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The Speaker Lab Podcast

How to Find and Maintain Excellence in the Speaking Industry with Jon Acuff

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

🗓️ 4 March 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“You have to regularly find things where the challenge exceeds the skill set."

In this week’s episode of The Speaker Lab Podcast, speaker and author Jon Acuff joins Grant to talk about the challenge of maintaining excellence as a speaker and the importance of continually pushing yourself beyond your comfort zones.

Jon also took the time to break down his successful speaking model, primarily focusing on keynotes and the occasional longer training engagements. There are pros and cons to every speaking business model, and Jon talks through what has worked well for him over his extensive speaking career. Additionally, Jon talks about making a transition from solopreneur to business owner and how he brought in a partner and president to scale his business and reach a larger audience. This transition was driven by Jon's desire to take his business to another level, prevent boredom, and not hide from potential growth.

Moreover, Grant and Jon also discuss the challenges of being honest with yourself about strengths and weaknesses and focusing on areas where you can excel. The conversation shifts to Jon's decision to host a live event, including insights into how he has navigated planning, content creation, and incorporating various elements like engaging stories and audience interaction.

Finally, Grant and Jon touch on the variety of potential business expansions Jon is considering, including workshops, masterminds, and enhancing social media presence while balancing personal enjoyment with business requirements. Overall, the episode provides great insights into Jon's speaking career, his strategic business decisions, and the meticulous efforts that go into creating meaningful content and events in the speaking industry!

You’ll learn:

  • How Jon built a successful speaking career
  • What goes into hosting a live event
  • How to master speaking business structure
  • How to balance your speaking career with personal life
  • Ways to improve your content and delivery at live events
  • How to continue your personal and professional growth
  • And much, much more!


“How do I create enough value for an audience where they feel like they got a deal at a high ticket event?

Episode Resources

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

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. I was at a huge event, the biggest event I've done,

0:59.1

and one of the other speakers texted me after and said,

1:01.7

I was in the green room trying to take notes for my speech.

1:05.1

And the TV was on and I could hear you.

1:08.2

And I had to stop and take notes on what you were saying because the content. And that was the nicest compliment I ever got. Because we like as speakers, you're like, I don't need to go to an event. I get it. Like, work hard. Get up early. Cold plunge. I know this stuff. And dude, I promise you, you will walk away with a full workbook where you're like, oh, like, I will tell you exactly what your purpose is with the easiest little, like, easiest little system.

1:32.8

And you'll be like, wait a second.

1:34.1

That's it?

1:34.6

Yeah, that's it.

1:38.3

Hey, it's our friends.

1:43.1

Grant Baldwin here.

1:43.7

Welcome back to the speaker lab podcast. I'm excited to have my good buddy, John Akef? Grant Baldwin here. Welcome back to the Speakelab podcast. Hey,

1:45.4

excited to have my good buddy, John Akef, with us today. It's been a minute since he's been on. And so I literally texted him a few weeks ago. I said, hey, you just need to come back on. We'll figure out what we're talking about. But always just fun to get to hang out with you. How you doing today, man?

1:58.4

I'm great.

1:59.0

It's good to see you again.

...

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