Stages on Demand: Use Stages to Build your Business and Break Through the Noise

Founder of Advance Your Reach – Pete Vargas

For well over a decade we have seen how speaking is the fastest way to grow a business or organization – we see so many people with important messages getting frustrated with other channels. Each marketing channel has a purpose (and we now do use more than just speaking ourselves), however when you want to connect with your audience in a more personal way – speaking is the way to go.

And it’s not just about speaking in person OR booking large national stages (though there are benefits to both). Digital stages (including podcasts) and even the local stages in your backyard are goldmines of possibility for people with a message to share.

We believe Stages are one of the fastest ways to build your business, and they both started their businesses by getting on stages. Did you know that there are 40 different online stages and 40 different offline stages that you can be on? To see your business explode, you only need to know how to get on a select few of them.

In this session, Pete Vargas will teach you the step-by-step system that he and his team have used to FIND & BOOK over 25,000 stages across the world (including Mindshare, the White House & Oprah).

Learning Objectives for this Session:

• Find out who controls stages and how to win them over
• The Business Model of Speaking: all the Offline and Online Stages you can get on
• Gold mining: How to find the right stages for you (this is one of the biggest challenges people face)
• Learn our step-by-step marketing campaign that’s been responsible for winning over 25,000 stages!
• Bold Promise: Start winning stages within the Next Week!

Pete’s Website:

AdvanceYourReach.com

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Jaime:	Welcome to ?Eventual Millionaire.? I?m Jaime Masters, and I finally have on the show today Pete Vargas III, who has no middle name. Funny I just found that out. You can find him at advanceyourreach.com, and he is really amazing at helping people in business be on the stage, and actually be good at it and sell more. 
	
	Thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Pete:	Yeah, I?m excited to be here. I feel like I have known you for a long time. We have so many common friends, and we?re finally connecting. 

Jaime:	I know, I really do feel like I already know you, especially now that I know you have no middle name, where we?re actually connected. But Pat Flynn was the one that was like, ?Oh, Pete Vargas, blah blah blah.? And your name was dropped everywhere. I thought I knew all the people, but I didn?t know you yet. So tell me a little bit about how you came into being, so that way ? not into actually being, but you know what I mean.

Pete:	Yes, let?s got there. Well, mom and dad ? no, I?m just joking. Yeah, Pat, I love Pat, so I hope the blah blah blah was good blah blah blah.

	Amazing, good. No, I ? yeah, I grew up in Texas, and I went to school in Texas, and thought I was going to go into the corporate world, and decided not to. I was a youth pastor in Texas. I went, and my pastor said, ?I know you have no bible training, no theology training, but I know that you?ll come in here and love on kids, and be an influence to kids.? So I went back to my hometown, and went into Covert.

	The number one thing that I did, I showed up the first Wednesday night, ready to give my talk, scared to death, which so many of your listeners ? not all of them, but a lot of them are like, ?I?m scared to speak.? Well, I?ve been there. I was scared to speak, was going to give my first talk. I thought there was going to be 30 kids there, and there were three kids there. Jory, Stacy, and Mackenzie. And I told the three girls, I said, ?You?re going to grow this youth group, and we?re going to build this youth group. And the number one way that we?re going to do this is we?re going to bring in speakers who are going to have an influence on kids.? 

	Because I grew up in a really rough situation, like a lot of people. Just an abusive situation with my dad, and there were several speakers in my, like, childhood times, that really made an influence on me, and I thought to myself if I could bring in speakers to this youth group, they could influence my kids. 

	And that?s exactly what happened, Jaime. We went from three kids in a small little town, to 750 kids in less than four years, bringing in several dozen speakers. I?d bring in stay-at-home moms, stay-at-home dads, I?d bring in financial advisors, I?d bring in Harlem Globetrotters, Super Bowl MVPs. I?d bring in entrepreneurs, health and wellness experts, because I wanted my kids to holistically grow. Like, completely grow, and that?s exactly what we did.

	I would see that power of one hour on a stage, and our youth group grew. And to kind of get to what happened for me, what was the turning point for me is one of the speakers that I brought in, his daughter was the first girl killed at Columbine back in 1999. His name was Darrell Scott, his daughter was Rachel Joy Scott. And one of my mentors was like, ?You got to bring him in.? 

	So he was about the 20th or the 25th speaker that I brought in. I was thinking he?s going to impact my kids just like all of the other speakers have. He spoke at Hereford High School during the day. His final challenge, because of speaking from a place of losing his daughter, he said, ?There?s five people in your life that you love so much. You need to go tell them how much you love them tonight, because you don?t know if they?re going to be here tomorrow with you. I never knew on April 20, 1999 that I wouldn?t see my daughter that day.? And he said, ?Some of them you?re not in good standings with.? 

	I hated my dad, and I didn?t really like my mom, and because of the abusive relationship growing up, especially with my dad. Well my dad was in my hometown, and my mom lived a long ways away, so I went and begged and pleaded with my dad to come back to the parent event that night. There was a parent event, and he was like, ?Bring your parents back tonight. Bring those people that you want to tell back tonight.?

	I brought my dad back that night, and what happened is a lot like our entrepreneurial journey. I brought him back, and I?m sitting in the back, and I was, like, this is the night. This is the night that he?s going to finally apologize for what he had done. And I had tried everything growing up with him. We went to church, we got counseling, his seven sibling. Nothing worked. And I was like, this is the night.

	At the end of that presentation, I set it up, at least what I thought was perfection, just like a lot of entrepreneurs feel like. I?ve set myself up for success. And every parent, every grandparent were hugging their kids and grandparents at the end of that night. My dad didn?t say a word to me. I thought if that doesn?t move you to, like, tell me you?re sorry, I don?t know what is. 

	And it?s like the entrepreneurial journey. We think, like, we got things set up for success, then something doesn?t go our way, and too many times, we give up. I know I almost gave up that night. And three weeks later ? two or three weeks later, I got a letter in the mail from my dad. He didn?t even bring it over to me, he mailed it to me. He said, ?I?m sorry for the father I?ve been. Here my son is having an impact on hundreds of kids? lives, and I can?t have an impact on my only son?s life.?

