Apr 13, 2020
Hybrid Publishing
In today's episode Laura Gassner Otting talks about HybridPublishing For Professional Speakers.
Want to know about the difference between traditional publishingvs hybrid publishing for speakers? In today's interview JamesTaylor interviews speaker Laura Gassner Otting about:
- Hybrid publishing and great book pre-launch campaigns
- Getting momentum in your speaking career
- The three things you can maximize
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Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/sl057-hybrid-publishing-for-professional-speakers-with-laura-gassner-otting/
James Taylor
Hi, it's James Taylor, founder of SpeakersU. Today's episode wasfirst aired as part of International Speakers Summit the world'slargest online event for professional speakers. And if you'd liketo access the full video version, as well as in depth sessions withover 150 top speakers, then I've got a very special offer for you.Just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com, where you'll be able toregister for a free pass for the summit. Yep, that's right 150 ofthe world's top speakers sharing their insights, strategies andtactics on how to launch grow and build a successful speakingbusiness. So just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com but notbefore you listen to today's episode. Hey, there is James Taylorhere and I'm delighted today to welcome onto the show Laura Gassnerorting. Laura is a keynote speaker and author who helps audienceschange agents, entrepreneurs, investors, leaders and donors getpast their doubts and in decisions that consign the great ideas tolimbo. she delivers strategic thinking well honed wisdom catalysticperspective and for my decades of navigating change acrossstartups, nonprofits, political as well as the philanthropiclandscapes, and it's my great pleasure to have her join us today.So welcome, Laura.
Laura Gassner Otting
Hey, James, it is great to be here.
James Taylor
So first of all share with us what's happening in your world at themoment. Why has your focus just now?
Laura Gassner Otting
My focus just now is that I have a book that came out in April, sosix months ago from wherever anybody's watching this it was cameout about five months ago, and I have spent the previous fivemonths just basically, in an all out book launch promotionalcampaign. So what's got my focus is podcasts, media speaking,anything that I can do to get the book and the message in front ofpeople.
James Taylor
Now, I was looking earlier, this is a speaker the challenge a lotof speakers have to think about is do they go the independent routeor do the Self Publishers say or do they go with a big traditionalpublishers that we love penguins and random houses? Or do they do akind of a high Britt type of solution and people like yourself. AndI think like Phil Jones, for example, you've kind of found thisreally interesting hybrid space, which is like it's really workedfor you. So tell us, you know, that's a big decision to make makeyou in deciding you could have, you could have gone with one of thepenguins or big publishers, but you decided to do things in thiskind of hybrid fashion. So why did you make that decision?
Laura Gassner Otting
So this is actually my second book. The first book I wrote was abook called mission driven. And it's about going from profit topurpose, how to go from corporate work to nonprofit work. So Ispent my previous 20 years before getting into speaking as anexecutive recruiter for nonprofit organizations. And I wasapproached about 12 years into that to write this book. And I wasapproached by Kaplan publishing, which is like a big, you know,big, big house, but mostly textbooks. And that experience was suboptimal, I would say and it was sub optimal because the truth is, Iwas a nobody This is they were sort of pre cell into their, intotheir expense. So, you know, they pre printed 20,000 books, theysold them all out before the book was even written. I mean, thatwas sort of how they did it. And when it came time to write thebook that I wanted to write, you know, batches of sort of yourvoice and confidence and, and living a full life, I decided that Iwas still a nobody. And, you know, I'm not Michelle Obama, I'm notBernie Brown. If I go with a wily or Random House or any of thesepeople, I'm not going to get their 18 right, like, I'm not going toget the best marketers, I'm not going to get the best coverdesigners I'm not going to get the best editors I'm not going toget the best advanced I'm not going to do and so I'm already gonnahave to spend my money to, to to purchase outside of their processpeople to market the book and a publicist and designers and aneditor and and so if I you know, you don't want to play with the Bteam, you want to play with the a team. So if I'm going to do this,I'm gonna do with the ATF to hire my own people. So I figured I'mgonna have to do that. Then I might as well keep the you know,massive part To the royalty. So with my book with Kaplan, I think Imake 17 cents a book with the book limitless that I did throughidea press, I, you know, I get, you know, $15 a book. So I spentmoney on the front end because I knew that I could move a goodnumber of books. And I knew that the only way that I could move agood number of books as if I had the a team, if I had a greateditor if I had a great cover design if I had a great publicist.And so, for me, the decision really came down to do I need thecredibility from getting the stamp of approval of a Wiley or aRandom House or whoever. And, and then the second question is, if Iif I don't need that, then do how am I gonna? How am I going tomove the books and you know, what's the sort of outside team thatI'm gonna need to be able to do that? So for me, it was prettyobvious decision.
