064 | How Speaking Engagements Can Fuel Your Business Growth and Attract Ideal Clients with Laurie-Ann Murabito

[00:00:00] Patrick: Welcome to another episode of the Vital Wealth Strategies Podcast. I’m your host, Patrick Lonergan. And today we’re diving into the power of effective speaking, how it can elevate your business, attract ideal clients, and take your brand to new heights. If you’ve ever wondered how to use speaking engagements to grow your network, pull in the right clients, or even build a lasting reputation, Then you’re in for a treat today.
[00:00:24] Patrick: My guest is a master speaking coach, bestselling author and podcast host, Laurieann Mirabito. In this episode, we’ll explore the steps to get started with speaking engagements, how to craft an effective and memorable speech, and the neuroscience behind being a confident communicator. Stay to the end to hear Laurieann break down actionable advice for anyone looking to expand into the speaking world to enhance their communication skills.
[00:00:48] Patrick: Let’s jump in Laurie and Mirabito. Thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate this. I’m excited about our conversation today. We’re going to get into, uh, all sorts of topics. You are a master speaking coach, host of the be in demand podcast, bestselling author, and a professional speaker. And Laurie, and you’re someone who practices exactly what you coach and it’s great to have you.
[00:01:12] Patrick: I think this, this conversation is going to fit perfectly with our audience. Uh, we have entrepreneurs that are getting their message out there into the world. And, uh, I think there’s a ton of value in creating content where you have inbound calls versus making outbound calls. Uh, and so I’m, I’m excited to, to explore all this.
[00:01:30] Patrick: So thank you for joining us here.
[00:01:31] Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much for inviting me. Where do we begin?
[00:01:35] Patrick: Yes, this is great. So Laurieann, can you give us a little bit of your background? Uh, I know you came from a corporate background, but I want to, I want to hear Here’s how you started developing your, your speaking and coaching career.
[00:01:46] Speaker 2: Sure. I am from the healthcare industry. I’m from the direct patient care, moved over to the medical device and moved up. Found this thing called coaching one weekend and just kind of fell in love with it. And I looked at it as a beautiful form of communication for my team, but also with my customers. But unfortunately, I really fell in love with it and decided that I wanted to, like, make it my main thing.
[00:02:16] Speaker 2: And so I left my corporate job thinking, hey, if I build it, they will come, right? Yes, very young and naive. But I’m also a reformed, painfully shy girl who couldn’t even make eye contact with people. And, Part of leaving the corporate job and trying to network, I ran into a couple of other women and we realized that women network differently.
[00:02:39] Speaker 2: So we wanted to create an event that was geared towards women. So there was networking and education. And so they all whipped their heads and said, Lorianne, you do the speaking. And I, and I like, I shook my head and I said, okay. And deep down inside, I was like, what are you doing? You are shy. You don’t speak.
[00:02:58] Speaker 2: Speak in front of people. However, self integrity is one of my highest values. If I tell somebody I’m going to do something, I show up and I do it. And I showed up and I did it to a room, a standing room of just a full room of people for my first presentation. And I went into what I now call the college professor.
[00:03:24] Speaker 2: There was really no beginning, no warm up, no introduction about me. I just started lecturing the audience. And when I was done, and I know that this is a terrible way to end a speech now, but I said to the audience, okay, I’m done now. And if you want to talk to me, I’ll be in the back of the room. In which case people actually came up to me and said, so do you have a website?
[00:03:47] Speaker 2: Do you work with clients one on one? And I was just like, huh, like, well, like what, like I didn’t even know that I could share that kind of information. And so that’s how I ended up attracting the perfect clients to me. And that’s how I started using speaking.
[00:04:04] Patrick: I love it. And I think a point to highlight there that I think is a critical thing for entrepreneurs to, to, to take note of is it was, it was almost fire ready aim.
[00:04:15] Patrick: Like I’m going to go take action. You know, oftentimes we see entrepreneurs wait for the website to be perfect. They go get their LLC and their bank accounts and their bookkeeping and all these, all of these other pieces that really have nothing to do with revenue. Generating any revenue, uh, seeing if there’s a marketplace out there for a market out there for this product and service we have.
