Sarah Fejfar
Hey there, Marty, welcome to Green Room Central.
Marty Dickinson
Well, thanks for having me, Sarah.
Sarah Fejfar
I want to dive right in. And I just have to know, what is this heart attack curve? And why is it so important to know,
Marty Dickinson
the heart attack curve for every event organizers a period of time where you're not sure if anybody's going to show up? And then when you get close to the date, if you think you should cancel, there's that period in between where you're wondering, can I get out of this? If nobody else signs up? Other than three people? That's a heart attack curve.
Sarah Fejfar
Oh, my goodness, so true? And has that ever happened to you?
Marty Dickinson
It happens every time that everybody now as you get one experience with promoting events and organizing them, putting them all together, you thought that curve might get shorter in time, but it is still there. And then you run into technical issues to that prevent things from happening properly. And that can increase your that's the that's the stroke factor that comes on the stroke. Oh, no, I've never seen something suddenly happen. What do I do now?
Sarah Fejfar
Oh, my gosh, you know, it's what you just said there, I think you articulated perfectly what most every event, host struggles with whether they're they've been in this for years, and they have 1000s of people coming or they're just getting started. And they're hoping to get 12 It's, it's that filling the room and they have you come up with a secret on how to fill yours.
Marty Dickinson
Well, the secret is to live your event 24/7. And just be telling everybody about it. And then watching your numbers. And knowing what you're written in most people sign up for events within the last couple of days before the event. Even for conferences you have people signing up for for a day in advance, even walk ins if there's still room available, if they're still taking reservations. So over time, you start getting a feel for the flow of how your audience signs up for your events. So that lessens the heart attack for a little bit. But you know, now we have a whole new thing to worry about. And that is the virtual aspect. Because it used to be that when you had an in person event, and of course, this is still true for in person events. But if you're renting out a room, you're paying up front for it, you have a deposit that you put in and we might be able to get that back, they might be able to cancel it or there might be a penalty for getting out of the deal. 24 hours, 48 hours in advance. So that heart attack curve is a little bit more extended. But with virtual, I think a lot of event organizers have gotten into the habit of making decisions early Oh, we don't have enough people signing up for this. So we'll just cancel. And that's a very dangerous path to tread. Because you gain a reputation for either having events or not every event. So if you if you run if you get a this reputation for setting up an event, starting the attraction, starting all the marketing for it, and then suddenly a week later goes by and you say well, we canceled Well, now anybody that you are connected with in social media or your list people that you would normally promote your events to the more you do that, the more they're going to question whether you're really going to have this event or not. So they will wait until the very last minute to make sure that you're actually having the event and then you'll get emails like so how many people you have showing up for this event? And you know, that's a question you never want to answer, because it's never the right answer. If you have two people showing up, that's not enough. If you have 20 shirt enough, that is potentially not enough for a lot of people. If you have 200 or 2000. That might mean they're not going to get personal attention at your events. That's too many. I won't attend that event. But that's the kind of question that you get from people that become skeptical if you're going to cancel the event or not. So gain reputation for following through in the event and that'll help your heart attack curve, get shorter and more long term. you'll have success over time.
Sarah Fejfar
But Marty, what I'm hearing is that you're feeding the beast by canceling prematurely, right? Because then people are starting to question you and your intentions. And if they should commit, and you know, clear, they're scheduled to be there live with you,
Marty Dickinson
yeah, it gets in your own head. Because you start looking for opportunities for why you should cancel your event, instead of focusing on why you really, really need to have this event, why you're going to deal with changing lives, because you're able to have that event, even if there are only two people there, and you never know who's gonna be in that audience. So, you know, unless you, you really have some financial issue that you have to maintain. I always say go forward with the event, you just never know what's going to happen.
Sarah Fejfar
I love that advice, Marty. I absolutely love that. So I'm sensing that you have a certain sense of like optimism about your ability to deliver and put on events and and I'm curious, what What made you start thinking thinking that you might be capable of someday hosting an event?
