Keynote speech, Romania

I am a very weird marketing professional.

Instead of going deep and becoming the “SEO guy” or the “Facebook ads guy,” I’ve followed my curiosity and explored the edges of marketing and strategy for decades. My curiosity set the path for my career.

For example, I saw how influence was shifting from agencies, TV networks, and editors to creators. Influence was being democratized. Curiosity led me to write the first book on influence marketing in 2012 before anybody was even calling it that.

Then I wondered, if anybody can create content and have influence, what’s the strategy when there is too much content? That became a book called The Content Code and, of course, a new speech to go with it.

My curiosity led me to the next logical question: “Is there a way to harness the power of content to help individuals build their personal brand?” That led to a two-year research project (the answer is YES), and a new book KNOWN, the bestselling book on personal branding.

And so on. I’ve written seminal books on brand communities, new marketing realities, and how humans win in an AI marketing world … just because I wanted to learn about these things and help others navigate this new world.

The end result is that I can probably speak deeply about more aspects of marketing than any person alive, not because I’m particularly smart, but because I’ve spent so many years going down marketing rabbit holes to write these books and determine what’s coming next.

Sometimes it’s difficult to explain to a client how all this fits together. What is the best way to pick the right speech topic for an audience? I have so many ways to go.

So, I developed a cool way to visualize my most current keynote speaking topics, and I thought I would share it with you:

Each circle represents a speech based on a popular, forward-looking book:

• KNOWN (personal branding)
• Belonging to the Brand (brand community)
• Marketing Rebellion (New marketing realities)
• Audacious and How AI Changes Your Customers (AI marketing strategy)

This gives the meeting planner the option to also bulk purchase books related to the speech for an attendee gift.

These four speeches can stand alone or be combined to address specific customer priorities, such as:

• Brand Marketing
• Modern Leadership
• Future of Marketing
• Marketing Success in the AI World

Every speech reflects my emphasis on the unified idea that the most human company wins.

The breadth of my work opens many possibilities. I recently gave a two-hour speech in the Philippines combining all four of these ideas! I spent a day at McKinsey in New York City giving in-depth talks on five different subjects. I’ve even been the opening and closing keynote speaker at the same event!

I’ve never seen anybody visualize speeches quite this way … it’s rare to have four different keynote speeches ready to go, right? I think the next step is to make this an interactive graphic on my website.

So I thought I would share this visualization idea with you … and hope that it might spark an inspiration to hire me for your next event. Let’s not waste my marketing geekiness. I can put it to work for you and craft a memorable, sizzling speech that fits perfectly at your next event.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

The post A technique to visualize your keynote speeches appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

As the Marketing Companion enters its next chapter, I had the privilege of sitting down once again with one of my favorite partners in creativity, Jay Acunzo. It was a special, almost bittersweet episode—not only because we discussed the show’s upcoming transition to new leadership with Sandy Carter, but also because Jay and I have traveled such a meaningful road together. Our conversation became a celebration of all things enduring in marketing, creativity, and personal brand building.

You can hear this special episode here:

Listen to Episode 329 of The Marketing Companion

Here is an AI-generated summary of the show highlights:

The “Why” Behind Consistency

Jay proposed the very topic that guided this conversation: “sustainability” in our public work. We explored what it means to not just chase trends or create content for immediate gratification, but to build something meaningful and lasting.

Jay described the nuances behind being called someone who “grinds”: he doesn’t see himself as a “grinder” but as someone who chases curiosity relentlessly and who has orchestrated shifts in his career from speaking to coaching creators to helping leaders hone their public presence. The idea is clear—sustainability is not just about showing up, but about enjoying the process and being intentional about how we evolve.

Curiosity, Practice, and Embracing Pivots

We both agreed: content is the fuel of any brand, corporate or personal. Jay’s journey exemplified an agile, curiosity-driven approach to content creation. He started as a sports journalist and blogger in the early days, before “blogging” was a buzzword, using free tools to write for himself and a handful of readers. That curiosity kickstarted everything—even his career at Google was influenced more by his blog than by his academic credentials.

For today’s students and young professionals, Jay’s story is vital. Start building your brand now, even if only your mom is reading! Create content, keep at it, and don’t stop. If you do, you’ll cultivate an edge that’s hard to replicate.

Jay’s path took him from sports into business, then into content marketing, before anyone really knew what it was. He saw the creative side of this business firsthand, abandoned his old blog for a new one focused on emerging trends, and even built community meetups with other content professionals. The thread? Consistent side projects, relentlessly pursuing curiosity—not viral “success”—have formed the foundation of Jay’s staying power and growth.

The Engine of Endurance

I’ve long believed that building a brand—whether through blogging, podcasts, or newsletters—can’t be a “project.” It’s a lifestyle. Just like running or going to the gym, it’s about integrating consistency into life’s fabric and keeping the train moving.

I shared the core disciplines I teach for lasting creative presence:

1. Awareness: See your life as a source of stories and ideas.
2. Capture: Always write down your ideas, or you’ll lose them.
3. Schedule: Dedicate time to your craft—don’t leave it to chance.
4. Relax and Enjoy: Create at moments when you can focus, undistracted.

For more than a decade, I blogged over a thousand weeks in a row and never missed a podcast episode. The point: create discipline, not as a temporary effort, but as something that shapes your identity. Make yourself the kind of person who “just does this” rather than someone who’s always chasing a new tactic.

Jay reinforced this. He described how writing and creating are not a means to an end but the end itself. You must love the process—the tactile rhythm of typing, the accomplishment of hitting “publish”—even if no one’s watching. If you’re only aiming for an outcome (followers, dollars, virality), you’ll burn out as soon as the market doesn’t respond. Find intrinsic motivation, and let that be your compass.

The Shift That Happens to All Creators

One fascinating insight from my interviews for my KNOWN book was that almost everyone starts out creating for tactical reasons—a need to grow a business or personal brand. But as you persist and attraction builds, a greater purpose reveals itself. You realize you can inspire, include, and uplift others. The privilege and responsibility deepen. If early on, doing the work might have been about business success, over time, the pie chart of motivations flips—helping others becomes the dominant driver.

