Cash & Sass™

How to Turn Your Story Into a Lead-Generating Machine With Dr. Danny Brassell

• Lisa Marie Robinson • Episode 134

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Your voice might be your most underutilized business asset, and if you've been skipping the stage because you don't think you're a "speaker," this episode is going to shift that.

Dr. Danny Brassell, known as "Jim Carrey with a Ph.D.," has spoken to over 3,500 audiences worldwide and helped entrepreneurs turn storytelling into a lead-generating machine. In this episode, Lisa Marie and Dr. Danny get into the real reason hustle stops working, why facts inform but stories transform, and how the right story (told with intention) is the difference between an audience that claps and an audience that converts.


What You'll Learn

  • Why 95% of speakers can't answer the two most important questions before they get on stage
  • The Five C's framework for building a presentation that moves hearts and moves the needle
  • How sharing your failures builds more authority than sharing your successes
  • Why one clear call to action converts, and multiple CTAs kill your results
  • The exact contract strategy Danny used to build hundreds of testimonials and speaking reels from free gigs
  • How women entrepreneurs can use speaking to scale income and step into their authority
  • The story-building exercise that helps you uncover hundreds of usable stories in under an hour
  • Why your most relatable story might be the most ordinary one in your life


Guest Information

Dr. Danny Brassell is a highly-sought after speaker, trainer, and coach known as "Jim Carrey with a Ph.D." He has spoken to over 3,500 audiences worldwide and authored 20 books, including Leadership Begins with Motivation and Misfits and Crackpots. The co-founder of The WellCrafted Story Workshop™, Danny helps entrepreneurs, individuals, and organizations leverage speaking on stages as a major client lead source that converts.


Connect with Dr. Danny Brassell

Resources

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Transcendent Wealth Co. LLC
https://www.transcendentwealthco.com   

SPEAKER_01

Welcome back to Cash and Sass, the podcast where we ditch the shame, talk real numbers, and build bold bankable wealth without sacrificing who we are. I'm your host, Lisa Marie, fractional CFO, wealth mentor, and the sassy wealth queen behind Transcendent Wealth Co. If you are ready to scale with strategy, own your own power, and finally feel wealthy in every sense of the word, then you're in the right place. Today we're talking about something most entrepreneurs underestimate: their voice. My guest, Dr. Danny Brussel, has spoken to thousands of audiences around the world and helps entrepreneurs turn storytelling into a lead generating machine. We're diving into how clarity creates confidence, how communication drives income, and why your story may be your most underutilized asset. So, as I say, without further ado, we're gonna dive right into it. How did you move from chasing income to investing in impact? Especially with this the way the story goes. Do you know what I mean? With the I think so many of us don't realize that our story could actually generate that type of revenue or be the speeding car to it, I guess.

SPEAKER_00

Cool. Well, first of all, thanks for having me on, Lisa Maria. I really appreciate all you do. Yeah, of all people, it was Joseph Stalin who said a million debt is a statistic, one person dead is a tragedy. Translation, facts tell, but stories sell. Facts inform, stories transform. And most entrepreneurs don't realize that their greatest resource is their ability to tell their story. That's how you're going to drive customers. And frankly, with my clients who are primarily entrepreneurs and executives and business owners, that's all I evaluate. They can tell me they got a standing ovation like good for you, or they'll say, People think I'm a wonderful speaker. I'm like, that's wonderful. The only way I evaluate your effectiveness is how many people in your audience decide to take the next step with you. Now that can be a paid next step, like subscribe to my podcast or vote for me. More typically, it's a paid offer like buy my product or invest in my coaching program. You want to create well-crafted stories, presentations that move parts, but also move the needle because you are running a business.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. When did you realize though that communication and not hustle was the key?

SPEAKER_00

Because I've hustled a lot and that wasn't it getting me.

SPEAKER_01

How many of us have done that and got us absolutely nowhere, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Don't create uh being busy with being productive. Uh it's all that I mean, it actually kind of drives my uh my business partners crazy that I do so many podcasts. I'm like, well, I do podcasts for two reasons. First of all, it gives me reps. I mean, you've already asked me a couple of questions that people haven't asked me before. I'm like, okay, good. Now I understand that that's the question, and how can I make that a better answer to that the next time? So that's the first reason. The second reason is, you know, Coach Jimmy, one of my co-founders, he's like, Who, why do you go on that podcast? There's only like one subscriber. I'm like, I don't care how many people are subscribing, all I care is who's subscribing. If you only have one person listening to your podcast and it's Oprah Winfrey, that's a pretty darn good audience. So uh never underestimate right.

