How Speaking to an Empty Room Can Launch Your Speaking Career with Alex Demczak

Feb 6, 2024

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“I spoke in a literal barn last year…So for all the speakers listening, you're never too big time. You're never on a big enough stage to go speak at a barn. It kind of humbles you a little.”

In this week's episode, Brittany Richmond sits down with the CEO of Streamline Books, Alex Demczak, to chat about his speaking career and how Streamline Books is helping speakers level up their businesses.

"When you make a jump of any kind in your career, imagine it like this. You're in one boat, right, and you're leaping to this other boat, and you need to make sure that your boats are aligned so that when you make that jump, there's not a huge splash in the water, right. You need to make sure you go from one boat to the other. And so my mentor, they told me, they said, look, your boats with corporate America and speaking are actually, they're so close that they're actually restricting each other. They're, like, causing friction."

In this episode, Brittany and Alex dig into:

When Alex realized he wanted to speak
Alex's origins of working for free
Going pro in your speaking
The credibility a book brings to your speaking business
Leaving corporate America to pursue speaking full-time
Streamline books, what they do, and how they help people become authors
How to leverage your book as a speaker
Ideas to help you negotiate better speaking contracts with your book
And more!

"Hey, I'm going to make an impact on one person today. I'm here for one person. I don't know who you and I both know we're probably going to make an impact on a lot more than that. But I think if you have that mentality, it's what drives you."

Episode Chapters:

04:12 Alex’s first experience with professional speaking and pursuing Jon Gordon to do what he does.
05:37 The moment Alex realized speaking was going to be his calling and how he got started speaking in corporate America
09:16 Overcoming rejection and sticking with the hard seasons to make an impact in the world.
13:47 What do you do when only one person shows up?! How to redirect your focus on the greater impact.
20:17 Let’s talk about the audience Alex serves every day with his message and his book
22:41 Alex’s top piece of advice for growing his speaking business and how he thinks through scoping up gigs to maximize his impact
26:05 Why Alex focuses on being a value add to the people he serves and how that’s grown his business and his reputation
30:57 Streamline Books deal for The Speaker Lab Podcast listeners

“When you bring a team around your dream, it helps you actually get the book done.”

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