STP 177 | How to Turn What You Know Into Paid Speaking
===
[00:00:00] β
[00:00:02] Dustin Rivenbark: after experiencing death at the beginning of life with my baby, Callie Grace, middle age, with the passing of my mom, end of life with my grandmother, I discovered.
[00:00:11] We only get one shot at this life, this side of eternity. Okay. And I want to ask the listeners, if you're listening to this, what are you doing with the time that you have? Right now. Right.
[00:00:29] β
[00:00:29]
[00:00:31] James Marland: Do you say the same things over and over again in your therapy sessions and sometimes forget how valuable it is? Today I'm joined by Dustin Riverbank. He's from Built Different Speakers Academy, and today we're talking about how to find the message inside you that you already know, that you're already sharing, how to figure out who needs to hear it, and how to start taking the steps that can lead to getting booked into paid public [00:01:00] speaking.
[00:01:01] Make sure you listen all the way to the end because Dustin and I have an upcoming event where he's going to help you take these ideas and start working on them for yourself. I'll tell you more about it at the end of the episode.
[00:01:14] All right, let's get into it
[00:01:18] Hello and welcome back to the Scaling Therapist Podcast. I'm your host, James Marland, and this is the show where we help you take your information and knowledge and turn it into impact in the world I'm here with my special guest, Dustin Ryen Bark, and he is a speech speech coach and, helps people turn what they know into, content and teaches them how to use it to actually earn some extra income as well.
[00:01:44] Dustin, welcome to the show.
[00:01:45] Dustin Rivenbark: James, it's an honor. It's a pleasure. Excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
[00:01:49] James Marland: and I met Dustin at the Ignite Men's Conference where he was talking about using your story to change people's lives. I, I was like, this [00:02:00] is something that I think. The way he laid it out was, was simple, easy to follow. And for those people who are thinking, what can I do outside the therapy room?
[00:02:10] Or what can I do with my knowledge to impact more people, but they don't know their first steps. That is something Dustin is an expert at, and I would, I'm happy to have him on the show. So, Dustin, to get us started off, how did you get started in helping people use their story to transform lives and develop some extra income?
[00:02:30] Dustin Rivenbark: Yeah. So James it, it all started y years ago. I, I tell people you know, I have quite a story and I hear a lot of people that, that want. To use their voice to create change or to do something positive or to do something good. But some people think, man, I just, I just don't have a story.
[00:02:47] And I'm like, listen to me. Yes you do. It's just not refined yet. You, you know, it's just, you hadn't put a tremendous amount of thought in it. And I heard a, a, a famous pastor one time, he said, you don't, you don't have. [00:03:00] To, you don't have to have had a meth lab in your closet to have a testimony, right.
[00:03:03] Just share what God has done in, in and through your life. But yeah, quite a, quite a story. My wife and I and my family. We've been through a lot. I worked offshore for drilling rigs. Did that for about 10 and a half years. the discovery channel labeled offshore drilling the. Fifth most dangerous job on the planet, man.
[00:03:23] And I survived 10 and a half years up until the bottom fell out of the market, and 200,000 jobs were lost. And, and mine was one of them, found myself with wife, pregnant on an old farmhouse on 25 acres. You, you know, no job scared outta my mind. Right? and then. We found out that our daughter, Callie Grace, was not gonna survive outside of the womb.
[00:03:47] She was gonna be born with no kidneys or a bladder. They call it Potter Syndrome. And the doctors started, you know, naming off things like termination, early abortion all, all of this. And, but we decided [00:04:00] to carry Cali Grace as, as long as God would sustainer. One month shy. She, she passed away full one month shy of full term.
[00:04:08] And we had to go in and, and, and take Callie Grace. And that was one of the hardest moments of my life. But what I thought was gloom and doom from losing my career was actually giving me. Time to spend with my family and, and go through all of this, this healing journey and process. And from there, James I went through the hardest year of my life.