SPEAKER_01

Right, right, right, very much so. So can you tell us how storytelling perceives or increases the perceived value?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a way of connecting, I mean, connection is the key. And I've never had a person six months after one of my presentations say, Oh, Deanny, you know what I remember about your presentation was that one PowerPoint slide that had 28 bullet points that I couldn't read because the font was so small. I've never had a person say that. Plenty of people say, Oh, wow, that was a great story. I remember that story. That's something I used to tell. I I tell that to my team. I was on a Christian podcast the other day, and I said, When I read the Bible, I always laugh because Jesus is the most frustrated teacher in history. I mean, he's got these 12 dense guys around him that never understand what he's talking about. So he's like, All right, let me tell you a story. And I bet you nine out of 10 non-Christians are familiar with the story of the prodigal son. They're familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan, they're familiar with the story of David and Goliath. But I also bet you nine out of 10 Christians can't tell you the Ten Commandments, Lisa Marie, because the Ten Commandments weren't presented as a story. They were presented as a PowerPoint slide with 10 bullet points for you to memorize. That's not how people retain information. We retain information with stories, especially stories that move us.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and I was gonna say stories that actually resonate, right? Stories that resonate with them. Um, I think that that's really important. I mean, it's one of the things I have found with my clients when I am able to explain to them that I've been there, done that, you know, they can't tell me a situation they're in that I haven't been in or haven't been around, and and that makes them it makes them be seen and and it resonates. And I think that that's really, really important. So how do you well let me ask you this why, in your opinion, why does money follow, or what does money follow value really mean?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I I think that people have to be sincere in their presentations. Uh Donald Miller, he's a wonderful presenter. He's got a company called Story Brand, and he says your role when you're on stage is you are the guide, cast your audience as the hero. You have to look at them like they're starving to death and you have food. And if they come they don't come to you, they're gonna starve to death. And so when I work with clients, they say, Well, I don't want to sound salesy from the stage. I say, Well, then stop selling, just start serving. The more you serve, the more you're gonna build credibility. This is a person that's actually helpful. Most people are just trying, they're in it for themselves. Uh, you know, when I'm on stage, I'm always trying to figure out well, what can I do? I mean, even before I got on here, I'm like, what can I do to help Lisa Marie promote her business and and put her at the heights that you should be at?

SPEAKER_01

Well, thank you. I love I love that. Always. Um, so I think it's important though, is is also to understand, and one of the things I think is is when we provide value, the money's gonna come because again, they're resonating and we're showing that we actually care. And I think that in especially in today's society, that's just so really, really important. Even more so, I mean, it's always been important to me, but I think even more so for a lot of people. And you know, in today's society, it's just become that more predominant as something that's really, really important. So, my question to you then is how do you separate money from identity?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I mean, it's very easy because the reason I became a speaker was in 2005. My wife and I attended a real estate seminar, which turned out to be a scam, and we lost everything financially. And I learned really quickly you can lose money just like that, but uh, you can't hopefully you don't lose your integrity and your character. I'm a former teacher, so you have to bear with me. Everything I do either rhymes or it's alliterative. And so with our clients with our clients, we take them through what we call the five C's process of storytelling. So before we put together your presentation, that we have to have clarity. And so there's two clarity questions you have to ask yourself before you go on stage. Who is your audience and what is the problem that you solve? And you'd be amazed, Lisa Marie, 95% of the people I work with at first cannot answer one or both of those questions in a succinct manner. Once we are very clear on those answers, then we can get into the heart of actually storytelling, which is to connect with your audience, teach meeting content that serves them, one clear call to action, and then finally have an emotional close that gets people to pop out of their seats and run to work with you. We're talking about with uh serving the audience. Um, most people spend all their time on the content of their presentation, and I tell them pretty much a waste of time. You have to forgive me. I'm the research. So I have two uh co-founders. Uh my background is academia. My uh my co-founder, Coach Jimmy, he was a Broadway performer, and Dave Dave is an attorney, and so I call us the professor, the performer, and the producer because we all look at speeches from a totally different point of view.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And so when I look at the research, I I always point out that the research is very clear on this. You know, the people remember the beginning of your talk and the end of your talk. They don't remember anything you teach them in between. The bun's more important than the burger. But what people do remember, and this is gets to what we were talking about, is were you helpful? So when I first started speaking, one of my mentors was a gentleman by the name of Jim Treleese. He's no longer with us, one of my favorite speakers of all time. Jim used to teach parents uh how to read aloud to their children. And in the middle of his presentation, he'd say, Oh, oh, I got something. If you ever lock yourself out of your car, as long as you have your cell phone, call your spouse, have your spouse put your car keys next to your cell phone, next to her cell phone. You put your cell phone next to your car door, it'll unlock the car door. Lisa Marie, I've tried this from 3,000 miles away and it works. It probably wouldn't work with a newer, this is like 30 years ago. My little girl, what it worked. I couldn't believe it. All right, so here's the point of this story. I've watched him say this several times in presentations. At the end of his speech, people would come up. Oh my gosh, I gotta tell you, I saw you speak like three years ago. I locked myself out of the car, I tried that, it worked. Oh my gosh, I've been telling every school they should book you as a speaker. Whoa. That had nothing to do with his speech whatsoever, but he did something that most people don't do. He was helpful. What can you do to be helpful? And so that's what you say.

