Secrets To Getting A Standing Ovation With Leanne Christie

Posted by John Livesay in podcast0 comments

Getting a standing ovation is a wonderful experience. It shows that you have done something amazing that people want to commend you for. CEO of House of O, Leanne Christie, often referred to as the million-dollar maker having steered and coached speakers throughout her career, knows exactly what it feels like to get a standing ovation. She chats with John Livesay and reveals the secrets to becoming an excellent speaker that can speak from a topic and be an expert on a topic. She believes that a speaker who gets a standing ovation is one that speaks from the heart and is of service to the audience.

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Listen to the podcast here

Secrets To Getting A Standing Ovation With Leanne Christie

Our guest is Leanne Christie, who is an expert on getting speakers jobs and getting clients speakers. She said, “When speakers realize it’s not all about them and has a strategy, they are successful and those that get standing ovations are the ones that speak from the heart and are of service to the audience.” Enjoy the episode.

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Our guest is Leanne Christie who is the Chief of Everything O, that is the House Of O. She founded Ovations Speakers Bureau many years ago and several years ago, ODE Management, which is a speaker management company. She’s proud to be the only true global speaker management company in the world. With staffs in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, the company manages speakers in Europe, America, Asia and Australia.

She has been coaching speakers under the banner of Standing Ovations and she has often been referred to as the Million Dollar Maker having steered and coached many speakers throughout their career to earn over $1 million in their speaking revenue. If you know anything about the business, you know that is an elite group of people. Leanne, first of all, huge thanks. It’s lovely to have you, connecting with me in Austin and you in Australia.

My favorite opening question for guests is to ask your own story of origin. You could go back to childhood, school or wherever you’ve got the interest of like, “I find this concept of managing speakers and getting people to hire speakers interesting.” I’m guessing there was something along your own path that first made you think, “Hmm.” Most people don’t wake up and might say, “I want to be a doctor or a lawyer.” I’m sure there’s a great story of how it all started.

I worked for a trainer and I was selling training. Where my bureau is a little bit different is that I had that passion for what I call the long tail and staying of service to clients for a long time because of my training background. When I was doing that, I was 25 years old and I was earning $25,000 a year. I thought that was good because I worked out. I was clever. By the time I was 30, I might earn $30,000 a year. I started waking up when I started selling and thinking, “I’ve got to see how I was thinking small.” I asked the guy I was working for if I could on commission. He got a consultant in and the consultant looked at the red sports car that he bought and had a look at the tractor that went on the farm that he bought and he said, “I don’t think that would work out well for you.” I went on commission myself and that’s where my speaker’s bureau started. You can’t be on more commission than starting a speaker bureau.

You are all in on yourself. You are betting on yourself in a big way, aren’t you?

It’s true. My husband didn’t want to mortgage the house or anything at the time. He felt it was too big of a gamble but I had $200 in a separate account. I started with $200 on the kitchen table, 100 calls a day, every single day. Fifty calls, you can have lunch. Fifty calls, you can knock off. If I hadn’t done 50 calls and I was getting hungry, dial faster.

[bctt tweet=”Know what your takeaways are when you are a speaker.” username=”John_Livesay”]

That is funny to dial faster. There is a reward in there and it worked.

A lot of people look at, what is the one thing that maybe I haven’t been doing enough of that I don’t want to talk about? It’s speaking of fun and talking to people. It’s connection. That’s what the business was based on.

A lot of people know what a speaker is. We know that they are speaking bureaus but this concept of a speaker management company, there are some similarities between the world of acting having agents and managers. I would love you to explain to the readers what the distinction is and how you are able to do both.

First of all, the distinction. My cofounder in ODE helped me get this because it’s quite a simple way of talking about it. It’s like the other side of the same coin. A speaker bureau finds speakers for their clients. A speaker management company finds clients for their speakers. It’s the same industry but it’s the complete other side of the coin. It’s a very different viewpoint.

There might be a lot of overlap. For example, if a client comes to you and says, “We have a big meeting coming up. We are looking for a sales speaker. Do you know any?” You were like, “I do. That’s my job.” You give them some suggestions. On the flipside, a speaker comes to you and I’m guessing, you can correct me if I’m wrong, before they get management, they usually have to have some track record and some success under their belt. They said, “I’m looking for someone who can manage my brand and my career.” Does it require them to be exclusive with you or no?

