Announcer: Welcome to behind the mic presented in part by CAPS, the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers. This podcast is dedicated to recognizing excellence in speaking through fascinating stories and interesting conversations with the people who make the speaking world come alive. Now, please welcome your behind the mic hosts Roxanne Durhodge and Carl Richards.

Roxanne Derhodge: Everyone, welcome back. We're back with Behind the Mic podcast, and I'm here with my amazing co host, Carl Richards. Carl, how are you?

Carl Richards: I'm great, Roxanne. I am fantastic. Thank you so much for We're back at it. Every month, we're here doing this.

Roxanne Derhodge: We're here, and today we have a special guest that Carl is going to introduce because he's known him for quite a while, and Carl just has that kind of voice.

Carl Richards: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Our guest today is a phenomenal individual. Campbell Duann is the founder of the Frequent Speaker, a video marketing agency that helps professional speakers get noticed and booked through high impact demo reels. With a background in speaking, tech, and a gift for storytelling, he's worked with nine figure entrepreneurs, top 50 TED speakers, and globally recognized thought leaders to turn their message into premium speaking opportunities.

Carl Richards: And of course, he's a member of CAPS. Cam, welcome to the podcast.

Cam Beaudoin: How is everyone today? Roxanne Karl, thanks so much for having me on today. I hope this I could like transmit this energy and excitement through the video and the podcast or like raise the energy up and here we go. So if I talk fast, guys know what to do. Just kind of need to pull me back a little bit.

Cam Beaudoin: Okay. So if that ever happens, you just be like, Cam, slow down. Let's get deep dive into that a little bit deeper. Okay.

Carl Richards: Cam, we will slow it down in post. Actually, won't. We won't. But definitely I know there's so much to say and how can we do it in twenty to thirty minutes? It's tricky, right?

Carl Richards: To say everything that there is to say about putting yourself out there, having the right product for promotion and marketing. You've worked with some very key people. What's one of the things that, off the top, what's one of the things that you've noticed regardless of who you're working with, whether they're a 7 figure income earner or a Ted speaker or caps number. What's one of the things that you've noticed as far as how people are putting themselves out there? Are we doing it enough?

Carl Richards: Should we do doing it more?

Cam Beaudoin: Yeah, you know what? So this isn't even a question about speakers. This is a question about entrepreneurship, right? Nobody understands or junior speakers do not understand how much effort it takes to do outreach. Like for example, a lot of speakers at the beginning said, I sent my demo reel.

Cam Beaudoin: I sent a couple of emails out this week. I sent 15. And to put that into perspective, me as a business owner, I send over 1,500 emails a week. And that's just the first hello initial email plus all the follow ups that I do. Yes, I've got tools and AI and I'm using all these extra functions to bring business in, but you don't realize how much work you need to do to put yourself out there to push away the fog and the noise that's happening on social media and people's inboxes and just kind of like getting out there.

Cam Beaudoin: That's just the reality of business, of business, not speaking of business.

Roxanne Derhodge: So putting yourself out there, you kind of think of most of the people that we might interface with in business. They're doing it. They're like, do I have to do this cam? I don't I don't wanna be on camera cam. Does it get better?

Roxanne Derhodge: All those things. When you start working with people, of coach them just about being themselves. What kinds of steps do you suggest that they start to do to get a little bit more comfortable in their own skin?

Cam Beaudoin: Well, most intimidating thing tends to be that big red button, like the record button, right? But as soon as you press that button, it's the same thing as podcasting or any kind of like long or live streaming, right? As soon as you start pressing that button and you go live and the recording starts, all of a sudden, a lot of that fear tends to kind of like disappear after you start speaking for a couple of minutes. We tend to treat every single time that you're in front of a camera like it's this like news reporting live audio and it's really not. So we have to stop fearing that red button.

Cam Beaudoin: Okay. Like the record but I think what it is doing things alone is really hard like finding a buddy, finding a partner, and that's kind of one of the things that that I love doing this with speakers with anybody is getting getting someone to sit down just be like, let me just let's just have a conversation first and let this thing record you in front of you. Just let it happen. And let's just have a regular conversation and we'll see what comes out of that. Now, course, like when people start to get interviewed, can lead them in directions or start, Hey, coaching a little bit like, Hey, if you don't rend your voice with our up upwards inflection, go down in your inflection to speak with authority.

