Interview With Andrew Davis

STS – #110 – Steal The Show with Michael Port

00:00 Andrew Davis: You should always send an invoice for your gig. Even if it’s free, and show them the value they’re getting. So, “Yay, I’m doing a free gig, and here’s an invoice for $15,000, minus $15,000 for the non-profit discount. Can’t wait to see you again.” Because then they understand the value they’re getting.

00:20 Michael Port: Welcome to Steal The Show, with Michael Port. This is Michael.

Today’s guest is Andrew Davis, aka Drew Davis, and he’s written for Charles Kuralt and produced for NBC; he’s worked for The Muppets, and MTV; he co-founded, built and sold a successful marketing agency; he’s produced documentary films and ground-breaking campaigns for big name brands, and tiny start-ups.

As one of the most influential marketers in the world, Andrew has appeared on the Today Show and in the New York Times. He’s the author of two bestselling books and has been a finalist for the USA Today’s Best Business Book Award.

He’s had more coffee today than you probably drink in a week, and I can prove it as soon as you hear him. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a big, warm welcome… Damn, I wish you could! You know, that would be really great, like you could actually clap for him and he could hear it, but, since we’re on a podcast, that can’t be done.

So, without further ado, here is Drew.

My man! What’s up buddy?

01:29 Andrew Davis: Hey! Nice to see you!

01:30 Michael Port: So we’re actually in the studio together!

01:31 Andrew Davis: In the studio!

01:32 Michael Port: Which is a different experience when you’re interviewer, because usually when you’re interviewer you can look at your notes and say what you think, but you don’t have to actually look at another person sitting across the table from you when the person’s not here.

And now it’s like, “Shall I look at him? Shall I not look at him? I have to pay attention, if I’m paying attention, then I’m listening, but not thinking about my next question.”

01:53 Andrew Davis: I like this, though. The dynamic is so much better, you feel the energy.

01:56 Michael Port: It is better, you can feel the energy, and also the language is more naturalistic. So, for example, one of the things that is challenging for speakers, sometimes, is that, when you’re on the stage, you have control of the timing, when you’re on a podcast in an interview, you don’t, and they don’t see you, so you take a nice pause, to really emphasise a moment, and they think, “Oh, it’s done.”

So they just jump right in, but here, we can actually, it’s like, I can see you, and if you’re pausing, I can see that, because it’s in your body language and you can just have that dramatic moment.

02:28 Andrew Davis: I love it!

02:29 Michael Port: So, listen, you’re going to be speaking at HPS Live in October. Each year we bring in, in addition to our regular faculty, like Ron Tite and Neen James, et cetera, one person that we think our audiences must meet.

And we’ve known you for a while now, and you are one of the most impressive people that I’ve met in the industry, for a whole host of reasons. One of them is, I am amazed at your exactness. Your systemised approach to everything you do, to your analysis of the data!

Like, when I grow up, I want to be you!

03:09 Andrew Davis: That’s so kind!

03:10 Michael Port: That’s my goal, so I want to get into the systems and the processes that we need to put into place from a marketing and a sales perspective, as speakers, so that we can, number one, really understand how to set fees, how to increase them over time, when to increase them, how to get more referrals from each speaking gig that you do.

I know you have a fantastic process for this, I’ve never seen anybody do it quite like you, and I also want to talk to you about your rehearsal process as well. But I want to get to that later, because I want people to understand, also, how you approach the development of your material and your performance, because, again, you’re one of the hardest workers that I know.

03:55 Andrew Davis: It’s kind of crazy, I think, I mean, I think it’s a little OCD, actually, but I’ve run businesses for a long time, and I spend a ton of time trying to figure out the most systematic approach to running what is a creative endeavour.

It’s really easy to arbitrarily set fees and hope you get some gigs and pitch as much as possible and do as many client phone calls as you can, in the hopes of getting business, and that’s how I started. But, I think, the more systematic about it you are, the faster you can increase fees, get more gigs and really turn this into a real business.

04:30 Michael Port: Well, that is the way that most people approach it. So there are four different ways, generally that you book business, there are bureaus, bureaus and agents, that’s one. So, they are out there doing the work for you, supposedly. Number two, other speakers, so speakers get speakers gigs.

04:46 Andrew Davis: Sure, referrals, yeah.

04:47 Michael Port: Number three, platform building, so you get inbound requests. And then, number four, outbound. Actually say, “Hallo! My name’s Michael Port and I’m wondering if I can come give a speech.”

04:56 Andrew Davis: Say, “Hey! Have you ever heard of…?”

05:00 Michael Port: Now, that’s a little more challenging. So, when you first started, which of those four approaches did you focus on, and then, as you’ve developed, over time, has that changed, and what do you focus on now?

05:17 Andrew Davis: Okay, so when I first started, the very first speaking gig I actually got, I was at an event, and I’m one of those people that’s really, really early to everything. It drives my wife nuts, but I show up early.

I was sitting in a seat, a half hour before anyone else arrived, and the event organiser came in, introduced themselves, and said, “I don’t know who you are, but at 10 o’clock, right after this main stage keynote, we have a breakout session that just cancelled on us, they couldn’t make their flight. Do you want to talk about anything?”

And I was, like, “Yeah! Sure!” So I went back to my hotel room, I skipped the main stage keynote, put together a quick presentation and went downstairs at 10, to present, instead of someone else.

05:59 Michael Port: Wow! For how long?

06:00 Andrew Davis: Forty-five minutes.

06:01 Michael Port: Wow! Had you ever given a forty-five minute speech?

06:05 Andrew Davis: Not, no, I mean, in front of my staff – I ran an agency at the time. So, it was that kind of stuff, but not in front of a paying audience.

06:12 Michael Port: Because your staff have to listen to you.

06:14 Andrew Davis: Exactly! And they have to be, like, “This was great!” So, that one event, first of all, I really enjoyed it, the event organiser got amazing feedback, and immediately it resulted in a few people, over the next few months, inviting me to speak at their associations and events.

And, at the time, to be totally frank, it was business development for our agency, and I used speaking from about 2008 to 2012 as our primary generator for leads for the business.

And then, when I sold the agency, by that point I’d had a huge number of speaking engagements that were either free or low cost to most people, because they were business development. And I started just saying, “Hey, look, I left the agency, sold it, now I’m charging for the business.”

So, it’s always been referrals, for me, and it still is, to this day.

06:58 Michael Port: Interesting. So, referrals is your primary lead generation strategy.

07:03 Andrew Davis: Yeah, 87% of my business is a result of someone who has seen me speak before.