SPEAKER_01

It grabs their attention, it grabs their attention.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. I'm always looking, you know. So I'm working with a woman right now, she works with uh clients that have clinical depression. And so I told her to do this with the audience. Say, everybody take out a pen, bite down on it. The simple act of biting down on a pen or pencil actually tricks your brain into thinking you're smiling, and your brain actually produces the same number of endorphins as if you actually were smiling. So I'm showing you a physical way that you can actually trick yourself into happiness. His audiences or her audiences just love it. They're like, oh my gosh, that's like the coolest thing ever. Um all I'm trying to do is what can I do to be helpful? I mean, when I speak on stage, I'm like, you know, most people, because I I like using the cell phone because everybody has a cell phone on them, and I'll say, hey, most people waste their time on social media on these things. I find that this is a great tool if you use it the right way. I mean, I set reminders all the time. So, you know, like I'm a bad Christian, I'm trying to learn scripture all the time. So every day at 3.23, I have a reminder to go over Colossians 3.23, which is whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not human mask. Good, I got it. Good. I can put I can move on to the next verse. Uh, I read the book Dune, and there's a thing called the litany against fear, which I I've been trying to memorize. So every day at 9.11, I have a reminder. I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer, fear is little death, brings total well, I'm working on it. Um I mean, that's what it that's the point. I got married on December 20th. So every day at 1220, I have a reminder to tell my wife I love her. And so what I'm doing is I'm showing everybody in my audience, well, here's a tool all of you have. Here's something that you probably never thought, a way to use it that's a little bit more productive than just seeing people spout political viewpoints or what they ate for lunch. I mean, I that doesn't, I've never understood uh to me, social media or what their neighbors are doing. I mean, I I just don't see how it's I mean, there are positive things on there, and that's what I do is I post the positive and all my I only read positive posts on it because your brain needs to be nourished. Um I'm not gonna sit there and waste my time watching people always put their best foot forward all the time. This is the biggest problem I see in speeches, too, is people are always trying to look like they have all the answers. I'm like, but that's not gonna connect with your audience. So for everybody listening right now, stop sharing your successes, start sharing your failures because not everybody in your audience succeeded, but they've all failed. And the more you expose your own failures, the more your audience is gonna see themselves in you. And that's what you're ultimately trying to achieve on any stage is how can I connect with them so they're like, you know what, where's Lisa Marie been all my life? It's like talking to my long-lost sister. She sees me better than anybody. That's what you want. You don't want to put yourself on this pedestal like I know more than you. You all you want to do is show your audience that I've had the same problem you've had, and I I figured out a way to solve it, and I'd love to help you solve that problem.

SPEAKER_01

Right, right, right, absolutely. Yeah, and I love that though. I love that. I love that because uh a lot of times on social media or anywhere really, you have where um even on stages, they'll be talking about all their successes and they pipe it up and they pipe it up in big dream and they get you all riled up, but then when you leave, it's nothing and it and it's they're like you leave confused and like, okay, but are you living in my current situation? Or okay, are you a single mom with two kids, or are you a mom of a neurodivergent, or a parent of a neurodivergent? Okay, you're not. Okay, well then you can't say that we're you know, you understand because you know I mean, that's what would go through our heads, and exactly um there's a difference, and being able to say that, and then being able to say, you know, be on stage and say that you're a parent of a neurodivergent, and you know, this is there, these are some of the struggles, like you're saying, and I've been there, and again, it's connecting and resonating. And this has everything and anything to do with money because again, this is a way to make money. And when we open ourselves up to um sharing our failures, then we're able to get past that point of, in my opinion, of being stuck to where we're not we're stuck from not bringing any more revenue in to bringing more revenue in and it being aligned with with our values and our goals because I mean I don't know about anybody else, but I want to make an impact. I want to change people's lives. Um my goal is to change as many w uh women's lives as possible. So I love that aspect of it. So my question to you is can you talk about investing before you could afford it?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I mean, you got you have to invest in your life.

SPEAKER_01

It's like having kids before you can afford it. Everybody says, I'm gonna wait till I can afford to have kids. Okay, let's listen. You will never have kids.