Marty Dickinson
Well, I have a couple of, I call them pivotal moments that gave me that idea. The very first one was going to 20 plus years ago, when I got asked to staff, the product table for Brian Tracy's event, if you don't remember, Brian Tracy is he's one of the largest and most well known sales trainers in the world. And when he came to Denver, he had, he got a huge hotel to 1000s of people for the room. And they wound up having to bring in more chairs, so they could get the overflow of 2500 people in this room. So every time he came to Denver, he would get a team together. And I became the pinpoint for this team for a few years. And the first time we I got 15 volunteers to help me out the product team, because he that's how he makes money. So his product, right? So we were at the product table. And all of a sudden when when he was he just got done with his first or I'd say maybe 30 minutes of presentation, and you wanted to give everybody a break. But what he's really doing is let's see how much it sold first. So he made his little pitch. And I couldn't believe it within 10 minutes, 10 minutes, we cleared almost a quarter of a million dollars in product sales. And that just put a light bulb off my head, I thought I have got to figure out how to put this all together. And maybe eventually someday just get to that kind of level. And then my chance because I was Story number two, which is why I asked to be on the marketing team for a national conference called the capital factor. And it worked out so well in six months that we have another one six months later. But that was our planning period. And our promotional period was six months for both of those conferences. And I got to see from the inside how you need to develop a team. We had 12 people on this team and we met every week, we had a big conference room. And when we start talking about what speakers were bringing in, everybody went out and got a bunch of one sheets from their websites, we pile them all into the middle of the table. I mean, this is what event planners do, right? You work with a team and you assemble everybody that's involved. We had to have the IT people. So we did record. We have all these pieces in place, scheduling and I just thought, wow, this is it. It's really fun. It's exhausting. It's some of the hardest work you ever do if you've never been part of a major conference before, but it was really a blast. And I got a lot of business out of it is a perfect time in my business where I was trying to prove myself in the internet marketing world worked out really well. And they got a lot of clients out of it and met so many people. So that just sort of for us did me into the idea that someday I'm going to be putting on my events.
Sarah Fejfar
Those are really good stories. Back to that. Brian Tracy, did I hear right that after 30 minutes of the conference, they did a break or was it a 30 minute break?
Marty Dickinson
No, it was I guess the break was probably about 15 or 20 minutes. So I remember the first one he said it's going to be very quick. And he had these shopping bags full of the package deal the whole enchilada because you get books and CDs and all that stuff for sale. And then he said now I have I remember the number a long time ago. I think he said he had like 25 bags I have everything. And I'm going to give you like 15 minutes to go back there. And I want all those bags gone. That's exactly what happened. I mean, two thirds of the product, he was empty after the after just the first break that he had. And people were just charging back to the to that table. And there was a we had, we had seven or eight people taking orders. So there were lines of people waiting to buy at this table, it was just incredible. I mean, when you see, when you see something like that, you realize that there's a whole different playing level two events out there. And that's something that any business owner would want to be a part of, for sure.
Sarah Fejfar
I remember vividly the first event that I went to where there was an offer made, and a table rush, if you will, and I sat there in awe. And in my mind was just spinning with what's possible. And so darn impressed by the model, because the room I was in it was done probably much like Brian Tracy, where it was done with such integrity and with such finesse that he wanted to be a part of the table rush, you know,
Marty Dickinson
and it didn't seem like selling at all, I mean, exactly. Resources he was providing. And people stormed the table. So many people are so concerned about selling and I you know, I think of it a lot differently than most people, I I feel like the speaker gets on stage. And they do not offer their audience next step. They're really shortchanging the audience. They're saying he, I've got something special here, I'm gonna give me a piece of it. Like that's it. I'm done. See you later. How do we back next year. It's really short Gee, your audience by doing that. So I, I always like to look for how it might not be selling, you know, quarter million dollars, or even a blood or even a CD center or some kind of digital thing. That doesn't need to be the only way to get people to take the next step with you. There's always a next step for people, just simple contact with you, or join a facebook group, or my Facebook group right up there speakers speak group.com Right in this window. And I have that in every presentation I do because I want people to have a resource to go connect with me in a non threatening way. We're just a bunch of speakers on this Facebook group. They're hanging out with each other and it's role your real low key, but at least it gives everybody a next step
Sarah Fejfar
together. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Marty, I agree with you, I get on a soapbox. Every time I hear someone shy away from wanting to make an offer an event, because you're there you're teaching them something, or creating some sort of experience for them. And there will be his simple math a percentage of your audience who is ready and willing to take the next step after you finish the event. And they'd like it to be with you. Because they don't want to have to go through the work of figuring out who like where they're supposed to get the next step from or who it's supposed to be from, they'd like it to be from you. And you really are, like you said, doing them a disservice if you don't share what the next step is and how they can get it from you.