Management is more than exclusive but we manage their business. Does that make sense?

Standing Ovation: Connection is what the business is based on.

Yes.

I already always had a non-exclusive bureau and our point of difference was unbiased advice. That’s what we sold a lot. For me, to put the management company inside the bureau made it too exclusive. This is just a personal choice. By the way, my speaker bureau does have exclusives because there are people who come to me in the management company that isn’t quite at that level yet, so they joined the bureau. One of the differences that I have chosen to do with ODE is speaker management, is it’s a completely different brand, company, database and business. We only sell the speakers we manage. We do not sell anybody else. We cannot. That’s our choice. It’s like an exclusive bureau. All our efforts and energy are only for those sixteen speakers that we have.

Those are speakers around the world, so you are calling on people around the world. Just because someone’s not in Australia, doesn’t mean you would manage them if they were successful enough and were a good fit. What I find fascinating is this survey you did for everything from a speaker starting over 100 of the speakers you surveyed. The criteria were they had to have been in the business for ten years and this question of, “What would you like to know about the business of speaking?” You have been able to curate a fascinating list of topics.

The one that I want to jump into is selling. A lot of people love speaking and hate selling themselves. They go, “Isn’t my video and testimonials enough? I have to convince an event planner or client. Can’t you do that?” You were like, “My job is to get you the chance to pitch yourself,” or tell them why. You have some real techniques here that I would love to know. We can talk about this concept of getting comfortable in selling ourselves.

For me, it starts with a mindset. Most people don’t want to be pushy. How do you help your team when it gets to that final three? Comparing it to acting from my days in LA, sometimes, it will be between 2 or 3 actors for the lead in a series and then they get to go in front of the network executives. Sometimes, it’s not even an audition. It’s an actual conversation. What is it that you see that the successful speakers are able to do? They could be talking about artificial intelligence or something not at all related to sales and yet, the successful ones have figured out a way to sell themselves.

There are two things that I want to talk about and break down. The first thing is it’s not all about you. I want to talk about that. The second thing I want to talk about is strategy. You put those two things together. Let me start with it’s not all about you. A lot of ways speakers can relate to what I’m talking about is that many of them, not all of them are because someone loved being on stage, as a way to overcome nerves, when they are on stage, had to realize, “It’s not all about me.” What am I here to do? I’m here to serve. Take it all off you and onto the audience, then not only did the nerves go away and you are more comfortable but you are a much better speaker.

[bctt tweet=”Be able to answer ‘Why You’ when you pitch yourself.” username=”John_Livesay”]

Without diving into that too much, take that into sales because it’s the same feeling. It’s the nervousness. It’s like, “Am I doing it right?” What is it all about? Me. “I don’t feel like doing it that way.” It’s all the I statements. What if you are worth it to serve your client? Let’s take it back to service. Many speakers love to be of service on stage. If I could talk to that part of your heart and say, “I know that when you are on stage, you truly want to be of service to that client. These are people you haven’t met yet. Start being of service to them now. Let’s think about them. What are their needs?” If you focus enough on them, it all goes away. Can you see how it leads into strategy?

Absolutely.

I’m a bureau owner and I work in bureaus for many years. Back to my training routes, whether they be speakers or even bureaus, what I feel one of the biggest misses that we have as bureau salespeople is that we think, feel, know and act like we are selling a 60-minute transaction. That is sad because you cannot be of service in a 60-minute transaction. If speakers could hear and know that I’m a bit kinesthetic, so I’m talking to people’s hearts a little. If they can take that in, you will never be scared about making sales again because you want to sit like that. You want to jump on a 60-minute transaction.

The amount of preparation that goes into a talk and interviewing some people and getting a sense of what’s important to them. If you offer some follow-up, all of that allows people to go, “You are not just in and out. This is a relationship.” The impact continues long after the talk is over. That alone puts you in a different set of people you are talking to.

John, that’s true impact. You need to meet their point of pain. You’ve got to do that if you are somebody who’s coming in for a 60-minute transaction and you are thinking about you being a salesperson and you are thinking about how do I make this sale? This is what I talked about. There were a lot of cold calls. I didn’t have a database, did I? This is in the olden days. Many years ago, I spent $200 on letterhead. Do you remember we used to type things on pieces of paper? This was before computers. Forget Zoom. I didn’t even have a computer. The idea was to start connections with people.

