Joining Roger on today’s show is the highly energetic and informative Andrew Davis. Andrew Davis is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and wealth of knowledge in marketing, public speaking, customer experience, and building a powerful legacy. Not to mention, Davis has also produced for NBC and worked for MTV and The Muppets.
Throughout this fascinating episode, Davis reveals his first-hand experience of adapting to virtual events in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and discusses the importance of production quality. The influential marketing expert also shares the secret to becoming an in-demand speaker, offering valuable advice on how to captivate and delight your audience. Key points covered throughout the episode include:
[0:40] – Introduction to Andrew Davis.[1:24] – Embracing virtual events and presentations.
[2:06] – Andrews’s top three learnings of creating successful virtual experiences.
[5:17] – The creation of The Referable Speaker.
[8:29] – The four categories of public speakers.
[12.37] – How to surprise and delight your audience.
[19.43] – The key to attracting referrals.
[23.40] – The journey to now: an insight into Andrews professional roadmap.
[25.04] – The power of tracking data for growth.
[26.24] – Mastering customization and knowing your audience.
[28.24] – The impact of a signature bit.
TIP! Be sure to have a pen and paper close by, as this episode is jam-packed with key takeaways that will help you conquer the stage.
Learn the best way to become an in-demand speaker and thought leader, *without* selling - featuring @DrewDavisHere. #publicspeaking #keynotespeaker Share on X
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Key Resources for Andrew Davis and This Episode
by Andrew Davis and Michael Port – http://amzn.to/3nlRj3J
Andrew’s NSFW samples of memorable signature bits:
George Carlin – Seven Words You Can’t Say on TV
Eddie Murphy – Chased Down an Ice-Cream Truck
Connect with Andrew Davis:
http://www.akadrewdavis.com/
http://www.loyaltyloopers.com/
http://www.youtube.com/c/AndrewDavisSpeaker
Twitter: @DrewDavisHere
http://www.instagram.com/drewdavishere/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/drewdavishere/
Connect with The Referable Speaker co-author Michael Port:
http://michaelport.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelport/
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Full Episode Transcript:
Welcome to Brainfluence, where author and international keynote speaker Roger Dooley shares powerful but practical ideas from world class experts, and sometimes a few of his own. To learn more about Rogers books, brainfluence and friction and to find links to his latest articles and videos. The best place to start is Rogerdooley.com. Rogers keynotes will keep your audience entertained and engaged. At the same time, he will change the way they think about customer and employee experience. To check availability for an in person or virtual Keynote or workshop, visit Roger dooley.comRoger Dooley 00:37
Welcome to Brainfluence. I’m Roger Dooley. Today’s guest wrote for Charles Kuralt and produced for NBC. He’s worked for the Muppets and MTV. He co founded, built and sold a marketing agency. You might have seen him on today’s show or in the New York Times. He’s a best selling author, and influential marketing expert and claims to drink more coffee in a day than you’ll drink in a week. If you’ve seen any of Andrew Davis’s video work, that claim is entirely believable. In fact, I decided to drink a jumbo energy drink prior to starting this session just so I could keep up. Andrew’s a sought after keynote speaker and with my friend Michael Port has co authored a new book, The referrable speaker, welcome to the show, Andrew.
Andrew Davis 01:18
Hey, thanks for having me. Roger. Thanks for drinking the energy drink. Let’s keep them on their toes.
Roger Dooley 01:22
Definitely. Definitely. Well, you know, I guess I was introduced to your work in a virtual session put on by you and Michael about speaking, it was a some free speaker training. And I’m curious, that was all done virtually. This was during the pandemic, we’re still in the pandemic, of course, but we are seeing a little bit of in person events going on now. But what did you learn about virtual presenting and virtual communication?