07:09 Michael Port: Okay, let’s just take a pause here, and note that he said that 87% of his business. How many people are listening right now, who can tell me the exact percentage of referrals, of business that they get that comes from referrals, or any other source, when they’re a speaker?

Now, usually, when people run businesses, larger businesses that have many people and many departments, they’re metric focussed. But then when somebody works for themselves, by themselves, maybe they have a couple of people helping them out, all of a sudden metrics go out the window.

07:45 Andrew Davis: It’s just ‘catch as catch can’.

07:46 Michael Port: Catch as catch can, exactly, so what do you track?

07:51 Andrew Davis: So, I just recently counted. I track about 210 different fields in a database for every single gig I do, and it starts with, way before the gig has closed, and it goes all the way through to the follow up to a gig and the next referral from that gig.

So, I track everything from what do I rate myself as a speaker, based on my performance at that event, what do they rank it when they give me their feedback – a lot of times they’ll tell me, “You were an 8/10,” or whatever. I track that, that’s at the end of the process.

At the very beginning of the process I track where did the lead come from – that’s by method, like, they e-mailed me directly, or they e-mailed my salesperson, or they filled out a web form – but then also, what did they actually see that encouraged them to reach out?

08:44 Michael Port: Yeah, what was the motivating factor?

08:45 Andrew Davis: Yeah, what was the moment of inspiration, I call it. And a lot of times that’s, “I saw you speak,” or, “Someone at our organisation saw you speak,” or, “You’re a recommendation from someone who had you speak.” Those are the main refers.

And then I also have a process for thanking and tracking those people that have referred me, over time.

09:05 Michael Port: Nice! Do you want to talk about that process?

09:08 Andrew Davis: Yeah, sure! I mean, I’m happy to talk about everything. I mean, I’m an open book, especially for speakers. I feel like this a real blind spot for a lot of people, and it’s just as simple as starting to track. Like, if you’re tracking nothing right now, just open an Excel spreadsheet, and every field I mention, just write it down.

09:25 Michael Port: Yeah, and you don’t need to worry, “Am I tracking the right thing or the wrong thing?” It’s once you start the process of tracking at least something, you start to learn more about what metrics are important.

09:36 Andrew Davis: Yeah, exactly. So, let’s first talk about the phases that I think a sale should go through, and the first one is an inquiry, that’s an inbound request for a speaking engagement, without a date. So, that’s when somebody says, “Hey, I’m part of an association, we have something this Fall, we’d love to have you speak.”

That’s an inquiry, to me. It’s exciting, I’m interested, but I have a follow up process that’s very different than a date on hold, which is, “Hey, the date is actually on November 25th, are you available?”

And as soon as that inquiry comes in, and goes from an inquiry to a date on hold, I track the date that the inquiry came in, the date that the date on hold came in – and these are very important and I’ll show you why in a while – and then the next phase is, essentially, confirmed or released, and I track the reasons they were released. A lot of times it’s price, which, for me, is great, it’s another good thing to track. And then, along the way…

10:26 Michael Port: Because they couldn’t afford your price, is that what you’re saying? And you released them.

10:29 Andrew Davis: Correct. Yeah, so, usually, in an inquiry or a date on hold, they eventually get the point where they say, “How much are you?” Sometimes it’s in that first e-mail, actually, and a lot of people shy away from not giving the fee right away. Which I think is just silly, just give them the fee, you’ll save everybody some time. You need to have a very clear way of stating your fee, and showing them the value for that, even if it’s in an e-mail.

And so, if you track those two things, and the initial fee you give them, as well as the negotiated fee, when it’s confirmed, you’ll be able to track, over time, the difference between your average fee, the fee that’s confirmed and the fee you quote, and give much better pricing guidelines to everybody.

11:09 Michael Port: Yeah, I know that you know those numbers exactly, you know exactly what your quoted fee is, and then you know exactly what your actual average fee is, to the Dollar.

11:19 Andrew Davis: To the Dollar. I check it every week.

11:22 Michael Port: Are you comfortable with the ratio between the quoted fee and the actual average fee? Do you feel that they’re close enough?

11:32 Andrew Davis: That’s a good question. I don’t know that I worry about that. So, I set a goal at the beginning of every speaking season, starting in September, all the way to the next September. And I have a goal, I want to do X number of dollars in business, a million dollars in business.  Okay, great, how many gigs am I going to have to do to get there, at what average fee?

And so, I actually don’t care if somebody hires me for 20 grand, or 11 grand, as long as the fee average is consistently in the ballpark of me hitting that million dollars at 75 gigs a year.

12:03 Michael Port: Interesting, interesting.

12:04 Andrew Davis: Because then, it takes all the pressure off of worrying about this negotiation, and what does this company make, and it’s a billion dollar company like Microsoft, and they should be paying more. I don’t really care.

12:15 Michael Port: Yeah, well, often it is actually the opposite. We’ve all worked with the very big companies, and sometimes they’re a little tighter.

12:22 Andrew Davis: They are a little tighter, and so, knowing that ahead of time, which is another field to track, so I have another client field. That’s basically, “Is it an association? Are they a non-profit? Is it a corporation?” there are a couple of others that I’ve gone blank on, but what kind of company is it? Because after a while you can see, who are the most profitable types of clients to go after?

12:43 Michael Port: Do you also track your enjoyment level with that particular company, or with that particular speech? Because I’m thinking, if you speak for associations and corporations and blah, blah, blah, are there certain groups or demographics or segments, that you prefer speaking with?

Because I think that would be really interesting to be able to look at over a number of years, and say, “Well, you know, the ones that I ranked kind of low, I didn’t really love being there, those are the ones where the audiences were all men,” or, you know? Something like that.

13:18 Andrew Davis: Yeah! Or all old white guys! So, I don’t track whether I liked the client, but I do track the audience. So, in that completed phase, when I’ve finished the gig, I usually estimate, on a scale of one to five, what was my performance, and then I also track their scale, so I know that if I give myself a three, they’ll probably give me a five. I can kind of average it out now.

But I also do track, on a scale of one to five, my satisfaction with the audience, and that helps over time. So, you know, I know for a fact that I really like small business owners as audiences, they’re always very engaged, they have lots of questions, they follow up and they actually do some of the things that I suggest in my speeches.

14:05 Michael Port: This is fascinating! I really am, I want to be you when I grow up! That’s my goal!

14:10 Andrew Davis: So, the most important element, I think, for healthy speaking business, is tracking the referrals and where they come from, because you can build a really sustainable business, just based on the people who have referred you from previous gigs. And it also helps you track the quality of the speech you’re giving, so, for example, every year I pick a new speech and try to debut it every September, and I work on it for a year, ’till another September, until I believe it’s referrable.

