If you’ve been around the speaking industry for any time at all, you’re probably familiar with the National Speakers Association (NSA). This week, NSA Illinois Chapter President Dean Heffta joined Brittany Richmond on the TSL podcast to talk about his own personal speaker journey, the value of NSA, the process and timing of writing a book, and more!
Dean brought some great insights and advice to the podcast, but his top advice for speakers might surprise you:
“Get back to the basics. Right now, it’s really easy for people to get distracted. And I think some people are coming through this, but the last three years, there’s been so much technology, and there’s so much pizzazz, and you got to do this, and you got to do that. And so be willing to focus on the basics. Get back to the basics. Keep it simple. And remember, you don’t have to build somebody else’s business; you have to build your own business.
And so the only advice that I tend to give, or that I try to give, is not to take advice.
But hear me out. The risk when people, especially when they’re entering into this new business world, is they are so hungry for people to tell them what to do, they’ll take all of this advice, and they’ll hit this moment of overwhelm where they’re like, I can’t do all of this. And so don’t take advice. Take the insight and apply it to you and your client and your situation and make it your own. Right? Don’t just copy and paste. Because what happens is if I copy and paste somebody’s advice and it doesn’t work, who do I get to blame, right? Them.”
So, this year, stop taking advice. Try it out in your world for a few weeks, and then send us a message or reach out on social media and let us know how it’s going!
If you’re reading this thinking, “There’s no way this is the actual takeaway,” and/or “These people have finally lost their minds,” well, I guess you’ll just have to go check out the whole episode for yourself! 😉
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