Cam Beaudoin: There's little things like that happen over time and come up with with removing ums and uhs. You don't like ums and uhs in your speech. Well, then, you know, that's something you can remove over time but the whole idea is to get comfortable just like pressing record and then going. Then the whole idea is you gotta post it after that, that's a separate discussion.

Carl Richards: I think that's the biggest thing is that just just hitting the record button because I think that's there's a lot of trepidation with that. And I've worked in broadcasting for years and even as a seasoned broadcaster, there were those moments where going live on the air, I was like, my God, I'm going live now. Especially if it's something that you're really excited about and all stakes are high or whatever it is, every now and again, for folks who come into the radio station and they were fairly highfalutin people that you want to make sure that you're doing a service to them. So I can see how that can be very intimidating, especially for somebody who's not used to it. Once they've hit the button and they're in that groove, that they're in that flow, they're putting themselves out there, they're live or they're recording or whatever it is.

Carl Richards: What are some of the things that people should be aware of, individuals should be aware of as they're putting themselves, especially on camera, right? Because this is about being on camera. What are some of things that they should be aware of as they're doing that?

Cam Beaudoin: I'm tell a quick story here. One of the best things that worked for me was doing a LinkedIn Live every single week. Well, by and large, like I would start to send invites out two weeks before my episode. And man, there's something about seeing numbers of attendees start to tick up and you're like, man, I'm really gonna cancel on 39 people. And yeah, to some people like, oh my God, only 39 people.

Cam Beaudoin: But yeah, people are taking time out of their lunchtime to make time to watch you on LinkedIn. At the time, for me, was talking about disability inclusion and accessibility. That was my speaking topic. And I would host this event every Friday on this. And it was like, oh, now I'm gonna disappoint people, and I don't wanna disappoint people.

Cam Beaudoin: So you start to show up, and you start to make friends. Like I still have friends who listen to me on that podcast and just showing up. So I think what it is, the best way that you can get better is to watch your content, and first off, I know no speaker likes to watch their content, right? Let's be real. No one wants to be like, I can't wait to watch my keynote again after I go and get the recording, right?

Cam Beaudoin: But we need to do it. If you were a pro athlete, what would your coach tell you to do? He would make you sit down and watch the recording of you fumbled here. You didn't do this properly there. Let's get better.

Cam Beaudoin: This is what the other team is doing. Hey, so if you treat your speaking business or you treat like your entrepreneurship, like like what it should be, like something that is a skill that you get better over time with, then by nature of you just doing that, you're gonna say, ah, I do say a lot of ums. I start to work that out. The only way I was able to work ums and uhs out of my speech was by rewatching my content and saying, I gotta slow down. I gotta add some pacing into this or else it's not gonna work.

Cam Beaudoin: That's the best thing. Watching your content afterwards, gotta say is the most important thing.

Roxanne Derhodge: So watching it becomes something that gets easier, you're saying, Cam?

Cam Beaudoin: That sounds like maybe you have a story. Like, you don't watch like watching your own content, Roxanne. I take it probably not a big No.

Roxanne Derhodge: I always watch it, and then I don't know if other people feel like this. I always think, oh, it wasn't as bad as I thought. Right? Because you really, after a while, to your point, you recognize, oh, you know, maybe I touch my glasses too much. Even working with Carl on this podcast, because Carl's a professional and has been on radio for a very long time, he's even guided me through certain things that has been helpful.

Roxanne Derhodge: So when people are starting off, they should watch the content. Then what should they do? You might have some direction, but I'm gonna think like eyes like yours. You see other things to bring it up a level. So what kinds of things might you start to recognize or coach someone on in order to kind of refine, you know, the clay?

Cam Beaudoin: Well, the best thing I would ever recommend someone to do is start to learn how to speak in sound bites. Because those sound bites are going to be useful in so many places, right? When somebody stops you on the street or at a networking event and says, what do you do? If you start to talk about your long drawn out story, your backstory, you're gonna, you're not gonna make any friends at that event because you need to have a brand association. You need to have people understand that Carl podcast.