And it’s very clear when it’s referrable. It means that I’m probably giving a pretty decent speech and people enjoy it, they like it, but I don’t get what I call stage-side referrals. Those are people that come up to you right after you speak, or within the next 72 hours and say, “I just saw you speak! That was amazing! We have an event, a retreat, we have a blah, blah, blah, can you speak at it and how much do you cost?”

That’s when the speech is referrable, and at that point, any time I hit a referable speech, I expect to get three referrals for new gigs within 72 hours.

15:12 Michael Port: So, what makes it a referable speech?

15:15 Andrew Davis: A lot of people have asked me that. I don’t know, to be totally honest, it’s like a hodge-podge of elements that have to be there in order to inspire audience members to jump up and get to you.

I think there are three things I’ve kind of identified: One, I believe it has to have a framework within it that is simple to explain, and something anyone could draw on a dry erase board at a business.

15:39 Michael Port: A protocol or a methodology or a model.

15:41 Andrew Davis: That’s right, something that’s very simple, conceptually, but also appears very deep. “Wow, there’s a lot here, and they’ve only scratched the surface in this 45 minutes.” And it’s the kind of thing where I’d expect them to go back to the office and say, “I heard this amazing speaker! Let me draw what they talked about, we’ve got to have them come in.”

So that’s one of the elements. Two, it has to be entertaining, the audience has to feel like they weren’t at a corporate event or a trade show, just getting information dumped on them. They have to enjoy themselves, during that time.

And the third thing is, it has to be way out of, what I call, ‘Expertville’, which is, I’m teaching you a lot of stuff and I’m an expert in the industry, and much more on the visionary side. Because that’s when you get the C level executives coming up and saying, “I have a corporate retreat, it’s in two weeks. I need to have you there, are you available?”

16:33 Michael Port: It’s interesting, that’s just another way of describing what we mean when we talk about the difference between a speaker and a performer.

16:40 Andrew Davis: Absolutely!

16:41 Michael Port: A speaker sees himself as a subject matter expert and they share information and they impart knowledge, and it can be helpful. A performer often sees themselves as somebody who needs to draw on all of the tools available to them, to create not just an informative experience, but a transformative experience.

17:05 Andrew Davis: Yeah! Great way of saying it!

17:07 Michael Port: And it’s a little bit esoteric, because it’s art.

17:10 Andrew Davis: There’s an X-factor.

17:12 Michael Port: Yes, exactly, and so, it’s interesting because you say you work on it over a period of a year, and it becomes more referable over time, which is interesting, because you, already, are a tremendous performer, and so your ability and your skill that you bring to that speech at the beginning of the process is going to be the same level of talent and skill that you have at the end, but the work that you do on it, over the course of that year, turns it into a refrerrable speech.

17:41 Andrew Davis: Yes! And there are simple things every speaker can start doing to start improving their speech from gig to gig, that’s the biggest opportunity, to get to referable faster, it takes velocity, I’ve found. You’ve got to do a bunch of gigs in a row, where you’re constantly refining the speech, to get to referable faster.

Like, imagine if you took nine months to come up to a referable speech and you only spoke once a month, that’s nine speeches that don’t really get you to a faster, more referable speech. And the time between them is so long that you kind of forget what worked.

So, one of the things I recommend every speaker do, and I started doing it four years ago, is recording with video, every single one of their gigs, and I found that I alternate between shooting myself on stage and then shooting the audience. and I learned more from watching the audience as I speak, than I do from watching myself.

A lot of times, and I can pick out the person who’s a sceptic from the beginning and start to find the moments where they actually start leaning forward  and getting engaged. Or, if they never do, I know, “Man, I’ve got some work to do,” or if they leave during the presentation, then I’m like, “Wow!  I’ve got a lot of work to do!”

And I also find that working on five minutes at a time, really helps me ensure that it’s getting better over time, I’m not just cherry-picking things.

18:56 Michael Port: Yes, yes, and you’re not just trying to work the whole thing at once. Section by section you keep working at it.

18:59 Andrew Davis: Yeah, which never works. And it reduces your risk as a speaker, right? Like, if you change the whole speech between day one and day two, it’s a disaster. But if you just say, “Hey, look, I think the part that needs the most improvement is this five minutes. Let me work on this tonight, let me try it tomorrow. If it bombs, okay,” you know?

19:15 Michael Port: Yeah, for those who are in the marketing world, it’s like split testing a web page, right?

19:21 Andrew Davis: AB testing, that’s what you call it, yeah.

19:22 Michael Port: So, here’s one version of the page, here’s another version of the page, but if you show them two dramatically different pages, you have no idea why one worked, over the other. You’ve got to change one element, until you know which one works, then you take the next one, et cetera, et cetera, yeah.

19:37 Andrew Davis: And it makes it a lot more palatable, and look, I’ve changed things that worked the day before, and tried to make them better, only to find that they bombed completely and those are all great learning experiences, the choices I make really help me form that. But at the end of the speech, if you don’t get off stage and have a line waiting to talk to you, it’s not referable yet. And just focus that first step on being referrable.

20:00 Michael Port: That line, I’ve actually used as a litmus test, for that reason, not because, “Oh, well, they like me, or don’t like me.” It’s not that, and it’s not, “Oh, I want to be super popular.” It’s just, if they’re queueing up, then it’s at the point where they want more, and if they want more, that means your going to get referrals.

Is there anything that you do, specifically, before the speech, during the speech, after the speech, that helps increase the number of referrals you get from giving the speech itself?

20:32 Andrew Davis: No, I focus squarely on making sure the experience for every attendee is unbelievably good, so the event organiser is happy, and event organisers are one of my biggest referrals, so as long as they love the speech, I don’t promote anything, I don’t try to sell from the stage, in fact I have a very adamant approach that I focus on insuring that the speech is not about me.

I think a lot of speakers believe they’ve got to bring their experience and expertise to the speech, and a lot of it is about, “Hey, I worked with this client or I did this or I’ve done that.” I’ve got to the point where, even if it is a client, I talk about the client themselves, the person, and how successful they were with the story.

And it’s only afterwards, when people are standing in line and saying, “I loved that story about X, Y and Z, I’d love to learn more about it,” I say, “Oh, well that was actually one of my clients, then they’re blown away even more.

Humility goes a long way to making you feel approachable, and I do believe that contributes to your referrability.

