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Bill Lampton Ph.D.
Hi there. Welcome to the biz communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the biz communication guy, bringing you tips and strategies on communication that will boost your business because my guest and I share winning words and ways. Very privileged today to have as our guest Steve Siebold. Steve is based in Gainesville, Georgia, which is also my base of operation. Steve Siebold is the president of the International Personal Development Association, an organization dedicated to reducing human suffering around the world. Since 1997 his organization has helped fortune 500 companies increase sales collectively by $1.3 billion
that’s impressive, and he does that through Mental Toughness Training. His clients include Johnson and Johnson and Gasol Rand and caterpillar. Steve is a prolific author. Steve siebel’s 12 books, I think he’s nine ahead of me. There have sold over 2 million copies that have been translated into seven languages. Steve is in demand as a media guest. His work has been featured on every major television network in the United States and Canada, and his interviews and articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal fortune Forbes, USA Today and hundreds of other publications around the world. He’s the past chairman of the National Speakers Association’s million dollar speaker group. As a professional speaker, Steve ranks among the top 1% of income earners in the industry, and you’ll know why when you hear my conversation with Steve Siebold, Steve, hello and welcome to the biz communication show.
Steve Siebold
Hey. Thanks, Bill, thanks for having me.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
It’s a great privilege. You and I have known each other professionally for more than a couple of decades, decades, and I’m very happy to have you in my home base now. You moved around a bit, and now we’re together where we can collaborate quite often. And that’s that’s a real privilege, and I know I’ll benefit from that, Steve, as I look back at your background, let’s go back to the very start, where you were a Speech Communication major in college, and remembering that I taught Speech Communication at the University of Georgia, I wish you had been one of my students, because I know, As with everything you’ve done, you would have been a dedicated student in my class. Let me ask this, in what ways did your speech communication studies in college influence you about the power of communication, or even potentially pave the way for your one day, having a stellar career as a professional speaker.
Steve Siebold
Yeah, I think I learned a lot in speech communication in college. It was actually my favorite. My favorite class is interpersonal communication, mass communication. I learned a lot, I think, as a professional speaker, you sort of, you know, in terms of giving speeches. You sort of just learn the basics in school, but you have to go beyond that. Obviously, they could be a paid speaker, but I learned a lot in the communication field. I mean, just a matter of, you know, in terms of connecting with people, perception versus reality in terms of communication, just things like that, listening skills, things that really, you know, and that those are the classes in college that I really, I really took throughout my life, some of the some of the few actually, that really, honestly, that really helped me a lot in in business and just in life in general.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
I think back to my own speech courses that I had in college, and, like you, I was very impressed with what communication, when it was done, well, what it could accomplish. I know we would have a student speaker in our class. All of us had our turn, of course, and we would have a student speaker who would get up and have a. 10 or 12 minute presentation. And what was remarkable to me was that if they did that with good information, with energy, with obvious commitment and with a strong presentation, they could change people’s opinion in 10 or 12 minutes. And at the same time, Steve, I was a history major, and I noticed how speaking skill, with rare exceptions, the top leaders in history had great speaking skills. And so you and I both look back to those early beginnings, and I definitely agree with you that there are many courses I took in college that when I closed the book and got the grade, Goodbye and good luck, but the speech Communication remains so impressive, I want now to turn to your theme and and one of the things that has made your speaking career so stellar is that you you have taken a theme, you’ve not only mastered it, but you have applied it to people who hear your your stunning keynote speeches, so define for us and the limited time we have. What you mean by mental toughness, how we get it and and what it can do for us, it’s
Steve Siebold
really about emotional control. You know, it’s about controlling your emotions under pressure in certain situations, being able to manipulate your thoughts and feelings for your own benefit. You know, whatever that benefit might be. And, you know, I worked. I started out as a professional athlete, then coach professional athletes and Olympic athletes in this area, and then went on to corporate America in the in the mid 90s, where I helped companies, as you mentioned the intro increased sales and market share. So we sort of directed it as a the killer application, as Bill Gates used to say, toward helping people control their emotions and before, during and after the sales process, to increase sales and market share. And so it was a, it was a great way to be able to take the information I used was with athletes, and then apply it to big business.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
And you mentioned athletes. What top athlete is there in any sport who doesn’t have a coach, and some of them in their career will go through two three are four coaches at different stages. I look at your presentation career, and I I know that you had one of the all time great communication coaches. That was the one of the founders of the National Speakers Association. Tell us about Bill Gove, how he more or less took you under his wing, what he did to help you, and how it developed you professionally?
