Scott Stratten - How To Not Be A Jackass And Make A Million Dollars A Year Being A Keynote Speaker

SPEAKER_03 0:30

I'm your host, Sebastian Russ. As always, it's great to be with you. My guest this week, the author of the Jackass Whisperer. Friends, please help me. Welcome to the show. Scott Stratton.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

It's always amazing to be introduced with that title. It's uh being the mayor of Jackassary myself, it's um it's like a self-help for myself. Trying to whisper to myself to stop being a jackass. So thank you for having me on.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

It's it's my pleasure. I uh I learned about you through I I want to say it's your millennial bit that I saw on YouTube. Yeah.

unknown 1:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

And then I read an article that you made a million bucks delivering keynotes in one year, one calendar year. That's correct. Wow. One one that one speaker would dream of that, of that. So I thought to myself, no, first of all, I want to learn more. There are jackasses everywhere. So I'm getting a copy of this book and I must dig into it, and it was exactly what I had expected. Uh as you saw with my post, it was uh right at the end of last year. So I was on a cruise with my daughter. So uh you said you'll enjoy the one about the cruise, which I did too. So the timing worked out great. Um I am a perfect uh a fellow speaker myself um uh have not made a million dollars speaking uh yet. Um but um I we run in some similar circles and uh and and have some friends in common as um we we we often find out these days thanks to the internet. So it it's great to uh to to finally reconnect with you and and chat it up and um talk about jackasses for a second. Um I thoroughly enjoyed this as a book, not because and listen, if if you're if you're listening to this right now and you're like, well, this sounds like a good book that I definitely want to read, get the audio version that Scott and his wife read it, and there's all kinds of like sound effects, and like you feel like it's it's uh it's hard to explain. Back when I was a kid, I would go to Disney World to place it's now Disney Studios, but it was MGM Studios at the time. And you could go into these sound booths and put headphones on, and it was really dark, but it felt like the guy was like cutting your hair, or you could like take some coconuts and bang them against like the counter, and it would sound like the horses are coming. Like that's how I felt when when I listened to the jackass was first. So let's back up and when did you we're gonna start with this because this is your most recent project, and then we'll kind of historically un unravel things from there. But um, how did you guys come up with the title and the idea to go let's write a book about jackasses? Because when you would first read, in fact, I showed this to a friend briefly, and he's like, Yeah, but I don't know if I want to read a book that just bags on jackasses. I go, no, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. We're all jackasses. These are just case studies of so um it was it was a funny conversation because it was just in passing that he was like, Yeah, well, what are we gonna do? Read a whole book about you know bagging on jackasses? And I'm like, Yeah, especially if you're one. But um how how did you come up with everything and how'd this all become a reality?

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Well, it it actually all started back in, I think it was 2009, 2010, and this was at the the the height of my Twitter supremacy. I was back then, I was you know, I got all those vanity uh designations and awards, you know, that that really high clout, you know, score with the K. And uh uh, you know, that and five bucks got me a latte, but it it was I I was I was tearing up Twitter and I was the most influential person on Twitter pretty much in Canada. I was ranking in North America, so I I was certainly on to something. And uh just randomly one day, randomly, I'm on the train coming back from the city to Toronto, and I just saw a random tweet unprovoked, not a reply, and simply said, uh, from a guy I know, like I met him at a bunch of events in Toronto, and it was a very tight-knit group back then, and he just randomly said, I just watched a five-minute video of unmarketing, which is my Twitter handle of unmarketing speaking, and I didn't shoot myself in the face. Somebody should give me a cookie and I'm like, Whoa! I'm so taken aback. Now I understand too that I I put a big uh especially back then, I put a big target on myself as well. I was very strong in my opinions, I still am. And uh I pretty much said this is what you should do things. So, you know, I I certainly had my share of hate backlash or something that's so ridiculous about something like Twitter. And I wrote back and I'm like, dude, why the hate? And he replied, It's not hate, it's just fact. Deal with it. And this is before deal with it was a meme. So and I'm I'm so I'm I'm I'm speechless at this point. And I I get a bunch of DMs from people and they're like, You should kill 'em with kindness. You should win them over. You know, you can you can when you win over your haters, they're big fans. And I wrote back, my job isn't to reha rehabilitate jerks online, I'm not the jackass. And so then I I waited a couple days and I'm like, you know what? That's a good line. And I just tweeted it just just in general. I didn't tweet it at a guy, I didn't want you to want to think he was the inspiration for it. And I just said, ignore your haters, you're not the jackass. And it blew up. It went nuts. Like it was my most retweeted thing, my most shared thing. And that's back then when things could go crazy on there, when you weren't a celebrity or or you know famous. And it took off. And so we started uh, you know, we we started using the phrase to help promote the earlier books, which was the funny thing. So what we did was like for the when the second book came out and when the third book came out, we're like, if you buy two copies or three copies, we'll send you a series of posters. And the most popular one was always ignore your hatred. And I was like, I guess we're sure. And then we made socks, and the socks sold out. And then we had stickers made, and people were like, Can I just get the stickers and not buy the books? We're like, oh no, this is this is the promo. And they just wanted the they love the phrase more than anything else. And then uh Brene Brown, who's uh a wonderful uh uh human and author and speaker, huge uh um uh Daring Greatly is sold out copies of Oprah's best friend and all this stuff, and she put it in Darren Greatly. She heard me say it at an event and then she retweeted it. So, but since she is exponentially um more popular than I am, it started trending with her in her name. And so she spent like all of 2011 correcting people on Twitter, saying, No, it's not my quote. I'm quoting Scott Marketing. And and it got to a point where when we start putting new stickers out and new posters, we start getting comments like, Why are you ripping off Renee Brown? Like, no, what forget it. And then some people would take it and they would make it into the products and they would put it on shirts, and some somebody made like a uh uh uh illustration and the whole the majority of the illustration was the phrase. And she's just putting out like a calendar or something like that, and it was and she copyrighted it. And I and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't I don't go after I've never we have never registered like unmarketing as a trademark. We've never been those to hunt people down. I don't think we own the phrase un, even though we you know we have the un trilogy of unmarketing, unselling, and unbranding. And I've never been that person because uh I'm I just I just think that when the best compliment to a phrase or a saying you've got is when it becomes part of the the the the consensus of the of the general population. When people start using it, that's just a great thing. I don't expect credit every time it's quoted, but when you start selling it and I I confronted the person, I'm like, why would you like you're not even you're not even sending me a copy? Like that's you're not even doing that. And she said, Oh, I well, I searched it on Google and it's attributed to a bunch of people, so I just figured I just attributed nobody. I just figured it's it's attributed to two people, and one of which is quoting the the author. So it's been uh Jack Castri-filled ride with it, and to a point where once we um and and how it the kind of division of labor works between Allison and I is Allison is is is a writer, um, and I'm a speaker. And so she writes the books, I do the talks, and the the content is kind of a brain meld of both of us. And uh so after six kind of business books, you're kind of looking to say, okay, so what's next? And I had been keeping a running list of jackasses on my phone for a decade. Like every time somebody pissed me off, I'm like, oh, you're going on the list. And I would have gave to the list. And and so I had this giant thing in my notes, and I just sent it to Alice, and I'm like, well, here's the types of people I thought of. She had her own list, and then we just started fleshing it out, and we realized, you know, what it was the whole point of the book was was for fun. It was really a book about empathy and about realizing because you'll you you sniff it in the subtitle, and the concern was what you know, your friend's concern, which was just bang bagging on jackasses.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

Which is a great time, but I don't know that how sustainable.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Right, but we we we we realize we literally our brand is known as we we call out brands for being bad to their customers. That's really what we do. We're really consumer advocates if you look at all of our work. But after a while, you realize you just keep bagging on brands and people all the time. You're part of the problem. And so we said, so how do we just 180 this? And here's the in the funny but behind the scenes story for the title, because the title is The Jackass Whisperer, How to Deal with the Worst People on Earth at Work at Home and Online, especially when the Jackass, or even when the jackass is you. And originally I fought our publisher. We went with Page Two Publishing, their company out of Vancouver, they're um um hybrid kind of publisher. So we retain the rights when we when we publish with them. Um and originally I'm like the book's called Jackass Whisperer, How to Deal with Worse People at Work at Home and Online. And they came to me and said, Well, we talked to the sales team and everything else, and they're like, the book is actually not literally what you're you were saying to me a few minutes ago, which is the book is not just bagging on jackasses, the book's about empathy. And I think the tit they said I think the subtitle should reflect that. And I'm of course, I'm like, no, the whole point is like we people think we're bagging on them, but then once you finish reading it, you're like, Oh, I'm a I I'm also the jackass. Right. And then a month later, I'm talking to Alice and I'm like, we should probably make the subtitle of what they said. Like it took me like a month to admit that they're right, and uh, which is why I'm a jackass. And um, so kind of you know, we're happy with it now. And it's interesting with the audio, and I'm sorry for kind of rambling on here, but you opened up a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

Well, you're the guest, and you're supposed to talk.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Well, there you go. So it's it's uh the the interesting thing because we did the first six books with with Wiley and Sons.

