Everything you need to know to become a paid public speaker | With VaynerSpeakers

In this episode, I sit down with Zach Nadler and Steven Weinreb, from VaynerSpeakers, to dive deep into the world of public speaking. This conversation is from 2025. Whether you're looking to become a speaker, book a speaker, or just understand the speaking industry, this conversation is packed with insights. We talk about the current state of the speaking market, strategies for breaking into the industry, and why humility and authenticity are key to success. Zach and Steve share their expertise on what makes a great speaker, how to navigate the speaking world, and what it takes to stand out in an oversaturated market. Plus, we break down the difference between free agents and exclusive speaker representation, the value of speaking for free when you're starting out, and how to refine your content and style to stay relevant. If you’ve ever wondered how to craft a successful speaking career or book top-tier speakers for your event, this episode is for you.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Vayner Nation, a very exciting, brotherly, family vibes, family table vibes episode today. Look, between the DMs I get, the amount of information that gets thrown to me on email, DM, my text message, hit me up 212-931-5731, about speaking, "I want to be a speaker. I want to book you as a speaker, Gary. What is speaking? How do I get into speaking?" I was like, "Fuck it. Let me just do a podcast on this so I can send it, so I get this over with." And so, who better than my two brothers who run Vayner Speakers, which is a VaynerX company? By the way, if you're a CMO, CEO, corporation, event, and you've not touched base with Vayner

• 0:47Speaker 00

  Speakers, A, shame on you, B, I'm very expensive, so you're probably not going to be able to book me, but we do rep some of the best speakers in the world, but here's the reason I'm saying this, and go to Vaynerspeakers.com. These guys are mensches and my brothers, and we do it our way here, which is provide value. So whether it's them or somebody on their team, you could probably extract some insights, or not get ripped off on a speaker, or make a much better choice on a speaker, even if it doesn't go directly through us. So Zach, Steve, why don't you introduce yourselves?

• 1:20Speaker 01

  How's it going? I'm Zach, CEO of Vayner Speakers.

• 1:23Speaker 00

  Zach who? What, you're like Madonna already now?

• 1:27Speaker 01

  Zach Nadler.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  Sir.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  And we've now worked together for 15 and a half years.

• 1:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, we gotta get into it. We're gonna get into two or three best stories when you were repping me at CAA, when I was a raw, raw character. I can't wait. Please tell me something maybe I haven't heard, so go into your head. Okay, wonderful. And the better-looking guy?

• 1:46Speaker 02

  Steven Weiner, I run sales at Vayner Speakers, worked with Zach when he was at CA for 16 years, and then booked you through Zach for about eight years. And that's kind of how this all came together.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm trying to think where I want. I may want to go up front, because I know people are like, everything's, the world's fast and people are busy. So before I go into like how we came together, and then some fun stories, why don't we go right into the meat of value? Men, let's, I'm gonna go with a series of questions. What is, what's the state of the union on speakers? For the people that are speakers right now, getting paid 10K, 15K, 25K, 40K, 50K, 75K, 100K, 150K, that range, as speakers, what should they know? Is the market back? What's going on with virtual, physical, global, US industries? Give us a state of the union of the speaking, demand, or even supply? Is like, now with social media,

• 2:44Speaker 00

  you know, what I did well, now everyone does, like, are there too many speakers, so the price is going down? Are the best of the best? Like, all that good shit, fire away.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say, first off, there's never been more speakers and more events than ever before.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  We're still doing virtual events. I would say maybe 10 to 15% of our year is virtual.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  And talk to me about the broader market, because I don't, you know, obviously, we'll get into the Vayner Speakers stuff, but like, general market. What is an A-lister getting to do a virtual? And what is like a C-list? Like, what's the rate, like, from free to like, like, what?

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I mean, the marketplace has grown. When I started in this industry, like, top of the market.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  Oh, I apologize. On, on virtual?

• 3:22Speaker 01

  On virtual.

• 3:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Got it. Yeah. Well, I think with virtual, it is usually like the big-name celebrities can be getting a couple hundred thousand dollars for a virtual to try and draw in traffic.