Jay echoed this with a powerful mantra: “We create what we wish existed in the world.” The business world often tries to force us to create what the market or the algorithm demands, but inevitably we are driven back to our desire to add something meaningful—something “we” long to see in the world.

The Limits of Tricks (and the Infinite Potential of Resonance)

The lure of tips, tricks, and algorithms is constant, but as Jay and I discussed, they all have an expiration date. Tricks can maybe earn you a click, but not a genuine connection or loyalty. True resonance—when your work means something, when people respond with gratitude or share your story with others—is earned, not engineered.

You can buy reach; you cannot buy resonance. And resonance is what matters. Jay underscored that your impact isn’t measured just by the immediate metrics, but by the people who listen all the way through, who write back passionately, who mention your ideas when you’re not in the room.

Please support our sponsors, who make this fantastic episode possible.

This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now, any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customers to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence to strengthen their customer relationships.

Go to https://www.brevo.com/marketingcompanion to sign up for Brevo for free and use the code COMPANION to save 50% on your first three months of Brevo’s Starter & Business plan!

A recent Semrush study found that AI search traffic is projected to surpass traditional search by 2028. That makes now the time to prepare your brand for the future of search.

With Semrush AI Search tools, you will lead this transition.

• Track your AI visibility score: See a single, clear benchmark of your share of voice across AI search platforms.
• Identify AI mention opportunities: Uncover sources where your competitors are cited—but you’re not—including social media, forums, and more.
• Benchmark against competitors: Find the exact prompts, mentions, and sources where your competitors appear in AI responses and you don’t.
• Discover trending prompts: Spot the real questions your audience is asking AI platforms—and build content around them.
• Shape your brand narrative: Monitor the sentiment and context tied to your AI mentions, and make sure your brand is being represented the way you want.

The post Secrets of the Sustainable Personal Brand appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

My speech on AI

First, allow me to say humbly and honestly that I’m no expert in AI.

But who is?

I can say with authority, however, that I am a student of AI, and I’m good at distilling complex ideas like artificial intelligence into the essential issues that matter to a business. While I might be the last marketer on LinkedIn who hasn’t added “AI Expert” to his title, I can still connect the dots in an informed manner!

So, I relished the opportunity to prepare a new speech — “Harnessing the Power of AI” — for my friends at The Waitapu Group. I will be premiering this new speech at a series of events in their lovely home country of New Zealand, and I wanted to give you a sneak preview.

If you need to make sense of the profound change that is happening and rationally envision an approach to AI for your company, this speech — tailored to your needs — makes sense. I would be glad to speak to your company or organization.

Here are five (out of 10) highlights from my new presentation:

1. The rate of change is more important than the change

While the new capabilities of AI are magical, the bigger organizational challenge will be keeping up with the pace of change.

No human being and no bureaucratic structure is built to process the rate of change we are about to experience. The moment it takes to read this sentence is the slowest moment of technological change you will ever experience.

In my speech, I suggest a new organizational mindset for dealing with this startling new reality.

2. AI will come to us

In the frenzied early days of the internet, the conventional advice was that we would need to learn how to code to survive in our careers. My smartest, most ambitious friends became coding experts and created unique, rudimentary applications that provided some short-term value.

However, I did perfectly OK by not coding at all, because the internet came to me. Everybody did the work for me so I could enjoy media streaming, eCommerce, social media connections, and all the wonderful advantages of the modern web.

So, I don’t think “prompt engineering” will be a long-term career choice. AI will come to us as it becomes integrated into every aspect of our lives. AI will surround us like the air we breathe. It is surrounding me in this very moment, making corrections on the fly to my terrible typing.

3. Surviving the chaos

Projections vary about job loss associated with AI, but every analyst agrees there will be a profound impact on many white-collar, knowledge worker careers … like sales and marketing.

How will you be relevant in the AI future? Of course you need to keep adapting and learning. You need to dabble in everything and understand enough about AI to survive. But you also need to work on your personal brand. In a world of misinformation and chaos, we will turn to trusted thought leaders, always.

If you’re not already working on your personal brand, I implore you to start now. As far as I know, this is the only strategy we have to remain relevant in the middle of the AI hurricane.

4. Innovation means applying layers of AI

We’re not going to wake up one day and declare, “Oh WOW! The world has become artificially intelligent!”

No, it’s going to sneak up on us and make everything we do a little faster, easier, and more personal.

Innovation means we’ll be applying a layer of AI to everything we do in our companies. This means leveraging technology to be more of who we are at our best.

If you pride yourself in having the fastest service, you can be faster. If you have the most creative art department, you’ll be more creative. If you have the most delicious food, you can use AI to find recipes that are even more delicious.

And so on.

To best activate AI in your strategy, first focus on your core competencies and then make it your priority to find AI applications that can help drive more success and efficiency.

5. You matter

The process of writing a book nearly kills me. Not joking. I put so much time and effort into my books that I drive myself to the point of physical and mental exhaustion.

So I was determined to find a healthier path forward by trying to write a book using all the AI tools available to me. Let ChatGPT do the heavy lifting for once!

Didn’t work. Nearly a total flop.

I plan on writing much more about this in the near future, but the bottom line is this: AI works by searching everything that has happened in the past to come up with an “average” answer to serve your query best. Creating a new work from the “best average answer based on what happened in the past” is a lousy premise for a book.

If you just want information based on the past, use Google, don’t buy a book.

To me, a book must contain insights and stories and quirky ideas that come from the unique perspective of the writer. ChatGPT failed miserably when it came to unique insights needed to create something unique and bold.

This discovery was validating. I still have a place in this world. At least for now.

I still matter. And so do you.

This is a small glimpse of my new speech on AI, and I’d love to come to your company, organization, or association to deliver the entire presentation. My talks are educational, inspirational, and fun. Click here to make a connection! 

There are aspects of AI that are undeniably scary. We’ll be reading about that every day in the news. But we are also on the cusp of the most miraculous explosion of creativity and beauty. I want to help people find that for their companies and for themselves.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Image courtesy Midjourney

The post Five Highlights From My New Speech on AI appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

My speaking career was a journey with nerves!

In the new episode of The Marketing Companion podcast, I made a public confession for the first time. In my early days as a public speaker, I would routinely lie to the audience.