[00:04:35] Patrick: So, so that is fantastic. I, I appreciate your willingness to just like go out there and see what happens. So good for you.
[00:04:42] Speaker 3: Yes. Thank you.
[00:04:44] Patrick: Yeah. So how did we go from, okay, I’m up there sort of the default speaker, uh, nominated by my friends to now I’ve got a. You know, everything from a successful podcast, a coaching program, books, you know, can we, can we talk through how that, that evolution took place?
[00:05:01] Speaker 2: Yes. Like most of us entrepreneurs has been an interesting pathway. I never thought that I would become a speaking coach. I was just speaking and I was going to do life coaching. And from life coaching, I ended up doing executive coaching and I had joined National Speakers Association and all I heard them say was, write a book, write a book, write a book.
[00:05:22] Speaker 2: So I wrote a book and that is Rethink Leadership for Lessons to Make You Remarkable. And it’s just a modern day parable. And a few couple of years later, I had then ended up writing Rethink Your Leadership because now I was speaking in leadership. And Rethink Your Leadership is the book for people, like the most common questions and problems that I see executives having when they’re leading.
[00:05:47] Speaker 2: So I just wrote the book for that. And from there, like I was doing very well, except I was hopping on and off airplanes and it’s, you know, like you come home, you take the dirty clothes, you put it in the wash, you throw it back into the suitcase. That was my life. There was an incident that happened at Fort Lauderdale.
[00:06:04] Speaker 2: Um, that brought every plane to a screeching halt and it was that somebody was allowed to travel with their firearm and came out, put their, put their firearm together and came out shooting. And that’s when I said, Oh my God, I need a new business model. And two weeks later, I get a text message from somebody that says.
[00:06:25] Speaker 2: Hey, Lorraine, do you write speeches for people? So this is just about, uh, seven years ago now. And I was like, well, no, because I only write my own, but I was happy to help her. She was three years away from retiring from her government job, and you will stand on your head for three years. And she’d had this side hustle as a stylist for five years and losing money for five years.
[00:06:53] Speaker 2: Patrick, you know, as a tax guy, like, you know, that’s not a good business model. No, no, it’s good on the tax side,
[00:07:00] Patrick: but it’s not good for the profitability side. You know, read positive numbers there.
[00:07:05] Speaker 2: So I, I helped her. Write a speech, get booked, and leverage it into more. And after her very first presentation, she hit a home run, in my opinion.
[00:07:15] Speaker 2: She got referred to two other places to speak, and she walked away with three full paying clients. I said to myself, I wonder if anybody else wants to know what I know. And that’s what brought me into the online world.
[00:07:28] Patrick: Wonderful. That’s that’s fantastic. So I think about everything that you’ve done and there’s been an evolution there, right?
[00:07:35] Patrick: We were, we were speaking, we wrote a book, we started a podcast, we’re doing coaching, that sounds overwhelming to me, right? Like from like, I don’t know where to start, you know, if you were to think about, okay, I’ve done all of these things. If I had to start the business where I need to generate some revenue, where does it all begin?
[00:07:55] Patrick: What, what, what, what pieces do you put in place first?
[00:07:59] Speaker 2: I would still do the same thing. It would be speaking. I wouldn’t worry about so much about the website because I know speakers who don’t have websites and are fully booked out, you know, um, speaking gigs and also client, client coaching, you know, rosters, because speaking puts you in front of the right people.
[00:08:16] Speaker 2: Let me just give you some statistics here. You know, Patrick, cause you like love numbers, I bet. So there are today 20, 000 speaking events that happened tomorrow. There’s going to be another 20, 000 and the day after and the day after that number here in the U S is 7, 500, 7, 500. That actually, you know, let’s just divide it by 50 States, even though it’s not even cause nobody’s going to Alaska for a conference in January, they’re all going to Florida and Hawaii.
[00:08:46] Speaker 2: Okay. It’s a hundred and fifty opportunities. I live really close to the Massachusetts border. So I look at that as I actually have three hundred opportunities every single day. And that number I think is a very underestimated number of what actually can happen. That is from MPI, which is Meeting Planners International.