• 3:31Speaker 00

  Amazing, right? Everybody at home, can you imagine? Couple hundred thousand to do a Zoom for an hour? Amazing. And?

• 3:38Speaker 01

  The low end, you mean, people doing it for free.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  That's good. It's an opportunity to get in front of an audience.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Yep. I spoke for free in my career.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 3:44Speaker 00

  I'll still do it, if there's a trillion people and I think it's smart. No, really, I know you're laughing, like, you're laughing because I say no to like hefty six figures, but if there's, if, if, uh, if you're listening right now and you're like, let me just make this up. If you're an event in South Korea, if you're, if the biggest event in South Korea draws 200,000 business people, and they emailed me, and they said, "You will stand," and there'll be 200,000 people in this mega arena that we created in South Korea, I would go. I know that's not real, but I would go. All right, so, you know, 5K, 10K, those are real?

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's kind of the market, over COVID especially, the virtual market changed, because now it's, we need one in draw traffic, and everyone else can fill. They don't have to be the big names. So it's kind of been a gap that was created.

• 4:30Speaker 00

  And what about physical? Are we fully back physical? 80% pre-COVID?

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Fully back.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  We're more than, stronger.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  And what about fees for speakers? Down, up, left, right?

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Up, across the board. The high end is up.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Speakers are pushing their fees higher right now. I think they're

• 4:46Speaker 00

  The A-list?

• 4:47Speaker 02

  It hasn't hit the tipping point. Not even the A-list. I think, I think B, C, and D-list also.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  So the 15K guy or gal, 25K, that kind of move? Everyone's moving a little?

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, everyone's going for the money grab right now, and I think we will start seeing it to peter off soon, but right now, there's, there's a lot of money that's flowing and

• 5:03Speaker 00

  And so what about the people that are booking speakers on their side? They're hearing this? So like, a lot of people just got excited. And a small group, you know, Fortune 500 executives that are booking speakers, events that are, you know, thinking about starting and need a big name, what's, what is a good strategy for, how should they be thinking about not getting too caught on fees going up if they have the same budget as last year and they're hearing this like, shit, what do I do? Like, how should they attack? Just find new names? Like, what should they be thinking about?

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Start by going to Vaynerspeakers.com, obviously. It's the smartest move you could make.

• 5:35Speaker 00

  Nice right hook.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  But the reality is, it's all about

• 5:37Speaker 00

  And that is true, by the way, right? Like, because going to, if we don't represent them, you're gonna refer them, and back to like, why we think we're the best, we, and how we've built so fast is, we're not scummy about it.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  Right. We also were bespoke. So that's been the whole thing, is that over the last 10, 15 years, markets changed. Not everyone does the same event. It's not just get up on stage at this event, do something. It's, we want a longer-form interview, right? We want to do a workshop afterwards. We want to make something special. So that's what we try to do, is listen and try and figure that out.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  And, and on the exclusive side, who does Vayner Speakers rep exclusively these days in case somebody's trying to book one of these people?

• 6:12Speaker 01

  In addition to you, Jesse Itzler, Will Goddara, Kerry Walsh Jennings, Dominique Dawes, Christina Tosi.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Ryan Holiday.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Tom Bilyeu, Laura Gassner-Odding. You know, we have about 23 exclusive clients right now. We just signed Don Miller from StoryBrand down in Nashville.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  So we're with a lot of different people and a lot of different, you know, industries.

• 6:32Speaker 03

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• 7:01Speaker 04

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• 7:13Speaker 05

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• 7:17Speaker 00

  For somebody who's listening who wants to be, because we're at, like, we're one of the kind of leaders, and there's others, they want to be an exclusive speaker. How big do they need to get? And/or how hot do they need to get? Like, what do they need to do? Either be, what do they need to do?

