Keys to Thriving as a Professional Speaker with Brian Lord

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

🗓️ 21 October 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“When downselling, it’s really good to say, ‘Who is above me, and who is below me?’ And then also find out, looking laterally, who do you compete against? Who is within a similar fee range?...Who can I refer that might fit along that axis.”

In this episode, Grant Baldwin teams up with industry insider Brian Lord of Premier Speakers Bureau for a conversation about what it takes to succeed as a speaker. Brian’s insight is simple: know your place in the market, nurture real relationships, and don’t underestimate the power of referrals.

Brian shares his “speakers matrix” concept, challenging every speaker to map out who’s above, below, and alongside them in terms of fees and content. Why? Because networking up and down this axis isn’t just smart, it’s essential. Those connections bring in gigs you’d otherwise miss and make sure you’re not flying solo in the business.

Brian’s biggest reminder is to not get lost in the latest trends. AI may be hot, but your authentic message and consistently fresh content are what keep you booked and relevant. And always, always deliver value offstage because event planners love a speaker who’s great to work with, not just to watch.

Moreover, if you’re an independent speaker, these strategies matter even more. The takeaway from this episode is to focus on building your network, referring others, and adapting as the industry evolves. Impact and bookings come from meaningful relationships, not complicated tactics, because it’s human connection that grows your career, one conversation and one referral at a time!

You’ll learn:

The role of a speaker as a message bearer
Understanding down-sells and up-sells
Effective networking and referral strategies
Creating variations of your core service
Emotional separation from your “product”
The “Free market” effect: your booking successes as feedback
How off-stage behavior matters as much as on-stage behavior
How to fold hot topics like AI into core expertise
And much, much more!

“If you get the thought into your head that you are somebody who goes around helping people get better for having met you than if they hadn’t, then that’s your goal as a speaker.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, friend, are you looking for ways to book more paid speaking gigs?
0:03.7	Well, of course you are.
0:04.4	Maybe you're just starting out as a speaker. You're trying to figure out what to prioritize in order to get booked and paid as quickly as possible. Listen, if that's you, I want you to join us for a free live training where you're going to learn how to create the number one marketing asset that you need to consistently book more paid gigs. This is a tool that one speaker on our team used to book over $36,000 in paid gigs before he even had a website.
0:27.2	This training is free.
0:28.1	It's live and we offered a few times a week so you can find a time that works best for you.
0:32.5	All you got to do is head over to thespeakerlab.com slash get booked.
0:36.3	That's all one word.
0:37.2	Thespeakelab.com slash get booked. That's all one word, the speakerlap.com slash get booked
0:39.3	and register right now. We look forward to seeing you on the live training. You are not your content format.
1:01.2	If you're a speaker, if the whole world went deaf, you'd become writers.
1:05.1	If the whole woman blind, you'd become speakers.
1:07.5	You're a message bearer.
1:09.3	And so it will change the format, whether AI changes it,
1:12.6	just like virtual presentations change, you're still a message bearer. Whether it's in person,
1:18.3	whether it's 60 minutes or some reason, you know, you go to this TED Talk thing and it's 19
1:22.0	minutes. All the speeches are going to go to 19 minutes. Well, they didn't go to 19 minutes.
1:25.1	They're back to 60. So you realize that it's
1:29.5	your message that's the important thing as opposed to the format.
1:38.0	Hey, it's our friend's Grant Baldwin here. Welcome back to the speaker lab podcast. Excited for
1:41.5	today's conversation. We're going to be chatting with our friend
1:44.3	uh brian lord who is one of the agents over at premier speakers bureau we actually had brian on uh i don't
1:49.2	know if you knew this back uh i think it was 2020 episode 310 we're on like 560 something 570 something at
	...

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