You see, I would become so nervous when I stood on a stage that my voice would shake. It was humiliating. Here I was, getting the chance (finally) to speak on a big stage and I was trembling. I would explain my shaky voice away by telling the audience that I had a cold or allergies. I was ashamed to be so nervous that I had to lie about it.

Once I got past the first two minutes, I would eventually calm down. My “cold” would magically be cured.

I have had a strange journey with nerves.

In my corporate days, I would routinely give presentations without a problem. I would even guest lecture at universities without one bit of nerves.

But once I was in front of a group of strangers who were expecting me to be an expert in something, I became terrified.

And yet, this is what I wanted to do!

How would I get over this?

The journey with nerves

My speaking career grew slowly but steadily. As my personal brand grew, I graduated from speaking to the local chamber of commerce (nerves weren’t too bad) to bigger industry stages. That’s when the journey with nerves really started … when I was in front of a room of experts and industry peers.

I was so angry with myself. I am a confident person. I had overcome so much in my life and career. Why was this happening? If other people could do it, why not me?

The worst case of nerves was Cincinnati, a really big event. It was a two-day marketing conference, and for the first time, I was listed as the keynote speaker.  Cincinnati is a great marketing town — the home of Proctor & Gamble, Kroger, and many important manufacturing companies. What was I supposed to say to 400 marketers in this setting? What was I doing there?

Before my talk, I paced furiously in a back hallway. I was afraid I might be on the brink of a complete meltdown.

I prayed to God and asked for help. “Please, take this fear away from me!” And then I think He answered my prayers …

A breakthrough

It was now minutes before I was to go onstage. I was sweating profusely … probably from the pacing!

And then I had a realization. I was just “going to work.”

Becoming an author, speaker, and marketing authority was not part of any plan. It resulted from consistently publishing content on my blog. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was building a personal brand.

Public speaking came with the territory. As my brand grew, people wanted to see me and hear from me. Paid speaking invitations started to come in … to my surprise!

So as I stood there by myself in a dark back hallway in the Cincinnati convention center, I said to myself, “This is your job now. This is how you feed your family. You’re going to work. Why would anybody be nervous about going to work?”

Somehow, reframing my appearance on the stage as a task I needed to do for my family calmed me down. Accepting a mindset of steely determination to make an income instead of wallowing in the fear of being alone on the stage made a big difference.

I thought about all the people in this world who faced true fear of survival just to get through their day, and that made the speaking stage before me seem trivial. When my speech was over, I would be coming back to snacks and an air-conditioned hotel room instead of some kind of nightmare life of surviving day to day. It seemed dumb to be worried about such a small thing, by comparison.

The journey with nerves today

Cincinnati was a milestone.

I was calm. I was determined. I killed it.

I certainly was not completely over my nerves or nausea before a big speech, but I had a win, and I didn’t die, so that was progress. I was a keynote speaker. I was on my way.

The other day, I saw a video of a speech from 2019 — a decade since my breakthrough in Cincinnati — and it was incredible to see how at home I was on the stage. Completely at ease, laughing and joking with the audience. Not only am I a successful speaker, I really love it!

Becoming a professional speaker changed my life in so many wonderful ways. And it is an incredibly important part of many marketing efforts today. If you’re looking to cut through the noise, standing up on a stage and talking to an enthusiastic audience is a pretty good option!

If you’re ready to make speaking part of your business, you’ll love my conversation with Dennis Yu on my podcast this week. Dennis and I talk about our own speaking, the journey with nerves, and his technique to help people calm down that even worked on a 19-year-old first-time speaker.

Toward the end of the show we swap some war stories from our speaking careers that are really fun and interesting.

Enjoy!

Click to listen to Marketing Companion Episode 276

Resources mentioned in this show:

Mark’s bestselling book on personal branding

Mark’s class on public speaking

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

The post My journey with nerves appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I’ve had the most amazing career. For example, I’ve …

• Published ten books that people love.
• Graduated with two master’s degrees
• Earned seven patents
• Worked with amazing companies like Dell, Johnson & Johnson, and Adidas.
• Been a speaker on some of the world’s biggest stages.

But the very best achievement I’m most proud of is how I brought 30 people together for an entirely new way to talk about marketing. A meeting that created a bond.

Does that seem weird? Well, it’s a pretty great story that had its origins in 2010 and is still going strong today.

In this week’s Marketing Companion episode, for the first time, I tell the inside story of The Uprising retreat. I’m peeling back the curtain of a fascinating part of my life that exposes

• The desperate step I took early in my career when nobody would hire me as a conference speaker.
• The reason I canceled a successful marketing event called Social Slam, even after it had grown to 700 attendees.
• How writing Marketing Rebellion changed the direction of my life.
• Why I rented an entire castle in Ireland this year.

I brought some friends along to help me tell this tale!

Chad Parizman was a digital marketing leader for HGTV and Pfizer who now creates and produces branded podcasts through his company Ader Communications.

Samantha Stone is the CEO and Founder of The Marketing Advisory Network. Samantha also launched a new course called Master the Art of Finding and Using Buyer Insights.

This is a fun, insightful, and unusual story, and I think you’ll love it! Ready? Here we go:

Click on this link to listen to hear Episode 265

Other ways to enjoy our podcast

• Try this! “Alexa, play the latest episode of The Marketing Companion.”
• Click here to download the latest episode or subscribe on iTunes
• Listen to us on iHeart Radio
• Find the podcast on Stitcher
• Complete Marketing Companion Episode Guide

The post The best achievement of my career appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

“In order to be effective, you must be desperate — desperate to get your ideas that you care about into the heads of the audience. Desperation fuels excellence.”

That is just a sample of the brilliant and provocative advice I heard during my interview with the legendary Tom Peters, author of In Search of Excellence, and many other classics including his wonderful new book, Compact Guide to Excellence.

Today, you can sit in on this inspiring discussion in two ways. You can click the link below to hear the 30-minute podcast episode, or you can read a transcription in this post. Highlights include:

• Tom’s surprising take on “quiet quitting.”
• “You don’t have to like your employees, but you have to love them.”
• Why “business is community, period.”
• Your job as a leader is to “hire well and promote.”
• Why we need to hire “the quiet ones.”

