Transcription
****Please forgive any and all transcription errors as this was transcribed by Otter.ai.****

[intro music]
Kenneth Kinney 0:16
Welcome back and thank you for joining A Shark's Perspective. I am Kenneth "Shark" Kinney, your host and Chief Shark Officer.

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Thank you to Invoca and Drips! And now back to the show.

As even I explore where and how to pivot back to speaking on a more focused basis. Thinking about the right kind of speaking coach is important to help people and speakers succeed. Are you wanting to be a wealthy speaker, you should at least consider the performance coaches with content delivery. And then also the business coaches who can really help guide a speaker to build a successful business. For my quest to be the best speaker on the planet earning a million million gazillion dollars, then a conversation with today's guests was really essential because over the years, especially as I get back into professional speaking with a more renewed focus, I've been consuming a lot of podcasts and books and soaking in the knowledge from top business speaking coaches, like today's guest who's in OG in the space. But listen, if you ever work with a coach, you've got to be really picky about who you work with, or take advice from since many of the coaches are not that great.

Jane Atkinson is the author of four books including the best seller, the wealthy speaker 2.01 of the top business managers for many sought after speakers, she has experience working under a speaker's bureau. She's the founder of the wealthy speaker school and host of the wealthy speaker podcast and on this episode we'll discuss the speaking business brand post pandemic, the types of people that use a speaking coach reconnecting with your contacts, writing a book, The ready Aim Fire formula, a post it note that should be framed for when people need you now more than ever, vaccines is a selling point, virtual versus in person how much time spent promoting on social media, Scott Stratton, Chris Brogan Kendra Hall, rhiness, and a lot, lot more.

So let's tune into an OG speaking coach with an OG shark, who's a vaccinated speaker and will travel, especially when you're a beach on this episode of A Shark's Perspective.

Jane, thank you so much for joining us today on A Shark's Perspective. Tell us a little bit about your story, your backstory, what got you into the speaker coaching business?

Jane Atkinson 3:10
Well, I was a 25 year old who had done a lot of different jobs, but didn't have a technical career

Kenneth Kinney 3:18
just a couple of years ago.

Jane Atkinson 3:20
Thank you. So I'm in a temp position working at 3am Canada, I live in Canada. And I am just almost finished that maternity leave and I see a PBS special. That was Les Brown doing the Live Your Dreams talk. And I recorded it on VHS. So that dates me right? It recorded it and I watched it over and over and over again. And I said that's it. I want to go and work for a motivational speaker. And so you know how the universe can be. I put it out, I put it out at 3am. Well, one of the girls working there says oh my gosh, my best friend just left 3am she was an executive here. She went off to write a book and become a motivational speaker. So I go and start working as a business manager. I worked in that Speaker's office for three years, basement office straight commission. And then I get recruited out to Vancouver to work in a big corner office, working for the big boss of a big publishing house. And then I go down to Dallas and for an Olympic athlete under the roof of a speaker's bureau. So I have six years under the roof of a bureau. So since that time, so I got you know, that was about 15 years right there. And then I came back to Canada and started my own coaching practice. And I haven't looked back, it's been about 17 years.

Kenneth Kinney 4:54
So did you ever dream of spending all that time on stage yourself?

Jane Atkinson 4:59
Well, it's centers, you ask that Kenneth because I really have only ever done speaking in order to like push myself in order to stretch and grow. And so I put on my dream board, I guess it must have been two years ago now, a big stage a picture of a big stage. And I thought, I'm just gonna do it just to stretch. Well, sure enough, it came up, the opportunity was only three or 400 people. But when I was up there, I thought, Oh, I really like this. This is fun. Like, I've run a lot of my own live events, but usually it's like 5070, people are pretty small. And I've done a ton of workshops, 200 300 people, but never in that big main stage. And so it was fun. I didn't really like get the bug to the degree that I want to go out and start speaking myself. But it really gave me a little bit of a thrill.

Kenneth Kinney 5:53
Well, I think part of me connecting with you, and obviously, I guess we first got to talk on clubhouse, but I some time ago had bought one of your books, the wealthy speaker 2.0 and really enjoyed that book. And it was the only one that they had at the time, I did not see scaling your speaking business at Barnes and Noble. I think that's where I bought it. But I love consuming books on speaking as well. All kinds and I really enjoyed this book. But anyway,

Jane Atkinson 6:19
That was the 2.0 version. So that was the update. I actually have written that twice. Because the first version of course, with technology and everything that's happened, I could probably do a thorough a 3.0, post COVID? Because so many things keep changing.

