between a takeaway and a call to action? Can you give me some examples of differences?

Because I know a lot of people are like, "Here are the main takeaways." But how do you translate that to a call to action?

Lou Diamond: Somebody who is listening to the message of my 3 points, the takeaways would be “be brief, be bright, be gone.”

By the way, you could take be brief, be bright, be gone to when you meet someone in a connectworking type of environment—yes I use that word connectworking.

Ryan Foland: We have another word, grammar police are not on the radar, we're good. You have asylum.

Lou Diamond: The call to action is these steps or the immediate action item that you need to do: a phone call, an e-mail test, writing something, an action, literally telling someone to write something down. That is going to be much more personalized for them.

The takeaway “be brief, be bright, be gone” can apply to everyone. The call to action is going to be a little more customized for you specifically.

I have to call my client John and follow up with him on this level. I'm going to use Lou's “be brief, be bright, be gone” for my next keynote that I'm going to deliver in Las Vegas for this particular boating conference, wherever Ryan's going next.

Your call to action has a specificity about it, that is really when I mean that homework assignment, so I'm giving the general, but everyone in that audience has to make it their own because if you only have takeaways to walk away with, you won't have the accountable call to action items for you to execute, to be successful. and be gone.

Ryan Foland: And I'm thinking that if you don't really have a call to action and it's only takeaways then people will be like,

"Yeah, I got a lot of good takeaways from that."

But if they don't actually put it into action, then you're not going to have that impact, they're not going to end up following you, they're not going to end up seeing the impact that your information has on their life because sure, they've got great takeaways.

I think that's a really cool distinction between how do you turn a takeaway into a call to action, real particular for that individual. I dig it.

Lou Diamond: Note to the producers of this show, just do a mic drop, right there, right there. Do mic drop now, like boom, there it is.

Ryan Foland: Oops, sorry Yeti, you were so cute, now you have a dent in you. It's okay, dents mean you're working hard.

So, this is all great stuff and I think that from a takeaway standpoint, be brief, be bright and be gone, that's great.

The call to action for people who are listening to this, if I'm understanding correctly, it's incorporate this into your next keynote, see how you can use this in a networking environment, how do you be brief, be bright, be gone with your boss, with the people who are direct reports to you, those kind of things. Correct?

Lou Diamond: And I'll add to that, look into your keynote and see what the brilliance is. What is the bright point?

I love asking other speakers, when they are on stage, what was the message that resonated most with the audience?

What got the most head nods, the most “a-ha-s”, the applause, or a certain thought?

It's in a very reactive and interactive environment, I try to make my speaking very immersive. I'm like you in that sense, I am in the audience, involving them and pulling them up.

It's never just me up there because I want to connect with them and that message is intentional.

Also, I want them to recognize that these barriers aren't a wall between them and me on the stage, it's supposed to be this community that we've created.

Creating those senses of tasks that they have to do or finding that brilliance, what was the thing that resonated most?

And you can do your homework because sometimes you go in thinking that one particular point with a certain audience is going to resonate, but something else did.

And it's really important for you after a keynote to take note of that.

If you have videos and you could see this stuff, it's great.

If you can audio record your keynotes and get feedback from the audience, ask for feedback so that the next time you can sharpen and hone that brilliance.

And the more you do it, the better you get it making that “A-ha” moment be bright.

Ryan Foland: I dig it. That is brilliant advice for the clear takeaway and more particularly, a specific call to action.

Now I want to transition into the final section of the show, which is really about how do you get more stage time, how do you get higher paid gigs, how do you get paid gigs, how do you sustain the business of speaking.

But I want to challenge you to incorporate some of your expertise in podcasting. For all of you who are listening, if you want to know somebody who's doing podcasting right, check out Lou Diamond.

You've got hundreds of thousands of people that are locked on what you have. You've got hundreds of shows and the way in which you incorporate podcasting outside of the typical bubble I think is revolutionary when it comes to utilizing this new medium.

Normally, we just talk about how do you get stage time, but I'm going to challenge you: How do you use podcasting to build and support your speaking business?

Lou Diamond: By the way, thank you for the compliments there, and I will let you know if you would have told me when I created my podcast show that my podcasting and the world of podcasting would actually create speaking opportunities for me, in the way it has. I would have laughed at you because I never would have imagined that it would have.

Everyone has been telling you to go start a podcast show.

We've all heard this, "Oh, you've got to have a podcast show, you've got to be the host of a podcast show, you've got to go do it."

I'm going to tell you right now, and I don't know if it's one of those “jump-the-shark” moments or whatever it is as it relates to podcast, because it seems like everyone has one.

