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Welcome to the Never Been Promoted podcast with Thomas Helfrich. Get ready for a thrilling adventure as we uncover entrepreneurial journeys and life changing business insights every week. And now, your host, Thomas.
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Welcome to another episode of Never Been Promoted, where we are unleashing your entrepreneur by learning from other entrepreneurs on their journey. And if this is your first time listening, watching, thank you for coming and hopefully you'll have a really good experience. Learn a few things. If this is, you know, if you've been here before, keep coming back because, you know, we're about entrepreneurial life lessons so you could become better not only in entrepreneurship, but really at life, too. And today I'm joined by Scott Greenberg, who's an author, a speaker. He's well lit if you're, if you're listening to the podcast, he really took the lighting and camera work seriously. But Scott, why don't you just introduce yourself? And thank you so much for joining. But you take a few minutes to talk about you.
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Yeah, thanks a lot. So I work as a speaker, writer and a coach, and I help business people perform at a higher level. So it started off years ago just doing motivational speaking, talking to people about resilience and peak performance, that kind of thing. And it evolved over the years. And then for ten years, while still doing that, I was a multi unit franchisee with edible arrangements. I wanted some real world experience instead of just talking about theoretical stuff. And of course, I wanted more money. So did that for ten years. And the speaking then evolved to a lot of speaking in the franchise industry. So about 70% of what I do is in the franchise industry. But I'm interested in the human side of business, how people think, how they lead and how they serve. So everything I do in some way is connected to that.
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We work with my instantly relevant company. A few of our customers are franchise consultants and owners. And what a cool, what an easier way to become an entrepreneur. By the way, if you don't realize this when you first started entrepreneurship, the zero to hero method is more expensive, more timely, and more stressful. If you have a little bit of money, talk to him about doing a franchise as well, because it would be easier to have a blueprint. Are you still doing edibles or edibles? Sorry, edible arrangements.
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Well, reluctant to answer the first question, so, no. So I did it for ten years, and then it got to a point where I thought there was suddenly just a huge demand for the speaking. I just kind of wanted to get back. And just for some business reasons, it was time to exit. We were doing really well and I knew I would do well on the exit. So no, so I'm not doing it anymore, but still do a lot of work. Like I said, a lot of my audiences are franchises and my first book comes from that space, but I'm not a franchise owner anymore. Ten years was a good run and.
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I love the use of puns. And your book is stop the shift show. You showing it, you want to do a little visual? Shameless plugs are my thing. So show that thing early in the game.
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I have no shame whatsoever. So this, it's called stop the shift show. Turn your struggling hourly workers into a top performing team. So it's my second book. It comes out February 13, although it can be pre purchased now wherever books are sold. And it's all about how to solve those huge pain points regarding hiring and retaining and motivating hourly workers.
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What was the name of your first book? Can you share that as well? Because I think it'll be relevant to some of the speaking pieces we'll talk about.
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First book is called the wealthy franchisee. Game changing steps to becoming a thriving franchise superstar. So what I learned from ten years of doing it and many years, all these franchise brands that bring me in to speak, I interview their franchisees and I've seen what the top ones all have in common. So that book is about the characteristics of top franchisees, who I call wealthy franchisees, and what other people can do to replicate what they're doing so they can get the same results.
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I'll ask the question. So anybody in the entrepreneurship journey who is in the franchise world are considering it, or maybe they're literally reading their first FDD. What's the one, what's the one piece of advice? Like, I'll say this, if you're this type of person, don't do it. We'll start with that one. What type of person should just say, you should just be like, listen, realize who you are. Stop, don't do it.
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If you are the real entrepreneur who like, you need to control every aspect of it. You want to make the decisions, you want to do things on your terms. You don't necessarily want to have to follow a system. Stay away. Just invent your own thing from maybe become a franchisor at some point. But what I found when I looked at all these people who are really making a lot of money in franchising is they don't try to reinvent the system. They stick to the proven system and then they just execute at a really high level. So, you know, which is great. They thrive. They make a ton of money doing it. They're not interested. They've outsourced the creativity. They've outsourced the innovation. They're just interested in executing, and that's what makes them successful. So don't do it. If you need to be in control of everything and don't like having anybody hold you accountable to certain standards and certain ways of doing things like you're.