Kenneth Kinney 6:35
Yeah. Well, so you hear people get the advice all the time for speakers to go out there and write that book. And that's their calling card, did it do the same for you from a speaking coach business because there are not a ton of what are we consider really good business books on speaking?

Jane Atkinson 6:52
Well, thank you, I, I feel that it's a really good calling card. But what it also what writing a book also does for you is it allows you to map out your formula or your path. And so I have inside of this book, this ready Aim Fire formula that has actually built a lot of other things in my business as well. same formula works for everything. So in the ready stage, we get Chris, on what we're selling, we develop some marketing language, we call it a promise statement, I'd who our target markets are going to be. And then in aim, we make sure that our website and our marketing is crystal clear. And then we fire we start rolling it out to our target market. And that has been the structure it's it's the structure for our whole wealthy speaker school. It anytime I'm coaching with a client, we know exactly where we are inside the ready Aim Fire process. And that's the number Well, I would say it raised my level of credibility hugely when I wrote the book, and it helped me map out my formula.

Kenneth Kinney 8:09
I'm curious, though, pre pandemic, and post pandemic? How are you looking at the way people are coming to you for advice on how to approach this business because if we all had a crystal ball five years ago, not everybody would have built out this amazing virtual program. But is the type of speaker that you're encountering today coming out of the pandemic different or about the same and trying to think of how much of this is in the type of people are evergreen. And the reason I ask this is because a lot of people have lost their jobs. And they started flirting with podcasting. They started flirting with figuring out anything and everything they could including virtual speaking gigs to pay the bills, this could not have been better timing I just had somebody approached me yesterday about this wanting to dabble in this because he was just going through a job change. And so I'm wondering if the type of person that got into this business as a whole, if you're seeing anything different than the ones that are getting into it. Now how much of it may be a want versus a need.

Jane Atkinson 9:11
I'm trying to think about like who's come into our school, and I would say it has not yet changed kind of that doesn't mean it won't. We're where we still may see a lag. But a lot of the people who come and join us in the wealthy speaker school, that's our program for emerging speakers. A lot of them have a full time job. And so it doesn't necessarily mean that we don't have people who are just doing this, but yeah, I'm just thinking of some of the last few that have come on board. I wouldn't say that they are have come out of losing a job necessarily. But this is a nice natural transition for someone who has Some thought leadership on a particular topic and maybe it's like being forced from the nest, okay, you're really gonna do this now? like they've been thinking about it for years. And this was the catalyst to help them do that. But honestly, I haven't yet had a lot of people coming from that situation.

Kenneth Kinney 10:19
Well, let me ask it then this way you do coaching for emerging speakers, rising superstars and seasoned pros. And obviously, the ones that were seasoned pros, when you look at that sort of nomenclature for how you name them, they were making a decent income, those large scale probably had a couple of bucks put away had been fairly successful to date, have the type of people maybe that entered, those three categories moved around or shifted pre pandemic and post pandemic? Yeah.

Jane Atkinson 10:51
Lots of my season pros have now kind of gone back, a knock, they've been knocked back in terms of their income. And so they have maybe put themselves more in a lower category, just financially speaking. Now we do have I do have a client who has had our best year ever. I have people out there right now who are booking their best months worth of business ever. I have a client who was earning seven fig pre pandemic as and has inched his way back to it slowly, but it took him a long time to kind of pivot. But he he's slowly making his way back there. But yeah, definitely, there were a lot of hard knocks at the beginning of it. And I have to tell you, honestly, at the beginning of COVID, I had a serious bout of fear. At the very beginning, my central thought was, oh my gosh, my industry's been wiped out. I just been you know, we might need to sell our house. I don't know what's going to happen here. I was really in a lot of fear for a period of time, let's say a couple of weeks. And then I even have it written down on this post it note, I reminded myself that the value that I had pre pandemic was still there, and that people need me now more than ever. And once I recognized Hey, wait a second, people need me now more than ever. I started coming back to myself, you know, fear can really set us back in terms of confidence as well. And so I built it back up and was back off to the races. We finished 2020 I think ahead of 2019. So we did okay, not exponentially better. But

Kenneth Kinney 12:42
well, in that post it note says people need me now more than ever. You need to frame that. Yeah, keep it with you forever. Because Yeah, that's very true. Very, very true. I remember hearing someone though, and I was I was thinking about this. I remember here at Scott Stratton on some podcast somewhere brilliant speaker. It could have been on yours. And I know he was thinking about relooking at everything. I mean this you know, he was a guy that was known for the keynote speech getting paid amazing dollars everywhere. He's one of the one of the best speakers on the planet. But

Jane Atkinson 13:13
I haven't interviewed him since COVID. So I'm gonna actually I'm writing that down, because I'm going to circle back to him for the wealthy speaker show, because he would be a great one to talk about, you know, reinventing?