SPEAKER_00

It's just I mean, it's I've never understood ready, aim, fire because most people, it's ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, and they just never fire. I mean, um, you know, I'm I've been married for five months and I get home and my wife's like, I'm pregnant. I'm like, Oh, uh, okay. I guess I'm at now. And uh it was great. Uh the reason I became a speaker was after our financial catastrophe, I need to make extra money, you know, and I'm a big believer in God closes one door so he can open up a much better one for you. Absolutely. And so uh I started speaking on the side, and I was able to, during one of the worst economic downturns in American history, I was able to build up a highly lucrative speaking business. I hustled a lot and I made a lot of mistakes, but sometimes you lose, or you know, sometimes you learn. I mean, I learned a lot, and uh that was really good and and sobering for me. So the people that are struggling out, I mean, and also, Lisa Marie, you need to understand, like I completely admire you. One of my underhanded agenda items is I'm trying to get more women and minorities on stages. I mean, thank you. It's unbelievable to me that we're still having that discussion in this day and age, but the fact is, I go to college.

SPEAKER_01

It's a lot harder for women to get on stage.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I and I've never understood this perception. If a if a woman is tough, she's a uh a witch with a capital B.

SPEAKER_01

With the woman in the room. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Where if a guy's a jerk, at the oh, that's an effective leader. That that person comes in and saying, Yeah, so double I don't like that. I'm like, where'd that come from? Maybe it's just because I've been in education for a long time, and so many of my colleagues have been minorities and women, and I'm like, well, why am I not seeing you on stages? I see a lot of white guys, and I'm not, I mean, I'm a white guy, but you know, I've got three kids, and two of them are daughters, and they need to see people that look like and I'm not I again, I'm not saying that race and gender is everything, but it is something. I mean, I was speaking in India, getting all these audiences all riled up. I spoke at a uh an all-girls school, 5,000 girls, and uh at the end of the presentation, these two girls come up to me. One wants to be an attorney, one wants to be a doctor. I'm like, well, that's great. Are you gonna go to university here in India, or maybe you go to the UK or the United States? Like, oh, we're girls, we can't leave India. I'm like, get back in that auditorium. Like, I'm all back in. I'm like, now is your moment, ladies. This is five years, seven years ago now. I'm like, you know, uh India is a very young democracy. You're only around 80 years old. Yet you've already elected a woman prime minister. America still has not elected a woman precedent.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I mean, I'm like, you you know, right now, I'm like, within five years, India's gonna become the largest country on the planet in terms of population. There are more, there are twice as many women in India as there are people in the United States. I'm like, there are actually more women in India with a graduate degree than there are people in the United States. Wow. And I'm like, and you just made it my my next mission, the next uh prime minister, the next CEO, and the next really good mom is coming out of this stage. Don't let anybody ever tell you what you cannot do. I mean, this is what I loved about teaching is I I said things like, I mean, because I taught in the inner city, and a lot of my kids came from some pretty rotten environments, people telling them what they couldn't do. And I thought, uh, one of my friends, he's no longer with us, his name was Keith Harrell. He used to say, uh, a lot of people say garbage in, garbage out. He's like, that's not right. Garbage in, garbage stays. But I also believe you tell a person they can do it enough, they start believing it. And I used to say that to my students all the time. I'm like, you know, sometimes you need somebody else to believe in yours before you believe in yourself. I believe in all of you. They only give me the best and the brightest. Now let's go out and make this world a better place. I mean, I think you hear that enough times. But I this is my environment. I had great supportive parents and great teachers and friends that have always been very supportive and encouraging to me. Um, I'm thinking about that's that's what I I'll change my business card is people want to ask what I am. And I'm like, I'm an elevator.

SPEAKER_01

I like that. I like that. I like that a lot. I like that. I do, I like that. So and this is gonna go around the same thing. We're gonna go, we're gonna lead into the women part because I that gave me a question. But before we do that, why is self and I think this is important because so many people, especially women, we all we invest in other things before we invest in ourselves. And and I've even caught myself doing that, and I'm a lot better now. But why does self-investment create authority and opportunity? I think that it's really important that we that we understand, or my audience understands that it does. Yeah. And it when we take that initiative for the self-investment, we're actually propelling ourselves.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I've had lots of wonderful mentors in my life. And uh, so the audience out there, if you can't invest in yourself right now, well, instead of investing an hour of watching the football game later, why don't you invest an hour of watching personal development videos on YouTube that are absolutely free? There's some mighty I there's no excuse. I I can't stand exact. I I've always told my teams next time you want to give me an excuse, just say Peru has a new dictator. And people are like, What's that got to do with anything? Well, one excuse is as good as another. You didn't do it, right? Like, don't waste my time. Either you're gonna do it, you're gonna be.