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Describing, like a boss and a job there. Yeah, I think I'm gonna stay away from franchising.
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Yeah. Well, look, I mean, there's, for me, there was enough independence, but what's nice is a lot of the headaches that come with, you know, trying to figure stuff out. You don't have to worry about that. Like, I still got to come and go as I pleased. And I looked at, you know, my corporate office as a partner, as a resource who is doing all the R and D on my behalf and a lot of the marketing. So I didn't feel it in any way stopped me from being who I am and living my own life and being in control.
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Yeah. And I say that as almost a softball question because that's the case. You've outsourced the hard part for a lot of people. In the part they just want to execute and make money. That's your interest. It's the way to go. And your second book, I think, dives a little lower with our employees are very common in franchising of you have people working for you, maybe relate that from the, you know, maybe give the high level of how do you get a top performing team out of a group that, you know, typically people work hourly outside of lawyers and that kind. I don't think you're referring to that. So, like, how do you get them become a top performing team? Or what's like, the kind of top reasons why they don't do well?
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Sure. Well, first, you know, let me tell you kind of how I got to that. You know. So I wrote that first book for the franchise world, and it has done really, really well. The main idea behind that is what matters most besides sticking to the system is the human side of the business. It's not just about marketing or being a good location, but having the right mindset. It's about knowing how to build culture, and it's about how to create experiences that customers love. A lot of people think it's all that touchy feely stuff, but that's what makes the money. That's what separates top franchisees from typical franchisees. But the customer who, people who know that are their franchisors, franchisees themselves may not realize they're getting in their own way. So I've sold plenty of books and given lots of speeches because it's the franchisors who hire me and then buy the books in bulk with the second book, rather than convincing people there's a problem they don't realize they have. This is just addressing a pain point they know they have. And a lot of people who read the first book have heard me speak when they come to me for coaching, one of the first things they always complain about are their team members. So I realized there's a need there. If I could figure out the solutions, I could solve a big problem for people. And I also wanted to write something that was much bigger than franchising. So this is applicable to hospitality, to retail, to manufacturing. I think something like 54% of all jobs in the US are hourly paid workers. Right? So it's about that. So your question is very big, like how do you make them successful? I got a whole book on that, but I'll give you just kind of a few main ideas. I believe that when dealing with any kind of problem in business, the first place for us to look is in the mirror. So are you really being the kind of boss you think you are? Are you really being a boss who knows how to engage, who knows how to inspire? I had someone they wrote, I wrote an article for nations restaurant news about providing exceptional customer experience by training your employees to really sort of look for what are the emotional desires of customers. When this franchisee owns a few restaurants, he writes me this horrible email saying, have you ever run a business yourself? I can barely find people, let alone to make them armchair psychologists. Why do you run a business first, before you write articles?
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Well, I ran business before.
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Right. First of all, I've run businesses, made plenty of money, I've had the same headaches, and I got results. And all these people write about my book they have as well. It didn't occur to him that it's easy to say, well, the employees are just incapable of it. It didn't occur to them to say, well, maybe I can't get that performance out of the employees. Maybe there's something that I can do. So part of it is realizing your own biases, your own assumptions, your own judgments. When you complain about kids these days and how entitled they are with their soccer trophies and how thin skinned they are, can you maybe reframe those observations more objectively to figure out what to do. I'm not saying I disagree with those observations and even those judgments, but so let's accept them for how they are now. How can we get through to them then? It's about building culture, which is not the same thing as being nice to them. It's about creating a workplace that they find inspiring, where they feel a sense of belonging, and then including rituals that reinforce that there's a lot of things that are there. I mean, it could go on and on. Like I said, I could write a book. I did write a book about it, but it's much more about that human side. It's not just about what they get, it's about how they feel. So you're not going to solve the problem by throwing money at it. You really have to create a best in class work experience. Just like for customers. You want to create a great customer experience so they come back. You want to create a great employee experience so they stay.
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Yeah. And those two are certainly, the customer experience and employee experience are certainly tied. If you don't go, go to any government run agency and ask for help, especially the post office here in Atlanta.