21:32 Michael Port: Indeed. It actually reminds me of what our friend, Ron Tite, who is also an HPS League Member, and an HPS faculty member, does. He owns an agency, like you used to own an agency, and when he goes out and speaks, he doesn’t use any of their work as examples. He says, because that’s a conflict of interest.

If I’ve changed the way people see the world, showing them examples that are not my work, they’re going to come to me and hire me, because I’ve changed the way they see the world.

22:05 Andrew Davis: Yeah, you’re the switch, and I think those are the things that really, really help contribute to a successful speaking business. The less it’s about you, and the more it is about their opportunity to change the world with whatever you’re talking about, those are the people that come up to you, because you feel approachable.

22:21 Michael Port: You generally get three referrals per gig?

22:25 Andrew Davis: When it’s a referable speech, and now I have seven or eight years of referable speeches, speeches that I know will deliver that kind of performance each and every time, and there are some exceptions to that, and I raise my fee as  a result.

So, if it’s a corporate gig, meaning a corporation hires me to talk to their employees, I’ve noticed over the five years I’ve been tracking, or for six years now, the referrability is very low. Because it’s an internal audience, a lot of them aren’t involved in external things, it’s not a diverse team, so I charge full fee.

I know that the result of that business will be very low. I don’t get many stage-side leads, if any, from a corporate gig. On the flip side of that, I’ve noticed that medium size business owners at an association or a trade show, are highly engaged and really interested in bringing in A-level talent to inspire their team to get to the large events, you know, they want to up their game.

Especially if the economy is good, they are really willing to invest in quality speakers. A lot of times I’m the most expensive speaker they’ve ever hired to bring in. That, to me, is a real signal that it’s a real opportunity for most speakers to chase the middle of the road, but deliver a great experience for them.

23:40 Michael Port: So, let’s talk about fees and fee setting. A good friend of mine, who owns one of the biggest bureaus, he was telling me a story about a client who they worked with for about a decade, who’s never had anything except extraordinary praise, always delivers, just a solid, solid, solid speaker.

And then he gets a call from a meeting planner, who says, listen, we had so-and-so, and I got to tell you, I just don’t think the value was there. I just don’t think they delivered.” And he said, “Wow! I’ve never heard this, in a decade! I’m so sorry!” She says, “Yeah, you know, it just wasn’t worth $40,000.”

He said, “What did you say?” She goes, “It just was not worth $40,000.” He said, “That’s not their fee.” She said, “Oh, that’s what we paid.” He said, “Maybe there was a technical error, let me go back and talk to the accounting department, because that’s not their fee.”

So, he goes back, finds out that, no, they paid the correct fee, she was just mistaken. The correct fee was $15,000, so he went back and he said, “No, no, no, you did not pay forty, you paid fifteen, that’s his fee,” and she goes, “Oh! In that case it was great value! Oh, no, 15 thousand, forget everything I said.”

And that story really, really highlighted the importance of fee setting. And, on one hand, you don’t want to set your fee so low that no one will consider you, because they don’t think you’re a professional. If your fee is $25,000, they’re not putting you in the same category as the speakers that they usually hire, and then if your fee is set at $40,000, but you can’t deliver, on that amount of money, you know.

So, what’s your perspective on fee setting?

25:20 Andrew Davis: So there’s three things that contribute to an event organiser finding value in your fee. I call it the FEE Model, by the way. FEE stands for Fame, Entertainment, and Expertise. In that order. So, for example, if I’m $15,000 for a keynote and somebody else is also $15,000, the way they evaluate the difference between the two, is, number one, who is more famous?

“Oh, this guy’s been in the New York Times, he’s got three bestselling books. Andrew: been in the New York Times once, doesn’t have a New York Times bestseller, less famous than this guy, he’s less valuable already.” Which means, even if you’re developing your marketing for your speaking, you have to deliver your website in this order, Fame, Entertainment, Expertise.

How famous are you? Right off the bat, I need to think, “This guy’s famous! How do I not know about this guy?” Right? Then as you move down the page, I need to see that you’re entertaining, that could be in the terms of testimonials you want to choose, to show there, or tell people about.

They need to be about the entertainment value. I need to see you speaking, and see that it’s entertainment. I don’t care what the production value is, show me you are entertaining.

And the last one is, are you an expert? And this is a really key one, and so every year I pick a new industry to go into, and focus on, as a new business development tool. It’s a long tail kind of approach, but I actually create little microsite pages, that show I’m an expert for their industry, in some way, shape or form.

Because they want to know, not just, you’re an expert in whatever you talk about, because they should assume that. They want to know that you have some way to make it relevant to their audience. So, those three things should help you set a fee.

If you look at the rest of the market and say, “Are the other speakers that are speaking in this industry, more famous than me? I need to charge less than them. Are they more entertaining than me? I need to charge less than them.”

And that means that, over time, you improve those three things, even within a specific industry. Have you been in the Trade Show Magazine, Travel Weekly more often?

27:23 Michael Port: Right, just, boom, increase your Fame level, right?

27:25 Andrew Davis: Exactly, that’s right. And the other… Sorry, I’m rambling.

27:30 Michael Port: No, this is perfect, this is brilliant!

27:31 Andrew Davis: Okay, the other thing is, when I started I did the same thing, I just set a fee, and that was my fee for the year. And then I started to realise, non-profits and associations are really good at trying to book you really early, and a speaker’s biggest fear is, “I’m never going to speak again, this is the end of the road, it’s July, no one’s booking me for November and I’ve got nothing in 2019! This might be the last time I speak!”

And so, we’re quick to say, “Well, I’ve got nothing in May 2019, let me take this for $2,500 and let’s just hope this is not my end gig and I’ll get some referrals.” What I’ve tried to develop, it’s basically Uber surge pricing.

So, over the course of the last six years, I looked at, “What are my busiest weeks?” Not busiest months, but out of the week numbers, what are the busiest weeks?

28:17 Michael Port: Once again, when I grow up, I’m going to be like Andrew Davis.

28:18 Andrew Davis: This is a little, I know, but everybody, essentially, in the speaking business, unless it’s an industry that’s very specific, has the same kinds of busy weeks. So, for me, May is my busiest month, November is oh, sorry, October…

28:34 Michael Port: For booking? Or for giving speeches?

28:35 Andrew Davis: For giving speeches, always focus on the month you’re giving the speeches, because you can back out of that, and we’ll get back to that in a second. But, basically, those two months, I essentially charge my highest fees. And down to the week.

So, May 16th is the busiest week every single year, so if you call for May 16th, “I’m sorry, I can’t do it at anything less than full fee,” even if I only take one gig, I know I didn’t pass up some great gigs for that.