	He asked me for a second chance to do things right, which is funny how that came about. And he told me he loved me for the first time in over a decade. That was the day, literally the day, where I?m like, I?m committed subconsciously ? I didn?t think this in my mind, but I thought I?m dedicated to Stages for the rest of my life. Like, for the rest of my life.

	I called Darrell. I said, ?Darrell, why aren?t you getting this message in every school across America?? He said, ?I don?t know how to do that.? Here?s another huge teachable point for the audience: He said, ?I?m trying this, and I?m trying this, and I?m trying this,? and a lot of us love to refer to that as ?bright shiny object syndrome.? I said, ?Why aren?t you getting on stages, where your ideal audience is sitting in the crowd. Deliver that same talk that my dad heard, and watch what happens when all of those people will want to bring your program back into their schools.?

	That?s exactly what happened. We would put him in front of building principals, superintendents. I actually have some very memorable places in Austin where he spoke. And what we would see is the audience would be moved, but then they would make an investment into his school programs and bring those programs back into their schools. 

	So over the last 15 years, we are directly responsible for not just booking 25,000 stages across the world ? places like the White House, like Oprah, like some of the largest stages on the planet ? but what I?m more proud of is the tens of millions of dollars that have been generated from products and services that have stemmed from those powerful messages on the stages.

	So that?s my genesis story of why I do what I do.

Jaime:	Jeez, you?re a good speaker. I almost cried on that part. You know what you?re doing, huh? Who knew? It?s insane to see the evolution of how you came about, but did you ever think that this was going to be a business? You said you have a big team now. It?s huge, right? Did you ever assume that it would be this big?

Pete:	No, I assumed two things. I assumed I wouldn?t speak, ever. Like, seriously. So anybody who?s never spoke, who might be like, ?Should I listen to this episode, or should I not?? just hang on, because I didn?t think I would ever speak. And I never thought that this was going to be a business. That day, I just knew what I knew what to do. Like, I knew that I got this letter, and I connected the dots in my head, and I said, ?He?s saying that speaker made him do this.? He took action from that speaker.

	So here?s the true story, I don?t share this on many podcasts at all, or many stages. I went online, and I solicited Darrell?s cell phone number, because I wanted to talk to him. I called him, and he was like, ?I don?t know what to do, can you help me?? And I said, ?Yeah, I can help you.? 

	He goes, ?Well, here?s my guy, and here?s me and this guy that you need to meet. Can you get out here in the next few months?? I said, ?No, I?ll be out there on Monday if you want.? This was a Saturday.

	I got on a plane, I flew out to meet him on Monday ? actually I?ve never shared this on stage. I went out there to meet them on Monday, and they started training me on what they wanted to take into the school system, and literally two weeks later, back in 2003, I was in the lab testing everything to figure out how to win stages. Like, it happened quickly.

	So no, the answer to that is no. And then the other answer is I didn?t think I would speak either. Because remember, for him for 13 years ? first, when I was a youth pastor, I didn?t want to speak. I brought in speakers. And then for him, for 13 years, I never spoke. I was the one putting him on stages. So three years ago, when we started Advance Your Reach, my mentor Brendan Bouchard and a lot of other people were like, ?You?re going to have to be the one to speak now.?

	So no, no, it was like starting on small stages and beginning to get repetition. So, no, I didn?t see this as a business, and no, I didn?t see me ever speaking.

Jaime:	How did you know enough to not wait months, and just go all in? I know it was impactful for you, but then you took actually action, which, I?m assuming, was very disruptive to the rest of your life, right?

Pete:	Oh, gosh, you ask some good questions, because I?m actually ? you?re prompting things out of me that, really, I haven?t shared.
	
	So here?s what happened: I knew I was a youth pastor, and I knew I wasn?t going to leave that. I loved it. So I said, ?I?m going to stay here,? but I know ? like, youth pastors operate ?til 10:00 at night, because they?re at kids? football games and basketball games, and they?re going to the school lunches. So I didn?t have to get started, like, really, with my youth pastor job until like 10:00 or 11:00.

	So anybody out there that?s trying to build a business, here?s a very ? here?s how you take action, right here. I knew I could work from 7:00 to 10:00 am every morning and begin this. And I remember the very first thing I did. I popped up, I went to a familiar site, maybe some of you have heard of it, it?s called Google. 

	I went to google.com, and I typed ? I thought I want to get ? start figuring out all the building principals in the state of Texas.	So I got a list of all the building principals in the state of Texas. Watch this ? oh, gosh, I?ve never shared this ever. Ever! I got a list, and I started cold calling every single one of them. I would land like 1 in 20 to be interested in bringing in this Rachel?s Challenge program back into their schools. 

	One of them along the way said, ?Hey, you know, all of us principals gather together at one time, two times a year. Why don?t you?? And then a light bulb went off. 

	So then I changed that search term in Google, I said, ?Texas Principals Conferences. Texas Principals Association. Texas Principals Events.? I talked to a lady in Corpus Christi who controlled one of those stages. I talked to a lady in Austin, Texas, who controlled one of those stages. Pam Faulkner and Ruth McCain ? you can actually Google them. I called them, and we landed those stages. Now, instead of talking to a hundred principals, we had 500 educators in each of these rooms.

	What we saw come as a result of those rooms was dozens and dozens and dozens of schools, and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, for an organization that had only done $52,000 the year before. 

	So I blocked my time, and I figured out the highest leverage activity to be able to bring the most amount of programs into the school system, because I knew it would end teen suicides and school shootings. And the way that that was, it wasn?t ads, or it wasn?t yellow pages, or it wasn?t any of this stuff. It was a freakin? stage, where the majority of people in the audience were essentially the best kind customers for Rachel?s Challenge.

	So that?s how I figured out stages are one of the most powerful ways to grow your business.

Jaime:	I got goose bumps, because my former husband used to school shows all the time, and I used to cold call. And we also went to conferences all the time, and do very similar things. That is interesting. 

	Now, I didn?t go, ?Oh, bing, this is a stage thing for me.? So how did you move? Especially if it?s only three years that you?ve been building your business, that?s insane. I know you?ve been building his business, but were you, like, a part of his business, and then had to leave that to go start your own? How did that work?

Pete:	You?re ? I like where you?re going.