SPEAKER_03 10:57

Uh only six, that's all.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we did the first six with them, and and and we love them. We still have a great relationship with them, but this wasn't a business book, and and Wiley does business. So um we went with page two is a is a group of wonderful Canadian publishing professionals that started to want to fix this model. And one of the things we did was we had to front all the costs for everything, but uh we retained the rights. So that audio book you heard, with all those effects and everything else, we were allowed to do all the extra things because we own the rights to it. Meaning we didn't have Audible or Amazon or publisher saying you have to read it verbatim because if you're not an author, and if you've never done an audiobook, it's just doing a regular audiobook is the most tedious thing I have ever done. Sitting in a recording studio in a booth reading your own words, word by word, is just monotonous and and uh oh, it's almost like I would rather do anything else. And if you listen to all of our audiobooks as you go through it, by the time you reach the sixth book or uh unbranding, by the time you get there, I record like 10% of the chapters, and Allison does 90% because I'm just I'm out. I just don't want to do it. So at Jackass Whisper, we're like, we we can do whatever we want. Um, because you're actually very, very much shackled to the script when you're under um, like Audible comes to you and says, We want you to do this, they get to call the shots. But we just recorded the whole thing and said, Here, Audible, do you want it? Because in the first book, the on marketing, I'm recording it and they come back with edits or updates, and you have to go back and and add a couple things in the studio. And they came back and said, Um, in chapter 22, the book says ha ha ha, but in the audio recording, you only said ha ha. So can you co go back? I'm serious about this. This is 100% true. Can you go back and record an extra ha? And I'm like, you could loop it. Like you could just do like a throw an extra tiesto, or you could be a DJ and just and just sample that ha. And it was just so this one was great because not only did we get to do what we wanted, but still to stay true to it. But Alice and I got to sit across from each other while recording it. And then at the end of each section with the eight sections, we got to riff. So we read the sections, and then we just kind of said, so let's talk about this section. That's not in the printed book. We always like adding that value because audiobook listeners are just they're they are their own beast. Yeah, they're they're they are awesome. They're but and they're so so into the books, just like podcast listeners, right? Because there's there's I really have found there's no more intimate setting with with a with a customer than audio. Like you're you're in there, like you said when you went into the booth at at the uh MGM Studios, right? You just it is so intimate, like uh like this show right now. Somebody can be listening while they're jogging or on a treadmill or walking the dog or on a commute somewhere. It's just you and them.

SPEAKER_03 13:49

Or dealing with a jackass.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Dealing with a jackass. And and so you you you get this, you we had a great opportunity. So we hired uh a sound designer to do those eight stories, and um, and and and then we wanted to riff. And um, yeah, we were we were very pleased with the audio, and it was it's a labor of love. This book was simply we did it because we wanted to do it. And people came to us in the business and the speaking business, and they're like, You sure you want to do this because it's a departure from your brand? And I've spent a long time growing on marketing, and it's a it's a a killer hook to a brand for us for a very long time now. And having a departure like this seems like a big departure, but everything we've ever talked about is about dealing with corporate jackassy. So we just expanded it to everybody.

SPEAKER_03 14:33

I mean, I think you you eventually get to a point as a speaker where you're you're calling the shots now, and it's getting everything what agents have to say.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

That's a weird thing sometimes where you start shifting from um Mother May I. Yeah, and we we need a leadership speaker or a marketing speaker or a motivational speaker to we want Scott. And that's a big shift in a brand where they're like, we want Scott. Well, you know, we can talk about what you're gonna talk about, but we want that we want the Scott experience. And that's really as a brand and as a speaker what you're what you really aim for and what I've always been aiming for.

SPEAKER_03 15:09

So, what is that Scott experience? And let's let's segue into how this whole speaking thing came about.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Well, uh um it it started. Um uh I was 12 years old, and I was sitting in um our living room in the town where I s we still live now, and uh but since back then, back in uh you know in the 80s, uh we didn't even have a really a remote for the TV or anything. You had to go up and change the channel. And so what would happen is we'd just stay on the same channel for like three days and have a battle of laziness. He didn't want to get up and change the channel. So I was sitting on the floor in the living room and um WNED Buffalo was the news program that was a PBS station across the lake from us, Lake Ontario. And uh they said if you donate, you know, $35 or whatever, if you call now, you'll get the free Les Brown VHS tape of his motivational spot. And they're like, and we'll play it for you uh now. And they put it on and I was watching them like, what is this? My mom was there and I'm like, this is a thing? Like people do this for a l like you can just yell at people and go home. And I always knew I was that I was that that front man. I was always that one who I never had a problem getting on stage. I never got nervous standing up in front of the class or anything, and I realized, you know, as you go on, most people don't have that ability. And it's not a a learned or a talent. I'm missing a synapse in my brain somehow that says, crap your pants, you're about to go in front of people. And I've always been able to do it. That's how I graduated school, that's how I got out of college. I just I could present like no other uh and I could I could riff, I could improvise real easy. Like I had when I have group projects in college, I was the worst partner to have because I would do none of the pre-work and I'd just show up to the day of the presentation and say, What are we talking about? And I would just kind of run the show. And so I always knew I had that talent. And you realized, okay, that's where it's gonna, that's what's gonna lead me to the the my the promised land for me. And I was a lead singer of a heavy metal band in in in high school, and uh I always tell people I just I realized I didn't have the vocal chops to uh continue that as a career, so I just fired the band and stayed on stage and I don't have to f I don't have to split it five ways, you know, anymore. Right. Uh and uh and I don't have to show up with instruments, I just show up with a USB key with a PowerPoint file on it. And so I realized that that's what I was gonna do. And and and I didn't know eventually what that final form was gonna be. I just knew that speaking in front of a room, presenting was what I wanted to do, and I knew the corporate angle to that was training. Uh, you know, being a trainer, being a sales trainer or a corporate trainer, or whatever that's gonna be. But I also had a huge interest in in HR and human resources. Um, because I you know, I I I love the dynamic of humans and what HR is to attract and retain good people. That's supposed to be the creed of HR. But I was more interested in human rights and employment standards and treating people well and fairly. And so that's what I took in college. And um and training happened to be under HR's umbrella usually at most companies. And I had a prof that said, Just be careful. Um I suggest you generalize first in HR, then just be tr a trainer right out of college, because if you do that for a few years, um the only thing you're qualified to do after that is to be a trainer because that's the only way you have your experiencing and and training is the first thing to get cut. A training and development budget is the first thing to get cut in a in a period of like a downturn of the economy. And it was great advice. And so I went as a generalist at HR and I did it for a couple years, two years. Um, and then I got a job as a national sales training manager, and I flew around North America training people how to sell bubble wrap. I'm gonna say that again for the listeners at home. I flew around North America training people how to sell bubble wrap. Like if you think what you sell is hard, I I taught people how to sell air, you know, in a competitive marketplace. And and and so I ran two-day training schools on this stuff. Like I filled 16 hours of content with this, like so I can BS with the best of them. And it got to the point where that was two years, and it was like my so my corporate career out of college was four years into it, and I realized I can't do it. I can't work for like entrepreneur to me is Latin for bad employees. And I couldn't do it. I just couldn't deal with it. And and so my son was about to be born, he's uh he's um 18 now, he'll be 19 this summer, and he was about to be born, and I was doing the trainer job. I was flying, I was probably gone half the month every month on the road training. I would leave on Saturdays to save the company money because flights are cheaper on Saturdays than they are Sundays. It's called Saturday night stay over. And my son was gonna be born, and I didn't want to be that guy. I didn't want to be 40 hours a week at the office when I was at home and then on the road and gone because I didn't need to be. I was a trainer, like and I didn't I couldn't do much more at the corporate office because I trained everybody on the stuff, and there was only so many times you could, you know, uh update your PowerPoint, you know, and and tweak it right where you were kind of done. I was really good at looking busy. And so I went into the president's office and I said, um my son's gonna be born soon, and um I I can't go on the road and be in here 40 hours a week. So I pitched him telecommuting. I pitched him kind of working from home, but also still going on the road, doing the whole thing. Um, I've been doing great. Uh, we got you know awards for our training programs and everything was going great. And he looked at me and said, I don't think we're prepared for this uh uh you know telecommuting today. Um so I'll see you Monday. And I'm like, No, you won't. And I left. And that's the last time I worked somewhere and it was probably the dumbest thing I ever did. Uh and the smartest. You know, I had like sixty-four cents in the bank. Like it was not the s most fiscally responsible move to do. I just knew I couldn't just keep going and going and traveling and traveling and traveling and and never be home. Um and it's not what I wanted to do. And so I left and I started uh my own training company and I got some clients very quick. Um and uh unfortunately then it was 9-11. And so um obviously one of the greatest catastrophes we've ever seen um you know, in in in the in in the hist in history for us, and um everything was gone. And and uh it didn't matter, you know, in the grand scheme of things. My startup training company was was obviously not a a big issue in the world, but for me and and providing their family, like okay, so what do we do now? And I I just started doing what I knew. I started speaking and talking, and then I had a slideshow go viral way back in the day called the Time Movie. I don't know if you ever remember seeing these slideshows online, they were just flash slideshows, they were just like stock photos with cheesy music, and then like they were like the Dash movie and the Time movie and and all these things. Well, that was us. We made the majority of the books that was out there back in that time, and I'm sorry because they they were rather cheesy and and they worked, they just drove traffic. They build lists and it put me right on the map for for speaking. And but also we realized other speakers and others wanted these. So I ran kind of like an agency, a pseudo agency with that for eight, ten years, and then uh and then the recession hit and um I was woefully prepared for it. I was very arrogant with the company and I was because we were the most successful, really the most successful viral video company in the world at the time. This is back when we had to have loading screens and people were on dialogue. And I was really arrogant about it. I did no marketing, all the business came to me, it was all word of mouth um until a recession hits and then nobody is in the market for a ten thousand dollar slideshow. And so I had negative revenue like 2009. I had negative like I was in the I was in the red and it was terrible, and I I had to declare bankruptcy and it was just a brutal thing, and I I joined Twitter and I said and I realized you know, maybe there's something here, but um I kind of wrote it off as one of those marketing guys where it's like I don't want to get so accused and then I said, Okay, all I have is time. I had no business and no money. I said, but I had a vision and I had a belief and I knew that beyond marketing theory, be on marketing practice, which was not being a jackass to people, not just bullying them into buying, but building relationships and I started seeing the ecosystem of the internet turning towards social media and the connectivity was important. So I said, Alright, I'm gonna go back and try Twitter again and live on it for 30 days. And it was January um 2009. And I was at twelve hundred followers at the time. Okay, and I lived on Twitter. I mean, from waking up until going to sleep, I was going to live sleep every Twitter and I tweeted 7,000 times. Now the majority of those were reply. It was just connecting, it wasn't me just scouting off 7,000 statements of stuff, it was connecting with people and I went from 1,200 followers to 10,000 and I realized, all right, I got something. And to be one of the people that was the early an earlier adopter of it and then caught weight, it was amazing because that uh then made noise, which then when you make noise in an industry, people start coming knocking on the door. And I knew that to get the speaking gigs I wanted, to start building that was I needed a book. Um I knew that was a great way to open the door to a lot of potential events and and and getting notice because to get gigs, you need to do gigs. That's the number one way to get gigs, right? People need to see you speaking because the number one, two, three, four, five, and six reason for speaking is I saw you speak somewhere else and wanted to bring it back to my company by And so uh Wiley, the publisher came down calling and I got a phone call. And I still remember the parking lot. I was the one I got it, and it was Shannon uh Bargo, who's still our editor there at Wiley today, and she's like, Hey, we've heard a lot about you, and uh we w were wondering why haven't you written a book? And I said, Because I was waiting for you to offer me a book. And she's like, And uh I would get a book that you'll offer, of course. I didn't know that I the advance for that was just like it's it saved me. And uh I'm like, okay, so if I'm gonna write a book called Unmarketing, Stop Marketing, Start Engaging, I need to have a proof of concept. And this book will be my proof of concept. If the book does well, then my tactics could do well. And that's really what it is. Any sales and marketing book to me is is if it didn't sell. And one of the parts of that is you might not know how to sell as well as you think you do if you're writing a sales book. It's like it's like it's a great contradiction. And so I realized, okay, June 2010, um, I was about to go onto Twitter and the book was coming out that fall. So I I put up one tweet, one tweet, and I said, uh, the unbook is coming out. I everything was on, right? Everything is still kind of un for us, but the unbook comes out uh in the fall. I'm doing the unbooked tour. And I called it that not just for branding reasons, but because I had researched for years about authors and successful authors, and it was about what they would and wouldn't do again if they had until their book was coming out. And one of the biggest things was they wouldn't do a book tour at bookstores and stuff, because all it is is you sitting at a uh a table and nobody coming up to you and then somebody asking you where the bathroom is or where Harry Potter and all that type of stuff. So I realized, okay, but I could do a a book speaking to it. So I decided, okay, so I sent out a tweet. A book comes out in September. Um let me know if your city wants an unbooked tour stop. Um the qu the criteria was pre-order a hundred books, fly me there and put me up. Now the reason why you had to fly me there and put me up is I had no money. I got a prepaid credit card, I had nothing. I was just I was just a flat rope. And but I had a belief that it would work and I had to build up a strong network. And that one tweet ended up getting me a 30 city uh unbooked tour that fall, all separately. Not like one person said, Hey, I'll I'll do this tour. It was 30 separate people in 30 cities saying, Hey, can you come speak at our social media club Dallas event in September? Hey, can you come speak to it's kind of my town? And half of the people that booked it had never run their own event before in their lives. They just wanted to be part of this tour and we're gonna figure it out. And then I did it 30 cities in 10 weeks, and that nearly killed me because people were like, Oh, you're like a band, you're on tour. I'm like, no bands have a logical geographic order to have a tour. And then I did that. I went from Detroit to Portland to Orlando to the Yukon to like it was just all over the place. And I spoke uh 30 times in 10 weeks, which got me the gigs to get me the gigs. And I honestly, this is as honest as I can be, I have not stopped speaking since then. That's 2010. I was gonna say now we're here now. I was gonna say, what what day was that?