[00:09:08] Speaker 2: And so they’re basing that 20, 000 and 7, 500 opportunities over because of like hotel rooms that are reserved for meetings by associations. So one more very fun stat, and that is there are 225, 000 association and professional trade groups here in the U. S. They all have chapters in each state, if not more than one chapter, they have meetings every month, and they also have at least one yearly conference, if not two conferences every single year.
[00:09:45] Speaker 2: That’s a lot of opportunity. One of my clients, Um, he speaks in the real estate industry. And so I have this book that’s not being published anymore because it is like this four inch book of like Bible paper of all these different associations. So I took a picture and basically to send him to let him know, here’s how many associations are under the real estate umbrella.
[00:10:12] Speaker 2: Guess how many there were, Patrick? I
[00:10:17] Patrick: don’t know. I just think of the, we’re in real estate, and so I think of all the associations. There’s, I’m, I’m probably involved in like 20, and that’s probably just tip of the iceberg. It is.
[00:10:27] Speaker 2: Uh, 134
[00:10:31] Speaker 2: different associations under real estate. Now, that does not include, and I told him this, that doesn’t include property management and real estate investment. Okay. I didn’t even count those. I didn’t even take a picture of that for him. 134 under real estate alone. He could just speak to those 134 like every other year, just divide it up into two.
[00:10:56] Speaker 2: He would be set. Forever.
[00:11:01] Patrick: I love it. So somebody’s wanting to speak like, Hey, I think this is a great idea. I would love to get out there. I’m, I’m a recovering shy person. How do I, how do I develop a speech? How do I get on stage? How do I, how do I lay the foundation for, Uh, kicking off this career. Can you walk us through some of those pieces?
[00:11:20] Speaker 2: Yes. So how to get started, like, especially if you’re new or maybe you’ve done a little bit, but you’re like, I just don’t, I’m not getting more bookings. I don’t know who to reach out to. I would actually tell them to go listen to on my podcast, be in demand episode two 62, it is literally like a blueprint on how to get booked and I teach people.
[00:11:42] Speaker 2: Start with your warm market. Start with the people who already know, like. Trust you start with the associations, Facebook groups, um, just chamber of groups. I mean, you just mentioned that you’re already involved in a bunch of real estate groups. Like I would tell you, like, go knock on their door first.
[00:11:59] Speaker 2: These people who already know you, they just don’t know that you want to be a speaker. They don’t know that you have something to offer the group. Cause they’re not mind readers.
[00:12:10] Patrick: I love this. So you mentioned when you were telling your story, the way not to end a speech. So I assume there’s, there’s a framework that we should, we should use to, to craft an effective speech to an audience.
[00:12:26] Patrick: Yes. Do you, do you help people? It’s, uh, you know, you, you gave us the story of how your friend spoke to 15 members came away with three clients and two referrals, so that’s a great story. You clearly have the code cracked in regards to how to build an effective, we’ll call it story, you know, cause I think story is a key part of our speech, but can you talk a little bit about how we build an effective speech to influence people?
[00:12:50] Speaker 2: So you want to take your audience on an experience. So think of like the rollercoaster, like the kiddie rollercoaster, not the scary rollercoaster, you know, it’s just like there’s ups and there’s downs. So we want the audience, we have to grab their attention in the beginning. What you want is to grab people’s attention so that they put their phones down and they lean in.
[00:13:12] Speaker 2: Okay, but this is what happens naturally after your audience naturally crosses their arms and they lean back thinking, why should I listen to you? And that’s where the authority section comes in. This is where you are basically explaining very conversational in a story format. Why you’re the expert to continue listening to, to the end of the presentation.
[00:13:38] Speaker 2: Then you give really good value. I tell my clients, you can only tell them three tips. That’s it. It’s almost like you’re going on a trip and you think you’re going to take this, uh, checked bag. And then I say, uh, uh, uh, you only have a backpack. All those outfits. You got three that you get to choose, and you can only put three in your backpack.
[00:14:00] Speaker 2: So you have three tips that you’re going to share with them, and then you become a lawyer, essentially. You, with each of those tips, you want to have three different defending points, pieces of data, story, analogy, metaphor, And then, this is like section number six, is your call to action. Every meeting planner, every coach of a mastermind that you’re speaking to their group, they always want to move their audience, their group in the right direction.