You think about when you are making a friend. You often start with, “Tell me about your family.” You and I had a lovely conversation about your gorgeous property before we started talking about business. We often start with those things. The same things happen in a corporate marketplace. If I met generally, what job do they have and who makes the decisions perhaps? “Tell me a bit about your event. You are going there. How exciting.” It’s more frivolous compared to what’s keeping you awake at night? We don’t ask that question explicitly. Implicitly, we are looking for what’s going on in that company? If you listen closely enough, for example, you will hear people who have staff afraid to go back to the office and corporations scared. How are we going to get them there? We have staff that is like, “I have proven I can do my job from home. Why do I ever have to go back?” There are all sorts of points. You mentioned AI before. People are afraid that their job is going to be done by a robot or whatever your topic is?

Standing Ovation: When speakers realize it’s not all about them and they have a strategy, they are successful.

It’s fascinating you brought that up, Leanne because I was talking to a healthcare medical regional VP and he said, “My job is to keep these highly skilled salespeople happy and loyal to the company. By not seeing them for over a year in person at annual meetings, we feel like that bond is slipping away. We are looking for solutions for how to bond virtually that we never needed before.” That creates a whole separate conversation beyond just what’s the top going to be.

I was saying to you before we come on here and I will share this with people as a positive, so coming back. I emceed in Melbourne one time and there are 450 people in the room. This is happening a lot here in Australia. None of us with masks or anything. That’s where we are at. John, for many people, it was their first time in a room with that many people. Even as an emcee, I had to come to it, not just about that one sheet.

Let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room.

We have to talk to the people and make them feel comfortable. I spent the first ten minutes talking to them about their past year and how they have had to adapt in business but I’ve got them to stand up and look around the room for a minute so that they could feel comfortable again. It’s different, John. You’ve got to take a minute when you are back in a boardroom with 500 people.

Even the networking thing, that’s a muscle we haven’t used in a while. The fight or flight response wants to kick in and go, “This is too much. I have to walk up and introduce myself to strangers? I haven’t had to do this in over a year.” You are spot-on, Leanne, about what is it that is happening that we address and keeps our messages from the stage, off stage, of selling ourselves and all of it is current.

Can I talk about a strategy for me that’s taking part?

[bctt tweet=”To have a true impact, you need to make your point of pain.” username=”John_Livesay”]

Please, yes.

First of all, it’s not all about me. We are focusing on them. We have made a true connection. We are able to then find out more of their pain because we are asking deeper questions, so we have made a deeper connection. That is a whole other episode that you could help them with, too, if they ask those questions. We can then start looking at the strategy. When do we know what their pain is, what is it? How is it the way that we were? It’s because it’s going to be in your topic area because they called you for a speech on your topic or expertise but what you want to do is you need to take that from a topic to expertise. Do you see the difference?

Yes.

At first, because they have been transactional to this thing, they use someone who speaks on a topic. We need to let them know that you are somebody who has that expertise. You are already going to be dropping seeds, even from when you take the inquiry. The questions that you ask, it will show that there is more that you can help them with and you can truly help them with what’s going on, not just do a talk about it. As you know in 45 to 60 minutes, you can help to change people’s attitudes and you can give them some tools to do that but you cannot give them the practice with the skillset in that timeframe.

That comes from half days, full days, long-term, advisory services in-house, etc. I will give you an example. I’m sure that many of the people that you talk to have, as a last resort, would negotiate a fee. I’m sure that’s something you have already talked about a lot before. The way that we talk about it in our bureau and certainly, in our management company because it is a general rule, that’s not what we do but we add a lot of value. Be strategic in the value that you add. I will give you an example. We have got lovely Hamilton Island here on the Great Barrier Reef where a lot of our conferences are held. If they take you to a place like that, where you can’t get out on the next day anyway, how about a strategy breakfast with the C-Suite the next morning?

