She's All That Video-Podcast
She's All That Video-Podcast
𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡! - How to Stand Out (and Get Paid!) with Speaking with Jane Atkinson
How to Stand Out (and Get Paid!) with Speaking - We're talking with Jane Atkinson who is an expert in that - and a speaker at the Break Through with Media summit, June 14-16 - and in this conversation Jane shares
- the role it plays in your strategy
- how they came to be a leading expert
- some examples of people using it effectively, and
- more!
We're going even deeper on this at the summit - and all the other facets of your media, speaking, PR and publicity strategy
The BREAK THROUGH WITH MEDIA Summit is a FREE, virtual event, June 14 - 16, offering live interactive sessions with experts in the fields of media like television, podcasting, radio, magazine, and news, speaking, publicity, and PR to help entrepreneurs, authors, and start-ups quickly understand how they can step their brand up to more prestigious, credible platforms, stages, and pages
We want to provide an interactive expo experience for your to get the big picture, see the opportunities for you, and meet knowledgeable experts that can make this the year you have the break through you've been dreaming of.
💥 REGISTER FREE at https://breakthroughin22.com/
You can find Jane Atkinson at: https://www.speakerlauncher.com/
Welcome to the She's All That video podcast. This season of the podcast is all about the BREAK THROUGH with MEDIA virtual summit that we're holding and all about the amazing industry experts that are speaking at the summit who will give entrepreneurs, authors and thought leaders, people just like you, a powerful alternative to the fast-deteriorating tool of social media for your marketing and visibility. The next big opportunity that you need to rapidly uplevel your positioning and your reach is media exposure, TV, podcast, radio news, speaking opportunities, publicity, PR and more. The free BREAK THROUGH with MEDIA Summit provides you with a constellation of experts information and strategy to give you the big picture of how you can get started. Our guest today is a key piece in that puzzle. And that is Jane Atkinson. Jane has been helping speakers catapult their careers for more than 30 years, first as a speaker agent, then as vice president of a speaker's bureau in Dallas, where she represented celebrities, best selling authors, and business experts. And now as a speaking coach, working with entrepreneurs, Jane, nice to have you with me today.
Jane:Let's do this. I'm so excited to be with you, September.
September Smith:And I am so excited to have you with us as a speaker for the breakthrough with Media Summit that's coming up. Walmart heads coming up soon, middle of June, all about how to stand out and get paid with speaking. And you are the person to be talking to about that. Not just because you're a speaker, you're a speaker, coach had been an agent, you worked with the Bureau representing celebrities. You're also an author. Mm hmm. How many books have you written? And what are some of these books, it's all around this very topic.
Jane:I don't actually promote one of them. But I've got five under my belt. And number six is coming out this summer. So my bass book, the book for any speaker who's kind of looking to get started in the speaking industry is called the wealthy speaker 2.0. And then anybody who's been around the block a time or two and wants to scale, I have another book called scaling your speaking business. And then I also have a book on presentation skills called the epic keynote. And we have a journal and a daily planner that a lot of our students use. Oh,
September Smith:wow, okay, you've gone deep on authorship. Don't have amazing resources.
Jane:It's been fun. And I'm excited that this this year, this summer, I'm going to be doing a 3.0 version of the wealthy speaker just to bring it up to date post COVID. Because a lot has changed in our little industry here.
September Smith:Yeah, that's just yeah, you have to keep relevant. You have to keep current. That's amazing. So you had a point one, or 1.0? Or 2.0? No, we're going for 3.0. Yes, exactly.
Jane:So this is over a 15 year span. Wow.
September Smith:So now, as I mentioned to you earlier, when we're talking a lot of people who aren't in the speaker world don't work with speakers or aren't a speaker themselves. It doesn't occur to them that what? I could be a speaker, how did you get into this whole area? What was your background that saw you going into this area of speaking as an agent and a coach? And as a speaker yourself? No, I
Jane:fell into it. And I think a lot of people do tend to fall into it. So I was just kind of figured trying to figure out 25 years old trying to figure out what am I going to do next as a profession. And I stumbled across a motivational speech on PBS public broadcasting on television, and I recorded it on my VHS tape. So that tells you, Oh, my God, this was and I watched it over and over again. And it was Les Brown, and his Live Your Dream speech. And at 25. I had barely cracked a book since college. And all of a sudden, this world opened up to me of knowledge and motivation and self help and self improvement. And it was a total game changer in my life as a whole. Where I would have gone without this. I don't know. Because really over the past 30 plus years, I have been hanging around the coolest people in the world. So if somebody says, Hey, I'd like to speak to promote my business. It makes perfect sense. It makes.
September Smith:So what was from one show watching Les Brown, totally lit your imagination on fire changed the course of your life? What was the How did you even get started with it?
