Become The Ultimate Speaker for Greater Sales, Revenue, and Impact | Joel Weldon | 317

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April 12, 2021

Joel Weldon is a Hall of Fame speaker with over 3,000 paid talks on his resume. For more than three decades, Joel has served as an Idea Consultant and Sales Trainer for the world’s leading organizations and business leaders. Using his Ultimate Speaking System for entrepreneurs, Joel has personally coached and critiqued over 10,000 speakers. His specialties include public speaking, leadership, sales training, and more.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Joel Weldon reveals the top communication mistakes that business leaders make when speaking to an audience
How Joel helped best-selling author Dr. Benjamin Hardy generate millions of dollars by improving his speaking skills
Joel’s advice to aspiring speakers: make it all about the audience
Why you should never say “thank you” at the end of a presentation
Joel shares the four-letter word that will boost the impact of any offer
What you can do today to start implementing Joel’s wisdom and enhancing your communication skills

In this episode…

What is keeping you from your next big breakthrough? According to Joel Weldon, a business breakthrough could come at any time—your next meeting, for example, or an upcoming industry event. So, how can you ensure that you’re prepared to make an impact and achieve your goals?

With years of experience coaching business leaders on how to communicate more effectively, Joel has established a tried-and-true way to get heard. As he says, it’s all about focusing on your audience, defining your terms, and speaking in a language that engages your listeners. With this system, Joel has helped thousands of professionals boost their businesses, generate millions of dollars, and make a greater impact. Today, he’s here to share his tips for how you can achieve your next big breakthrough.

Join Dan Kuschell in this episode of Growth to Freedom as he interviews Joel Weldon, a Hall of Fame speaker and consultant, about how to boost your speaking skills and achieve your next big breakthrough. Joel shares the biggest mistakes business leaders make when speaking to an audience, his expert strategies for making a greater impact with your words, and why you should never end a presentation with “thank you.” Stay tuned for more!

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode

Thanks for listening to this episode of growthtofreedom.com.

Are you struggling to get a steady flow of new clients every day? Or maybe hit a plateau or hit a wall in growing your business? Well, let’s help you solve this problem today. Let’s review your business and have a conversation. You can do that for free today at breakthroughstrategycall.com. That’s breakthroughstrategycall.com.

In addition, if you’re looking for a simple way to implement some of what we’ve been talking about in today’s episode, I want to encourage you to get our free small business toolkit. You can get that at activate.breakthrough3x.com. That’s activate.breakthrough3x.com.

If you’d like access to the special resources and all the show notes for this special episode, make sure to visit growthtofreedom.com.

Episode Transcript

Dan Kuschell 0:03

Welcome to growthtofreedom.com, the show that brings you inspiration, transformation, and leadership. We’re helping you connect the dots, see the blind spots, and get unstuck. So you can go out and generate more leads, more sales, more profits. More importantly, so you can go out and have a bigger reach, a bigger impact, and make a bigger contribution. I have a question for you. How important do you feel communication is for your business today? Or how valuable would it be if you could improve your communication, your ability to influence your ability to make it impossible to be misunderstood? If any of that applies, and you think it might move the dial for you and make helping you get more sales, helping you have a greater impact, having a bit of bigger contribution, you are going to love today’s guest expert. But before I get to our expert, I want you to imagine this for a second, I want you to imagine that you get a phone call requesting that you speak on a zoom call tomorrow to an audience of 75 of your ideal prospects. What would you say? Right, what would you say to that? And hopefully you’d say yes, but would you be fully prepared? Would you be confident in the results that you’d actually get? Would you see this as a, you know, an amazing opportunity? Or would you be like in complete distress mode, chaos mode, the sky is falling mode, and I’m gonna have to have hazard this whole thing, right? Because the bottom line is if you walk into this situation confidently with certainty, with clarity with direction, one connection in that presentation could transform your life. And in fact, this celebration of 300 episodes, 30 years of business is a reflection of being prepared at the right time, at the right place, and being able to say yes to opportunities. He is someone who can show you how to say yes, he’s a Hall of Fame speaker. With over 300 paid talks on his resume. He’s personally coached and critiqued over 10,000 speakers. He’s the personal speaking coach for well known people like Kevin Harrington, who’s from the Shark Tank, Vern Harnish, the Founder of EO, as well as Growth Institute, Dan Sullivan, co founder of Strategic Coach, and I hired him as my speaking coach. And I’m sure by the time we’re done, he’s gonna have at least five things to make me even better than I was today. He’s actually one of the original founders of the National Speakers Association. I don’t know if he remembers this. But we actually met somewhere close to 19 to 20 years ago, at a National Speakers Association meeting in little Tempe, Arizona, where he was speaking, and his presentation and his leadership impacted the direction of my life, and we got out of contact for a while. And then we reconnected through a great community called Genius Network through a good friend of both of ours, Joe Polish, who was a part of this celebration as well. And he’s gone on to be able to impact hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of those members that are part of I’ve asked him to come on and talk about the power of communication, the power of influence. And also, I want you to be thinking as he goes through some of these strategies: What would happen for you, if you were impossible to be misunderstood? What would it do in your family life? What would it do at home? And what would it do for your business with your team? Our guest is Joel Weldon, Joel, welcome. How are you, my friend?