[00:04:30] After the loss of our daughter, I lost my mother to a drug addiction, a drug overdose, took her life and my grandmother to the final stages of dementia. And I say all that for a reason. I, I say that to say this, after experiencing death at the beginning of life with my baby, Callie Grace, middle age, with the passing of my mom, end of life with my grandmother, I discovered.
[00:04:53] We only get one shot at this life, this side of [00:05:00] eternity. Okay. And I want to ask the listeners, if you're listening to this, what are you doing with the time that you have? Right now. Right. To, to be able to, to leave this world better than you found it, to be able to leave this world inspired. Right. And so it was that, that was this catalyst, this call from God to go into ministry.
[00:05:24] And, and man, I went into ministry and then speaking just kinda happened as a. Byproduct of that, James of you, you know, honing in our, my gift people asking me to come here to go there. And then it wasn't you, you know, too many years later I found myself joining a speaking community much like.
[00:05:46] The one that we have created that I want to talk about some today built different speakers academy. And so and, and I believe that a lot of people, they really want. To use their voice [00:06:00] to create change, to do good. Maybe even get paid for it, maybe to write books, start courses, you know, do all of these type of things, but they don't know where to start.
[00:06:10] Right. And I tell people, James, start right here. Because it built different speakers academy. We have some of the greatest coaches, man, that are. That are helping people shortcut all of those questions by the mistakes that we've made in our own life, in our own speaking journey and, and career and, and get in the room.
[00:06:31] And so that's what kind of birthed all, all of this. And from there we've been teaching speakers all around the country how to use their voice.
[00:06:40] James Marland: That's amazing. And some of the things that you were saying we can't necessarily relate to, you know, the oil rig. Like I've never worked on an oil rig, but I have lost my job, you know, and I have been at the
[00:06:52] Dustin Rivenbark: Yeah.
[00:06:52] James Marland: where. I'm in this desperate situation. It's those moments that you're, you know, you're bringing out, and as you're staying [00:07:00] sharing, we connect with those on a deep and personal level. And then how do you take that, like this, this question of like, I've had all this going on in my life. I've had these experiences. I know, I know thi you know, I know things. I've learned things and I wanna share with other people, but I just don't know. How to do it. I don't even know the first step on how to do it. for, for those type of people, I want to ask some questions, you know, as we're talking about this, like
[00:07:28] Dustin Rivenbark: Absolutely.
[00:07:29] James Marland: where, do I make this Inca impact and how do I do when I'm so busy? what is the first step? So you, let's just start basic, like somebody has. Somebody has an idea, they know they can help people, or they know they have a share a story that's inspirational and they've learned things and they wanna make an impact. do you get started that, talking with other people? You, you're not, you're probably not gonna be invited to, you know, car Carnegie Hall or something right away, but, [00:08:00] but, but that, maybe that's not your goal. So how do you, how do you even get started? What, what's like step, step a step zero.
[00:08:07] Dustin Rivenbark: Great question. I get, I get that question all the time. James and I always tell people that I'm, I'm just a, a small town kid. I'm, I'm a guy from a small town of only 689 people, a one red light. Town, right? Like people don't do this. The type of things that, that we're talking about from, from these small towns like this, there's no, there's no circles, there's no people doing this.
[00:08:32] So what do you do? I have managed to, to be able to speak on platforms around the world. From just this small town by implementing a few key steps. Number one is the biggest reasons people fail is that they do not have effective systems in place. That is, that is the number one reason speakers fail.
[00:08:55] But the first step, James that you need to take is to begin [00:09:00] to understand your why. Okay. Why do you want to be a professional speaker? Maybe it's a pastor, maybe it's corporate, maybe it's educational space. What, maybe it's speaking to nonprofits. Maybe it's addiction mental health, whatever, women empowerment.
[00:09:21] What, whatever it may be. The first thing we need to do before we understand any of that is my why. Because in this speaking world there's a lot of distractions. There's a lot of thieves of comparison, there's a lot of traps that you can fall into that knock you off course. There's definitely feast or famine seasons.