Marty Dickinson
And people today we have so many problems in the world, people are starving for real solutions from real people. So if you can provide that, then you are in the same pool, as I play in where we believe that right now is the best time in history to be in the speaking business. And also the events business. The look and read has changed a little bit. But the beauty of it is that even just more than ever, people have a lot of problems to consider and a lot of challenges. And it's not us. I mean, we are the people that deliver content from one to many, whether you're only the organizer or if you are a speaker to it's the same thing you are being responsible for providing content that truly can transform a person's thinking that is in the audience. And if we don't exist to do that, who else will it that's why the speaking industry is going so strongly right now and the events industry. I mean, like I said with a capital factor, we plan those events for six months. And now because things are opening up in certain places and people are a little more comfortable with COVID out Everybody's been figuring out how to handle attend live in person events. Again, organizers are trying to get butts in the seats within like two weeks. I mean, they're setting up these events, it's like, let's go, let's have a special let's get everybody here. There's simply desperate to get people in, in person in the rooms again, which is wonderful to see. That's such a welcome sight. And at the same time, they need a lot. He will they need a lot of speakers to facilitate all this to bring it all together. And that's why right now, I mean, if you if you're an event organizer, or you are a speaker already, if you're if you're a business owner agreements, thinking of using speaking in any way to build your business, this is the best time to really dig in. And practice presenting get into a situation where you're practicing. Speaking every week, on virtual live in person, you find those resources, there are some out there, especially Toastmasters International, if you've never gotten on stage before you have a real severe confidence problem with speaking, join Toastmasters. I know people that are members of 2345, Toastmasters was because they want to be speaking, speaking literally every day of the week. And the more you do, the better you get. So like a crash course you get really good at speaking really quickly.
Sarah Fejfar
You know, they're putting in the Rams, right? They're putting in the reps. Absolutely. More at that moment, the more at bat moments you can have, the better you're going to get faster, the faster you're going to get better. Is that why you say today is the best time in history to host events?
Marty Dickinson
Oh, yeah. Because so many people are needing guidance. They need new ideas. They don't need stories from 30 years ago, they need what's happening now. What have you done in the last two years? Since the COVID. Shutdown? To be alive to not just physically but to be energetic and thinking positively toward the future? What are you doing, to to paint that picture in a positive light for yourself, for your family, for people that you work with, for your own clients? That's what people need to hear those kinds of topics are in huge demand right now.
Sarah Fejfar
I couldn't agree more that that piece you said about time specific advice, because we all went through just something humongous over the last two years. And so we want the up to date, here. And now. Advice. So good. So I'm curious, what do you find the most rewarding about conducting live events, the thing that makes it all worthwhile for you
Marty Dickinson
the money, the fame? It might happen someday. But really, it's it's the it's the people you meet the relationships that you build, I still have relationships with people from the very first workshop that I gave goodness. And when was that 2004? No 2003 way back. And I still hang out with those people today. When I have an event, I tell them about it. And they show up and these relationships that you build over time. They said they really do you attend their events, they attend your events. And most importantly, they will refer other people to your events, those relationships that you build over time are gold. And that is the most important thing you would ever get from conducting any type of event.
Sarah Fejfar
Yeah, really valuable advice to really see the humanity of this the serendipity of the room that you've gathered and see the value in each and every person that's in that room in every single chair virtually or, or in, in real life. Yeah. Tell me what's, what's the biggest mental challenge that you've had to overcome conducting a live event that something that you just can't get or understand that you get there?
