Mic Drop

From Comedy to Keppler (ft. Warren Jones)

Episode Summary

This week on Mic Drop, we're lucky to benefit from the amazingly diverse background that ultimately led Warren Jones to the speaking industry. We'll talk about navigating challenging times and coming out stronger, what a speaker bureau looks like in 2023 and beyond, and what speakers can learn from comedians. (Hint: it's more than just how to land a killer punchline.)

Episode Notes

From Comedy to Keppler (ft. Warren Jones)

An unexpected path brings surprising insights

OPENING QUOTE:

“Thunder applause, everybody on their feet. So happy, just ecstatic. And he said, "Here's the thought I had. I've got to write a new speech.”

-Warren Jones

GUEST BIO:

From a hugely successful career in entertainment, working as a manager at ABC and then at Professional Representatives Organization International, Warren Jones entered the world of marketing to eventually land the CEO gig at EnterWorks. He also launched a successful comedy agency. Later, a casual breakfast meetup with a friend led to an offer to become the CEO of the prestigious Keppler Speakers Bureau. Warren couldn't turn down the challenge, and the rest is history.

Links:

CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:

[15:31] - “I’ve Got to Write a New Speech”

Improving from the top

Warren brings up an inspiring story of a speaker who told him about an experience they had after a speech. They had just delivered their message to a packed room, who erupted in thunderous applause, and this speaker was feeling at the absolute top of their game. In that moment, they thought: “I’ve got to write a new speech.”

This speaker was so focused on ensuring that the response they received — and the quality of their message— never diminished, that even at the absolute pinnacle they could only think about their new leap. That’s the mark of a true pro.

[18:10] - What Speakers Can Learn from Comedians

Efficiency and Connection

In Warren’s experience, comedians often say that writing the first five minutes of a set is the hardest. So many of them work backward — they start with their key beats or punchlines, then build from their destination backward. If something doesn’t help get them there, they cut it.

Meanwhile, comedians intuitively understand that comedy is about connection as much as its about humor. When an audience is tuned into the wavelength of the performer, that’s when real magic happens.

Speakers can learn from both of these lessons: design keynotes around your key points, being ruthlessly efficient in the process, and never forget about the power of connection.

[23:46] - What Do the Greats Do?

Asking Warren what gives speakers staying power

Warren helpfully outlines his example of the perfect pro speaker. She does the event calls and pre-event calls, sometimes more than one. She offers a follow-up conversation. When she walks onstage, she knows the audience — what the hot buttons are, what they may have talked about that morning in another session or the day before. She doesn’t play down to the audience or underestimate them. She interacts early and often with the event planner. She even serves as an ambassador for other speakers. She’s deeply service oriented.

Consider this a checklist for anyone wanting not only a successful speaking career, but a long one.

[36:22] - Substance Over Flash

The past, present, and future of the industry

There was a time in speaking when star power was king. Event planners wanted to draw a crowd, and a marquee speaker was the way to do it. But now events draw their crowds from the quality and relevance of the event itself. That means speakers aren’t the star — their message is. The future of keynote speaking is all about transformative messages that lead to real impact, not recognizable names that ultimately lead nowhere. Content is what it’s all about.

RESOURCES:

[1:35] About Keppler
[40:15] Big Little Breakthroughs, by Josh Linkner

Follow Warren Jones:

Follow Josh Linkner:

ABOUT MIC DROP:

Hear from the world’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing tipping point moments, strategies, and approaches that led to their speaking career success. Throughout each episode, host Josh Linkner, #1 Innovation keynote speaker in the world, deconstructs guests’ Mic Drop moments and provides tactical tools and takeaways that can be applied to any speaking business, no matter it’s starting point. You'll enjoy hearing from some of the top keynote speakers in the industry including: Ryan Estis, Alison Levine, Peter Sheahan, Seth Mattison, Cassandra Worthy, and many more. Mic Drop is sponsored by ImpactEleven.

Learn more at: MicDropPodcast.com

ABOUT THE HOST:

Josh Linkner is a Creative Troublemaker. He believes passionately that all human beings have incredible creative capacity, and he’s on a mission to unlock inventive thinking and creative problem solving to help leaders, individuals, and communities soar.

Josh has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million and is the author of four books including the New York Times Bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming and The Road to Reinvention. He has invested in and/or mentored over 100 startups and is the Founding Partner of Detroit Venture Partners.

Today, Josh serves as Chairman and Co-founder of Platypus Labs, an innovation research, training, and consulting firm. He has twice been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award.

Josh is also a passionate Detroiter, the father of four, is a professional-level jazz guitarist, and has a slightly odd obsession with greasy pizza.