Joel Weldon 3:40

Well, thank you very much, Dan, and congratulations on the celebration. And as you’re listening and watching to these ideas, think about that. Dan is a 10Xer, 30 years, that’s 300 shows. But let’s keep going 3000 hairs on his head, there’s not many. There’s 3000. Let’s 10X to that, again, let’s make that instead of 3000, 30,000. That’s how many people have followed Dan, have used his ideas through his exposure through this wonderful concept called the internet and virtual communications. So congratulations, Dan on 10Xing in everything.

Dan Kuschell 4:26

Thank you, Joel. Thank you. And I want to focus on you, right? Because you know, you utilize speaking to grow your business, right? Yes, seeking to grow your business and also to grow your impact to grow your reach, overall. But, you know, the fact of the matter is, is that I want to get into a little backstory, right? I’m so fascinated by your backstory, and there’s all kinds of tangents we could go on. And you know, we’ve got 10 to 15 minutes together. So, you know, you’ve been at times friends with Earl Nightingale, right, who’s one of the greatest orators in the history of the world. At least in several people’s opinion, me included, not that I’m a big name or whatever to make that boat. But, and you’ve worked with some of the top leaders all over the world, right? And now here we are in one of the craziest times in the world, right? You’ve been doing this for well over 50 some years. What do you see are some of the top mistakes that most people are making, you know, as it relates to speaking or presenting or communicating, especially like whether it’s on a stage or I’m going to I’m going to use on stages, video stages, as well as physical stages. speak to that a little bit?

Joel Weldon 5:36

Well, first of all, you know, having been paid to speak at over 3000 events. Over the last 46 years, I’ve seen an awful lot. And having good as Dan said, critiqued so many speakers. But I think the biggest mistake I think speakers make, and I’m talking about using speaking to grow your business, not necessarily paid professional speakers, the world that I’ve come from, but the biggest mistake is they forget the audience, isn’t them. The reason you’re speaking is you’re an expert, you’re a genius. You’re a thought leader in your subject area. And one of the challenges having coached so many brilliant people is they think, because things are easy and clear to them. They must be clear and easy to others. But that’s not the case. So one of the biggest mistakes that speakers make, and you might think of this in your next presentation, define your terms. Just defining a term. Now I work a lot with financial advisors, and they talk about retirement. What does retirement mean? If you would ask 10 people to define retirement, you’d get 10 different answers. If Dan, like you working with people to grow their business, and they say we want to grow our business, what does that actually mean? And I know you asked that question, would you say grow and earn even more money? Well, how much money How big do you want to get? So that concept is one of the biggest mistakes, not defining your terms. And you would say something like this, I know that you probably know the meaning of, but just to make sure we’re both on the same page. Here’s an idea for you. So that’s Mistake number one, assuming the audience knows what you know, talking the language, you would talk to your peers that know what you know, or what you would say to yourself, if you’re talking to yourself, it’s all about the audience, not about you. second biggest mistake is speakers talk in plural. How many times have you heard a speaker say, all you guys, or here’s something you’re all gonna love? My recommendation is, you’re only talking to one person. And right now in the few minutes that you and I have known as I said, You and I have I didn’t say all of those people that follow Dan on his budget? No. So what you can do especially virtually, is just talk to one person and the name is you. So here’s an idea you like, what would you have done? If you were in that situation? How would you afford if this happened to you? Those kind of statements, draw your audience in, and it feels like a conversation you are having one on one. Does that make sense, Dan, so far, that’s amazing that we don’t have a lot of mistakes. But I think one of the themes of your program is the domino effect that this could be a breakthrough for you.

