Behind The Scenes - Diving Deep Into The Speaking Business and Event Space.

There comes a time in your life and career where you have to double down on the task at hand, and go straight to the source to maximize your moment. You will probably be misunderstood, underestimated, underprepared, overwhelmed, etc.

This may not be your reality under these same circumstances but to each his own. For the past 5 years or so I’ve been working with motivational speakers and authors solely on monetizing their message. In 2022 I chose to relocate to a different region and apply similar pressure.

It’s different when you can run into someone in person that you have been trying to get a email response from for the last 3 months...

FIRST QUARTER - BOOK V.S MUSIC

Essentially planted my flag in the dirt in Vegas and went to the busiest place I could find with the best quality camera and cameraman I could find. With a goal to get familiar with the city, and find out what tourist thought about the concept of reading books for inspiration vs. listening to music.?

With the video I was going for a Jimmy Kimmel type of vibe and I feel like some of the participants actually thought they where on the Jimmy Kimmel show. Something about cameras just make people either go into character or go into their shell.

This video shoot was put together with the momentum I felt from two conferences that where back-to-back. One where I helped out with in the Ultimate Speaking Competition and the other being the Rainmaker conference put on by Powerteam international.

In working to put this together I came across a few people that would be instrumental in my next move. It’s amazing what can happen if you just go outside and do whatever it is that you do. It’s almost like people forget that grass roots marketing existed before social media.?

SECOND QUARTER - PURE PRESSURE

Hosting events had always been on the back burner to bring to life but working to promote the Books V.S music video brought it together naturally.?

The venue for the Motivation Monday live events all but fell in my lap based off of pure divine intervention. It was a Co-Working space in the city called the Feathernest.

The owner agreed to sponsor the event because she wanted to get the name out their more. I’ve always embraced a challenge so I figured if we did a new motivational event every week with a different theme we’d attract the kind of audience that would be more than welcome at the Feathernest.

To promote the event I pressed up a bunch of tickets with two QR codes. One directed people to the website for the venue, and the other directed people to the Motivator Music website.

From there I went into complete "outside" mode, and learned the hard way that people in Vegas have tons of events they want to go to and none of them are necessarily motivational.

Each Monday we waited for people to come through with high hopes but most of the attendees were basically on the team. I definitely felt like the boy who cried wolf because I absolutely did not pack the house at all on neither week. All was not lost though because the founder of Black Wall Street Nevada caught wind of what we were doing and showed up a few times and even offered me a spot on the board.?

HALF TIME

I was (still am) essentially of the mindset that I was in the army and at war with my goals and dreams, and to the point before I left for Vegas I had been losing.

Even though I’ve won just as many battles that I’d lost. My goals are so big that only I really know where I stand in my life regardless of how good or bad it looks from the outside looking in.

After the event series I went back home for a much needed “break from war” to spend some much needed family time. (Super private will never say?or post much about my family on the internet).

THIRD QUARTER - WAX ON WAX OFF

Upon returning back to war I began to give sites like eventbrite a hard look. The type of look that the mirror would be envious of. I needed to figure out how to level up with the right information as well as learn to run successful events because whatever I did the month before was not good enough.

I noticed a familiar name on Eventbrite and I knew almost immediately that I had to be at that event no matter what clothes I had or haircut I didn’t have. The only problem was that the event was the next day and it was already almost midnight when I discovered it. I instantly called Bill Walsh the CEO and founder of Powerteam international to see if it was to late to grab a ticket.

About a year before that I was introduced to him after being invited to one of his other events by Christoff Weihman the founder of the ultimate speaker competition.

I would often travel with the competition to help out however I could. One time I even helped judge the event. He liked my perspective in the fact that I work with speakers to help them monetize their message via speaking albums.

Luckily Bill was still awake and said that it was ok for me to come to the event. So the next day I invited a colleague to come with me. She was also interested in growing her business so it kind of just worked out.

Going into the event I had no idea my life was about to be changed. After it was done I had officially been hired to travel and film with Powerteam international. A company that puts on more speakings events a year than anyone. Just what the doctor ordered up!

It was kind of like being signed to the Patriots after trying to start my own franchise and going 2-15 the first year. My business took a hit in the short term in the fact that I was completely locked in on the task at hand. I didn’t necessarily have the right structure in place at the time to keep it flowing or growing in the meantime.

The first event I did after being added to the team was the Rick Ross car show. They flew me out to film for a few hours and I created a highlight video from it. To make it happen I backed out of being a Judge at what would have been my second speaking competition and for a different speaking competition than the original one I judged.

Working for power team there where times where I was in 3 different states all within 24 hours. They hosted all types of events from private jet masterminds, conferences, workshops, mansion masterminds, etc. I’ll be forever grateful for the experience.

4TH QUARTER - MOTION

After wanting to slow down travels and catch up with my personal life I chose to take an opportunity as an editor at a new TV network called Dosh that Ray J helped create. I believe I only caught wind of the opportunity because the universe is undefeated. Tons has happened within the network but this situation is still pretty fresh so I’ll just let you stay tuned on this topic.

Throughout these experiences I began to realize all of the opportunity areas in my personal and business life. I've always been a dive in and learn how to swim on the way down type of guy. From here on out I look forward to applying every lesson these experiences have taught. Thank you for reading this article please excuse any typos, and let's go have an amazing year. It's still only the 1st quarter!