Learn more about Josh: JoshLinkner.com

Episode Transcription

Warren Jones:

Thunder applause, everybody on their feet. So happy, just ecstatic. And he said, "Here's the thought I had. I've got to write a new speech."

Josh Linkner:

Hey, Mic Drop enthusiast. Josh Linkner here. Delighted to be bringing you Season 2 of Mic Drop. I love our conversations with speakers and industry leaders alike so we can unpack the industry and we can all perform better. Let's get after it and get better together.

Maria Cairo:

Mic Drop is brought to you by ImpactEleven, the most diverse and inclusive community built for training and developing professional speakers to get on bigger stages at higher fees with greater impact, faster. They're not just elevating an industry that we all know and love, they work with thousands of speakers to launch and scale their speaking businesses. Accelerating time to success, earning tens of millions in speaking fees, landing bureau representation, securing book deals and rising to the top of the field. To learn more about the ImpactEleven community, schedule a free strategy session today by visiting impacteleven.com/connect. That's impacteleven.com/connect.

Josh Linkner:

You may not know the name Warren Jones, but I'll bet my next speaking fee that Warren Jones knows a whole lot of things that listeners of this podcast want to know, from a hugely successful career in entertainment, working as a manager at ABC and then at Professional Representatives Organization International. Warren entered the world of marketing to eventually land the CEO gig at EnterWorks. Oh, and he also launched a successful comedy agency, apparently just for laughs. Then a casual breakfast meetup with a friend led to an offer to become the CEO of the prestigious Keppler Speakers Bureau. And no surprise to anyone who knows him, Warren couldn't turn down the challenge. This week on Mic Drop, we're lucky to benefit from Warren's amazingly diverse background that ultimately led him to the speaking industry. We'll talk about navigating challenging times and coming out stronger, what a speaker bureau looks like in 2023 and beyond, and what speakers can learn from comedians. Hint, it's more than just how to land a killer punchline. I'm excited to share my conversation with the insightful CEO of Keppler Speakers. Warren Jones, welcome to Mic Drop.

Warren Jones:

It's great to see you, Josh.

Josh Linkner:

I've been so much looking forward to our conversation. You and I go way back as friends and colleagues in the industry, and not as many people, probably don't know you as well as I do. Can you give us a little bit about your backstory? It's interesting, a lot of folks grew up in the industry. You grew up in a related industry and then entered the industry a few years back. I think we would love to hear the story of Warren before we get into what's going on now and Keppler and all that.

Warren Jones:

Super. Well, I can do that. I'll do it very quickly. I have been in the entertainment industry and the tech industry, one or the other for most of my working life. I started with ABC, American Broadcasting Companies. And my roles since then have been in general management. They've been primarily in marketing, but I even took a tour through legal affairs. I've along the way started a comedy agency. I don't run that anymore. The comedians who I call the inmates have taken over the asylum, and surprisingly, that's worked out well. I think it's a Harvard Business case study in the making. But at several of the tech companies I worked for I ran marketing, so that meant I also had corporate events, so it's something that I'm really glad I brought to this job at Keppler is being able to understand, to respect and sympathize, empathize with event planners, having been through that myself.

Josh Linkner:

And so how did you end up at Keppler? You teed up with Jim, and I'm so excited to hear how this all unfolded.

Warren Jones:

I did. I had just run a software company. I was CEO of a software company that I sold, and I decided to just take a complete year off. I said, "I don't want to do anything for a year," and a good friend of mine who was executive recruiter, he was actually the Head of Technology Recruiting at Heidrick & Struggles, so he is a big global player. We've been out of touch for a while and he said, "Let's have breakfast, we'll get caught up." And I had no interest at all at talk him about any jobs and he wasn't there to talk about jobs. It was just a friendship. But in the last five minutes of the breakfast, he said, "What else have you been doing since you sold the company?" And I said, "Well, I started a comedy agency," and he said, "Would that be called booking people?" And I said, "Yes."

And he said, "I've cut somebody else at my firm that's looking for the CEO of a speaker bureau. Would you be interested in that?" And I said, "I'm intrigued, but right now I just don't want to get into anything else." And he said, "Will you meet with a client? Will you meet with my partner?" Which I did. And I met with him and he said, "Oh, you've got to meet Jim Keppler. You've got to meet Jim Keppler." So he and I met and we talked for almost a year before we did anything. I was in no rush. This was his 36-year-old baby that he'd groan to adulthood, so he was in no rush. I was in no rush, and we finally got to the end of 2017, I think it was, and he said, "Hey, let's do this," and I said, "Okay, let's do," so that's how I came to Keppler.