Jaime:	I?m annoying, it?s good.

Pete:	I love it, because, literally, there?s one man who?s asked a lot of the interesting questions that drew out a lot. But for 13 years ? so here?s the encouraging thing for the audience. For 13 years, I was in the lab testing this with him. He was our primary client, we had two other clients, so had three big clients that we were doing this for, them being the biggest. 

	And I, all of a sudden, was like, ?Man, this stuff works.? Like, that first stage actually generated around a quarter of a million dollars in business, from that first stage in Corpus Christi. One stage. Where, if I had to this all day ? they 5x their revenues from the year before from one stage, from Pam Faulkner?s stage. Pam if you?re listening to this, thank you so much. 

	But what happened is for 13 years, I just started perfecting that model. The model of how do we make sure that Darrell is great on stage without ever feeling sales-y, because none of these events let us sell. Because these were like professional events. And not to say a selling event isn?t professional, but these are educators and teachers. You don?t get to sell products and services there. 

	I just kept testing it for 13 years. Like, how do we make him great on stage? How do we get him on bigger stages and better stages? And then how do we make sure he scales past the stage with his products and services, so that schools actually buy these programs?

	So for 13 years, we were completely committed to just him. And I had this epiphany ? I don?t know how many people run into him, but I heard Brendan Brouchard and Pat Flynn ? I heard Pat Flynn?s podcast, ?Smart Passive Income,? and I?m like, ?wow.? And then I heard Brendan Brouchard talk about being an expert, and I thought, I?m not an expert. Everybody knows how to book stages. That?s easy. 

	I went to seven ? six or seven speaking events, because I heard about all these speaking events. And I went, and I listened, and some of them were good, and some of them were okay. Then I went to World?s Greatest Speaker training, which was Brendan?s event. I upgraded for $1,200, or maybe $1,500, to spend three minutes on his stage. I was scared to death. If you watch the video, you can see my fear and my terror. I actually have a ? 

Jaime:	I want the video. Send us a link. We want to see the video.

Pete:	This is my first talk, and I?m shaking. You can see me on stage, and I?m terrified. But I wanted to see if what I had to offer the world was something that the world wanted. And literally in three minutes on stage, that is where Advance Your Reach was birthed. 

	I was with Brendan a few weeks later after that at a private event. He pulled my wife and I aside at a dinner, and he said, ?Pete, you have to take this to the world. People need to have this.? Literally, three months later, we?re launching our very first live event, in November of 2015. We?re not even to our three-year anniversary yet. And we?re launching our business, and everything else, Jaime, is like ? it?s been a whirlwind, it?s been exciting. There?s been highs, there?s been lows, there?s been ups, there?s been challenges. There?s been incredible team members here, incredible team members go. That?s part of the entrepreneurial journey. But I stayed true to making sure that I was really was focused on what I was great at, and what my genius was at.

	A lot of the times, as entrepreneurs, we try to do too much at this, and we don?t stay locked in and focused on what we?re really good at. So over the last three years, little stage, by little bigger, by little bigger, and just putting in the work and the repetition, I?ve gotten a lot better on stages. But we?ve all obviously seen our brand grow, so much so that the great Pat Flynn, actually, last year, I mean, actually paid as an attendee to come out to our event, which is not a normal thing.

Jaime:	No, he never paid. No, I was like, ?Wait, you?re not speaking? Okay, you?re paying for it? Oh, huh, okay.? This guy must be something.

	It does. Everybody ? someone like Pat can go anywhere he wants, without necessarily ? you know what I mean? He chose your stuff. So what?s even more impressive, though, to me, is that you weren?t a speaker. How do you get on your first ? take me back to like 2015, when you first go on that stage, when technically all the people in the audience that want to learn how to be better speakers are judging you like heck, right? They are.

Pete:	I?ve got to get that video clip, because once again, I?ve never given that video clip out. But I?ll give it to you, and you?ll see I was scared to death. I was scared, and I remember two people from Brendan?s team, Nell Abraham and then Denise, who does a lot of Brendan?s operations, pulling me aside, and like, ?That?s unbelievable.? And then Denise is like, ?You need to come to this event in a couple weeks with your wife. I want you to bring your wife out.?

	I?m so grateful to Denise. She was one of my earliest champions, like, very earliest champions. And that?s where I met Brendan, and that?s where he really encouraged me. And actually we just came on our three-year anniversary, and I texted him, and I just said, ?Thank you for pushing me out there.?

	But then it became ? actually, I?ll be really honest. I?ll be very vulnerable here. I was like, ?Cool, I got introduced into the internet marketing space.? And I?ve worked with some incredible internet marketers. We?ve got an opportunity to work with Russell Bronstad. We put Ryan Dice on stages, Damon John. We?ve almost put Michelle Obama on stage, which was cool. I will land her on a stage one day.

	So I got introduced into the internet marketing space, and I just chose the wrong recipe ? the wrong order of the recipe. A lot of people, the recipe ? there?s this recipe to building your business. Everybody doesn?t have to do the same thing, but there?s a time and a place for different things to happen. And out of the gates, I thought, with no list, and no followers, and no audience, ?Let?s go do a big online launch.?

	Online launches are good, and they?re powerful, but at the right time. So my team spent all of this money putting together this launch, and we made one sale. That sale actually refunded, so I?m thinking it was a family member.

	It was a wakeup call for me. It was like, okay, everybody?s telling me to do this and do that. And, like, I even love podcasts. I?m on a podcast, but everybody?s like, ?Do a blog, and do a podcast, and do an online launch. And lead collect, and build a funnel, and do this, and do that.? And to me, I went back to my roots, which is why I?m deeply convicted about this. I said, ?Screw this. I going to get on a stage.?

	I went and got on a digital stage. I made an offer. In that year, we did five ? that stage, we did five figures on customer acquisition. And then I went and got on a physical stage, and it was like, ?Wow, I generated five figures in business on my first physical stage.? Then I got on another physical stage, a few months later, and all of a sudden, it?s like, ?No, this is it.? Stages, both physical and digital, both offline and online. It is the fastest way to start the recipe to growing your business. And unfortunately, I didn?t do that out of the gates, I got caught up in the bright shiny object of everything, Jaime.

