Michelle: Most people think public speaking is about being a charismatic, captivating performer. What if the secret to getting paid to speak is actually about being a really good plumber? Mark: A plumber? Okay, I'm intrigued. Are we talking about fixing leaky faucets with rhetoric? Because my sink has been making a weird noise. Michelle: (Laughs) Almost! It’s about fixing problems, just not the plumbing kind. We're diving into The Successful Speaker: Five Steps to Take Your Speaking Career from Zero to Paid by Grant Baldwin. And he argues that the best speakers are less like rock stars and more like expert problem-solvers. Mark: That’s a relief, honestly. The idea of having to be some kind of stage god is terrifying. Michelle: Exactly. And this isn't just theory from an ivory tower. Baldwin is the founder of The Speaker Lab, a company that has coached thousands of speakers. He built his own multi-million dollar speaking career from scratch, starting with a single, life-changing $1,000 check he received for speaking at a 4-H youth conference. Mark: Wow, a 4-H conference. Not a global TED stage. That makes this whole thing feel way more attainable. So, what is this 'plumber' idea all about? Where does a hopeful speaker even start?

Michelle: Well, that’s the perfect question because it leads right to Baldwin's first, and maybe most important, principle. He says that speaking doesn’t start with what you want to say. It starts with the problem you want to solve. Mark: Hold on, that feels completely backward. I always thought you start with a passion, a message, something you're dying to tell the world. Michelle: And that passion is important, but it's not the starting point for a business. Baldwin tells this fantastic story about a woman we can call 'Sarah.' She was an experienced communicator, polished, confident, had years of public speaking under her belt. But she was struggling, she just wasn't getting booked for paid gigs. Mark: I can see that. You can be great at something but still not get hired. What was she doing wrong? Michelle: Baldwin met with her and asked her one simple question: "What problem are you solving?" And she was stumped. She couldn't give a clear answer. She could talk about her topics, her passions, her experience, but she couldn't articulate the specific pain point she was healing for an audience. Mark: Ouch. That’s a tough moment of realization. So all her fancy slides and witty jokes didn't matter because she wasn't actually fixing anything for the audience? Michelle: Precisely. The event planner, the person who hires you, isn't thinking, "I need a charismatic person for 45 minutes." They're thinking, "My sales team is burnt out and their numbers are dropping. I need someone to solve that problem." Or, "Our students are anxious about the future. I need someone to solve that problem." You, the speaker, are the solution. You're the plumber they call for a specific leak. Mark: Okay, that clicks. It shifts the focus from "look at me" to "how can I help you?" It’s a service, not a performance. So how do you actually define that? It still feels a bit abstract. Michelle: He provides a brilliant, simple formula for it. A clear problem statement should follow this structure: "I help [GROUP] do [TOPIC] so they can [SOLUTION]." Mark: I help GROUP do TOPIC so they can SOLUTION. Let me try one. I help podcast listeners… avoid boredom… so they can feel a little bit smarter during their commute. Michelle: (Laughs) Perfect! You’re hired. But you see how clear that is? Let’s take a real example from the book. Instead of saying "I speak about productivity," which is vague, you say: "I help corporate executives [the GROUP] maximize their productivity [the TOPIC] so they can spend more time with their families [the SOLUTION]." Mark: Whoa. The second one has an emotional core. It's not just about spreadsheets and efficiency hacks; it's about getting home for dinner. You can immediately see who would hire that person and why. Michelle: Exactly. That one sentence tells an event planner everything they need to know. It defines your audience, your expertise, and the tangible, desirable outcome you provide. It’s your entire business model in a nutshell. And according to Baldwin, until you can state that sentence clearly, you don't have a speaking business. You have a hobby. Mark: That is a powerful, and slightly terrifying, line in the sand. It forces you to be incredibly specific. You can't just be a "motivational speaker" for "everyone." Michelle: You can't. He tells his own story of starting out. He was a youth pastor. He could have just said "I talk to kids about leadership." But that's not a problem. He had to figure out what problem event planners for, say, student conferences were trying to solve. They needed someone to engage a skeptical teen audience and give them practical tools for leading clubs or projects. He became the solution to that specific problem. Mark: It’s so much less about ego. It’s about empathy. You have to deeply understand a group's struggles before you can even think about stepping on a stage. Michelle: That's the entire foundation. And once you have that, once you know what kind of 'plumbing' you do, then you can move on to the next, much more daunting part. Mark: Okay, so I've figured out my 'plumbing specialty.' I'm ready to fix some leaky leadership pipes or clogged creativity drains. But how do I get people to hire me? Do I just put my brilliant problem-solving sentence on a website and wait for the phone to ring?