Josh Linkner:

Well, you take over the helm of one of the most notable and respected bureaus on the planet. Jim, of course, is a legend in the industry and a dear friend and someone I admire both personally and professionally. And so now you've got big shoes to fill and a big legacy, but obviously you're charged with taking the bureau in a new modern direction. What are some of the things that you did in the early days as you took over at Keppler pre-pandemic anyway, to continue to grow and expand the legacy that Jim started?

Warren Jones:

A lot of it, Jim continued to work for the company. He was an advisor, so he and I worked side by side and tried to grow parts of the business that had done well, and we saw that there was promise, and so we continued to do that. Obviously recruiting was a big thing. We would go out sometimes together, sometimes I would go out either alone or with my Speaker Relations person and we'd get new talent, and that went well and that helped build the business for sure. We also looked at ways that we could support the agents internally, and we made some management changes. We made some structural changes. There were a couple of things that we did that were, I wouldn't say innovative, but they really helped out operationally to increase efficiency and put us in a better position.

We tried some things that some didn't work out. We tried some new, not really business models, but we tried offerings to speakers or to customers, some of which worked out, some of them still to this day have modified some of our approaches, but it's the trying thing. I mean, it's the fun part. It's some kind of be disappointing part, but we never stopped doing that, of trying some innovative things and just seeing how they land, and sometimes they do.

Josh Linkner:

So it's 2017, you take over, working with Jim hand in hand, growing the business, modernizing certain things, adjusting the customer demands, and then March 2020 hits and the bottom falls out of our industry. You were faced with a huge, like all of us were faced with a massive challenge. I mean, events were shut down or our business was basically closed. How did you navigate those challenging times and how did you come out, and knowing the case, how did you come out stronger on other side of it when so many really struggled to just make it through?

Warren Jones:

Yeah, it was tough because nobody knew what the horizon was. I actually went back and looked at the emails that I had sent to our entire company in those first couple of weeks as we prepared to shut down the office and then did shut down the office. And I thought, "Gee, did I say anything really stupid and off the mark here?" Saying, "We'll be back in 30 days, no sweat." And there was one note I said, "This could take several months," that was probably close to being so far from reality. It was ridiculous. But we have a great college division, and they had done some virtual events, and so our segue to virtual was pretty smooth. We had had some technical glitches in the beginning, but surprisingly it went better than I might have expected. I had an agent come in my office after the thick of it, we were probably in the fall of 2020, came in my office at the end of one day looking really haggard.

He flopped down on my sofa and he said, "I wasn't an agent today. I was a therapist." And I said, "That's okay. That's okay because when this thing is all over, whenever it's over, the customer is going to remember who made it better for them, who tried to make it better and who didn't do that very well." And there were cases, and you and I know those, where people just refused to accept contractual terms. They made a stink about this or that, and that was on the speaking side. It was on the customer side, it was on the bureau side. But we got through that and we developed actually some really good relationships, stronger relationships with customers because of that. But it was a gut-wrenching time. It really was.

Josh Linkner:

So you emerged from the pandemic, and now as I understand, your business seems to be really cranking. Not that there aren't daily struggles, of course, there are in any business. But my observation anyway is that you have done a terrific job of leading Keppler, this rich history of integrity and performance into a new era. And maybe just share a little bit about what Keppler looks like today in terms of the structure, the team, the exclusive versus non-exclusive. What's the current peak behind the curtain of Keppler Speakers?

Warren Jones:

Okay. We've got about 40 employees and they are great. I mean, the expertise in this company is just mind-blowing. We've got people who have been event planners, so they're in line, like I mentioned earlier, they've got empathy for the people who have some of the toughest jobs in our industry, but we've got a team of about a dozen agents. We've got some people focused on the college side of things, Performing Arts Center's Universities, and then the rest of the-

Warren Jones:

... side of things, performing arts centers, universities, and then the rest of the agents are on corporate and association customers.

We meet at least once a week on a product, on new speakers or existing speakers. How can we approach things differently with them? Where are new accounts that we might be able to open with speakers? That has been probably where I've learned the most about the industry, just in those brainstorming sessions. I love newer people, newer agents being part of that too, because that's the quick way to learn this. That's been tough about being virtual instead of in person in the office because you don't hear the hallway conversations, and we continually try to find ways around that to bring everybody up to speed on anything that's going on in the industry.

We've got a real good team of what we call business support associates, and those are people who support the agents. They're looking for new business as well. They do a lot of research, which is really helpful and help make the contractual process as easy as possible for the customers as well.

We've got a good marketing team. We just brought somebody in recently who came out of the publishing side, and so she's used to taking 20 leadership speakers and differentiating them in copy that she's used for proposals and promotion. It's great. We've got a good IT team that keeps us running. We've got a service team, we call them customer and speaker engagement managers. That's great.