SPEAKER_01

Nowadays there's a lot of stuff on YouTube that you can go find and watch and learn and self-invest. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, think about this, Lisa Marie. I mean, how many of your friends have said they want to start a podcast, but they haven't done squat? You know, that separates you. I only want to be around people that are doers. Like people, you like I that's why I love the movie Rocky. It's why everybody should love the movie Rocky. I mean, he's not the most flamboyant, he's not the he's not the prettiest fighter, but every time he gets knocked out, he gets right back up. Um in Rocky one, one of my favorite scenes is Apollo Creed thinks he's knocked him out, and Rocky gets back up, and Apollo has this look on his face, like, man, what what do I gotta do to this guy?

SPEAKER_01

I want to be that but you just stay down.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely, like you know, so the people that and so and then once you have the money to invest. I mean, I had I've invested in people, I'm once I once invested $25,000 in a coach, and I did not have that money in the bank account. And I didn't even tell my wife, but I had faith. I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna make sure I get at least $25,000 in speaking engagement so I can pay this off. And I've been blessed. I mean, I I read one uh one of my coaches, I read his book. I read the book, and I I had another coach at the time, and he said, Why are you so excited? I'm like, I just read you know this guy's book. He's put a $25,000 coaching program into a $20 book. The stories are incredible, the points are right on. I would have paid $20 just for the bibliography. I'm like, I'm gonna meet this guy this year. He's like, Well, come to my event in April because he's speaking. There. I actually had a speaking engagement scheduled in New York that I canceled just so I could meet this guy. I loved him. I hired him as my coach. He's been very influential on me. But again, people love to give excuses. Well, I can't afford a coach. I'm like, you can't afford YouTube? Go to the public library. They have YouTube at the public library. It's free there. Put on your headphones and listen. There's so many great people. Read a book. I mean, read something. Instead of reading something that's, you know, I was watching a horrible show on TV last week. It was called uh the news. And it's just depressing. It doesn't serve me. Why am I gonna watch that when I can watch I don't watch it any I don't watch the news anymore? Just people yelling at each other. There's nothing nothing productive about it. I mean, I'll watch like Shark Tank because I watch speakers all the time. And on Shark Tank, I like to watch it because I I like to watch the pitch. Okay, what was it that they did well in the pit? And the way they then you can watch it. Anybody watch it, watch Shark Tank. It's stories. They always tell the story, and that's always what the questions are from the sharks is tell us your story. Uh, because you give me a good story, maybe I'm I'm willing to. I mean, look at every I when we work with politicians, I always give politicians a hard time. I'm like, you ever notice that nobody running for president ever grew up middle class? They all grew up in a log cabin and they had to fight their. And the reason they're doing that is they want their story to mirror the American public. This is this is the struggle. You can do it. This is the American dream. Uh, but it's just it's storytelling. I hate to use political examples because in this environment, people freak out if you use a political example. But um I watch a lot of speeches by President Reagan, who I thought was just an incredible speaker. And President Reagan was the first president that at his State of the Union address, rather than talking about healthcare, he'd be like, uh, it's like uh Lisa Marie Robinson. Lisa, stand up. And Lisa Marie stands up in the gallery, everybody gives her a hand. Lisa Marie, she works at the GM plant in Louisville, Kentucky, and she got injured on the job last month, and she had to make a decision. Do I pay my rent or do I go see a doctor? And so now what he's brilliantly done is he's he's created a story about healthcare. So now people like, oh, I remember Lisa Marie. If you watch, every single president since Reagan has copied the tactic. I mean, now they'll have like eight different people standing up, you know, oh, here's my here's my person on uh immigration, here's my person on uh education. Um and it's a it's a really important technique out there. So I'm just rambling at this point.

SPEAKER_01

I'm going around in circles, but no, well, I mean, I think it is, but I think I think for me, I think the importance is using the storytelling, but still making sure that it stays true to you and that it's not false, I guess is my way of saying it, because I think that that's just there's so much falsehood out there on social media everywhere, and I think that's just really important. Okay, so now we're gonna get to the women because I'm a woman and I've always wanted to speak on stage. It's one of my goals is to get paid to speak on stages. I've spoken on stages, it's been ones that we I've a lot of us we pay for them, right? They're mark their um marketing strategies, basically. So my question is is how can women entrepreneurs use speaking to scale their income? Oh, I think more women need to understand I'll take you through exactly what I did, Lisa Marie, and hopefully that will serve you.