Jane:I actually wrote to Les Brown's office, which was in Detroit, and I live in London, Ontario, which has just crossed the border from him. And I told them how fabulous I was and that I wanted to come and work for him. And they sent me back an order form was hilarious, really. But the thing is that when you put something out to the world, you put it out to the world and so at the time I was doing a temp job at 3am. I typically would have like a year long contract, covering somebody on maternity leave or something like that we get, we get a year in Canada. And so I was coming up to the end of a contract at 3am, Canada, and an ex executive from 3pm, had just left and written a book and was becoming a motivational speaker and her best friend worked with me and I had said, I want to go and work for a motivational speaker. And she said, My Best Friend's a motivational speaker. And that was it. And so I became an agent for speakers. And I represented her Nemos Betsa, for three years kind of basement office straight commission, and we doubled her business year over year. Then I got recruited out to Vancouver, and went from like a basement office to a corner office with right beside the big boss and a company of 150. And I represented him as a speaker, he was a big publisher, and we doubled his business year after year. And that was when I got recruited down to Dallas and worked as an agent for an Olympic athlete whose wife also ran a speaker's bureau. So that allowed me four more years with the speaker doubling business, actually, we took him from zero to a million. And then I went on and worked a couple of years under the roof of the speaker's bureau, managing their exclusive division. So I got a really amazing kind of track record under my belt before I started out as a coach. Yeah, especially
September Smith:when you just didn't come into it as like, what is it to be a speaker? In? What is it to be a speaker in way that is profitable, you're doing those notches out of the goodness of your heart, this is a business model.
Jane:Yeah. And I think a lot of people do dabble with it for the first little while. And when they decide and kind of, like fully wrap their mind around their belief in themselves is as this can be a profitable thing. It's a total game changer. We've have a lot of speakers who move it from hobby to business, and then everything changes. It's you know, like a little switch going off in your brain almost
September Smith:no do most of the people that you're working with, they have their own business already. And like the people that you had worked with in your early career, they use the speaking as kind of their second column of their career, to just blow up their brand and who they are and really double, triple their business.
Jane:So that's good. The first speaker was an author. And so the best way to sell books, guess what it is to get in front of lots and lots of people in audiences. And so we sold a ton of books back of the room. The second speaker was a publisher. So he had written a ton of books as well. So we sold a lot of books, but a lot of people will have consulting, or other things as well that they can offer people. So the keynote is kind of like the Rainmaker, and then that feeds their back end, whether it be training, consulting, coaching a membership on a course whatever it might be. So the keynote is really the idea is to get lots of exposure through your keynote, but at the same time, my clients are also getting paid for those keynotes.
September Smith:Okay, so yeah, definitely a business, not a hobby, this is part of your business model. So, like I said, not everybody sees himself, you know, until they work with someone like you as like, I could be a speaker. So the people who come to you for help, what is it that they're trying to achieve? Do you see like one overarching theme, or is there a range,
Jane:I think a lot of people are trying to go from free to fi. So that's a lot of the students that come into our school, they're working towards that first 100k in revenue in their speaking business. And so they're moving from, we call them either pro bono or low Bono events. So low fee or no fee. And our goal is to help them really establish their confidence and be able to stand tall in their fee and set fees that are right for them. You know, we have some people who are coming out of big, you know, CEO positions, they might start at a $10,000 fee. So we don't start everybody in the same place. We really kind of look at everybody and kind of give it a customized approach. So we have this recipe for them to follow. It's called Ready Aim Fire. And I'd be happy to delve into that if it makes sense.
September Smith:Okay, just Yeah, give us an overview of that.
Jane:So in the ready stage, we help people get crystal clear on what they're selling, figure out who the audience is going to be, who's going to buy that, set their fees, and really start to As think about this, as a business, start to put some business structure in place, then an ame. It's all about marketing. So we really focus on getting what really works to get you booked as a speaker on the website. But also the best form of marketing is really great speech. So we also work on speech inside the AME phase. And then and only then do we fire and that's where we're rolling it out to our target audiences. So we're starting to do outreach and some things on a consistent basis. Yeah, so we have this kind of recipe to follow. And the Ready Aim Fire process really helps people stay on track, understand where they are in the process, and not necessarily skip ahead and make mistakes that can sometimes be costly.
September Smith:The end, you just don't cut them loose there at the end of like, okay, there's your speech. Good luck with that, like you actually help them figure out where they should be applying to speak.
Jane:Build the business. Yes, absolutely.
September Smith:Wow. Okay. Now, I was going to ask you what your wheels are turning over there. Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking, for most of the people, what's, what's the biggest obstacle that you see. But the people that come to you?
Jane:Well, what they have been doing prior to coming to see us is I would call it piecemealing. A strategy. So my coach gave me this amazing analogy of if you were going to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies, that you would go out and you would find on the internet a recipe and then you would follow that one recipe all the way from beginning to end, you wouldn't go and search 10 recipes, and then take the best ingredients from each, you would follow one recipe. And so I think the mistake that a lot of people make in business of any kind, is that they try to piecemeal it together rather than just following one approach from beginning to end. And it when you can put the blinders on and just say no on my Instagram feed, I don't need to do that. I know you're telling me I need to do that. But I don't because I'm on this path over here. It's just such a relief. Because I think a lot of people think I should be doing this, I should be doing that. I heard I should do this. I heard I should do that. So
September Smith:particularly learn until they get established and what they're doing. Just like find the person you trust that has a process that you know, you look at. And you reason this is for me. And then yeah, stick with it.