My understanding is Kepler, long before my time, actually was the first bureau to introduce that role. They handle so many of the logistics. They work miracles to get a speaker from point A to point B, forget what the weather is, they've got the backup, the backup, the backup plan to get those speakers where they need to be and do a lot of back and forth with the customer. They're a really important part of our business.

We often have an event planner. We'll say to the CSC after the event, "Hey, who you got next year?" They don't even think about, well, actually the agent is ready to talk to them about eventually the business is guided back to the agent, but that's the value they put on the CSEs, and it's a great team.

Overall, our employees, a lot of them have been with us for literally for decades. We have 10 year, 20 year, 30 year, we have a 40-year employee, so there's a tremendous amount of institutional knowledge and industry knowledge that we bring to bear. That's Kepler in a nutshell.

Josh Linkner:

I have a question for you, and it applies to both what you've done at Kepler and you're facing it and what we're, as speakers, facing the same thing. How do you balance tradition with innovation? On the one hand, take it from a speaker perspective. Let's say I've given my keynote, everyone likes it. I know when the laughs are. I can deliver with confidence, I can adapt it as needed, but it's like a singer performing her own songs, same songs again and again. Eventually that's not expanding one's body of work, it's relying on your greatest hits.

On the other hand, we want to push the boundaries. We want to try new things, but there's also risk that comes with it. There's a lot we can learn from history. Here you are, you take over this agency that is steeped with history, you mentioned a 40-year team member, for example, that were used to doing things a certain way, how do you balance preserving the integrity and the foundation that was there with the new opportunities ahead and those areas that need true reinvention in the business?

Warren Jones:

A lot of it is just consuming everything I can see, I can hear, I can have conversations with. That drives a lot of it. There are things that we have done for many, many years and we continue to do, but they work. Sometimes we'll refine them a little bit, but what works is the core of what we do and we've proved it over and over again.

It's not that we're looking for innovation that way, we better innovate or we're not looking good. We've got to do new things just for the sake of doing new things. That said, we still find changes in the industry that we're trying to adapt to, or it could be something outside the industry, the economy or that thing called COVID that you mentioned earlier. We moved very quickly to adapt to that. We feel like we're able to do that in other areas as well.

What you bring up, you talk about a speaker, I had a speaker call me last year. It was one of the most amazing conversations I had where he had just come off-stage. He said, "I was walking across the stage headed toward the exit, thunderous applause, everybody on their feet, so happy, just ecstatic." And he said, "Here's the thought I had. I've got to write a new speech." I thought, why would that be the thought you would have right at that moment? He said, "I don't ever want to have that walk with the applause not quite as good as it had been before. Maybe the people are slower to get on their feet." He said, "I don't want to get to that point, ever. I want to take this euphoria and keep doing it." He literally went and rewrote his speech and crafted a new topic. That's great.

Over the history of the entertainment industry, there's so few people who are constantly reinventing themselves successfully. It just doesn't happen. They're the rarity. I thought that was an amazing moment in this industry that he just said, "At the top of my game and I realized, nope, I got to write something new."

Josh Linkner:

Well, that's definitely the mark of a professional and someone who's going to be a legend, not just someone who's a one-hit wonder. I think about comedians, and of course your background representing talent, not in lectures, but in comedy. Great comedians do that. I've seen great comedians let go of their old jokes to discover new ones. What are some of the other things that you've learned from the world of comedy, different type of stage skills, different type of performing art that we can apply and learn as speakers?

Warren Jones:

Great question. Great question. In terms of advice that I would give a new speaker, I can't overstate the need to have a brand, to build your brand. You can't do that right out of the gate. You may not know brand is a $10 marketing word. Maybe you think you have a brand, maybe you don't. If you don't have a brand, you do have a brand by the fact you don't have one.

But very often in comedy, people starting out in comedy will struggle with that first five minutes of material. It's harder than it sounds. It's tough to do that first five minutes. What do you do next? You do the next five minutes, and you start to build it out. But there's a moment, some comedians have experienced it sooner than others where you find your voice, you really find your comedy voice. That begins to really guide you as to what material to develop, what direction to go in.

I completely can apply that to speakers as well. It's almost when you write a speech, if you have the takeaways in mind first and almost reverse engineer back from that, then you know, hey, don't include this. This doesn't advance the story, but I do need to beef up this part of it. It really helps guide you. It's an efficiency, but that brand concept certainly applies from comedy just as it does over into the speaking industry.