It's all about the audience, not about you. - Joel Weldon Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 8:45

So you’re one you’re one breakthrough away

Joel Weldon 8:47

One breakthrough. And so let me share a story about somebody Dan nodes. And most likely, you know, because he’s fairly famous, even though he’s just approaching 30. His name is Ben Hardy. And the point of this story is, you could just be one breakthrough away from everything happening good in your life. And speaking can be a part of that. So here’s what happened in September of 2017, Joe Polish calls me and says, we have a new member. He’s going to give a 10 minute talk at our next meeting. Would you help him he’s only 26 years old. He scraped together the money to join a group which is 25,000 bucks, and he doesn’t know anything about speaking. So this was Ben Hardy. Now, I’ll tell you more about Ben Hardy if that name doesn’t ring a bell to you, and you’ve been living in a cave for the last two years. But Ben Hardy is everywhere now in 2020. So I set up a call with Ben we started talking in the phone, and he said boy, Joel, this is great. I gotta hire you. I don’t know anything about speaking. Would you be my coach. So Ben and I have worked together for the last three years. And in that meeting in 2017, he developed a killer 10 minute talk. And that was the first step. As a matter of fact, he recently gave me a testimonial. He said, that talk generated at least one and a half million dollars in the last three years, because it opened the floodgates. Now, Dan, you know, because you work with Joe polish, spent many years helping him grow his business, that the annual event is one of the biggest events in the marketing world. And that was in November. And this was in the meeting he spoke out was in October. And after the meeting, I said to Joe, he should be on the annual event. They said, That’s impossible. You know, we have hundreds of people trying to get on it. Well they made room for Ben, because of that one talk. And that opened the floodgates. Now he’s on his third book, he’s got two best sellers. He’s teamed up with Dan Sullivan, the founder of Strategic Coach, he’s been on 247 podcasts in the last four months. Why? One breakthrough away? What’s yours? What could be that next thing? Is it the next meeting that you have scheduled, maybe it’s three or four people that you’re going to talk to. So Dan, use that phrase, make it impossible to be misunderstood?

Make it impossible to be misunderstood. You do that by defining your terms. You do that by talking to one person in a language that they understand. - Joel Weldon Click To Tweet

You do that by defining your terms, you do that by talking to one person in a language that they understand. And then the other thing that’s so important, getting yourself out of the way. It’s not about you, it’s all about the audience. It’s not about you. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t use a personal story or an experience. But you want your audience in there. And the way you do it is you say something like this. And remember, I gave you the point of the story before I told you about Ben Hardy. So that’s one thing you want to do tell the audience the point of a story you’re going to tell and how many times you’ve heard a speaker say. So there I was, I was in a forest. And they you saw, what do I care about the fact that you’re in a forest? What does this have to do with me and building my business. So open with the point of the story, and then bring your audience which is one person in the story. So let’s use that forest. So imagine you and I are going for a walk in the forest. And as we’re walking in the forest, you look down, and you see that everything is burned, there was a forest fire. And you say to me, Joel, look, everything is gone. And then you say, Well, wait a minute, wait, look, look over there. And you’ve just spotted a little green bud coming up out of those ashes. And then you said to me, Joel, I think that’s going to be a tree someday. You know, that’s what can happen in our lives. Sometimes there’s a forest fire and everything is burned. But within those ashes could be a little green bud of something starting new for you. Now, was that a story that involved you? or What have I said, So there I was in the forest. I was walking along, everything was burned. And then I spotted a little green bud and I realized to myself, which sounded better. You were with me in the forest, you spotted the green bug, you realize that thing. And that’s how you involve your audience. It’s not about you. Not that you can say I or me or mine. That’s okay. But it’s like a ping pong game. I, then you I and then you see if you do that, here’s a test. Look at your last email to a client. Count how many times you said I, how many times you said you. And Dan, you become a master at this because we’ve talked about this for many years. But here’s the typical letter. I’m so happy. You know, when I talked to you the other day, Dan, I really felt so good about what you said. And I appreciate the business. And one of the things I’m going to do in working with you is I’m going to make sure that I that’s all I but what if the letter started, you made a great decision. Congratulations, you’re going to see great growth in your business based on the ideas that you’re going to learn as we work together. Another thing you’re going to like is you’re going to have access. Okay? Same basic concept, but it’s all about them, not about you. And then we’re talking you know, we have so little time but if you ask me other mistakes. Here’s a little webinar theme that I just developed which gives three of them. Your introduction is not your bio. Your opening isn’t I’m so glad to be here. And your closing is never thank you for listening. So don’t do any of those things. And that’s what most people do. Oh, Dan, I’m so glad to be here. You know, I just got I I, who cares? Congratulations, you’re here, you made a wise decision, you’re going to love the ideas that Dan is going to share with you. And what about the closing? Why don’t you say thank you? How many times have you heard a speaker say that? Okay, so here’s some ideas that 10 times your income, and be 10 times happier. And I know you’re going to love these ideas. Thank you so much for being here. What I mean, if somebody came up to you in the street, a complete stranger handed you $100 bill, and as they’re walking away, they say, Hey, thank you. What the guy just gave me $100 bill, and he’s thanking me. When you make a presentation, when you share your wisdom and your ideas, you’re giving a gift to your audience. They’re gonna Thank you don’t end with Thank you for listening. I’m so glad you were here. I appreciate your attention. And with a challenge and with impact, and when you tell me I’m almost done, then I’ve got 22 words that we’re going to end our discussion with.