Please listen to the episode by clicking here or reading the transcript below.

Click to hear Episode 263

Transcribed by AI with some light editing for clarity and brevity:

Mark Schaefer

We’re going to start the new year off with a bang. My special guest today on the Marketing Companion is Tom Peters. I was lucky enough to have Tom on the show about two years ago. And Tom, you told me at the time you were retiring, so what the heck’s going on here man?

Tom Peters

I’ll give you the phone number of my shrink you can call her, and she’ll explain.

Here’s what I think is the real answer, which of course is exactly what we’re going to talk about today.

The real answer, and I think this is also true for you, is my message is actually not very complex. As you know, I’ve got a whole bunch of business degrees and engineering degrees, but my one-liner has been, you will be able to understand everything I say if you can show me a signed certificate of completion from the fourth grade. It is very straightforward stuff.

And so I remain perpetually irritated at my own incompetence that I haven’t made it stick. One statistic that drives me crazy: Only about 20% of people are engaged in their job. And that’s an awful statistic given what you and I do for a living, I blame the boss 99% for those kinds of things, and you know, we’ve got social instability in our lives these days. And I think if people were connected to their work, that would be a lot less likely to be the case. So you know that that’s my story for not quitting. I don’t expect to change the world. But maybe, thanks to people like you who talk to me, maybe I can pick a few more low-hanging apples off the tree.

Mark Schaefer

I’m delighted that you’re here again, and I’m honored that you reached out to me about your new book. We’ll talk about this book, which was just delightful. It’s brilliantly compiled. And I didn’t want to put any pressure on you, but I just wanted to say that when you were on the show two years ago, it was the number one episode ever. We are now in our 10th year of this show. Some people said they listened to the episode with you. Two or three times.

Tom Peters

Wow. I am literally flattered beyond words.

Mark Schaefer

Well, I’m going to flatter you even more. I have a new book coming out called Belonging to the Brand, and I start the book with you. I also end the book with you. So I want to start our podcast episode with the quote that I start the book with. It says, “There is no business excellence, only community excellence. Think deeply about that.” Let’s start with this quote Tom.

Tom Peters

The most important idea is that businesses aim to serve. Employees, vendors, customers, and the business itself are embedded in a community. The purpose of business is to make the world a better place. The person who said it best, and actually I’ve got her at the beginning of the new book is the late Anita Roddick, the founder of The Body Shop. She said if you ain’t serving the community, then what the hell are you doing in business? And she says it with a sharp British tongue that she used to have.

I don’t know how to answer that question. It should be as obvious as the end of your nose. Business IS the community. It’s not, you know, ‘Let’s do this community thing.’ You ARE the effing community, excuse my old sailor’s language.

Mark Schaefer

I’d love for you to comment on Nancye Green’s design of the book because this book is not only brilliant in its execution, but what Tom has done here is taken quotes from business leaders and authors that he admires and curated them into the book. But the book is the most unusual size. It’s a compact, dense little book, Tom Peter’s Compact Guide to Excellence. And it’s user-friendly because it’s these little snippets of advice. How did you arrive at this concept? It’s a great innovation.

Nancye designed my next to last book, and that book was called Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism. And it looks terrific too. She and I were just talking about ideas. And basically, we said, you know, we can really condense this thing. In the past, for example, I would have one of those quotes, and then there would be 700 words of commentary from me — Which might have been pretty good stuff, but it also dilutes the power of the quote itself. And so we just said, let’s try it. Let’s put this together. And I came up with the stuff that I thought was most important.

I have been yelling and screaming about the power of design. And I think it’s incredibly important. I think it’s the number one differentiator.

Mark Schaefer

I hope people will experience this book because it really is a tour de force, just in design and the feel of the book and the ease of user experience is really quite remarkable.

Now the other thing I want to build on from your first comment is you talked about business as something that makes the world a better place. And I know that is your big theme. But when I grew up in school, it was Milton Friedman banging us over the head about the purpose of the business is to increase stakeholder value. And it wasn’t really till maybe seven or eight years ago, where I just thought, wait a minute, this is just going too far. We’re making the world worse in many ways and there’s got to be more to it than this. That is really one of your major themes in this in this new book.

Tom Peters

No, I’d say it is THE theme of the new book! And I also think you picked exactly the right villain.

And the wonderful, horrible thing about it is that you can quantify it. In September of 1970, Friedman wrote a famous slash infamous article in The New York Times, in which he said in a single sentence that business has no responsibility to anyone other than the shareholders. When he said that, about 50% of profits went to shareholders, executives, etc. and 50% went to people, r&d and so on. And I hope our listeners will listen very carefully to the next sentence. There was a study that replicated it in 2014 and 91% of profits went to share buybacks, shareholders, and executives, and 9% went to the people. This is not a trivial statement because this total distortion is what causes the despair, the anger in our world to a significant degree. We’ve got incredible inequality. I don’t give a damn if you’re right wing or left wing. You can’t deny the inequality, It’s as bad as it has ever been.

And back to community. We all work for enterprises of some sort, and I don’t know what the numbers are, but presumably, 50% of us work for the government and another 5% for nonprofits, and 80% were for businesses, not General Motors, but for the two-person shop, the 20 people shop, as well as the big guys. You made a horrible mistake because this is one of those ‘don’t get me started questions.’ You got an hour dude?

Mark Schaefer

So I need you to help me sort something. As I went through your book, another powerful message is this emphasis on emotional well-being in the workplace. You hit that very, very hard. And I have to say I’m a little conflicted about some of the things I see going on right now.

I read this thing from a Gen Z newsletter, and the person from Gen Z said, we will not be stressed. We just will not be stressed. And if we are stressed, we’re not going to work. So you better create a workplace that’s free of stress.

They’re sort of justifying the quiet quitting thing. If I look back at my career, a lot of my personal growth came through the stress that came from things going wrong. So tell me more about your perspective on emotional well-being in the workplace. Certainly, that is a dynamic, important issue today.