Josh Linkner:

Love that. I mean, another observation that I have ... because I studied comedians also. I feel like we can learn as performing artists from lots of different genres of performing art. One thing that often keynote speakers do is they think their job is to just communicate information, just share knowledge. Comedians, one thing they're great at is timing. The difference between a joke landing with thunderous laughter and applause and falling flat is sometimes isn't the words at all, it's the timing. It's that delicious pause right before the reveal. To me, there's so much that we can learn from comedians, even late night hosts, on the way they time when's the laugh line? What's the rhythm? Do you accelerate the speed, do you bring it down? Just getting into the technical aspects because I know you geek out like I do on it, any other things that you think we, as speakers, can learn from those in the world of comedy?

Warren Jones:

Well, if I'm starting to write a speech, if I'm a new speaker, I think about the way a lot of comedians will craft new routines, new bits. They will actually start with the strongest joke they have as the opener, which is good, you want that strong opening, but then they'll take the next funniest joke and put it at the end, and then back and forth, back and forth. You see where I'm going with this. They're really building out. You've got to have that strong beginning, you've got to have that strong close. To be able to balance your material out that, just like a speaker would balance their content out, that's a helpful thing. But the timing is so important, and even the word choice. A single word, if you want to nail a phrase and you want it to stick with the audience, the wording of that phrase is so important.

I remember one time I was sitting in a green room one time and there were three comedians in there, and one of them had an idea for a joke. Comedians can be very competitive. They can be trying to one-up each other all the time. But here was this guy trying to craft this joke to refine the joke. Man, the other two comedians were all over him. They were bent over reading this, "Hey, change this word. Pause right here, just right here." You could say the line five times, and it sounded like it was a completely different line only because one tiny moment of hesitation is just, say, it made the difference or one word choice in a 22-word line would make all the difference. It really is, again, a parallel between comedy and speech writing.

Maria Cairo:

Becoming a keynote speaker is an amazing profession. The top performers earn millions while driving massive impact for audiences around the world. But the quest to speaking glory can be a slow route with many obstacles that can knock even the best speakers out of the game.

If you're serious about growing your speaking business, the seasoned pros at ImpactEleven can help. From crafting your ideal positioning, to optimizing your marketing effectiveness, to perfecting your expertise and stage skills. As the only speaker training and development community run by current high-level speakers at the top of the field, they'll boost your probability of success and help you get there faster. That's why nearly every major speaker bureau endorses and actively participates in ImpactEleven. The ImpactEleven community provides you unparalleled access to the people, relationships, coaching-

Maria Cairo:

Parallel access to the people, relationships, coaching and accountability that compresses your time to success. To learn more about the ImpactEleven community, schedule a free strategy session today by visiting impacteleven.com/connect. That's impacteleven.com/connect.

Josh Linkner:

So those are some things that performing artists do on stage. I want to shift the conversation to what we can do off-stage to get on stage in the first place. And at Keppler you work with some amazing roster of speakers, both external or both independent speakers like me and exclusive speakers like my friend Alison Levine. So I was thinking about Alison, who's fabulous on stage as we both know, but she's also fabulous off-stage.

I mean she's really thoughtful in terms of her relationship with you and the team at Keppler and clients alike. So when you think about an Alison who stood the test of time or other exclusives of yours that have stood the test of time, what are the hallmarks of those professionals? What are the things that they do again and again that cement their position in the industry rather than being a one and done type act?

Warren Jones:

Great question. The greats and Alison is one of those, really understand the audience. And it's just a cliche, know your audience but it is more than that. When I hear an event planner that was disappointed with a speaker that had performed so often the comment back will be, "We thought we were going to get X and we got Y." And to me that's a classic example of they didn't connect with the audience, they didn't prepare enough, they didn't listen to the audience.

Alison's great at that. She does the event calls, pre-event calls. She may do more than one. She may have a follow-up conversation, but when she walks on stage, she knows that audience. She knows what the hot buttons are, they know what they may have talked about that morning with another session or what they talked about the day before. That's really good.

Alison does not play down to the audience. And that's another advice I give speakers is know the audience but never underestimate them. If there's anything the audience can see through quickly, it's that and you pay a price if you do that. And she's very good at that. The rest of it is just the interaction on stage, excuse me off-stage, with the event planner before and after the event. I love going to events with her.

A lot of interaction with a event planner in a very good way. And I'll tell a Josh Linkner story, you and I hooked up over at Gaylord one time. You were giving a speech over there for us and you came down early, you and I had coffee. We went back upstairs and they were adding rows of seats to the ballroom. And I remember you asked the event planner, do you need help? And she said, "Oh no, of course not."

She wasn't going to involve you in that. But the look on her face when you said that, you could tell she was in love. She was like, "Wow, this is what this experience should be." Not standing back in the green room going, "That's 10 minutes. Where is the speaker?" This is not the stress I want to go through. So Alison's great at that. She does that time and time again and she's what I call over and over again an ambassador type speaker.