Andrew Davis 01:49
You know, like you I spend most of my time in front of audiences, you know, presenting in person. And, you know, anyone in the business world spends a lot of time in front of people in conference rooms, chatting, or even just informally. So when all of a sudden all the events and in person events were canceled, I found myself wondering how can I create a virtual experience that you know, is a little different? The top thing, three things I think I learned were number one, you know, people come first. And in most virtual environments, people put their PowerPoint slides first instead of the person first. So I tried to flip that and just make it more about face to face communication. The second thing I learned was that, you know, pacing and storytelling become more and more important in the online world. The virtual medium is a cold, small medium compared to an in person, you know, live experiences of 3D. And so it’s really important that you have to you can rely on great storytelling, methodology and teaching so that you get people engaged, you keep their attention, and they want to know what’s going to be next instead of feeling like well, I hope the next thing is not as boring as this thing. The third thing I learned was the power of production quality. I think at the end of the day, you know, I realized pretty quickly Roger, most people did that. There’s I called it the production paradox. The biggest broadcasters in the world, were no longer using studios, everybody was producing from their home. So the morning television shows started looking like zoom calls. Meanwhile, Zoom calls started looking like television shows, you know, there’s this kind of dichotomy that went on. So putting a lot of effort into making sure that your production looks good. And on that I should complain about my own video quality. I’m not in my normal home studio, I don’t have great internet connection. And these are things that stress me out when we’re doing a virtual thing these days, because it’s the quality matters more than ever before.
Roger Dooley 03:41
Yeah, I enjoyed that transition, watching TV announcers and so on, suddenly connecting from home and some did a very good job right out of the gate. And obviously, some had professional folks come out and set up their home studio, but others were really pretty amusing and laughable. And it same time. None of us are perfect, but you can learn from them. I spent quite a bit of my time and trying to improve my own virtual game by watching what was happening on news shows, not just the announcers that tend to be pretty professional from the start up but also their guests. So I want to learn there and everybody has up their zoom game.
Andrew Davis 04:19
Yeah, your your zoom presence these days is like the old handshake. You know, they used to say, you know, grip, a firm handshake, look them in the eye like that, you know, that was your kind of initial introduction to people. And now it’s like, what do you look like on your zoom camera? The instant I see you, is it just your nose? As you know, do you have a good frame of reference those things matter today.
Roger Dooley 04:40
Right, or the green screens where people’s hair is appearing and disappearing.
Andrew Davis 04:45
Yeah, that’s exactly right.
Roger Dooley 04:48
So I read referable speaker, which I highly recommend to anybody who is interested in speaking particularly professionally speaking, in one sitting on an airplane, oddly enough going to your co authors Speaker training in New Jersey. And it’s it’s a great book. I’m curious, how did you like Michael Port is known as a speaker trainer, an expert on speaking performance. He’s a former actor himself. And you are more of a marketing guy. Oh, that’s what I knew you as a marketing guy. How did you get together with Michael on that, to write this book?
Andrew Davis 05:21
You know, I think from my perspective, I approach anything very analytically. So I track a lot of things. And just like in any business today, knowing what numbers point to what potential outcomes is a really important part of business. So for the last 10 years, I’ve 12 years, I’ve been tracking hundreds and hundreds of data points about every one of the speaking engagements and inquiries I was getting. And Michael knew that I was very much like this. And Michael, you know, like you said, is very much focused on the craft and the entertainment and the insight you can deliver in a performance setting. And we had lots of discussions about whether it was possible to build a formula that incorporated both the kind of analytical mindset and the understanding of how the speaker business works with the artistic and crafts side of the business to create a great presentation that people want to watch, that transforms people’s minds and changes their minds and impacts their business. And, you know, we finally decided, well, let’s write a book, that’ll be our goal. And we’ll go on this journey to figure out if there is a formula that marries both of these things up. And so it was purely a kind of a match of art and science, I guess, I’d say, you know, do the numbers back up the things that we are claiming? And does my experience tell me otherwise? And can we help other people with what we’ve learned?
Roger Dooley 06:36
So let’s talk about numbers a little bit, what kind of research went into the book, because I know that most of the folks in our audience today are evidence based, you know, they don’t want to hear from experts, because they’re experts or because they have years of experience. They always like to know where the data came from. And I think that’s one thing that sets this book apart, where you actually did some research, not necessarily academic quality that’s published in the journal, but nevertheless, you guys did some of the heavy lifting, to prove your point. So talk about that a little bit.