Steve Siebold
Yeah, I was told when I wanted to go into from, you know, make the transition from coaching professional athletes, amateur athletes and Olympic athletes, I said, you’re going to need to speak. I said, well, even though I was a Speech Communication major, I didn’t really like to give speeches. It wasn’t really my favorite thing. Didn’t really want to do that, but I love the topic. And they said, if you’re going to amplify the message, you need to be a speaker. And so I started charging a few $100 of speech. I got up to about $500 of speech, and I couldn’t get past it. In the first year, lost a bunch of money trying to figure it out. And then I attended the bill Gove speech workshop, which, back then, it was a keynote speaking workshop that Bill had done since 1947 and I luckily bumped into a gentleman my office building who told me about it. I didn’t know anything about it, but Bill was the father of the professional speaking industry, and so I went to his workshop, gave my speech, and he said, you know how much you getting for that? And I said, $500 he said, Yeah, it’s about what it’s worth. He says, What’s your goal? And I said, my goal is to make 5000 I thought if I could make $5,000 a speech, you know, I’d be the most unbelievable thing in the world. And he said, he goes, Well, you’re gonna have to change. He said, because what you’re doing is the content is great, but what That’s not? That’s not the main thing in a keynote speech, believe it or not, he said, so you’re gonna have to learn how to entertain a live audience and do it well. And if you can do that, you’ve got the content. If you can marry the entertainment with the content, you have a million dollar speaking career. He said, If you don’t, you won’t make it. And he was right. And so I followed what he said and everything he told me, Bill worked as long as I followed what he told me, it worked until the day he passed away five years later. It was just a fantastic break for me,
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
I think back to the start of my speaking career, which, which was about the same time as yours. One of the things we don’t know when we start out, which we with the help of someone like Bill Gove or other coaches, we don’t even know our value. No. We don’t know what our presentation can be worth. And you’ve had many people say to you, as I’ve had say to me, what do you mean? You get $5,000 for one hour, or what do you mean you get 7500 or 15,000 for one hour. And what I learned eventually, again with guidance from seasoned professionals, is that you’re not selling time. You’re you’re not selling 60 minutes or 90 minutes. That’s not what you’re selling. You’re selling results. You’re selling the changes that you can make, and like you, Steve, when I started out, I undervalued my services. I Well recall being listed with a speaker’s bureau, and some people may not know what that is, but a speaker’s bureau is an organization that finds capable speakers, or the capable speakers find them, they combine, and the speaker’s bureau helps them get bookings. Well, I was listed with the speaker’s bureau, and after two years, I’d never heard anything from them, and so I called them very politely. I said, my materials seem okay. Well, why is it? I’m not even getting inquiries. They said, your fee is too low. I said, too low. And they said, Yes, that makes you look like a beginner, and people don’t want to hire beginners. And so it’s, it’s, it takes a little reorientation on our part, but fortunately, we we find those who can help us through it. Would you estimate how many, maybe by now, 1000s of presentations you’ve given as a keynote speaker? Yeah,
Steve Siebold
probably with, with all the all the keynotes and the trainings, probably around 3000 somewhere in that area. You know, I never really counted them, but if I, if I, I’ve done the math a few times, in general, somewhere, somewhere in that neighborhood, paid, paid speeches at us. You know, I’m getting a lot of free ones too. So,
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
okay, one question here, one of the, one of the points I always make when I’m coaching a client, a corporate client who wants to improve their communication, is that, if you give the same presentation so many times, and we can compare this to acting, how is it, Steve, you make it fresh to every audience. I mean, you, let’s say you’ve been on the road for a week and all of a sudden, here you are. And this is a fourth time with a different audience, but they’re expecting a lively speech. How do you take that speech you’ve given a couple of 100 times and make it first time for the audience?