She's an ambassador to Keppler. When she steps off the stage, our agent can follow up and say, "Hey, you might like this speaker." And great, we have those relationships with our customer. But if Alison steps off the stage and says to the event planner, "Oh, I'm so glad you liked me. Hey, you might also like Kirk Lippold. You might also like Theresa Payton. You may like another speaker that we have."

That's pure gold and we love her for that.

Josh Linkner:

So good. And just staying with Alison for a minute, she is someone who's really deeply service oriented. She's there to serve and contribute and give, not be self-aggrandizement and take the opposite of that, which again is one of the things that I think has propelled her to the remarkable success that she has enjoyed.

The other thing that's remarkable about her is I know a lot of folks that are exclusive with wonderful bureaus and that's a great relationship. You mentioned the word ambassador. I've never seen someone be so excited about... She will say I work with Keppler. She just beams about this relationship. And so again, kudos to you and her for forging such a long-term and indelible relationship.

I wanted to ask the opposite question though. When have you maybe had a speaker that was an exclusive, you had high hopes and it fizzled, didn't go in the right direction? Obviously you don't have to name names, but I'm trying to help those listening in today, decode what should you not do in addition to what you should do?

Warren Jones:

It's always an unknown anytime you go into the market with a new speaker or a speaker who may have been established over the years, but now become exclusive with us. And time and time I've said, here's the fee we think you should go out at. Here's the type of things we think you should talk about, but only the market will tell once you go out there. And a lot of times you're satisfied with what happens, you're surprised in a very positive way.

Other times it's a mix of factors that contribute to somebody not taking off. And so often speakers will approach me and they'll say a lot of times it's a referral. They'll say, "I know so-and-so, they're a good speaker. You should take a look at them. They're a good speaker. Or I'm a good speaker. You should take a look at me as exclusive. I'm a good speaker."

And I almost internally am saying to myself, "I'm sure you are. I'm sure they are a good speaker, but what does good mean?" And a lot of it is I think a misunderstanding of what bureaus do. We are salespeople, yes, but a lot of people think that's all we do. That if you get on the Keppler roster, you're going to be sold to an event planner. Well, nobody ever bought a house that they didn't want to live in.

If the event planner doesn't want that speaker, it's not like we got to start selling harder. At the end of the day, we're brokers, we're more brokers. We value the relationship with the customer, we value the relationship with the speakers and we're doing the best we can for both those parties and bringing them together in more broker relationship. So again, but back to your question, sometimes the magic happens, sometimes it doesn't.

You always dig back in and say, "What's missing here? Which of the little dials that you can turn in? There are a lot of them. Are we not turning high enough or should we back off another place?" It really is an art form as well as a little bit of science, but more art form.

Josh Linkner:

I love the analogy about the house because you're right. I mean you can have the best realtor in the world and if the house is ugly and smells bad, no one's buying it or if it's price strong or whatever else. And so that's on us as speakers. We're not just whisk off to fame and fortune the minute we're listed on Keppler's website. We have to be a good product.

Additionally, we can't leave demand gen only to our bureau friends. You can put us in a proposal, but really we as speakers are partners in that process. We have to create demand that influences the channel, in the broader sense, gets people talking about our business. So I totally agree. That's a really smart analogy. Speaking of that, you mentioned you do recruiting and I know a good chunk of your business is exclusive.

You work with non-exclusive like me also, which is awesome. But when you're out there looking for that next exclusive, I got to believe that for every slot that you have, there's 50 people that want that slide. What are the criteria that you're looking for? What helps you understand this is a fit for us versus maybe a great human being, great speaker, but not a fit for us?

Warren Jones:

Right, exactly. The first is category and content. What category are they in? Investment bankers are always saying [inaudible 00:30:08] they want to know, and we do a little bit of that too. Where is there a space open on the shelf that we currently don't have? But it's more than just the category and content. It could be fee. We could have some great speakers.

It could be our exclusive speakers that are booking out there 50 grand, but we've got a customer demand for that topic at 25 grand. Well, we're not going to discount the speaker who's making good money on a regular basis. So it may be a question of, "Yeah, we're going to fill a slot. You're a very good speaker. We think we can get more business out of you. You're a partner with us.

You're going to bring us some business. But that fee is very attractive to us." We were looking at speakers like that in an agent meeting actually this morning in terms of that would fill a slot, that would fill a hole where it's a fee question that plays better. Sometimes it's a cultural fit.

There are speakers that are very few, but some that have been difficult to work with and there's a point and all bureaus can tell you stories about it, where you just get to the point going, "This isn't worth it. It's not worth it for us, it's not a good fit. We see it as a potentially bad fit at times with a customer. We can't have that. And things will... We'll part friends, but we will part. It won't go through, but we're looking for a partnership."