SPEAKER_03 28:00

So I find so many similarities with our story, um, and how you know there's the common denominator of you know, going from where we don't want to be to where we want to be, because in 2008, I lived in Southern California and I did marketing for for mortgage companies in 2008. And um I uh I had a tremendous amount of success at a tough time.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Yeah, tough time when it hits 2008. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

Yeah, it got it got a it got a little crazy. Plus, I was 25, so I was by default, I was an asshole, you know. So so you know what I mean? So um 2008 rolled around and there was nobody to sell mortgage marketing services to because the bank stopped lending. And because the bank stopped lending, there were no mortgage brokers, let alone mortgage bankers. So I found myself um, you know, at the end of my rope, everything getting taken away and the whole nine. So I decided to sell everything on Craigslist, grab my daughter, and hop on a one-way ticket back home to South Florida to Miami, and that's exactly what I did. And I spent two years from 2008 to 2010 um sucking my thumb in pity of oh woe me, what happened. Um, and then in 2010, I woke up and said, you know, I've got to do something. I can't continue to just do nothing. That's not what life is all about. I've been in the social media space, screwing around on my space. I need to do something. Maybe I can start teaching people about social media. So I came up with a name and started running around town on my skateboard and telling people I was gonna start the best social media company ever. And I did, I I I've refined that model to come to my networking event and then come back tomorrow. I'm gonna do a boot camp. And then at the boot camp, you're gonna ask me questions. I'm gonna fire hose you with information, and then you're gonna say, hey, maybe you can manage my Twitter account for me. So I I I kind of fell into this whole idea. And then next thing I know, I'm at an NSA conference and uh tough crowd. And um did I say that?

SPEAKER_00 29:53

I'm not speakers speaking to speakers, man. I'm never gonna get a CSP ever at all.

SPEAKER_03 29:59

I'll never forget the first one I went to, I was actually that was when I got the book deal. I uh I did something similar to with a with a with a hybrid uh outfit. Um and the first year that I was there, I called NSA and I go, hey, listen, I wear bow ties, I create content. I'm a good guy to let in the door and run around like media. Like I don't even know if you guys invite media. They're like, well, we do, but I get it. Nobody ever shows up. Well, I'll show up. It was in Philadelphia that year. And uh I showed up and uh I met um my publisher, uh Advantage Media, and uh they were a sponsor there and and guy named Adam Whitty owns the place. I don't know if you know uh are familiar with the outfit, but he said, Have you ever thought about writing a book? And I said, Adam, I think about it every day. In fact, I've written out the table of contents in like the first page of the first chapter. But I think it's safe to say that you know, most people would rather wake up in the morning and eat their pillow than write another page of a book, and that's kind of where I'm at. I just spaced with it. And he goes, Well, what if you could just talk, just speak the book? I go, listen, I can talk until next Sunday, okay, starting right now. He goes, Well, I only need eight hours from you. I'll assign you to an editing team, and uh next thing you know, we'll have a 33,000 paid uh word book. And I said, Let's do it. The only caveat was that it was $25,000. So I was like, I barely made it to Philly. And uh so I looked at him and I said, So what are you guys doing with social media with your uh with your publishing company? They're like, we haven't done anything, we didn't have a Facebook page set up. And I said, Well, listen, I charge it was $25,000 to do the book. And I'm like, Well, look how that worked out. It's $2,000 a month for me to create a strategy for you and have my team help you flush out content and create it, et cetera. And he goes, Let's do a deal. So I literally bartered my first book, and um that led to they came to the table with a speaking opportunity right out of the gates when the book dropped. So that was great and everything, and the momentum was there as a speaker. And I'm like, I totally got this. And I had met Gary V a few years back in 2010, like right when I first got started. Um, and I was really following that path. I'm like, gosh, this is great. Like, I write a book, get booked to speak, then you'll be in demand next thing. It'll be like it's you know, first it's Sebastian, and then after that, Gary's coming up, and like I had this whole delusional outlook in my mind about how it was all going to work out. And then I started to get involved with it with NSA, and then I went back for a second year and I thought, I don't know why I'm at a National Speakers Association conference. Um, Tough Crowd was the first thing that came to mind, but I said I know that I need to be here because maybe, just maybe, even though these are my peers, it's a slightly older generation. Um, so maybe they they want to better understand what they can do with their digital game and I can drum up some business there. I don't think anybody's there gonna go, hey, great bow tie, maybe I'll book you with my next event too. It just doesn't. It I there's a small circle of speakers that will refer other speakers, but I don't know how to get in that club. But I found that that kind of fizzles out as the as the hype of the book fizzles out. My book was I sucks was my like angle. Like yours is on, mine's social media sucks, podcasts suck. And you're like, what do you mean? You have a podcast. I know podcasts suck if if you don't have one. So let's talk about that for a second. So you you write a book and it's do you have to keep writing books and like find an agent and like have it continue to snowball? Because mine speak, I I got to a point, Scott, where I just got fed up with the speaking business, fed up with we don't have budgets, it's great exposure, get yourself here, it's gonna be a great stage. And I finally got to a point where I thought, you know what? Do you like free shit? I said to one promoter, I go, do you like free shit? Because if you do, then I then maybe we can figure it out together. But I highly doubt, like, you know, can I call you and ask you to work for free? And I can never get an answer from that. So I decided one day that I was gonna be a keynote speaker. If I called and I got booked to speak, great. I love the stage, but I'm now going to be an event MC because there's not a lot of MCs out there. A lot of speakers are MCs, but I got the bow tie, I got the energy, I come running in like a bat out of hell, and I was, I know for a fact that there's not a doubt in my mind that I was I was put on this planet to be an MC. So I've been trying to carve that out ever since the fizz of the first book started. And again, now I've another hurdle is well, we don't need an MC. We've got Bill from accounting, he does great with the holiday announcements at the party, you know. But um what advice could you give? Because I get asked a lot. So Mash, how do I get booked more to speak? And I say, well, speak more, just like you had said there. So how does this all kind of from from a from a successful speaker when I and having a really you know blazed your your own trail and had success with it? Um, you know, what what's your advice to the to the to the individual still trying to figure it out?