James Taylor
But it's worked out really well for me. I see. I see the bookeverywhere. I've seen it in a number of places and everything. I'vebeen to airports. I've seen the book as well. And I think I thinkit's a really brave decision that you took as well. Because I'vebeen to a number of speakers as the keynote speakers, especially,that have had the same experience with you maybe going through atraditional publisher, and as you've seen wasn't quite sub optimal.And you're thinking like, Do I go that way? Or should I just stickwith the way that we know this kind of tried and tested routes? Andso I commend you for taking that because it's really paid off foryour your speaking business. And obviously, your as an author?
Laura Gassner Otting
Yeah, well, and if it is, it was an especially brave decision,because when I sold my executive search firm to the team thathelped me build it, I also sold the mailing list of 50,000 peoplethat the database, right, so I literally launched this book on dayone with a mailing list of zero people. So how
James Taylor
did you build that list? I mean, that's worrying because I couldyou know, for something for most of those people that do this, thatthe hybrid model that you've done, they they have a they have adate many years ago in a big list and they're able to and thatthey're speaking to conferences, they can buy 1000 2000 copies ofthe book. So how did you go from Zero, building that list backup.
Laura Gassner Otting
So, um, you know, it's funny because I hired a publicist and thepublicist said, We have never seen a pre launch campaign assuccessful as yours. How did you do it? Like, tell us a joke,because every one of our other authors, every one of our otherpublicists in our house, needs to know how to do it. And I said,honestly, I think I think I just showed up for people for the last48 years of my life. And when I asked them to show up for me, theydid and they did in a really big way. And so I, you know, I thinkwe hear a lot about how we have to have all these, like, prelaunch, you know, bonus buys and things like that. And, and, youknow, I had a conversation with clay bear who I know, you know,and, you know, what he said to me is, look, nobody's going to go toyour website and say, Well, I was going to buy one book, but nowthat I see that I could get this and then the other all by 100,right. That's pre launch bonuses don't really work that well. Whatworked was me calling people up and saying, Listen, I need you tobuy this book, right? Like I put together a video, where it took melike 50 times to try to like do the video that was like, hey, todayis the launch of the pre launch campaign and I need you to buy thisbook, because it's really hard for me to ask for something that Ineed. But finally, you know, the camera guy who I worked with on anumber of other stuff was like, Okay, listen, let me just be supergoofy. Let's take one take with you just being like a totalgoofball, get it out of your system, and then we'll do a real one.So he presses record and I start singing happy birthday to myself,because the pre launch day is February 15, six weeks before thebook comes out on April 2, which is, you know, six weeks, right?Like that's exactly so what this thing is going to drop on mybirthday. So I do this thing where I'm like Happy birthday to meand I start singing. I'm like, here's what I want for my birthday.Please preorder the book and here's why pre ordering the bookmatters. And I explained to people not just I want you to do this,but actually, pre ordering a book helps an author because it showsall the bookstores that this book can move which tells them thatthey should buy it and they should put it in a good place andpeople can Under, stay on that. And so when I did that super goofything, and then he hits, you know, he hits you know, turn to thecamera like, please tell me you got that and he's like I did andthen he starts packing up his camera and I was like, wait, like wehave to do the serious one. He's like, No, no, no, that's the oneTrust me. So I think what happened is I went out and I put it onsocial media and I talked to everybody I knew and I was just me. Iwasn't Hi, I'm Laura Gassner Adi and I'm the author of limitless Iwas just like, Okay, this is ridiculous. I need you to do this onething for me, please. People did. So I think being yourself I thinkasking for what you need. I think explaining why it actuallymatters. It's not just about book sales. It's about book sales inthis pre sale moment, right, like people got it and they understoodthe logic behind it and then they felt like they could be part ofthe success like people want to be on on the boat with you. Theydon't want to just celebrate with you after be like, Oh, great. I'mwaving to you. You know from the side while you're on the paradelike they Want to be on the float with you? They want to feel likethey're part of the growth and the victory and the success. And Ithink I allowed people to see all the behind the scenes in a waythat made them feel part of it. But you
James Taylor
said two things. They're so powerful one was the why coming intothe white piece, you know, obviously, like Simon Sinek start withwhy you can have coming in with that, why, why now, why why is thisimportant? The second point, was that you, you're talking aboutcampaigns, and I guess this is where you have a little bit of asuperpower here, because you have come from the world ofunderstanding or being more political camp, like politicalcampaigns and donor campaigns, fundraising campaigns. And it'ssomething I see a lot from me some speakers but definitely from alot of authors who are maybe not listing speakers is they think interms of promotions, not in terms of campaigning and over a longerperiod of time and how things stack and how you build up like likeany good campaign will do. So. Did you have if I think I've beenavoiding a couple political campaigns in the past and I Go intothose offices campaign offices and they have a big board where theyhave that this is the message board. This is the thing that thisthis what we do today that witness that. So did you for yourcampaign for your book and trying to get this message out? Did yourun it? Did you use experience you've had from politics andfundraising to kind of map out a campaign?
