West Coast (Bureau) Innovation (ft. Ken Sterling)

Mic Drop

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1+ y ago 42:00

MP3•Episodio en casa

West Coast (Bureau) Innovation (ft. Ken Sterling)

OPENING QUOTE:

“I'm a homeless kid from New York who wants to connect and wants to be around people, and wants to be safe myself, and wants to make the world a safe place. And really my true north is people and living a positive, collaborative lifestyle with the people that I care about and that help make the world a better place.”

-Ken Sterling

GUEST BIO:

Ken Sterling is Executive Vice President and Chief Learning officer of BigSpeak, the largest speaker bureau on the West coast. Ken is famous for designing BigSpeak's Bureau Alliance Program, which has revolutionized the way speaker bureaus collaborate and work together to create more abundance and exposure for their exclusive speaking clients.

Ken holds a PhD in organizational leadership, an MBA, a master's in communication, and a JD. In addition to his leadership role in the speaking industry, Ken also teaches marketing and business ethics and law at UC Santa Barbara.

Links:

CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:

[15:09] - Disruptive Innovation

How BigSpeak built and scaled unlike anyone else

If you want to innovate and truly make your speaking career into something powered by rocket fuel, you can’t take five half-steps. You need to choose one or two pursuits, and then pursue the hell out of them with an all-in mindset. Don’t half-embrace new technologies or new ideas. Embrace them all the way, then pivot if you need to. That’s how Ken helped BigSpeak innovate in a big way.

[22:22] - What a Buyer Wants

It’s more than the topics

Buyers today want authenticity. They want unique perspectives, including those from diverse voices. They want speakers to demonstrate their capability not just onstage but in writing and other areas of your career. It’s about more than just matching a specific topic. It’s about representing something that a buyer can’t find in any other speaker.

[23:33] - The Other Pandemic

“Unprecedented times” indeed

Everyone focuses on COVID as the biggest shift to the speaking industry in recent memory. But to Ken, the bigger transformation was the shift toward more diverse and inclusive voices. In a world post-George Floyd and other events spurring conversations about marginalized voices, the speaking world is finally moving beyond the “white old guy in a suit” model for all speakers. There is — and has to be — room for diverse voices.

[29:40] - The One Thing

Setting yourself apart as a speaker

Ken advises that if a speaking topic is too broad, an audience won’t feel like they’re getting something new out of the hour they devote to your performance. Meanwhile, having a “one thing” which Ken calls your “zone of genius” helps set you apart in a crowded market, more than being the 1,000th speaker promising to simply “boost productivity.”

[35:24] - Find Your True North

The missing ingredient for many speakers

Too many speakers begin from a place of identifying what’s hot in the speaker world, then trying to go after that. Instead, Ken advises that speakers start with what they truly own and have mastered — and are excited by! — and then finding a way to match that message to the current zeitgeist. Buyers want someone who truly owns their message, not someone who is following the latest trend.

RESOURCES:

[1:30] About BigSpeak
[23:07] Ken’s INC Column

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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