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Well, I always remind people, and this sounds counterintuitive, you don't necessarily need an agent.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, fair.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Some great clients, great speakers do not have agents, they have great businesses. An agent helps you harness what you're doing, and help you figure out a strategy behind your speaking.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  It's been really interesting. Some of the names you named have thought about being internal, have been, you know, have been free agents, and we've crushed for them. It's been eye-opening for me, by the way, meaning, as you know, in a lot of ways, as one of the only humans that has ever kind of repped me in a commission-based environment, I mean, hence how Vayner Speakers even happened. You know, I myself am an agent, and I've always kind of sold myself. But lately, I've been like, man, I really need to think about, like, if I, like, I want to be in commercials, I decided, because I think it's funny, like, genuinely, I think, I think I'd crush, and my cameos and those would be good, and like, it would work for the brand, and I just want it from, like, when I'm 90, I want to be

• 8:28Speaker 00

  like, remember when I did, you know, this commercial or that commercial? So, but I realized, like, in that environment, I'm like, no, I need to, like, really think about, like, there's a lot of people who grow by having a great manager or agent, even if they themselves are great at it. And I've seen that up close and personal with two or three of the names that you just rattled off, they're doing way better by coming with us, even though in their gut, they were like, no, I want to do it myself, or, you know, or I want to be, I want everyone to rep, you know. It's funny, I said, I said something to one person once, that wasn't about Vayner Speakers, they were gonna go to a different speaking bureau. I was, you know, friendly, again, back to not being transactional, karma. And he was struggling with going exclusive to this one firm versus staying free agent. Like, meaning, like, everybody can rep me, and like, whatever.

• 9:13Speaker 00

  And I said, look, for some people, they can do it. But for most people, if everyone's repping you, no one's repping you.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  And I think where we've created success with some of the clients that you're talking about is they trust us to look at their entire business and what they do, the same way we do with you, right? It's not a yes and no. It's not a transaction. It's not just a deal. It's, does this make sense? How can we re-?

• 9:36Speaker 00

  We were literally before we record, yeah, before we were recording here, I was telling you, hey, I need to get into to LA and London and Singapore more. So, you know, if there's speeches there, let's strategize. Yes, it's more.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Strategy is the key. That was something I don't think we realized when we started the company. It's gonna be such a game changer for us and our clients. You know, when I spent a decade at CAA, we were just transactional. We were just focused on getting speaking engagements. Here, we really look at the holistic view of what everything else people are doing, and we're not touching it. We don't do book deals, right? We don't do commercial deals, right? That's not the stuff we're doing, but we still care about it because a rising tide lifts all boats.

• 10:11Speaker 00

  Smart. Uh, let me go with a different series of questions. I've always recommended this. Curious if you guys agree with me. A lot of people ask me, like, I want to get into speaking. I always yell at them. I'm like, speak for free at scale, reach out to places, don't have an ego. You, if nobody's calling you, that means you're not as good as you think. And so, like, start Googling and chat GPTing, like, like, if you live in Nashville, like, and you want to be in business, like, literally Google and chat GPT, like, what are the upcoming Nashville business conferences? Go to the website, email, have humility and be like, hey, I think I'm a good speaker. Here's my social.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  You tell the story about when you used to pour wine at that first event to get on stage?

• 10:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, like, my first, like, I would do anything, like, like, when I was building Wine Library TV, even more, even forget about pour wine is like, this is an added value. I, my first first event that I think you're referring to in DC, Nick O'Neill's, like, DC meetup, I was the help. There was no stage. I stood at a table and poured wine. I just wanted to be at a tech conference, like.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  I don't think people realize that, and I think we say the same thing.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  Look, you guys know this, because you know, like, you know, I've been saying this a lot more, because I think, I'm trying to find a way of how to communicate that humility is a superpower without me saying, I'm humble, you know, like, it's easy for me to be like, hey, tenacity's a superpower. I'm tenacious. I think when you say you're humble by nature, are you like, so? But I'm trying to find a new way to, in 2025, to tell people, I'm watching a lot of people right now that are on the same path that I was on or want to be on, and just I can see that humility is their vulnerability. But I think this is interesting, you got, because you have real look at this. You guys rep a lot and have repped and have been in the game for collective fucking forty years or fifty years, whatever the fuck you guys' number's at right now. I also think, like, humility not only comes in, like, working for free, it's also being like a

