Crafting Talks That Audiences Remember with Donald Miller

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

🗓️ 16 September 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“I have a friend who used to call it putting the cookies on a lower shelf. And you want to say to the audience things that they can absolutely understand and they can take action on and that are not confusing.”

What really sets the best speakers apart? This week on The Speaker Lab, host Grant Baldwin chats with Donald Miller, author, entrepreneur, and creator of the StoryBrand framework, about how to become the kind of speaker event planners and audiences remember.

Donald’s golden rule? If you confuse, you lose. Rather than trying to sound smart or fancy, focus on making your message unmistakably clear. Simple, repeatable soundbites are the key to winning hearts and growing your impact. And instead of trying to be everything to everyone, Donald urges speakers to solve a specific problem. Dialing in on your area of expertise makes you the go-to choice and helps book more gigs, not fewer.

In regard to feelings of imposter syndrome, speakers don’t need to know everything, just more than their audience. Donald reminds speakers that they’re not the hero, they’re the guide, and if they can help their audience win, they’ll stand out for all the right reasons. Packed with wisdom you can put into action today, this episode is essential listening for anyone who wants to master both the art and business of getting booked—and remembered—as a speaker. Don’t miss it!

You’ll learn:

Following proven communication principles over improvisation
How the StoryBrand framework clarifies and structures messaging
Defining your niche as a speaker
Establishing authority by knowing your subject
Positioning your audience as the hero
Prioritizing clarity over cleverness in communication
Using both speaking and writing to refine your content
And much, much more!

“The more niched down you get, the more likely you are to be on stages.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Fran, Graham Baldwin here.
0:01.4	Hey, what if I told you that there was a single marketing asset that you could use to book tens of thousands of dollars in paid speaking gigs before you even have a website?
0:10.2	Well, that tool exists.
0:11.4	And Dan Irvin, one of the speakers on our team, used it to book over $36,000 in speaking gigs without a fancy website or any social media presence.
0:19.6	Even better, we're going to teach you exactly how
0:22.1	to create that tool for your speaking business in under an hour. For a limited time, we're going to
0:26.9	be offering a free live training on how to build and use this marketing asset to start booking
0:31.9	paid gigs in just a few weeks. If you want to hear more, go to thespeakalab.com slash marketing.
0:38.5	That's what you got to do is go to the speakelab.com slash marketing and we'll see you there. Your talk will be infinitely more interesting if you if you obey the principles of communication
1:04.3	that align with what human beings respond to if you get up there and wing it and you have a
1:10.3	couple funny stories and you have a couple funny stories
1:11.3	and you have a couple interesting stories, you're probably going to get people's attention
1:15.3	for five or six minutes here and there in the talk, but ultimately you will not get anybody
1:21.0	saying you were the best speaker at that event for sure. Hey, so friends.
1:37.1	Welcome back to the speaker lab podcast.
1:39.3	Hey, excited for today's conversation with Don Miller, successful speaker, author, entrepreneur.
1:44.0	And so we're going to talk about his world as the speaker and how he kind of connects the dots, things about how speaking fits into what he's doing. And so excited for this conversation. So, Don, welcome. It's been way too long. But I'm going to have you with you. Yeah, really grateful to be with you. Yeah, it's going to be fun. So, first of all, one of the main things that you are known for is the story brand framework. It's one of the core things that you teach. I personally went through a workshop years ago, incredible workshop, great content, great material. And so I'd be curious, maybe we start with that as far as maybe for those that aren't familiar, kind of giving us a snapshot of what is the story brand framework. But then more specifically, like, how does that apply to speakers?
2:20.5	Because there's so much of what you teach that is relevant to small businesses in general.
2:26.5	I know what you talk about.
2:27.4	But as it relates to speakers, there's definitely a lot of application there.
2:30.8	Well, you know, the story.
2:32.6	And framework came about because Accenture years ago asked me to create a project management curriculum.
	...

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