[00:09:43] There's all of these different. Things that if you do not know your why, your why has to be bigger than you. Okay? My why is my understanding that I only get one shot. We only [00:10:00] get one shot. And if I'm out here empowering people to step into their God-given calling and I'm speaking on platforms and raising up powerful youth of the next generation.
[00:10:11] Why is bigger than me? So when I find myself feeling insecure, because I tried to compare myself to somebody out here killing it. Because, because I see somebody out here, you know, with their Ferrari or there any, and I don't desire any of that, but you know what I'm saying? Any, any of any of those things.
[00:10:28] Yes, the signs of success, the American Dream, right? You, you, you know, it's, it's in those moment, James, where my why carries me through. So that has to be first and foremost of, of getting a why that can withstand any trauma, any drama and, and any hardship that you face. The second thing that is so important is to know.
[00:10:53] Who your message can help. In other words, who are you going to speak [00:11:00] to? You heard me speak about this at Ignite. You heard me say that. A speaker who speaks to everyone is a speaker who does not have an audience. Okay. That's important because some people think this is just about speaking. James, just give me a mic.
[00:11:18] Just gimme a microphone. Right? I just, I just wanna speak. I can, man, I can, I can help anybody. Put me in the lights. It, it, it has to be more than that. Okay? So here's what I tell people to do. Find their perfect avatar. Create, create an avatar of the person that you think you can help. All right? What is their age?
[00:11:42] Are they male? Are they female? You, you know, what have they gone through? All right. What is the things that they're facing? What are their pain points? Where can you find them? Okay? All of these types of things start to create your niche. All right. There's [00:12:00] power in niching down. Now, I truly believe that as you develop this gift, okay, that you will be called into different rooms, but you're gonna have to.
[00:12:14] People hate this word. You're gonna have to market and advertise yourself as a speaker in the beginning. And sometimes it feels grimy, sometimes it feels rough and, and it's hard to kinda like put yourself out there in this manner, but you have to understand this is bigger than you. There's so much. Junk out here on this social media world.
[00:12:39] Why would I not wanna put good out there? Why would I not wanna put empowering clips out there teaching material? Whether you speak in real estate, whether you speak in secular. World given biblical principles in a secular way. You know why? Why would you not wanna be out here, you know, leading the [00:13:00] charge.
[00:13:00] And so I tell people to grab hold of that avatar and then you're gonna sit with that for a minute. You're gonna take the 30,000 foot view. You're gonna try to learn everything you can about this avatar. You're gonna try to learn where you find them. Do you find them in schools? Do you find them in corporations?
[00:13:19] Do you find them, you, you know, in churches, in nonprofits, in conferences, what type of conferences? And you begin to start to understand you, you know, this niche that you reach, and then if it's something that you're looking to monetize, we have to ask ourselves. Is there a market for this? All right. You may be passionate about you, you know, a random topic, but there may not, it may not be an interest out here, right?
[00:13:57] So, so it's beginning to learn how to [00:14:00] be a student of the craft. So first understanding your why. Okay? Then you're going to. Want to begin to understand that target audience becoming a student of their needs. What is it that you offer? How do you stand out? I tell people become a red baseball in a sea of green baseballs because you, you know, you may be attracted to a certain type of speaker, James.
[00:14:33] You might love somebody who hollers and screams all over the stage and it motivates everybody and all of that. And so you may try to mimic. What you see and like the problem with mimicking all is that people want to hire someone that solves a a specific problem. And when I mimic, I go into a sea of green baseballs, nobody can find me because I've tried to blend in with [00:15:00] what.
[00:15:00] I think motivational speaking or inspiration or teaching looks like, right? So I've now become another green baseball in a, in a bucket of baseball, green baseballs. I say, what makes you different? What makes your value proposition stand out? What problem do you solve? People hire people who solve problems.
[00:15:26] Am I making sense, James?
[00:15:27] James Marland: a hundred percent. you said a lot that I want to go back to, but pick up
[00:15:31] Dustin Rivenbark: Yeah.