29:00 Michael Port: Well, this is a little note for meeting planners who are planning events: Plan your events when not everybody else is doing their events. Everybody does them in May, October, and then you can’t get the people you want.

29:13 Andrew Davis: Exactly! I just took a gig in January, I mean, full disclosure, I usually quote $17,500 for a gig, my average fee is about $13,000 and if it’s a smaller gig, I usually try to go for around $15,000. But, because of the surge pricing, I’ll go all the way down to even less than half of my average fee, so $13,000 divided by two, gives me my fee, $6,500 or something, in January.

Because I usually don’t speak in January. Somebody that’s in sales, maybe a Phil Jones, that kind of person, might be really busy in January. Because that’s when sales kick-off meetings are. Well, Phil, you’ve got to charge as much as you can in January, then.

So, the more you think about your busy months, and you use that to quote and then negotiate your fees, you need to have a high, your average and your low, for every single week of the year, so that you know, “I won’t go lower than this, and I shouldn’t go higher than this, because my demand is so low.”

Tracking your demand over time is really important, because you actually want a high loss rate, instead of a high close rate in the speaking business. A 50% loss rate means that you’ve still got enough demand, especially when it comes to price. “I’m not hiring you because you’re too expensive,” that’s okay, you actually want 50% of your gigs to be that, because it means that the demand is high enough to retain the same fee structure.

If, all of a sudden, you see your loss rate go way up, because of price, and it’s at 80%, it means, for that time of the year, you’re quoting too high a price. So, just come down. And don’t worry as much, at that point, about what the rest of the market looks like, or your competitors in the speaking industry.

I don’t think there are any competitors, by the way, but if you think you’re competing with somebody else in the market, don’t worry about what they’re charging, you charge what you need to charge to get to your goal, every single year.

And know what it’s going to take, especially from an average fee standpoint, and track that, and you’ll be much better off.

31:01 Michael Port: Wow! That is extraordinary, because, for years, we’ve considered, very seriously, where the events are, we have different pricing for different locations, we were very clear about when we are willing to travel and when we’re not willing to travel, so we have a lot of constraints around what we do and what we don’t do, which helps us stay sane.

We’ve never really organised the way that we set our fees and book around the different times of the year. And that is so frikkin’ obvious! It’s kind of palm to the head!

Fortunately, I don’t book keynotes in the traditional way any more, I retired from that, but we still have a lot of corporate clients, and I think this still applies to that model as well. Fascinating!

31:55 Andrew Davis: Absolutely! If you’re thinking about trying to really build this as a business, just really understanding that demand drives your fee, and that Fame, Entertainment and Expertise are the three things that affect that, you’ll be much better off in focussing on what you can do to increase your business.

There’s also, I think, a big debate in the speaker community about free gigs. Like, if you’re easy to work with, if you’re easy to work with, as a speaker – one of the things I’m most proud about, but the way, in my career, is being on Meeting Planner Magazine’s top list of easiest team speakers to work with.

And on that list, there are really famous people. I stand out like a sore thumb, I don’t think anyone knows who I am on that list. It’s like George Bush and…

32:38 Michael Port: I’m sure they do now! I remember seeing that list and thinking, “Wow!”

32:41 Andrew Davis: Yeah! It’s fascinating, to me! And it’s because, I think, I’m totally focussed on making it easy for the event planner to book me, and when it becomes complicated, like, especially when it’s a referral ,right, the referrals are very open about what they’ve charged, what they’ve been paid, how easy you were to work with.

So, when they say, “You know who you should have at your event? Andrew Davis,” it’s not just because they think I’m a great speaker, I think it’s because they say, “He is so easy to work with. There’s no up-charges for different places,” I don’t care if you’re flying across the world, I just make it easy.

It’s a flat fee, I don’t care where you are in the world, let’s make this work, I want to make it a great event, let’s talk about the content!” And, as soon as you get past that, it becomes a really easy win.

33:23 Michael Port: I love it! I love it! So, tell me about fee setting and fee raising over time. For somebody who’s going into the industry, let’s talk about fees. Where do you think someone should start generally, and what are the different implications of fees at the beginning and then, also, I want to get a little bit more into the free and paid conversation.

33:47 Andrew Davis: Yeah. We can do that now. So, I think, if you’ve never spoken before and been paid to do it, remember your goal is to get to a referable speech, fast. Which means, you want to take as many free gigs, as fast as possible, to get to a referable speech. And I don’t care if you can do 15 in one month, at local chapters, at local events, offering yourself to industry magazines.

I don’t care if it’s break out sessions, don’t worry about where they are, focus on your performance, and delivering a referable speech. And as soon as people start coming up afterwards and saying, “That was awesome, why weren’t you on the keynote stage?” you have a referable speech. So, get to a referable speech fast.

And when I take free gigs – I take about ten free gigs a year – I focus on using a new speech, so the requirement is, I can’t give, “Okay, you liked my ‘Loyalty Loop’ speech, I liked that one too, but I’m working on a new one and I’d love to give this to your audience, and this is part of the condition of taking a free gig.” This gives me an opportunity, essentially, to hone that speech.

As soon as you start being able to get referrals, the goal is to start increasing the fee as demand increases, and if it’s zero, start at zero, go to $500. Do they say no, do ten people say no? Okay, well it’s too high. Remember, you’ve got to keep your loss rate around 50%, so try to lose 50% of your gigs as fast as possible, by raising your fee.

35:09 Michael Port: It really is such a different mindset for most people, the idea of putting a price up so that they lose 50% of the inquiries they get.

35:20 Andrew Davis: It’ll change your perspective on losing a gig, though. You want to be, like, “Yeah! I lost two gigs out of four this month, I am dead on! The demand is high! And I’ve got my perfect pricing, $2,500.”

And I think $500 at a time up to $5,000 is an easy way to go. If you’re speaking as a full time job. So, if you do 25 to 50 to 75 gigs a year, you can rapidly increase your price, in small increments, to find that balance point between winning enough and losing enough.

35:50 Michael Port: So, do you think someone who is a professional with real expertise, maybe not a lot of fame, yet, but great entertainment value, because they’ve been a student at HPS, they know how to perform, but they’re not famous, yet, but they do have the experience their expertise is there.

So, where should they start? Should they start at a higher fee and then discount it for the free to get the gigs? You see what I’m saying?

36:17 Andrew Davis: Oh, okay, so yeah, you should always send an invoice for your gig. Even if it’s free, and show them the value they’re getting. So, “Yay, I’m doing a free gig, and here’s an invoice for $15,000, minus $15,000 for the non-profit discount. Can’t wait to see you again.” Because then they understand the value they’re getting.