[00:14:35] Speaker 2: So there has to be a call to action. They have to be able to take a step. And I teach my clients that you want to give. Really good gold nuggets that they can implement right away because that’s going to make you memorable. And then you tie it up in a beautiful close. It’s like that bow on your Christmas present or birthday present.
[00:14:57] Speaker 2: It just looks beautiful and it just brings it to a nice close.
[00:15:03] Patrick: I love it. I love it.
[00:15:04] Speaker 2: Experience.
[00:15:06] Patrick: This is fantastic. So I also know that you are love to dig into the neuroscience and, and I’m curious about where this fits in. Cause I feel like there’s, there’s neuroscience on the. The side of the speaker, right?
[00:15:21] Patrick: Like there’s things for me to go take action that I have to get, uh, dialed in. You know, I, I think about our, we’ll call it our neurochemistry, right? Like my, my dopamine response can affect my life in a tremendous way. Right? Like, you know, uh, person a might get a dopamine response from eating a Twinkie.
[00:15:39] Patrick: Another one might get a dopamine response from building a business. Right. And those are going to have different outcomes for people. And so I I’m. Undiagnosed ADHD. So I’m constantly like creating systems and processes and like. Cause I like need it. And if I don’t have it, I’m a mess. I’m all over the place.
[00:15:56] Patrick: So can you talk a little bit about neuroscience and how that fits into this whole process?
[00:16:03] Speaker 2: Taking your audience on an experience, you have to grab people’s attention. We are like worse than goldfish these days. So that’s why the startling statistics. So earlier I shared with you 225, 000 associations. You know, there’s 20, 000 events that are happening globally, and that’s not, I need 20, 000 speakers.
[00:16:24] Speaker 2: An event can actually be hiring 20, 30, 40 speakers at a time, depending on how many breakout sessions and tracks they have. That is all designed so that your audience is like, really? And they heard my story in the beginning, you know, so you know, like, I’m not somebody who. I’m somebody who actually experienced it, and my clients are getting really good results from it.
[00:16:54] Speaker 2: So it works. It’s not like Threads or, you know, TikTok or Facebook. You know, that’s only been around for a little while. Like, speaking. Being an orator has been around for years. You know, before we had books, people were storytellers and that’s how we passed down information from generation to generation.
[00:17:19] Speaker 2: So our brains, back to the neuroscience, is hardwired for story. But it’s about, so I, I teach my clients to use the neuroscience. They don’t even realize that they’re actually using neuroscience when they use my methodology, because. You know, like I explained to you, we grab people’s attention, but then they naturally lean back.
[00:17:42] Speaker 2: So we have to give them that reason to continue to listen that Patrick, you are the person to continue to listen to because you’re going to give them some great advice. And then some beautiful call to action because like, don’t worry, we will continue this relationship after I’m done speaking.
[00:18:01] Patrick: I love it.
[00:18:02] Patrick: This is, this is great. So I think another thing that’s, I’m just thinking through this process, right? Like, okay. Uh, Lori, and I’m going to create my speaker website. Uh, I’m going to spend some money on ads to drive people there. You know, we’ve talked about sort of my, my warm market that, you know, uh, but let’s say I, I connect with all those folks.
[00:18:24] Patrick: How do I, how do I build this into something where I’m not just sort of throwing money at it. I’m not just consistently showing up and, you know, cause I I’ve found like with the podcast, like being consistent is great. Like that’s sort of like table stakes for having a, a, a podcast. Worthwhile podcast, but you’ve got to start doing some other things to like get your, your audience to, to grow and expand.
[00:18:44] Patrick: So can you talk us a little bit about how we, we take, you know, we, we’ve sort of kicked off our, our speaking career, but now we’re ready to like grow this into the next level. What, what do we need to do there?
[00:18:55] Speaker 2: Well, I mean, how many times do you want to speak a year? I mean, like that’s a, that is, it’s a question that I ask a lot of people because you get to decide as an entrepreneur, you get to decide this is how many times I want to speak.