This is a question that you need to actually ask yourself,

Does having a podcast program as a host, benefit you if you're a speaker?

Does it extend your brand?

Does your business fall in line with being the host of a podcast program?

Now I want to make this clear, while most programs out there are like this one, an interview format, there are a lot of other types of podcast programs.

We'll call it morning zoo type of shows, like imagine Ryan and Lou just talking about their regular day, which is very entertaining by the way.

Two my closest — I'll give them a shout out — podcast friends, The Nice Guys on Business podcast, Doug Sandler and Strickland Bonner, they do interview shows 3 days a week and then 2 days a week the 2 of them are literally just, they call it complete fuckery, and by the way it is.

It's absolute nonsense what they do and it's brilliant because they actually incorporate a lot of what they talk about, which is customer service. Which is kind of what both of them are in whether they knew it or not, and they talk about experiences in their lives that they have and how that relates. So they don't always like to give that business advice but it comes out every time they do it.

For them, it's actually on brand and it works. There are obviously interview shows, there are these morning zoo shows.

You can do a podcast that is basically an audio blog, so that if you want to give a message and some of your points of brilliance and put it out there, it's a wonderful thing.

If that lines up with your brand and promotes your business, go forth and create yourself a podcast show.

Ryan Foland: Okay, real quick, a little time out, time in, is that if you're thinking about doing a podcast, it's more of a blogcast or like a solo kind of thing. What do you say to the people that are like,

"Wait, I don't want to give away all of my meat and potatoes," like, "people want to pay me for my information."

How do you deal with that kind of a reaction?

Lou Diamond: Well, one: I've now started to see subscription model services, and if you want to talk about making money in the podcasting world, people are doing, give a little teaser of it and subscribe and then if you want to get the full content and the full lessons then click through afterwards, which is actually a nice way to do it.

So if you think of it modularly, in that model, if you are providing e-learning services, is that part of your business, then yeah.

If that's a follow on, and I make this more about speaking, if this is lining up with your business, not just your speaking business, but your business behind your speaking, great.

Write down these plans, make sure that you create what I like to call the episode zero, which gives the purpose of what this is and gets it out there so you can continue to build your content.

And then go forth and create this programming.

But it is not always for everyone. For some people it doesn't make any sense, it doesn't fit into their business. They don't have the time to do it, or more notably maybe there isn't something so unique in the way that they do that and they need to be more visual in person.

Ryan Foland: Now real quick, just so we're clear, are you talking about podcasting in general, whether it's an interview or this sort of off the cuff, are you grouping them all together now when you're talking about these?

Lou Diamond: In this particular case, as in creating your own podcast as a host or whatnot. But let's flip this around now and now I want to talk about you asking how you can make podcasting help you get the speaking gigs.

I cannot speak enough about the fact that there are too many people just going on interview podcast shows without a clear — this is going to sound familiar — call to action, with a purpose to being a guest.

Recently I spoke, it was actually in a meeting in New York, about how podcast guesting can drive you to speaking opportunities, improve your craft, hone your message, but more importantly, push people to where they could find and book you.

Ryan Foland: Okay, I dig it.

This is good here, so you're not saying go start a podcast, you're saying, "If it makes sense for your business that's a whole 'nother podcast about that."

But you're saying utilizing being a guest on podcasts to help you further your speaking career. I'm with you, I want to hear.

Lou Diamond: Okay, so let's just start off: I got a whole 10-step thing and I'm not going to give all ten steps, but let's just generalize it.

Ryan Foland: Okay.

Lou Diamond: One is you need a funnel that is going to utilize the fact that whether you are going on a podcast as a guest to sell books, to push your speaking platform, to push your consulting services, whatever it might be to whatever it is that you get paid as a speaker or as part of your speaking business. If you need this, you have to set it up so that you have a pipeline strategy that you've developed before you start going on guesting programs.

Ryan Foland: Design with the end in mind.

Lou Diamond: Design with the end in mind.

Ryan Foland: Now when you say funnel, people might be thinking, "Well I have a red funnel in the garage that I used to put some gas in the car 20 years ago."

What's a high-level definition? I've got this podcast and my radio show, and on my radio show, the 3-1-3 show, I call it a GTA.

It is where you have to describe something as though you're describing it to your grandma, so it's a GTO, a grandma time out. “ What is a funnel?”

Lou Diamond: To use it this way, a funnel is a website landing page that you're going to send people to, that will collect e-mails, push people to your services so they know how to book you and find you. Think of it that way.

Ryan Foland: I dig it. Okay, good.

Lou Diamond: You actually have to come up with what that's going to be.