Jane:And I don't even care if it's not me just go. Somebody's you know, approach.
September Smith:I love that analogy of like trying to make cookies from 10. Recipes. Yes.
Jane:My my brilliant coach gave me that idea. And I thought oh, I it really tells a story, doesn't it?
September Smith:It does. Yeah, it makes it crystal clear. So there are when people started looking, there are a number of companies and coaches and mentors and agencies that help with this book for you. What is that special edge that you bring?
Jane:Well, I have to tell you, I didn't have it two years ago. So we I went out and got certified in a very particular brand of mindset coaching. And since introducing the mindset piece, what I recognize now is that a lot of my clients have had kind of needed adjustments that I didn't know how to deal with they had mental blocks that I didn't know how to help them past. And they they lacked confidence because of these things. Well, now we have the whole package. So yes, we have ready and fire the recipe, but what lies underneath all of that is the mindset piece. And so I talk about that there's only two things that are needed for success in the speaking business. Number one is 100% belief in yourself, belief that you have the value that you're bringing to the table that you can help solve people's problems. So without that, the rest kind of doesn't really matter. But number two is consistent action. So we used to only teach all the consistent actions. And now we teach the first part as well, to give them the entire package and I have to tell you, our clients are becoming unstoppable as a result of that combo.
September Smith:Wow. Wow. Well, can you give me an example of someone that you've worked with, especially using this new edition of the mindset piece? And
Jane:yes, we had a client who came into the school in a mode of I have to make money now. There's there was an urgency about it and urgency is fine as long as it's coming from the right place. Her urgency was coming from a place of lack or scarcity. Okay, And when she started to number one, focus in on what she brought to the table and her own uniqueness, number two start to stand a little taller and who she was and her fees and what value she was bringing to the table. She kind of checked that number one box and went all in on her belief in herself, which brought her to a more abundant mindset. And then when she started taking the consistent action that she'd been taking all along, the results went through the roof, and she started to see bookings coming in. And now she's just a very, very busy speaker out there doing it. And it's so exciting to see the transformation in someone, when they really kind of the belief in themselves starts to click into place. I have another client who has been speaking for 30 years. And she joked that she would speak for other full fee or a box of Chardonnay, like, or anything in between, right. And so one session with her. And she started to build out these packages for her clients that included, you know, books and things like that, that she also offered. And now she's getting booked up the wazoo at the highest fee, she's ever been booked at all. Because that kind of confidence in herself, I can bring to the table confidence in the market that the market will accommodate the fees that you want. And it was it was an overnight. Game Changer. She said in one session, everything changed in her business.
September Smith:Wow. So this is this is obviously applicable to somebody who's a veteran in the speaking field, which also then really does speak to the whole issue of that constant evolution upgrading keeping your skills actually relevant.
Jane:And we tend to bring the the veterans into working with me private coaching, in my kind of VIP inner circle, but they also get so much out of the school because of lot of them kind of go back and check in on the basics and just like, oh, yeah, okay, I forgot about that. 30 years ago, I did it, but I don't do it anymore. So they're really still getting a lot out of the school, even if they've been around for a long time.
September Smith:Wow. So many questions. I'd love to ask you this. But this particular episode could be an hour long. But what we'll try to keep it tight because Jane, as I said, is going to be joining us the breakthrough with Media Summit. And she's going to be talking going deeper on this and giving us more great information about how speaking is a key element of your media campaign. One piece of your business revenue, what's involved, what people need to know to do it effectively, tips, strategies and action steps that will make this a powerful part of how you'll break through with media this year, media and speaking. So Jane, where can people find you?
Jane:Well, the best place to find me is that speaker launcher.com. And for those of you who are interested in checking out our school, there's a link right there to the wealthy speaker school. But there's lots of free stuff there too. We do a podcast, the wealthy speaker podcast and our blog, by all means, take advantage of those things as well.
September Smith:Find Jane and you'll just open up this treasure trove of resources. And if you want to learn more about how you can use speaking and these important skills to get speaking engagements, media exposure, PR publicity, and how all of this can help your business. Make sure you register for the free three day breakthrough with Media Summit, June 14 to 16th to come to be with Jane, and a truly incredible array of other industry experts to help you learn how you and your business can really have that big breakthrough that you need. The link is down below in the show notes to get registered for this. You will not want to miss it. Jane, thank you so much for being with me today and for being a part of the breakthrough with Media Summit.
Jane:I can't wait to see you June 14 to 16th It's we're gonna have some fun we are.
September Smith:And that was just one of the amazing guests that we have at the BREAK THROUGH with MEDIA Summit, a three day live virtual event happening June 14 to the 16th to give entrepreneurs authors and thought leaders a panoramic overview of the opportunities, the skills required and the services and tools that you can be using media exposure, speaking opportunities, PR publicity and more to have the major breakthrough that you are looking for 20 industry experts three days all available right from wherever you are and it's free. Register at the link below in the show notes. You will not want to miss this!