• 11:58Speaker 00

  a pleasure to work with. As you guys know, I assume all these, you know, you know, people, like, people that are like, on their first, that's their second ever booked speech, nobody really even knows who they are, and they're like, I need two plus twos, you know, I need a private jet, I need fucking green M and M's in my room, don't, don't look at me in the face, like, as you guys know, mine's just like, whatever.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  Be human, be human. But I, I think on the humility part, where I almost where I think where you're going and what I would say to other people is stay in your lane of what you know. Don't try to go out there and say, I can talk on these fifteen topics. That's not humility. Humility is recognizing what you are really good at and pitching yourself in that area and being really good in that area, instead of agreeing to a deal just because there's money and, and now it's a conversation on AI and you really don't have the insight.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  It's self-awareness, right? It's not saying I can speak on marketing, management, leadership, teamwork. It's like, pick a lane and then figure out how that could be helpful for any organization, any audience.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's funny, I know that, because we've been through this, us three for so long, I know that in 2026, a lot of my speaking is going to be about live social shopping, because we've seen this rodeo with me. But, you know, again, one of the things that's fun is I'm putting up all these videos of me in 2009, 11, 13, talking about live shopping. This has been fifteen years for me, not because, and by the way, I'm not gonna be talking about AI agents, even though I know it's one of the biggest things going on. My meeting prior to this, probably why I'm bringing it up, was two hours of really getting into the understanding of AI agents. And in two years, I might talk about it, but I think I've always been petro, one of the reasons I'm an improv speaker is because I only talk about what I know. I don't need the slides.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  We were in Australia and it must have been 2019, you were talking heavily on TikTok. And the conversation was, it's not just for the little kids and the girls that want to dance. And that's all you were talking about, and you're leaning into it.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  And one of the last talks you gave before, like, the pandemic started, this is January 2020, somebody asked a question about blockchain. And you were like, I don't know enough about it, but what I do know scares me about the opportunity that it's gonna be.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think, I think I'm glad you guys are saying this. This is a, Steve, I'm glad you picked up on it. I think it's a great, great call out. Everybody, if you want to be a great speaker, don't fake it. I'm telling you, you will get caught. People can feel it. You're not good on stage when you're talking about shit you don't know. You know, you know, you can memorize a deck and those are literally the public speakers who've done fairly well. Some of them have done well, but Zach will tell you for sure, and Steve as well, but Zach, I know I've talked a lot about this, like, that's who, like, the A players make fun of. Like, you know, it's like, what are you gonna give the same speech over and over? That's memorized, you're a robot, that's getting less interesting with AI coming and fucking virtual reality, like.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  And it can't just be about yourself, right? I think people are, are kind of, they think like, I've got this amazing story, I overcame these great odds, and oftentimes they did. But that's not interesting to other people. It's like talking about your fantasy football team. No one else cares.

• 14:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, guys, the, the people that, like, shot Osama bin Laden, or like, had their leg eaten off by a bear and like, made it, like, those individuals do get a nice two, three year run, but but they have to be that extreme that everybody knows about it. It's, it's not like, you, you can't be Al Bundy and be like, I was good at high school football, four touchdowns. Like, it, it needs to be so big and so extreme, and even those people struggle to have a ten year run, because like, okay, it's been heard.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  Unless, unless they reinvent themselves and then become good at something else.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  Give me, give me, you got an example, or?

• 15:26Speaker 02

  No, I, you know, I think where I, where I was gonna go with it was, is, it was more about the AI conversation in our space, like, live events are not going away. People want to be networking in front of people.

• 15:36Speaker 00

  Forever.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  Speakers on stage, the AI actually should scare people that are not experts, that think they can learn from AI.