Laura Gassner Otting
Yeah, it's sort of interesting. You asked that because right, as wewere getting on this call, I was literally just texting a friend ofmine who's running for congress in the United States. My Localcongressperson, Joe Kennedy is going to announce in two days thathe's running for Senate, right. So there are as you might imagine,lots of people scrambling around in my district to run forCongress. So I have like five friends that are running forCongress. And one of them I talked to like a month ago and Ialready told her I was like on her campaign. I'm on her financecommittee, whatever she needs. So yesterday, she texts me She'slike, okay, it's starting I need to raise $100,000 today like onday one because that shows all the other people get out of the racecuz I got this right like you have to, there is something aboutthat strong. On show of support early on, that places you inposition where people say, Oh, I want to be part of that, becausethis is this is the winner like everybody wants to join the winner.So I it was important to me to think in that mentality that it'snot just like a slow burn, like it's got to come out. And it's gotto be something because like I said in the beginning, I'm a nobody,like people don't know me. So like my book, debuts at number two onthe Washington Post bestseller list right behind Michelle Obama,but I'm like 9 million books behind her. But the fact that I getintroduced now on stage as key and it's not just number two in theWashington Post bestseller list, it's number two on the Washingtoncoast bestseller list, right behind Michelle Obama, right. Like Iget introduced that way everybody in the audience is like, Oh,she's awesome before I even speak, right. So there's somethingabout having, you know, like, you know, those speakers that get onstage and they're like, they tell a joke, and then the joke doesn'tquite land or like, Come on, guys. That was funny, right? Like, youcould like smell the desperation and it's terrible. The same wayyou can like feel the momentum of a winner, right and everybodywants to be part of that circle. They want to
James Taylor
feel like the big the big mo the big momentum.
Laura Gassner Otting
Exactly. And so I knew that if I was either I was going to either Iwas going to do this book and then I was going to like huffingaround and create some cells in the back of the room. Or I wasgoing to our I was going to have it launched in a way that theconferences wanted to be in the bookstore, right? And they're like,and after the speech, you get a book signing with Laura or thefirst 50 people get her book, like I wanted it to be a hotcommodity. I wanted to be something that people felt special thatthey had. And so I wanted to make sure that I launched it in a waywhere it's sort of you know, you get one opportunity to launchWell, I guess you have to because you have the paperback but ifyou're a paperback author, then you get one. So I knew that I hadone shot to just drive this as much as I could. And what I realizedin that process was that it's it's, it's this moment that I'mcalling wonder Hill, right? Like it's amazing that anybody wants tospend even five minutes thinking Talking about a really interestingthat I wrote. And also, I've never been so exhausted in all my lifelike and I've had two babies and run three marathons, right? Like,it is wonderful and it's hell, it's wonderful. But wonder hell isthat place where the burden of potential comes and like unpacksitself right smack in the middle of your ego and it's like, here Iam. Serve me. And your burden of potential is only as big as yourego. And what I realized is that conference planners and and mediapeople, and and, and publishers and anybody, they like somebodythat doesn't say, oh, would you please maybe think about putting onyour stage, they like people that are like, I'm awesome. I'm gonnarock it. I'm gonna come and I'm gonna transform your audience. Youshould be lucky to have me. I mean, obviously, I don't say tothat.
James Taylor
Because they're there, especially in the event planner side thatalways trying to de risk things for them. They're usually quiterisk, there's a risk averseness because they don't wanna get firedif they're booking a speaker. So they think like, As many proofpoints, as you have you mentioned, like the Wall Street Journal,being on that list just before Michelle Obama, and all those thingsthat you're placing there, and they feel that this this momentum isthis movement behind you. That's so it makes it you know, whenthey're comparing you with maybe two other speakers like, well, weneed to go with Laura because it feels it just feels that this hasto it. This one has the momentum.