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I'll leave it at that.
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But I think the post office should be defunded. They aren't needed anymore anyway. We're just going to table that one for now. We'll get off my pedestal. So, listen, if you're, let me tie it to some entrepreneurship stare, that is, I think the idea of self reflection, you go through this in entrepreneurship quite a bit because you can no longer blame other people. And if you continually are blaming other people, you won't be an entrepreneur for long. You won't make it in your internal reflection of why or who or this that is core to do this. And I think you discover that. But you're spot on with that. I mean, if you're not aware of where you have your own shortcomings, where you're great, where you're an asshole, whatever it is, your chances, successes are going to be, they're just not going to be there. They're going to be mediocre at best if you excel in something. But if you can't be reflected to get the gaps filled, you're done. So maybe, maybe like just pivot the conversation. So that's if you're a franchisee or franchisor and you're working, I want to kind of get through your journey a little bit. So you started off as an author, or tell me you start off as a franchise owner, talk about the transition to becoming an author that's a new endeavor for you. And you did. So how did you think about it? How did you approach it?
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Well, actually, I didn't start off as a business owner. I started off as a motivational speaker back in. I graduated college. I went to film school at NYU, and while I was there, I was diagnosed with cancer. And so I spent a year in treatment. And that put me on this path where I started giving motivational speeches about overcoming adversity. Right. And I had my pretty thin metaphor. We all get our cancers. That's not what matters. What matters is how you react. And then I threw in some jokes and a few tips, and it was enough to start getting paid to give some speeches, and it started really kind of growing. And so then it evolved to peak performance and to leadership. And suddenly I'm traveling all over the country giving paid presentations, and it was great. It was cool. But my wife and I were starting a family. I didn't want to travel quite as much. And I also wanted some more real world experience. I mean, here I am in front of audiences talking about leadership, and they have a lot more experience actually managing people than I ever had. And that always bothered me. So I decided I'll buy a franchise. What I like about it is I don't have to invent the system. They can teach me the business. I'll make the investment. I'll do it. I'll get a manager so I can collaborate with the manager to run the business, but I can still be on the road speaking. But a franchise for me was cool because it's more scientifically interesting, because within a franchise brand, you have lots of people doing the same thing, but they're all getting different results. So you have all these controls. I wanted to find what were the variables that enabled the top people to be successful. What I discovered is it doesn't just apply to franchising. It applies to all forms of business and entrepreneurship. And I narrowed it down to three things. There are three factors that impact our performance in business. Our circumstances, which we don't control but love to blame our operations, which is all that strategy and marketing, the stuff that keeps us busy. But then there's the human side, mindset and culture and our interpersonal skills, our intrapersonal skills. We often write the stuff off. We call it soft skills, and I hate that phrase because it tends to be very dismissive. But when you look at top performers in any of the circumstances, they infuse their operations with the right human factors, and that's what gives them their edge. And no one needs this more than entrepreneurs, because when you're an entrepreneur, you don't have a boss. You don't have someone who's giving you feedback and is coaching you. You're on your own. So in addition to your iq, you need that EQ, the emotional intelligence, to make sure that you're actually an asset to your business and not a liability. So this is the stuff that I've discovered. And so I applied it not just to my edible arrangements, franchises. My main business is the motivational speaking business. So with the speaking that I had enough people coming up to me saying, hey, it's really great. Do you have a book? I want more. That's what inspired me to write that first book in the franchise space, and then based on the needs I discovered, that's why I wrote the second book.
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It's interesting. So because you went on an endeavor and you didn't go out like, I'm just gonna go do it, you had, they were. So this is something, I think it's important, entrepreneurship specifically is you have ancillary things are related, and if you can make the causal connections and the inferences between and do something with that, you can make business from. You took from a franchise and you took from your motivational speaking, and you said, I can write a book because they're related. You didn't have things that are completely outside of it that were pet projects that became distractions. And I think that's a good piece is that you were educated in your business. You're educated in a monetary goal that served other pieces, and they all work together to some level from a monetary standpoint, from an experience standpoint, from personal satisfaction of what you were doing in your life as well. So to be a home more, to have money here and see the world, that is so key, I think, for entrepreneurship, especially for the entrepreneurial add that exists in many of them, and me included, is having ancillary things that are related. So did you consciously realize that when you were doing that, or is that something, are you having a revelation right now? As I say, I don't think you did.