[00:19:10] Speaker 2: You know, we’re not talking about being a professional speaker. If you were, if you’re going to be a professional speaker, you literally could be speaking three or four times a week. Right. But if you’re an entrepreneur, you also know, like, I still got to do my business. I got to like serve my clients. So maybe you decide I’m only going to speak once a week or maybe twice a month.
[00:19:31] Speaker 2: Well let’s just go with the twice a month example for starters. When you’ve reached 24. Because let’s just say you’re going to do twice a month for all 12 months. You get to say when somebody says, Yeah, can we can we book you for next month? I’m sorry, I’m booked for for this year. But I am booking into the next year.
[00:19:51] Speaker 2: All of a sudden, like it makes people like, God, they’re already booked for there. And like this can happen in May. And it increases your value. This happened with one of my clients who she spoke in the quilting industry, which is a gazillion billion dollar industry, by the way, which I didn’t know of, but it also has a very short speaking window and these are run by older women.
[00:20:16] Speaker 2: That have like already retired essentially, and they don’t use the website. They actually have everything in, in a three ring binder. That’s how they pick their speakers each year. Well, Jan comes along and Jan is this young 30 year old who fell into quilting and wrote a book and started speaking. And every time I said to her, well, here’s how to, here’s how to word it.
[00:20:41] Speaker 2: So that. You know, like, yeah, you’re busy and you can’t fit them in this year. Let’s get them to book you for next year. She was like, it’ll never work. This is not how this industry works. I said, give it a try. Guess what? She got fully booked for three years in a row in an industry that doesn’t book farther than like next month.
[00:21:02] Speaker 2: They realized because of the way that she was just like, well, I’m fully booked, but if you want me to speak next year, let’s talk about a date now and you can have my this year’s rate.
[00:21:14] Patrick: And they were like,
[00:21:14] Speaker 2: done.
[00:21:16] Patrick: This is, uh, speaking of neuroscience, there’s a fantastic book out there called influence the psychology of persuasion by Robert Cialdini or Cialdini.
[00:21:24] Patrick: I’m not.
[00:21:25] Speaker 2: Sure. How to pronounce
[00:21:26] Patrick: it.
[00:21:26] Speaker 2: I’m not sure either if it’s Caldini or whatever, but I adore his books. Yes.
[00:21:33] Patrick: Yeah. Cause the principle you just talked about was scarcity, right? Like we want things we can’t have. And so when we, we take them away, people want it even more. So if I’m like in demand, or at least it appears I’m in demand because I’m not taking any bookings until next year, people are like, Oh my goodness.
[00:21:51] Patrick: I better get in line for this to get signed up before the opportunity goes away, because I don’t want to miss out on whatever this amazing thing is. So I love that piece of wisdom there. That’s great.
[00:22:02] Speaker 2: So that scarcity can come with your boundaries around your speaking. You know, another one of my clients, um, He does a lot of reffing for college basketball.
[00:22:13] Speaker 2: So guess what? He’s not really doing any speaking from November to March. So he’s been telling people for the past month and a half, I’m sorry, I’m fully booked for this year for 2024, but I am taking bookings for April of 2025. And they’re just like, Oh, we bet we better get him on our calendar now.
[00:22:34] Patrick: Yeah, this is great.
[00:22:36] Patrick: So I’m curious how you’ve got a long running podcast. Good for you. That is hard to do. And so many people, I think the average podcaster puts out like seven or eight episodes before they, you know, it’s called pod paid. They quit. You know, um, and so you’re well over 200 episodes. You just referred us to episode two 62.
[00:22:57] Patrick: Can you talk a little bit about how the podcast and public speaking, they’re, they’re clearly on the same plane, right? But how they, they can support each other.
[00:23:06] Speaker 2: Well, I believe that speaking needs to be redefined and so does stages and my podcast is my stage. You know, as soon as I hit episode 200, I changed the format of my show a little bit.
[00:23:21] Speaker 2: I did a lot of changes. You know, the second episode that comes out on Thursday is always my audience participating in the show. Whether it’s, they’re asking a question that I’m answering, I do speaker breakthrough sessions, but I also do these community calls. It’s like these mini training, so it’s a way for me to really engage with my audience.