Marty Dickinson
Well, I would say, but you need to understand that people have wives, you might have 100 people signed up for your event, and only 20 people show up. Matter of fact, that's really pretty much the standard now. And you can really take that personally and say Oh, I just had a whole bunch of fake people, your fake people sign up. You can you can take it personally again and say they really stabbed me in the back. That kind of thing. You know, all those terrible people when they ever sign up and make me think that I'm going to have all these people. And now I know that I've done that, I say that from experience, I felt that, absolutely, you know, everybody's gonna have a dog, eventually you're gonna have an event and for whatever reason, it just takes and no idea why you can't take that kind of thing personally, you have to know that people have things happen, especially in the unpredictable times that we have. Now, one of the one of the struggles that event event organizers and planners are having right now is that they are planning in, in person events. And then it's the last day because they are holding the event as a hybrid event, meaning they have the virtual live component and the live in person component. Suddenly, audience members. And I don't mean a small percentage, like one or two people, but a large percentage of people are at the last minute saying, Well, I know you have this, this on virtual too. So I canceled my hotel, and I'm just gonna stay home and watch this from from a virtual sense. And that, that is it's not only mentally damaging to an organizer, a third of your people all of a sudden cancel on the live, but they're going to be on virtual live. And now you're this giant room with 15 people in it, it really gets here, pure mental capabilities. And, and that's why not everybody can do this kind of work because you, you have to experience that and survive it and still want to be more because you're going to have those events that you think are gonna be just standard or average, and they just crashing, you have no idea why that happened either. Was it the speaker that that I brought in that was really attracted to people or what happened was it the time of the week was it because it wasn't a football game this weekend or whatever. Sometimes it just doesn't make any sense. But you're that's that's really what will get you through is just to realize that it's really it's not as much about you as you think. So try not to take it personally and move on.
Sarah Fejfar
Yeah, you have to I love that you said you have to want it you have to want you have to love it and want to keep moving forward and keep serving and keep impacting lives and serve hard the ones that are there and in the room. There's one thing that you you've talked about hybrid in there that kind of is like a little bee in my bonnet these days I'm a little bit anti hybrid for definitely for the reason that you shared serving two masters at once is not ideal nor easy nor cheap to do. And then the point you brought up about people change it allows the opportunity for people to change their minds at the last minute which just adds to the the the anxiety and the kind of like the margin for error you have to manage to so heading is a tricky spot hybrid and I'm interested in keeping an eye on the market to see where things shake out I definitely don't see virtual ever going away it's now it's always going to be a you know it's got its place now and I love it for that but I you know in person we all crave it. We all want them back with passionately and excited to be in rooms but I'm not sure yet. The jury's still out for me on hybrid.
Marty Dickinson
Challenge two and speakers are seeing this all over the place is that the events that are being held hybrid, everybody wants to have hybrid events until they decide to have their first one and, and they realize you have to have more than a laptop and a you know, camera on the top of the laptop to pull off a good job of having a true hybrid event that requires Nike staffed or requires direct pipes to the internet. It requires bandwidth and you love everything but lots of technology. And they're not ready for that they they're not ready to team and plan for that and a lot of event organizers are they really lacking technical knowledge to even communicate with IT staff about this kind of thing. And the IT staff are sometimes not even well versed in how to have multiple microphones in place and stream live to some type of video lots of carriers other than zoom. So the end of those challenges data and presenting and make sure making sure that you All these components are in place and they work is when you go live on minute one, you really don't want to have 200 people in the room and 2000 in the virtual room and say, Well, we're gonna need about 21 minutes to get this all working, right, because something is just not functioning properly, well, yes, because you're not, you're done. And it takes a long time to fix many, many accounts that putting all that together to have a real good virtual event. So, so I would suggest to anyone considering having a virtual event is to start attending virtual event, hybrid events, so that you can see what the technology is that they're using and talk to the IT teams. A lot of times with these bigger hotels, I heard they, when they had National Speakers Association, the National Convention in Las Vegas, they had, they had to use the IT staff of the hotel, it was by union rules, so they could not bring in their own people to run the entire virtual component of their national conference. I believe they were completely at the mercy of the IT staff, and they had never had an event like this. So there were problems. So you need to be prepared for all of that that's coming and invest in yourself to learn at a higher level than we've ever had to know before about technology that you might have been avoiding. Wine was someone who understands technology and has a lot of experience and can just take it away from you. So you can focus on promoting and conducting the event,
Sarah Fejfar