Andrew Davis 07:06
Yeah. So I mean, we did lots of qualitative research. So we interviewed hundreds, literally hundreds over the course of two years, event producers and event organizers of different sizes and scales to understand how they actually determine who they hire for speaking engagements, who they bring in. And then we did some quantitative research on, you know, fee increases based on different factors that we had seen in the marketplace. We analyzed up to 40,000 speakers and their fees to determine what the averages were, we even did a survey that we ended up having about 200, or three to 289, I think, survey respondents who anonymously gave their fee, insights of the anonymous piece, I know, you know, is important. And but, you know, we wanted people to be able to feel like they could share freely. And so you know, we started to understand the market a lot better. And then we did a lot of qualitative interviews of speakers as well. And the final bit was, we did a ton of watching speeches, and analyzing them to try to determine if they had the right elements to be combined to deliver a transformational experience.
Roger Dooley 08:13
So you would say, that there are different kinds of speakers that they have different categories of speakers. And it’s important to understand where you are now and maybe where you want to go if you don’t want to be where you are now. So explain that breakdown.
Andrew Davis 08:28
Yeah, there are four types of speakers that are generally hired for an event. And if you’re thinking about this in terms of your business, or where you were, there are an out there, there’s like an analogous set. So the first one is actors, athletes and astronauts. And those are the people that fill seats, they get paid the big bucks. There are people like Will Smith or Serena Williams or Scott Kelly, the astronaut, you know, you know, those people, you don’t need a description. And those people are really, really powerful because they get people excited about the event. The second category of people that event organizers hire are called the a list alternates, and the aimless alternates are essentially people that you don’t immediately recognize their name, but as soon as I say the next four to six words afterwards, you remember so it would be like Yancey Strickler? You don’t know who that is probably but he was the founder of Kickstarter. And you’re like, oh, that sounds interesting. Or it might be Ken Jennings, the US winning contestant on Jeopardy. Or it might be the you know, the guy who landed a plane in the Hudson or it might be the guy that the guy who won Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, whoever it is, those kinds of things all of a sudden started to sound intriguing. They cost less than the athletes, actors and astronauts, but they still have an audience appeal. And the two things you need to know about these first two groups is they provide a lot of entertainment value, and they get people excited about the event and a lot of times they’re really inspirational, which is great. Then the next few categories are the interesting ones for me as well. The next two are the industry icons. These are the people that in the specific industry, everybody wants to hear their opinion. So I spoke at an event for convenience stores a few years ago, there are 1000 people in the audience. And the people they all came to see was a woman named Emily Sheets. Now, I don’t know who Emily sheets is, maybe you don’t know who Emily is but she happens to be the head of strategy for one of the most innovative convenience store chains in the world. And everybody wants to know what she’s doing next. So everybody wanted to hear her, she’s an industry icon, or the other person that was there was the CEO of Domino’s Pizza, everybody that we maybe you don’t want to hear, but everybody else does. So those are the three categories that are really easily booked. The fourth category is the one where most people have an opportunity. And that’s the surprise and delight speaker. And they’re the person that provides the marriage of entertainment and insights, they create a transformational experience for the audience. That’s what changes their mind that has that aha moment. And they actually then leave the session saying that was the value, I’m going to change my business or change the way I work or change who I am as a result of what I just saw there. And so most speakers in the professional speaking world fit into that surprise and delight category, if I can just quickly make a parallel, the parallel of the business world is you know, you have your, your CEO of your company, or you know, kind of the executives of the company, those people fit into that A-list alternates. They’re the like the big weights, the people that, you know, if the CEO is speaking, I want to hear, you know, one level down, you have the industry icons, and maybe those are your department heads, those are the people that you know, command a lot of respect, they got a huge amount of knowledge and insight. And if they’re going to share their insight, you want to know and hear about it. And at the end of the day, no matter where you are in an organization, you can really be a shining light. If you focus on being that surprise and delight presenter at your organization. Whenever you’re going to a meeting, even if it’s only seven people, you got to focus on how you can deliver something in that meeting, that actually does surprise and delight, wow, I didn’t know that or that what a thought or that was a really great story. It’s changed the way I think about what we’re discussing today, you want to be the surprise and delight person, you don’t need the statute or the expertise of the other categories to feel like you’re making an impact.