[00:23:43] Speaker 2: But I will tell you that when I started my podcast, I had a coach and I brought up the idea because I was like, well, I’m a speaker, so I should be speaking. Speaking as a podcast host and she said no, I think you should learn how to convert people by writing Social media content shame on me for listening to her and believing her and I think it was like nine months later I just said screw it.
[00:24:07] Speaker 2: I’m just gonna like do this because I’m Stubborn and like that anyways, and just showed up on a call one day and said, Oh, by the way, I started a podcast and it comes out live tomorrow. And it was the best thing that I’ve ever done, Patrick. I’ve had so much fun with it and have been able to impact people in parts of the world that I never thought I would be able to impact.
[00:24:32] Speaker 2: And they’re finding me because of my podcast.
[00:24:36] Patrick: That’s fantastic. Yeah, I, I agree. I think of the podcast and the number of connections we’ve made both. Our professional network has grown. People listen to it, that are peers. And they’re like, Hey, this is really good. And they’ll reach out and we, we can do business together.
[00:24:49] Patrick: And then clients are listening to it going, Hey, this was fantastic content. I’m not getting this type of service anywhere. And the cool thing about, I’ll say our businesses, we’re, we’re a virtual financial advisory firm. Like we’re working with clients all over the United States. And so we’re not limited to borders for where we hire people for the work we do for clients.
[00:25:10] Patrick: Now. I think outside of the United States, I don’t know the tax code, you know, as well. So, you know, if you’re, uh, living in Spain, that’s going to be a challenge that, uh, I’m unfamiliar with, and I might have to refer you to a friend of ours that does international tax planning. But, uh, um, yeah, I, I absolutely love how it, Allows us to build connection with people, uh, build relationship with folks without actually sitting down and getting to meet them face to face.
[00:25:36] Patrick: They get and learn everything about us and go, yes, I, I align with the way you think, and I want to, I want to work with you or I don’t align with you. And that’s great. I want that as well, because if somebody is, doesn’t think the same way I do and has different values, please go find somebody else to be your advisor.
[00:25:52] Patrick: So I think that’s, uh, Beautiful thing that you’ve, you’ve sort of recognized that I think it’s really hard to do through. We’ll call it short form social media posts, right? Like when I only have 15 seconds to get your attention, it’s, um, it can be challenging to build. I
[00:26:07] Speaker 2: call Instagram, Tik TOK, Facebook, all that’s milk.
[00:26:12] Speaker 2: Milk has an expiration date. Okay. It just does. Whereas my podcast is. It’s working 24 seven, 365 days. If there’s a holiday here in the U S like it’s not a holiday someplace else on the other side of the globe, it is constantly working for me. People are constantly listening to podcasts because podcasting is the perfect multitasking medium.
[00:26:40] Speaker 2: I like never am I just listening to a podcast with paper and pencil at my desk. Driving, short, short trips, long trips, going to the gym while I’m on the treadmill, lifting weights on the StairMaster. I’m cleaning the house, you know, cooking dinner, always multitasking while I listen to a podcast. But at the same time, it’s very intimate.
[00:27:05] Speaker 2: Like I am in people’s ears. People are in my ears, you know, and I have this relationship with people and the one thing, and I’m sure that you’ve already experienced this, people who are listening to our podcast and then they meet us, they’re like, you, they say this to me at least, and I’m sure that they say this to you because I’m experiencing right now.
[00:27:26] Speaker 2: You are just like you are on your podcast.
[00:27:30] Patrick: Yeah. Yep. You can’t get from an
[00:27:32] Speaker 2: Instagram post. I’m sorry.
[00:27:34] Patrick: No, no, it’s, it’s so true. It’s true. So this is wonderful. Now you’ve worked with some, some really big names, Johnson and Johnson, American Cancer Society. Now, can you also discuss some of your like client success, you know, people you’ve worked with and some of the opportunities that, uh, have come their way through working with you?
[00:27:53] Speaker 2: Oh, certainly. So in the corporate world, the higher you go up in an organization, the more you are going to be required to speak. If you are afraid of speaking at meetings, it is, you are going to hit a glass ceiling. That’s all there is to it. So that was one way that I helped a lot of these companies like Johnson and Johnson American Towers, because being able to communicate with confidence is a leadership skill.