Jaime:	I so appreciate you saying that, because nobody tell you that. They?re like, ?Oh, everybody says do a product launch.? And then people come back to me later and go, ?I sold two. I suck. I never want to do this again.? I?m like, okay, so there?s nuances to this game, right?

	And everybody?s strengths are different, too, right? And some things just take extra time. So I love that you went back to the core. How long did it take you? Because I know that you said that you started November 2015 was your first live event. So that was you going, ?We?re really throwing in all the chips.? How long did it take after failing at selling one refund, to that first live event of yours?

Pete:	Good question. So November 2015, we did a live event. We got a little bit of revenues out of that, which was nice. Then at the beginning of the year, we?re ramping up for our big launch, with our big, zero person list. Then come April, I remember April, May ? I think it was April, May ? it was maybe around February, we did the launch, February, March ? it was a bust for us.

	By the way, I want to circle back. We?re doing a launch at the end of this year, but it?s the first launch we?ve done. It was the timing of the recipe. It?s like one thing at a time. Like, one thing. Get good at this. Then all of a sudden, it?s like, okay, now I can build some lead magnets, and start doing some online capture. Now I can start doing some partners webinars. Now I can start doing ? oh, an online launch.

	So it?s just the recipe. Like, there?s this recipe that I feel like we get caught up in trying to do it all at one time. And that?s what happens is entrepreneurs is we just get crazy busy. So was probably the second half of 2006, where I got on my first few stages. I think, like, March, April ? oh, right after the launch, I got on a stage. I?m like, ?Screw this, I?m getting on a stage.? And they didn?t even pick me as a speaker. They picked me as an emcee. And it was a stage of like, 100 people, and I still did five figures out of that. I didn?t even get to speak, I was an emcee.

Jaime:	Really? Okay, okay, so now we actually have to talk about the tactics that you?re using. Because I love all the numbers, and we?re like, woohoo, this is great. Everyone?s going ? what do you say? How do you not sound skeezy? How do you not have them run to the back of the room? Not that we don?t want them to be excited and run to the back of the room. I just mean how can you actually sell without necessarily telling them the pitch, which is 15 minutes long?

Pete:	Yeah, so let?s keep it at ? if you do ? so there?s two types of stages. I grew up in the stage where you can?t make an offer. The last three years, I?ve been introduced to the stage where you can make an offer. It doesn?t matter which of the stages I?m on, I do the same thing. There?s only one piece that?s a little bit different, and it?s when I can actually make a formal offer, and it?s about five to seven minutes long. Because none of the selling happens on the back end of the presentation. It happens while you?re teaching.

	So here?s what I want you to know. First off, I?m kind of anti-a lot of people. I don?t believe you tease people. I believe you teach people. I believe that a lot of people advocate for teasing, and when you tease, then you can get the good stuff. I?ll give you the good stuff right now, because here?s the thing. It?s when Darrell taught them how to change the culture of their schools from a stage, and tied in inspiration on the front end and back end, but in the middle, he taught them how to go change the culture of their schools. That?s when they said, ?Okay, I can either go teach it, because he just laid out the whole framework for me, or I can have him come change it for me.?

	So when you teach them, you?re leaving them two options. Go do it on their own, which is a win for you. I know you don?t think that?s a win if they don?t become a customer, but it?s a win for you ?

Jaime:	No, it?s a huge win. Gosh, you get to help everybody else anyway. How sad is that? Poor you. Sorry, continue.

Pete:	Or they go deeper with you. It?s a win because reality is they?re going to do it a lot faster with your audience. So the simple way that you want to think about any stage, whether it?s a podcast, whether it?s a webinar, whether it?s traffic and conversion, Dave Ramsey stage, the White House. Like, these are all stages that we?ve booked ? we call it the Story Braid Framework. It?s a four-part framework that I love teaching, and it?s pretty simple. You start with ? there?s three parts to it. You start with the heart and you connect with your audience. Like, you just connect with them, talk about your family. Tell a joke, do a dance. Sing a song. Something where you feel comfortable. I talk about my family in a way that makes my audience connect with my family. So I talk about my little daughter?s struggle, and how, you know ? I share a story which I won?t get into. 

	So the first piece of the framework is connect, and then the most important piece that you want to do ? and I?ll put percentages to each of these four pieces, because everybody?s like, ?how much time?? I can?t tell you how much time, because sometimes you have ten minutes, sometimes you have 60. So here?s what you want to do is open with the heart, connect. Then make sure the audience sees that you?re ordinary, meaning that you?ve walked in their shoes. And that you?re extraordinary. You know how to change the culture of their schools. I?ve been there, I?ve experienced schools that weren?t great with culture. Now what I?ve figured out through my experience is, like, this is what happens now when we get our hands on a school with culture, and now culture becomes popping in the school.

	So people want to see that you?ve walked in their shoes, and that you?ve done something extraordinary. If you only talk about the extraordinary, which used to be a common theme, every wall in the audience goes up, and they shut you down, and they say, ?I don?t want to learn anything about you.? If you only talk about ordinary, they?re going to say, ?What can he or she teach me?? So make sure that in the first five to ten minutes you paint that gap or that bridge of the heart.

	Now their hearts are opened up, because they?re like, ?Wow, okay, I?m engaged. I want to know.? Now, for the majority of the time, you?re teaching them how to move from ordinary to extraordinary. You?ve never started a podcast? Cool, this is the framework of what it takes to move from ordinary, or no podcast, to becoming a podcaster ? I?m using Jaime as an example here.

	So you?re now teaching for the majority of the time, and you?re speaking to their minds. And their minds are wide open, because you opened their hearts. They have not defense, no walls, no distractions, because you opened up with their hearts.

	Then you transfer out of the mind to the hands. And the hands are the call to action. Now there?s two types of calls to action. You can either, when you can?t make an offer, which is the majority of the time, you give a free gift away. You give a gift that ? here?s the problem that people ? and I?ve even caught Ian Patten doing this somewhat ? you give a gift away that they can consume in ten minutes. You don?t give a book, and you don?t give your slides, because people will never go back and review those. 

	The intention of the gift is that they consume it in ten minutes, and they get to experience your genius. When they can experience your genius in ten minutes, any automation or any follow-up, or anything that comes after that fact, they?re going to be like, ?Man, that person?s already moved me from A to B. I?m pretty confident they can move me from A to Z.? 