• 15:43Speaker 00

  Or aren't great on stage.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:46Speaker 00

  Right? Like, like, like, look, I don't think, I mean, I don't care how advanced VR gets, like, like, we can go to an AI, we can go thirty years out. Even if I'm living in a fucking pod in the middle of nowhere, which, by the way, I can get, I'll be honest with you, I can get sold on it. Like, you're still don't want, you're, you're still, we're, and we may go robotic, I don't know, but I'm gonna tell you this. As long as, like, the soul of a human's a part of it, you're gonna want to come out of it. At time, like, there, there is no full, there is no one hundred percent. And I, I actually think it's going to make things like speaking events, you can see it with standup comedy. Between the political nature, where comedy really does well when we're all hurting,

• 16:29Speaker 00

  and the nature of coming post-COVID, you've got like, and with what Netflix has done for standup comedy, just general awareness. You've got comics that, on where their brand sits today, ten years ago, couldn't sell out small venues, selling out humongous venues. And I think the same, you know how much I believe that the keynote format is the other one, and I think it's gonna keep going, I agree. What else should we talk about from a Vayner speakers or, or a general speaker? How do we bring as much value for everyone who's listening? What else is? We, what haven't we touched on just yet that is like something you knew you want to talk about when we did this?

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Well, I'm curious for you, right? You've been a speaker, one of the foremost speakers in the world, like, you've done a hundred speeches in a year multiple times, right? But then you ran an event.

• 17:11Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  You had to bring speakers.

• 17:13Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  How did you balance all that? How did you balance your vision?

• 17:16Speaker 00

  By leaning on you, Zach Nadler, so heavily that I barely even think I thought about it at all.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  Other than, it was, you know, listen, you really, first of all, it's the truth, by the way, Zach Nadler is like, for anyone who doesn't know, not only Vayner speakers, but moonlighted out of the goodness of his heart, uh, helping us at BeCon in a humongous way, and it couldn't, wouldn't have been anywhere close to what it was without you. And I'm excited for the next BeCon, uh, whenever that is, uh, staying on my stage, uh, at, at closing keynote thing.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  I appreciate that, but I'm gonna, yeah, like, really, like, you had to balance, you know, business relationships, personal relationships, and an audience.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know this. Yeah, so I'll answer, thank you. Uh, one, audience over everything. So, I didn't care if, like, you know, how did we get such great speakers? I am such a mensch, karma-driven human, that I have so much equity in the universe that we're able to get people, uh, in a manner that most people can't.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:16Speaker 00

  And that, I, and this is, by the way, that, let me go on a side tangent. This is why nice guys finish first. When you actually have equity in the world, like, I know, and we work together, and I know my relationships with you guys, I know I could ask you for an actual favor that's hard. Because I'm a good dude. And I just don't understand how people don't know it. So back, so, A, that was a huge part. I think a lot of people don't have that leverage. Right? It's trans, back to Vayner, why Vayner speakers is gonna be the biggest speaker in the world. We're not transactional. Even the people we don't work with, you know, we're just gonna help. Like, even this whole audience that's gonna hear this for years to come.

• 18:52Speaker 00

  So first it was audience, like is this good? Like I have tons of friends, like I want to speak, I'm like fuck, uh, uh, uh, I'm, I'm sick, I'll get back to you right now. Like, you know, cause it's got audience over everything. That's my life, let alone VCon. Then it was do right by those speakers. But what was great about it was that I had already done right by all of them. So the last part was logistical and that's where you came in. Like the fact that I had peace of mind that they weren't gonna like not have like be taken care of properly. When especially when someone's doing you a favor, which is what the speakers did for me. Like, you know, so many of them did bend backwards, like, you know, you want to make sure like the hotel room's ready. And like, and if they did, you know, some of these people were quite famous.

• 19:34Speaker 00

  If they did have a weird request, like were there like those things accomplished and like, and, and like always, what was on my mind was when the flight's delayed, when the room is this, when, wait a minute, I'm on the same panel. Cause they don't pay attention. I don't like that, but like all the shit that you personally had to deal with. You know, had you not been in that role, I would have been way more anxious. Cause all of those things I would have cared overly about.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  I, I found, I found it interesting watching that role with the dynamic of you being a speaker and then being now an event organizer.

• 20:09Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  And leaning on Zach as a bureau and also as your bureau, for you to say, this, this is a person that would make sense on stage. And Zach saying, but what, what content are we driving, right? And, and having that dialogue of always book a speaker if you want a speaker, doesn't matter. You want that name, but then also bringing up the conversation of what is the content? How do we build the, the content around?