SPEAKER_00 34:21

Well, it's it's uh it's certainly a f a uh a fascinating field. I can that's the best word I can give it. Um that there's there's no one way, first of all. So and I it's not a component answer because I will I will give you full answers here in a second. Is it luck too? Well, okay. So everything in business I've learned is is boils down to success in business boils down to this luck timing skill effort. Okay, and it's a combination of those four things. And sometimes it's a little more luck than anything, sometimes it's a little more skill. And for me, you can look at all those things. So it's it's luck and timing are pretty much, you know, very close to the same thing, but it it's you know, when I got on Twitter, it was just the perfect apex point to get on there and be known as an expert in it in 2009, 2008 when I when I first got on there. And so that was a huge luck timing. And then skill is look, I was destined to do this like I've since I was 12. So I had the skill to it, and I've been polishing it and honing it for years before that time came. And so I already had a lot of reps in when I decided this is gonna be my career. I had already spoken hundreds of times when I decided I'm gonna be a speaker like as a full thing. And that was versus people who are like, I like the idea of speaking, I've done it a full a few times at a few events for free, or because I work for a company, so you know, they pay travel and that's T and E, right? Um But I already had a hundred or hundreds of reps already in, and that's a big thing. It's a craft, right? It's a it's a performance. And so, you know, the more gigs you do, the better you get at those gigs. So I had already been polished by that point. And but my goal with speaking was a very simple one was to never have never pitch. I never pitched myself to speak because when you pitch yourself to by now, mind you, this is a position of privilege. This is not something like I was saying, don't pitch to speak because then you lose your leverage. Well, if your goal is to g speak and you're not getting gigs yet, then you gotta go out and find them. Like that's the whole thing. It's it's you do have to start looking for them and pitch if you want because one thing about speaking is it's not fast. It's not quick. If you decide today, I'm gonna be a speaker as my living, okay. Well, you might start making money in a year from now, a year and a half from now, two years from now, or you might not. You can price yourself at any price you want, but pricing is just a a fairy tale until somebody pays it. And I I know people who are a ten thousand dollar speaker who's never been paid more than a thousand dollars, but their rack rate is ten thousand. And uh I I I I think that the books are hugely important. Do you have to have books to be a speaker and be a successful speaker? Well, no, but it makes it easier for people to book you. Because what happens is until you have that brand that has an awareness, which is instead of a marketing speaker, we want Scott, you need something to open to wedge open that door. And events love authors, they love new books because then they get to say, you might not know this person, but here's their book, and that gives a legitimacy to it, which is why Allison has written this many books in a in a uh a 10-year span. Like I don't I don't know many people that put out six, seven, eight books in 10 years. It's a lot. Yeah, a lot of each each of those books, except for Jackass. You know, the books are are are uh you know a lot of words. And like she's written over a quarter million words in these books. And um, and so I have that that asset where I'm not the one sitting there because it's not that's not my craft. And I I early on I decided that I wanted to um better my strengths and outsource my weaknesses. And I never have been one to improve my weaknesses. I didn't want to be a better um uh uh administrative person for my business. I didn't want to so what I did was I one thing I hated with speaking is well, two things. One, I hated pitching, and then also the rejection you you would get. But I also hated naming my price. I still can't name my price. I I I have a mental block, I think it's ridiculous, but the market bears whatever you know you you put out there if if they pay it. So I hired an assistant, uh, my coordinator of awesome, Karen, who is still with me. She's been 16 years, has been the coordinator of awesome for the company, and she handles all the incoming stuff. So all the emails and all the phone calls go through her. And so I don't have to see a few things. I don't have to see when they say, Hey, can Scott come speak? And she goes back and quotes them and they write back and say that's an obscene amount of money. We were thinking a bagel, you know, and um, and maybe a juice box, like maybe that way, but he'd have to buy his conference pass. Like I hated those things. Yeah. And then I I also don't I my my biggest problem is I just want to speak. So if I'm answering them and I came back with a number and they came back and said, How about six bucks? I'd be like, sure. And then like, cool, you're gonna pay us six bucks. And I'd be like, okay, because I just want to speak. Speaking is my dream, speaking validates me, it fills my ego, and I love being on stage. I just had a gig two days ago, and it's it's literally the most professional fulfillment I can get in in my life. I am I have hit my dream and I don't want to go anywhere else with it. Like people say, so what's next? You know, I hit that million dollars a year, and they're like, so you know, and they kind of put their arm up in a in an upwards arrow saying, What's next? And I just kind of smack their arm down and make it flat. I'm like, this. I just want this. I don't have an endless pursuit of more in my DNA. It's it's I have an endless pursuit of enough. Do we have enough? Do we have enough for for our family? Do we have enough? Like I'm sitting right now talking to you in our front room um in the house that we bought from what we had built in the business. And you just sit you sit here and you just like I I I look like an idiot every day, man. I'm telling you, I smile like an idiot every day at home because I I'm living my dream. And I think I think a lot of the times is that we don't we don't stop and appreciate our previous self. We don't stop and appreciate where we've come from a lot, where I sit here and I feel I just feel content. And I get that's the perfect word for it. That no matter what's coming, no matter what's happening, and we're getting, you know, we're getting a huge thing happening with the industry with coronavirus and events canceling and all that stuff, and everybody's kind of panicking. And I'm just sitting here smiling like an idiot. Like I I'm one of the few people on earth that get to say I'm living my dream and realizing it in the moment, instead of saying, okay, so are we gonna get a bigger house? Are we gonna get a uh a better car? Are we gonna do this? I'm just so damn happy.

SPEAKER_03 40:55

Well, that that cycle never that cycle never ends if you allow it to continue. I mean, I mean I I've been building this for I just celebrated 10 years two weeks ago from going from riding my skateboard around town and no money to I just opened a podcast studio, which is a fancy word for renting an executive suite for 500 bucks a month and totally tricking it out with fake brick walls and I gotta artwork and I I'm really, really proud of the spot. I don't know what the hell we're gonna do here, but um, I'm I'm really I mean, again, where did I work prior to that? But it's again, if you if you don't reach a point where you know what, life's pretty good right now, and I've worked pretty hard to and you reach a plateau where you're constantly refining your craft and becoming better. I I think it's far more valuable to become a better human than it is to become a better business or a better brand.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

We have in our front hallway beside me here, we have a uh a framed uh poster from a company called Sevenly, uh, an apparel company online, and it's a poster, all it says is you don't need a reason to help someone. And like that is our our creed, our mantra here. And it's just like, what can we do now to help to do things to and and and still run a business? And and you can have a profitable business, you can have a good business by and still be a good person. Yeah. And that's why that that is the foundation of unmarketing, honestly, is you don't have to be an asshole to be to to be successful. That's really how I started unmarketing was I just I'm tired of of pricks blowing down your door and knocking on my door at dinner and cold calling and like it's just I'm like, there's a better way if people if we really if we really truly believe that people do business with people they know, like, and trust, then why aren't we doing everything towards that? If we believe that business is built on relationships, then make building them your business. That's one of the first lines I had created for the book, Front Marketing. And and one of the nice things about being an author when you have a Kindle version is you can go into Kindle and see what gets highlighted the most from your readers. And the number one, the number one line was if you believe business is built on relationships, make building them your business. And it just shows me that there's a world out there, there's a people out there who realize I don't have to beat everybody up to try to, you know, it's not like I have to step on somebody to climb up one rung on a ladder.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

Right, right, right, right. So back to my NSA days, that was 2014, I think, 2013, 2014. I had met um Jay Bear wrote the forward from my book. And um Jay, I would put Jay in a similar category as uh as you and uh Scott McCain and um and Scott. Love the two of my favorite people. I I just went right to the top. I'm like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing here. There's 2,000 people here in bad suits and dimples, and I I listen, I I don't know where the hell to start. So I started with uh I did, I went right to the top, but Scott McCain got great hair. I already knew Jay Bear. He was already a buddy of mine that I met to the social media world. And um um uh what was one other one, one other dude, uh Mark uh Sanborn. And uh I was like, you guys have been doing this since God spoke to Moses.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

So can I Yeah, you went to the top, man. Well done.

