What do you speak about?
I talk about leadership and branding. I really have this thing for the leader-follower relationship that I love to talk about. Also, personal leadership. There’s a part of leadership studies called followership. I really get into it. On the branding side of the house, I talk a lot about personal branding and employer branding as well.
What was happening or not happening in your business that made you decide to sign up for The Speaker Lab?
I wanted to build a business. That wasn’t happening. With encouragement from my wife, after losing a job I loved, I decided to just go for it. I wanted to do what I do best. Public speaking is what I do best. The other thing, though, is that I really wanted to have an outlet to talk about something that I’ve become very passionate about over the past few years because of work experiences, and that is ethical leadership. And so that’s what made me just say, you know what? Here’s an opportunity. I’m gonna go for it.
What have been some of your aha moments and key takeaways that you’ve gotten from the program?
I had a bunch of aha moments. So, one of them emails. I gotta tell you, I would be the one who would send a 3-paragraph email to somebody on the first email. And I’m sitting there going, I gave him all the information. Why didn’t it come back to me? Prospecting was a big thing. And it’s not so much prospecting, but how to prospect. Another aha moment was learning the structure of a talk. I mean, the talk templates are just so, so helpful. It helped me make sense of a lot of things that were just jumbled around in my brain.
Here’s another aha. I got a bit frustrated, to be honest with you, because I wasn’t getting talks. And then I decided to go back through the program. I went over my old notes and was reminded to use your network. That’s when I noticed some things started to change.
What did that look like for you? What was the difference that you started seeing?
Number one, people being more responsive, and then also people providing suggestions and feedback. People saying, “Hey, you know, Eddie, not right now, but please make sure you get back to me and then we’ll look at another date.” or “I’ll let you know when the budget is in place,” so just using my network was so helpful because it was overlooked. Number two, these were people I could trust. These were people who I’ve been communicating with on different levels for different reasons for years now. All I had to do was just say, “Hey, this is what I’m doing.”
I think one of the things that the Speaker Lab really helped with was really driving home the message, “You here right now, we accepted you into this program, trust yourself.” I kept thinking to myself, “Man, this was a really heck of an investment by me. I’ve never made one like this before.” And so, I realized though, that I was accepted into The Speaker Lab, so I needed to trust myself.
I appreciate you being honest about the frustration because I think that’s part of the journey, right? It’s not always smooth sailing and we run into roadblocks. I heard one of our coaches, Ravi, use this phrase, “There’s always a breakdown before the breakthrough…So what have been some of your results since going through the program?
I’ve been speaking professionally for over 20 years now, but for the first time in those 20 years, I’m getting more responses. I’m getting them faster. And even if the responses are, “We’re not interested,” I’m actually really happy to get a response, rather than just hanging out there waiting.
I have done 2 paid engagements, since I revamped the way I was approaching this and really reinvested in the learning materials. Also I’ve gotten more exposure at conferences. I really overlooked this, but I have been able to speak probably at about four or five conferences. Those were not paid opportunities, but one thing has led to another and folks have said, “Hey, listen Eddie, just keep in touch with me. Something is gonna happen.” So those have been the results that I’ve been really proud of.
Can you share anything more about your paid engagements? I’d love to hear what those were!
A big part of my audience is the college crowd. I do a lot of work with historically African American fraternities and sororities. Actually the funny part is that one of them found me by Googling, and my name came up at the top of the results. They were looking for a particular speaker to speak to a particular group. For the other, I used my network. I called a friend of mine and said, “Listen, this is what I’m trying to do. Do you have anything on your campus where you need someone to come in and talk about these particular topics?” And he said, “I’m so glad you called. Yes.” So. it was right on time, and he immediately emailed his people and said, “This guy is really good. I’ve seen him several times. He needs to come to campus.” And so those were the two results that I got and am so very proud of. I had a great time speaking to the students.
Now that you’ve kind of reinvested in the program mentally, what is your new normal now? What is the way you approach your business?
A new normal is prospecting consistently. Before I would email somebody – I would either email people too much or I would email them and would get frustrated and just leave it alone if I didn’t get a response the first or second time.
Also having structure to my talks. I’ve actually written three talks since I’ve done The Speaker Lab, and they were a result of people saying, “Hey, you know what? It would be great if somebody talked about this.” And it was in my wheelhouse.
The other new normal for me, and this is the one I am most proud of, is naming my price. I can’t tell you how many times in the 20 plus years I’ve been speaking on my own, trying to do it all on my own, that people would ask me, “Okay, we’ll bring you out here. How much do you charge?” And I’m going, “…Five – uh hundred?” You know, sitting on the phone hesitating. The Speaker Lab really taught me that you can’t hesitate. Your price is your price. So, I am much better at saying, “This is what I want.” And folks have negotiated a couple of times and I was fine with the negotiation, but the fact that I was able to just say, “Nope, this is what I want,” – that is a new normal for me.”
I hear a lot of confidence in what you’re saying, which is part of what we aim to provide speakers with – clarity, confidence and a clear path. So not feeling lost in those negotiating conversations is a big win.
Absolutely. It is, and it is so funny, I actually had a friend of mine call me–I should probably direct her to The Speaker Lab–but I had a friend of mine call me one day, and she has a wealth of experience in her field. She was going to talk to this really big company, and she said, “Should I charge ’em?” And I was like, “Oh, please charge ’em. This is a very big well-resourced company. You have a wealth of experience.” And she was about to get a doctorate! It was different for me to say that to somebody else, like I needed to hear myself say it. So, that sense of confidence has really been invaluable.
I love thinking of how it’s kind of contagious too. Once you’ve absorbed that belief and that sense of value and worth, you can see it in other people too. Well, and sometimes it’s easier to see that in other people first and be like, “Yeah, YOU should totally charge for your speaking gig.” But then when it comes to our own, we get all hesitant, so it’s awesome to see you owning that for yourself, but then also giving that gift of confidence to other people too.
That leads to our next question – who would you recommend to The Speaker Lab and why?
I love this question. I think the kind of person who is really good for The Speaker Lab, is someone who has something really important to say and knows what they want to talk about. They know it’s important to say, and they know who they want to say it to. I think that if someone has that orientation to how they want to speak, then what the Speaker Lab can do is help them tie all of that together by helping them with the business end of things, the administrative side of things – I was really surprised to get as much information about administrative functions and business functions.
I would also say someone who is resilient, and who has so much confidence in what they want to say, who they want to say it to, that they are able to just keep on going no matter what. The Speaker Lab can really tie all these things together and really help their business soar.
Is there anything else you’d like to share today, Eddie?
I just am really grateful for the sense of self validation that I gained as a professional speaker by looking at The Speaker Lab. I was really kind of wondering how this was going to all work out and it really helped me. I heard this speaker once say that accountability is something that you do for someone. And so the thing that I really loved about my Speaker Lab experience is that it helped me hold myself accountable in a way that I didn’t beat myself up about it, and just said, “Wait a minute, Eddie, the reason that things slow down so much is that you really, really need to get on this prospecting thing, and you need to understand that there is runway when it comes to that.”
It really helped me be patient with myself, but then also it helped me also identify places where I might want to plant other seeds to grow the business. The Speaker Lab was really good for helping me understand those elements.
It sounds like there’s been a profound mindset shift and a new approach, so that’s really wonderful to hear.
Yes, there has been. Definitely.
That’s awesome, Eddie. Well, thank you so much for sharing all this. I feel very inspired and excited to be able to share your story with more people.
No problem. Well, here’s my fee – No, I’m joking. Thank you!