And I do negotiate for most of my gigs, right, I think most people do. But we have a clear negotiation structure for getting to the right fee, that ends up winning up the average over time. If your expertise is relevant to a specific audience, and your expertise is better than everybody else, and you’re more entertaining than everybody else who serves that market, you should be able to charge the highest fee in that market.

And I do think there’s a very different fee expectation by industries. So, I chose travel and tourism.

37:03 Michael Port: And by country, too.

37:04 Andrew Davis: And by country. In fact, I did an analysis of all the countries I’ve spoken in, the higher the GDP, the higher the fee, right? Little rhyming thing, the higher the GDP, the higher the fee. So, every time we get an inbound inquiry for an international gig, the first thing we do is check the GDP of the country, to determine if they can afford us and what we should charge.

37:24 Michael Port: Once again, when I grow up, I’m going to be Andrew Davis.

37:28 Andrew Davis: And look, it’s worked 99% of the time. Sometimes I’m shocked, like, “Oh, yeah, we’re Argentina in a financial crisis.”

37:36 Michael Port: When they call from Dubai…

37:38 Andrew Davis: Yeah, you just know!

37:39 Michael Port: “I’ll take this in gold.”

37:41 Andrew Davis: Yeah, exactly, bullion!

37:42 Michael Port: Bullion, right?

37:44 Andrew Davis: Yeah, “Just load up the suitcase!”

37:45 Michael Port: “I’ll send a truck!”

37:46 Andrew Davis: But if you look at industry by industry and you really start to get a handle on what the industry is willing to charge, you want to be the highest charging person. But, you should focus, first, on increasing your fame. Because it’s a perception game. If they don’t think you’re famous in the industry, there’s a 20% premium that you can’t add to your fee, it’s just impossible.

So, if you’re going after the travel industry, you have to be quoted in Travel Weekly Magazine, they need to see you on the cover, they want a book review, they want to hear you on the travel podcasts. If you can make them feel like you’re everywhere all of a sudden, focus your marketing efforts on raising your fame, to raise your fee.

38:23 Michael Port: You’re right, you know, each market and each division of a market, will have different price elasticity, so one of the things that we’ve discovered, just by getting invitations to go and work with the top sales performers in the biggest organisations in the world – you have the President’s Club and it’s the Top 100 Producers – well, when they do those special events for them, it’s all about the money, what the company is doing, saying, “Listen, we just spent a million dollars to bring in Jerry Seinfeld for a half hour for you, so enjoy it!”

They introduce it that way! “Here’s Michael and Amy Port, we just spent stupid money to  bring them in,” because if I was in sales, I would focus my whole methodology on those Top 100 Performers, because I’d go all over the world speaking just with those groups, and they’re going to be throwing money at those events, because that’s part of what it’s about.

39:19 Andrew Davis: Look, here’s the deal: Fame sells tickets, and most of these events are trying to fill seats, even if it’s a non-profit organisation, or even if it’s a company, they want people to show up and actually go, instead of hanging out on the Vegas Strip and gambling, while you’re speaking.

So, I found a really good place for myself, being the second most famous person on the bill, and I’m not really good at filling seats, but I’m great at filling people’s minds. And so, a lot of times, it’s Magic Johnson – you know, I was just listening to Neen James this morning, I think she was with Magic Johnson at a recent gig, right?

39:52 Michael Port: Yeah, the image I can’t get out of my head. People have to see it!

39:53 Andrew Davis: Yeah, it’s hilarious! If you haven’t listened to that episode, go listen now, because it’s really funny, but if Magic Johnson is there, he’s there to fill seats, and I see, and this is not a dig on Neen James, she’s awesome, but she’s the person there to fill minds.

And if you can approach yourself by not trying to be the most famous person, but just be the person who’s alright being second on the bill, at the right kinds of events for your audience.

40:17 Michael Port: And to know what your role is. That’s what you’re highlighting here, is that you should be very clear on what your role is. And if you can articulate your role to the meeting planners, it helps them tremendously, because then they can say yes to you for the reason that’s important to them.

40:31 Andrew Davis: That’s right! And that’s what I say. I say, “Look, you’ve got Magic Johnson,” or whoever, “going to fill the seats, right after him I’d be a great person to have, because now everybody’s going to be at a heightened awareness, they’re going to have loved that 45 minutes.”

40:47 Michael Port: “It’s so cool to have seen him.”

40:48 Andrew Davis: Exactly. “And then we can get down to business. And, yeah, we’re going to have some fun, we’re going to learn a lot of stuff, but let’s focus on really filling their minds in that next hour.”

40:56 Michael Port: It’s fantastic, I love this! I’m telling you, there are going to be people listening to this that are going to be creating these huge documents and manuals based on…

41:07 Andrew Davis: That’s how I started. Look, just start tracking this stuff, start to know what are the gigs that refer the most business? How good a quality is that business? You know, I’ve gone to gigs where I got lots of referrals, but they can’t afford me. And not that that’s a bad thing, we never got back to free gigs, by the way.

41:24 Michael Port: Yeah, that’s it, so we’ll hit free gigs.

41:25 Andrew Davis: Yeah. Are we out of time?

41:27 Michael Port: Not yet, look, I’m in charge of the time, so there’s nobody who says, “You’re out of time!” so we can go for nine hours, except we are actually supposed to start doing something else, but I did also want to just touch on rehearsal, and I wanted to touch on video as well, because you were killing it with video.

So, let’s talk about the free and the paid, just a little bit of that debate, which I’ve witnessed and had popcorn while watching the debate.

41:52 Andrew Davis: Yeah, it’s a tough one, I mean, look, I got my start doing free gigs.

41:56 Michael Port: So did I, by the way.

41:58 Andrew Davis: I don’t know anyone who [didn’t].

41:59 Michael Port: I didn’t know there was a professional circuit when I started, I just knew, starting my business, it was a great way to go and drum up business. And then my first book came out and I got a little bit famous, and then they started calling and somebody said, “We’d like to pay you,” and I said, “You do that? You pay for this?”

I mean, obviously I knew, but I think my fees went from maybe $2,500 to $10,000 just in the span of a week, because my book came out and did so well, so quickly. And that was 2006, so that’s exactly right, it follows your model.

But I, too, am a big believer in that there’s no one way to do any of this, and each speaker needs to be very clear about their business model and what they’re trying to accomplish, and how, all the different options you have with respect to how you build your business, are your choice. It’s up to you.

42:52 Andrew Davis: Absolutely! Yeah, I think that’s fair, and I think, my perspective on free gigs has always been, number one, they helped me grow this business. If I ever need them again I want to be able to go back to them, and I still do my ten free gigs a year.