Laura Gassner Otting
Right when I started my executive search firm, I had left a big, abig fancy brick and mortar, very traditional search firm. And Istole basically the next generation of leadership from all theother traditional search firm. So we were basically super awesomehigh brand search firm, but like a whole lot cheaper, right?Because I figured out a way to do it differently. I we were avirtual firm, I was paying my people differently. I was charging myclients differently. I left because I knew that I could do the workbetter and faster with more integrity and more profit than thesebig bloated you know, bureaucratic organizations. And for a whilewe were only getting like 50% of the searches that we pitched him Icouldn't figure out why we weren't getting all of them. It was sological to me. Like you either hire this group and you pay apremium or you hire us, which are the same people who did the workthere. And you do it for a lot less. Why aren't you hiring us? Andwhat I realized is that nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM,right? Like, you hire IBM, and they screwed up and you go, I don'tknow, we hired the big guys, and they couldn't do it. But if youhire like the little local, whatever, and it doesn't work, it'slike, oh, well, clearly, you took a chance, and you made a wrongdecision. And so I had to figure out a way to have a show up, as,you know, this sort of super impressive, there's no risk involved,we're going to do the work and we're going to be amazing. And Ithink that's sort of the same. That's sort of the same mindset thatI'm bringing to the to the writing and the speaking is the like, Igot you, right, like I understand you, I understand your audience.And not only is there no risk, it's actually going to be betterthan, you know, the traditional stuff that you've had beforebecause that's really boring. So that means that I need To have thekind of publicist that was going to get me on the Today show whenGood morning American profiled in real simple and Forbes andHarvard Business Review and all the like, you know, we live in thispedigree centric society where everyone's like, oh, okay, checkbox,checkbox checkbox, right? Like, you know, the reason that I'm ableto walk into certain rooms because I was a presidential appointeein the White House checkbox, right. I didn't go to Harvard, but Ihave that, like, you have to have there. There are these. There arethese like shortcuts that people have in their minds? And I thinkit's really important that you figure out who is my targetaudience? Who do I want to sell to? And what are the credibilitymarkers that they're looking for. And once you know, those, thenyou can sort of build, then you can build towards having those andyou don't have to have all of them, you just have to have the onesthat your audience wants. So taking
James Taylor
almost a reverse approach to that. If someone's watching this justnow, and they're they're looking at this, whether it's you'reyou're into what you're saying just now or any of the other guestswe've had on summit, and it's 150 Have them in there. And they'rekind of feeling overwhelmed, frankly, because, well, Laura, she gothis publicist and she had this thing, this thing. And it feels, itcan feel quite overwhelming, especially if you're just gettingstarted. Maybe you're in that executive job just now and you'rewanting to make that place and become that speaker. where someoneis watching that is that is what's in their gut. That's whatthey're feeling just now. Where do they start? Where should theygo?
Laura Gassner Otting
So the very first talk I ever gave, was a TEDx talk. So I was I Isold my company to my team. And then I had this like, super crisisof identity, like Who am I when I'm no longer Laura Gassner weddingCEO. Here's my business card. And so I just started writing a blogand I was just writing about stuff that you know, I was passionateabout, and Tamsin Webster who has been one of the guests on this onthe show. She is the executive producer of TEDx Cambridge. And shecalled me up one day. And I was driving in my car. And I had been Ihad been coaching her about how to leave her company and start herown thing. And so I saw the phone ring, and I knew she was in thethroes of this. And I was like, Oh, no, I got to pick up the call,even though I'm driving, because she might be having an emergency.So I pick up the phone, my kids in the in the passenger seat. So Ientered on speakerphone. And she's like, Hey, I saw this latestblog that you wrote, would you consider doing a TEDx talk on it?And I was like, No way. No way. No, how I have no interest inspeaking that scares the hell out of me. I know. Thank you Goodbye,and hang up the phone. Of course, my kids in the passenger seat.And he turns to me, he's 15 years old at the time, and he's like,so Mom, don't you always tell me I have to do things that scareme.