[00:15:31] James Marland: right here. I once worked with somebody who did um, health and weight loss, They were talking about like how, how you lose weight and you'll look better, and she found out that some of her older clients, all they wanted to do was take walks with her grandkids. that was the problem they wanted solved, the other stuff was good. But the real reason behind why they, that this was a problem they wanted to solve now was they were, they [00:16:00] wanted to experience something different in life. Like they wanted to be able to do those things later in, later in life that they enjoyed. if you're talking all about, you know, my problem will help you lose weight or do do something. Different that it's gonna miss the, the core audience. that was one of those things. So I wanna, I'm gonna go back a little bit and then we can go forward if we have more time. But one of the things I wanted to talk about was the why, the why question.
[00:16:29] Two points about that. There, there will be hard times, right?
[00:16:33] Dustin Rivenbark: Yes,
[00:16:34] James Marland: but for most of us, we have to. Practice our craft and develop that audience and, do, do the, you talked about the systems, you know, do the boring systems or have those boring systems in place so that things, things are consistently being done. I, I, let's talk about, I wanna keep asking questions. Let's talk about [00:17:00] consistency in doing some of these things and the systems because. Just like most things in life, if you do it one time or you do it hard one time or hard like once a month, it's not gonna do the same thing as having that system. How, how does that play out with public speaking and in your story into impact?
[00:17:24] Dustin Rivenbark: Systems are everything because let's be honest, there's days that you're tired. There's days that you're bored, there's days you don't want to do things. And you know, there's days that you're busy. So systems are imperative for keeping you on track, for keeping you on time. But someone might be asking, okay, well Dustin, if I want to be as.
[00:17:44] Professional speakers or a speaker? What, what, what are these systems? What do I need? You need a speaker's pipeline. Okay. This is, this is a you, you, you know, you need some sort of resource management. [00:18:00] Tool. Okay? You need something that is going to keep track of all of your leads. You're gonna need something that keeps track of when you reached out to them, what their, what their information is when do you follow up with them and all of that.
[00:18:13] You need a, a speakers. Pipeline. Now, there's many ways of doing this. I love HubSpot. HubSpot is a pro speaker tip here for anybody listening it's in, it's in an app or, or a website that you can go to. They have apps and, and all of that. And you can, you, you know all of your leads that you're gonna be finding and filtering into one spot.
[00:18:36] You could put them in a program called HubSpot. And from there. You can email out to all of these leads. You can assign yourself tasks, sequences, all of that.
[00:18:48] James Marland: HubSpot when I led the virtual assistant
[00:18:50] Dustin Rivenbark: Yep.
[00:18:51] James Marland: It was wonderful. did you, do you use the paid version or the free version?
[00:18:56] Dustin Rivenbark: Uh, I use the paid version, but understand that's what I [00:19:00] was wanting to get to, is that there are free versions. I tell people, start with what's in your hand. There are a few things that a speaker needs to really be successful. Now, these are not what you need to get started. I wanna name a few. One is a, a, a good website.
[00:19:18] Okay, obviously now you don't have to have that in the beginning. Understand that I started my speaking career without all of this, okay? In place. You can, however, get what's called a speaker one sheet right now, another pro speaker tip. You can hop on Canva. It is an app. And you can Google speaker one sheets and you can find them by the thousands, and you can find one that that fits your style.
[00:19:47] I see you smiling. Talk to me, James.
[00:19:50] James Marland: I use this tip myself because you asked me I asked you to be on the podcast, you're like, oh, send me your speaker one sheet. I'm like, i, and, and it took me a week because I didn't [00:20:00] have one. I'm like, okay. So when I
[00:20:01] Dustin Rivenbark: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:20:02] James Marland: went in and did it, you know, I had all the information I just asked. I, I, I asked chat, GPT what, what a, you know, what needs to be on this one sheet? I got some of my better episodes, or, or, you know, I, I found some things that I had done. I put the links in there. I said who the show's for and what you can expect. And I sent it to you, put a couple pictures on it. You know, it took an hour, but it, it's done. And now, now I
[00:20:32] Dustin Rivenbark: And.