Tom Peters

There is stress … and then there is stress. My whole point, and I think it’s your whole point, is respect and care and thoughtfulness for people. And then we can handle stress, which is the same thing at work or home. You know, you’ve got stress because your 17-year-old acted up, but the base that makes it work is that he knows that you love him. The toughest SOB on the football field in my lifetime is the old Green Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi. I wish I could give you all five lines, but the first two lines of this Lombardi quote and I hope everybody here will listen: You do not need to like all of your players, but you must love them. Vince Lombardi was a tough son of a bitch. You know, he could have beaten the crap out of you and I with both of his hands tied behind his back. But he said, the whole business of a winning team is you support one another. You know, when you’re having a bad day because your father had a heart attack. I’m trying a little bit harder as the guard who’s next to the tackle to defend. So the stress is normal, and the stress is fine.

And it’s you know, do I really care about these people? You know, and incidentally, I don’t lay that trip on the Gen Z ers. I will land that trip on the bosses who have never gotten the damn thing right. And I will also say that this can happen as effectively in a Starbucks or McDonald’s as it can at Google or Hewlett-Packard.

But, you know, the stress thing is in the sense of your time as a cop out. My whole goal today, in this new world and the old world as an employer is to keep you and help you. That’s all I want in life. That’s my thing. Unless you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you are going to spend more conscious of waking hours at work than anything else. It’s an absolute phony baloney comment. As I said, I’m not blaming it on Gen Z. I’m blaming it on the boss. The boss should have been doing this shit 20 years ago.

Mark Schaefer

So there was one statement in your new book that just stopped me in my tracks. It made me think more than maybe any of the other comments in there. And I again have to reflect on what it means for me. “Hire the quiet ones. Tell us a little bit about what you’re thinking there. Hire the quiet ones …

Tom Peters

The century is 23 years old. By my rights the best business leadership and management book, this century has come from a woman named Susan Cain. And the title of the book is Quiet. And I met Susan one time, and I said I know the purpose of your book it was to call me a jerk. And what she says is basically with a lot of research, is the noisy people are thought to be more physically attractive. They’re thought to be more intelligent, and seven other variables. And yet the real research says just the opposite.

If you have a brainstorming group, or brainstorming whatever, with five groups, I really love this one, and it said the extrovert groups in an hour will come up with 217 ideas. The introvert group, the quiet ones, will come up with four ideas, but they will have discussed them in-depth, and a couple of them are likely to be real winners. I read the book and I had a speech to the leadership of a couple billion dollar electronics parts company. And I said you guys are paying me a lot of money. And so I don’t think this is a great way to start, but I’m going to do it anyway. I said, you’re like me, you’re a bunch of idiots. We ignore and downplay half the population. And not only is that stupid in general but it is stupid from a business and a P&L standpoint. When I met Susan, I used Navy language rather than what I used a couple of minutes ago. I felt incredibly guilty about this dimension … You know, the noisy ones are the smart ones. The noisy ones are the clever ones and the noisy ones are the pretty ones. And it’s bullshit. There are a lot of noisy people who are fantastic. That’s not the argument. But we’re overlooking half the workforce.

Mark Schaefer

Well, it’s funny, after we talked a couple of years ago, during the interview I just thought what makes Tom so special in a discussion like this, what makes him so powerful? And the word “bold” came to mind. I wrote a whole blog post about it. I use it in my teaching when I talk about personal branding. To me, bold means telling the truth with courage. And that certainly comes through today and that’s probably why people admire you so much. So you came up with this book as another way to get your ideas out there. So what’s your psychiatrist say? What’s next?

Tom Peters

I’m not bold. I’m pissed off.

These are not insignificant ideas but they’re not complex. I use Twitter a lot and somebody said, you know, I’m gonna give you the 27 things you should do to be a good public speaker. And I said, I don’t disagree that you can do that. But in order to be an effective speaker, you must be desperate, desperate to get your ideas that you care about into the heads of the audience. Desperation fuels excellence. I don’t WANT to get my message across. I HAVE to get my message across. And I think that’s the great differentiator whether you are a preacher standing in a pulpit, or if you are Vince Lombardi.

I don’t want to do this damn stuff. Hell. I just had my 80th birthday, give me a break. But it’s the effing audience that won’t do it. So I have to keep coming back to your damn show every couple of years.

Mark Schaefer

Well, that’s good. As long as you’re pissed off, I’m happy to have you on my show. So it’s funny, Tom because someone asked me a while ago, you’ve written ten books. Why do you do this? How do you get these ideas?

There’s been a general theme in my books —  the subtitle of Marketing Rebellion was the most human company wins. And I said, I just have these ideas that I have to get out. And I never used the word desperate before, but maybe it’s becoming that way.

And so what I’d like to do is to sort of wind up our time together on what I think is a wonderful, beautiful note. I’d like to read for you how I end my new book, the last words in the book.

Not long ago, I interviewed the famed author of In Search of Excellence, Tom Peters. Tom has been one of the most influential business writers and strategists for more than 40 years, and my podcast recording was near the end of his retirement tour. I asked him, “What would be your final, most important advice for the thousands of marketing professionals listening to this podcast?”

He paused for a moment and said, “When you come home at night, are you proud of what you did that day? Are you proud to tell your family about what you are doing in your marketing job?”

I thought that was such unexpected and poignant advice. His words were always in my mind as I wrote this book because committing our careers to a purpose-driven brand community is certainly something we could be proud of every day.

Yes, community-based marketing can help our companies and perhaps even inspire our customers. But community is also a way to make us proud of our life as marketers. Wouldn’t it be an amazing legacy to create the “most belonging” company in the world?

… So that’s the impact you had on me.

Tom Peters

Well, I deeply appreciate it. If you can’t brag to your spouse and you can’t brag to your kids, what are you doing?

Mark Schaefer

Just in case this would be your actual retirement, but I doubt it, what would you leave our listeners with today around your book and your message…  specifically to the marketing profession? You know, I might need to end another book someday.

Tom Peters

There was a three-star general by the name of Melvin Zaice — very successful. He gave a speech at the Army War College, to mid-level officers which would mean majors, lieutenants, Colonels, and so on,

And he said I want to end with one thing. And the one thing that will make you more effective, more of a human being: you must care. You must care. He said, You’re the captain of a company. And he said you’ve got inspection coming up tomorrow. You go over to the barracks. He said, You don’t have to open your mouth. You sit on somebody’s bed. They know that you know how hard they are working to make you look good. So that’s my final point.