James Taylor
She was shamed by your child,
Laura Gassner Otting
always telling me that life starts on the other side of the fear.Don't you always tell me if it doesn't challenge me? It doesn'tchange me. It's like so come on, mom. What gives? So six weekslater, I'm standing on the TEDx stage. No notes. No net theatrelights 2600 people go. So you don't have to start with like bigmoney, big publicist, big whatever. I didn't have a speech already.I had a blog post. And it was interesting and it turned intosomething. So all of a sudden, I had this TEDx talk, which hadreally great footage really great. You know, it's a beautiful film.And then that got a little bit of attention. And then I got askedto give the keynote talk for the nonprofit symposium conference inBoise, Idaho, the Idaho nonprofit Center's annual like theirstatewide gathering, and they offered me 1500 dollars and anairline ticket and I thought, I've never been to Boise before. Whynot? So I went and then after that, I got offered another gig andanother gig and another gig and they came with more and more andmore money. And that was the point where I was like, wait, this isa job. People do this. Tell me more about this job right get onstage. I talk about things about which I'm passionate and you payme for them. That sounds awesome. But what I did is in each one ofthose, I invested a little bit of money to hire somebody to filmthem. You can get a pretty cheap film crew in Boise, Idaho to comefilm you speak for 45 minutes. And so I was able to take footagefrom this ragtag bunch of like four or five very early, very earlyspeaking gigs, where they filmed me and got some audience reactionB roll, and I put it together in a speaker reel. And then all of asudden, I was like the Wizard of Oz, right? Like, don't look at theman behind the curtain. She's only been speaking for like 14seconds. But in this in the speaker, I look, I've been doing it for10 years. Right? So that was sort of one flank of the Armada oftrying to figure it out. And then the other one was, if I'm goingto get paid to do this, like a professional, I should probably gettrained to do this, like a professional. Right, so I invested morewith Tamsin Webster to help me build out a team keynote I investedwith Michael and Amy port to help me figure out how to develop youknow, on stage presence and improv and performing, you know, all ofthis stuff. And so and then, you know, I got involved in speakingspill. And you know, and I and I just got to know, I started goingto NSA conferences, and I just got to know other people and I gotto study them and watch what they did. So on the one hand, I didn'twait till I was legit before I started filming myself as legit.Here's the secret. If you're giving a 45 minute or a 30 minute or a20 minute talk, you don't have to have 20 great minutes, you needlike three different one minute bits that are really good that youcan then move into different things I gave a talk in, in Las Vegaswhere they wanted me to do the more junior people in the morningand the more senior people in the afternoon. So rather than go tolunch and sit and eat rubber chicken, I went back to my room Ichanged into a different outfit, and then I went back into thesecond one. So I have because I was in two different rooms with twodifferent backdrops so suddenly I have two more speaking gigs.catch up on my speaker reel that make me look real. So these arethe things you can do. You can do your dress rehearsal in oneoutfit and then your you know the soundcheck in one outfit and havesomebody film it, and then do the actual gig and a second outfit,and then suddenly you have more gigs and more stages. So it'sreally a matter of like, make yourself look legit before you feellike you're really legit. You just need like three or four or fivedifferent bits. You don't need to nail three or four or fivedifferent keynotes, and at the same time work on figuring out howto nail a 45 minute keynote. So you have to do both at the sametime. It's not it's not waiting and I think most people wait untilthey've perfected it before they hire the film crew.
James Taylor
So once once you were kind of getting out there you're now speakingyou're traveling all over the place and doing your speeches. Andthe often comes a point with with speakers where the the start tothen decide what kind of business model that they want to have intheir speaking because there's so many, there's so many differentflavors that you could so when you were kind of starting Decide,okay, this is fun. I'm enjoying this, I feel like I have a I haveability to be able to do some do some really high level. Now, whatis the model, the overall business model? whether other speakersthat you saw out there you said, I liked the way that they've builttheir business or there's particular parts or what what was thedecision you made in terms of your kind of revenue streams how youwanted to what you want to speaking to do for you.
Laura Gassner Otting
So that's been a little bit of a moving target. Because I've youknow, I've only been doing it, as I mentioned for a couple years,so I'm really still pretty new in this in this world. In fact, I,in fact, I gave that a bit three years now. So I gave that TEDxtalk in September of 2016. So it's, I'm, yeah, you're I am threeyear anniversary of being a speaker. And I'm like, you know, makingmoney now. It's like, so it takes a little time. In the beginning.I really thought that it would it would be like what I be speaking,I would sell from stage I get hired to coach, you know, I would dosome writing. And I really wasn't expecting to write a book. Andthen I realized, the people who are there, there are several milesof people there people who just get on stage two, three times aweek, every week, and they speak. And that's all they do. Andthat's, I think that's a really good business model for somepeople. I think I would go crazy if I did that, because I, I, Idon't know how to bring the energy two to three times a week. Youknow, in the same way for that, I think that's kind of exhausting.I also have 15 and 17 year old at home. And so they're at that agewhere they don't really need me. But when they need me, I better bearound. So I do want to be home a little bit, you know, a littlebit more than I'm gone right now. Then I also realize that I'm notscalable. So, you know, when I ran my professional servicescompany, I there was there was a lot of work that I could do, butwe could only grow so much until I hired other people to sort of beproxy versions. Me, and if what you're selling from stage is you,that's kind of hard to do that, you know, unless you get big enoughthat you're like licensing how you do the work and I, I've alreadybuilt that business, I don't want to build another business in thatway. What I really realized that I that I like to do is I actually,I actually love media. I love those moments of the two things Ilove most I love doing live national TV, right? Good morning,America, today's show, etc. like asking questions of people on TVand having them raise your hand or not raise your hand and nottirely knowing what they're going to say but being pretty sure. AndI love live coaching onstage bringing somebody up handing them themic and being like, Here's 60 seconds, tell us your problem. Andwe're going to solve it together in front of like 5000 people,those without a net moments, yeah, where you have personalindividual connection to real people, or where I thrive, like Icome alive more in the QA and and in those live coaching momentsthat I would doing, you know, two, three For gigs a week in frontof 100 people, talking to 10,000 people is so much easier thantalking to 100 people. For me.