Steve Siebold
Yeah, that’s one of the things that Bill Gove taught all the students, was that it’s a show. It’s a It’s not that it’s inauthentic, or it’s or it’s, you know, you’re, you’re, it’s like a Broadway show, but it is a show in in the in the context that it’s a performance, it’s a live performance, and you’ve got to hold people’s attention. And one of the things that holds their attention is to make it look like it’s, you’re saying it for the first time. So, you know, we spend an inordinate amount of time in rehearsal, rehearsing her, people say, you know, who’s your biggest audience? It’s like no one you know just speaking to no one just rehearsing is, is that’s the most frequent audiences any of us ever really have, because we do these tours, and you know, we’ve got to be ready. And so when people think, you know, in between the speaking dates, we’re out, you know, at dinner, somewhere, out of the bar, somewhere a movie or whatever it is, we’re usually in our hotel rooms rehearsing for the next day, you know, and that type of thing. But the rehearsals not so much just remembering the content, as much as it is remembering that what you just said Bill, which is that they’re they’re expecting it to be fresh, even if you’ve said it 1000 times, which is usually the case after you do this for a while. And so it’s gotta be fresh, and you gotta realize it’s a performance and rehearse it as a live performance, as though it’s the first time
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
I mentioned in the biz communication show last week that I had read one lead performer and Phantom of the Opera who had played that lead 2550 times and and you, what we you and I know as professionals. And it’s true, whether you’re professional speaker or whether you’re a department chairman, making the rounds to a lot of different departments and giving the same speech. It’s true that you have to relive the information yourself. You’re not reciting it. You really have to relive it. Steve, we talked in the introduction about you’re having many television guest appearances. Going to be back to talk about that in just a few seconds. Do you
Speaker 1
wish you felt confident about giving speeches? Do you want to deal with difficult people constructively? And what about becoming more persuasive in sales? Then keep listening now to Dr Bill Lambton. He spent 20 years in management, so he knows the communication skills you need for success. I urge you to call the biz communication guide today for a no cost, but very valuable, 30 minute discussion about your communication challenges. Call now 678-316-4300, again, that’s 678-316-4300,
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
we’re back now with Steve Seybold on the biz communication show. As we said at the outset, Steve is a superlative, highly awarded, highly regarded, professional speaker, as you and I have gotten to know each other, Steve, I I was amazed and and quite admiringly so at the the vast amount of national television talk shows where you have been a guest, and we could have an entire session about that, and if you’re willing, sometimes we will, but at the moment, we can cover it in a few minutes. And what I want to ask is, okay, it’s one thing to become a guest. It’s another thing to be the kind of guest that the hosts want and that the viewers and listeners want. So let’s imagine that I come to you, Steve, and I say, Hey, Steve, I’ve gotten this invite to be on the Today Show. And how do I prepare for that? What? What are, what are some of the tips you’d give me? Steve, Well,
Steve Siebold
it’s pretty simple, really, but there are a few things that do make a difference. One, I think you have to recognize that they’re in the entertainment business as well, and so they have to hold the attention of an audience. So the more entertaining you can be as a guest, the more they book you frankly, just like speeches, really. So I think a couple things make your especially with TV, typically, your answers. You want to run your answers between 15 and 25 seconds. Not too long, not too short. You don’t want to be yes, no, yes, no. But you want to get, you know, be in maybe 1520 25 seconds. 30 seconds tops. You’ll see guests, you know, run over all the time, where you can hear, see the host, and they’re whispering in the host’s ear, in the ear piece that they need to cut the producer saying, cut them off, because the producers always talking to the to the host in there. Host in their ear and the earpiece. And so you have to be aware of that. You have to be aware that you’re in a very small box, so you can’t move around a lot, just like in this interview. You can’t, you know, we’re in a you’re in front of a camera, not a crowd, so it’s different. So you can’t move around a lot. That’s that’s another thing. And to know, you’re to study the production notes, which are basically the questions that the host is preparing to ask. They give the those production notes in the green room, typically, you know, an hour before the show, or a half hour before the show, and then just know. So you kind of have an idea, usually four or five questions. And the really good shows, like the Today Show and Good Morning America, a lot of the big shows I’ve been on, the hosts are very, very talented and very skilled. They might ask you the first question, then you go off on a tangent somewhere. They’ll go off and kind of take you with them, but the better you get at it, the more you practice, the better you get like anything else, the more they book you on these shows. And that’s how we were able to get on 1000s of shows over the years.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
I would, I would think that the advice that you’ve just given would also apply to somebody. They may not get on regional or national television, but they they might be a podcast guest, which which is becoming you don’t have to be a top celebrity to become a podcast guest, and so exactly what you said there, I think is the same. I remember, I’m going to confess this. I remember several years back, I was interviewed on a podcast, and it lasted a long time. It was about an hour, and at the end of it, and this is true confessions time, my host paused for a minute, didn’t say anything, and finally, he said, Bill, we cannot use that that recording. I was a little shocked, and I said, Well, why is that? He said, because your answers were too long and your answers being too long, the host never got in there. And we, we, if we had any listeners at all, they would have drifted away because there was no interaction. Question, and this, this reminds us, as you said, Say it well, but say it concisely and make sure that you don’t you don’t dominate the host or other guests who might be there. And you and I both remember, of course, how interviews on television little short clips where the camera would go maybe to a political figure or a celebrity, and back in the early days of television, that might be a seven minute interview, and now it’s probably 35 to 40 seconds, and they got the gist of it, and that’s it. Switching. Now I am sure that being the successful professional speaker, you are that that you have coached other speakers, whether they’re aspiring professional speakers are where there, there are business executives. You got two three minutes here, Steve, what would be some of the major items that you would try to accomplish with us, with a person who comes to you and wants to improve their speaking skills?