then, Marty, that that last line is the gold for me, and I teach it inside of live event Academy is that you really need to align yourself with vendor partners that you know love and trust, and so that you can hand hand pieces over and know that you have peace of mind. And you bring up a great point that now we're not only dealing with finding a vendor partner that is experienced and that virtual component or the hybrid component, or the the live component, or whatever combination you're choosing to do. But but also being really savvy when you're choosing your venue. Because you you want to go in eyes wide open about do they require that I use their their in house, AV team or can I bring in my own and like I feel like that's that's probably number one on my questionnaire that I inside of live event Academy on, you know, finding your AV part or your your vendor is for your venue is, is figuring out that piece, because it can cost how much more trouble than you can ever imagine. Yeah,
Marty Dickinson
I've also been hearing that hotels are starting to retrofit their entire internet operation. So that the the pipe to the internet, everything involving connection speed is what happens when you have 300 people in the room and they're on their phones, taking notes. And all of a sudden the lot of the allowance of internet bandwidth just goes down to nothing for the for the people are primarily trying to do the recording and streaming and everything else. So that becomes a challenge as well. So you really want to ask the question of the hotel, when was the last time you had somebody look at your internet connection and make sure that it's all up to date and modernized for this hybrid situation that we have, because hybrid is not going away. It's not, it's not going to go away for a long time. It might just be here forever, there will be always in person events that even not have a hybrid setup. And you know, anybody that would like to be attending virtually they'll just be on a lot. So they'll have to go to the in person event or That's it. But those are the minority people are really trying to have as many established events as they can in this hybrid fashion, which is great for it. Teams that figure it out enough to have just a turnkey solution to walk in there. And oh, yeah, with that. 10 minutes, we're set up. We're ready to go. We do this six times a week. Let's go. Yeah, that's great if you can find that kind of alliance to work with, but most event organizers are not at that point yet. And there's a lot of growth in that area.
Sarah Fejfar
Yeah, and I do I love the accessibility of hybrid events because there are a subsection of, of our communities that just cannot travel for whatever reason and they can't make it into the ballroom or wherever you're hosting the event. And in so I love the accessibility of them. But from a host standpoint is very challenging means to go in eyes wide open. So we just talked about a lot of challenges that have to do with, you know, the brave new world we're all dealing with here with virtual and hybrid. But kind of aside from that, what is the biggest kind of functional challenge that you feel like you have to overcome before event day,
Marty Dickinson
I hope we're talking about enough stuff. Because there are so many, so many benefits and rewards from holding events, especially right now that it really is rewarding. I don't want to get past people. Because what I'm about to say, he really adds to the challenge of conducting an event. And that is the admin side. And when I say admin, that is holy, you can get into that. That could be anything from the CRM, they use the email system that you use, the method you use to help people register, what happens to that registration information, how and when you let people on, on your virtual live virtual event? How do you vet them to make sure that you don't get zoom bombers coming in? There are so many administrative tasks that have to happen now. And a lot of those we didn't have to worry about even more than two years ago. So So there are definitely the challenges that exist. And the other one is, is is reminders, people need to be reminded, Oh, can we set up the interview for this podcast you sent for reminders TV in the past week, that's great. That's exactly what people need to be doing. I see so many events that I sign up for that I sign up and I never hear from the person again, if that email with the with the Zoom logon, or the directions or your ticket that I'm giving whatever it is, if that comes to me immediately, and I get it just gets buried in my email, after three weeks, I might not ever be able to find it again. So there needs to be some mechanism. And that's where we run into problems. Because third party emails, the list, the email systems have really deteriorated. I don't know if I should say deteriorated. I just think it's a lot more of a challenge for third party email providers to get through the number one best way to get an email through to anybody is to start is to log into your Gmail account, and some an email to their Gmail account, one to one. And that is really the only most guaranteed way that you can get an email to anybody today, because there's so many filters with email servers, on the other end, deciding if your email is even worth delivering or not. So you just don't know. I mean, there's all kinds of tracking tools on here that worked with a lot of email systems that have really good tracking for how many people open an email that is sent. But if they're stalled us this question, and in my mind about are all those emails actually getting delivered? And it's just getting more and more difficult to make that happen? So what's the answer? It's going to become texting? For sure. Right, so if you're an event organizer, who has been out of the game for a couple of years, and he's to rely solely on email, well, there's these are dwindling, because you're gonna have more trouble getting elsewhere and less people are looking at emails. So the migration is going to become more toward texting. So you're accumulating people's cell phone numbers, getting their permission to send them alerts and reminders on their phones. And in addition to email.
