A New Chapter For TSL + The Future of the Speaking Industry with Dan Irvin

The Speaker Lab Podcast

The Speaker Lab

Authors, Public Speakers, Public Speaking, How To, Marketing, Smallbusiness, Coaching, Education, Entrepreneurship, Speaking, Business, Side Gig

4.8 • 575 Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

"So you can speak to it from a very professional level of here's what I'm seeing right now, grassroots, I'm in it, I'm doing the thing. And that's what makes this transition of you taking over and leading TSL really, really exciting. Because again, you're on the front lines, you're doing the thing."

WE'RE BACK.

Welcome to a very special episode of The Speaker Lab podcast! Today, Grant Baldwin is here to share a massive update about the future of TSL and talk about the future of the speaking industry.

After more than a decade building The Speaker Lab into one of the most trusted resources for aspiring professional speakers, Grant is passing the baton — and today, he's here to talk about it with the person taking the reins: Dan Irvin.

Dan isn't new to the TSL world. He's been with the company for over five years, has hosted hundreds of webinars, and personally enrolled nearly 500 students into the program. But more than that, he's a full time professional speaker himself (who is right now in a stretch of doing ten paid gigs in ten weeks!). He knows this world from the inside out, both as a coach and as someone actively speaking to dozens of audiences every year.

But what's important isn't just the future of TSL — it's also the future of the speaking industry as a whole. Dan and Grant believe that right now is an incredible opportunity for paid speakers, and they're here to tell you why — and how you can take advantage.

In this conversation, Grant and Dan get candid about the transition, reflect on what's made The Speaker Lab work, and tackle the question many speakers are asking right now: what does AI actually mean for this industry?

You’ll learn:

Why Grant Baldwin is passing the reins of The Speaker Lab after 10+ years — and who's taking over
How Dan Irvin went from corporate COO to full-time speaker
Why Dan believes speaking is AI-proof — and the 3 reasons human speakers can't be replaced
How AI is changing the speaking business (efficiency tools, not stage replacement)
Why information alone won't grow your speaking career — and what actually will
How to design your speaking business around your own life and goals
A sneak peek at a $900,000 speaking partnership story coming in the next episode
And much, much more!

"The Speaker Lab honestly changed my life. It changed my family's life. We want to continue to be that impact for other individuals and other families. And we know that when we really serve speakers well, they can go out and have a massive impact on audiences all over the place."

Episode Resources

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	So you can speak to it from a very professional level of here's what I'm seeing right now,
0:13.7	grassroots. I'm in it. I'm doing the thing. And so that I think that's also one of the things
0:17.4	that makes this transition of you taking over and leading TSL
0:23.1	really, really exciting because again, you're on the front lines. You're doing the thing.
0:33.6	Hey, as that friends. Grant Bolden here. Welcome back to the Speakerlap podcast. So good to have you
0:36.9	here with us today.
0:37.8	All right.
0:38.2	It's been a minute since you heard from us.
0:40.2	We got a lot to catch you up on. So gather around, give something to drink. And let's talk about some stuff. So you may be wondering, like, all right, we've had a lot of podcasts over the years. and then we haven't done one for a couple of months.
0:53.3	And so let me give a little bit of context and catch you up to speed.
0:55.6	So I've been involved with the Speak Lab, at the start of the company, over the years. And then we haven't done one for a couple of months. And so let me give a little bit
0:54.4	of context and catch you up to speed. So I've been involved with the speak lab. It started the company like 10, 11 years ago, something like that. And so we've had a lot of growth, a lot of success. We've been able to help a lot of speakers over the past several years. I think we got to a point we're like, hey, I think I'm ready to pass the baton, pass the reins to someone else who wants to continue the climb, continue the journey and helping serve speakers. And so super excited to officially announce that we made the decision to transition the speaker lab to two team members, Dan Irvin, who's going to be with us today. We're going to talk with him in just a second. And also Chris Sayo, both these guys have been with the company for over five years. They know the ins and outs of this world, both well connected in the speaking space and are going to do a phenomenal job. And so I'm really, really, really excited about the future of the speaker lab, where we're going from here. You know, it's been a super fun ride, and I know it's only just getting started here of what the future looks like, not just for the speaking industry, but specifically for the speaker lab. We're going to talk a lot about that today. But first of all, let me bring Dan into the mix because Dan's been on the podcast multiple times. You may have seen him on webinars. You may have interacted with him before. Like I said, he's been a big part of the Speak Lab for many, many years. So there's a decent chance you've interacted with him in some way. But Dan's going to be taking over as the host, as the voice of the podcast. And so we wanted to kind of do this co-hosted episode today. But to set the stage here and kind of give a little bit more
2:17.9	context, Dan, I'm wondering if I can just, can I hear a little bit more of your story, your
2:22.4	background for people who aren't familiar, so can kind of get caught up to speed on how you came
2:26.8	here. Yes, of course. I would love to do that. It's an exciting time going on here. And Grant, super excited to be here with you. Hopefully it's not the last
2:37.8	time, but excited to be with you today. Let's go. Yeah. So you are right. It's funny when you say that
2:44.9	you've been with the speaker lab, you know, you've been running it. You found all the pieces the last 10 or 11 years.
2:49.4	I've been here half that time uh working in a
2:52.5	variety of different roles uh i actually started working with the speaker lab uh shortly after
2:57.6	covid we remember covid right it's been so long it's been so long uh in a couple different roles
3:04.8	and uh with the marketing team and i've been on webinars. In fact,
3:08.1	I was counting them up not too long ago. I've done over 500 webinar, live webinars here with
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Speaker Lab, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Speaker Lab and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.