Number two, my goal with every inbound inquiry is to ensure that I help them make their event a success, because, if I can help them do that, they will refer me, even if I have never spoken at their organisation. They will say, “You know who you should call?”

And a lot of times, those secondary calls are people who can afford me. So, I take every one of those opportunities to say, “Hey, look, unfortunately I can’t do that gig, I’m already booked,” or whatever reason.

43:32 Michael Port: You’re exactly right, if you are super, super easy and helpful and humble when you’re declining an offer because the fee is not as adequate, they want to reciprocate, because you took your time to work with them, and talk to them and show them respect and help them, and you might even refer them to other speakers that are in their price range that’ll do a great job.

43:55 Andrew Davis: Yeah, exactly! So, this is what I do, I actually have web pages for different tiers. Because I’ve started to know the kinds of pricing tiers I get, so $5,000, $7,500, $10,000 and even $25,000, so people that are more expensive than me, I refer constantly.

And I created a list of ten speakers, on each of those, they’re hidden pages on my website and I send them to people, saying , hey, I’m sorry I can’t do it, $5,000 is below my fees range for this kind of gig. But here are ten amazing speakers. If you want an intro to any of them, I know them very well. I’ve seen all of them speak,” so I won’t refer someone I haven’t seen speak in person, “and I can vouch for the way they’ll deliver.”

And a huge number of those requests come back as, “Yeah, please introduce me to X, Y and Z, I’d love to talk to them about our event if they’re in our price range.” So, that’s number one.

Number two is, just recently this happened again, but a lot of those free gigs eventually have money for something. And so recently a gig that for six years, they’ve called me every year, asking if I can do it, and their fee has been slowly going up, right? They started at zero, they’re up to $8,000, but I still can’t do it, because it’s the wrong time of the year for me.

So, I kept declining and sending them options, right? And just recently they booked me for two gigs, for a total of $35,000 that’s essentially my exact book fee. And so, free gigs can turn into paid gigs. And the other thing to keep in mind is, remember, your business model isn’t their business model.

So I don’t care if they go to fancy destinations and they bring their whole association and pay for everyone to be there and have fancy coffee and lobster dinners, that is their business model. Paying for speakers isn’t in it. Unfortunately that’s a bummer.

45:38 Michael Port: And we’re not in control of that, and they have no obligation to design their business model to serve our business model. So, if the business model we design for the world in which we live, then it’s not going to be an effective model.

45:56 Andrew Davis: Exactly, yeah, so just think carefully about how you respond to free gigs. It’s a really important opportunity, I think, for you to ingratiate yourself to future business, and it’s really easy.

46:07 Michael Port: One of the things that I’m very glad has not happened in the speaking industry, at least, at this point, I’m glad it has not happened, is unionisation.

Because think about how insane that would be. I can’t even imagine, I mean, I was, as an actor, I was in the union, and, of course, we needed that union, but it also can cause some headaches and challenges for folks. We do HPS Live at the Kimmel, as you know, because Andrew will be there speaking, October 1, 2, 3.

Actually, for all Steal The Show listeners, I think, right now you can get a 10% discount to HPS live, so if you go to hpslive.com and you put in the promo code, stealtheshow, all lower case, all one word, when you’re registering, you get a 10% discount.

So, what were we talking about?

46:57 Andrew Davis: We were just talking about ingratiating yourself to free events. I think, the more helpful you are in finding the gig the right speaker, even when it’s not you, the more successful you’ll be.

47:10 Michael Port: Indeed, indeed, so let’s not spend much time on rehearsal, because I want to hit video, because it’s a little more business related, but, because I know you so well, I wanted to highlight how much work you put into your speeches, because you, like other professionals, but not like all other professionals, know that if you want to be paid real money to do this work, you’re not winging it.

You’re not like, “I’ll just create a slide deck, I’ll put some quotes on it and then I’ll use that as my outline. And I’ll just, because I’m very charming and clever, I’ll just be great because I’m better than everybody in the audience and I’m smarter than them,” so, that’s not what you do.

So, how much work do you put into any given keynote?

47:53 Andrew Davis: So, a new keynote is a year long process of refining it, which we already talked about. But every single speech I deliver, I rehearse 8-10 hours for each one of those gigs, so even if I’m speaking three times, next week, I will rehearse a total of twenty hours.

48:10 Michael Port: For 8 hours, for each gig.

48:11 Andrew Davis: For each gig.

48:12 Michael Port: Even though it’s a speech that you give every week?

48:17 Andrew Davis: Yeah, so a lot of the speeches have new stories, not necessarily new stories, I shouldn’t say, but I have hundreds of stories that I kind of interchange. So if it’s the insurance industry I have a story about a guy who built an insurance business in Canada that’s amazingly successful, and I only give that one segment five times a year.

I need to polish it, get it refreshed in my mind, remember what’s next, remember how the transitions work. We rehearse the jokes, I mean, these are the important pieces of the puzzle, and the more familiar I am with the content, before I go on stage, I knew a long time ago, the better the gig is.

48:51 Michael Port: Because preparation, plus improvisation is spontaneity. That’s what feels like it’s the first time it’s ever happened.

48:58 Andrew Davis: Absolutely, and so, I feel much more confident in every one of my gigs, if I do rehearsal. The other thing I do, because of the familiarity really helps, is, I get up really, really early, just anyway, but I’ll get up at 3 or 4 in the morning and rehearse twice, all the way through, the 45 minute or hour long session, in my room, with a timer, I constantly use a timer.

49:21 Michael Port: Have you always had this kind of work ethic, since you were starting?

49:26 Andrew Davis: You mean, being a workaholic?

49:27 Michael Port: Yeah!

49:30 Andrew Davis: I think so.

49:31 Michael Port: I mean, in high school you were the same way when you were studying for exams?

49:34 Andrew Davis: Oh, I was not a good student, but in high school I was a swimmer, I was an actor, I was a childhood actor, actually.

49:40 Michael Port: Yeah, TV actor.

49:41 Andrew Davis: TV actor, yeah.

49:42 Michael Port: He was very adorable. You want to pinch his cheeks and all that.

49:44 Andrew Davis: Thank you, ah yeah! But I approached those things in the exact same way, extreme focus, almost to the point of being maniacal about every little element and constantly trying to improve it. But I think if you’re not doing that, you’re just kind of phoning it in, no offence.

I think that people who are constantly refining their profession, are the ones who are really killing it.

50:08 Michael Port: Agreed, agreed! So, let’s talk about what you’re doing with video, because, holy cow, you started producing videos, what do you call them?