Sarah Fejfar
Couldn't agree more. It's so reliable, and the open rate is extremely high, and people are comfortable with it. So I think it's excellent for time sensitive things like live events. Yeah. I have to go back a little bit and tell you a funny story. So you know, you're like that Zoom bombers. So I was on this virtual event a few weeks ago, and I had never heard an event host say this. And, and the host said, Okay, so here's the deal. I'm wearing clothes, so I expect that you do too. And then they said, you know, because we've had a lot of scenarios over the past year where we've had people streaking through their events by just broke out laughing. I didn't know that we were at the place where that might be the case. But and so that was one of the announcements they were making at the beginning.
Marty Dickinson
That's hilarious, but it scares the heck out of you. who decide come back to the event organizer. I mean, you bring in somebody to present and they're ready to go and they're all prepared and what greater way to throw them off your speaker than to have someone do something malicious.
Sarah Fejfar
Another cool. On a more positive note. I was listening to auctions being done virtually over the past year. And you know, typically an auctioneer would go into a live setting a live auction where they would be at the podium with the mic and then they would have people from their organization in the audience kind of checking out the room like seeing who's wearing good shoes like making sure they know who you know perhaps interested in In in something and they said that that's something that they they had to to do and continue in the virtual setting but you didn't kind of like perhaps take it up a notch have a higher state for that but you They can be used in this scenario too You're concerned about you know who's in there And What they're doing on their videos You can Have a system You know in your your zip And now Only monitoring the chat but monitoring the videos and just Keeping an eye on making sure everything is You know On the opener
Marty Dickinson
so yeah you have to have At least that person if not Depending on How many people are there I'm sorry To get I use Eventbrite For a lot of our Eventbrite illustrations and I'm having them Every week now So so we Use Eventbrite a lot And one of the they have a little field that you can add a custom fields So the the has to feel that way That is for a year For either their LinkedIn profile or their Facebook profile One of the few or if you're Only unfortunately If you're on if you're on one Social media you're usually A couple of them so we give But I really want people to Use their LinkedIn profile if All possible and My market is mostly speakers are people that are business owners Want to use seeking to build their business so They almost always have Oh LinkedIn bro file and if they don't have They can't figure out how to help you paste the URL then the rest not part of my market they need to have At least have your own conceptual knowledge of the end Anatomy how it works but then it's like wiped down and sold Media and URLs and Not as a qualifier For me if they leave it blank Wherever they put Something else I think Depending on the name of Self might recognize the name and I might Go search the person down on my arrow But if I don't recognize him I'm sorry article about the name I don't Send my personal resume ID I think instructions very clear you know the Go follow directions it's a pretty To be an active Maya And that's yeah no look at our Today is the Our audience should we We are honored to have them in our Our audience is not that one Silence We are offering them opportunity to become productive Mr Clark Not everybody in the world is In this room wherever we are so takes some pride in those lineups and and I would qualify people I guess that's word I'm looking for It's a it's a The edge that's a step forward qualifying your audience and bringing And the people that you want to be there
Sarah Fejfar
Yeah So good so good What's the most in important suggestion you have For someone who's thinking about starting hosting their own event
Marty Dickinson
The The most important thing Is how people are going to live Get out of the room That's every once in a while It doesn't happen often but Every once in a while I'll get an email from somebody And that I had six months ago And they've helped Time to implement some of the things that they learned In the event whether it was me prison or somebody else that I write in and to get the email Now that says that they actually It took them a while they They didn't do anything at first but they actually We started working through the steps Man Magic started to happen Those are the those are the prime emails people's lives After the event and you see us start up here that's my mascot that My mascot is actually yours I'm My very first book cover winning The internet's done Fight Night take action every You are All right Because action comes with at every event and I get people The role send messages to me or