Kenneth Kinney 13:28
Yeah, well, it's so I remember thinking about him. And I also emailed Chris Brogan the other day, because I gotten back from Florida from speaking at a gig in Orlando in March of 2021. And I remember Chris saying he was going to need therapy to be able to get back out and on the road. And I was telling somebody sort of as a joke that I've spoken at as many in person events, probably as Scott stratten. He could have spoken at 20, as far as I know, but I said I felt like I'm on pace with him. Finally, because it's a few. Maybe when there's only one or two events in the country, then I've got a chance. But when you think about how these these people are having to reposition themselves, and especially where people need you now more than ever, to not only adapt with virtual but as they sort of reemerge and market themselves. In a new world where a lot of event people are no longer there. A lot of speakers have gotten out of the business and done something else. What's the advice you give someone on how to reposition themselves if they've been in this for a while? Or if they're going to get into this industry? Knowing that it's a sustainable one that can provide a great career under normal circumstances? Yeah, the

Jane Atkinson 14:42
for the person who's reinventing I think the best path back haven't done it already, is to re engage with their content and get re excited and re energized for their content and the There's a second layer to that. So that's one piece that is about actually what they're distributing. The second piece is their distribution, their distribution methods to be prepared for live, because we think that live is going to come back the next year. Of course, lots of things to hard to predict. But the second thing is that, okay, you've got your virtual setup. This is the time right now, to be leveling up your game in terms of virtual, it used to be that if you did virtual, great, check that box, but then the next level up was do you do virtual? Well, great, check that box. Now the level up beyond that is, can you engage our audience through that teeny, tiny little camera, and really do something different. And that's where we are now where people are showcasing on their videos, how they do it in a way that isn't boring, because everybody sat through a lot of boring zoom meetings over the last year, and we're all kind of zoomed out a little bit. So that would be the advice for the reinventing person. For the emerging speaker. The path is exactly what it was. It's Ready, aim, fire, how you fire how you are, they're getting set up for virtual right from the get go. So nothing really changes for them, except

Kenneth Kinney 16:30
that virtual component. You think sharks in the video adds to the excitement? 100%? Yes. So we know that there's a big opportunity with emerging for when someone wants to come to you, what assets do they need to pull together first before they start coming to you? Because if you hear a lot of the different advice, most people I think will know that they're probably going to need a website and a speaker demo reel and things like that. But it still seems hard for a lot of people to do. Is it the clarity of their message that they need to have before they come to you? Or is it the assets? Or what are the things that people really need to get started?

Jane Atkinson 17:09
Well, we really can take them from idea all the way up. So picking a lane is one of the first things we'll do with people. When we say lane, we mean topic, think about something that you want to be known for five years from now. So we'll take them to pick a lane through to starting to develop the framework of the speech through to developing what needs to be on the website. I mean, if you're going to do it, why not do it the way that is recommended by somebody who's been in the business for 30 years, rather than try to figure it out on your own and then go to them. So we start, they wouldn't need, the only asset they would need is that they've been thinking about something for a long time, and that they have something to say on a topic. And then we can help them decide, yes, I think you can get paid for that. Or maybe we need to massage it a little bit in order for you to get paid.

Kenneth Kinney 18:09
So how does somebody go about finding the right kind of coach for them? And the reason I asked is, you know, I'm not a client of yours, but I've read your books, I've listened your podcast, and I've heard you give some good advice on clubhouse. I have heard a lot of bad advice on clubhouse in the few months. I've been on there from a lot of people that are speaker coaches, and I'm you know, I have friends that come to me and say, you know, where should I go to? Where should I start, and now I have a much better perception of where to point them just trying to make certain I don't point them in the wrong direction, because so many people are giving some bad advice. And if you're looking to do this beyond just a side hustle, you don't want to go out there do the wrong thing and be known the wrong way.