Cam Beaudoin: When you start sticking those two things together, right? Like those types of things in people's minds are so important. And the only way you can really start to do that is by learning to speak in soundbites. Okay. So what I coach people through, and I'm working with people on camera is just that.

Cam Beaudoin: So a speaker has to be able to communicate a response to that question in like ten to twelve seconds, ten to twenty seconds, something like that. Then you go into the story, add a period right there. Stop. Full stop. Okay, great.

Cam Beaudoin: I said what I need to say. Now I can tell the little story about how I learned about whatever, like how I fell into this profession. So that's hugely valuable. And I'm always watching for that. That's one major thing.

Cam Beaudoin: The ums and ahs I've talked about a few times now. That's one thing that we all can practice on all the time. Touching your face. Touching your face is one that I hear, I see speakers do a lot. Yeah, yeah.

Cam Beaudoin: It actually speaks to insecurity, right? There's some research that if you're always doing this, because what do people do when they're being covert, right? They cover their faces. They don't wanna see themselves. So there's some psychological thing in the back of our minds that says, if you touch your face a lot, picking your nose or scratching this or adjusting your hat, you tend to be an insecure person.

Cam Beaudoin: You can only realize that if you're watching your video or someone else is telling you, you know what? You touch your face a lot. And that happened to me. That's exactly what I needed to work on as part of my on video presence. But one thing for any speakers out there, your on video presence translates almost directly to stage presence as well.

Cam Beaudoin: Because when you're in those heightened situations, which is usually what happens in front of a camera, right? You're like, you're all right, you're hamming up, you don't know what to say sometimes because it feels very intense. That's very similar to what it's like on stage, especially for newbie speakers, right? Right, so it will translate directly to that environment as well. So you get better on camera means you get better on stage.

Cam Beaudoin: I very much believe that.

Carl Richards: And make no mistake about it, there's a lot of times that, I should scratch my neck, but that's different. But are times when speakers are being recorded and they don't even think about it because, you know, the conference organizer or the convention is recording everything for archival purposes. So they're being recorded sometimes. So they really need to be aware of that and understand that they're sometimes being recorded when they don't even know it. And so they should definitely take that stage presence that they're used to.

Carl Richards: Things that you wouldn't do on stage that you probably shouldn't do on camera either. You know what I mean? Those things should probably carry over.

Cam Beaudoin: Yeah. A 100%. Oh, one thing that you mentioned there talking about event organizers recording content, and we should definitely speak more about this, is that you should really put in your contracts that you get that recording, right? Because everything is video first these days. How else are you gonna be able prove to your next event organizer that you're engaging on stage, you've got a great topic that you're able to interact with the audience and all these kinds of good things that we know speakers should be doing if you don't have the proof?

Cam Beaudoin: This is your proof. So I really encourage everybody I speak to say, get in the habit of speaking with the organizer beforehand and saying, can I get that footage? Am I able to access the videos afterwards? How long will it take? Because I've heard some speakers saying like they're waiting six months for that content because it's owned by the production agency and they've gotta go through all these hoops.

Cam Beaudoin: No, Put that in your contract. Ask people to say, Hey, I need this video afterwards. And if you can't provide it to me, can I bring my own videographer? Because talk about content first strategy, everything is about video content these days.

Roxanne Derhodge: You know, it's interesting that you say that it translates to the stage. I think of myself, when I started podcasting, and I'm a talker, a bit of a talker, would say, Cam. But when I go back and I've painfully looked at some of these podcasts from eight years ago or even my early, early speaking events, and then fast forward, and now I'm looking at these more recent events or podcasts, and I'm completely different. Right? So that point about practice where you can actually just be yourself.

Roxanne Derhodge: Like, I'd be myself because I met you, Cam, already briefly, but I know Carl very well. So I'm just being who I am. And that whole element is the capture of, I'm just having a conversation with my friends, is ultimately where we wanna land, whether we're on camera or whether we're on a stage.

Cam Beaudoin: Absolutely. Yeah. And it's neat to see that progression too, isn't it? Right? If you look at videos or content of yourself from eight years ago, you mentioned.

Cam Beaudoin: So is there anything, what comes from, in your mind, like what was the one thing that you've improved the most on? I'm super curious now.