James Taylor
It is great that you you've kept going back to that. Who am I?Yeah, what what gives me joy? What gives me passion? Yeah, you talkabout living a limitless life. Yeah, like how to live a limitlesslife with limited hours, I guess. And so you're thinking, Okay, Ican do I mean as a speaker, where you are in your career just now.You can go so many different directions and do so many differentthings with your, your speaking business, your brand as a whole,but it's great that you are taking that time to be reflective andthinking, Okay, I love that. I love that life coaching thing. howcan how do we build something around this and scale as well?
Laura Gassner Otting
Yeah, so for me, you know, I feel like you can do you can do threethings. You can either maximize profitability, you can maximizeimpact or you can maximize your personal flexibility and I havealways in Every job I've ever had, whether it was working in theWhite House or you know, working in a search firm or running my ownor writing or speaking or any of it, I have found that if Imaximize impact the things that I care about doing good work withgood people, right? And if I maximize my own personal flexibility,so I have lots of choices, every time you walk into a door or room,there's like additional doors, then maximizing profitability comesbut sometimes you have to make future money, right? And I thinkthat's the same thing you can go with go back to your firstquestion, you can go with a traditional publisher who's going togive you an advance and you can maximize profitability there or youcan go with a hybrid and know that you are if you can, you canactually make more money later than you know if you if you try toget all the money upfront, I think future money is always biggerthan than then then now money. So I try to maximize impact and tryto maximize flexibility and everything that I do. And I think theway that I've modeled my speaking business is sort of the same. Youknow, you don't get paid money to do lots of media unless you're,you know, like an anchor on you. major TV, but what it does is itgives you social media following social media follow. And andpeople who are signing up to your list give you an opportunity,they give you an audience and then you can sell stuff to them. Soif I create a course then I've got, you know, the reason Jamesclear, had a best selling book immediately is that he spent sevenyears writing and building up an audience and he had 100,000 peopleon his email newsletter list who listened to him every single weekand got great value from him. So when he went out and he's like,here's my pre sale my launch before my book, of course, he likessold 20,000 books the day that he sent out the email saying mybooks coming out in six weeks, please buy it, he sold 20,000 books.That's incredible, right? I'd like to get to a point where I havethat kind of leverage with what I'm doing. And you don't often getthat by maximizing profitability and trying to squeeze every dollarout of every gig. I'd rather say you know, my, my speaking feesrange from x to y, y is full fee. X is like not full fee, but it'sfull. It's some fee plus some amount of book sales or some amountof fun. lineups are some amount of whatever. Because you know,there's lots of ways where you can define value like my price is x,but my value I can get value from lots of different things. So itmight come from, you know, a five cameras shoot it might come from,they're gonna bulk buy 500 books it might come from, I'm on anagenda, you know, on a schedule with Robin Roberts, who is thespeaker right after me, who then sees me and invites me onto theGood Morning America. Right. So like, there are lots of ways toderive value from your speaking gig, which don't always come incash. Yeah,
James Taylor
that's, yeah, that's and you can make those decisions ifprofitability, is it your number one goal, because you'reright,
Laura Gassner Otting
I mean, longer term,
Laura Gassner Otting
right? There's like you need to make like, there's two differentnumbers, right. There's like the need to make number and the wantsto make number and the need to make numbers, table stakes, like wepay our mortgage, you got to put food on the table. But beyondthat, you know, are you going to get your ego in a bunch becausethey're paying you $5,000 and not $10,000 or $15,000, about $20,000or whatever your fees may be or 1000. Maybe they're just flying youout there. But you know, the gig where I got introduced to RobinRoberts, who then put me on national TV, which then brought my bookto number 121 of all of Amazon that day, right? I didn't get paidfor that gig. They brought they flew me out there, you know, firstclass great, wonderful. They bought 500 books. I had those 500books purchased through Barnes and Noble on Fifth Avenue in NewYork. I didn't make any money from those book sales, right? BecauseI could have made a lot of money from those book sales. I didn'tmake any money from those book sales. But if you spend 500, if youbuy 500 500 books, through Barnes and Noble, they'll put you intheir window for two weeks. So all of a sudden, I'm not gettingpaid at all for this for this gig. But I go out. Robin Roberts getsmy book. she invites me on national TV I do it through Barnes andNoble Barnes noble puts me in their window on Fifth Avenue for twoweeks and suddenly I look like I'm the sh*t right? I look like I'meverywhere. I didn't get paid for that gig. So people who are inthe early part of the career they're not entirely sure what to doand they feel like maybe they're not getting where they need to getto because They're not getting paid yet. I want them to rememberthat there are so many ways to get paid, paid for a gig. And theyshould think about what are all the ways that I could derive valuefrom it? Who else am I going to meet? Who's going to hear from me?What kind of logo Am I going to have behind me on that beautifulfilm that I'm going to get that I can put into a real? Are therecorporate sponsors that that have other events is this the, youknow, regional event for, you know, a conference that they havenationally, and I can get into the, you know, into the deal flow?There's so many different ways when you're getting started to getto get paid for gigs.