Jane Atkinson 18:50
Hmm. Well, I guess what I would suggest is that you want somebody with some experience, someone who has been around the block, and maybe potentially someone who isn't like balancing, helping you get booked and themselves get booked. There's a lot of speakers out there who became unemployed over the last year. And so and they had been asked prior to that, hey, how did you get so successful in your speaking business? And so I would say that you're going to want somebody who does it in a very focused fashion and has the formula for you to follow.

Kenneth Kinney 19:36
What typically are the costs that someone should consider, you know, whether they're working with you or somebody else? What kind of money do people put in to consider whether or not they're investing in something like this.

Jane Atkinson 19:48
So we have program so the emerging speaker school that we have the the wealthy speaker school, you can be in the door for $199 a month. Then the next level up from that is our mastermind that's kind of for intermediate speakers. And they might be in with us to 70 to 70 $500. And then private coaching would start around $12,000. So it really depends on kind of how quickly you want to go Kenneth, and where you are, like I have taken on some private coaching clients who have come out of big jobs. And they wanted to go really fast. And so okay, they're an emerging speaker, but they have this desire to go really fast, and they have the means to do it. So there's lots of different caveats at each level, there are people that I would say, okay, really, based on what you've told me, private coaching is the best thing for you. But you're going to get a lot out of the school because no matter what level everybody comes in, that they get to, they get access to all the lessons inside the school and all the calls that we do as well.

Kenneth Kinney 21:02
Well, obviously courses, just like the ones you offer were emerging over the last few years, we've really jumped into that for speakers today, whatever category they may fall into, do you look at speaking going forward as much of a speaking on stage time, or the ability to introduce people to other things, whether it's selling books, or enrolling in courses, or doing consulting work? To me, it seemed like five years ago that it was a lot of people selling books, and then it started moving, obviously more making up the years, but it felt more like it was books and then consulting and now courses. And I'm wondering, it makes me laugh, because so much of what I think about now is not necessarily the time people get paid to speak on stage anymore. It's about all the other stuff that they offer. So you by de facto almost become not only just a speaking coach, but how do you open the door to all the other things that they're selling.

Jane Atkinson 21:59
The scale, I become the scaling coach. And the thing is speaking is just one way to distribute your knowledge. And it's also you trading your time for money. So I'll give you an example of Ryan estus. He's one of my better known clients. He's been out there speaking for 10 years, went from zero to a million dollars, and, or a couple million dollars pre COVID. And in one year, army. He went from zero to a million not in one year, it took time. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, five years, zero to a million. And what he had in that moment, at the five year mark, was a really well paid job. Because his he only had so many dates on the calendar. And he wasn't leveraging his time. And so books and courses and consulting and things like that thinking outside of the stage time, were what he needed to get to in order to scale. And so putting systems and team in place in order to help him get there was a part of that process. And we're getting ready to have a conversation, which may podcast at some point. But we're doing a little VIP coffee date with him to just pick his brain and find out where he's at today. And what his advice is for people who want to get there. But I think he really recognized especially when he had a health scare early on, that I need to diversify. And he did a lot in terms of real estate and other things outside of speaking as well to so that when COVID did hit, and all his speaking engagements got postponed or cancelled. He didn't freak out. And that was, you know, very helpful to have a little bit of a cushion to fall back on there.

Kenneth Kinney 24:06
Yeah, I would always preach to have more streams of income than then you can count in today's world. But if they want to become a speaker, what are the questions that they should ask themselves today? Obviously, one of them is do I really want to do this? And am I committed to it? But What other questions do they need to kind of start with because obviously, that's a big first one.

Jane Atkinson 24:26
Yeah, am I committed to doing it? Am I committed to making it happen? If you've built a business before, then you're going to be in really good shape because that is job one is recognizing that this is a business speaking sounds like it's fun. But it's like when you see the ducks going along the pond. You know, there's a lot going on underneath the surface and the duck is you standing on the stage, but there's a whole lot of flapping going on underneath that needs to happen in order to actually put you there. So it's a business And we need to go through that ready Aim Fire process in order to get that business. So what they need to ask themselves is, am I ready to start a new business? And do I have something to say? And if both of those are Yes, then they should come on over to wealthy speaker school.com. We have a, we have the school right there for you, you can book a call with Jen, if you're not sure if it's a good fit or not. And also, we have a lot of free information that you could probably go on for a year or two, if you weren't quite ready at speaker launcher comm they can get access to the latest podcast and the blog, and all kinds of good free stuff that will help get you started.