Roger Dooley 12:04
What’s probably fair to say drew that very, very few of our audience members are in those first few categories. They’re probably not astronauts, or famous actors, or athletes, or football coaches and so on. And probably not even CEOs of a fortune 50 Corporation. But hopefully got maybe one or two of those in the audience, we’ll see. But you know, everybody else as you say is really in that surprise and delight category, or they should be in that category. Maybe if they’re speaking and they’re not surprising or delighting them. That’s, that’s something else entirely. How do you produce that surprise and delight? If you’re a speaker, you know, regardless of the audience size?
Andrew Davis 12:43
Yeah, well, the first thing I think people should always think about is to ensure that they’re delivering something that challenges conventional wisdom. So before we even talk about how you want to present in a meeting, or pitch a presentation, or maybe you’re in sales, and you pitch a lot, the first thing I want you to think about is the message you’re delivering. And if it’s just, you know, conventional, how to content, if you’re training people, that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if you really want to challenge people and get them thinking you actually have to challenge some conventional wisdom, maybe if it’s in a corporate setting is you know, hey, we’ve been doing this X, Y, and Z the same way for 100 years. Why have we been doing that? Let’s challenge that conventional wisdom. And think about something new. And there are lots of brands and innovations that have come out of just anyone in the organization, just asking a question, challenging some conventional wisdom, and then helping go on the journey to solve that problem, or challenge that wisdom and, and find a new way to do things. So the first thing I want you to do is think about that visionary mindset, even no matter where you are in the organization, if you’re in the frontlines your customer facing, you should be thinking that way, because you’re closest to the consumer. And if you’re a C level executive, and you’re listening to this, I want you to think about what conventional wisdom in your industry, should you and your team challenge. Again, you do not need to have the answer. Do not look for the answer. Most Great speakers and presenters and pitchers don’t have the entire solution. All they have is a really good question that sends people on a quest. And I can tell you a quick story actually about a company called Tetra Pack that was actually founded a long time ago, right, right after, like in the early 30s. It’s a company that that was founded by a Swedish man who came to the United States, and he saw that packaging was changing and transforming. And that no longer would you go to a grocery store. In the old days. You just walk in and you’d ask people to serve you, right? And then you walk away with a bunch of packaged stuff. Well, in the 20s, that started to change and they started putting the products on shelves outside and it was self service. The Swedish man noticed this and he thought, you know, this is interesting. I want to get into the packaging business. So he got into the packaging business. He was making lots of cardboard packaging in Malmo, Sweden, and he had a very successful company and then World War Two came along. And the company suffered a little bit all of his chief engineers that were coming over new packaging, they got conscripted into the army. And he was left with one engineer in his team who wasn’t eligible for the military. He was kind of the runt. Let’s call him of the engineers, you know, he had eyesight problems, he had a physical issue. And every day, the founder of tetrapack, would walk in and say, I have one question for you. How can we create packaging that is just as safe as glass, holds just as much as glass, but cost less as glass for liquid. So he asked the same engineer the same thing for almost a year. And as the company was about to go out of business, they were losing hope he couldn’t come up with a solution. And just that one question and sharing that one question getting the one engineer left constantly thinking about the same problem to go on this journey for a new answer resulted in success. At the end of the day, it was Christmas Eve 1944 and this engineer who ended up having food poisoning, and he was in the bathroom, and he ran out of toilet paper, and he took off the cardboard roll as he was kind of miserably sitting there on Christmas Eve doing work hoping to save the company. And he pinched the ends of the toilet roll, he twisted it and squished it a little. And all of a sudden he realized he had his answer. That is the TETRA pack today, the TETRA pack company is the world’s largest packaging company doing about $48 billion in packaging every year and their staple products still 70 years later, is the TETRA pack. So there you have it, you got to get send people on a visionary journey, let them do the work for you to try to answer a question no one else’s, has tried to answer.
