James T.: And this is what we’ve noticed, and this is why I mentioned it, start gradually and then suddenly.
James S.: Yeah.
James T.: I’ll give you a perfect example of this, how things have suddenly just changed overnight, and we’re seeing this big pivot to online speaking. Because what happened, I had a client recently, at the end of last year, a very well-known credit card company. So if you have two types of speakers, you have the speakers who are traditional and have more corporate association – you go up, you don’t pitch anything, and you get paid a check. That’s that type. And that’s kind of what I do most of the time. Then you have other types of speakers who are working to sell from the stage, and they’re really looking to get people to purchase something. And they’re brilliant, and some of the biggest speakers in the world, like Tony Robbins or many of those people. That’s kind of what they do. And they’re both equally valid ways of doing things.
But what’s been interesting is in my market, in the corporate and large association market, they’ve been talking about doing online events for 10, 15 years. And then suddenly overnight, bam – it’s switched. And so a perfect example, client ended last year, well-known credit company, you’ve probably got their credit card in your pocket, in your wallet just now, or your purse. And they flew me all the way from London, from the UK where I live, to Singapore to give a presentation. There’s a hundred people in the room, plus two and a half thousand of their employees online. Why did they fly me all the way to go and do that?
And so now, the conversation you’re having with them is, can we do all this stuff online? If anyone’s listening or watching this just now, and you have a background in online, you have a little bit of a superpower here.
James S.: Yeah.
James T.: Because you’ve been at this for a while; you know some of this stuff already. The people that are really freaking out just now on the speakers are speakers who have absolutely never got into online before. So I would say, if you maybe have online courses, online memberships, online products in some way, actually now is a good time that you can actually go and speak on online stages. Either, I was mentioning, a kind of more corporate B2B, or they can have B2C side as well.
And I’m having conversations every single day. Yesterday, I think it was three bookings. One from one of the largest engineering companies in the world, another one from a well-known car company, another one from actually a bureau who wants me to speak to all of their American clients. So we have a superpower here, let’s not forget that, as online-first people, to be able to go and speak. So you don’t have to get on a plane anymore, even when all this stuff changes and we can go and travel on planes again. From an environmental standpoint and just from an efficiency, you know, earnings and daily rate kind of thing, online is where it’s at. So I think you’re going to see much more of a kind of hybrid model.
James S.: Well, that’s pretty much what I discovered about 10 years ago, and shifted to that, about 2009, 2010. I’m like, I’m just going to do this from home. And I really like the leverage in it. We do have a superpower. Microphones have sold out, Zoom shares have gone up, the rest of the world is suddenly talking about it. I remember when I started online, people didn’t know what Facebook was. They didn’t know what Twitter was. They laughed at me for having a blog. It sounded like a silly name. And now, the regular people are discovering this online stuff. So there are some quick wins. There are things you can do.
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