Roxanne Derhodge: I think I'm more succinct because I'm a little bit of a carry on and those types of things. Just being a little bit more succinct when I'm speaking, that definitely, obviously with speech, you're practicing over and over and over again, which makes it a little bit more it feels more contrived. But on camera, it feels more conversational. So I've actually tried to apply being on camera and being more conversational on stage. So that's where I've seen the growth because now I kinda look at it and say, I'm just having a conversation with my friend Cam.

Roxanne Derhodge: And as I'm on stage and I'm coming across as anybody that knows me or has read my books or whatever, they're like, oh, that's how Roxy talks Versus I'm on a stage, there's lots of eyes, I'm going to be this different thing, right? So that didn't go over very well.

Cam Beaudoin: That's a really cool observation. That's cool.

Carl Richards: That's a good one too. And I wanted to ask you another question here, Cam, moving the conversation along a little bit. I want to talk about demo reels because obviously this is right now. This is the work that you do, right? You're like, thumbs up, man.

Carl Richards: Yeah, let's do it. But I want to take it from a different angle. I want to ask speaker reel full pause that every speaker should know, but they're doing them anyways.

Cam Beaudoin: All right, the biggest faux pas is the demo reel is all about them. And it's so take a step back. What is a demo reel? It is a piece of marketing material. It is a video marketing asset that gets people saying they want to pick up the phone and talk to the speaker, right?

Cam Beaudoin: But if all you do is talk about yourself, look at me, I've been on these stages accolades, I'm so wonderful. And I see that so often it turns into this like highlights reel kind of thing of it's just a bunch of like scenes of you on stage. It's like, I'm a 10 time TED speaker or things like that. Loses its power. What you gotta do is talk about the audience.

Cam Beaudoin: You gotta talk about the problem that you solve. You gotta talk about why people should be bringing you up on stage and then, you know, what's the what's the big problem that audience has that you can help the transformation you can help guide them through because the video demo reel only does one thing. It books the call with the event planner, it doesn't sell the gig, it books the call because they see you and be like, think I want Carl on my stage, right? Like that's what they want. They want to see you in action.

Cam Beaudoin: And if you can't, once you're on the call, you can do whatever you want. You can sell whatever kind of package you want. You can change it into a training or a workshop or a keynote, like whatever you're looking for. But the demo reel has the purpose to start the conversation with the event planner and move that forward. So that's the biggest faux pas.

Cam Beaudoin: Only talking about yourself.

Roxanne Derhodge: Just give me one sec. I just have to bite my dog. So I would just give me one sec. I'm so sorry about this, guys.

Cam Beaudoin: We don't hear it, by

Roxanne Derhodge: the way. You don't?

Cam Beaudoin: Don't. Is really good at eliminating that stuff. My baby crying, don't Okay, perfect. My baby's right here crying the whole time. Like you're not hearing her the whole time.

Cam Beaudoin: Well, I'm just letting her cry. She's only five weeks old. It's okay.

Roxanne Derhodge: I'm just thinking, you know, we talk about hooks, but I'm gonna say with demo reels, how do you decide if you're, say, working with Carl or you're working with someone like me? Because it's the attention. Right? It's the attention you wanna capture. It's like the first time you get on stage.

Roxanne Derhodge: You want that video, like you said, to your point, you're closing the sale, you're getting the initial phone call, but you have to do the entire sales process. What's the sweet spot that you need to start with when you start a demo reel?

Cam Beaudoin: Okay, some rules of thumb. Number one, speaker bureaus want to see you on stage within the first ten seconds of a reel. Okay, so putting that out there, that's like a default that we go to. If you don't have enough stage footage, and by the way, we can maybe talk about this in a moment, I don't believe that every speaker needs a demo reel either. We can talk about the who needs it the most probably in a moment, but you want to have an image of you on stage performing, speaking preferably to show that you have been on stage before at something like that.

Cam Beaudoin: So that's like rule number one, do that. Then we're talking about a big data fact, like the middle of a story, like a punchline to a story, a shocking statistic. Something that's gonna shake people up. People are just like, Oh, I wonder what, you know, what Roxy is talking about here. What's the big factor that's going on?