This is what I talk about of going from being interesting to being irresistible and you have given us a great example of that. I remember when I was talking to Anthem insurance. It was a similar situation where I had to be there anyway for a while with the flights and things and I said, “What else is happening if I’m picked to give this talk in the morning kicking off the two days?” “At the end of the first day, we are going to have an improv session. These people aren’t salespeople. They are nurses and MBAs, yet they have to sell, so the audience is going to throw out objections and people are going to be on stage.” I said, “What if I stayed? I’m going to be there anyway. I will just stay and whisper in their ear if they get stuck in the improvisation. Something from my talk.” “That would be amazing. We never even thought to ask a speaker to do that.”

Standing Ovation: Some people don’t realize that speaking can be more than just a hobby business.

It became this highlight of the whole two days and then people would say, “Can you be my ear all the time? You were The Pitch Whisperer.” The whole thing took off and people said, “How long have you been in healthcare?” I was so immersed in their experience by that extra strategy of, “What can I do to go from being interesting to irresistible?” Sometimes, it’s proposing an idea like that breakfast the next morning with the C-Suite or playing with them in an improv situation where it takes some of the fear off and they don’t get stuck. Since improvisation is all about yes, and.

If you don’t know what to say and someone’s whispering in your ear to keep it going, that’s a home run for the planners, the clients and everybody in the audience. It all comes to life that way. I love what you are talking about. One of the things you also have here is marketing. There are six basics of marketing. Many of us know pricing, positioning, packaging and all that fun stuff but you have something that you think is the most important one that you call your seventh basic marketing principle. Would you give us a little hint of what that is?

The other six, as you say, you would have talked about a lot, which is your bio, testimony and all those things that people know of. I have been spending a lot of time with my speakers on video pitchers and quite honestly, a video pitch is what’s helping to bring businesses over the line when you break it down and you do it well. With my mastermind group, I have a couple of my staff from the management company come in, look at their video pitches, mark them and give them feedback on what’s working and what’s not working in them. When you do a video pitch, you always use the person’s name early. Otherwise, they are never going to know that this is made just for them. How many videos do we all have? We have made this once and we are using it 100 times. You use the name early so they know it’s just for them. If the pitch is by a bureau, you always use the bureau’s name and thank the bureau early. You want to do that as well because you will be giving it to the bureau. The bureau consultant will be looking at it before it passes on. It’s at the discretion whether they do or not. A lot of speakers assume that clients get to see everything that they send to a bureau.

I can tell you that they don’t. You want to make sure that it makes a bureau person look like a hero or otherwise, it may not get sent on. You make sure that you do the event information quickly. “I’m looking forward to coming to Hamilton Island on the seventh for your conference.” Get that all there. There are a couple of sentences on what is going to be in the content, which is the why you. They will get a feel of why you come to it differently and then most importantly, what are they going to take away afterward? What are your takeaways? It can be harder, sometimes, to go via a third party like a bureau to find the pain. It’s not just taking an inquiry from a bureau at face value. If you can, getting a little bit more information for the pitch keeps in mind the two things. It’s not about me and what is my strategy? How am I going to help them in the long-term?

This concept of being clear, concise and compelling, whether you are telling a story or creating a video pitch is the takeaway I’ve got from you describing that. It’s clear, “This is for you.” It’s concise. It’s not an hour-long thing. It’s compelling because it’s like, “Here are your takeaways. Here’s what’s in it for you.” When you have that as your checklist and things are filtered through those three Cs like any good story is, it’s great to declutter. You are helping people become memorable. That’s the power of working with someone like you and the storytelling aspect of it.

We all have to stand out through somewhat of a crowded field, whether there are lots of speakers on your topic or getting noticed by a bureau expert like you. I know that you have a lot of people constantly asking you about that. If there’s one thing that someone could do, let’s assume they are not famous, they are not Steve Wozniak and they are not a beginner but they have been doing it for a while. They’ve got some revenue that’s coming in. What is the thing that distinguishes it for you of whether or not you say, “I think we could book you?”

[bctt tweet=”Be strategic in the value that you add.” username=”John_Livesay”]

Do I have to choose one? It’s annoying to have to choose one, John.

Give us as many things that come to mind. What little things they could do? What are your favorite things or give us a story of something really creative that wowed you?