You must care. You’ve said it. I’ve said it. Business is a human affair. And the wonderful thing for our accountants is if you get this stuff right, you’ll observe that your bank account is growing faster.

This conversation is sponsored by The Creator Economy Expo (CEX)

CEX May 1-3, 2023 is the must-attend experience for content creators interested in building and growing their content-first businesses without relying on social platforms. Join 500+ bloggers, podcasters, authors, newsletter writers, speakers, coaches and consultants, freelancers, and YouTubers at THE learning and networking event for content creators. To get $100 off your ticket, please use the code SCHAEFER100.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

The post Why Tom Peters thinks desperation fuels excellence appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

My friend Valentina Escobar-Gonzalez dreams of giving a TED talk of her own some day. She asked me how I prepared to give my speech, and I told her I would write a post about it for her because indeed, I am a full-service blogger! Today, How to Create Your TED Talk!

I gave my TED talk in the summer of 2022, but the preparation really started years in advance.

Getting into TED

I’m a busy person, but things always slow down during the holiday season, and I use this time to reflect, learn, and consider changes I need to make to my business in the coming year.

One of my holiday traditions is to spend a day binging the best TED talks. I did this for years before I was ever invited to give a talk. I take notes on the styles of the best speakers in the world. How do they construct their speeches? How do they use surprise? Humor? Props? Video and other media? Why did they get selected for TED?

I didn’t do this every year to become a TED speaker; I did it to be a better speaker, period.

The invite

Many people dream of being a TED speaker. I was not one of them. I figured if it happened, it happened. It was never a goal or priority. I guess I’m just content with where I am right now.

But an invitation came out of the blue. I became friends with Shannah Haley, who attended each of my Uprising retreats. At this event, 30 people gather for two and a half days to discuss big ideas about marketing. We also become really great friends. Over the course of our time together she became familiar with my ideas and speaking style and invited me to the TEDx event she organizes in Texas.

Shannah is the consummate professional. She cares so much about this event, and so it was an incredible honor for her to ask me. But she also knew I was a professional, too, and she assigned me to be the closing speaker at her event because of the trust she had in me.

More likely, you will have to apply to be a speaker, so I was fortunate in this instance.

Create your TED talk

The purpose of TED is to spread bold new ideas. So that is a little nerve-wracking, right? How did I come up with an idea?

A good way to start thinking about this is to establish a spiky point of view.

1. A spiky point of view can be debated.

2. A spiky point of view isn’t controversial for the sake of it.

3. A spiky point of view teaches your audience something relevant they don’t already know.

4. A spiky point of view is rooted in evidence, but it doesn’t have to be a proven fact or universal truth.

5. A spiky point of view requires conviction.

You have to be brave enough to advocate for what you believe in. It’s not a passive regurgitation of information. There’s a stance of advocacy and a bias toward action. You’re trying to convince someone of this idea because you genuinely believe they’ll be better for it.

Examples of spiky points of view from my blog:

• Why Twitter is stuck and will remain that way
• Buying on beliefs? I don’t believe it.
• The business case for personal branding in one photograph

In other words, this is the kind of bold idea TED is looking for. Spiky and bold.

It’s even better if you can apply your idea to some current issues like climate change, inclusiveness, and social justice, for example.

A process you might follow to create your TED talk idea:

1. Start by thinking about your passions and interests. Identify a topic that you feel strongly about, that you know a lot about, and that you feel passionate and excited to talk about.
2. Narrow it down to the ones that you’re most interested in exploring.
3. Research the topic to make sure it’s a good fit for a TED talk. Look at other TED talks to get an idea of the kinds of topics that are typically discussed.
4. Choose a topic that’s timely and relevant. Consider the current events, trends, and conversations that people are having.
5. Make sure the topic is specific enough to focus on and explore in depth. Avoid topics that are too broad or that don’t offer much to explore.
6. Refine your topic by focusing on a specific angle or perspective. Consider how you can make the topic unique and interesting to your audience.
7. Test your topic out on a few people. Ask for their feedback and see if they’re interested in hearing more about it.

My idea was to apply concepts from my book Cumulative Advantage (full of spiky ideas) to the dramatic changes in our lives forged by the pandemic. How can you stay relevant in this period of overwhelming change?

Writing the speech

The specific challenge of a TED talk is to share a bold idea in a creative, memorable, and effective manner … in less than 18 minutes!

In some ways, this is much more difficult than a 45-minute keynote speech. My normal speeches are entertaining and tailored to a specific audience. A TED talk creates a permanent legacy. It is the speaking equivalent of writing a book. So every word must be precise.

For the first time in my life, I wrote out a speech word-for-word, obsessing over every phrase.

My outline went like this:

1. Establish the problem through data and stories
2. Discuss why this problem is relevant to the audience
3. Briefly discuss the problem of relevance from a historical perspective. Relevance is a modern problem.
4. Reveal a solution.
5. Explain how to apply this solution.
6. End with a message of encouragement and hope.

Memorizing and practicing a TED talk

I highly recommend using slides when you create your TED talk for two reasons. First, it can punctuate your speech with meaningful graphs, illustrations, and images. Second, these slides serve as prompts to keep your speech on track.

I decided NOT to use slides, something I’ve never done before. Why did I put myself through this stress? I thought it would be a fun challenge to be personal, raw, and so meaningful that I did not need any slides. This was going to be recorded and displayed on the most famous storytelling site in the world. I wanted to push myself to be my best.

Even though I knew my material very well, it was still exceedingly difficult to memorize an 18-minute narrative. I handled this by thinking of my talk as four sections. So really, I was memorizing four stories that I told in order!

I practiced and practiced because I was determined to get every word right. I even rehearsed one more time in the hallway of the lecture hall before I went onstage.

Giving your TED talk

I was the “clean-up” speaker, the last one on the program. This probably helped settle the nerves as I settled in to hear the other speakers. All of them were tremendous! Of course. This was TED.

No matter how much you practice by yourself, there is nothing that can prepare you for stepping into that spotlight and thunderous applause in your honor. That’s why the first 90 seconds are so important. If you can get through the first 90 seconds and the stunning reality of being alone and vulnerable, you’ll be OK.