Cam Beaudoin: You can even add visual elements to that as well, like a big splash or something like that would really shock people or make people keep watching. Because if you can't capture attention within that first seven seconds, people start to look away, they've got their phone. You have to put yourself in the mindset of a demo reel is not something that people are scrolling TikTok and looking at 11:30 at night, right? Like it's a different environment. They are usually at their desk, they are usually watching it small screen, right?

Cam Beaudoin: They're not watching on their phones, that tends to be what the data shows on my YouTube where I have all all of our work. Most people watching on a desktop, they're looking at it while they're making decisions, and they have other demo reels that they have to watch on YouTube or wherever as well, right? So the whole idea is how do you capture attention as soon as possible? So big data facts, you up on stage, something that's different, visually different, things like that. So that's where I would even start with this.

Cam Beaudoin: And these are like video principles. These aren't like demo reel principles. This is just how do you make videos that just capture attention.

Carl Richards: Nice, nice. I love it. Okay, I'm intrigued. Who doesn't need a demo reel, who does need a demo reel?

Cam Beaudoin: Sure, yeah. Doesn't need a demo reel. If you are a newbie speaker, you don't need a demo reel. You just don't, you don't have enough footage because I think it's worse to send a, to spend a bunch of money, first off, lovely with that. You're not making enough money to really cover the cost of a good enough demo reel.

Cam Beaudoin: I know because I used to do them. You're not gonna find somebody like a good editor who understands sales and marketing. You gotta be in that mindset, you have to understand what the speaking industry is about. Because if you just put up a bunch of podcasts, or if you just put up a bunch of webinars, event planners don't want somebody who's just a webinar speaker anymore. So if all you're putting out there and you're saying, Hey, I'm a great speaker, here's a bunch of podcasts and webinars that I've been on, they're gonna say, Oh, I guess that's all you do.

Cam Beaudoin: So they're gonna put you in that discount pile, right? That's the reality or not. That's a discount pile. Seth Godin, brilliant marketer. He only does virtual now, but because he's already made a name for himself, he doesn't need to do that.

Cam Beaudoin: Now who does need a demo reel? Actually, one sec. I will just add one more person. If you're a part time speaker, if this is casual, if you're not actively going out and finding speaking opportunities, right? If you're just, if that happens to, somebody happens my way and they want me to speak, I'll go speak for $500 or something like that.

Cam Beaudoin: That's generally, you don't need a demo reel. It's just not at that level yet. When you start to really need a demo reel, is when you kind of break that 5 figure speaking range, especially there. 5 to 10 is usually the sweet spot of when people come to start coming to me being like, okay, I think I gotta do this because at that level at $10.15 dollars 20,000 per event, everybody's good. You're only up against people who are good.

Cam Beaudoin: Right? Let's be real. Like you may be up against like up against astronauts or athletes or actors, The three A's. And if you aren't putting your best foot forward, you may be up against people who already have an established brand. And that event plan is looking I need a day three keynoter, right?

Cam Beaudoin: Not the hope, not the opener. I need a day three keynoter. I've got a $25,000 budget. And shoot, I gotta like do work in some workshops here. So I've got maybe 10 to 15,000 for a keynoter for the opener on that day three.

Cam Beaudoin: And I've got a local hockey star. I've got a B list actor, and I've got somebody who's like a leadership. Who's going to be the best? And the best way to stand out in that is to have a demo reel that showcases the breadth of your work.

Roxanne Derhodge: So approximately, this is a tactical microscopic question, how many times, how many, like to, in order to get an effective demo reel, right, like you said, capture them quickly, seven seconds, They should they you should be different stages. How many stages do you need to be on to have enough content, Cam, to make it worth your while? Because I'm like you're saying, like I may say a percentage, right, like you said, might be good with a visual. Would you add that in? Or are you trying to extract that out of the actual speech?

Roxanne Derhodge: Or do you do additional kind of videoing with some of those statistics if the person doesn't have it?

