Overcoming Speaker Slumps and Building Momentum: Live Coaching with Erick Rheam

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

🗓️ 6 January 2026

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“If you’re consistent, you may miss the event with that event planner this round, but you’re going to get it the next round, and you’re going to get the next round too because you’re going to stay on top.”

In this episode of The Speaker Lab Podcast, Erick Rheam, professional speaker and author, opens the doors to a behind-the-scenes coaching session as Connor Wentling and Michael Hidalgo join him to unpack the realities of building a speaking career from the ground up.

Connor shares his journey transitioning from free gigs to landing paid opportunities within the municipal association market. Despite finding traction, he’s faced with the anxiety and uncertainty that accompany a slower season, prompting a deep dive with Erick into sustaining momentum. They dig into the nitty-gritty of keeping the pipeline full, leveraging referrals, and making strategic tweaks based on feedback.

Michael, meanwhile, discusses the challenge of prospecting habits and mastering the art of following up with potential clients. Together with Erick, he explores tangible ways to stay in the game, even when faced with delays and rejections. Erick also shares insights about the power of consistency, the importance of tracking your outreach, and why even a “not interested” is a positive sign.

Throughout the conversation, you’ll hear actionable advice on everything from upgrading your presentation skills to maintaining discipline with prospecting “Power Hours,” and understanding why the speaking business takes patience and resilience. If you’re ready for some coaching wisdom and inspiring reminders to keep moving forward, this conversation is for you!

You’ll learn:

The idea of an inflection point in every speaker’s career
Importance of leveraging each gig for referrals
Following up and tracking email opens and responses
Using event surveys to gauge authentic feedback
Rule of Three: pipeline should have three times the number of desired gigs
The Power Hour method
How to communicate with prospects post-event
And much, much more!

“When it comes to speaking, there’s always an inflection point for every speaker’s journey. The problem is we don’t know what it is.”

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	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, thespeakerlab.com slash get booked
0:39.3	and register right now. We look forward to seeing you on the live training.
0:43.9	Hey, friends, Graham Baldwin here. Hey, if you've been listening for a while, you know that we are
0:46.6	obsessed with helping speakers get booked and paid. Not someday, not after you have it all figured
0:51.0	out, but right now. Well, buckle up. I got some big news for you.
0:55.0	We just completely rebuilt and upgraded our flagship program.
0:58.5	It's now officially called Booked and Paid to Speak.
1:01.4	And it is the most comprehensive system that we've ever created to help speakers get results now.
1:07.1	Not theory, not fluff, not ideas, just get more paid gigs. And so whether you are a brand
1:13.3	new speaker and you're trying to figure out how to land your first few gigs or you're already
1:16.7	speaking, you want to scale into higher fees, bigger opportunities, this new program gives you
1:21.2	the exact system that our top speakers use to build a predictable, profitable, profitable speaking
1:25.7	business. You're going to learn how to launch, optimize, and scale a paid speaking business.
1:30.4	This is everything from how to position your message and build a world-class talk
1:34.4	to how to book gigs on repeat and scale your impact to bigger and bigger stages.
	...

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.