SPEAKER_00

So uh when I needed to speak, you know, so right now I'm working with a woman and she wants to be a $10,000 an hour speaker. And I said, that's great. Uh do you have a website? She said, No. Like, do you have a speaking reel? No. Do you have video testimonials with past clients? No. Do you have a brochure? No. Let me ask you a question. Do you look like a $10,000 an hour speaker? And I wasn't trying to be facetious. I said, you have to look the part. Now we're going to get you there, but you have to look the part. When I first started, you can go to the smallest towns in America. They got a Lions Club, an Optimus Club, a Rotary Club, a Guanas Club, they got the Chamber of Commerce, they got schools, they got churches, synagogues. I used to speak everywhere. And even if I was speaking for free, I always had a contract. And on my contract, it would say, it would say, I will waive my $5,000 an hour speaking fee. Lisa Marie, I was not making $5,000 an hour, but they didn't know that. I will waive my speaking fee in exchange for, and I had 10 items on the list. So it was like one, a video testimonial from your organization's president, two, three written testimonials from people in your audience. Three, if you're videotaping, I want a copy of the tape. Four, if you have a monthly newsletter, I want to be able to write a column in it for the next year. Five, give me two referrals to other organizations that benefit from my speaking. I mean, I don't remember all ten, but I put all 10 of them in the in the content.

SPEAKER_01

The first five are phenomenal ideas. Like, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00

Well, so those ten, I was wondering if anybody would do any of them. Everybody did at least one, and some people did all 10. And so within six months, I literally had hundreds of testimonials. I had video of me speaking at different venues. I mean, think about it. You go to a rotary club. Rotary clubs are a great place. I love the organization. So they have uh a rubber chicken luncheon every Tuesday at 11 a.m. at the Holiday Inn. And there's maybe 20 people in the audience, but just like your podcast, you have no idea who's going to be in that audience. Most of these service organizations, it's civic leaders, it's insurance agents, it's like the mayor, or it's like uh bankers. And you might be speaking to something where they're like, huh, that's something. I mean, I can tell you, I used to speak a lot for free to my church. There's my church has a program called MOPS, which stands for Mothers of Preschoolers. And so I used to speak at these mop sessions all the time. Christian women are one of my favorite audiences, and I'll tell you why, Lisa Marie. First of all, they gather, and second of all, they talk. And if they like you, they will talk you up.

SPEAKER_01

And if they don't like you, they'll talk you up just 10 times more. Either way, you're either way, it's gonna spread.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you're I mean, that's exactly right. But I uh here, let me give you another example. So, my public library, when I first started speaking, I I had two speakers bureaus representing me that would pay me $700 for a full-day presentation. My local library, they asked me if I'd speak for free. They're like, we're gonna get 500 people there. I'm like, sure, that sounds great. Four people showed up. Two of them were my realtors, Lisa Marie. The other two was a Hispanic couple that didn't speak a word of English. But I believe and always giving 110%, serving my audience. So I did as much of Spanish as possible, did all my Charlie Chaplin routine, lots of mimicry. We all laughed, had a great time. A week later, it turns out the Hispanic woman was taking English classes at the Adult Literacy Center. She recommended me as a speaker for a conference. They paid me $4,000 for a 45-minute keynote. That was six times my daily rate at that moment. Wow. And I used to have a wonderful uh coach. And because of her, now when I'm stopped at a stoplight, I realize there's a million dollars worth of cars surrounded. She got me thinking about the abundance in the world. This is why I'm not a competitive person in terms of um other speakers. I I gave a whole bunch of recommendations to a guy last week. He's like, Why are you doing this? You're my competition. I'm like, Well, that's where you and I differ. I have no competition. I just collaborators. Yeah. Exactly. The world's a big play.

SPEAKER_01

Collaborate, collaboration all day, every day, forever, because that's what's going to have everybody win.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So if you if I win, you win.

SPEAKER_01

If you just win, you win. It's just a thing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. If you just started speaking like that, Lisa Marie, you'll get your reps, you'll get exposure, you'll get recommendations, you will build up your speaking business. I mean, I did this with a woman 10 years ago who was terrified to be on stage, and now she's probably one of the top five paid speakers on the planet.

SPEAKER_01

So you basically you get you got them, you get them out there to all these different areas to get to get those reels and those testimonials so that then you have it. So then you go and you can get paid. And it and it doesn't have to take that long to do it, it can propel it faster. So I like that.