[00:28:18] Speaker 2: You know, in the entrepreneurial world, I mean, I teach people how to craft a signature speech. Their signature speech is designed to draw in the right people and push away the wrong people. But at the same time, also anybody who may not be a good client can still be a referral agent for you, either client wise or speaking.
[00:28:39] Speaker 2: My goal for my clients and my students inside InDemand Signature Speech is to, every time that they step off the stage, they have spin off business. And I’ll just share with you like, um, one woman because this was so interesting to me. So she spoke at a woman’s networking event. She gave her in demand signature speech.
[00:29:02] Speaker 2: She talks about nutrition and she’s a, she’s a children’s advocate for nutrition, about better health. Somebody from a bank, and this happened in Australia, by the way, somebody from a bank walked up to her, handed her her business card and said, we need you to speak at all of our branches around the country.
[00:29:22] Speaker 2: That added 26, 000 in her pocket, 26 different branches that she got to speak. And she was just like, it’s a bank, Lorianne, she’s like, I speak about nutrition, but that was somebody who saw if we can. You know, if our employees have better health, they’re going to produce better. They’re going to treat our customers differently.
[00:29:47] Speaker 2: That was, you know, very interesting. And, you know, I’m still in the process of following up with her because that was 26 opportunities. And all of those are going to have more spinoff business as well. So speaking is the gift that keeps on giving.
[00:30:03] Patrick: Yeah, no, I think that’s, that’s beautiful. And, and there’s something to momentum, right?
[00:30:09] Patrick: Like once we have inertia on our side and we, we start making progress forward, it’s so hard to get started. It’s so hard to break out of the mold. And that’s why I think having accountability with a coach is a tremendous thing, uh, because it’s so easy to put off when you’re doing it on your own. I’ll start that podcast tomorrow.
[00:30:27] Patrick: I will start my speaking career tomorrow, where if I’m, if I’m And we look at entrepreneur success, those people that have written a check to make a financial investment. It almost doesn’t matter in what arena, if it’s with a coach, if it’s with a franchise, like what have you, they make that financial investment.
[00:30:45] Patrick: Now they’re like committed, like, okay, I’m serious about this. We’re going to go take action. And you feel the pressure to like. It’s, it’s so much more, uh, likely to move forward when I’ve got regular coaching sessions. I’ve got a framework to work within versus me having to figure it out with Google or some other technology out there to like figure out a speaking career.
[00:31:10] Patrick: So
[00:31:11] Speaker 4: that’s right. Yeah.
[00:31:12] Patrick: Good for you. I think that is, um, I think that’s fantastic.
[00:31:16] Speaker 2: Yeah. What’s that phrase? They say, when you pay, you pay attention.
[00:31:21] Patrick: Yes, it is so true. And I remember one of my, this was almost 20 years ago. We had a real estate coaching business and I did a seminar and I had probably three quarters of the room was paying guests.
[00:31:34] Patrick: And I invited some friends and some people that were interested, but couldn’t pay. They were the worst guests. They were leaving halfway through. They weren’t showing up. Everybody that paid was dialed in and I’m like, never again, am I giving anything free? You can either pay or not come. I don’t care. But, um, that’s, that, that just like resonated with me.
[00:31:55] Patrick: The, when somebody, Pay some money, they attach some value to it and the, the attention is, is so much better. So yeah, that’s, that’s wonderful. All right. So can we talk through what it looks like to engage with Laurie Anne? Like if, if we, somebody wants to work with you, what are the options available? Uh, outside of just going and listening to the podcast to, to get started.
[00:32:18] Speaker 2: Well, I have group programs. Um, and I also have like a one hour, I call it the, the, the spotlight hour. So if you just want to pick my brain for an hour, you can do that along with a six month program where it’s very high touch. It’s me working on your speech and your pitches and getting you out there speaking and being able to evaluate everything.
[00:32:42] Speaker 2: So. I only work with a small number of people privately. So right now, I think that there’s a wait list, but there’s also the group program of in demand signature speech. And during that, it’s an 8 week program. And by the end of it, you will have a finished. In demand signature speech that you’ll be proud to deliver and confident knowing that it’s going to draw in the right people and more spinoff business.
