Dan Martell - How To Measure The Value of a Speaking Opportunity

00:00:00.200 Hey there, I'm Dan Martel, serial entrepreneur,

00:00:02.040 investor, and creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:04.720 And in this video, I'm going to share with you

00:00:06.760 a strategy for measuring the value of a stage.

00:00:10.680 If you're thinking of doing some speaking,

00:00:12.180 you're a founder, you're getting asked to speak all over the world,

00:00:14.740 or just in your local community, and you're wondering,

00:00:17.000 should I invest my time and energy in doing that?

00:00:19.800 In this video, I'm going to share with you guys the math,

00:00:22.120 the strategy, the way to think about it,

00:00:24.360 so that you can get the most use of your time,

00:00:27.040 or the most value from your time speaking.

00:00:28.720 And be sure to stay to the end where I'm

00:00:30.220 going to share with you how to get access to my Precision

00:00:33.280 Scorecard framework, which is going to help you track and

00:00:36.380 monitor and hit your targets, not only in your business,

00:00:39.220 but even monetizing your stages.

00:00:54.400 So when I say stages, I mean physical stages

00:00:57.540 in digital stages, OK?

00:00:59.260 So anytime you get an opportunity to speak in front of a room,

00:01:01.920 that is a stage.

00:01:03.460 Now, I get all of this strategy, the concept of an SVI,

00:01:07.800 a lot of the strategies I use to collect leads from the room,

00:01:10.780 et cetera, from my buddy Pete Vargas.

00:01:12.320 So if you're interested in learning more how

00:01:14.060 to use speaking as a way to monetize your time,

00:01:17.760 go Google Pete Vargas.

00:01:19.020 He's the world's best.

00:01:19.960 He does this on a level I can't even describe.

00:01:22.460 And a lot of the concepts I'm going to share with you

00:01:24.580 are 100% conversations I've had with Pete.

00:01:27.640 But recently, I had two clients, Kyle and Annabelle,

00:01:30.460 reach out asking me about how I decide what events I speak at

00:01:33.940 and which ones I say no to, and really try to understand

00:01:37.660 how they can justify that time being away from their company,

00:01:41.440 their startup, to their co-founders,

00:01:44.020 and still add a lot of value to their business.

00:01:46.540 Because I know in the early days, I felt like, yes,

00:01:49.600 I was getting a lot of practice.

00:01:50.800 I wanted to share my story.

00:01:51.660 I wanted to share the content.

00:01:52.960 I wanted to add value.

00:01:54.280 But you've got to ask yourself, is this really

00:01:56.420 moving my business forward?

00:01:58.300 And I would say for like four years of speaking,

00:02:00.620 I don't think I really had a strategy

00:02:02.080 until I got frustrated.

00:02:03.460 I learned this from Pete, and now I

00:02:05.520 quantify everything so I can understand

00:02:07.940 not only are the events I do today, are they valuable,

00:02:11.240 but should I redo them next year if I

00:02:13.180 have the opportunity to speak again?

00:02:14.900 So that's what we're going to cover in this video.

00:02:17.080 Number one, the goal of the stage.

00:02:20.280 So before you say yes to getting on a podcast

00:02:23.280 or speaking engagement, or even doing a webinar,

00:02:26.220 you've got to ask yourself, what's

00:02:27.560 the goal or the expectation of that outcome?

00:02:30.380 I mean, I know that sometimes you feel compelled

00:02:32.300 to just want to give, but you also

00:02:34.200 got to ask yourself, what's the value of your time?

00:02:36.220 So before I ever say yes, I'm always

00:02:38.320 asking about the size of the audience,

00:02:40.420 if it's an existing thing, how many people attended last year,

00:02:44.640 the makeup of the audience, so I know if my ideal customer

00:02:47.220 is going to be part of that makeup,

00:02:49.340 and really just kind of set some personal goals

00:02:51.620 is what kind of outcome do you want

00:02:54.140 to achieve from either monetization or lead gen

00:02:57.680 from that speaking engagement?

00:02:59.040 Because if you're going to invest the time,

00:03:00.680 you need to make sure that it gets the results

00:03:02.900 that you're looking for.

00:03:04.040 The other thing I'm going to suggest

00:03:05.240 is from a goal point of view is make a list of some dream

00:03:07.940 stages, ideally four.

00:03:09.300 Think about this.

00:03:10.040 What are the four dream stages, digital or physical,

00:03:13.520 that you could set as a vision for someday getting invited

00:03:18.360 or applying to speak on those stages

00:03:20.140 that you knew if you had the opportunity to share your message,

00:03:22.640 share your content, that it would drive your business forward

00:03:25.600 in an extremely meaningful way.