	You might say, ?Why don?t you give them A to Z?? Because they?re not going to consume it. So why would we give them something they?re not going to consume? So we really highly encourage giving away a valuable gift from stage, that is literally helping them get a win in their life. That?s what we like to call it, the quick win gift. The quick win gift. And this is going to sound counterintuitive, but you collect it by a contact form. You actually put a form on the seat, and they fill in all their information, and on one side of the form, there?s a beautiful infographic of the gift. 

	I know that sounds crazy?

Jaime:	No, I was going to ask you that question, because way back when, I used to have accountability forms. I?d get everybody?s email, and I?d personally email them after a stage, following up with each of them ? back in the day before we had a bazillion email lists, right? But the fact that they have something in stage ? because otherwise people will put it on the screen, and everyone sees it on the slide, and then it goes away, and they don?t really care. So you put it on their seats beforehand?

Pete:	Beforehand. And meeting planners don?t mind that. You just want to make sure that talk with the meeting planner, the one who runs the event, and say, ?Hey, I want to be able to give away a free gift to everyone in your audience. I know a lot of people want to sell their books. I don?t want to sell my books, I just want to give away a free gift that we would normally charge for.? And the meeting planner then becomes heroic.

	I saw Chandler Bolt, who?s a student of ours do this at Social Media Marketing World last year ? yeah, he?s a student of ours.

Jaime:	I love him.

Pete:	By the way, we?ll come back to his story, because it?s important. Because he just moved from the online to the offline. He was told the offline stage is a rat race and it never works, and why would you ever do that. And I want to come back to that. But Chandler gave a free gift away, and the crowd started clapping. They were like, ?Oh my gosh.? 

	This week one of our students gave a gift away. When everybody on each side of him was selling something in each room. And the crowd started clapping. They were like ? so now, you?re positioned heroically by giving that gift away, which, that?s only the third piece of the framework. It?s the hands. 

	Then the final piece of the framework is the closing heart. You tell some story ? and it doesn?t have to be tied in with your opening story ? you tell some story that reinforces everything you taught. Something where that story just reinforced everything you teach, so they actually will take action, and go implement upon your talk.

	Heart, head, hands, heart. It?s the Story Braid Framework, and whether I?ve got 15 minutes on a podcast, three minutes on Brendan Brouchard?s stage, 60 minutes on a stage, 10 minutes with my kid who?s not cleaning his room. Like, I want you to know, that is what I use right there.

Jaime:	I was going to say, that is genius. The kid?s not cleaning his room, that?s amazing.

Pete:	Because a lot of the times, we go right to their head. ?Keaton clean your room!? And I do it, I?m guilty of it. 

	?Hey bubs,? ? like, just look at the difference here. ?Hey bubs, you are such a man of responsibility. Like, the grades that you make in school and the responsible man that you?re becoming in life. It?s blowing me away.? Conversation this morning. ?Thanks dad, I appreciate that.?

	It?s like, ?One of the things that I really want to see you become more responsible in is when dad?s gone, or mom?s asking you to get your room cleaned up, will you take that responsibility?? ?Yeah, yeah, I can do that.?

	So it?s a different framing. A lot of the time ? I don?t do it all of the time, but a lot of the times, I?ll just go right at him. ?Clean your room!? And his defense goes up. We?re speaking to their heads. Like, do this, do this. So it even ? like, I?m thinking Story Braid to be able to connect in just conversations, because people want to connect, Jaime. We?re in a world right now that is ? human connection has just gone away. We?re in a world where we need human connection, and that?s why this framework ? it?s not a formula, so don?t think you have to be me in this. It?s not a formula, it?s a framework. That?s how you present amazing from stage. 

Jaime:	I love your heart ? it shines through all this anyway, from telling the stories at the beginning. I was like, ?Oh, he already hooked me at the very, very beginning,? right? But you did it in a way that is ethical and lovely. I feel like, unfortunately, in this digital marketing space, we?re like, ?More webinars! This is the pitch! We go like this!? And I?m like, ?What about the people on the other end? And the caring of the helping them? Even if it?s only this much, and they don?t buy your program?? So I?m really, really impressed with the ethics that you have also, by the way. Because you care more about impact than about money. 

	But yet, you still get the money along the way also. So people, just please see him as a shining example even though apparently we just met. But we feel like we?ve known each other for ever.

	So tell me about?

Pete:	People are greater than the pitch. They just are. And Darrell, sometimes he?d walk away from stage, and say, ?Ah man, we didn?t have as many schools go deeper with us.? Because here?s the reason we want people to go deeper with you. Here?s the reason: Zig Ziglar said, ?I?ve never changed someone?s life with a speaking gig, but sometimes they buy my tapes and cassettes, and I?ve got a shot at changing their lives.? The reality is when you get in their ears, past the stage, after just 60 minutes, you going to help change their lives faster with your products, with your services, with your offers, with your solutions. So we know that, so we?re confident and bold in giving them the opportunity to do that. 

	So I don?t want to say that?s a bad thing. That?s a good thing, because you?re going to change their lives. However, there?s people sitting in your audience. And they?re implementers, and they?ll go take what you just taught them, because you didn?t tease them, and you taught them, they?ll go implement it. And I would always ? or Darrell would remind me too, or I would remind him, like, look at this story. This came from a school that never had our program. And it?s like a story of a kid that did end up taking their life. 

	So just as long as we can do what we?re supposed to do, the revenues will follow. There will be enough customers that want to go deeper with you, because time and speed are important to them. Like, time and money are important to them, and they know that they can save money, and save time, if they go deeper with you. 

	I don?t want to ? I?m not unashamed. I?m not ? that?s an important piece of it. But you also win when people get wins in that crowd as well.

Jaime:	Thank you, thank you for that distinction. Because the commitment does make more impact also, but I love ? I love that you?re doing this in a different way. Because like I said, online stuff has been touted, and I love online. Don?t get me wrong. I?m from the middle of nowhere. If we didn?t have online, I don?t know where I?d be. But talking about Chandler, I know he built his stuff online to begin with. Why even bother to go on the stage? You said you were going to bring up that.