SPEAKER_00

War on podcasts. That's what I when people ask me when COVID broke, they're like, How's your speaking business? I'm like, Oh, it's great. How I just lost 260 speaking engagements last night because they just shut down the world. Yeah, it's great. And so I made a decision. I'm like, I'm gonna go on at least 10 podcasts a week, and I've done that for the last six years, and I've I've gotten so many clients. What was great about the podcasting world was it expanded my thinking. Was one day, literally, I did a podcast with a woman in South Carolina, I did a podcast with a guy in Nigeria, and I did a podcast with a guy in Nepal. And I was like, wait a second, I can be doing this all around the world. And then I started looking at, well, wait, I'm like, but these places don't pay as much. But then I'm like, you know, my reading program that I pitch in India, you know, uh I met with the Minister of Education in India and he he was so nice. He's like, Oh, Danny, we love your reading program, but it is way too expensive. We cannot afford it. And I said, Mr. Minister, I'll give it to you for a dollar a kid. Just make sure every kid in India gets it because there's 350 million of them, you know. Because it got me thinking, like, wait a sec, there's volume in these other places, and they're they're excited. Like when you're speaking to audiences uh abroad, everybody in their audience is just sitting there paying attention to your every word, whereas in America, everybody's on their phone because they have to act bored or whatever. Um, and so that was a real uh service for me. But if you want to spread big, you got to get out there. I mean, this podcast is perfect. That's a great way of getting your name out there. I want it so that if a person hasn't heard of me, when they go when they and this is why I'm happy now. I always hated my last name growing up. Now I'm so glad my last name's Purcell. I got friends, their last name is Smith. Try and find them on Google. You can actually misspell my name and find me. I want my first name. I want a person who's never heard of me. When they misspell my name in Google, the first seven pages are of me, and I want them to say to themselves, me and how have I never heard of this person? I mean, that's what you want. That's how you build your business.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I love that. And you know, one of the reasons why I mean the sole reason I started my podcast was because when I looked, there wasn't any candid conversations or cash versations as we sloganed it about money. There was all these other things, but I was like, yes, but there's all these women entrepreneurs, there's all these women, there's all these people out there that want someone to have they want those candid conversations of what they can do, how they can make more money, how they can, you know, better master it. They're if they're making it, how they can better master it, how they can multiply it. They want those candid conversations. And so that's what Cash Insass, that's where Cash Insass was born, and and I've been going on, we've been doing it ever since. Um and it's another way of kicking money taboo to the curb because I think it is time that it stopped being so taboo um and way past time. So, my last question what's one storytelling ship that increases revenue immediately?

SPEAKER_00

Well, uh good speakers tell stories, great speakers tell stories with intention. So right now we're working with uh all you have to do is talk to my uh my co-founder, coach Jimmy. He likes to name drop everybody that we work with. I believe in discretion. So I never think so. We're working with a woman, she's one of the top nutritionists on the planet, and uh, I'm gonna call her Dr. Kathy. And Dr. Kathy, she has a 90-day diet program for women that costs $19.97. And that's how she was ending her presentation. I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, big mistake. She's like, What do you mean? I'm like, you have to understand there's two types of people in your audience. I'm gonna be stereotypical and say it's the husband and the wife. The husband, he's the guy sitting there with his arms crossed the whole time, looking at you, like, who is this person? What are they trying to sell me? What do I got to do? How much does it cost? And a well-crafted presentation addresses all of those questions that Joe Friday has. But if you end with Joe Friday, you're ignoring the wife. The wife, Julia Roberts, Julia Roberts, she doesn't care how much it costs, she just wants to feel good. I listen to Lisa Marie's cash and sass all the time because I always learn. It makes me feel good. And Dr. Kathy was completely ignoring Julia Roberts. And so I asked her, Well, what do you want to do? What do you want your audience to do next? And she's like, I want them to buy my program. I'm like, Yes. Yes, I know you want them to buy your program. It went like that for five minutes. I'm like, you're so dense. Finally, she let it slip. She said, I want them to understand they can't do it alone.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, you need to hire an expert story. She's like, A what? I'm like, I'll give you an example. I'll leave you all with this. Many years ago, my wife and I we had theater tickets. We were dressed to the nines, driving to the theater, and we got a flat tire. My wife said, Well, I'll call triple A and get us a tow truck. I looked at her, I'm like, You don't have to call triple A. I'm a man. I can fix a flat tire. So I got out of the car and I opened up the trunk and I got the spare tire. Then I got the pumper thing, and I got jacked to take it. Nuts. And 27 minutes later, I have grease all over my hands. I've not fixed the tire. I look up, my wife is standing beside the car with her arms crossed, shaking her head like I could have done so much better than this guy. Well, unbeknownst to me, 27 minutes earlier, she'd called AAA. This tow truck shows up, and this 17-year-old punk hops out of the and in three minutes flat fixes my flat tire. You know, I think there are times in life when all of us think we can do it on our own. But if you want to save time, you want to save money, you want to save a whole lot of headache and embarrassment, to hire an expert. And so now what I've shown Dr. Kathy is a tell Wow, I'm gonna give you a story that has nothing to do with your offer, but it's a metaphor. So now the audience is ending, they're thinking, you know, I've tried lots of diets in the past that it never seemed to work. Dr. Kathy, I like her. She's the expert. Maybe I really need to hire Dr. Kathy. That's the most important thing you need to do is to start telling stories with actual intention. So this is something you can do later, Lisa Marie, or your entire audience can do. Sit in a comfortable chair with a pen and paper, libation of choice, and for an hour, just write down every story that's ever happened to you. And I don't mean the entire story, I just mean triggers. Like the time I locked myself out of the car in front of Costco, the time dad spilt mustard on his tie when we went to that fancy restaurant. You'll find in an hour, you can come up with a couple hundred stories like this. So that's the first part of the exercise. The second part of the exercise is then I want you to think about what's this story really about. Oh, this is a story about never giving up. Oh, this is a story about priorities. Oh, this is a story about teamwork. On my computer, I'd have hundreds of files with literally tens of thousands of stories. So when I'm working with a client and we need a story to spark a specific emotion in the audience, I know exactly a story that I can use or they can use. Uh, you know, and every now and then I work with a difficult person who says nothing interesting's ever happened to me. I'm like, that's another thing a lot of people forget. I'm working with a businessman right now in Saudi Arabia. He's climbed the highest peak on all seven continents. He did he did the I did a rod in Alaska. He swam with sharks in Madagascar.