Your introduction is not your bio. Your opening isn't, ‘I'm so glad to be here.’ And your closing is never, ‘Thank you for listening.’ So don’t do any of those things. - Joel Weldon Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 16:27

That’s awesome. Now, getting a value in speaking of bringing it And speaking of making it all about them, I want to shift it to you. I mean, you’ve scratched the surface. I mean, I feel so fortunate that you’re a part of my world. And as a coach, I mean, you just, I get a lot of joy, with what you share and all the wisdom that you can help our viewers our listeners use speaking as a tool to grow their business, you know, like Ben, like so many 1000s of others out there, how can people get connected to you, Joel, if they want to learn more about you get access to your resources, and more? How do they do that?

Joel Weldon 17:06

Well, you do do a you go to a website, which is ultimatespeaker.com, ultimatespeaker.com. Or just send me an email, [email protected]. And this ultimate speaking system and all these tools I developed everything I just shared with you is on videos, audios, printed materials, it’s part of a system to help you let me give you one little tool, something so simple. If I said to you, I can help you earn more money. Now that sounds pretty good. But what does it really mean? You’re probably not doing really well at all. But if I add one four letter word, watch what happens, I can help you earn even more money. The addition of the word even anytime you say more or better, completely changes the impact of your words. And then opened by telling you how important your ability to communicate is. And that’s something you can use immediately. This is going to bring you better results. This is going to bring you even better results than you’ve been getting. You know, you can be happier, you can be even happier. Just think of adding even and watch the difference. Okay, that’s a tool that’s part of a system. And as you know a system is an acronym saves you stress, time, energy and money. So I’ve systemized the entire speaking process into simple to use ideas that people can get right away and implement immediately like Ben Hardy did. And now speaking has become the basis of how he’s building his business.

Dan Kuschell 18:57

And if you’d like to put that in place, I want to encourage you to go check out the system for you go to ultimatespeaker.com, ultimatespeaker.com. I’ve invested in this why it works. It’ll be a system to save you a lot of money save you a lot of stress and help bring you a lot of clarity certainty confidence, direction and results if that’s what you want that I encourage you to go to ultimatespeaker.com, that’s ultimatespeaker.com, and or send Joel an email, let them know what you’re planning to do with speaking to grow your business at [email protected] by the way if you’re driving right now or listening you can come back to the episode here growthtofreedom.com, you can come back to this specific celebration episode of growthtofreedom.com/300, that’s growthtofreedom.com/300. Joel what is uh, what is something I should have asked you that I didn’t get a chance yet.

Joel Weldon 19:54

What you should have asked me?

Dan Kuschell 19:56

Yeah, what’s I think I should have asked you.

Joel Weldon 19:59

Yeah, I think you ask good questions you asked about the biggest mistakes. You asked about what could be that turning point? I think you asked all the right questions. And you’re not interested in me as you’re listening to this. You’re interested in you, I’d rather talk about you, and what can be done to help you be an even better speaker. And it’s amazing. Dan has gotten so good. When I first started working with Dan. I mean, he was okay. He was good. How many “uhs” did you use to have in a demo account used

Dan Kuschell 20:32

You to stop at 26 or something?

Joel Weldon 20:35

Yeah, that was the first two minutes. So that’s a tool that we have, how do you eliminate arms and ahhs and it’s such a simple thing, and, and Dan, I know that just tell him how, how great a student you are. Because even though he’s a great teacher, and your coach, and you follow him on these podcasts, and use his training, and so many of my clients are using you just this weekend for people tell me that they’re working with you, and what good results you’re getting. And so he’s the real deal, but he’s interested in constantly improving. And that’s what you need to think of as good as you are, you can get even better.

Dan Kuschell 21:12

And if you want to get even better, go to ultimatespeaker.com, ultimatespeaker.com. Joel, as we wind this down. Why are you still wet? Why are you doing what you’re doing? I’m just curious, you have such a fascinating life. I mean, you could have been retired, you know, many moons ago,

Joel Weldon 21:32

14 years ago, I would have been 65.