Kenneth Kinney 25:47
What's the one piece of advice you would give somebody post pandemic that you maybe didn't think of pre pandemic as to how to position themselves as a speaker going forward? Is there anything that you learned out of the pandemic, if you will, that really made you think, you know, this, this will help you dramatically whereas it wouldn't have say a year ago?

Jane Atkinson 26:08
Well, I would never have imagined that. You know, being vaccinated, being willing to fly would be like a selling feature or a selling tool. So the same I would never imagine that doing virtual like the same way we went up the ranks in terms of virtual being, you know, have you got the equipment all the way up to now really engage my audience? I think probably right now, in this moment in time, it's important that people let people know that have vaccine will travel, you know, they they there, I interviewed Laurie PMR come from meeting professionals International. And she was having speakers drop out of her June event she couldn't find people to travel in. And so I know I don't know, she's probably got it all locked down now. But that was a surprise to me that she was getting a lot of people who said no, no, sorry, I'm not gonna travel.

Kenneth Kinney 27:17
Yeah, I just had this come up in a conversation yesterday, there was people were asking me about an event internationally. And they wanted to know, my speaking fees, and all that kind of stuff. And in the first part of the conversation, I said to them, yes, I'm a professional speaker. And I've been vaccinated, which seems like a very interesting calling card, but it was how they were weeding out, you know, 99% of their applicants. So what are the common traits that you've seen, for people to be not successful? To be unsuccessful at doing this, there's got to be some sort of commonality that you notice with people that just don't seem to be they just continuously do the wrong thing, at least from what you've seen?

Jane Atkinson 28:00
Well, maybe it's a lack of commitment, that it takes time to actually build a business. And so we say it's, it's like three years, from beginning to when you're going to feel like you actually have it going on. And so there's a commitment level there to being an entrepreneur. Also, I think one of the key factors for people who you see Excel is consistency. So you do your marketing on a consistent basis. We do a blog every Tuesday, and we do a podcast every Thursday. So some sort of tip on a Tuesday, and a new podcast every Thursday. But we didn't always have that consistency in the podcast. It was kind of willy nilly in the early days, I did probably seven years of podcasting before I got serious about it. And then I decided I was going to go weekly, and I committed to that, and we've done it and and people start to anticipate and want and expect if we're late, you know, putting it out, I am worth a podcast. So I think doing your marketing on a consistent basis in it, it becomes a part of your outreach as well, like, are you filling up your funnel on a consistent basis in order so that when you do go out speaking for six, a six month chunk, where you're going to be busy on the road a lot, the machine is still running and your funnel still gets filled up. That is really important. Not as much for the emerging speaker. They're just trying to get those first few gigs. But for somebody who's chugging along, that consistency makes a big deal.

Kenneth Kinney 29:47
Well, asking yourself that commitment question and also really paying attention to what we're looking at this as a business and acknowledging it can be a complete roller coaster, as I can tell you, one of the things that I spoke with guess about somebody that's also been on your show, and I love about her is the fact that I didn't see her. And this is not to make her sound like she's the opposite of this. But she is not somebody that's on social all the time. But she's a very successful speaker, incredibly smart. I just don't see, I don't see, you know, every hour selfie, like a lot of people do on Instagram. She's not that kind of a social media person. For a lot of people that get into this, how much of that business conversation now are you having with people, they've got a good message, they're committed to it. But now you've got to promote yourself nonstop, especially on social media. How much of that becomes a conversation to become a successful speaker, if you will, is that they've got to devote more time preaching about themselves on Instagram and LinkedIn and all the other channels a YouTube channel? Or can somebody really navigate through that without having to be everywhere all the time,

Jane Atkinson 30:53
I don't think you need to be everywhere. All the time we met on clubhouse, lots of people will opt out of clubhouse, I think you might want to pick a couple of channels, and then be really good on those. A lot of our clients are on LinkedIn, business associations, you we find those on LinkedIn. That's not to say there aren't speakers who are getting good business from Instagram. But I would say that you're just going to choose where you're going to find where your people live, and then choose to double down on that. Because trying to be on all platforms is is very difficult. And I just, I I think what you're doing rather than out promoting yourself constantly, you're actually out there just giving people good, solid value. So if you're giving it away and good value, then you'll get noticed.