Cam Beaudoin: Yeah, so I always try to record an interview as part of what we do as part of our process. So I will go book a video studio and we'll go record something to four ks cameras, blah blah blah, bunch of technical stuff. But I like that look like it looks really well because then whoever's watching that video can see you speaking directly to cameras saying, this is the biggest problem in the world for your leadership team right now. Or did you know that AI is about to take away one third of all jobs in The United States, right? Like you delivering powerful message that direct to camera has a different effect.

Cam Beaudoin: And it speaks directly to one person, and you're only ever gonna be watched by one person. So that's a very powerful technique. There's no set number of amount of footage. I like to have at least three, a minimum of three. Like I tend not to work with people unless they have at least a little bit of footage.

Cam Beaudoin: We've tried it before, it just doesn't work. Because again, we still need you on stage because an event planner wants to see you on stage in action, if they're gonna bring you onto a stage. It can't just be a bunch of talking head direct to camera footage. But also it goes back to like the quality of the footage. So I really encourage people, go and hire a videographer to follow you around when you go to an event.

Cam Beaudoin: Yes, it'll cost you $500. Yes, it'll cost you a thousand, depending. By the way, if you're a speaker in California, they are the worst. It's so hard to find a cheap videographer in California because everyone thinks they're filming for Hollywood and it's just not the case. Please, videographers, if you're in California, reduce your prices.

Cam Beaudoin: I know it's very expensive to live there too. All that to be said, hire somebody to follow you around for a day, shaking hands, signing your book, like wearing t shirts, getting pictures with the audience, giving feedback. Because you know, after a talk, somebody's coming up to you and saying, Roxanne, you said this, and can you give me a little bit more information about that? Just yes, videographer, come here, mic me up. Let's ask this question together.

Cam Beaudoin: Think of all the applications that has. You could put that onto social media. You could put that in your demo reel. You could put that on your website. You could create social.

Cam Beaudoin: You could create a lead magnet. You could create content from that one question. There's so many applications for this. And yeah, $500, best $500 you'll spend because that footage will be used everywhere.

Carl Richards: So it's not just about creating the content for your reel, you're creating boatloads of shorts or snippets or whatever for repurposing elsewhere.

Cam Beaudoin: Everywhere, everywhere. That's like the content first model, content first strategy. And don't wanna say like, there's content and there's quality content, right? I think what people get wrong is they think that somebody, one of their friends at the back of the room with their iPhone recording like this with their shaky hand is gonna be sufficient. But you probably wouldn't show up for a job interview wearing khakis and like a dirty t shirt.

Cam Beaudoin: We just wouldn't do that. And so my whole idea is, yeah, put money into your branding because that's the perception that people have when they see somebody who's invested in themselves is, Okay, this speaker's not great today, but I see they're investing themselves, so I'm thinking of them for the next event that's coming up, or a different event, especially in corporate. This has happened to me a couple of times. I apply for one event, we're not interested in having you for here. But you may be able to just give a workshop to our accessibility team, because you have some great ideas.

Cam Beaudoin: Half, can we book you for a half day workshop? What are you gonna say no to that? No, because you're putting, your the signals are this person is investing in their brand, which means they must be a serious speaker. Right.

Roxanne Derhodge: What about look on camera? Like, how important is that? I think recently, we were talking about how to dress for the stage. And the stage or the meeting or the pre meeting, when you're actually working with someone, Cam, how important is that in reference to presence? So let's say, you know, I'm a laid back speaker and I wear running shoes and I'm very casual.

Roxanne Derhodge: Is that all kept into context when you're working with them?

Cam Beaudoin: Yeah, definitely. You want to show up like you would show up on stage, right? And going back to the example of getting a job, you'd want to show up for the job that you want, And that kind of thing, you're wearing a suit. You would, you probably would need to dress up in a suit to go for a manufacturing job, like things like, I don't know, I've never applied for one, but I'm assuming that's kind of how it goes. I know at developers, it was totally cool to show up in a hoodie.

Cam Beaudoin: So if you're showing up like that on stage, you kind of want to match that a little bit. You know, don't dress up. Don't wear a tie if you don't normally wear a tie. The attire is very, very, very casual. Cut your hair, wear makeup if that's what you would normally do on stage as well.

