Grant Baldwin and Scott Stratten hosted a Facebook Live to talk about the future of the speaking industry after a pandemic.
During the live stream, Grant and Scott discuss:
- The long-term impacts the coronavirus will have on the speaking industry
- Experimenting with style and facial hair while social distancing
- Why speaking isn’t really your true profession
- Understanding the gig is the payoff for building your platform and being an expert
- Dealing with feeling like you’ve lost part of your identity
- Grieving the loss of things that used to annoy you (like the too early soundcheck)
- Predicting the recovery timeline for massive events and the impact on keynotes
- Distributing a sub-standard virtual product will hurt your live speaking down the road by degrading your value
- Accepting that the new normal is largely unknown
- The pending lawsuits as a result of the virus spreading at large events
- Treating the speaking gig as one component of your business and how you deliver value
- Do what it takes to help you feel productive
- Being okay with where you are at in responding to these unprecedented times
- “Whatever your normal is right now, that’s fine.”
- Determining the right timing for when to pivot to virtual options for your audience
- Avoiding guilt for not doing some things
- A virtual answer isn’t the same as an in-person answer
- Why you can’t shift the same equity you have on stage to a virtual gig at first
- How webinars are a transfer of skills and what makes them different than a keynote
- The drastic difference between our current circumstances and any emergency we’ve experienced in the past
- Is everyone going to work from home in the future?
- There will be a new normal, but it won’t be completely different from everything we know
- How to avoid long-term risk by making short-term budget decisions that you sustain
- Learning business lessons now that will carry you through the crisis and beyond
- Ignoring hindsight regret
- Getting creative with discovering new revenue sources and sponsored opportunities
- How to approach outreach without appearing tone-deaf
- Making sure you check on your contacts, colleagues, and clients to see how they’re doing
- Reaching out to recent clients to offer a thank you video to their team
- Losing your pride
- Treat your email list as your most important asset and continue to build it beyond this crisis
- Don’t feed the noise
- Controlling who you follow
- Healthy outlets for coping with stress and staying connected
- Using the mute button on social media to create boundaries
- Tips on growing a man bun
- And more