00:03:27.620 Those are dream stages.

00:03:28.600 But first, you've got to set the goal.

00:03:30.540 Number two, capture leads.

00:03:33.100 If you're going to invest time traveling

00:03:35.640 or block out some time in your calendar to prep

00:03:37.820 and then do a podcast interview or webinar,

00:03:40.820 you want to make sure that at the end of that webinar,

00:03:43.280 throughout that webinar conversation,

00:03:44.780 that you're creating opportunities

00:03:46.300 to capture the audience into your world.

00:03:49.220 So the easiest way, and this is what I do,

00:03:52.260 is I have a valuable piece of content,

00:03:55.020 some kind of framework, et cetera.

00:03:56.280 Just like in this video, the precision scorecard

00:03:58.580 is an example.

00:03:59.360 So if you want to see kind of the things

00:04:00.680 that I give away when I talk, you can go check that out.

00:04:03.600 But it's something where I teach and I say, hey,

00:04:06.500 I've got this handout, this worksheet.

00:04:08.500 If you want to get a copy of it, click the link and download it.

00:04:11.060 And all I do is I set a unique link

00:04:13.340 based on the event I'm at.

00:04:14.880 So if I'm speaking at SAS stock, it's danmartell.com

00:04:18.040 forward slash sasdoc.

00:04:19.760 And then that way, there's a bit of tracking.

00:04:21.840 It's super easy.

00:04:22.700 Same thing with podcasts.

00:04:24.040 It's always the URL of the name.

00:04:26.660 The URL turns into the name of the podcast you're on.

00:04:29.680 That way, you can set some tracking

00:04:31.240 and know how many people from that audience

00:04:34.280 resonated with your message and decided

00:04:36.220 to download the thing that you built.

00:04:39.320 And that, to me, is a must, right?

00:04:41.660 My buddy Pete would tell you, no,

00:04:43.020 you need to do a card on the seats and handouts

00:04:45.260 and get them to fill it out.

00:04:46.280 It's an interest card.

00:04:47.200 He's next level at this.

00:04:48.580 But to me, I want to get on stage.

00:04:50.320 I just want to teach.

00:04:51.200 I want to add a lot of value.

00:04:52.320 And I want to give everybody the opportunity

00:04:54.140 to essentially download some more content

00:04:56.440 to help them with that and also get on my email list

00:04:59.020 so we can continue the conversation.

00:05:00.960 Number three, conversion tool.

00:05:03.320 So no matter what kind of speaking you're doing,

00:05:05.880 whatever you're selling, software, et cetera,

00:05:07.940 there needs to be some kind of process

00:05:11.020 to essentially get somebody to become a customer.

00:05:13.600 And now, this doesn't mean there's any hard pitch.

00:05:15.500 You're not calling up.

00:05:16.200 You're not sending it to your sales team

00:05:18.020 and they're being aggressive.

00:05:19.280 It's some kind of funnel.

00:05:21.060 So for me, it's a conversation with one of our scale

00:05:23.980 specialists.

00:05:24.780 And it's really simple.

00:05:25.880 At the end of the day, if they download your lead magnet,

00:05:28.260 you can have on the thank you page a prompt that says, hey,

00:05:32.200 you just downloaded this thing.

00:05:33.700 Sounds like you have this problem.

00:05:35.020 Do you want to talk about it and get some insights

00:05:37.440 and some advice on how you might be able to move faster

00:05:39.580 and overcome that challenge?

00:05:41.400 And it's book in our calendar.

00:05:43.480 It can be literally that simple.

00:05:45.060 So think about it this way.

00:05:46.440 Every time you speak, you add a ton of value.

00:05:48.440 You transform people's lives.

00:05:50.200 To me, I think it's an honor and a real privilege

00:05:53.000 to have the opportunity to speak.

00:05:54.780 I think for if you're going to get on a stage,

00:05:56.940 digital or physical, and your intention

00:05:59.240 is not to transform lives, you should give up your spot

00:06:02.180 and give it to somebody else because it is an incredible

00:06:06.240 privilege to be able to do that, and that should be the outcome.

00:06:09.360 So as soon as you do that, you have the opportunity

00:06:12.360 to connect with your audience.

00:06:13.660 you capture their email address, and then on the next page,

00:06:17.460 you say, hey, do you want to have a conversation?

00:06:19.720 Do you want to try our software?

00:06:21.180 So whatever your conversion tool,

00:06:22.900 usually there's three, free trial as a conversion tool,

00:06:25.400 so sign up for a free trial, two is get a demo,

00:06:28.240 and third is let's talk about deploying a proof of concept.