By the way, I've had authors utilize this as a way to sell books. I've had speakers come on this as a way to offer a little bit of a dose of what they do and then you could get them as a whole package to speak for them, even to sign up for a speaker series to speak to the whole company, or just to do keynotes or to be at certain presentations, just like every speaker who comes on the program.

But your purpose as a guest is that you are going to now figure out where is my audience?

We all talk about being in a lane, picking a lane as a speaker, and everyone's got their niche and where it is.

Well, maybe that means that the podcast program you're going to be a guest on should be speaking to that audience.

So you have to find the right podcast program to go on, one that hits the listeners that are your clients.

You know how few people do this, and by the way here's a great thing Ryan, there's an amazing tool out there where 80% of the podcast listeners go to.

Ryan Foland: Where?

Lou Diamond: It's called iTunes.

Ryan Foland: Oh my gosh.

Lou Diamond: And iTunes, unbelievably Apple built something that actually has a really good search component in there where you can segment based on the type of business podcast that you service.

If you're a business speaker and you speak to managing and marketing people, if you are a speaker and you speak to the cannabis industry, if you're a speaker and you speak to the food and marketing and management services, the hotel industry, there is a podcast category and a podcast show for you.

You can go there and figure it out, and there are so many podcast shows out there, Ryan, I've come up with a formula that you could actually use to decide if that podcast is worth going on or not. Do you want to hear the formula?

Ryan Foland: I do. Please tell me.

Wait, wait, wait — be brief, be bright, and then don't be gone yet because we have a couple more minutes.

Lou Diamond: I got it. I'll be really quick: take the number of episodes that the show has. That is your denominator.

Take the number of reviews from iTunes that people have actually given a review for the show, and that's your numerator.

Divide one by the other. If that ratio does not exceed one quarter (25%), you don't go on that show. Simply put.

Ryan Foland: Wow, there you have it.

Lou Diamond: That is an engagement platform to those that engage and will listen and that's enough involvement that these shows use social media to do it.

There's a lot of other rules that I would say, but key one here about being a guest Ryan, that's so important: be spectacular as a guest.

We are speakers. Those who are listening to the show who are speakers, when you go on a podcast show, you have to recognize that you are being recorded, your message and your voice and the way that you connect to your audience.

I'm about connecting, so I want to connect to your audience. I want them to understand the power of connecting, I want to make sure that when I am on this side of the microphone as a guest, then I am so great and so spectacular and so bright, because it lives out there.

Do you know how many people I have as guests on my show who are speakers, who are literally like, "Yeah, I’ve got to get to my lunch date, you know I got another meeting I've got to get to."

And they're blasé and they're not really good, and maybe they're talking a little too much about themselves, as opposed to how they're going to help people as a guest.

You have a great opportunity to go on something that lives on in perpetuity, by the way. It never goes away.

More so than your speaker video, which we only see the sizzle reel of because we only edit that out. But here, people get to listen to you for 30 minutes to an hour.

Be great on these interviews.

And when you do that, people will hear you and then you push them to your call to action, send them to your links, send them to your speaker site, give something away, give something for them that's a great giveaway that they'll use. They will want to work with you, they will want to connect with you, and then you know how to connect with them.

With really good landing pages you can track and follow the e-mails and do that stuff where people can follow up and you know who's looking at you.

I know that's a very quick version, but this is so important that people are not utilizing podcast guesting as a tool to grow their business.

Ryan Foland: Now what kind of guests do you want for people who are going to listen to this and go, "Where do I start?"

And then all of a sudden they hear me asking you, and then they might identify that you're their target audience.

And then they're going to hit you up and tweet us both and say, "Hey Lou, I heard you on the show. I want to be on your show because you have the right equation in the Thrivegorhythm."

Lou Diamond: By the way, the Thrivegorhythm, that is awesome.

I knew you were going to come up with a word on this show, listeners need to know that Ryan is the best in coming up with the made up words. I knew he would come out in one of the combinations. We tried it before we hit record.

Ryan Foland: They are ridiculous sometimes, but yeah, you have your Thrivegorhythm.

Lou Diamond: In the Thrivegorhythm, the reality is that you have to start looking and prospecting on the shows that make the most sense for your audience today.

By the way, ask your clients, ask the people what they listen to, ask the types of shows that are there.

Go ask them, ask your clients, "What do you listen to?"

I listen to the Ryan Foland Show. Here's a perfect example: Do you know why I'm on this show today?

I spoke to another speaker who we both know — shout out to Michelle Tillis Lederman — and I spoke to Michelle and she goes,

"You’ve really got to get on Ryan's show because he's doing such a great job in World of Speakers."

I'm like, "He's already been on Thrive Loud, how the heck haven't I had him on, how haven’t I been on."