• 20:30Speaker 00

  And it was less, and it was less, you know, uh, over three years, it was less like, oh, this person stinks, Gary. What are you talking about? It was more about, to your point, Zach, and, and I was in the same place, like, uh, what was cool about VCon is it's so broad. Right? It was mindset, entrepreneurship, strategy, technology, like most people at this point can play in some place. But to your point, I'm like, oh, they can play in one of these things. What Zach, you, others did was let's refine that to something of value. And then really at the size and scale we were playing at, getting the panels right, what's the right mix? Having different flavors or going all in on a flavor on a panel. Yeah, it's an amazing strategy to put, but, but, but to be frank, man, and I think this will make sense to you.

• 21:14Speaker 00

  That keep, the, the event for me on that part, it comes very natural because the only thing I've ever thought about is consumer.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:22Speaker 00

  The only thing I've, the way I sold baseball cards and wine and myself and VCon and what I'm doing with VFR. Like it's always like, how is this good for them in the short, medium and or long term? Which one is it? Am I communicating well, blah, blah, blah?

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Well, and you've always, I should say, you've kind of given me the gift of context over the last 15 years. Like understanding the context of things, I think with VCon, you would come in and say like, hey, are we thinking about doing something like this? Or this guy'd be really fun to tell this, this side of his world.

• 21:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  And that was something that I think we didn't look at, and I think it was the most fun for me compared to all the other events I've worked on. Because you kind of, you, you took the leech off a little bit and you let us do things that no other event was touching.

• 22:01Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  And letting people talk about what they want to talk about, which is fun for the audience. They get excited about that.

• 22:06Speaker 00

  I got a good one, cause we have this kind of audience. This might be a good clip in itself. What if you're a speaker that's fallen off? There's a lot of them, you know, I've been in the game for a long time and I've been very fortunate. I do think context and evolution, I got fortunate that my skill was of the moment, which has allowed me to like real, and I'm early to, it's, I understand why my speaking in hindsight now look reflecting on, I'm like, oh, right. My core skill of like, not seeing around corners, but fuck, fast mover on it and right about it has really paid dividends. Not everybody got the luck of the DNA draw that that's their skillset nor able to communicate. Like what about speakers? Cause I feel like there's probably a thousand of them and that's the number I'm going to use that are either here to this podcast or see the clip.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  If we decide to use it, that were like making 50K four years ago, and now nobody wants them up for zero. Like, what, what do they think about?

• 22:59Speaker 01

  There's style and there's content.

• 23:00Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  Right? You were lucky to have both.

• 23:02Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Right? You can get on stage and deliver a talk on cookies if you wanted to.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Right? Some people don't have that skill, but they gotta lean on content. And if that's what they do, they gotta refine their content, make it more modern, make it more relevant. And, or if their style's suffering, get a coach, have someone help you figure out how do you get better? Collect the audience and get them back to you. Uh, I think a lot of people just go to like, let me write another book. But that rarely works, cause it's like, if you don't have the next thing, it doesn't matter that you're writing another book to make yourself relevant. You gotta refine that content.

• 23:33Speaker 00

  I'm going to put you guys in a corner, but, but it's a fun corner. Uh, but it's going to require some humility, but it's awesome. So here it is. Let's give some flowers. In your career, Steve, which person did you see come across the game? And you're like, I don't see it, this person's not going to be much. And you passed on or didn't like, and, and you have a good one? You have a good one? Okay. So which person came across and you were like, I don't know, like this is a complete waste of time. They, they won't be around in six months and then went on to have a good career.

• 24:10Speaker 03

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• 24:40Speaker 04

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change, your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.

• 24:52Speaker 05

  Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  I watched one video on him and his name is Will Goddara. And I saw, and I said to Zach, and we were talking about it and I said, good content. The video that I saw, I didn't feel the energy was there on stage. And, and it's actually a great lesson of when people are evaluating speakers to only look at a video or look at a video that you don't even know who they're actually talking to. So you don't know the context of the audience that may not be your audience. And the first time I said it to Zach, I said, I'm not sure. I, I don't, I don't see it yet.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  How many events did he do last year?