[00:20:32] James Marland: it. But it was a great, now I have it forever though. Like I don't just have that
[00:20:36] Dustin Rivenbark: Yes, yes.
[00:20:36] James Marland: sheet podcast, one sheet for just this interaction. I've used it, I've used it in other things just in the last week or two. So yeah, that speaker one sheet is
[00:20:46] Dustin Rivenbark: I'm proud. Hey, I was able to challenge you, teach you something, and, and, and we are, we're able to grow all, all off of one interaction. And that's what being a speaker is all about is, is [00:21:00] helping people, coaching people that challenging people and you, you know, all of that. And so you can get this speaker one sheet like, and create this yourself, and you can be able to reach out to these prospects and with the digital version and send this with them that has your.
[00:21:16] Bio body of work, some professional photographs, how they can find you, topics that you speak on, all of these things, right? And once you go ahead.
[00:21:26] James Marland: and if you don't know some of the, the things like you were the very beginning, like who, who, who, what's your why? Who do you speak to? What are their problems? Just fill out the speaker one sheet. You're gonna have it like 80% done. Like, like you, you can use
[00:21:42] Dustin Rivenbark: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:43] James Marland: this process, this step to figure out some of the things if you're confused about it. it it helps you refine what you're doing, who you're doing it for, and what problems you can help them solve.
[00:21:58] Dustin Rivenbark: And, and let me, let [00:22:00] me break some of this, this down. I really want, I really want your listeners to grab hold of a couple of things. So, so the website, the speaker one sheet social media presence. All right. I do know speakers who literally make six figure salaries and they have zero social media.
[00:22:16] I do not recommend that because. Why would we not use a device to promote our speaking business that can reach the other side of the world? You, you know, so I, I would say I'm a definite advocate of using your social media for your, for your business and, and so on and so forth. So you know what?
[00:22:34] But also make sure that all of your social medias are saying the same things, that they're promoting you as a professional speaker. Don't use one. As a promotional tool, and then Facebook as your political rants. All right? Because it just, it just does not add up, right? It, it, it, it, it all has to be the same across the board.
[00:22:57] This is how we you, you know, [00:23:00] this is how we market ourselves as a professional brand. And in these systems. Some people tell me, okay, HubSpot sounds great, Dustin. Too complex. Gimme something else. You can do this in an Excel spreadsheet. Okay? You can literally have an Excel spreadsheet that says name, title, phone number email, and then a blank space for the last time you contacted them.
[00:23:26] And then another blank space for any notes that you have. Then you're gonna map out, man, corporations. If you speak in corporate companies, businesses, schools, if you speak in the educational space, you're gonna map out within a 50 to a hundred mile an or 50 to a hundred mile radius. Every school that, that you can find, you're gonna go find the decision makers from that school, go to their websites, from that company, go to their websites inside built different speakers academy.
[00:23:59] [00:24:00] We give out lists of people who make. Decisions. Right? And you, you, you know, their titles because nobody on these websites say, Hey, I hire speakers. That'd be suicide because they'd be getting inundated with all of this. So you, you know, you go on to a school, find the, the principals email address and name and contact information.
[00:24:23] Put all that in your system, and so you're just, it's a numbers game, right? You're just getting all of these references, all of these people, you're putting them into your pipeline. The beauty of the Excel spreadsheet is that you can use color coding systems. If they're all in white, then I've never reached out to 'em before and I know.
[00:24:42] That I need to go to them and reach out to them. If I've reached out to 'em one time, I put the date in that blank, that date that I reached out to 'em. I color coded blue that mean, or yellow. That means I've reached out one time. I changed the date the next week. I color coded [00:25:00] blue. That means I've reached out to him twice and I do this for three consecutive weeks.