Many people here would know of Keppler Speakers Bureau and know Jim Keppler. When I started going to IASB, the International Association of Speakers Bureaus, many years ago, I asked him when I was thinking about having exclusives because his bureau is known for having great exclusives. I was looking at, “What is it when you sign an exclusive?” I was waiting for him to say big-name only or something and he talked more about seeing Simon Cowell’s The X Factor. We didn’t have that then but he talked about seeing that he is so attractive to somebody because I have taken speakers when I have seen them on stage and thought, “You are nowhere near where you need to be. Your future is bright. I need sunglasses watching you.” It’s that X-Factor that we look for.

That’s harder to explain to people. I wanted to talk about that one because that one’s important. The other thing that I look forward to is people who know and understand having a strategy. They are speaking business as a business. Some people don’t realize that it can be more than just a hobby business and they treat it that way because there’s something about their love of speaking that’s deep. They are still alive. It’s like, “Can I get paid for this? Don’t tell anybody.” There’s that level of holding their breath and it’s okay. Exhale, you deserve this. You deserve to be this happy on the planet. Many speakers love what they are doing so much that they cannot believe they are getting paid for it. Never mind the ridiculous money. It is ridiculous money that they get paid but adds value and have a strategy.

If I talk to somebody and I find that they have gone in for a speech and they are still there six months later or three years later, it’s the same thing when I’m looking for salespeople. If they are talking about 60 minutes’ transactions, it’s not that they say that but you can pick it up in the way that they speak. Whereas the difference for me, I’m in the business many years later, is that a lot of my sales ended up being $50,000 or $100,000. In a bureau, my biggest sale was $3 million in over three years. This is Australia where we’ve got a small population. It was a contest of 10,000 people. We ended up going through everybody. It was brilliant, but we have changed the face of the contest and get to see you get up and do a townhouse toast to the person that I bought into the contest. I did have a tear in my eye.

Why wouldn’t you? We have gone full circle to where we were opening with this conversation around how somebody gets comfortable at selling themselves when you have that outcome in mind. I remember once getting an email from a bureau saying, “Congratulations. They picked you over the other two speakers they interviewed. They liked your energy.” That’s the X-Factor that you described. At the end of the day, we think, “It’s my content, my book and video.” After I worked with the client, the event planner said, “I felt good after talking to you. I figured if it felt that good, so would hundreds of people that I’m having come to the event.” If we remember that, everything is energy and talk about in terms of The X Factor, chemistry, clicking and all that stuff.

Standing Ovation: Many speakers love what they’re doing so much that they cannot believe they’re getting paid for it. Never mind the ridiculous money. It is ridiculous money that they get paid, but add value and have a strategy.

Money is all energy. It allows us to realize that is what’s happening, then we come from a place of service. The strategy becomes, “How can I move the energy? How can this energy have an impact? Do they keep wanting to bring me back or have talked other divisions?” You then know you are on the right flow of it all. I would think that’s going to make you stand out whether it’s to a client or a bureau or any of the other things. Leanne, you offer so much to the industry and ultimately, the world with your impact and connections. How can people find out how to work with you? There are three. You have your training. If you don’t mind, give us each bucket and if there’s a URL for each one, fantastic so that people can say, “I want this. I want that. I know someone else who could use this.”

If you go to www.HouseOfO.com because I had to put all the brands under one brand. That’s why I have stayed O. You will find in there, Ovations, the Speaker Bureau. That’s very specific. There are ODE Speaker Management, which is the global management company and then Standing Ovations, which is where I coach speakers. I do that in small mastermind groups. I do everything like you think I would do. I don’t just do one-off 60-minute things even in my coaching. It’s like I’m not interested in so much in my bureau to just do one-offs. It’s a year-long journey. I started that in 2019 and the group I started with, I didn’t know there was such a thing but they said, “What’s next?” They just keep renewing with me. To warn you, if you do come to Standing Ovations, we will go on a wonderful journey together.

My favorite word because you are taking people on a journey much like a good story or a movie does. That’s what are the movies for. That’s what a piece of art does. It takes us on an emotional journey and you are showing people how to make those dreams come true in an impactful way. They deserve to be that happy. Thanks again. What a delight to get to connect with your energy. I can see why you are successful and continue to be. We look forward to cheering you on every step of the way.

Thanks for your time, John, and to everybody out there, keep fighting the good fight.

Important Links

• House Of O
• Ovations Speakers Bureau
• ODE Management
• Standing Ovations
• Keppler Speakers Bureau
• Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course

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