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No. It was very deliberate. Like, of course I wanted to make more money and have another business. I wanted another stream of income. Right. The problem was, look, motivational speaking, it's done really. I've done very well over the years, but it's a bad business model because it's me having to get on the airplane, having to be there. Right. I'm not going to have anything to sell. I can't sell that business. So hour for hour, I actually did a lot better with edible arrangements because not only was I making money, but this asset was increasing in value. So when I exited, I was able to make really good money there compared to what I was doing. So my thought was, I want another stream of income, another type of business and asset so I can make money. But that experience will give me stories, will give me wisdom, and it will act as a laboratory where I can try out all these things that I was saying on stage to see what's a bunch of b's and what's real so that I could use those ideas to make the business better. But what I learned in the business I could use to make my speaking better and to give me more credibility. So what ended up happening is all these franchise brands found out that hey, there's this guy who's a professional speaker, but he also has real world experience doing what we've done. And that made me much more interesting for them. I literally 2 hours ago was on a zoom with a company, they own several franchises, different brands to bring me to be the keynote speaker. And they were so happy that they found a speaker who has experience in franchising because there aren't a whole lot. So yeah, both things have really, really helped each other and overall made my.
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Life better as an author too. Do you look back in your books after you wrote them and go, and now you have more experience? Go. Man, I wish I could change that chapter.
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Yeah, well, when I recorded, in both cases, when I recorded the audiobook, it was the first time looking at the manuscript and maybe six to eight weeks since submitting it and approving the final version. So with the fresh eye and reading it out loud, that's where I discovered the mistakes in the book itself, like spelling issues and things like that that got past all the editors and copywriters. So they're all fixed for the second printing. But I look back for the first book. The new book hasn't been released yet, but look back for the first book, there are a few things that maybe I would have done a little bit differently. I wish I included that kind of thing, but for the most part, actually, every time I reread it, it's like, wow, I still believe these things. This is still pretty good. So not as much regret there, but it might be a while before I write a second edition because I think the first one still holds up pretty well.
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At this point here in January 2024, in the third or fourth round of publisher back and forth, and I find mistakes and I'm writing it and I can think and I keep changing stuff. I'm like, at some point, I gotta just let it go and get it accepted and then save some stuff for volume two. Right.
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Yeah. That's the thing is, you know, look, I give a speech, I can always enhance it for the next speech, you know, a few days later, write a book, but the book. So at some point, you just have to let go. And the good news is it doesn't have to be anywhere near perfect in order to still be good enough. And I think readers, for the most part, are pretty forgiving, especially if you got some nuggets in there and it's a good read.
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Yeah, I appreciate. That's going to help me, you know, get through the last, next edit. So I'm going to take that and run with it.
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Yeah. At some point, you just got, you just got to let it go.
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Yeah. Well, and it is, and I appreciate it because it's my first book, so I'm, I'm conscious of my expectations of what it'll be and what's, what it's being leveraged for now and what I really want. And, like, I think one of the interesting and a lot of the instrument I meet and people who have written books that I've met, they want to become speakers. And you started off that way. So, interesting enough of an analogy, following a script from a guy who came from NYU film to go follow the script of franchising makes sense because you can do it. You don't get direction in a play or in a commercial. Someone else is telling you what you're going to say and how you're going to act. So I can see how you took that analogy in there or a metaphor in life to do that is, as somebody who is myself, who wants to do more speaking opportunities and has done it on another stage for a different kind of technology. How does somebody, from an entrepreneurial standpoint, build a speaking business if that's what they choose to do? What would your advice be for that? Well, for me, I'm asking for a friend.