[00:25:05] All right, and I'm reaching out to 'em. Then I do what's called a breakup email. This is your system. It sounds boring, but listen, I'm trying to help someone. Okay?
[00:25:14] James Marland: duplicatable. You
[00:25:15] Dustin Rivenbark: this is
[00:25:16] James Marland: complex. You can scale simple.
[00:25:19] Dustin Rivenbark: people,
[00:25:20] James Marland: if you,
[00:25:20] Dustin Rivenbark: yes.
[00:25:21] James Marland: Benjamin Hardy in his book of the Science of Scaling says We. We become experts at scaling things that are unnecessary
[00:25:30] Dustin Rivenbark: I was just gonna say, I was just gonna say James, like, like this is the stuff that stops people. This is the stuff that kills people is because they won't do the hard thing. All right. And it's like once you get these flowing and you're continuing, now you've done 50 to a hundred mile radius every school in the, then I'm gonna start branching out, then I'm gonna go out and find more.
[00:25:51] You're never, this is an always evolving list. You're never gonna. Stop looking for prospects, making connections. [00:26:00] Then I want you to get up and I want you to get your tail to conferences. I want you to go network with people. I want you to mingle. I want you to join built different speakers Academy. Okay?
[00:26:12] Anybody that's listening, if you go to built. Different academy.com/speakers. We'll talk about it at the end as well, but built different academy.com/speakers. All right, this is where we can get started learning all of the background. You, you, you know, the, the building blocks and the foundational principles of becoming a professional speaker.
[00:26:36] James Marland: Yeah, yeah. The, these systems. Our, our
[00:26:40] Dustin Rivenbark: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:41] James Marland: like they're the foundation. You do, you do the work you get them in place, and then you team continue to do them. It, it's like, it's the flywheel effect. Like when is the first pedal? What, when you're doing a bike, you know the bike has the [00:27:00] flywheel, which pedal gets you going the fastest?
[00:27:02] Is it the first one? Probably not. Is it the hundredth one? Probably not. Somewhere between one and a hundred. Everything got easier and now you're able to fly it,
[00:27:14] Dustin Rivenbark: Yep.
[00:27:14] James Marland: with, with doing the first, the first action's probably the hardest pedal, right? I mean, it's getting
[00:27:21] Dustin Rivenbark: Yep.
[00:27:22] James Marland: up, figuring out who, what your why is, who your audience is, what their problems are. And then, then, then when you have that, you have targets. You know if I'm gonna do schools, I'm gonna call schools. You know, I, I have this educational system for schools. I help kids deal with trauma or relationship issues, or what, whatever, you know, dealing with their parents, dealing with bullies, whatever it is. Once you have that target, now you know who to contact and you can reach out to them. Then you, you know, the more people you reach out to. The more they know you. And sometimes it only takes one person who knows a bunch of other [00:28:00] people. Maybe you don't know all the principles, but you know the secretary who knows all the principles and she's like, oh my
[00:28:06] Dustin Rivenbark: Right.
[00:28:07] James Marland: is the best. You know, your, your topic would be so good. I could put you in contact with four. Principals or four administrators in this district who would definitely wanna hear your, what you have to offer. Sometimes all it takes is one, but if you're not going out there, if you're not going to those conferences, if you're not networking, if you're not sending those emails, it's, it, it won't happen. so yeah, the
[00:28:33] Dustin Rivenbark: Yeah, and James.
[00:28:34] James Marland: system, the system in your why is, is critical. I think what I'm, what I'm
[00:28:39] Dustin Rivenbark: Yeah.
[00:28:39] James Marland: this.
[00:28:41] Dustin Rivenbark: And I want you to understand something else too. Okay? We're, we're going to follow up with them three times. Send a breakup email. The, the, these, these are, these are powerful. The, the, the majority of the speaking that you land is gonna come from follow ups. Nobody [00:29:00] is ever going to just. Sign you on the first email.
[00:29:03] That's seldom, seldom, seldom happens. But I also want people to understand that the first four speaking engagements you ever do, they're already in your contacts right now. That's a pro speaker tip. You just don't know it yet. We're gonna show you how to put yourself out there to look like a pro to reach out like a pro.