they'll call me on Phone they'll say I attended one of your events One time ago and I can't remember What you do or what you talked about for years guy with the dog right So when people remember the event You're in for whatever reason They make contact with you That's what you Want to focus on that you have the opportunity to Truly trans form people with whatever feminism Your event is conducting and that gets you from route you're gonna have peaks and troughs In this event business and Everybody does there's not a single word I know that just rose to the top limb there first and they just stayed there Forever I mean it's Going through the With its process in its That tree transformation that you know is out there the people are going to have That will get you through those peaks and troughs
Sarah Fejfar
So good So good Marty I want to move into a little Have a bit of a rapid fire section as we're wrapping up here First question Have you ever seen or heard Learn something In the Green Room at one of the events that you either hosted or spoken It's just really stuck With you
Marty Dickinson
Oh Absolutely yeah and I would Say most At all times about fear in the Green Room you mean Green Room before the day You're going to eat You will be amazed how many season really established presenters and Hello seeds are really nervous before Hurt before they take the stage Whenever I see whenever Coming up here off the site there's always some alligator comes around says hey you know you're nervous yeah You're supposed to be your nothing Get in front of a live audience and the best lineup ever about fear is that Is tomorrow Computer to welcome to because it's fear this wanting to make you do your best job for that audience I even heard somebody say the minute I am not nervous to get In front of a crowd is The day that I Stop doing any of this Because I will now ever remember exactly how we put it I will never do My best job For the audience if I don't Have a little bit of a nervousness in We saw that Just completely changed my Here Being nervous and fear now If I'm not if I'm not nervous In front of a group Even on a podcast like this I'll think this Some nightmare scenario from years ago like when my laptop Crash 10 notes for my My four hour workshop was began and I think I have no notability is hours and that'll make any Anybody nervous and that works every Time and then all of a sudden alert on fire Guess that I'm doing my best job for the audience
Sarah Fejfar
You make yourself nervous You You're on hype squad What is So you know we've talked a little bit about this But if you To sum it up into one Secret you know the the big stressor for event hosts really mindset is What's your secret Managing your mindset launch
Marty Dickinson
Managing life So I think I I would I would have Oh no one that we haven't talked to Yeah how's this You're bands cn N orchestra or band Although performers right it's An inventor on stage Yeah musicians I've ever talked to you in the studio Part of the site here that was actually my first website ever launched was musician related websites I haven't done a lot of music bands and performers and Every one of them will help You about performance They spread They were halfway through aside and they Forgot what was supposed to come next and they just made something up and They come off stage of yours so upset that The crowd ever No no The crowd never knew They're just sharing the goods If that's the same thing we need to keep in mind that you You are going to have mistakes There are going to be things that you You don't say right as your Getting your posting the event going out there events Other things you are not playing See right in your introductions in how the event is running All kinds of little things that you The audience never needs to know about So when you make You must stay just keep going because chances are no nobody's going to that They're going to be thinking Overall what was the Experience The event and not is The important part
Sarah Fejfar
Oh yea, keep going, I couldn't agree more. What's your best tip for filling events?
Marty Dickinson
Oh that's only drink lunchers relationships It's really It's really difficult to come Vince any single person that you You have never met to go to any event right now When people of zoom fatigue there tired you know I I tried to bring some I'm Hannah something you Every virtual live The World With you People are just so tired resume and that's the way they think of Are you promoted Forget event that's going to be on Zoom they are not One so but Have someone else say Hey I know there are 1000 Zoom events out there right Now but This guy You got to go to US just plow around doing what you do Fix your whole week so that you can go to this one event This is gonna be a live stream Reporting I guarantee excited First I bet did this in the show before This is an important one to see. That's what you need to have you need to have other people talking about your events.
Sarah Fejfar
so good. Do you have a favorite moment At an event that you've hosted?