Roger Dooley 16:40
I guess that question would vary depending on your level in the organization, yourself or the type of people you’re presenting to. If you’re presenting to say, frontline customer service representatives, you’re probably not going to pose a question that is affecting the entire industry that they have absolutely no control over input into. But you might question perhaps so the way they are working the way business being done the way they’re not treating college, or whatever, in some, but your point is that it has to be a little bit counterintuitive, to get some traction. And if you’re just going to tell them be nice to customers or whatever, okay, we get that we know that we’re not we know we’re supposed to do that. And you’re really not going to be compelling.
Andrew Davis 17:23
Yeah. I think employees today want to feel like they’re part of something. And you know, yes, you can absolutely get your team involved and engaged by asking them, you know, focused questions for that team. But some of the best and biggest innovations as well as some of the best companies to work for have come out of the team for the entire team. It doesn’t matter if you’re on accounting or your customer service, focusing on answering one big question. So even Domino’s Pizza is another great example, the CEO of Domino’s Pizza in 2008. He said, we’re not in the pizza business, we are in the pizza experience business. And every day he came in and asked the entire company, what is a pizza experience? And they’re like, I don’t know, I thought you were gonna tell us that, you know? And he said, No, you need to help answer that what is a great pizza experience. And so he left it up to anyone on the front lines, you might be working at a Domino’s pizza store, if you know what you think of great pizza experiences, I want you to call the CEO. Give me an idea. Let’s go for it. Right. So I think people want to feel like they’re listened to. And they’re heard. And it’s really important as a presenter that you challenge that the same thing over and over again, in a way that makes people feel like they’re part of something bigger.
Roger Dooley 18:35
Yeah. Drew, the title of your book is recoverable speaker and the key word there is referrable, because you’re finding is that speakers get gigs, whether it’s particularly the better gigs almost solely by via referrals, either by another event manager or coordinator, or Booker, or perhaps somebody who saw an executive who saw a particular speaker and said, Wow, we need to get that person. You know, as a speaker, myself, I am inundated with people on LinkedIn saying, Hey, we will drive you new speaking leads every day, you know, with our great targeted outreach program and so on. I haven’t actually tried any of these folks. But really, what you would probably say is that’s the wrong approach. You don’t want to be dumping people randomly into a funnel, even if they are in fact, event managers and such. Because if they are not familiar with you, if they haven’t heard of you from another source that they trust, chances are, they’re not going to hire you, at least not for any kind of important gig. Why don’t you explain that a little bit?
Andrew Davis 19:41
Yeah, yeah. So this is a part of the research that we leveraged was actually research done by Speaker Inc. They did a research project to see how the event organizers chose their keynote speakers. And I think the finalists had something like 18 or 19 ways that they did do this, but the top three ways as you suggest we’re all referral. And it was exactly what you said. Number one way that they get their speakers is an executive at their company saw the speaker and said get the speaker right. That’s the number one way, the number two way is that an executive at another company saw the speech, told the event organizer at this company that you are great. And then all of a sudden you get the speech. And then the final way is that the event organizer themselves, saw you speak. So the top three ways to get, you know, again, is by referral. Other things that are in that list do include things like you were talking about they do, there is our boundaries. Yes, sometimes that happens. There’s YouTube, there’s Google search. But the top three ways the easiest ways are by referral. So the whole and just like any business, the most successful businesses that the easiest way to acquire a new customer, the lowest cost way is to have a great referral, and walk a new customer right in the door. And so focusing on the marketing, you know, of your business or of your speech is something that can help you. But the number one thing you need to have is a speech that is referral that when people see it, they say man, that was amazing, I want that for my audience. And if you can deliver that you will, you will have a never-ending long line of stage side leads, we call them stage side leads or just leads that come from a previous gig within seven for me, it’s within 72 hours. And so my goal, the only way I measure my speaking impact is by the number of stateside leads I get my goal is to get for right now I averaged about three points seven, eight or eight per gig. So close, so close. But you know, I just went back on the road for the first time since the pandemic started. And my first engagement, I only got two stage side leads. So I know that means there’s a lot of room for improvement right now I’ve got to get really back into it. And then, you know, get my speech better so that I can get those stage side leads.