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Yeah, of course. Yeah. Well, a few thoughts for your friend. If you think about. It's a very audacious endeavor, you're going to say to some organization, hey, I want you to pay me a decent amount of money so I could just get up and just talk. And everybody just has to listen to whatever it is I have to say. Right. It's pretty bold. It's pretty audacious. But if you think more like, hey, I really have something that I want to share. That's a topic I'm really curious and curious about and I love and I think I can offer value and I want to get paid for it. That mentality can serve you. So the thing about making money as a professional speaker, whether you're a motivational speaker or there's a lot of types of speakers, there is no one path. You talk to every speaker, there's a million speakers. You're going to hear a million different stories. But what they all entail is a lot of perseverance, a ton of failure, a need to bounce back. It's like a lot of resilience, a ton of mistakes. But you have to excel at three things in order to really sustain a career as a professional speaker. Number one, obviously you need to develop public speaking skills, which some people have a natural talent, other people have to work to get better. But you have to be able to speak right. And there's more to it than just maintain eye contact and good posture and gestures, because sometimes doing all those things right suddenly makes you inhuman, right? So you have to develop public speaking skills. Number two, you have to be an expert in your topic. People are bringing you in to solve a problem, to help achieve a goal. So you really need to know your stuff. And there's an inverse relationship between the two. If you're an amazing orator or you're really funny and you can really just use words in a way that gets people excited just by the way you talk or you're hysterical, well, then you don't need as much substance, you don't need much message, right? The opposite is also true. If you're a brilliant mind and you have the answers to life, the answers to business. Well, if you kind of stutter and you're less energetic, but you know you have tomorrow's winning lottery numbers, people are going to pay attention, right? Or if you could also be famous, you can be famous. You don't have to be good at anything. People just want proximity. But that's a harder way to go. So first need the public speaking skills. Then you need to be an expert in your subject. The third thing, and this is where most people fail, is what you talk about, the entrepreneurial side. Then you have to market and sell it. Then you have to be willing to get on the phone and send emails and be scrappy and do what you have to do to get people to be willing to put you in front of their audience for free, let alone for a fee. And then to be able to partner with speakers bureaus to do all the things that you need to do to sustain a business. And that's really hard for most people. That's why most people aren't cut out to be professional speakers. And a lot of people say, well, I want to hire someone to take care of the business side for me. I want someone else do the sales and marketing contracting so I can just go up on stage and do my thing. Good luck. Everybody is looking to find that magic person. It's entrepreneurship. You got to be scrappy. You got to be willing to sell. You got to be willing to cold call, cold email, whatever it's going to be. But if you really want to sustain yourself, there's no way around it. So you need to master all three of those things to be a good speaker.
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I'll probably, I'm going to dive in. I think one thing you described, and I've heard from speaking to dozens of speakers like yourself is you're all niche and you're pot performing in particular. And though you're going out a little bigger here because now, but you have creds in a franchising business world. You got success, and I'm sure you did other things, but you can knock, you can kill the franchise market because you are that guy. You're the guy to come talk. If your speeches and stuff are like, we're gonna bring him back next year, he's got some new, like, you can go topical, keep it going. What's going on in the world with, you know, regulation, whatever it is, and kinda talk through how people, whatever it is, the point being is you've niched. And if that's not a starting spot, I don't know what is. Like, I look at mine, I talk about entrepreneurship, I would look at like VC's, you know, private places who have entrepreneurial companies running and they want to bring someone in to kind of motivate, talk about the things to be better at leadership. And so if you're going too big, too broad, trying to hit, you know, the Coca Cola's of the world on day one and you have no CPG and you have no other, you're going to fail. Probably the same time, though, talk about the people. People try to get lots of things for free. What do you advise on speakers going out there to make that bridge of demanding money but also the right amount?
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Sure. Well, first of all, let's talk about the right amount. The right amount is always more than you think. Like, most people undervalue themselves. There's some with who are kind of cocky who kind of come out the gate asking way too much. And a lot of those people, because they're cockiness, they're able to sell it. They disappoint the audience and the client, and therefore they don't get the good word of mouth, but they can sell it. But I would say most people in most things are worth more than they think. And every time I've raised my price, and this includes a month and a half ago, I get nervous thinking, okay, this is the price where suddenly it all comes crumbling down.
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But do they say no or they say, listen, it's out of our budget. Would you be able to do it for x? If they want you, they negotiate. I'd have to guess.