Dan Kuschell 21:36

Yes, you, I mean, you’ve been been so blessed. You’ve had our family out to water ski with you. You’ve taught my kids how to water ski. You have this amazing, amazing quality of life. Sure, share with our audience why while you’re still just, you know, on this vision, this mission to help more and more people use speaking to grow their business.

Joel Weldon 21:59

My youngest grandson is at Annapolis, third year, Midshipman. And he told me pops, because that’s what he calls me. It pops. I know you’re never going to retire. But you know, the Navy does that with ships all the time? Because once they get obsolete, they put them in, in storage. He said, Do you know what they call that what the military term is? When we do that with a ship? I said no, Barrett, I don’t. He said out of service. Now I know why you’re never going to retire. Because when you retire, you get out of service. And I think we’re here for a purpose. And I’ve spent my whole life learning about these systems. What good is it giving it to myself. And there’s nothing more exciting than talking to you today about these ideas. And that’s hopefully how you feel that that you get up in the morning and you can’t wait to get going. And when you have that mental attitude, then your body follows it. And that’s what Earl Nightingale Strangest Secret changed the lives of so many people with the Strangest Secret is simply this, you become what you think about most of the time. What are you thinking about? So if you’re thinking about health and happiness and giving an enthusiasm and joy, that’s what you express. And you wake up in the morning, it should be full speed and ready to go. And that’s how I feel every day. I just couldn’t wait to get on. Oh, and talk to you even for just a few minutes.

Dan Kuschell 23:33

And he lives it he lives it he leads by example. He is a living legend. And you may or may not have heard of Joel before today. And if you haven’t just know he is a living legend. And what would happen for you if you apply even one of the many strategies that he shared? Or what if you went and took advantage and invested? You know when you compare how little it is to what it gives you and what it will mean for your career like Ben Hardy like me and so many hundreds of others at ultimate speaking calm. How would it change the game for you, Joel, what’s 1 to 3 action steps you’d love our audience to take love you to take as a result of our time today.

Joel Weldon 24:16

Yes, we tell you about you. Number one, speak to your audience about what they need. That’s it, make it about them. take yourself out of the way, add more you’s than you have I’s. and be yourself. Be you. That’s one of the greatest gifts that you can give somebody is what you are like don’t copy anybody else. Don’t act and perform. Be yourself. That’s the key and then use the 22 words that I’m going to end with. But I just thought of something else that we should do. Because Dan is that you give us so how about we do that if you go to our website and are interested in the Ultimate Speaking System, or we have a mini course called Quickstart. If you just put in the promo code DanK, we’re going to put a DanK, you did everything in half price. Now you know how affiliates work. Sometimes the sponsor wants my dad doesn’t want any money from you on this, he wants you to be a better speaker. So what we would have given to Dan on an affiliate you’re going to get, so everything is half the normal amount, what you see on the website except the coaching because that’s my one on one time. So take a look at that. But remember, we never ending on a call to action. The call to action should never be your closing. Your closing should be a summary and impact that leaves something for the audience. That’s why Dan, I told you, I’ve got 22 words, when you’re ready to get rid of me.

Speak to your audience about what they need in an organized way they can follow, and get yourself out of the way. - Joel Weldon Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 25:50

Let’s do it.

Joel Weldon 25:52

You’re ready for the 22 words? Yes. Ask me if I wish to summarize everything I’ve learned in 46 years. 3000 paid dogs. What would I say in one sentence? Oh, I Dan, I just heard you say that. Okay, here’s the answer. Speak to your audience about what they need in an organized way they can follow and get yourself out of the way.

Dan Kuschell 26:25

He’s Joel Weldon, go check out what he’s got available. Ultimatespeaker.com, ultimatespeaker.com. Joel. Thank you.

Joel Weldon 26:31

Well make it a great day. Yep. And a pleasure, Dan.

Dan Kuschell 26:35

And I encourage you to take action with what Joel shared with you. You’re just one breakthrough away. He’s given you dozens and dozens of strategies in 15 minutes. And just imagine what would happen if you went deeper? Right, take action, seize the day. We’ll see on the next session on growthtofreedom.com. Thanks for listening to this episode of growthtofreedom.com. Are you struggling to get a steady flow of new clients every day? Or maybe hit a plateau or hit a wall and growing your business? Let’s help you solve this problem today. Let’s review your business and have a conversation. Do that for free today at breakthroughstrategycall.com, that’s breakthroughstrategycall.com. In addition, if you’re looking for a simple way to implement some of what we’ve been talking about in today’s episode, I want to encourage you to get our free small business toolkit. You get that at activate.breakthrough3x.com, that’s activate.breakthrough3x.com. If you’d like access to the special resources and all the show notes for this special episode, make sure to visit growthtofreedom.com.

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