And we stopped, but meanwhile, I did this because I know she's listening to this show. She's a speaker, there are other people in the speaking community who listen to this because you have such a great community.

This is the community I'm trying to connect with. A perfect reason to go on a show. This makes sense and lines up.

By the way, every speaker right now is going to call and say, "Yup, I've got a book, got to get on."

Ryan Foland: Yes you’ve got to get on, and if you want to just shoot me an email at [email protected], it's very hard to remember, [email protected].

Lou Diamond: And just one last point of this is that, remember, there is a big backlog to get on a lot of these shows, so you have to spread it out and there are lots of different programs to go on.

You need to be conscious about this—podcasting is not just big because everybody's listening to it; podcasting has data out there now where we can actually recognize and see where the audiences are and who's listening.

One big point about this—not everyone has the time to always listen to the episodes, but the best shows that are out there and the ones that you should look at are the ones that use social media and promote the bejeebers out of it.

We'll just talk about this, you had a guest previously on this program who has a wonderful, beautiful accent. And I heard that episode and one of the things you guys talked about was the importance of tweeting—I sent a tweet to her immediately because I heard that and connected with her.

And that's the type of interaction you're looking for because people in podcasting want to connect this way and she's extending her connection, I am extending mine. Who knows? She runs events in Ireland.

Ryan Foland: Yeah I know, she totally does. She's a great contact, @thetweetinggoddess. Samantha is awesome.

Lou Diamond: Yeah, she is awesome.

Anyway, my point is this: I'm listening to the shows and the programs I wanted to be on are the ones that are going to help me as a speaker.

That's how you have to think about it, for all those speakers out there. There's a lot of great programs, not just this one, mine, there's plenty of them out there.

Utilize them so that you target and hit the audience you're going after.

Ryan Foland: Brilliant.

Brilliant and brief and bright and unfortunately it's time for us to be gone. But this was the main takeaway.

And the call to action is to check Lou out.

Lou, do you have a splash page to throw people into the funnel?

Lou Diamond: I certainly do.

Simply put, go to LouDiamond.net or thriveloud.com, either way, you'll see the ‘Book Lou Diamond’ button or “Connect with Lou” — either one, they're all the same button, it all goes to the same place — and provide your information.

I guess we could also give a shout out on that same LouDiamond.net or ThriveLoud.com website you can go to the Thrive Loud podcast and hear some of those that are thriving in their lives, their businesses, and their passions.

Ryan Foland: What is it episode 130?

Lou Diamond: Episode 130. I highly, highly recommend it.

And by the way, just a little shout out — around the time that this episode is going to launch, we do something every now and then, we go back into the archives and we create what we like to call "minisodes," and trust me, there's a minisode that's probably going to be based on episode 130 with Ryan Foland, so state tuned.

Ryan Foland: Transition into action, very cool.

Lou Diamond: It's coming, yes.

Ryan Foland: Anyway, this was a lot of fun, Lou.

For those of you who are skeptical about being a guest: just get over it and let your true self be shiny and bright and have fun and don't worry about it because, at the end of the day, the best podcasts are ones where you're just yourself.

And this comes back down to how do you differentiate yourself as a speaker.

Don't try to be like other speakers. The best way to differentiate yourself is to be yourself, is to ditch whatever act you think is going on and carve out your own space because everybody else is already taken.

And a selfish plug for me, I've got a book coming around in October, which covers that whole topic, called, "Ditch the act." There's a lot of great advice hiding in plain sight and the best advice I can give you is to be yourself so that you can thrive.

Lou Diamond: Well played there, well played.

Ryan Foland: Well played, see that? And it's good to get. I was motivated by you to give a little plug for myself in the process, right? They've made it this far and they might want to see some more.

Lou Diamond: Absolutely.

Ryan Foland: Alright Lou, I am excited to keep connecting with you. Let's have a virtual coffee sometime soon and see if we can help connect each other. Definitely stay connected online and hopefully, we’ll share a stage some time.

Lou Diamond: I'm eagerly looking forward to it. Ryan. Keep on being that man and I'm sticking up my fingers here man for the 3-1-3.

Ryan Foland: 3-1-3. All right everybody out there, if you don't know about the 3-1-3 you should check out RyanFoland.com/speaking.

There's a splash page for you and you've got tons of other amazing guests that I have done my best to pull all of the great information out of so you don't have to.

If you liked this episode, tweet it out, share it out, LinkedIn it out, Facebook it out, whatever it out; get it out there into the world so you can help people be brief, be bright and be gone. And on that note—we're gone. Bye.

A bit about World of Speakers

World of Speakers is a bi-monthly 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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