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Well, here's the issue. So part of it is, sorry, that's outside our budget. Right. But every time you increase your price, you're now competing against other speakers who are in that price range. Right. So if you want to charge $5,000 of speech, which in the corporate world is nothing, you're competing against people who aren't that great. But if you want to charge 25, 35, $50,000, the caliber of speaker you're competing against for those organizations who have that budget, they're at a whole other level. And so you want to make sure that your price, like my, I want to provide tremendous value. So I want to be, I guess, on the sort of the lower end of a certain range of people where in terms of fee, like, okay, like, I, you know, I don't want to get into pricing right now, but if they're looking at speakers who are from this price to this price, I like to be in the cheaper end but offer more value than someone who's on the expensive end of that same range so that we've exceeded their expectations and haven't disappointed them. But it's a scary thing to raise your price and who you're now competing against and will your customers still want you and bring you back? And every time I've done it, I've booked more business.
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Do you do it? Do you go lower speaker fee but say, hey, but you need to buy 100 books?
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No, I say, here's my fee, and if you want books, here's the price for bulk. But I don't, I don't. For me, I. Amazon link, just click 50. Yeah. So sometimes I'll do that. But here's the thing. There are some reasons why I might lower. You know, I had something come by recently. It was last minute, and they wanted to book a speech that was booked right in between these two cities. Like, I'm speaking here on the 15th and here on the 17th. I'm open on the 16th. And I said, if you can get me out of there by 10:00 a.m. So I can make a flight to get there, then I'll work with your budget. Right. There's different reasons why I might.
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It's opportunistic. You're there anyway. Or, like, you're.
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Yeah, there's certain things.
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Stop in Kansas City and make five k. You're like, all right, I'll pop in.
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Yeah. And look, there's. There's something called fee integrity. I think everybody needs to be quoted the same fee. But then you can negotiate for different reasons. You know, I have newer speakers who come to me and should I charge money? Should I speak for free? And, you know, I think in the beginning, you should just speak anywhere to anybody who's willing to listen. So you get the practice. So just so you get the practice, you get stage time. Maybe those. You know, you say, I'll tell you what, I'll speak for free, but afterwards, you have to write me a testimonial letter only if you feel compelled to. But you agree to write me a testimonial letter and maybe refer me to three people. Or you. You agree to videotape it so I can get some video footage for a demo video. You know, you can't get demo video of you speaking unless you're speaking. But sometimes you can't get a speech unless you have a demo video.
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Just need two phones and two tripods and hit record.
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Yeah, whatever it's gonna take. But. And you can do that if you wanna charge $2,500 of speech. You wanna charge $25,000 of speech. That's not gonna cut it.
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Yep. Agreed.
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So, yeah, so there's a lot of reasons. So, anyway, there's so much to the business side to learn. That's, as, you know, well, in depth as. As the topic that you speak on. So you really have to be willing to, you know, embrace all of that.
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Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's what you're saying. The entrepreneurial side of under the center, the business side of it. Maybe leave that inspiring speaker, because there's any. In any market, when someone's getting into it for the first time, there's a group that are very much so. They feed upon your lack of knowledge. And I don't call it scams. It might be too far, but at the same time, there's people who will take your money that don't really add a lot of value and you don't know it until later. Do you want to talk about a couple of do's and don'ts? You're going to get in this game of what to avoid day one and what makes sense later on.
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I had to change how I'm listed in my LinkedIn profile because I put the word coach in because I will coach business leaders one on one. As soon as I did that, I started getting hit up all the time by people who help coaches build their business for professional speakers. There are whole industry of people who make money off of speakers. So a lot of times there are other speakers who want a stream of income. Maybe they're not selling so many speeches, so they offer speech coaching or they offer speech. Now, some of them are really great and offer a lot of value. A lot of them are not. You know, I know a guy who started doing this after only being a speaker for two years, and now he wants to start a speaker's school telling other people, and the guy's such a good marketer, he's done it. But I don't think that he's offered a whole lot of value. So there's a lot of people who want to sell it to you, who want to take advantage of your desire to get from point a to point b. Among them are some great people, but you need to vet them before you start paying money. Just because they promise it doesn't mean anything. They might have testimonial quotes on their website. Well, you know how that is. You ask someone for a testimonial quote, they're uncomfortable saying no, so they throw it at you. You really want to talk to their clients.