Steve Siebold
Yeah, after Bill Gove passed away in 2001 my wife and I took over the bill go speech workshop and ran that all the way up until last year. Now it’s online, and people can still do it online, but we’ve got people. We get people from over the 25 years we ran it, people from Hollywood, you know, actors, professional actors, politicians, all people in the White House. And then people completely outside of there, you know, that want to be college professors, people that want to be professional paid speakers, like like, like me and you. And so we get all kinds of different people, but I think the some of the commonalities among everyone, whether they were running for office or something else, or they wanted to be a paid speaker, you know, some of the things that are important are realizing it’s all entertainment. If you can’t hold the attention of an audience, then you’re not going to be able to get your message across, avoiding excessive detail. You know, good being able to explain things in very broad, very, very simple strokes, remembering the medium in which we work as speakers. Whether we’re speaking to 10 people or 10,000 people, it’s a rough way to communicate, because there are so many distractions that can occur within an audience, small or large, and larger the audience, the more distractions can occur. And so we sort of go over those basic things to make sure the message gets across. And the message is very, very strong in terms of what they really what the one thing the person really wants to get across, whatever that one thing might be.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
I like that overview. I’m sure that you have helped many people in carrying on Bill Gove’s method of teaching, and I’m you’re a living example of how well that works, Steve, what a grand privilege, as I said at the outset, to have this conversation with you. I like to call it a conversation instead of an interview. I’m quite sure there are our viewers and our listeners who would like to get in touch with you, so share with us, please your contact information.
Steve Siebold
Yeah, I’m really to find. I’m really easy to find online, because I’ve done so much media for the book. So they can type in my name on Google and find me anywhere but our main, our main website now is the International Personal Development Association, and that’s IP, D, A r.org, I P, D, A r.org, and can see some of the things we’re doing to help reduce human suffering around the world through personal development and random acts of kindness, and we’ve got all kinds of programs going, but I’m pretty easy to find at that site and then anywhere online, pretty much.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
Thank you, and I, I certainly encourage our viewers and listeners to get in touch with Steve. He’s an incredible resource about presentation skills, and now that Steve has given his contact information, I’m very glad to give mine. Bill Lampton, the biz communication guy, encourage you to go to my YouTube channel. It’s if you go to the search bar, type in Bill Lampton PhD, you will go to my YouTube channel. I have almost 500 instructional videos there with winning words and ways that can boost your business. Quite a few of those are solo presentations. But in recent years, I’ve had the wonderful privilege of hosting the biz communication show, and as a result, you’re not relying just on my information, but on what our guests can bring. And then to my website, of course, I encourage you to visit there, since I’m the biz communication. Communication guy, quite logically, my website is biz B, I Z, biz communication guy.com, and while you were on my YouTube channel, I hope you subscribed. And also on my website, you’ll find how you can subscribe to the podcast. Naturally, after you’ve done that, I encourage you to give me a phone call. 678-316-4300, I’ll be glad to talk to you without obligation to initially, to hear your communication challenges and problems and how I can assist you with them. So please do call Steve SIBO again a remarkable conversation. You’re a wonderful resource. What would you say in 30 seconds or so to pull together what we’ve talked about? 30
Steve Siebold
seconds? Okay, well, I would say that, you know, communication needs to be concise. Needs to be entertaining, it needs to be short and it needs to be impactful on people so they get the message, the one message you’re trying to get across.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
You did it well. You were concise and you were action packed. Thanks again to Steve Siebold, thanks to those of you who’ve joined us on YouTube and also on the podcast, and thanks to the biz communication shows associate producer Mike Stewart, who has been my technology and marketing guru Since 1997 couldn’t do it without Mike, and I know Steve is very well acquainted with Mike, too. Look forward to hosting you again on the next biz communication show you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