James Taylor
And I think once again, that goes back to it feels all the time,kind of going back to your all those times you've spent as incampaigning, understanding campaigns, that's a classic kind ofthinking how campaigning, you're thinking is like chess moves, howdoes that thing then relate to that thing? And how can I get it?And so you're always thinking in that way, you're not thinking, oh,I've got something out. I need to just do a quick tweet on it.There's a tactical way you're not you're not you're not going thatway. So I love that way. So there's some final questions. We startto finish up here. You talk about traveling and flying, I'm goingto put you on an imaginary long haul flight. And on that flight,you could be sitting next to any speaker, author, thought leaderliving or dead. You could be sitting next to and having aconversation on this long haul flight. Who would you like to besitting next to?
Laura Gassner Otting
Oh, that's such a great question. Um, I would say Richard Branson,and probably for a couple reasons. First, you know that he's gonnafly really well. Right? He owns the airline. But also He's like,they call him doctor. Yes. Right. Like he, I believe that there'salways a way to say yes to somebody. And if you have to say no,about one thing you can like say no, but I can introduce you tosomebody who might be able to help there's always a way to get toyes. And I'm, I'm I am an unbridled optimist. And so I sort of Ilove his energy. I love what he's done. I think he would like if heI think he would love my book limitless because I think it reallyis. If you if you Richard.
James Taylor
Yeah, nice to meet Richard any virgin? You need to know you need tobe bringing to Necker Island soon.
Laura Gassner Otting
Absolutely. I mean, look, I mean, my book is called limitless howto ignore everybody carve your own path and live your best life whohas done that better than Richard Branson. So I just I just feellike I could learn a ton from him. And I think we would just have awe just have a gangbusters time.
James Taylor
Fantastic. And what if you do recommend one but not one of your ownbooks by book by another author? Do you think any of our speakerswatching just now you think it'd be a very impactful book for themto to read? What book?
Laura Gassner Otting
Do people really recommend their own books? Some people do
James Taylor
something, believe me, some people do.
Laura Gassner Otting
Okay, well, I hope the person who does is Michael Port because I'mgonna recommend his book, which is steal the show, I think, andhere's why. There is the difference between giving a workshop whichmost people have done before they get into speaking is there'sworkshops or didactic They're earnest. You're teaching and and andand keynotes are performing, right, they're motivating, they'reinspiring and the difference is playing big and I think what Ilearned from reading that book is a there is a difference and behow to actually onboard that difference so that I could go fromlike I need to tell you this information to ah, right it's justit's a it's a it's a huge difference and I think that's that wouldbe I think the book I would recommend steal the show by MichaelPorter.
James Taylor
I wasn't your speaker bag wasn't that bag you carry with you to allof your various speaking engagements you never never leave homewithout
James Taylor
a cover up.
Laura Gassner Otting
Pick up
Laura Gassner Otting
um, no I really I'm deodorant. I'm vain. You know I have liked Ireally don't have I really don't. I'm pretty I'm pretty easy. Ijust get on stage and I'm and I'm me. membership. Yeah, there'sthere's usually not any. There's beyond beyond like vanity. I don'tI don't bring anything, because I don't. I don't have like supertechnical stuff.