SPEAKER_03 43:49

Right, right to the top, and then and then Bruce Turkell is the Miami guy, so I had automatically known him in the second year that I was there. He blew the roof off the place, uh, getting everybody to play um a kazoo. And humming to the Beatles. So, like only Bruce Turkell can do. So I quickly gravitated to those guys and said, hey, I'm new to the game, but I'm really good at what I do pertain to social media. And I'm, you know, I want to pursue my career in becoming a speaker. Jay had always said, listen, since it's tough to get booked as an MC and a speaker, why don't you just offer a hybrid? You know, hey, listen, I'll MC the thing and I'll do a breakout session. So I've been trying to go through all these different scenarios of like Scooby-Doo endings on how I can get booked full-time as an MC. And I I continue to come up empty. Same thing with speaking because it's so competitive in the fact that no one wants to pay until you're actually an established speaker. Like I have not, I've had one conversation with a speaker agent ever. Like they do not like people that are not speakers within their agency. Like at all. Like they don't even want to acknowledge existence, has been my experience. But I never really gravitated trying to try and find an agent or like an agency because it's a bureau. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. What Jay told me a couple years ago, it's like he's like, it's not all of my business. I don't just like get book solid from an agency. Like there are other opportunities that come about from there. But so I guess my my question to you would be so if I like you and I hopped in an Uber together and I was we're on our way somewhere and you told me what you did, and I'm like, no crap, I'm an MC, this, that, and the other. Like, man, I'm trying to figure this all out. Like, what advice would you give me in the back of an Uber like randomly?

SPEAKER_00 45:18

As far as getting-things. One with Bureau. So, so um, well, first, um, with with Jay. Jay and I kind of I always say, uh, we came up together. And uh, like his, you know, his book came uh first book is coming out at the same time. You know, kind of my book was coming out, we started doing the speaking thing, we hit it off real good. Uh, he's just a salt of the earth dude. I love him. He really is. And um, but we also both pivoted out of speaking about social media at around the same time. I remember texting him where, because you know, my whole thing is is you kind of try to fit your topics into what they're kind of looking for, especially when you're starting out. And so uh, you know, the social media and the book tour, it all took off, and the marketing was based, you know, it's almost straight up social media only when it first came out. And uh a few years, I think it was 2014 or so, 2015, I texted Jay and I'm like, hey man, I think I'm gonna get out of the social media speaking stuff towards more about disruption and and stuff. And the only thing he wrote back was run because he was seeing it too, where because what happens in the in the kind of the the life cycle of a topic when it's very topic specific. So let's take social media from years ago, or let's say millennials and that type of topic where they have a peak kind of thing when they're just temperamental topics. So like leadership as itself is not is not necessarily a topic, it's based on something within the leadership. And and so I was seeing that social media was shifting then from keynotes into breakouts. You know, it was becoming commonplace. People were all we had gotten from what is social media to what should we do to it to all right, we got it. And that's when the keynote kind of goes away. The demand for that goes away. So I pivoted out of that. Um and it was just luck and timing and and a little bit of decision making to get to that point to where I went towards disruption. So it was I was looking at first of all, it was topic-based, because then the what happens with the bureaus though, it's interesting because Jay's always been like that. He always, you know, um his main business has never been bureau referrals, which because he's also not exclusive. So I went exclusive with Kepler speakers uh I think four or five years ago. And I didn't do it to get gigs though. I did it because I saw what was coming from my business. I researched the speaking business nonstop. And I'm looking you look at trends, and I knew since I'm Canadian, um, at the time five years ago, my business was fifty-fifty Canada US, and then it was split again in both countries, fifty-fifty Bureau and Direct. And what I was noticing though was Canada has kind of a soft slash hard cap on speaking because once you get to about fifteen grand for a keynote, you you're almost priced out of the market just because of the the the budgets here and the the size, you know, we're 10% of the size of the states and and pro and I always say ten percent of the size and one percent of the budget. And so I knew I needed to make more of a dent in the states and start getting more traction in the US. And uh the way you get on a bureau's roster is when a client calls and says, Hey, do you guys represent Scott Stratt? And they're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. We'll find out if he's available for your event. And then they go and they Google who is Scott Strat.

unknown 48:17

Right?

SPEAKER_00 48:17

Because bureaus, a lot of bureaus, can it's just like you just put a name up and anybody can go grab somebody else in theory. It's like the it's like the wild west of uh of the of this business. And what happens was people kept asking for me at Kepler, and um I just started getting gigs and gigs and gigs, and the whole thing is you always have to remember that bureaus work for the clients, not for the speakers. The bureaus represent the event, they don't represent us. So we are a commodity, and it's not it's not a negative thing. You just it's a realistic thing. We are a commodity, we are interchangeable, and we're not that special. And it took me a long time to reach, you know, and so what happens is then you get into a silo with them. So I came into Kepler as the fifteen thousand dollar kind of marketing speaker. And so I just got it's the slot in. So I just get slotted in. So this year they have their their resident marketing person and the event wants somebody next year as well. Well, I get slotted into that. Well, obviously, you should take Scott next year if you like Jeff last year. And I got kind of slotted right in there with with uh other speakers. And because but they came to me because the clients were asking for it. And again, that also that rule of me not pitching gigs was the same thing as not pitching bureaus because you have no leverage. I wasn't gonna pitch a publisher because if you go to a publisher, I used to be in the music business, and how you get your demo listened to is not by sending your demo. You know, it's just a it's just a garbage can full of back in the day of cassettes and CDs that nobody listened to. It was referrals, it was the buzz about it. It was like in the music business, lawyers get most of the the the record deal still today. By so if you want a record deal, find a good entertainment lawyer. Right. And so when it comes to gigs, the whole thing was you have to be able to create an interest. What does that? Books can do that, and then you do talks in books. But then what happens if your talk is a breakout style or a lunch and learn style versus a keynote? With MCs, it's uh a little different because MCs are it's almost like you almost have to you you really have to trust an MC even more than your keynote because they are the backbone of your event. You can get over one mediocre talk, but if you have a mediocre MC, it sucks the air out of the room, it kills it. And so what happens is and I when you said, you know, we're gonna have uh uh somebody from accounting do the thing, and and and and and it's it's it's it's very funny, but it's also I have realized in this business after 10 years of one thing. When somebody has a realistic unrealistic demand on you as a speaker, or they go with somebody else, what happens is usually it's because based on past experience. So the reason why they hired Jeff from accounting is they actually paid for a pro MC last year and he was no better than that. And he did a yes clap. Yeah, exactly. Right. So that's the different side of it. So when somebody comes to me and asks me for my PowerPoint six months ahead of the gig, and I call you know, and I used to go back and like, are you kidding me? Like it's so stupid. And I'm like, I can't, I'm not sending it, or they want a really early rehearsal time, like a uh a sound check, like at six in the morning and I'm speaking at 2 p.m. And I used to just go off about that, never to the client. I would just go off to Karen and and and I apologize to her all the time about that. But you know, as my assistant's part of her job, but I'm like, I can't believe in this and this. And I realized like when they would make these unrealistic demands, I would give an unrealistic answer back to Karen, and then she would have to be the messenger. And I realized that was cowardly. That me saying no to stuff because I didn't have to get the fallout from the person was cowardly of me. And I didn't want to ask Karen to say or do anything that I wouldn't do in the, you know, right to the client's face. And I realized I'm also not a valuable speaker that way because speaking is only part of it. It's also how you behave before and leading up to and at the event. And I always thought two things, because I preached this on stage. Are you the best business to do business with? Do you have the best products and you have the best service? And I realized I thought I had the best product. I'm very confident my speaking skills, but am I in the best service? Do I serve the clients best before the event? And I realized the answer was no. And if I was the best speaker and the best to work with, I could be unstoppable. And I realized it was a tough pill to swallow. I realized I wasn't. And I realized those unrealistic demands was the reason why there's a 6 a.m. sound check was two years ago, they made the sound check a half hour before the person's keynote, and they realized they weren't even at the hotel or they hadn't checked in or something. So the sound check turns into an attendance check sometimes. And so I started reframing all those things. So I started reframing stuff when people would come to me at an event. Like I get cornered and they'd be like, Oh, you should come to our company. How much is it? And I don't want to say the price. I hate stating the price because it's ridiculous and I'm not uncomfortable doing it. Plus, it's not a good way to negotiate on the side of a stage with other people around you, right? A gig. And and um and they I would say the the price. I would say 20 grand or 25 grand, and and they would say, Oh, you know, I just have, you know, we don't do that, or uh, we don't have the budget. And what it is, it's not, it's not them being cheap, or like, oh, the speaker last year was 500 bucks. It's not them being cheap because they they've been given the budget. And their budget is 500 bucks. And they've really been trying to do these sessions to help the employees, and I realize they're reaching out that I can help them. And although I can't do it because I'm not scalable, my calendar can fill up, and I don't want to do more than 60 or so a year. That it's gracious for me to be able to thank them for the opportunity instead of being bitter about it. And the problem is our business is a it's a very hang your shingle, now you're a speaker business. Right? There's no real thing to say, you don't have to go and qualify to be one, you're a speaker because you opened your mouth. And so our competition is people like me who do it for a living and solely speak for a living and they're very fairly much firm on fees because it's all I do and I'm not scalable. We have hybrid speakers who will speak and get paid, or speak and not get paid because they're on behalf of a brand, and part of their job is awareness of their brand and speaking at events. Right. And then there's speakers who don't need to get paid at all up front because they sell at the back of the room, or they sell consulting, or they're doing it for their agency. So their back end is not 10,000 or their their speaking fee isn't 10 grand. It's free, but they'll make a hundred grand from consulting contracts. And then there's people who are learning and they're getting reps in. And I used to get really mad at all the other angles, except unless you're a professional speaker, and now I don't because it's not my right to get a gig. It's not my right to have a slot. I have to make myself so loud and so out there and market myself in a way as a speaker that it's no choice, but we want Scott. And that's where you create that demand. Where it's uh so every gig I do, I would I, you know, you get film from it, you'd cut it, and that like that millennial clip that you you uh ran upon on YouTube. That was all on purpose. That was all, hey, can I make content? And the the nice thing about being a speaker is our our job is content. Right when we speak, it's content. And and the advantage is I can do this, I can go on a podcast and I know how to talk because it's what I do. So we should be the easiest people to market. And yet we get in our own heads in speaking and we don't do it very well. And it's and so then we you lead to where we are today, which is a bunch of Instagram speakers quoting themselves on a picture of themselves with their name in their selves, thinking a quote is is what's gonna market them. And and I I I have a phrase which is words aren't quotes. Just because you said it doesn't mean it's worthwhile quoting. And and and a quote is very, very basic. Somebody else quotes you. That's what a quote is. So if it's good enough for somebody else to quote, awesome. Share it and somebody put it in a quote. But I have a real problem with uh speakers who um just say this is how I'm marketing, it's myself and a quote of me, and it's just vanity. Right, right, right. Wow, that was a lot, by the way. That was a lot. I just said I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 55:59