It's a word that's bandied about, but as Alison is a true partner and the ambassador, we look for that in people. What business can you bring in? What other speakers may you bring in if it's the same category, you know somebody else that is out speaking. We get tremendous amount of referrals from our exclusive speakers. Alison is number one. She's very active in, "Hey, I spotted some talent here.

I was at a conference and four speakers spoke, but hey, this one other one I think you really ought to take a look at." And we've done that and we've signed them. So it's a good data point kind of in trying to decide do you want to work with this exclusive speaker? It's a number of those things. Fee, content and category and what gap we have that may need to be filled.

Josh Linkner:

While we're on the subject of exclusives, I'd love for you to give some coaching. I'm sure you've had this conversation with speakers over the years of when it's a good time for a speaker to consider an exclusive relationship with Keppler or anybody. There are sometimes maybe it wouldn't make sense based on where they are goals wise, fee wise, volume, whatever.

There are some cases that it maybe makes perfect sense. What advice do you have to the speakers considering an exclusive relationship, if they're currently independent? When might it make sense for them to explore?

Warren Jones:

A lot of it is their goals. What are they looking to do? How many speeches a month would they like to do? How many speeches a year? One thing that I think we overlook a lot in the industry is that...

Warren Jones:

... that I think we overlook a lot in the industry is that speakers have such different backgrounds, and it's not just a background, but I'll give you an example. We've got a speaker who has a day job. He'll say, "25 dates, I'm out. I really can't do any more than that." And we get it, that's fine. We work around that. We've got others who do speaking as a full-time job, and I'll get phone calls from that speaker, "Hey, June of next year is looking a little white. What's going on there?"

So, it's everything between, so we really talk to speakers. We really ask the right questions, I think. How many do you want to do? What's your availability? What else is going on in your life? Are you trying to do some consulting or is it just speaking that you want to do? Do you have a day job? Do you not have a day job? It really makes a difference and whether there's potentially a fit and a reason to go exclusive. A lot of people, you've got a great back office I call it. Some speakers don't have that. Some speakers do have that and are happy as can be on a non-exclusive basis, but that factors into it.

We see people, and actually I see this in the comedy world, I've got comedians that they're at the level in their career where they can't afford to have publicists and media experts and everything working with them. And yet they're so good that they need to get to that level and once they do, they can have those people come in. But now they're at the point where they can't quite afford that extra help. I see speakers in the same boat and they'll come to us and say, "I don't need you just to be my back office. I want the industry seasoning that you bring. I want the promotional stuff that you can do, the connections you have, the established customer base you have, but it would be a real relief if I didn't have to handle the business end of things."

So, that's one of the questions we would ask in one of the evaluation criteria. I think that the speakers should have exclusive versus non-exclusive. There's some real advantages to doing exclusive when it's a right fit. You get the seasoning of the bureau. We're always watching the market. We have a liaison in the company, one of the agents or I'm a liaison for a couple of speakers. We'll be the point person for that speaker, that exclusive speaker. And so it's on us to promote that speaker internally, to watch the market. "Here's some opportunities you're not pursuing right now. Here's a new topic maybe that you should go into." That kind of thing that comes out of the exclusive agency relationship is a powerful, powerful effect.

Josh Linkner:

Super helpful. As we round out our conversation today, Warren, I'd love to shift our focus to the future. I love that you are in the position that you are in now with not only the heritage of Kepler, but the fresh eyes of coming in only 2017. You come from a tech background and comedy and such. Imagine that you and I are sitting having a glass of wine 10 years from today. By the way. I hope we will be.

It's on me, but so we're having some delicious wine together, hanging out and reflecting on this last 10 years. What do you think materially has changed in the industry, whether it's the formats, the tech, the bureau relationships, the buyer preferences? What do you think we'll look back on and reflect on the most significant changes 10 years from now that we'll be looking back to today's conversation?

Warren Jones:

Yeah, there's probably going to be a lot of things that happen between now and then that replace these. Right now, when I think about how the industry has changed in the last couple of years, the move toward more substance than flash is the way I put it, is just going to continue. It's something we knew all along. People want speakers who have real content to deliver, but I talked to an event planner the other day and she said, "I'm not going to hire pure celebrity to get seats filled on the first day of a conference." She said, "Now if the celebrity has content, absolutely, we'll do it." But a lot of her attendees had told her, "I'm not even going to come to the opening keynote unless there's content. I'm not going to come just for the gee whizz factor." So, I think that's been a movement.