Pete:	Yeah, I love that. So we talked about being great on stage, but everybody that?s listening wants to scale their business. So what I mean when I say scaling a stage, the only thing that that means is customer acquisition. Like, how do you acquire more students and customers from every stage you?re on?

	So Chandler got told ? and I won?t name any names, and I tease this person ? but Chandler got told by a big person in the internet marketing space physical stages are a rat race. They won?t work, they won?t help you scale the stage. They?re not going to help you attract more customers. And it?s a rat race, you got to go be a road warrior. 

	So Chandler and I connected a year and a half, maybe two years ago. He?s become a dear friend of mine. And he?s in one of our top programs, because I just believe in the kid so much. So a little context for your crowd: he built a zero to $3 million company just by doing online.

Jaime:	Let me just highlight really quick, because I met Chandler on his 21st birthday, many, many years ago. We were one of his first partner webinars that he ever did for self-publishing school. And to see how far he?s come ? anyway ? as far as he?s come is ridiculously impressive. 

Pete:	So Chandler came to me and said, ?Okay, I heard your teaching,? same thing that Stu McLaren did. ?I heard your teaching,? and he said, ?I actually think that makes sense. It makes sense. I don?t have to ? this can be a cold customer acquisition strategy. I can provide value and attract a lot of customers at the same time, and expedite the sales process.? Sometimes it takes 6, 8, 10, 12 months for companies or entrepreneurs to land a new sale, because it?s like, ?Oh, send me a proposal. Cool, here?s the proposal. Okay, send me some testimonies. Okay, here?s the testimonies.? And you go back and forth, and 12 months later, they?re purchasing your products and services. And now you get to do all that in one hour on a stage. You get to be powerful on a stage. 

	So Chandler went and tested his first stage. 27 chiropractors. In his backyard, in San Diego when he lived there. We helped him get ready for his talk in the same way that we just taught the audience how to do. He went and delivered that talk ? actually he just recently said 23. 23 chiropractors, and nine of them came up to Chandler asking about buying his products and services. He just did shy of $20,000 in a room of 23 people in his backyard. He said, ?I drove there, I drove back, and that?s where, Pete, your methodology of the power of the one-hour launch finally made sense to me.? 

	This year, he?s worked with us really closely in everything, we?ve done a lot with him this year. He just came out on record and said, ?Not only will stages generate seven figures into my business this year,? ? first year on stages, first year, he said ?it?s now become our No. 2 customer acquisition channel, and might become No. 1 potentially.?

	So to your audience out there that?s wanting more customers, this is a fast way to do it. And I love this, because this is a man that moved from online. And he said this, Jaime. He said, ?The online is more busy and it?s more noisy than it?s ever been. It?s even harder ? Facebook?s harder than it?s ever been.? And he said, ?I wanted to do something to separate myself, and now you elevate yourself in a room as one of the authorities on a stage where everybody?s looking up to you.? It?s a different positioning, and it will help people separate themselves. 

	Even if they don?t want to be on the road nationally, they could be ? I could be on a stage in my backyard in Colorado Springs every single week if I wanted to. Just in my backyard, drive there drive back, generate some new customers, good to go. Drive, drive. So I want people to know they don?t have to be a road warrior to do this.

Jaime:	So that?s exactly what we were talking about before too. I?m like, ?I?m a single mom of two kids.? I want to stay home more, and now I?m like, ?Well, dude. I live in Austin, and I?ve never spoke? ? well, I?ve spoken twice, three times I think locally. I know, because I usually do.

Pete:	You got to change that, Jaime.

Jaime:	I know, you?re making all excited now. I?ll think about it. I went that path for a really long time ? not a really long time, but I was really going, like, I love speaking. I love the act of speaking, and I love the seeing people in person connecting that online doesn?t have as much. You get email, which are great, but usually I?m like, that?s too many ? I only can deal with that, okay great. But they?re people, right? And when you?re in person with them, you can actually connect with them. So to me, I love that. 

	I also stick around for way too long. I talk too much afterwards, right? I?m like, I want to talk to all the people! And it takes quite a bit of time. So as the thought leader, how do you mitigate the time vs. doing other more higher, quote unquote, leveraged things? If you?re not in the sole customer acquisition, sort of, point in your business?

Pete:	Yeah, so I?ll talk about Stu McLaren, just because that?s ? these are what?s coming to mind.

Jaime:	You know Stu too? Okay.

Pete:	So we talked about being great on stage, and hopefully that framework served your audience. We talked about scaling a stage, really how we can use this as a customer acquisition channel. Let?s talk about the stage itself now. That?s the three pieces that ? those are the three pieces. You?re taking me down a perfect path of what we believe. Those are the core big pieces. Be great on stage, get on stage, scale past the stage.

	So Stu has two kids. He runs a nonprofit. He runs a very successful business. And he sat in a very similar teaching like this, and he said, ?Wow. All I have to really be on is four to six dream stages a year, and that will be a major needle mover for my business.? And a dream stage ? I define a dream stage as the majority of the people in the audience are your ideal avatar. Whether that?s customers or clients, or just people who you can influence. When the majority of them are in the audience, it?s amazing what can begin to happen.

	It?s not about the number of people, it?s about the majority being the right people. So why that?s important is if someone?s just getting started in speaking, they can go be in front of 50 to 100 people, I just want to make sure that they?re the right people. But with Stu and yourself, like, you have more positioning and credibility, you?ve been around a long time. So for Stu, it?s like, ?Pete, I want to be on the multiple thousands of people stages.? So TNC, Dave Ramsey, you know, a huge stage in Brazil. But he?s only choosing four to six of the right ones, what we call ?dream stages.? 

	I love dream stages. I preach that to my team for, like, 15 years. I love dream stages. So Stu saw, like, ?Wow. Four to six of the right stages a year, I can do that. I don?t want to do? ? and I have to push him on six. Like, if he?s listening to this, he hates when I say six, because he?s more keen on four.

Jaime:	I?ll text him and just write, ?Do six stages.? And then that?s it, and see what he says.