Gary V started that trend, but everyone is not Gary, so that's but Gary's quotable.

SPEAKER_00 56:03

I love Gary. I absolutely adore Gary from day one. Um, I've got the chat a few times. We talk on email sometimes, and he's just the real deal. He is. And people think it's uh a front or a brand. And Gary is the number one definition for me. And people use me a lot for saying a personal brand is authentic, and they show up making like I wear jeans on stage and I my tattoos and my beard, and I'm like, no, it's just me. And Gary is the number one of that, right? Because that is how he is. Sure. He's intense, he's passionate as hell, and just sometimes the camera's on. Right, right, right. There's no more authentic person. You you don't have to agree with the hustle side of things and what he does, and and it doesn't matter about that, but I really take exception to people who call him fake or this because he's not. He is a good, good dude.

SPEAKER_03 56:50

I I I I couldn could not agree with you more. And I um I've had the privilege of of spending some some good time with him over the past 10 years, and uh very, very um in engaging and very, very uh humble in his conversation, which is not your it's not your the problem is people see that and they're like, oh, I just have to say a quote that sounds good as an inspiration.

SPEAKER_00 57:09

I'm like, no, that's scary talking, right? This team looks at it and says, This is really quotable, and they put it out, and then it's the proof's in the pudding because his crap gets shared and and and liked, and I read the comments on it and it's resonating. And that's the point, though. That's mark marketing is about resonating. Sure. Yeah, staying top of mind. Exactly. And people see that and they're like, oh, that's all I have to. I just have to do that. And this is when you know you've lost, when you hear the word just, because you belittle somebody's effort and work and and skill and intelligence. When like, oh, they just did that. People talk about when I did my my unbooked tour in 2010. They're like, oh, so you just tweeted, and there you go. You're like, yeah, yeah. Just tweeted, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:50

So you said you never like to pitch deals, and you will you'll probably never have to do that again, speaking gigs, etc. Um, I I didn't know how else to to get myself out there. I mean, I was I was already building my brand, but as an MC, I had a guy give me a shot back in 2013 for a conference called Social Fresh that they did on the West Coast and the East Coast social media conference. And I went as a normal just blogger attendee there to create content for you. And I had an opportunity to meet the people that put it on, guy named Jason Keith. Good dude. And I I know Jason very well.

SPEAKER_00 58:23

He's a wonderful, wonderful human.

SPEAKER_03 58:24

Okay, cool, cool.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

So uh I know the conference, yeah, great.

SPEAKER_03 58:27

Yeah, yeah. So we were uh in Tampa and he asked for um he asked what I thought. He's like, can can you give me some feedback? And I said, sure. I said, by the first day, by lunchtime, I wanted to punch myself in the face due to the lack of energy. And he got you know, he's an introvert, you know, could put my my opposite, right? So he's looking at me like I got 10 heads and boogers, he's got his hand on his chin, kind of folded arms. Like I am so mad I left this guy in the door. Anyway, he goes, All right, let me let he goes, so so so what's your what's your solution? And I this guy had never done this in my entire life. I just I saw it, I knew it, I felt it, I'd done speaking, and I'm like, I could, I, I could, I could crush it as the MC. I said, let me put on an orange bow tie, give me the microphone and let me rock the stage in San Diego. He goes, hmm, interesting. Let me think about it. I'll get back to you. Like, all right, cool. Went home, didn't even think anything of it. He hit me up three months later. He goes, you know what? I've thought about it, let's do it. I can't pay you, but I can get you out here. I said, Okay, nope, listen, Jason, just make sure it doesn't cost me money. So um, that was where I got my start. And I did that for, I don't know, three or four times, but I met Mari Smith and Brian Solist and Mike Stelzer and was social media examiner and was able to interview these people and all these people going, man, you're great on stage. And I'm like, hold on, Mari, can I get that on camera? And I was able to develop a reel. So then I had something to work with. So I would go around and I would constantly just call I called it cold, you know, cold emailing. Need an MC, need an MC, anytime there was an event site, and I would just canvas it and I'd come up empty. I'd get a call here and there randomly and get a gig, you know, three, four gigs a year, nothing crazy. And um uh I saw an ad for a conference called Traffic and Conversions um on Twitter. And it was a really nice looking ad and with Digital Marker, it looks like a cool company. So I followed Digital Marker and then Twitter always tells you who else to follow. Like, you should follow this guy named Ryan Dice, and I'm like, oh, he's the he's the brother, he's the founder. Great guy to follow. Let me follow him. Let me just shoot him a quick tweet and be like, hey, Ryan, you need a guy in a bow tie to rock your stage for traffic and conversions. And he responds back immediately. He's like, dude, your timing could not have been better. Can you DM me your information? And I'm like, no problem. So I DM him, I'm on the phone with him the next morning, he's taking his kids to school. I got no idea who Ryan Dice is. And he said, Listen, I'm trying to transition out of this role as like the face of the company and being the MC, like I'm there to teach, but I can't be there multiple times. We brought an MC in last year. People wanted to stab themselves in the neck. It was a bad experience. So we're looking for somebody that's qualified. You and I have one friend in common, a guy named Tim Hayden, who I met at Social Fresh, and he said, uh, let's do it. And he said, How much is it? I said, it's uh it's $2,500 plus travel a day plus travel and expenses. And he goes, Okay, done. I'll get you in touch with my team and uh we look forward to seeing you in a couple months. And I literally hung up the phone and I stood there and uh I thought, holy shit, I did it. We're we're on to something here. And um trafficking conversions was great to me. I did it for probably three or four years, and now they're just I mean, 10,000 people in 19 stages, and it's just an absolute marketing just monster, like, you know. Um so we we kind of we kind of grew out of each other, which was cool. They were looking for something new and fresh. I think I got replaced by a DJ, which is totally cool. Totally, totally cool. Uh but you know, I I was able to again rinse and repeat again with you know, Ryan calls me a tornado of enthusiasm. So being able to interact and then guys like Gary coming in as the keynote and then being able to catch up with them in the in the green room, like everything coming full circle, you know? So and that was great. And I and a lot, I and I did get booked. You're right. If you want to, if you want to speak, you want to be on stage, you know, be on stage because that's how more gigs and I the ripple effect still happens for years now. Hey, I saw you at traffic in conversions, we need a podcast, or our next event's coming up. But it it was never enough. So I found myself constantly, and I still kind of do. I've I've scaled back a little bit and said, okay, what do I really want to do with this MC thing? Because uh, and this is what I want to close out with. I had a really gnarly experience um uh late last year at a gig, uh, and I was actually uh filling in for someone. And I don't know if you've ever filled in for someone, but usually that um there there's a bar that I that I did I failed to recognize going into it, which was I'm there to not only do what I do, but I'm like do what I like do what they do like that I normally do because I'm here to fill in. And the client was so sold out on the the old MC, and but and and it was a constant comparison for four days. Well, Jim does it like this, and Jim does it like that, and Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim. I finally said, Listen, I'm gonna either punch this guy in the throat or I'm gonna have to tell him, listen, I'm not fucking Jim, dude. I don't know what to tell you. Right. So I he got to a point where he just would would I got my head pounded in for four straight days. And as an MC, you're not a speaker, you're not there to just 45 minutes answer some questions, and you're and you're at you, you can be at the pool for the afternoon. Like you're belting, yeah, bell to bell. And I walked away from that gig and I came back home, Scott, and I thought, do I really want to do this? Because it's a lot of work. The money's great, but the emotional toll that it took by working with somebody that I'm not aligned with. So I chatted with a few people that I trust and and and their opinion, and I told them the story about it. And uh the common denominator of the feedback that I got was did you did you did you meet and prepare with the client? Not the client's team. Like, did you talk to the client, connect with the client, have a conversation with them? And the answer was no. I just dealt with their team. So I showed up cold and met them there, and we were completely just oil and water and not aligned at all. So the lesson was, you know, make sure you're aligned with the client, regardless of what the budget is going into it. Because man, I don't know if if you've ever been to a bad gig before, but it really does. It it it it it puts a toll on your on your uh on your soul.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:00