The formats have definitely changed and I think they'll continue to evolve. We see a lot of moderated Q&A now that we're booking, and it's great. It's a win-win to everybody. The speaker says, "Hey, now I'm confident, I'm customizing my stuff for you because ask me anything you want and I'll respond to that." They're easy to set up and we've seen even some changes in that recently where the customer has come back and said, "Well, can you do 20 minutes? Do a nice 20-minute keynote, and then go into moderate Q&A or audience questions." So, that's great.

Short-term bookings, virtual bookings. Once a quarter probably I'm on a call, a Zoom, with other bureau heads. I call it the Mafia families. We all get together and we compare notes. But I remember back at the beginning of last year, probably the year before, we thought, "Okay, virtual is going to just drop off to the point where it's insignificant." It didn't happen. It kind of plateaued for most bureaus and continued to be in play. The short bookings, we thought that would go away. I got a booking the other day, literally 12 days from the time I got the phone call a speaker was available, could go and do the date. I think those who will continue, I think virtual will have a play in different ways.

People talk about, well, is it a hybrid event or not? Meaning is half the audience not in the room? Well, is the speaker in the room or not in the room? 10 years from now, I'm looking forward to us getting together. I think one of the things we're going to spend most of our time talking about is how AI transformed this business. Because AI, I ask people, "Tell me what part of this business wouldn't be impacted by AI." The content development, the choice of topics, the analysis of content, the development of content, the analysis of the market. AI will impact the customer experience. Every part of our industry will be impacted by AI, I'm convinced.

Josh Linkner:

Couldn't agree more. I mean, it's funny, I'm a quasi tech guy, as you know. I've started a few tech companies in my day and when I saw the internet come out, I started a company in 1995 and it was pretty clear the internet was going to change everything. Since that time, there's been major tech, advancements, mobile, social, crypto, et cetera. I think AI is the single biggest transformative technology since the internet itself.

And you're right, it will change the way that we sell speeches, deliver speeches, take care of clients, et cetera. I'm glad that you're on the forefront of it and I think it's a lovely place to leave our conversation that with your continued leadership and high integrity, coupled with that forward-looking tech focus, I personally believe that Kepler's best days are yet to come, and I sort look forward to celebrating that 10 glass of wine with you, my friend.

Warren Jones:

Oh, that'd be great. I'm going to ask you a question though before we leave. Josh, are you playing the music at the opening to your podcast? Is that you?

Josh Linkner:

Thank you for asking that. That is not me on the podcast. Although fun fact, in my most recent book, Big Little Breakthroughs, when I did the audio-book, I played a little jazz guitar in between every chapter and I didn't tell anybody about it until the very end. So, if you made it to the end of the book, it's like, "Hey, surprise. If you enjoyed the jazz along the way, that was me." So, not for the podcast, but maybe I'll consider that for season number three.

Warren Jones:

That's great. That's great because I want to say if there's an Impact 11 house band and they're looking for representation, just, hey, you know a guy, okay?

Josh Linkner:

Well, that's all you. Game on, my friend. All right, man. Thanks again for joining us on Mic Drop and look forward to our next conversation, both in person and online.

Warren Jones:

Thank you, Josh. It's been a blast.

Josh Linkner:

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a guest with a background in entertainment would be so, well, entertaining. But beyond being damn good fun, Warren also dropped insights left and right. Here are a few of my favorites. Number one, who would've thought that comedians are the unsung keynote speaking gurus? According to Warren, it's not just that they know how to nail a joke, it's that they know how to turn the technical aspects of their delivery into magic. Slowing down a line here and there, changing your delivery a little bit, it can make all the difference between an okay keynote and one that blows the room away.

Number two, Warren also reminded us that in times of chaos, it's all about grooving with the changes. He's a champion of real-time adaptation, big-hearted empathy, and not being afraid to take big risks like say, jumping into the speaking industry after years in the entertainment field. And number three, Warren keyed us into what's new in the world of bureaus through the lens of Kepler. He says, innovation is the name of the game. If you're not constantly looking for new ways to do what you do better, it may be time to make a change.

Thanks my friend, for your industry leadership, professionalism and generosity of spirit. Thanks for sharing a Costco sized portion of ahas. And thanks to everyone out there who's building a speaking practice to take your message to the world, to make a meaningful difference in the lives of so many people, so you can share your own ahas with humanity. How cool that we all get to be in the aha business. No matter how big the challenges may feel, we get to go change the minds and hearts of thousands of people inspiring them to action. I can't imagine a more worthy pursuit.

Thanks so much for joining me on another episode of Mic Drop. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. If you love the show, please share it with your friends and don't forget to give us a five star review. For show transcripts and show notes, visit micdroppodcast.com. I'm your host, Josh Linkner. Thanks so much for listening, and here's to your next mic drop moment.