Make sure you love the first 90 seconds of your talk and that you’re 100 percent confident in it! After that, it’s automatic!

Many TED events are full-day festivals of food and art, but the stars are really the speakers. I made new friends, and now have a permanent spot on the TED site … something to be proud of!

Fun fact, a few days before my talk I had a tooth break off. I had a temporary crown put on that did not fit precisely and it gave me a slight lisp when I spoke. You can detect it in the recording of the talk. I was struggling to speak in a manner that minimized the lisp!

The stress you do NOT see behind the scenes!

If you’d like to view my speech, you can see it here:

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

The post How to create your TED talk appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

A few short items for you today. Too short for a blog post, too big to ignore. Let’s start with a news item showing that we could be heading into a golden age for freelance content creators.

Digiday reported that more agencies are outsourcing their content needs to freelance creators as the work becomes more challenging.

A research report showed that 71 percent of in-house marketers and 68 percent of agencies are outsourcing their content needs to freelance creators. They also reported that the most effective type of content for driving results seems to be blog posts (!). They pointed to these freelance advantages:

• Flexible resources
• Specific industry knowledge
• Lower cost
• Metrics to connect content to sales

The demand for content is rising, with 86 percent of agencies agreeing that there is an increasing need, and the majority of them are further investing in content marketing in the long run. With economic pressures in 2023 and the threat of bot content, this is good news indeed for the freelance crowd.

Creators for the win

YouTube creator Jimmy Donaldson (Mr. Beast) is raising $150 mm at a $1.5 billion valuation. He has 108 mm subscribers and his latest video had 47 million views, which would make him 25 times bigger than Fox News. If that doesn’t speak to the power of the personal brand, I don’t know what does.

Book learning

I learned something interesting this week. I’ve often said that writing a book is like getting a master’s degree — at least the way I approach it! Now that I’m nearing the end of the writing journey for my next book, when I look back at the first chapters, they need an upgrade. I’m smarter now than I was at the beginning of the process!

Another slap in the Face … book

Surprising precisely no one, Facebook will shut down its invite-only newsletter service, which was started in the great newsletter hype/panic moment last year. You might recall they were paying influencers and artists to write essays through their subscription service.

No company on earth has jerked creators around more than Facebook. And they wonder why young people are abandoning the platform.

Solid advice.

Always learning!

Gave the closing keynote address at a conference in Suriname, a small and lovely country in South America. The audience was so wired and enthusiastic! Truly a ton of fun. However, I made a big mistake.

I searched Google for an image of the Suriname football (soccer) team in action to add some local flavor to a slide. I picked the best action picture and thought this would create a great reaction. But the crowd sat there a little stunned.

It was a picture of the US team.

The front of the jersey was not visible in the photo. Apparently, Google was delivering USA photos to me even though I was sitting in Suriname and searching for Suriname!

It was embarrassing but I made fun of myself and announced “Damn you Google!” to the audience. This ended up as one of the most popular parts of my speech! People commented that it was nice to see somebody vulnerable on stage. Many people even thought it was purposeful!

Something ALWAYS goes wrong at a speech and the more you speak, the more you learn about handling adversity with grace.

Tok power

In my classes, I’ve stated that TikTok is the most significant addition to the social media scene since Facebook. There are layers of depth to the platform that make it significant. Here’s another piece of proof: Pew Research reports that a small but growing share of U.S. adults say they regularly get news on TikTok.

This is in contrast with many other social media sites, where news consumption has either declined or stayed about the same in recent years.

In just two years, the share of U.S. adults who say they regularly get news from TikTok has roughly tripled, from 3 percent in 2020 to 10 percent in 2022. Also bigger than Fox News!

A lot of people are worried about how China is collecting data through TikTok. Shouldn’t we be more worried that millions of people are getting their news through TikTok?

Ah, Twitter

I have always loved Twitter. But it is becoming clear that Elon Musk spent $44 billion without a plan. Unless his plan has been to destroy it.

Of all the mistakes he has made, perhaps the worst is the clumsy firing of key employees. The capacity of Twitter’s engineering team to keep it alive and safe has been savaged. Even if he wanted to re-build, who would work in that toxic culture of fear?

Useful nugget

Did you know that Google’s PageSpeed Insights page pagespeed.web.dev will give you a free and near-instant score for the mobile and desktop versions of your website? Thank you to John Espirian for this reminder.

Sort of my personal code:

Have a great week everyone!

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. 

Illustration generated by AI courtesy MidJourney

The post Could this be the golden age of freelance (and other timely observations) appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I was leading a coaching call the other day, helping a client craft their first keynote speech. I explained to him that there are many ways to deliver an effective talk and I thought this would make an interesting insight to provide to you today.

I’ve been on the professional speaking circuit for more than a decade and I’ve observed some of the best in the business. I’ve seen six different ways people can prepare and present a keynote speech.

It’s important to understand these different styles and how they might work for you …

What is a keynote speech?

First, let’s step back and describe how a “keynote speech” differs from other types of talks.

• The keynote speech normally sets the tone at the opening of an event or brings the event to an inspirational close.
• Greater importance is placed on the keynote speech because of the fame or accomplishments of the speaker. Typically the keynote speaker is promoted as a highlight of the event.
• Normally the keynote speaker is paid because of their status in the industry.

If you want to have a career as a speaker, your goal would be to become established and experienced enough to be known as a keynote speaker.

Let’s get into the six speaking options:

1. Extemporaneous

This involves little or no preparation. It ranges from a stream of consciousness to preparing a few notes right before the speaker is ready to go onstage. Often, this is described as “I’m just going to have a conversation with you right now.”

I have rarely seen anybody pull this off well. In fact, if I made a list of the Top Five WORST speeches I have ever seen, they are all somebody trying to wing their way through a speech with little or no preparation.

ADVANTAGE: No preparation time, total flexibility.

DISADVANTAGE: High risk that you come across as unprepared, and unprofessional. You might run under or over the allotted time of the speech if you’re just rambling. It can hurt your reputation if you fall flat because most organizers do NOT expect a keynote speech to be a conversation. They are hiring you to uniquely educate and inspire their audience.