It rocks, it rocks your world. Yeah. It rocks your world. And I remember reading really early on a book called uh Money Talks, which was about the professional speaking business by uh Alan Weiss. And I don't think it's called that now, but it's it's the same, but still holds true. And I was reading the book, and uh one of the things that said in it was no matter how good you are, you're gonna bomb. And I'm like, And he's like, and if you bomb, then it's not your fault. There's a million reasons why you could. Um and if you bomb, then it's not your fault, and um you just do what you do, and then you walk out with your head held high and you cash the check. If it's your fault because of your hungover, you did this, or you didn't do it right, you give the check back. That was the two options. And then so and then and then I find and then and then I finally bombed. And I'm like, oh okay, there it is. And you just and sometimes, you know, I I always know between it takes me, I always say between 30 seconds and five minutes to win over the audience, and and sometimes it's five seconds, and you just walk out and it's just killer, and then sometimes you're like all right, that's one of those. And and uh it's amazing, and it's like about the pre-call. Like so doing a call beforehand. I used to hate hate them. I just I don't like being on the phone. I don't because what happens is the calls will be always be the same. Hey, we saw you at this event, you were great. Um, you're coming to ours, um, but our audience is different. Everyone would say that. And I'm like, yeah, of course. And I'm like, are they humans? They're humans, I can I know how to do this. And uh and I would be bitter about it. And and imagine a guy being bitter, getting paid five figures for an hour about having to go on a call for 20 minutes. But that was me. And I'm like, I can't, and they're always like this, and they'd always end at the end, they're like, Oh, one more thing. Um, we know you get really passionate, and I'm like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I won't swear on stage. I know, like, and then it was it, and then you have this, and and now it's like, you know, I one more thing, please don't talk politics on stage. Like it's gone from vulgarity to politics is the big taboo on stage. Is there anything else? But here's the thing. So until I almost screwed it all. Up. So we had one client. We didn't do a pre-call. They didn't ask for one. One of the few ones that didn't ask for it. And it's one of those things. You just touch base and they're like, here's my concerns. And I just now I just add notes. I've reframed how I look at it. But I had one and it was for um uh uh credit. I thought it was credit unions. And um one of the things about industry is one of the ways to get known in an industry is to focus on a vertical and just do everything you can in that vertical. You mean you write articles for their newsletter, for their their magazine, they're dying for content always. And if you if you look up um, if you know uh Andrew, um uh Andrew Davis uh is a phenomenal speaker and he's got a phenomenal system for it. They're actually coming out with a book soon called I think the referable speech. I think it's gonna be called that. But this is exactly what he's talking about. What you're looking at too is how you get known and because a vertical is much easier, like in a specific industry. But what happens was I was I had done seven or eight talks in the credit union industry like over an 18-month span. You know, you get you you speak at the national meeting and all the regional ones want you to come afterwards versus doing it the other way around. And so I'm getting cocky now. I I I don't need helping talkie. You know, it's a fine line between confidence and arrogance. And I think when you're stepping on stage, you have to believe that you're the best choice for that stage. And I get there and I go do the sound check, and of course I'm bitching about the sound check too. Like I'm just like one microphone. Why the hell am I even doing a sound check? I'm not Michael Booget, I don't have 27 instruments behind me. It's a lab. And so I showed up for the sound check, left the lab on, and then I was gonna go back to my room for like two hours until I had to be back down for my call time. And I go down in Vegas and I go to the stage, do my sound check. Hey, one, two, I'm Scott. Good, thanks, and I'm done. I like the slides are done, and and I'm leaving, and I'm like, oh, hang on a sec. One thing is gonna bugging me about credit unions because one of the things you have to know about credit unions is they don't call their customers customers, they call them members. And if you wanna don't you want to mess up a credit union gig, talk about banks in a good way, right? They're not banks, they're credit unions, and and bankings are the are the kind of the competition. And so I had really good with credit unions. They're about community, I'm about community. And so I went up to one of the volunteers and like, hey man, I'm and I'm walking out and I stop and I pivot and I walk back in. I'm like, I really should have got this answer to this question. And I walked up to a volunteer, I'm like, hey, um when credit union members go to the credit union, do they say they're going to go do their banking? Or is there another term for it? Because I didn't want to use the term banking because that again is a is a is a is taboo for credit unions. He just looks at me and goes, I don't understand. I said, Oh, okay, no. When when members go to credit unions, are they banking or is there another term? They're not credit unioning. And he looks at me and he just tilts his head sideways like a puppy and goes, You know this isn't a credit union event, right? These are credit managers. They manage credit for large brands, you know, extending credit to customers. And I looked at him, I'm like, oh yeah, no, I have a credit union event later this week. Sorry, I got the wires crossed. Don't worry, this slide. I just I had a brain fart. And I walk out and I'm like, oh my god. I nearly got on stage in front of 2,000 people and gave a credit union talk to an industry that has zero to do with credit unions. Zero. And so I realized I should have got done the goddamn pre-call. Right? I should have like they would have explained it because I always ask open-ended questions like tell me about the audience a little more and do this. And they would have gone, well, it's credit management, so don't be confused with credit unions. And I, dude, I nearly blew it. And I'm in my head, I'm like, how long would they have let me gone for? And the answer is probably the entire time. And I would have been up there saying, What's wrong with this audience? Right. Why aren't they digging my credit union jokes, my bank jokes? And by the way, there were banks there, and I would have ripped on them as a you know with jokes about credit unions versus banks. Dude, I nearly, oh my god. Oh my god. And um, so I'm sweating right now just talking about it. It was so close to happening.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:03

That uh I got feedback from do you know who Jack Daly is? No, hyper sales growth, another keynote speaker. Um, and uh he I met him at an EO conference, entrepreneur organization. Yeah, great organization. I did talk for them right when my book came out, and I did a breakout session. Gary was the keynote there, and I went right after him, not as a keynote, but as a breakout session, and uh Jack decided to attend it. And you know, at after at these conferences, there's all kinds of you know, parties and dinner, and there's a suite and the whole nine. So I'm up in the suite that evening, and um I run into Jack and he goes, uh, were you that guy that gave a social media talk earlier today? I go, sure was. What's your name? He goes, That was the worst fucking talk I've ever heard in my entire life. And I said, I said, Jack, I said, Jack, can I mean I'm thinking, I don't know who this guy is. Like my knees are knocking, my palms are sweating, it's 1 a.m. We got a few drinks in us, it's you know, you got a decent cool, you think you're in the cool kid's room, right? Yeah, yeah. And uh I go, well, can can can you give me some feedback? He goes, Listen, it's one o'clock in the morning, I'm a little fucking drunk, and I don't feel like explaining myself. And I said, uh, oh, okay, but I I'm just not a kid to just take no for an answer. Like you came to my talk, you told me that it sucked shit through a straw, but you can't give me any feedback. I don't understand. He goes, because I don't fucking have to. That's why. And I thought, all right, cool. So I don't know who this guy is. I'm texting people that I kind of know. I'm texting my publisher. There's a short older gentleman. I think his name is Jack. He wrote a book. He's a pub, he's got a book with you guys too. Do you know him? Because he just read me for filth and I think I want to go home early. I literally went back to my room and I was checking flights. I'm like, I gotta get the fuck out of here. So um um I went back to the room again and I'm like, all right, Jack, can can can you at least just give me like something? Because I wouldn't let it go. And uh he goes, I tell you what, I'm not gonna tell you a thing tonight because I already told you that I'm not gonna talk to you tonight. But my talk is at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. As soon as we're done with my talk, I got a couple minutes to give you some feedback and explain why I said what I didn't. I go, no problem. Went back to my room, sitting there checking flights again. And I said, Well, I'll decide in the morning. I woke up in the morning and I go, listen, are you gonna let some guy that you just met defeat you or are you gonna put your bow tie on when you don't have to go down there and sit in the front row and take diligent notes? And that's exactly what I did. And we got done with the talk, and he said, I don't have time to talk to you because people are talking to me and I got to run. But are you going to the Phillies game later on? You need to be in that suite. And I'm thinking, the tickets are 250 bucks. I'm thinking, uh, no, dude, I'm not going to the he was, you need to be there because that's where you and I are gonna have a conversation. And um, I ended up buying a ticket, threw it on a credit card, ended up in that suite, and we sat down, completely different aura from from Jack. And he said, Listen, kid, you got something that most people don't have, and you're born with it. You don't develop it. It's called stage presence. In fact, I'm a little, I'm a little envious of it. He goes, but you gotta bring it down just a hair. Like your energy is great and everything, but you gotta know how to take them up and bring them down, and take them up and bring them down. Here's my cell phone number. Let's stay in touch. I live in Southern California. You're gonna be just fine, kid. And I appreciate you taking the feedback, coming there and actually showing up in the suite today. It says a lot. But I I the reason I tell this story is that it it forever altered the path of where I was. First of all, it humbled me. And second of all, you know, Jack's a dear, dear friend to this day now. And um, yeah, feedback is feedback is uh is great, isn't it? But we don't we don't realize it.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:32