50:16 Andrew Davis: The Loyalty Loop.

50:17 Michael Port: Yeah, the loyalty loop, and they’re for the kinds of companies that you speak to, so the people who work inside those companies, that’s the people you’re speaking to, and you started shooting them yourself?

50:29 Andrew Davis: I shoot them myself, and edit them myself.

50:32 Michael Port: And you were not a filmmaker? I mean, you were a producer, but you weren’t a camera operator, or an editor, so tell us, why did you start going heavy, heavy into video? What’s your process? And what have you seen, what are the outcomes of this?

50:49 Andrew Davis: Okay, yes, I actually do two video series, by the way, the other one most people don’t know about because it’s only for event professionals, which is maybe more interesting, even to this group.

But I do the Loyalty Loop every week, and twice a month I do a video called, ‘The One Percent Event’, for event producers, showing them what makes the 1% of best events a better event.

51:08 Michael Port: My whole team needs to watch these videos! That’s why we have a whole event team.

51:14 Andrew Davis: Basically, but, yeah. The reason I started doing both video series, was to essentially ingratiate myself on the event producers side, to helping event producers put on better events, because I go to so many, I feel like so many are kind of blasé. I feel like there’s a real opportunity to easily change it.

And then, on the Loyalty Loop side, my philosophy actually became, “I can make a better speech if I aerate these ideas in video, to an audience, who will give me feedback before doing it in front of any audience.”

So, the Loyalty Loop, I hope, is my next book, and as a result, I’ve been doing these videos every single week.

51:48 Michael Port: Great name!

51:49 Andrew Davis: Hey, thanks! It’s actually, it’s a long story, but I liked The Loyalty Loop, as well, and people responded to it really well, which is kind of why I do this, so the goal is – you know, I wrote an outline for The Loyalty Loop, very early on and said, “This is going to be my next book.” And then I started shooting the videos and sharing the videos with the audience, only to find that I’m getting really interesting questions from the audience, even with the first episode!

Questions that I never imagined would come up in the mind of the audience that I’m targeting, so now I’m using the next video to say, “Oh, here’s the question I got, does this answer it?” Yes, it answers it, great! Now I put it in the book outline. But I’m also, in the middle of that, refining he speech, which then creates demand for the book in the long term.

So The Loyalty Loop video series is designed to build a buying audience, who not only buys the Loyalty Loop speeches, which that’s the business result which has been very immediate, which I can tell you about in a second, but the long goal is to have a new book called, The Loyalty Loop, that’s basically built by the audience.

52:42 Michael Port: Do you put strong call to actions in those videos?

52:45 Andrew Davis: Just the subscribe at the end of the video.

52:46 Michael Port: Just the subscribe for more videos, more Loyalty Loop videos.

52:51 Andrew Davis: Yeah, I basically just say, “Every Tuesday there’s a new video, if you’ve missed the last ones, sign up now, then you’ll see the old ones and you’ll never miss another episode.

53:01 Michael Port: Fantastic, I love it! So, where can people see those? Because you do them really well. It’s not like you’re just, making a video, they’re really, really good, and some of them are very funny.

53:09 Andrew Davis: Thanks! So, I actually write each one of them, then I shoot each one, which is actually the part I like the least. I thought I’d like the video production stuff, but I don’t. I love the editing.

53:20 Michael Port: You script it out.

53:21 Andrew Davis: I script it out, just like I used to do for television, and I think that’s helped tremendously in making the editing process more efficient, and the production process and I release them online on YouTube. Just search for  The Loyalty Loop, and you can find it easily.

53:36 Michael Port: That is cool! That is so, so cool! Hey listen, you are phenomenal! And I’m so excited you are going to be a HPS Live!

53:45 Andrew Davis: I’m psyched, too!

53:46 Michael Port: People are going to, I tell you what, there are going to be many lines, so many lines of people wanting to talk to you after you speak, that I don’t even know if you’ll make your flight.

53:55 Andrew Davis: I’m so excited! Well, we’re going to talk about the business of speaking, so we’re going to dive into all those fields I search, I’ll try to give people some templates of e-mails that have been really successful, maybe get some spreadsheets, figure out how to help.

54:06 Michael Port: That’s great! That’s fantastic! Thank you very much! Well, where can they go learn more about you? Is it aka?

54:12 Andrew Davis: akadrewdavis.com, you can see my attempt at Fame, Entertainment and Expertise right on the home page. If you have feedback, or suggestions, I’d love to hear them, you can e-mail me.

54:20 Michael Port: He’s very good, his website is one of the websites that we often show people when we say, “Here are some of the sites that professional speakers are using that are working for them.

54:29 Andrew Davis: Oh, that’s nice, yeah, it works really well.

54:31 Michael Port: And I also know that you’re intentional about what you’re doing there. Sometimes people will produce an effective website, but it was an accident.

54:41 Andrew Davis: “That’s a great website.”

“I don’t know how I did that!”

54:45 Michael Port: So, I don’t trust those, because they might not always be working, but yours is very intentional. So, thank you so much, my friend.

54:51 Andrew Davis: Yeah! Thank you, guys!

54:53 Michael Port: And I’ll see you!

54:54 Andrew Davis: See you in October!

54:55 Michael Port: I’ll see you in October!

54:56 Andrew Davis: Yay!

54:56 Michael Port: Thank you for listening to Steal The Show with Michael Port. I’m your host, Michael Port.

This podcast was produced by our director of communications, Laura Bernstein, with sound production and marketing by Kast Media. Music is mixed by Shammy Dee, and we recorded today’s episode at Heroic Public Speaking HQ, the most impressive public speaking facility in Lambertville, New Jersey and, perhaps, the world.

Special thanks to our guest, the absolutely astonishing Andrew Davis, and to you, for listening and learning how to be a performer in your spotlight moments.

Make sure to reach out to us on Instagram and Facebook, @heroicpublicspeaking, and leave us a review on iTunes and rate us if you like the show. Oh, and make sure to visit heroicpublicspeaking.com/live and come to the event, October 1, 2, 3, in Philly. It will change your life forever.

Oh, and you can get 10% off changing your life forever, if you’d like, if you use the promo code, stealtheshow, one word, all lower case; heroicpublicspeaking.com/live. When you go to register just put in the promo code, stealtheshow, all lower case, no spaces and you’ll get a 10% discount.

Thank you so much for listening to Steal The Show. I love you, very much, and not in a weird way, but I do love you because you are standing in the service of others, as you stand in the service of your destiny. Go out there and break their legs. Bye for now.