SPEAKER_01

I looked at But nothing interested ever happened.

SPEAKER_00

I'm like, nobody in your audience can relate to you. Nobody in your audience has climbed Mount Everest, but I guarantee you everybody in your audience peed their pants when they were six years old. That's a good story because you're going to get people nodding. You know, we were just working on a clock with a client uh yesterday, and one of the big mistakes he was making in his PowerPoint was he was talking about his dad, and he had a picture of his dad. I said, Take off the picture. He's like, Why? That's my dad. I'm like, your story will be more powerful when you're talking about your father. The audience is going to start thinking in their heads about their fathers, and it's going to be more powerful that way. But if you have a picture of your dad, they just start thinking about your dad. You want them to think about their fathers. Again, we're trying to, it's, you know, it's putting your ego aside. How do I give the ego to my audience? I want to make them the hero. I'm just the guy to help them get there. So if you can get your audience to do that, um uh you will be much more effective. Uh as a and then one other thing I tell people is uh only have one clear call to action. I was on a podcast.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

I had a I was on a podcast, and at the end of the podcast, the hostess she said, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Make sure you like, subscribe, and give us a five-star review. We get off the air. I'm like, you just asked your audience to do three things. They're not going to do any of them because former teacher, choices confuse and cause you to lose. If you if you look at the top grocery store chains in America, Publix and Kroger and Food Lion and Ralph's and Smith's and HEB, wherever, you know, they're not the number one grocery store in America based on volume. The number one grocery store in America based on volume is Trader Joe's. And the reason is when you go into one of these large supermarkets looking for ketchup, there's 38 different types of ketchup. When you go into Trader Joe's, there's one, it's called ketchup. They just made the decision for you. So if you really want to get your conversion rate to increase, make sure you're having one clear call out.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Absolutely. This has been powerful. And for our listeners who want to sharpen their storytelling, which I think is really important because I think that this has everything to do with how we make money and how we can also have a multiple stream of revenue, because I think that that's important. But and be able to step into even greater confidence. Can you tell them about your free story guide?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so uh as a thank you to you, Lisa Maria and your audience for happening and listening to me tell all these stories. I wanted to give everybody a freebie. So if you go to freestoreguide.com, guide like a tour guide, freestoryguide.com, I'm gonna give everybody their own complimentary well-crafted story blueprint. What this is, is the actual process that Coach Jimmy Dave and I take our clients through to help you create your well-crafted story. What this does for you is it takes the guesswork out of what story I should use and where should I put it in my presentation. And what this means is you now have an actual system to convert your audiences into actual clients. You can get that at freestoreguide.com. And again, Lisa Marie, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate all that you do. And uh, I'm your biggest fan. Keep doing it.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, thank you. And I will make sure that that link is in the show notes, y'all. And of course, if this episode made you realize you've been undercharging because you're underexpressing, we need to fix that. I want to invite you into something intimate and very powerful. It's my two-week money moves voxer coaching. So it's two weeks, direct access to me, real conversations about your money, your messaging, and the moves you need to make right now. There's no fluff, no generic advice, just you and me and a clear path forward. The link is in the show notes because your income should reflect your impact, as I always say, and it's time we make sure it does. So, as I always say, until next time, remember confidence and cash are the ultimate power duo. Go check in with your money, and as always, have a fantastic and wealthy day.