Pete:	It?s up to six, up to six. But literally the last year, he?s been on three amazing stages as he?s really adopted this idea of dream stages. So the same goes true for your people. If they?ll adopt the idea of dream stages and limit it ? like, I?m not four to six like Stu. Jaime, I?m doing 15 this year. 15 physical stages, and 100 digital stages. Like, that?s what our team?s target was going into the year. 15 ? this is a digital stage for me. My daughter?s upstairs above me, so I do more digital stages than I do physical stages. And by the way, I treat them as a stage. This is a stage. 

	So people can scale with digital. They just can?t have the connection nor the conversion that a physical stage has. It will never compare. There?s pros and cons to both. That?s why the balance of both of them together ? 15 and 100 ? will generate multiple seven figures this year between the combination, just with our stages, just with the combination of those stages.

	Stu made a decision to say four, and I don?t know what his online number is, it?s a lot more. But you just got to pick that balance. I say pick your stage portfolio, and stick to that. Don?t try to think you need to try do more or less than that. Just stick to whatever it is that you decide.

Jaime:	That?s a really good point, because the entrepreneur in me is like, ?I want to do so many in Austin ? oh, no, I don?t,? right? It?s like a back and forth. But the decision in advance is huge.

	I want to ask you though about this, because I get asked this all the time also. My former husband had one show ? well, two shows, right. So they did two shows. When I see entrepreneurs do this, they?re like, ?And I need a talk for this, and I need a separate talk for this, and I need a talk for this. Somebody asked me to talk about this, so therefore I?m doing this too.? You were talking about signature talks. So give us the lowdown on that, because everybody needs to hear this, and so do I.

Pete:	Everybody needs to hear this. And I say this ? I had a conversation with her maybe a year and a half ago ? no, a year ago, 16 months ago, I had a conversation with Marie Forlio, and Marie does not speak a lot, and quite frankly, she could speak as much as she wants. One of the misconceptions, not just that she had, but a lot of people have is this idea that you have to have all of these signature talks. You don?t. You don?t. And that was so freeing for her to hear, because the creativity that goes into every talk takes so much time.

	Now here?s the beauty of it. If you can create one incredible signature talk, and put the effort and energy into that ? Rachel?s Challenge, for ten years, went from zero to ? our peak year was close to $7 million, from one signature talk. Advance Your Reach went from zero to seven figures with one signature talk.

	Now you might say, ?But what if the meeting planner says, ?Can you talk more about this, or about this, or about this??? Watch this ? let?s see if I can clearly communicate this, and please ask me questions on this, Jaime. When I do a signature talk, I open with heart, I close with heart. I give a call to action. But I talk about designing a signature talk, scaling past the stage, and getting on stages. That?s my signature talk, 45, 60, 30, whatever it is.

	Now if a meeting planner says, ?If they don?t ask any questions, yes, just deliver the three steps to using speaking to build your business.? Great, I?ll spend 10 to 15 minutes on the first teaching point, 10 to 15 on the second, 10 to 15 on the third. If they?re like, 

	?Pete, my audience just wants to know about stages,? then I have the framework to be able to go deeper of one part of my process, and not as deep on the other two. No problem, we?ll talk about stages. I?m also going to talk about the other two because it?s incomplete, but I might only spend 5 minutes, 5 minutes, and 30 minutes. If I have 30 minutes to go deeper in that one, we all have more depth to our talks. They?re what we put in our courses and our workshops and our events, and all of that. I can go deeper in any of those three, but if the meeting planner?s like, ?Uh, I just want to talk about customer acquisition more so,? then I?ll go deeper in the scaling. ?Oh, my people are brand new, and they?ve never delivered a talk, and I want to talk about the signature talk,? then I?ll go deeper in the signature talk. I can actually with full integrity tell them yes, I can do that, I can serve you. 

	Now here?s where people make the mistake. ?Oh, I want to talk about mindset,? or funnels, or that. Guess what? I?m not the right person for that stage, because then it?s wasting me, my family, and their time to try to go put something together that?s not congruent with my business. Then that?s when I?m like, ?No, I?m not the right person.? But rarely does that happen, because I communicate on the front end that I am the stage guy.

	So here?s the wrap up: One signature talk, and you can ? as long as you have a proprietary process in the middle that you?re teaching, going from ordinary to extraordinary, you can go as deep or as wide into that process as you want to. Does that make sense?

Jaime:	Totally makes sense. Now how do you decide what the signature talk is about, though? Because I know a breadth and width that is very, very wide, right? So what?s interesting is I do get asked, and I?m like, ?No.? I just say no all the time now, because I?m like, I don?t have a core. I used to have a core, but it was more about millionaires, and I didn?t ? I don?t want to talk about that anymore. 

	So I keep going ? oh, well does the core? So how do you ? if you have more than one ? because for you, it?s great. You have speaking. For Chandler, it?s great, he?s got the book stuff, right?

Pete:	So let?s talk about you.

Jaime:	Ooh good. Go ahead.

Pete:	So, no, what?s your core?

Jaime:	So we?re moving, and this is why it?s perfect. So we?re moving into the system side. I have a new program called Ownerbox.

Pete:	Got it. 

Jaime:	So I know we have to start wrapping up soon, so I want you to do this all on me, but I know we only have a few more minutes, so let me ask you this: I think of the signature talk like a lead magnet-ish, right?

Pete:	A much deeper one, yes. That?s a good way to put it.

Jaime:	Well, what you?re trying to do is you?re trying to capture the audience enough to want to be at your talk and not tune you out. Right now, of course, using your framework, it sounds like it?s a really good thing, but even at an event or whatever, they?re like, ?Ooh, do I want this hook, or do I not?? right? How do you figure out what that sweet spot lead magnet is, when it could be many different things?

Pete:	Meaning the lead magnet that?s actually given during the middle of the talk?

Jaime:	No, no, I mean the actually signature talk. How do you decide ? like, I?ve got ten different lead magnets, and we?ve ranked them, and we know which ones do better. Do I turn my top lead magnet into, like, my signature talk, or how do I decide on the framework that I teach?

Pete:	The framework that you teach, and we?ll make this simple, and you and I can jam offline, and maybe we can do a just you and me training on this?

Jaime:	Now I?m all excited about speaking, so thank you. 