Kenneth Kinney 31:51
Yeah. And it's funny because I think of Twitter in particular, I can't think of one speaking gig I've ever gotten out of Twitter. I've gotten plenty of them out of LinkedIn. But that's the one that everybody runs.

Jane Atkinson 32:02
Yeah, there's a lot going on on Twitter. Yeah, personally, I spend zero time there. So I know where my clients are. My clients are on Facebook, and they are on Instagram. But I actually do spend a lot of time and intentional time on LinkedIn. So because I'm probably drawing more from the business market, and for people who are coming out of business to become a speaker

Kenneth Kinney 32:30
Is TikTok an interest to you at all with all the speakers, especially the ones that are kind of coming up from maybe not a Gen Z yet. There are plenty of them on there. But what we often think of as a younger generation on Tick tock, I'm starting to see a lot more speaker stuff on there when I aimlessly scroll through

Jane Atkinson 32:47
bandwagon that I personally will not be hopping on. And I do look at it for people who are younger, but I have some clients who are just out there killing it. kyndra Hall, I wouldn't be surprised if she's on Tick Tock Judy Haller. I wouldn't be surprised if she's on Tick Tock. I mean, they're blowing up on Instagram. So it could be that that's a natural transition for them. And in Judy Haller, I just talked to when we're going to do a clubhouse together here in May. So yeah, I would think it's just whether or not it's a fit with your brand. And of course, our clients out there, you know, if there's no clients out there on Tick tock, then we won't, we won't do Tick Tock.

Kenneth Kinney 33:30
So who's the best speaker you've ever seen on stage? Hmm,

Jane Atkinson 33:35
oh, that's such a good question. Well, I remember going to my very first National Speakers Association Conference. And I remember Captain Jerry coffee, who was a prisoner of war for like, years, four years or something like that, maybe even seven years, I can't remember. And I can remember this sound. So there was a piano on stage. And he was telling the story about how they communicated with each other. In between their cells. They had these like four by six cells, and they were talking to each other. And he tapped out the Morse code on the piano. And I can remember the sound of that tapping, you know, and he'd say, whatever the words were, you know, are you okay? or whatever, and he tapped it out, and I can still remember that. So that was 30 plus years ago, Kenneth like really long time ago and I have a very poor memory. But I remember that so I'm going to say Captain Jerry coffee gets the wind for me.

Kenneth Kinney 34:52
So what do you do for fun?

Jane Atkinson 34:56
What do I do for fun? So we have a cottage that is three hours. north of here. And we have a boat and a jetski. And we take our say, well, we were coming up to having six grandchildren. Wow. So five and one on the way, right and my heart to sings at the idea of me sitting backwards on that jet ski and teaching these young children how to water ski. So that's what I do for fun is all of us. There'll be like 12 of us, of course COVID roles depending. And that is what we'll be doing all summer.

Kenneth Kinney 35:36
No. A lot of time that you're able to get on the water if it's three hours north of Ontario.

Jane Atkinson 35:43
Well, it's three, it's inside of Ontario, and it is three hours north. The lake that we're on is very shallow, very close to us is tober Mori, which is incredibly deep and incredibly cold. And then there's Lake Huron, also incredibly deep, but warms up a little bit. But Tobermory is or Georgian Bay, I should say, is incredibly deep and cold. You can see right to the bottom, like a shipwreck is clear as day.

Kenneth Kinney 36:14
Canada has the largest coastline of any country in the world. And they have an abundant amount of sharks that live there. They're more obviously Coldwater sharks. But I asked this of everybody that's been on the show, what is your favorite kind of shark and why? Wow, I will happily throw one in for you to Canada actually passed legislation to protect sharks. So that's why I'm asking you this question.

Jane Atkinson 36:40
Well, I, I have a bad story. You're not gonna like this story. I worked when I was 24. I worked on a fishing trawler off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. So here I am off of Townsville, you probably know that area, probably the most massive shark. So we would we were fishing for prawns, and we would send all of that we didn't want off the side of the boat. And then the dolphins, we'd see the dolphins, they're coming to grab it all. They were very smart, right? But then if they disappear, you look down further and there were the sharks, I was terrified of sharks, and did never learn to scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef as I had envisioned myself doing. But there was one day when we caught a little Baby Shark in the net. And I had this amazing because I was so afraid of being eaten by a shark. It felt as though I had turned the tables on this particular shark. And I'm sorry to say Kenneth we did eat it for breakfast. I'm so sorry. Oh, no.