Well, and I think there's a there's a problem though, and it's rampant in the speaking industry where that it that's it's it's actually a rare story that you just told, which was unsolicited feedback that helped, because most of the time unsolicited feedback is worth what you paid. Um and and and the problem is though, I love feedback. I love people, you know, it get it it betters what you do, and if you don't think you can get better, that's when you truly have lost. Sure. But it's context. So where is the feedback coming from? Is it coming from a place of love and trust? And have you asked for it? And if you've asked for it, and I I have speakers will come to me um and they'll say, Can you can you give me feedback on my demo video? It's it's finished. And I'm like, that question, that statement alone means you don't want feedback. You want praise because if it's finished, it's not gonna be edited. And one of my favorite book titles from uh a guy named Jim Moran in the 90s, he just did it like tip books. It wouldn't they wouldn't really work now because of the internet, but back then it was like 200 lines of advice that have been gained in business. And I ate these up in college. I love them. And and the title of one of them is Shall Beware of Those Who Ask for Feedback. They're usually looking for praise. And I've always remembered that because I am very like you, I'm I'm very blunt. I'm I I I quote, tell it like it is. It doesn't mean we're not being an asshole. And so I've learned how to frame things a little better, but also I've learned how to ask a qualifying question, meaning, do you want actual feedback or do you want to watch it? Because I think I'll sh I'll share it. And then I've had people come back and go, you know what, actually, I was looking for validation, so thank you. Um and and and that's good because I will give really honestly, because I know this industry very, very well. And I also know how hard this industry is to make a living in solely in this industry, and it's it's being sold as an easy way to make a lot of money, and it's not not even remotely easy. And the problem thing like NSA is speakers will just nonstop come up to most speakers and say, This is what you did wrong. And that's that's that's that's not kind. No, not at all. I go to NSA, I try to go every year now, and I didn't before. Um, but I go because I try to do, I want to weigh down the other side of it, which is the unsolicited feedback givers who are or the people who are just selling crap speaker systems. And there's some good ones out there, but a lot of them are not. You know, you want to make money in speaking, teach people how to make money speaking. And uh it's just like real estate, right? It's the same thing. And you you just have to be care I I really think feedback has to come from from from kindness. And and but the feedback that he gave you is actually something I've worked on for 10 years, where you know, I I would come out in my social media sessions and I'm just guns ablaze and right at the start. And I just started changing it. And I looked for a kind of a soft open. And the first story I tell to most audiences is the Joshi Ritz-Carlton story, which is a stuffed giraffe that was left at Ritz Carlton. And they, you know, they did a photo shoot and he was, you know, at the pool and all that stuff. One of the original ones that did this. Now a lot of companies have done it. But I the reason I tell it is because it's a calm story. I you can't tell it effectively unless I'm doing it calm. I'm I'm a storyteller. That's like really my role in life. Sure. And but by the time I hit the middle with that millennial rant, which is actually I'm actually on millennial side when I flip it on them, but the millennial is full Scott. Like halfway through, I am full, full volume Scott. But I start with a story starting where I just gradually grow it. And it's a very useful piece of information. The problem is, you know, you could have taken that obviously very badly um um in the wrong way and still hated the guy today. Um, and I'm glad that worked out. It's a very risky thing. So I just don't give feedback unless I'm asked for it and then I confirm that it's what they want.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:08

Well, I learned that through a personal development course um that I took a few years back. And uh they said if uh you walk up to somebody and go, Hey, your hair looks like shit, just being honest, like, no, you're just being an asshole.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:19

Yeah, you're just being a dick. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:21

There's the dogs. It must be it must be it must be towards the end of the show. So one more NSA story. They they uh they attempted, right, of 2015, I think it was, to rebrand the entire organization and not get any feedback from a lot of the members that have been members since God spoke proposed it. Platform, yeah. Oh, yeah, platform. I loved it. You know, I'm thinking this is great. Yeah, NSA, that logo. Yeah, we need a little refresher. So they announced it on like the last day of the conference. They handed all kinds all kinds of swag and and luggage tags. I remember just thinking they were blue because I got one of those, these are great here. I'm fired up about the rebranding. I'm kind of the new guy. I'm friends with Scott McCain now, and like I'm like, we're I'm doing the damn thing here at NSA, you know, the whole nine. And I mean, the membership is just having the meltdown of all meltdowns with losing their noodles. So I get back home. The conference is like what, like seven days long? My goodness. Anyway, finally get home after like a week at NSA, and um, it's it's uh it's a Thursday. And uh I post in the group, throwback Thursday, too soon. And when I say that the meltdown continued, I'll never forget uh my late friend, you probably know him too, Sean Stevenson, uh commented and said, uh, well, there's a great way to never get a CSP.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:47

But that was uh my most my most read blog post I've ever written on on marketing.com was me ripping uh speaking association. Um it was when Caps, the Canadian uh version of Speaking Association, um I had applied to speak because they were like it was called engage. And this is back when on marketing was first out and was going gangbusters and I'm like, yeah, and it was the only time I ever went to go pitch to speak. I'm like, I want to give back a bit. I've already it's already you know blown up. I learned a lot from that today on book tour. Maybe I can give back to not only speakers, but you know, Canadian speakers. And I went to submit, and a friend of mine um uh said you should go submit. Talk perfect. And I went and I filled it all out, wrote the bullshit description and all that, and got to the very end and said, before you click submit, you have to buy a conference. And I'm like, oh hell no. And I wrote a a blistering blog post about the very industry that's supposed to protect fee integrity is asking us not only to speak for free, but to pay to speak. And flights and hotels and all this stuff. And and it blew up. You should go read the comments, man. There's still they're still salty in there. Oh, I definitely, I definitely am. And there, and there's like it should be an honor to be selected to speak to your peers. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. And they're like, you should be giving back. And I'm like, I never took, I wasn't a member of these associations, and like I'm like, and what do I owe? And I'm like, I want to help, but I'm not going into debt to help. And uh, and a very very quick aside about uh Scott McCain, I want to because I had the same experience with Scott um way back too. And my went to my first NSA meeting and I was still kind of kind of you know on the up climb of in in the business. And uh, I saw him in a coffee shop and and I'm like, Yeah, you're Scott McCain. He has no idea who I was, and and and he sat there with me for like an hour and talked about speaking. It's one of the godfathers of the business. And he's one of my closest friends now, and it was the kindness type of thing where you you you just don't forget that. And I was um wonderfully um honored uh two years ago to be put into the speaking hall of fame and and I almost turned it down, um, which would have been very funny. Um I almost turned it down twice, once when they uh said that you got in, um, and then once I almost did it in my during my acceptance acceptance speech, which would have been epic. But uh it's also a very big slap in the face to your peers. But because I the reason I was gonna turn it down was because I always think a Hall of Fame induction is when you're when your career's done.

unknown 1:21:13

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:14

And I was gonna I was just gonna lean into the microphone and say, um, I'm just getting started and drop the mic and walk off the stage. But Scott was the person who inducted me. So he was the one who gave the intro. And um um and I never will forget. And I actually told that story on stage during my acceptance speech about him that kindness isn't a tactic, it's not a brand, it's who you are, and people you and you can be at any level, and you can still be kind.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:38

He's a good guy, always got time for just another just like same cut from the same thread as uh as Jay Bear. Exactly. Always got he's got great hair, too.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:45

Great, great hair, great, great glasses, and and and the voice of just of of Jesus and Ferdi.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:51

You uh you are not, you know, Jack Nicholson's a fan of the show. I told him that I've got some feedback from him. You know what he told me?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:56

I eat breakfast 300 yards from 4,000 Cubans who are trained to kill me. So don't think for one second that you can come down here, flash a badge, and make me nervous. All right, Jack, he gets a little temperamental there.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:09

Well, Scott, dude, it's so great to connect with you, man. I've uh been following you for quite some time. If you told me you were following me 10 years ago, I would have called the police, but uh it's pretty common these days. Um, and uh congrats on everything that you've done. And most important, Scott, congrats on doing shit that matters. You and uh you and Allison are are leaving this place better than you found it, and you found a real uh real groove there with her doing the writing and you doing the speaking and you guys continuing to just be the voice of the people, if you will. Um pertain to what you guys are doing there. I look forward to meeting you in person one day, sharing the stage with you, etc. Um, and uh yeah, come back to the show sometime, will you?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:49

Hey man, you need me on this show, you want me on this show, and uh I didn't order the code red.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:57

You can't handle the truth.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:59

Well, obviously, you can't handle the lectern.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:03

Hey, thanks again, man, and uh we'll we'll we'll definitely be chatting soon. Likewise, thanks for having me on. Yeah, man. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the Beyond the Story podcast. I sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you subscribe to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you're so inclined, please leave us a review. Signing off from the podcast, launch lab.com studios.