Pete:	The Ownerbox has elements to it. I want everybody to hear this. The Ownerbox is trying to teach you how to do A, B, C, D, and E. We don?t have time to get into the A, B, C, D, and E, but Ownerbox is teaching you that. That?s what it?s helping that entrepreneur do. So now your talk is actually going to be talking about A, B, C, D, and E. Don?t pay attention to any of your lead magnets out there. Pay attention to what your product system is, because whatever Ownerbox is is helping an entrepreneur move from ordinary to extraordinary, so strip out the elements of what Ownerbox is doing, and that becomes your talk.

	It just so happens that Ownerbox goes deeper into it, but you get to go on stage and do it in 40 or 60 minutes. Ownerbox just goes deeper. Does that help you?

Jaime:	Oh, a million times over, because Matthew Pollard is a guy who?s come on here many times ? I don?t know if you know him or not. He had me create a unified message for it, which has three key pieces, and I?m like, ?Oh, that?s my talk ? oh never mind.? So I?ll show it to you, and we can jam offline, but I think that that was?

Pete:	A million times over, I love that. That means that I?ve provided some value, so that?s good.

Jaime:	Click! Good job, good job. I love it when I get personal information on the podcast ? not that I don?t, but this is amazing.

	I know we have to start wrapping up, so sorry I cut you short from before, but ? we?ll probably have you back on the show again, right? So we can read what that word is behind your head.

Pete:	Reach, it?s Advance Your Reach. Advance Your Reach.

Jaime:	I love it. So what is one action listeners can take this week to help move them forward towards their goal of a million?

Pete:	Yeah, connect with video. And what I mean by videos ? I use a tool called bombbomb.com/reach. I think either Pat or John Lee Dumas said it was the first time they heard it when I said it. Bombbomb.com/reach ? and I just ? it is an affiliate link, but I want you to ? I have a video on there on why I use it. So whether I?m trying to attract a customer, I actually use it for Stages more. It?s on my iPhone, I send a message. So powerful, because I can see not only when they opened it, but when they watched it, and you?ll be amazed at the attraction it brings to you. 

	We use it specifically ? we used it a lot to win stages, but for your audience, they can use it to win customers. So if you don?t want to use BombBomb, you can use your camera app. It?s just a little bit more process to go put it into Vimeo or YouTube, or whatever. But BombBomb does it all for you from your app, so we have a lot of entrepreneurs that are just using BombBomb. Shooting ? committing to shooting a BombBomb or two a day, a video a day ? it?s just a video email platform. To me, we use that a lot, and it wins for us, Jaime.

Jaime:	I haven?t heard ? so I?ve gotten quite a few from that, and I remember being like, ?This is amazing.? And I have not heard it recently, and I loved it before, so thank you for bringing it back up again, because I don?t know that I would have heard of it otherwise, even though I?ve heard of it before. You know, when it comes through, and you?re like, ?Oh, I knew I wanted to use that.?

	Thank you so much, I really appreciate it. Tell us where we can find more about you, more about your process, all that fun stuff, online.

Pete:	Yeah, Jaime, I just want to close it up, like, quick 30 seconds?

Jaime:	No, I?m totally not going to let ? oh, wait. I?m kidding, I?m?

Pete:	Man, she?s getting tough.

Jaime:	This is where he?s closing on the heart side, people, just so you know his framework.

Pete:	There you go, Jaime, there you go. You?re good. But seriously, on a serious note, my wife and I, we have three kiddos, and we just found out ? we were told we would never have kids, so we?ve adopted all three of our kids. We were just told that we are having a kid. We found out at 40 ? first kid ever that we?re actually physically giving birth to. So it?s a little miracle. But it?s ironic, because I?m in my 40?s now, I just turned 40. I got a call from my dad when he was 49, and I didn?t have kids yet, and he told me he was pregnant. I remember thinking, ?Gosh, this isn?t fair. We can?t have kids. We?re struggling to have kids. We?re going to? ? and that?s when we were starting our adoption process. 

	So we went home to meet my little brother for the first time 12 years ago. I remember seeing something different in that home that day. And as we were leaving to come back to Colorado, my wife and I were like, ?There?s something different about my dad.? He walked me to the car, he opened the driver?s door, and he looked me in my eyes before I got in, and he said, ?I want you to know you?ll always be my little boy, but I feel like JT is my second chance to get to do things right.?

	And I?m telling you, I got in the car, and I just broke down. I told my wife, ?This is amazing.? So here?s what I want your listeners to understand. Some of them aren?t using stages. Maybe it?s because they?re scared, or maybe it?s because they?re Chandler Bolt. Like, they think they?re bad. Some people are using them a little, and some people are using them a lot, and maybe you?re not doing it right. But the biggest encouragement I want to encourage you to do is just begin to incorporate stages a little bit into your business. Try to get a little bit better, because they?re so powerful. And had it not been for a stage, my dad wouldn?t be the dad he is to JT, and he wouldn?t be the grandfather to my sister and my kids, had not been because of a stage. So the encouragement to all of your audience is to begin to incorporate stages. 

	Jaime, they can find out more at advanceyourreach.com/em. We actually have an amazing gift there that will take them deeper into all three of these buckets that you and I talked about today. We?ll get their signature talk outlined in about a 25-minute training. We?ll get them on the right stages, and we?ll help them understand how to scale past the stage. So there?s a one-hour launch workshop. Really encourage your listeners to go and get signed up for that, because we?ll take them deeper into all three of these areas. Advanceyourreach.com/em.

Jaime:	And we will definitely link that up. I got more goosebumps in this interview than, I think potentially, ever. So you are a very amazing storyteller. Everybody, make sure you go get that. I apparently now have to also in order to craft my signature talk, so thank you so much for coming on today. I really, really appreciate it.

Pete:	Yeah, it?s been fun. This has really been a fun interview, so thank you for having me.

Jaime:	Anytime.

Tags: Business Owner, entrepreneur podcast Millionaire Entrepreneurs, eventual millionaire, growing your business, growth hacking, how to leverage the stage, jaime masters, Pete Vargas, podcast, speaking business, start-ups / startups, startup entrepreneur, top entrepreneurs, winning local stages

Categories: All, Business Growth/Scaling, Conferences, Featured Millionaire Interview, Millionaire Interviews, Speaking

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

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