Roger Dooley 21:56
Well, it might be you and I might be the audience to perhaps some audiences simply are of a nature that are going to generate a lot of leads. But you’re probably everybody’s a little bit rusty after being away from in person events for so long.
Andrew Davis 22:09
I think it’s me, like I’m very cautious. And I think this is a great lesson for anyone in any business. It’s very easy to blame the audience or the customer, you know, it’s not the right audience. And I did this when I first started speaking, I would say wow, you know, they’re not really my audience. They’re not the decision makers. I don’t think, you know, and it’s easy as a marketer to say, well, you know, the reason we’re having trouble getting traction right now is we haven’t found our audience are they you know, the people that are, you know, coming to us are too Junior, they’re not the right people. That that’s that I get that. But I think it’s more important if you focus on what you’re doing first, because that refocuses the energy and effort on things you can control. And you’re right, there are audiences that have very low stage side lead potential, for example, if I speak at a corporate event, where meaning it’s just for this company, right, you know, it’s Andrew Davis Inc. and I’m speaking at Andrew Davis Inc, that means all those employees have already heard me speak. And it’s very unlikely they’re going to come back to their company and say you got to your Andrew speed. So as a result, I make sure that I charge a high fee for those events, because I know that the referrals from those events are going to be very left low, if at all, versus other events where you know, there are hundreds of company attendees from different companies. That’s where I know I can get you know, my four stateside leads potentially out of that event within 72 hours have more business.
Roger Dooley 23:30
Drew, describe your personal journey as a speaker from your starting point to now getting 3.8756 leads per gig?
Andrew Davis 23:40
You know, so I ran a marketing agency for a long time, I sold it in 2012. And I took some time off. And my my wife said, look, you know, you can’t watch Judge Judy, all day long, you’d probably find a hobby or something. And although I was pretty happy watching Judge Judy marathons, and so she said, like you keep getting these inquiries to speak because I’d spoken a lot as a lead gen tool for our business. And you know, I just written a book called Brand Scaping when I left the agency and sold it. So she said, like, take some of these speaking gigs just go out on the road, and it’ll get you fresh again, and you go these, you know, you can see the world. So I started doing that and started realizing that it was really fun. But in the first year, I started analyzing, you know, the business after one year of speaking. And it turned out, I was making like an average of like, 16 or $18 an hour. And it wasn’t that profitable. But it was a lot of work. And I thought, man, maybe I’m not cut out for this speaking. But what I did was I went back to what I knew, as a marketer, let’s go dive into the data. Let’s look at what’s worked, where those gigs that I did get were coming from, look at how much they were, you know, buying my service for, and reevaluate and try one more year but with a much more strategic approach instead of just taking every event that came my way. And it wasn’t very It didn’t take very long to do the analysis to realize that you know what the best paying gigs were the ones that had already seen you speak. After I knew that and started tracking, I built my own little system to start tracking all the data. You know. So I’ve done that since 2014, I’ve been tracking hundreds of data points to try to figure out what has the biggest impact what kind of, you know, next gig is going to be the most profitable next gig. And very quickly, by the end of that year, I realized this is a really viable business. And I’ve kind of cracked the first step in understanding how this business works. And it’s been really, really fun since then, you know, I, I also took on in 2015, I worked with six other speakers, and I tracked all of their data. So I think it’s in just that one year, it was 770 increase to speak. And so we analyzed all that data and putting the book together to try to figure out, you know, what works and what doesn’t, and some speakers that I took on were very successful, and others weren’t. And you could see in the numbers, and in their speeches, what wasn’t working. So it was really helpful.
Roger Dooley 25:52
What changes did you make to what you were doing Drew?