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So.
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And, yeah, early on I had someone who was trying to sell me speech coaching, and she told me some of her clients, and I called one of them and he's like, yeah, she wasn't so great.
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Yeah, you want to make sure if you're going to get a referral, they actually give you a good one, too. What is a speaker bureau?
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Okay, so there are companies around the world, and certainly here in North America, who are the connection point between a meeting planner, someone who's planning a conference or a convention, an event that are speakers and speakers. So if you were planning a conference for the National association of Podcasters and you're looking for a speaker, you could call rather than you going on Google and YouTube and doing all the research and that kind of thing and trying to find out what their fees are you can call a speaker's bureau and say, hey, here's what I'm looking for. I want someone who is this demographic charges this fee. They're available on this date, and they speak on this topic, and the speakers bureau will say, great. Give me a few days. I'll get back to you with options. So the speaker's bureau, they know the speakers, or they find speakers, contact the speakers to confirm fee and availability, and then they'll get back to you and say, all right, here are six options that I think could fit with your conference. And they'll send you the materials and the videos, and then you choose a speaker, they'll contract it, and it costs you nothing to use the service. The speaker's bureau gets compensated by the speaker. They take a fee, usually between 20 and 30% out of the speaker fee. So sometimes people think, if I go directly to the speaker, I can save money. That's not necessarily true. And great speakers are going to quote the same fee as a bureau representing them.
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Yeah, and that's a good piece, and there's lots of them. But on both sides, it's a great marketplace because two people put demand in and just becomes a negotiation. So that's probably the best explanation of it I've heard, by the way, you probably should write a book about it.
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Well, there are those books. And here's the thing about approaching speakers bureau, is every one, they become a speaker, the first thing you do is they start calling speakers bureaus, and, hey, here's my book, here's my video, that kind of thing. And will you help me? And speakers bureaus are not interested most of the time in growing speakers. They just want to sell speakers. And so you convincing them that you can spend so much time trying to sell the speakers bureaus, the amount of time and energy, you could just be selling speeches yourself and not being paid a commission. Most of the speakers bureaus who I work with, and I'm very grateful that there's a number of them, they started working with me because a client saw me somewhere or heard about me, and instead of calling me directly, they called the bureau and said, can you help us get this guy? Then they did. And then if it went well, then the bureau hears about, well, now I'm on their radar, and now they know they can trust me with one of their clients. So it's almost like by the time bureaus are willing to work with you, you really don't need them, especially if you're someone who can sell. And I have great relationships. Bureaus if I was planning an event, I would go through a bureau because of all the service they can provide. But you don't want to approach a speaker's bureau until you're really ready with a great speech, great testimonials, great video. Because they look at you and you seem unprofessional. You. You're done with them forever.
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Ah, that's a good point. So that's a really nice. If you go too early, you know, first impressions only. Have you done any TEDx talks on this at all?
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I have done a TEDx talk. I did it a year and a half ago, TEDx Temecula. And I did a presentation that was about resilience and about, you know, when you get thrown a lemon, eat the lemon. That kind of was like the main theme behind it.
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Nice. Congratulations. I love softball questions. They're the best. Okay.
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Yeah.
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Well, listen, I'm conscious of time, and then in the time we've given, I've learned tons about this. I can't imagine, like, you know, anybody who's anywhere near this path because you've made it this point, you're interested, but who, you know, if someone wanted to hire you to speak, who should be contacting you? Like, who do you want to talk to? Who should get a hold of you?
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Come to me directly. Go to my website, scottgreenberg.com. I have a marketing agent who will respond to you, or it might be me. But yeah, go to Scott greenberg.com dot. You can also find me on all the major social media channels and would love to hear about what folks might need for their conference and hopefully I can meet their needs.
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Wonderful. Listen, I want to do a couple of quick fire questions, if you don't mind. Some things to recommend. I love this because I learned new books. This is how you and I got connected. Was asking this question of another guest, David Greenberg, of all people not related in the same space. Even I did drill him on that. Are you sure he's not your better looking older brother? Are you sure?