James Taylor
Yeah, it was funny. I was just I was speaking earlier this week Iwas speaking in Rome in Italy. And the speaker was talking beforeme. She's really she was very good. But she was using some veryinteractive type of app technology at the same time. And she wasgetting the audience to do it as well. And when that stuff works isgreat. It's fine. But when it doesn't, when it doesn't work, and myheart was reaching out, oh, no, because it was just and it wasn'tit really wasn't our fault. It was the internet connection in thehotel venue was being held. And so sometimes, yeah, simple canbe
Laura Gassner Otting
so easy. I've only really started using slides in the last sixmonths, like the big keynote I get from this talk, and my slidesare like big, beautiful photos. They're not like lots of words andthere's no bullet points. There's none of that because I'm not ateacher. I'm a, you know, motivator. And but I gave this the veryfirst time I gave this talk. I gave it in Switzerland at St. John'sUniversity in Switzerland. And I was sort of like my trial to seeif I could do it. And I'm literally three slides into the talk. Andit's like, everything breaks like the battery's dead. I don't know.It's just not working. So I'm on stage. And I'm trying it. And I'mtrying it. I'm trying and finally I just went, and I curtsiedHello, I, I actually, I went away. And I walked over to the to thestool, and I put the little slide remote down and I did a littlecurtsy. And then I went, and I kept going. And somebody came up tome afterwards. And he was like, That was amazing. I've never seenanybody so fluidly handle a technology problem. And you gave thetalk so well without your slides. That was incredible. And I didn'thave the heart to tell him. I actually don't normally use slides.It was easier for me but
James Taylor
most speakers will use the slides as their crutch they and they andonce if it goes for whatever reason, they've got their last andthen You'd like Michael talks about this a lot about really justknowing your what you do back and forth thinking about theblocking, like in like an actor would when you're doing and so sothat was a great suggestion on the book as well.
Laura Gassner Otting
Well though I used to actually I'll tell you one thing I used toactually keep breath mints in my bag because I would vomit before Igave any talk ever. But to Michael's point, like I went from I needto teach you this information to this is the thing that I know inmy soul and I believe so deeply that you have to understand it. Andthat was the difference. I don't get nervous before I speakanymore, because I'm actually speaking from my soul from my corerather than speaking from just my my brain.
James Taylor
Yeah, well, but any apps or online tools you find any particularlyuseful you're traveling a lot obviously as well but and you'redoing a lot of social media. Are there any ones that you findparticularly useful?
Laura Gassner Otting
Um, I mostly I use notion a lot and notion is just sort of likeit's it's basically the way that I communicate with my assistantwho lives you know, in a different state who I I've only met once.It's really just sort of like the board that we have. So everyevery speaking gig gets its own little you know, each column oflike, you know, what dates are held and what's what's there. Andit's a place to just put all this stuff so that I get everythingout of my email box. And I don't miss, I don't miss the details.Um, so I use that that also has like a beautiful little socialmedia calendar. So I can like put the posts that I want to have upand I can write them while I'm, you know, sitting on an airplane,and then the people who do the social media posts can go in andlink to that and see it. And so it's just, it's, we just need oneplace where every would sort of come together. It's like the staffmeeting sight. It's the big whiteboard in the conference room thatwe don't have, because we're a virtual company. So that's reallythe one that I can't live without
James Taylor
motion. And then let's imagine you woke up tomorrow morning, Laura,and you have to start from scratch. You have all the skills or theknowledge you've acquired over the years, but no one knows you, youknow, no one, what would you do? How would you restart things.
Laura Gassner Otting
So I would probably restart things exactly how I restarted how Istarted them when I was 21 years old and ended up in the WhiteHouse, which is take the Salt Lake, the smallest job you canpossibly take in the biggest office, you can get to, like, we havethis idea that we have to walk in as like the highest paid speakerand the top line person in the head of the agenda. And the truthis, you just need to be in the green room, you just need to be inthe door, right? So like, if you're there, and you can, you know,you're like doing a workshop and you're not getting paid for butyou can be in the same green room as Richard Branson, who waskeynoting, you have an opportunity to talk to them, but even moreyou have an opportunity to listen to them, to observe them to hearfrom them to actually get to see how they do what they do. And youcan learn and so I think I think that's why what I would do, Iwould just try to get my I would I would, you know, get coffee,just to be in the room where things happen. Laura,
James Taylor
thank you so much for coming out today. It's been fascinating.Watching your journey which feels like it's happening in a reallyshort compressed period of time. I know. You've all the thingsyou've done in your past which have helped you get to this pointwhere the That experience and that knowledge of campaigning, butwhat you're sharing today about how you launch your book aboutgetting the big the big momentum in your in your career, and alsoabout the idea of moving from just being a teacher to being amotivator and it will be a huge value for everyone watching Sothank you, Laura, thank you so much. And I'm looking forward to ushopefully sharing a stage and and maybe chatting over that cup ofcoffee in a green room together somewhere in the world.
Laura Gassner Otting
And that would be fantastic. Thank you so much.
James Taylor
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