Kenneth Kinney 37:57
That's awful. I know. I knew I was gonna totally but I might have to edit that out. It's No, I'm just kidding. It's It's a sad but true story. Well, Jane says special time The show where we get to kind of know you a little bit better. Are you ready for the five most interesting, important questions that you're gonna be asked today? Sure. All right, number one, because you just mentioned this, being a mom or being a grandmother.

Jane Atkinson 38:21
I'm a I'm a Grandma, I'm, I'm a step grandma. So I'm called g Ma. I became a mom, stepmom, and a and a G Ma, all on the same day when I was 43 years old. I was a late bloomer.

Kenneth Kinney 38:36
Alright, number two. So if you're spending your money, and you want to be a speaker, a better speaker, your recommendation, should they? And I'm going to take you out of this so that we keep it clean. Should they invest their money in something like a speaking coach? Or should they invest their money and time in something like the National Speakers Association?

Jane Atkinson 38:59
So should they invest their money in NSA? I would say yes. And there's no better form of marketing than a great speech. So presentation skills coaching is in there are some speakers who still get some every single year of their 20 year career.

Kenneth Kinney 39:21
Yeah. So that that, that ties in perfectly to number three, content of the speech or presentation skills? Well, you got to pick one of your two children.

Jane Atkinson 39:35
Presentation skills. The best content in the world with poor presentation skills isn't going to fly. And so I would say that what you want to do is really simplify your content for three key ideas, and then wrap some presentation skills around that.

Kenneth Kinney 40:01
Fair enough. All right, number four, look at it long term 2021. And beyond being a virtual speaker to pay the bills or being a in person, speaker, once the world's open up and everybody's back on stages,

Jane Atkinson 40:16
well, you might be asking the wrong person on as I don't love to travel that much. And so I feeling that there's a lot of speakers like me, who, not that I'm a speaker. But there's a lot of people like me who have recognized that there's a huge opportunity here, and they may go virtual only. I like to travel like four times a year. And that's all I would ever do in terms of I would go and speak to a group of speakers, but now my max will be four times a year.

Kenneth Kinney 40:55
All right, number five. And the most important question that you're going to be asked today is biscuits or cornbread. Right, all the way, cornbread all the way. All right. So Jane, where can people find out more about you get a copy of the book, find out more about you as a coach, find your clubhouse and wherever else?

Jane Atkinson 41:14
Well, I am at speakerlauncher.com. And if you click over to our contact page, you'll get all of our services as well. We do a weekly show under the club called the wealthy speaker on Clubhouse as well.

Kenneth Kinney 41:31
Perfect. Jane, thank you so much for being with us today on the sharks perspective. Appreciate it.

So there was my conversation with Jane Atkinson, the author of four books, including the bestseller the wealthy speaker 2.01 of the top business managers for many sought after speakers experience working under a speaker's bureau, the founder of the wealthy speaker school and the host of the wealthy speaker podcast. Let's take a look at three key takeaways from our conversation with her.

First, you hear all the time as a speaker, that you get to write a book, it will open doors, raise your level of credibility, and all that's true. But what I love that she also mentioned is that it will help you map out your formula, you know, give you that focus. For her. It's the ready Aim Fire formula. For most of us, we need to map that out the more focus the better.
Second, really love that she opened up about the fear of what happened in her business in the industry when the pandemic exploded, but she even thought for a brief moment that she might have to sell the house. It's amazing how fear can really set people back. However, she reminded herself with it with something as simple as a post it note that the value that she has pre pandemic is still there, and people need her now more than ever. And she recognized that need, she came back to her normal self and built the business back up. I had so many conversations with friends who've gone through something similar, but realize that you are needed now more than ever. So get some posts and remind yourself of that every day.

Third, as industries change, like the speaking industry or any industry, people have been changing jobs and you've got to reconnect and double down on your relationships for speakers and event planners. It can make or break your reemergence from the pandemic works in any industry or any relationship to got a question send me an email to Kenneth at A Shark's Perspective dot com.

Thank you again for the privilege of your time and I am so thankful to everyone who listens.

Thank you to the amazing sponsors Invoca and Drips.

Would you do me a favor? If you liked this episode? Would you consider writing a review and helping me speak about this show?

I am Kenneth Kinney. I have been vaccinated and I'm ready to travel. So please join us on the next episode of A Shark's Perspective. [music]