• 25:33Speaker 02

  A hundred and twenty-two.

• 25:35Speaker 00

  You know what's funny about that lately? Because I've not been speaking as much, cause I'm focused on the companies and doing it less. Though I'm starting to think Jones is, you guys can tell, I really love the stage. But it's funny, last year was the first time, because I, I guess I'd maybe been between COVID and out of rotation a little bit. Or much more limited than the hundred plus, like I was doing for years. I've had so many people recently say, I cannot, I've seen 39 of your keynotes on YouTube. I cannot believe how different this was being here live. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's kind of like music, right? Makes sense, right? You see like bands or whatever, like, and then you see it like, that's cool. Yeah, that makes sense.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  Which is also why when live, live events came back, virtual drops so significant.

• 26:22Speaker 00

  Zach, how about for you in your career?

• 26:24Speaker 01

  There are multiple people, right?

• 26:26Speaker 00

  I'm sure, I'm sure.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  I get it wrong all the time.

• 26:27Speaker 00

  Of course, that's the game.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  There were some of the, the clients I worked with the most at C I A were clients that I originally was like, I don't see it.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  And I think.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  But let's, Zach.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  I'll give you a good one.

• 26:37Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  Uh, Diana Nyad.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  She swam from Cuba to Florida.

• 26:41Speaker 00

  Yes, I remember, I watched the movie, loved it.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Phenomenal speaker.

• 26:43Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  But I actually made that decision without even seeing her speak. I just knew the story. As soon as I saw her speak, I was like, oh, like, yeah, of course. She's a one woman show.

• 26:52Speaker 00

  What about, what about seeing them speak? Cause you're, you're, you're, I'm not letting, I'm not letting you off the hook.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Another one, uh, another client, actually, Brian Solis.

• 27:01Speaker 00

  Oh, nice, Brian.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Who came around when we started working together.

• 27:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, when I was around.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  And I didn't.

• 27:06Speaker 00

  Me, Chris Brogan, him, you know, that era.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  And I think I, like a lot of others, kind of pigeonholed into a social media world where that wasn't what he was.

• 27:14Speaker 00

  No.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  And he is just someone who also sees around corners, but adapts the, the idea of innovation for like, for companies to understand how to, how technology is changing the way they're actually going to see things.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  And we now represent him.

• 27:28Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  But 15 years ago, I was like, I don't see it.

• 27:30Speaker 00

  That's fun. Anything else we didn't touch on that you kind of hope to get off here?

• 27:34Speaker 01

  No, I think it's a, it's a.

• 27:35Speaker 00

  I got to what I wanted. I wanted the, someone who's stale, someone who wants to get into the game, somebody who's on the corporate side of like how to think about, um, hacking it.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Well, I think ultimately what we see right now is like, it comes back to authenticity. We, we try to be transparent. There's a lot of phonies out there and I think it's harder than ever to, to see them. Um, and especially for inexperienced meeting planners. So I feel like I always just say like, educate yourself. If you're a speaker, educate yourself on the marketplace, know the players, be in front of everyone. If you're in a meeting planner, don't just take someone's word for it. Watch a video, read up on them. And I think ask questions, not a lot of people do that.

• 28:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. Steve, anything for you in closing?

• 28:14Speaker 02

  I, I would say, I would just piggyback, piggyback on, on that is, is work with someone and talk to someone that has some insight. That's different than what you're just seeing with your own eyes, right? Is, is you can see certain things, just like I, on that Will situation. But the more I talked to people and read into it and dive, dive deeper, it just allowed me to see it from a different perspective.

• 28:33Speaker 00

  Makes sense. Uh, you know, I would close with, if you want the greatest keynote ever given by a human being, go to vaynerspeakers.com and request Gary Vaynerchuk. Have a good day. See ya. Hey everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and uh, thanks for being part of this.

• 28:57Speaker 04

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change, your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.

• 29:09Speaker 05

  Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

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• 29:42Speaker 00

  Journey. See you later.