[00:29:21] Everybody has. People in their contacts that either has a business, own a business, is in a business, maybe teaches at a school, is a principal at a school maybe pastors, a church, whatever. There are contacts in your phone right now. People want you to succeed once you put it out there. My very first page speaking, engage.
[00:29:41] Ever came from a guy who was a general manager at a car dealership, and I happened to be the youth pastor to all three of her Chi his children. And so people, once I put myself out there, he's like, absolutely. He's like, I, I wish him the best. I want to [00:30:00] help him. And so there are people in your. In your sphere of influence, that will help you as well.
[00:30:06] You just don't even realize that yet. But inside built different speakers, academy man, we have some of the best coaches in the world. We have myself who have built a, a professional speaking business from the ground up. Right. And then we have Dr. Zach Clinton. And Ben Allison, who is the Vice President of Zach Clinton's, the Vice President of American Association of Christian Counselors Ben Allison, is the CEO of the A A CC.
[00:30:32] And these guys hire the biggest speakers on the planet and they do conferences all over the country, and they can tell you exactly what they look for when they're bringing in. Speaker, Zach talks about the power of you, you know, messaging, how to create your core message. See, all the while I'm putting in these systems, James, I need to be working on my content and my [00:31:00] messaging.
[00:31:00] So, so I'm working on these systems, I'm working on the keynote. Having, in having that. That opening hook right within that first 30 seconds to be able to capture someone's attention. If I can capture 'em in the first three minutes, man, I could teach 'em anything for the next 15, right? And so. Understanding the power of the hook and then within the body, right, having my points, and then application, teaching them, giving them good stories.
[00:31:33] The power of a story has entertained more men by campfire than, than these electronics ever thought about. For thousands of years. So understanding the power of your story and how to put all of that messaging together and then deliver it in a type of way that captures the decision, make's attention.
[00:31:58] Right. It's [00:32:00] not just about the people that we want to help, it's about the ones who want to bring us in as well. What problem do you solve for the decision makers? And that's how we want to sell ourselves when we reach out, or that's how we want to you know, portray ourselves when, when we reach out.
[00:32:18] For those of you who don't like the word selling, you know, and I, and I completely under, I completely understand that. But let me tell you the power of getting in the room. I met Zach and Ben at Ignite Men's Ministry two years ago. Okay. They had no clue who I was. James. No, they had never met me a single day in their lives.
[00:32:45] I'm from South Alabama. Ignite Men's Ministry is in Lynchburg, Virginia. It is across the country. Okay. I hopped in my car, I loaded my family. We went across. The country [00:33:00] to go to a meeting of 5,000 men and I managed to get in the room network, get close exchange numbers. Come back and follow up with them.
[00:33:17] Right. Doing the hard thing. Doing the scary thing. What if they don't answer me back? What if they don't care? Who cares? Right. We're, we're all human and, and we're all wired. You, you know. To do relationships and then we form this relationship. And I'm always looking for ways to add value, and this was one of the ways of, hey, we could partnership and build this thing.
[00:33:43] Just like you as a speaker need to be networking with these different rooms and decision makers. Man, one opportunity that you decided to do the hard thing could change everything for you.
[00:33:58] James Marland: That, that's great. I [00:34:00] think we're gonna, we're gonna leave on that message. 1 opportunity, one relationship can change everything. I'm gonna give you a couple rapid fire questions. If we had another hour, I'd ask you these questions. Are it, will the, would the built different Speakers Academy help me understand how to make money with the My speeches?
[00:34:21] Dustin Rivenbark: Absolutely. We go through you, you know, things like having a clear pricing structure. What does that look like? Understanding that certain niches are gonna pay less, some niches are gonna pay more. We try to help you wrap your mind around that.
[00:34:36] James Marland: Like what do I charge? Was the follow up question to that. Would it
[00:34:40] Dustin Rivenbark: Yeah.