[00:33:08] Speaker 2: And you come up with a process, you know, it’s, you know, speaking is not just showing up, giving your speech and then leaving right afterwards. There’s a process in the beginning, that actual day that you speak. And even after the event, because I always want you to look like a pro, even if it’s your very first time.
[00:33:28] Patrick: Yeah, I love it. I love it. So we’ll put all of this in the show notes, but your website is speakandstandout. com. And we’ll make sure we have the links there to all of your different, uh, uh, opportunities to work with you. And then the, the podcast is be in demand podcast. I assume I just have to search that on any of the platforms and, uh, I’ll find you, right?
[00:33:49] Speaker 2: You type be in demand. It’s going to bring up my podcast and it’s pretty obvious, but I will also share with you. That if you want my new listeners guide, that will also take you right to the podcast too. And that’s at speakandstandout. com forward slash guide. And this is a new, a new product, a PDF that I just recently put together, you know, and it’s got a I’ll like my most popular downloads and other ways that you can engage and learn from me, like the community circle.
[00:34:21] Speaker 2: That’s a free training that I do every month and the speaker breakthrough sessions, how to ask a Q and a question that you might hear your voice on my podcast in the near future. I try to make it fun.
[00:34:33] Patrick: I love it. I love it. This is wonderful. We’ll have links to all of that in the show notes. So if you are ready to take your content creation to the next level, get out there and be speaking to an audience that, uh, will be paying customers, uh, absolutely reach out to Laurie Anne.
[00:34:48] Patrick: Uh, she would, uh, be an absolute resource to you. So Laurie, and I appreciate you joining us here today. This is, uh, this has been a fantastic conversation. Is there anything else that we haven’t covered that we should have talked about, uh, before we wrap up?
[00:35:01] Speaker 2: I’m sure that there is, but you know, like, because like, I mean, I’ve got over 25 years of, you know, experience in the speaking world, you know, so there’s no way that I could share all of that in this, in this time that we have together, but I think what you’re doing, Patrick, you know, this is, this is your stage, you know, your podcast is your stage.
[00:35:22] Speaker 2: You’re doing presentations. That’s you getting on a stage and using OPA, other people’s audiences. You know, I’m going to be sharing this podcast with my audience and that’s how I’m getting you in front of more people and vice versa with you. So thank you so much for having me on.
[00:35:39] Patrick: I love it. I love it. I’m excited to go see, go listen to episode two 62.
[00:35:44] Patrick: It looks like that is a great place to sort of start my, my public speaking education. This is something that I’m looking at, you know, from a macro point of view, how do we level up, you know, take it. You know, we’ve gotten the podcast to the point where it’s pretty easy to produce. At first it was, it was challenging, uh, but now it’s like, okay, we, we’ve got the team and the editors and everybody in place to get this going.
[00:36:05] Patrick: And so I’m, I’m looking forward to, uh, leveling up my, my speaking. So thank you so much for joining us here today. I do appreciate it. And
[00:36:11] Speaker 2: Patrick, since you have a podcast and this is for anybody who does have a podcast, how to use your podcast and the stage, go listen to episode 258. I talk about how to use them both for great success.
[00:36:25] Patrick: I love it. This is wonderful. I, I owe you money. This has been like a masterclass for me on how to kick off a speaking engagement, uh, career. So so much. Anytime
[00:36:36] Speaker 3: Patrick. I am, I am literally an open book.
[00:36:39] Patrick: Wonderful. I appreciate you. Have a great day. That wraps up today’s episode. A huge thank you to Laurie Anne Mirabito for sharing her expert insights on speaking, building relationships, and crafting memorable messages.
[00:36:52] Patrick: I hope you’re walking away with some great ideas to implement, to grow and expand your business. Thank you for listening. See And thank you for being a vital entrepreneur. You’re vital because you’re the backbone of our economy, creating opportunities for your employees and driving growth. You’re vital to your family, fostering abundance in all aspects of life.
[00:37:09] Patrick: And you’re vital to me because you strive to build wealth, make an impact through your business and live a great life until next time I’m Patrick Lonergan, and thank you for listening to the vital wealth strategies podcast.