Hey, Fran, Graham Baldwin here.

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?

Well, that tool exists.

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.

Even better, we're going to teach you exactly how

to create that tool for your speaking business in under an hour. For a limited time, we're going to

be offering a free live training on how to build and use this marketing asset to start booking

paid gigs in just a few weeks. If you want to hear more, go to thespeakalab.com slash marketing.

That's what you got to do is go to the speakelab.com slash marketing and we'll see you there.

Hey, what's up, Rand's Graham Baldwin here. So excited to have you here today for a very

important episode of the Speakelab podcast. Now, every year, my buddy, Eric Ream and I get on the podcast for an episode that we call the state of the speaking industry. And this is where we talk about how things have changed in the speaking industry and event space and what's on the horizon for professional speakers in the months to come. And so that's what we're going to be doing here today is we're going to be talking about the state of the speaking industry for 2023. We'd like to zoom out, talk about the big picture a little bit. And also Eric's going to share some insights from recent speaking engagement and also what he's seeing that's happening on the ground and the front lines. There's a lot to be excited about, especially with the tension between the popularity of virtual events, the desire to return to

holding in-person conferences as well. And so some industries are shifting entirely to virtual.

Some are trying to maintain a balance between both. And some are just fired up to get back to

shaking hands, making friends, kissing babies, all that kind of good stuff that we've missed out

on the past couple of years. Now, there's some new unexpected areas in need of solution that good speakers can deliver, and there's a lot of great opportunities for beginner speakers to take by the horns and dive in as well. Now, don't get me wrong, though, we're not going to sugarcoat things. I know that the economy is, you know, that's big in the news right now, okay? And so a lot of industries and speakers are taking a hit in some ways. And so we're going to talk about those challenges to how they affect our recommendations for

aspiring speakers to focus on as they look at the year ahead and decide how to launch or

accelerate your business. And in some ways, it's a scary time to start on your own in a new

and unknown territory. So hopefully this episode with Eric and myself is going to help you

feel a little bit more confident going into 2023, whether this is your first or your 100th year speaking. Okay,

maybe not 100th, but you get the idea. So let's get right to it. Here's my conversation with

Eric Rame talking about the state of the speaking industry in 2023. Enjoy.

Hi, friends, Graham Bolden here.

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