00:06:31.040 That's more for an enterprise sale.

00:06:32.780 But you want to have a conversion tool set up

00:06:35.080 on the back end of the lead capture process

00:06:38.320 so that you can actually have a funnel and a pipeline

00:06:42.340 to monetize that audience.

00:06:45.320 Number four, measure SVI.

00:06:48.260 So SVI stands for stage value index.

00:06:51.020 So here's the simple math.

00:06:52.700 If I go speak to 100 people, I get 10 opportunities

00:06:56.140 that essentially maybe I might get 20 people

00:06:59.740 that download the thing, 10 of them

00:07:01.840 decide to book in for a call with a scale specialist,

00:07:04.640 and let's say half of those people decide to move forward.

00:07:08.200 All of a sudden now, I have a, and usually

00:07:10.680 want to do it in some kind of timeline,

00:07:13.020 maybe within the next 90 days from you speaking at that event,

00:07:16.060 you obviously track it.

00:07:17.400 What was the monetization?

00:07:18.700 What was the revenue directly attributed to that event?

00:07:21.420 Obviously, there's going to have people that see you speak,

00:07:23.860 refer folks.

00:07:24.660 It's kind of like off-tracking.

00:07:26.640 Totally fine.

00:07:27.440 You don't have to take that into consideration

00:07:29.520 if you know it's about 10% or 15% more than what

00:07:31.760 you can directly track.

00:07:32.880 Great, put that in your numbers.

00:07:34.100 It doesn't really matter, other than you

00:07:36.040 want to rank your stages.

00:07:38.560 So being able to say, hey, I did these 15 podcasts last year.

00:07:43.120 And the monetization for those podcasts

00:07:45.260 were ranked this way.

00:07:46.120 And these two, which may not be the most notable, which

00:07:49.640 may not have the biggest audience,

00:07:52.360 generated the most opportunity for your SaaS, for your product.

00:07:55.260 I mean, that to me is really cool,

00:07:57.400 being able to make that decision for in a couple of years

00:08:01.120 on a podcast saying, hey, I'd really

00:08:02.440 like to do your podcast again.

00:08:03.920 Or speaking on a stage, especially

00:08:06.100 if you've got to travel internationally.

00:08:07.800 You got to be away from your family for two or three days.

00:08:10.000 Be away from your team.

00:08:11.100 Those are big commitments.

00:08:12.840 Being able to quantify the value of a stage, to me,

00:08:16.620 is how we get more deliberate and strategic about speaking

00:08:20.640 so that it doesn't feel, A, like you're

00:08:24.660 sacrificing your business, because that's usually

00:08:27.060 the concern.

00:08:27.600 That's why my coaching clients reached out to me

00:08:29.340 and asked me about this.

00:08:30.900 And two, you're able to really start to optimize and say,

00:08:33.960 OK, well, audiences that look like this

00:08:36.060 seem to have the best results for the story

00:08:39.060 and the message that I'm sharing, how do I do that?

00:08:41.920 And it really gives you a feedback loop for you

00:08:45.420 to be a better speaker.

00:08:47.340 Because what I know is that if we're

00:08:49.560 better at connecting and sharing and being authentic

00:08:52.920 and really adding a lot of value,

00:08:55.080 that when we go to say, hey, I got this thing to help you

00:08:57.720 move faster, your lead capture, they're going to fill it out.

00:09:00.780 They're going to download it.

00:09:02.060 Because they can't believe the amount of value you just

00:09:04.480 share it in 25, 45 minute keynote.

00:09:07.660 So that to me is why it's so important to actually

00:09:10.940 measure the stage value as an index and rank order it

00:09:14.800 to be able to help you not only get better,

00:09:16.480 but also decide which ones you do again in the future.

00:09:19.500 Number five, look for leverage.

00:09:21.580 So one of the things that I'm always asking myself

00:09:24.140 is how do I get more out of my day?

00:09:25.480 Literally, it's time blocking.

00:09:27.100 It's scheduling.

00:09:28.160 It's evaluating.

00:09:29.520 Is this an F yeah?

00:09:30.700 And for me, speaking is awesome.

00:09:32.620 I love, if you ever see me at an event,

00:09:34.300 I love talking to people.

00:09:36.100 I usually stick around for the whole event.

00:09:38.560 But recently, I was really inspired

00:09:40.780 to do an interview show, my new Escape Velocity show.

00:09:43.620 And one of the things we realized

00:09:45.820 is if I had to fly around to interview

00:09:49.140 all these incredible founders, it would probably

00:09:51.520 be a no-go.