[00:34:41] James Marland: How to find clients or p places to speak.
[00:34:44] Dustin Rivenbark: Yes. We talk about how to basically how to fish. I, I'm, I'm always talking to us about how to find these clients and put them into my pipeline, how to follow up with them and land these [00:35:00] engagements. We have success after success, after success of you, you know, our speakers out here winning.
[00:35:06] James Marland: Awesome. And you also answered the question, I, I wrote it like you talked about, how, how they help you develop your keynote and your core content. That's also the, often these experts, they have so much wealth of information, so many ways to help. They just don't know where, like, how do I narrow it down and if, if I tell everything I know it'll be three hours, but people don't wanna listen to me for three hours, what do I do?
[00:35:32] So you help with the, the clarification and content. Yeah.
[00:35:37] Dustin Rivenbark: Yes. And, and, and I'm, we're always on the phone. I've had my phone beep several times during the course of this interview with just different speakers with questions and issues that they're, they're having. So yes, you, you're only stuck when you come to build different speakers Academy. You only stay stuck because you chose to.
[00:35:55] We, we really try to get into the weeds, so.
[00:35:57] James Marland: me as we wrap up tell me, you [00:36:00] know, where, where they can find you and if they're interested about built different speakers Academy, where do they go?
[00:36:06] Dustin Rivenbark: Yes, go to built different academy.com/speakers. Built different. academy.com/speakers, or you could find me Dustin Ryba on Instagram. You could find me, Dustin Rybak on Facebook, on TikTok. Doesn't matter. We are here and, and we would love to have a conversation with you.
[00:36:32] James Marland: Great. Dustin, this has been what? It went quick. I can't believe. I can't
[00:36:36] Dustin Rivenbark: Yeah.
[00:36:37] James Marland: How, like, it feels like we've just been talking for a few minutes. But thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your heart and your mission with the audience.
[00:36:47] Dustin Rivenbark: Yes. Thank you for having me, James. And I want to tell any listener that might be listening right now. You have a story. It's just not refined. You have a platform, a sphere of influence [00:37:00] of people that you do life with. It's just not refined yet. People want you to succeed. You can do this. It is possible for you.
[00:37:09] James Marland: Awesome wonder. Wonderful. Okay, listeners, you've heard, Dustin, it's it's now time to take the time. It's now time to take the time, whatever. It's now time to take the time to refine your story and put your mission in motion. We'll see you next time.
[00:37:26] β
[00:37:28] James Marland: If you've been listening to Dustin and thinking, "Yeah, I could do this, but I need somebody to help me figure out the next steps," I've got good news for you. On Friday, August twenty-eighth, Dustin and I will be hosting a live virtual workshop called Turn Your Experience into Paid Public Speaking. We'll be meeting from eleven AM to two PM Eastern Time or ten AM to one PM Central.
[00:37:53] This, this workshop is a working session for therapists, counselors, and helpers who [00:38:00] already know a lot, who know how to help people, but they need the first couple steps into turning that knowledge into speaking topics, finding the audience, and then what to charge and how to get booked. You don't need speaking experience to attend. Just bring what you know, bring your questions, and we'll work on your next step. You can reserve your seat at coursecreationstudio.com/paidpublicspeaking. if taking your experience out of the therapy office into paid public speaking has been on your someday pile, this might be a good day to move it onto the calendar. I hope to see you there
[00:38:41] before we end the show, I wanna thank our pro-level sponsors for sponsoring the show: Humor Speaks, RevKey, The Practice Co-Lab, Arc Integrated, TheraSaaS CRM, Guest Compliance Consulting LLC, Private Practice Elevation, Freedom Business Solutions, Bosco LLC, [00:39:00] Profit Comes First, River Street Studios, Wealth and Worth Within, TherapyFlow, and of course, coursecreationstudio.com.
[00:39:08] If you're looking for businesses that can help you break through your, your therapy practice business bottlenecks, go to scalingtherapistservices.com.