2. Notes on the stage

Some professional speakers literally bring written notes up on a stage with them and refer to them throughout the talk.

I have seen a newbie speaker actually read their speech at a marketing conference. Another variation is “notes as a security blanket.” An example of this would be the famous author/podcaster/pundit Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm will normally have a script in his hand as he gives his speech. He might lightly refer to it to make sure he is on track for his audience, but his speech is still rehearsed.

I might use this style for a one-time, casual presentation to a college class, but I’ve never used it for a professional keynote speech.

ADVANTAGE: Helps you get through the nerves and assures you are hitting every point. This might work in the case where every word is important, like in a national security crisis.

DISADVANTAGE: You’re probably NOT in a national security crisis and reading any part of your speech is a bad look. I have no problem with somebody referring to an outline, but reading a speech is narration, not public speaking. In general, don’t do it.

3. The story shuffle

Very experienced speakers know which stories ignite emotions in their audience. One technique is to keep a notecard deck of your best stories and then weave them into an appropriate speech for an audience.

A famous person who uses this technique is former U.S. President Bill Clinton, one of the highest-paid speakers in the world. On the way to a speech, he will think about his audience, pull out favorite stories from a deck of notated cards, and assemble them into a narrative for an audience.

I’ve also heard people call this method of assembling a keynote speech from various pieces as a “Frankenstein,” as in, “I had to put a speech together in a hurry, so I frankensteined it!”

ADVANTAGE: Very low preparation time. Takes advantage of previous content. Assures good audience response because you know what works.

DISADVANTAGE: You have to be an extraordinarily experienced and confident speaker to pull this off with a broad range of available stories. There is a risk that you come across as disconnected if the stories aren’t perfectly tuned to the theme of the event. Celebrities can get away with that because they are … celebrities!

4. Single purpose

This might be the most common style for brand-new speakers. They craft and rehearse a single-purpose speech, meant for one event.

For example, a friend of mine lamented that he created a highly-specific talk for Content Marketing World but found that it’s so narrowly focused he can’t use it again.

This is appropriate for high-stakes audiences when you have something to prove. An example of this would be a TED talk or an audience of high-potential clients.

ADVANTAGE: If you’re just starting out, a single-purpose speech lets you experiment and build your confidence because it’s likely to be very specific and effective. You’re putting everything you have into one moment. It allows you to be highly-specific and connected to the audience.

DISADVANTAGE: A rule of thumb is that it takes about 20 hours of preparation to create one hour of new content. Then, you have to add the rehearsal time … maybe another five or six more hours? So this is highly inefficient. It’s a lot of effort but the pay-off might be worth it depending on the circumstances.

5. The performance

One time I spoke at an event and followed former NBA great Magic Johnson. Magic is out giving his speech several times a week. The same speech. Word-for-word. He knows exactly when the crowd will laugh or gasp.

Magic has given this keynote speech so many times that it’s simply a memorized performance. And everybody knows it, but it’s OK because it’s mesmerizing just to SEE Magic Johnson!

ADVANTAGE: No preparation, no stress. You know it works. This style works when seeing a celebrity is more important than the message of the speech.

DISADVANTAGE: If you’re a celebrity-level speaker, there is probably no downside. If you’re a working-class speaker like me, there is a risk of being irrelevant if you keep telling the same stories in the same speech year after year. You’re inflexible. This helped kill the career of a friend of mine who gave the same speech for years and then found that it was irrelevant during the pandemic.

6. The Legacy Keynote Speech

This is a hybrid style used by almost every successful professional speaker I know.

In this style, you have a number of different “performances” to call on. For lack of a better word, I will call them legacy speeches. These are your showcase themes.

A masterful example of this is Ann Handley. Ann obsesses over her well-crafted and entertaining speeches. She rehearses every line and blocks every movement like a stage performance (which it is). Even her outfits are meant to captivate.

But Ann never gives the same keynote speech twice because she picks the right performance from her portfolio and artfully tailors it to the specific audience.

This is also the speaking strategy I use. As an example, I have several tried-and-true legacy speeches ready to go on:

• The power and promise of personal branding
• The future of marketing
• The most human company wins
• How to be relentlessly relevant

These speeches are battle-tested and can deliver a guaranteed knock-out performance.

But, like Ann, I never give the same keynote speech twice.

In the hybrid model, I alter my most popular speeches to include details that connect to an audience in a timely and intimate way. I might include:

• Comments about my personal connection to the event, profession, or place
• A link to something in the news that is relevant to the conference
• Pulling in a story from a different speech
• Specific case studies and stories relevant to the issues of the audience/industry

I have even been known to stop in the middle of a speech and connect to something going on with the audience. Earlier this year, I left the stage because somebody needed a hug. That was a first!

ADVANTAGE: You maximize impact/relevance and minimize work by customizing established speeches. Since these talks are well-rehearsed, crafted in detail, and tailored to an audience, this style will make a high  impact.

DISADVANTAGE: Creating a powerful legacy speech is a grueling and demanding process. Writing, refining, and rehearsing a legacy performance might take weeks of work. But it is well worth it if you’re creating a performance that you can customize and monetize for years to come.

The ultimate keynote speech

Obviously, I’m a fan of the hybrid legacy speech. There are some significant advantages:

1. Since you’re repeating a legacy speech, you’re more likely to have a video recording to show event organizers who might want to hire you
2. You can show feedback and ratings from previous speeches.
3. A distinctive speech can turbo-charge your personal brand
4. A well-crafted speech can lead to other monetization efforts like consulting and book sales.
5. You come across as confident because you’ve done this well-rehearsed speech before
6. It’s more fun because by changing an established speech, it’s never boring to you or the audience
7. You can hit your mark on the keynote speech timing ( 30 minutes, 45, etc.) because you’re so well-rehearsed

Finally, technically speaking, there is a seventh way you could deliver a keynote speech. You could do it virtually, but that’s a story for another day.

I hope this helps. I’ve done a lot of work over the years helping people nurture their speaking careers and craft blockbuster speeches. You can always reach out to me here if you need my help.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Discover his $RISE creator community.

Illustration courtesy of Unsplash.com

The post The six possible ways to deliver your keynote speech appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.