Andrew Davis 25:55
Number one, I focused on the product first. So you know, the product is the speech, the marketing is all the cake. And I think a lot of people could use some work, focusing on their product or their service before they start worrying about the marketing. And as soon as I started focusing on the speech, first, I noticed the direct correlation in the speeches I was delivering. The second thing I did was I started customizing the sessions less, which I know is counterintuitive for a lot of speakers, and maybe not for your audience. But you know, if you’re providing a custom solution to your audience, each and every time, it’s very, very expensive to do on your part. But it’s also hard to refer because it’s such a custom solution, it’s hard for people to say I don’t know if it’ll work for your business, but it worked for mine. And in the speaking business refer ability is heavily dependent on your delivery, your your ability to reliably deliver a similar experience for each and every audience. That doesn’t mean you don’t customize some things. It just means you can’t customize everything, because people in the audience say, if you’re sitting there thinking, Should I hire Roger for my next event, and you’ve customized the whole thing for funeral directors, but then the person in the audience, you know, is working in the banking industry, they’re saying, you know, there are a couple points, Roger makes that I think would be great for my audience. But most of it is too much for this audience that I can see it ever working. So you got to strike this balance between customizing your presentation and reliably delivering it. And I think the last thing I realized is, you need something that people will talk about, and from marketing perspective, rather, you know, this as well, I know, but in a speaking engagement, the one thing you you need to increase your refer ability is called a signature bit, as soon as your bid is like the five to seven minutes, that both are entertaining, and insightful and kind of drive home one of the main points in your presentation, so that everybody sees that significant and they talk about it. And the talk about it is the key, right? Like you want to be able to give everybody something that when they go back to their office, they say oh my gosh, so it’s amazing presenter, Roger was so funny, he had this amazing bit about the chicken and the thing. And it was so funny, it was really well put together. And the whole message was, you know, XYZ, that’s when people go, Oh, that sounds fantastic. I wonder if they can speak at our event. So having a signature bit reliable delivery, and focusing on the product were the key decisions I made very quickly. And you know, over the years, I’ve learned other things, but those are the main three that I think that were really helpful.
Roger Dooley 28:16
Drew what’s a signature bit either an example from your own speaking or somebody else’s?
Andrew Davis 28:22
Like, let’s see, you know, comedians are really good at this. George Carlin, you know, has his seven words you can’t say on television, that’s an old one for youngsters out there. You can look that up. It’s not safe for work. But just check it out. If you want to see a good signature bit from a comedian, or Eddie Murphy’s ice cream truck, you know, comedians are really good at finding a scene happening on a signature bit and then turning it into something special. For me, I have one that’s called meatloaf. I call it meatloaf. It was one of my early signature bits. The first one I actually successfully completed, and has been unbelievably successful for me. It’s basically a seven minute journey on the internet and searching for a picture of meatloaf and it ends up going haywire. And you know, it’s think of it as your favorite bands hit song. And if you went to the concert and they didn’t play it, you’d be really disappointed. That’s what a signature bit is. So I’ve been asked to come back and speak at events where I did the meatloaf thing. And people will say, Oh my gosh, I remember you did that meatloaf thing. Are you going to do the meatloaf thing? I hope you’re doing the meatloaf. And when I tell them no, this is a different speech. They’re like no, I wish you were doing the meatloaf thing. So you know it really big blessing to have a great signature bit. But it also it’s got it’s a double edged sword. You’ve got to be able to deliver the next signature bit that they say that was even funnier than or better or more emotional than the last one.
Roger Dooley 29:43
Great! Well, we could go on forever, I think Drew but how can people find you and your ideas online?
Andrew Davis 29:50
Oh, the best way to find me is I do a YouTube series called the loyalty loop I do it every single Thursday, it comes out. So you can find me on YouTube. Just search for Andrew Davis loyalty loop. Or you can go to LoyaltyLoopers.com and sign up for that. Or you can find me on Instagram and Twitter at. I’m at Drew Davis here.
Roger Dooley 30:09
Perfect. Well, we will link to those places to the book at amazon, and also we will link to your co authors website, Michael’s website as well. And that will all be on the show notes page at Rogerdooley.com/podcast. We’ll have audio, video and text versions there as well. So Drew, thanks so much for being on the show.
Andrew Davis 30:32
Thanks so much for having me. This was great!
Brainfluence Outro 30:34
Thank you for tuning into Brainfluence. To find more episodes like this one, and to access all of Rogers books, articles, videos and resources. The best starting point is Rogerdooley.com. To check availability for a game changing Keynote or workshop, in person or virtual visit Rogerdooley.com