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He could be. I'm not sure. My dad has denied certain things, but.
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I'm not sure you have questions. Listen, you're an author. Who on LinkedIn do you recommend? Maybe on any social media. Really? But who do you recommend people follow?
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Who's a. I may not be the best person for that. I use social media more to connect with people, maintain relationships, rather than to follow people who I respect and admire. Because social media, I find it can get very noisy sometimes. And so I may not be the best person to say, hey, here's who you should follow. Because of the way I use it.
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We're just going to go through your accounts and just look at it like he likes this guy. We can tell. All right. You have another author, a book you'd like to recommend for for entrepreneurs to read?
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Yeah. Honestly, a lot of people are not very impressed when I answer the question. But the first title that always comes to mind is, oh, the places you'll go by doctor Seuss. It's a kids book, but I think if you embrace the ideas, there a lot of courage of hanging in there and bouncing back. I think that's 910 of the game because that's the human side. So that is the real answer. Other books that I like, I like mindset quite a bit by Carol Dwych. I think that's really great. I recently read Shoe Dog by Phil knight. His story about building Nike. It was so inspiring because this guy just got his ass kicked for years trying to get that company built and it was so hard and so difficult, but such a great story of resilience or perseverance. So that was great in the franchise space. I really like profitable partnerships by Greg Nathan.
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Yeah, that's the Phil Knight book. I've not had a chance to listen or read it. I didn't realize just from hearing people talk about how hard it was because you hear the sunny side of the equation on that for sure in your life. This is a big question right here. This is probably the most important one I ask is, have you ever been promoted?
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I've never lasted in a job long enough to ever get promoted. No.
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You are in the club. Congratulations. You'll get your gold trophy award for participating. Doing the tie back to earlier. You're talking about trophy.
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I look forward. But now you made me insecure about my dad and his past. I need to give him a call.
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And you're gonna have to go lay down on a couch and talk that one through. I am probably not the best listener for that one. As a Gen xer, I agree with you. By the way, not all kids get trophies. Actually, I get very nasty looks from kids parents in particular when I'm coaching some church league. And they're going to get snacks at the end of it. And if we lose, I always come out and say, only winners get snacks. And. And I hold on to him and I just give that awkward pause.
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Yes.
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And the parents are like, I'm like, fine, you can have them. Losers.
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You know, we Gen Xers, we had the worst hair, but the best music we do.
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Pearl Jam fan club since 95. Four. Long time. Anyway, thank you, by the way, so much, Liz. Once again, Scott Greenberg.com. Do you have any upcoming, you know, maybe live streams or any events that people should maybe, you know, attend or anything you want to promote?
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Most of what I do is, you know, it's private companies and organizations bring, you know, so aren't necessarily guests in a few days and I have to get the details, but I'll announce it on social media. Entrepreneur magazine is announcing their entrepreneur franchise 500, and there'll be a live stream. They're bringing me in to do sort of color commentary for franchising. So that will be coming up on Tuesday, January. I'm not even sure when this is going to be put up, so it might be too late by then.
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But you said the word January, so, yeah, it'll be, we'll reference it in the notes that, hey, check it out and hopefully get it all produced by the time.
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Yes, I'll have done all kinds of wonderful life things that you all missed. So find me on social media to see what's coming up.
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Yeah. What's your favorite social media channel you want people to follow you on?
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LinkedIn.
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LinkedIn. So Scott Greenberg. Scott, thank you so much for joining today. And anybody who's made it to this part in the podcast, I truly appreciate you. And if this was your first time making it here, thank you. I hope to see you again and hear from you again. Until then, don't worry about being promoted. Scott's never been promoted. I've never been promoted, and that's why I became an entrepreneur. Actually, I have to argue I wasn't promoted because I am an entrepreneur at heart and that doesn't always work well with corporate. But thank you so much for listening. And until next time, go unleash your entrepreneur.
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Thanks for listening to Never Been Promoted with Thomas Helfrich. Make sure to check the show notes for our guest contact information and any relevant links. Connect with Thomas personally at neverbeenpromoted.com. Dot.