Marty Dickinson
or every time In the beginning yeah when when you finally Okay are you ready are you ready really writing it guys Are you really ready no no Tell me the truth if you need a couple of minutes Okay everybody's ready Now We can all relax You just have the event because everything is in place that's the best feeling there is I guess maybe you're getting the afterwards and be talking to How great you Then when the That's a close second but Finally getting the point where it's happening that need to Do what you do best leave shot that's the lesson lesson
Sarah Fejfar
Maria couldn't Grimore that's my favorite moment to win yeah it just went everyone's ready here we go What's one of the best thing that's come from hosting an event For you
Marty Dickinson
Why are we separate relationships already sent the The email the occasional email that you get later How about Today Add to that how The purpose of reason a reason to get up in the morning A reason to keep your energy high I have been working impasse We can have for that Forever Organizing to are over the next three more Holy Cow man Over the next few weeks at Weiland and then we get The Christmas season I'm thinking two weeks elements and we start up again In January so This time is Crazy for years Your little free There's little eating you Reporting for the holiday season here I mean a few meals a day me But it's The excitement are the events That is something to look for or D and again just thinking of all those people that are under Do you want to speaker at any of these I'm just putting them together in the start of the show are the speakers that we're having it Your month so I'm just making it happen But there's a Huge Feeling Have you Important contribution that you're making When you are the one that is the backbone of these events If you are not there These are That should not happen significance shouldn't be in the audience with not receive that message You're Getting to them That's real An important driver
Sarah Fejfar
yeah is your sense of sick Nothing hands right there yeah making that you No matter yeah Last question What do you what are your reading right now?
Marty Dickinson
Well you wouldn't be expected this one probably but Now I think whenever you're done have some relevance So what we're talking about I'm reading a very thick book on Winston Churchill Why You I love history and it's saying how you can look back History and we can almost predict where things are going with the conditionals that we are in now By looking at this And Churchill was right in the thick Have it in World War One Good of World War Two and you're all All kinds of things are aligning and adjust The experiences that he went through As a speaker give me He delivered Lots of speech and so we need to 6080 100 speeches a year he was given And that was not an easy Back then There was no virtual life back then so that'll go on Have a lot of stamina for someone Do that and to also be in the political world and we can learn lot from that by learning about history and how he Longer changing hairs His vocal approach technique To to attract The younger generation As he got older he had the top in a different way So that younger people that are growing Understand What we were saying and relate to them so There's a lot of parallels alignments with his Free and long You're doing with events and speaking today
Sarah Fejfar
Yeah so why is To be reading up on In history we can learn so much Is there anything that you have going on right now you'd like to share are with us The lead Spend nation here
Marty Dickinson
Absolutely Two things there is speaker speak groov.com That'll take you to my Facebook group that's a great one Start whether you are organizing events whether you know We're planning to get on stage you Still need to just learn how to communicate Present yourself So I strongly suggest that you come into that But now natural evolution of that group was What I call speakers speak Why so You can go to speaker speak live.com where that's another We conduct every single one Stay for one hour and happy is a practice session To look for professional speakers to bring in 10 minutes of new material and then We all critique the speed and practice introducing us It's really fun it's the fastest hour of my entire week so if you Lesson One of these to places and connect with Be there Then I can introduce you to more things The time but that's a real good start For everybody no assumption One for anybody in this business or Who wants to be in the presence
Sarah Fejfar
yeah yeah great great resource For people who want to be speakers Is there anywhere else that you'd want to send Any social media places that You're active
Marty Dickinson
All right LinkedIn is probably the best one you can just Search for Margarita in southern metal Thank you there and then you can also just be To my vein what sight which is here next year.com He or he And e x t YT Are you yeah that's definitely Ruby asked me if I was gonna be around and say sponsors 25 Pretty basic stuff Right eliminate the question and you'll See lots of really extensive blog posts that I've personally written A whole bunch of different topics really ritual dances even writing cooperating with A lot of nonfiction book work as well so yeah something Time
Sarah Fejfar
Oh thank you With all that Up in the show notes for everyone Listening And Marty I just want to take them Say thank you this has been such pleasure to chat with you today Your experience is coming through like you have such a test You're doing events and that that experience obviously pays You're able To do things on the weekly And not have anxiety or stress over it And that you've been unable to do such a thing pivot over the past year year and a half To be able to do what you do virtually and it's In person and it's just impressive and I appreciate you share sharing all this wisdom with you With our listeners
Marty Dickinson
You're welcome and it is fun That's the key is that if you're not having fun with us Have you done this kind of work dials might not be for you Are you because it shouldn't be fun You're going to be spending a lot more time at Less than you ever imagined But if you're having fun in it Doesn't matter doesn't
Sarah Fejfar
I totally agree, it has to be fun, otherwise don't do it. Thank you Marty. take care.
Marty Dickinson
Thanks for having me.