00:09:53.200 I have a young family.

00:09:54.380 I've got existing commitments.

00:09:55.620 I've got other business opportunities.

00:09:57.460 I can't add that much more travel to my schedule.

00:10:00.200 And what we realized as a team was, hey, Dan, well,

00:10:03.440 you're already at an event, why don't we just set up

00:10:05.680 a interview spot in one of the green rooms or a separate room?

00:10:08.760 And you could leverage the time being at that event

00:10:11.760 to also invite speakers that you want to connect with that

00:10:15.200 have already flown in that are there

00:10:17.480 to do the Escape Velocity show.

00:10:19.640 And that is how it works.

00:10:21.800 So if you look at the episodes, even though we shoot them

00:10:24.740 live on video and audio on the podcast,

00:10:27.080 they are all shot in different locations.

00:10:30.000 So they're kind of done in batches.

00:10:32.080 And then we release them every two weeks.

00:10:34.140 And they're done at every speaking event

00:10:37.020 that I go and speak at.

00:10:38.260 And now it's gotten to the point where we're already booked

00:10:40.420 into next year, where organizers want us to come,

00:10:46.580 because not only do they want me to speak on their stage,

00:10:48.680 they want us to have the Escape Velocity show on location

00:10:52.440 to add even more value to the other speakers.

00:10:54.780 And I think that is just a really neat way to ask yourself,

00:10:57.800 like, OK, if I'm going to speak, yes,

00:10:59.600 I want to make sure there's an audience

00:11:01.400 for my products so that I'm getting the benefit

00:11:03.520 from a business point of view.

00:11:04.820 But there's also things like business development

00:11:07.500 opportunities that you can optimize.

00:11:09.080 There's customers in those cities

00:11:10.700 that you could be reaching out and connecting with

00:11:12.620 and trying to get leverage from it.

00:11:14.040 There's other speakers that could

00:11:15.920 be potential advisors or folks that

00:11:18.480 could introduce you to investors for your next round

00:11:20.480 of funding.

00:11:21.320 So there's a lot of other things,

00:11:22.880 but you have to look at it from a leverage point of view.

00:11:25.160 You've got to be strategic.

00:11:26.160 You actually got to put a little bit of time

00:11:27.960 in before you show up so that you can get the most out

00:11:30.500 of that event.

00:11:32.120 So real quick recap, how to measure the value of your stage

00:11:35.720 using the SVI formula.

00:11:37.100 Number one, you have to set some goals for your stages,

00:11:39.880 especially some dream stages.

00:11:41.060 Number two, capture leads.

00:11:43.060 Number three, conversion tool, understand

00:11:45.240 where you're sending those leads after to monetize.

00:11:47.620 Four, measure your SVI, your stage value index.

00:11:51.020 Number five, look for leverage.

00:11:52.920 In my case, it's the Escape Velocity Show.

00:11:54.420 For you, it could be business, customer meetings,

00:11:56.180 or other speakers you want to connect with.

00:11:58.280 As I mentioned at the beginning of this episode,

00:11:59.740 I want to share with you my Precision Scorecard.

00:12:02.380 It's not only a worksheet, but it's

00:12:03.880 a process to set goals, set the targets,

00:12:08.240 monitor the actuals, and check in with your team

00:12:10.940 in all areas of the business on a weekly basis.

00:12:14.040 So it's a great place where you would put your stage value

00:12:17.020 index number if you're doing a lot of speaking

00:12:20.000 so the rest of the team can understand how that has

00:12:22.180 had an impact on the business.

00:12:24.160 You can click the link below to download

00:12:25.980 a copy of that process and strategy

00:12:28.240 and implement it into your business.

00:12:30.040 If you're doing a weekly sync or a weekly meeting every week,

00:12:32.520 you need a scorecard.

00:12:33.680 This is how you put that scorecard together.

00:12:36.800 If you like this video, I would love a like.

00:12:39.560 Please leave a comment.

00:12:40.400 Let me know what aspect of this show or any other shows

00:12:43.460 that you really appreciate.

00:12:44.420 I'm always looking for feedback.

00:12:46.220 And if there's somebody that you care about that you

00:12:48.040 think this could serve, feel free to share this video directly

00:12:50.920 with them.

00:12:51.520 As per usual, I want to challenge you

00:12:53.380 to live a bigger life and a bigger business.

00:12:55.220 And I'll see you next Monday.

00:12:56.600 It is a, what is it?

00:12:59.900 What is it?

Dan Martell - September 16, 2019

How To Measure The Value of a Speaking Opportunity

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