How to Navigate Difficult Situations as a Speaker with Rick Clemons [Coaches Corner]

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 May 2023

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Speaking is full of surprises. Even if you’re equipped with the best business plan, vision, and work ethic, things don’t always go as planned. Knowing how to handle tricky situations is something that comes with experience, but there are many steps you can take to shore up your speaking business against pitfalls. While there’s no reason to dwell on worst case scenarios, it’s valuable to have a game plan or safety net when it comes to potential problems. Fortunately, our TSL coaches have guided thousands of speakers through these strategies. For episode 446 of The Speaker Lab podcast, our director of student success Maryalice Goldsmith and coach Rick Clemons share how to avert–or at least ameliorate–potential disasters in your speaking business.

Clients are perhaps the most typical yet unpredictable source of tricky situations. Whether it’s a misunderstanding about the speaking topic, payment timeline, event schedule, or intellectual property, even the most well-meaning client can cause a miscommunication. Once you realize early on which events are a poor fit for your mission and recognize the red flags of a shady contract, you will save yourself and your clients time and energy. Doing your due diligence on potential clients–including reading all the fine print and reviewing your own contract terms–is essential. This can seem like a momentous task, but Rick and Maryalice break it down into manageable action items that you can start implementing today. From designing a contract, to consulting an attorney, to hiring your first employee, our coaches have every step of building your speaking business covered!

As we reiterate time and time again, the key to getting this right is having systems in place. This coaches’ corner show is sure to get you thinking about how you can systematize your speaking business to keep it running smoothly for years and even decades down the line.

You’ll also learn all about:

Polite and supportive ways to decline a gig and recommend alternative speakers.
How to decide if an iffy client is worth compromising for.
How to roll with the punches when you can’t avoid a last-minute setback.
How to navigate money conversations and secure deposits early on.
Why having an attorney look over your contracts is the best investment you’ll ever make.
Why overcommunication is key (and how it can save your business).
Which processes to document before you hire employees (hint: all of them).
…and so much more!

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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.
0:45.3	Hey, hey, what's our friends? Grant Bolden here. Delighted to have you here listening to
0:52.1	the speaker lab podcast for another episode of our Coaches Corner series.
0:56.6	Now, there are a lot of fun perks in our speaker lab programs, but our amazing coaches who guide our students through the ups and downs of building a speaking business are the heart of our mission.
1:06.3	Every single day, our coaches dedicate their wealth of experience to helping our students gain the
1:10.9	clarity and the confidence that they need to make an impact as a professional speaker.
1:15.5	Today, our director of student success, Mary Alice Goldsmith, is going to be taken over the show
1:19.3	alongside one of our other incredible coaches. And together, they're going to guide you through
1:23.1	time-tested strategies and tough topics with the practical advice and wisdom that only comes
1:28.2	through decades of experience. So whatever stage of your speaking journey that you're in,
1:33.2	I know that you're going to benefit from this conversation. So without further ado,
1:36.5	I'm going to pass the Coach's Corner.
1:51.3	How you doing today, Rick?
1:52.8	How's the speaking world treating you?
	...

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