Michelle: I wish it were that easy. This leads us to the second core idea, which is all about the engine of the business. Baldwin shares a stark piece of advice he got from a mentor: "Speakers never retire, the phone just stops ringing." Mark: Yikes. That’s grim. It implies that you can never rest. The work of finding work never ends. Michelle: It never does. And this is where the book gets really practical and debunks the myth of the overnight success. It's not about getting 'discovered.' It's about relentless, systematic outreach. He tells the incredible story of a speaker named Pete Smith. Mark: Okay, lay it on me. What did Pete do? Michelle: Pete's journey is wild. He decided in college he wanted to be a speaker, but life took him through landscape design and teaching. Then, at age 35, he had a stroke. It was a massive wake-up call. He survived and decided he couldn't wait any longer to pursue his dream. Mark: Wow. A life-altering event like that will definitely clarify your priorities. So he just started speaking? Michelle: He started by sharing his story about the stroke at a local Rotary Club. The message resonated deeply. But a powerful story isn't enough to build a business. So he took a course, got serious, and started hunting for gigs. And when Baldwin says hunting, he means it. Pete treated it like a full-time job. Mark: What does that look like in practice? Is he just cold-calling people? Michelle: It's a mix of everything. He was sending out hundreds of proposals a year. He used Google to find conferences in specific industries, he networked, he followed up. He was a machine. And the book shares his results, which are just staggering. In his first year of trying, he booked 5 paid gigs. The next year, 20. The year after, 31. The fourth year, 42 paid gigs. Mark: That’s incredible growth. But it also sounds like an absolute grind. It sounds more like a sales job than an art form. Michelle: That’s the point! Baldwin is adamant that professional speaking is a business. Pete Smith himself says something brilliant in the book. He says, "Everyone always says, ‘Work smarter, not harder.’ But at first, you have to learn how to work smarter." And the only way to learn is by working hard—by sending those hundreds of emails, making those calls, and seeing what works and what doesn't. Mark: I guess that makes sense. You can't optimize a system that doesn't exist yet. You have to build the engine first, even if it's clunky and inefficient, before you can tune it up. So, for every one of those 42 gigs he landed, how many rejections did he get? Michelle: The book implies hundreds. It's a numbers game. But with each attempt, he got better. He learned which email subject lines worked, how to personalize his pitch, how to follow up without being annoying. He was building his own system, his own process for acquiring gigs. And now, he earns an average of nearly ten thousand dollars per speech. Mark: Okay, that number gets my attention. So the upfront grind pays off. It’s not just about hoping a viral video will launch your career. The book is really a manual for building a business, and the product just happens to be a speech. Michelle: Exactly. The book is filled with these case studies—like Erick Rheam, who went from making $5,000 a year from speaking to over $250,000 a year after he implemented this systematic approach. The common thread is that they all stopped being 'aspiring' speakers and started acting like business owners. They defined their problem, and then they built a machine to find people who needed that problem solved. Mark: It’s so practical. The book has very positive ratings online, and I can see why. It doesn't sell a dream; it sells a process. It makes the idea of being a paid speaker feel less like winning the lottery and more like building a house, brick by brick. Michelle: That's a perfect analogy he uses. Step one, solving a problem, is pouring the foundation. Step two, preparing your talk, is putting up the walls. But step four, acquiring gigs, is going out and finding people who want to buy the house. Without that, you've just got a well-built, empty structure.

Mark: So, when you boil it all down, it's a powerful two-part system. First, you have to fundamentally reframe your entire purpose. You're not an artist seeking a stage; you're a specialist with a solution. You have to nail that "I help GROUP do TOPIC so they can SOLUTION" sentence. Michelle: That's the mindset shift. It's the entire strategic foundation. Mark: And second, once you know what problem you solve, you have to build a relentless, systematic engine to find the people who have that problem and are willing to pay you to solve it. You have to embrace the grind. You have to be a hunter. Michelle: Precisely. And it completely demystifies the process. It’s not about being born a 'great speaker' or having some magical charisma. The book is so well-regarded because it gives people a practical, repeatable roadmap. It’s about having a message you believe in and the discipline to treat that message like a real business. Mark: It’s empowering because it puts the control back in your hands. Your success isn't dependent on some gatekeeper 'discovering' you. It's dependent on your own effort and your own system. Michelle: Absolutely. It democratizes the whole industry. Anyone, from a former youth pastor to a stroke survivor to a corporate executive, can build a successful speaking career if they follow the process. It’s about the work you put in. Mark: It really makes you think. It's not just about public speaking. The principles apply to any freelance career, really. What problem do you solve, and how do you systematically find clients? Michelle: That’s the deeper insight. It’s a blueprint for turning expertise into enterprise. Which leaves us with a great question to reflect on, for anyone listening. What's the one problem you are uniquely equipped to solve for an audience? Mark: A question worth spending some serious time on. This has been incredibly clarifying. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.