Cam Beaudoin: You know, look very presentable, but you need to treat at interview like you would treat a keynote. That's one thing I've had to coach my clients in, and that, you know, if you show up for an interview, I'll just figure this out, then you're not going give your best. Just like you wouldn't just show up and give a keynote for forty five minutes just off some notes on the back of your hand. You just wouldn't do it. I could maybe some speakers could, but I know I couldn't do it.

Carl Richards: Awesome. I have a question that's popped into my head and it's one that I've heard in the radio world in my journeys, but I've also heard demo reels or seen speaker reels rather that employ this as well. And I want your thoughts on this. A voiceover. They're hiring a voiceover to do the Cambo Duan.

Carl Richards: He's your next conference speaker. So something like that. Do do you encourage or do you even have that so speakers can incorporate that into the reels?

Cam Beaudoin: Not really. If I was going to do something like that, would prefer just the speaker themselves to give their stats or give that voice over to. But that just tells me that you don't have enough experience or footage to be on stage to do it as well, which goes back to that first bucket of maybe you just like somebody who you're probably not going for a $15,000 talk. Like you're probably not gonna get that talk with the voiceover. Because again, what's the signal there?

Cam Beaudoin: Yeah, I've seen demo reels out there who have a green screen, like a fake. Get this, have you seen those demos, like a fake audience, you've seen those ones before? And it's just all smoke and mirrors to me. Like I'm just not a big proponent of any of that kind of stuff. Like marketing in general has a bad rap because people lie in their ads all the time.

Cam Beaudoin: So is that really what you wanna project out there? Because look, event planners have been fired because they've hired the wrong speaker. Event planners, if you're gonna spend $25,000 or whatever, like I know we're talking about a lot of money here. If they're gonna spend $5.10, 15,000, they think of a smaller association that may be their entire budget. You show up and you've falsified that in some way, you're risking somebody's job.

Cam Beaudoin: Just go get a couple of other stages. Go spend the $200 to go get yourself recorded at your local chamber of commerce. And then you've got the footage. It's easy as that. And you should be comfortable doing that too.

Cam Beaudoin: So that's my take on that.

Roxanne Derhodge: I think of story. Right? So really, what you're telling, you're making a little mini movie about Carl Richards when you're doing that reel. Right? And it has to touch a lot of points that are valuable to your point where you're talking to the customer.

Roxanne Derhodge: And so really knowing your target audience becomes very important. Knowing, quote, unquote, what's my lane? Mhmm. So you can't be a kind of a vague kind of person, to your point, either starting off if you haven't done that branding. That would be a misstep to come early.

Roxanne Derhodge: But what is it let's say people are listening, and I know a lot of people have been listening to Carl's lovely voice for these last six episodes that we've put out. So if people are listening and they're thinking, Am I ready? I've done some. I think my brand's okay. What kinds of things would you suggest they start thinking about in order to be able to say, have a conversation with you?

Cam Beaudoin: Sure. The biggest thing is do you have a is there a problem that you help solve? Is there a transformation that you've helped an audience, a customer, some of that through? So there's a basic story structure. And if you remember, go back to your high school days, you've probably learned the story structure, the hero's journey, right?

Cam Beaudoin: You are not the hero of, you know, your audience, right? Like you are not the hero, you are the guide, right? You are the Gandalf to their Frodo. And you have to remember that while you're on stage that if you put yourself in the position of me, my story, then people tend to tune out because they're like, we've all been in front of those audiences where you get to speak and you're like, what does this have to do with me? And you like, it's halfway through the talk and you're like, I don't what's the point?

Cam Beaudoin: And you by then you've already tuned out and opened up Tik Tok and you're scrolling already, right? Everyone has been into a talk like that. And that is not the position that you want to be in. So you do that by following a simple story structure. Okay, I'm just gonna rattle up the structure here.

Cam Beaudoin: And maybe we can dive in if we need to, but this is go back to your days of how do you build a basic story structure? So you got a hook. We talked about that one already. Then you immediately start to dive into the problem because that's where you want people to stop watching, right? If there's not a clear problem that you solve, you want to get that upfront.

Cam Beaudoin: Most speakers make the mistake of starting to speak about themselves at that point, right? They go into thirty seconds of talking about themselves. Next up, you want to talk about, you want to build up your story or that buildup, the intrigue as part of that problem and who is there. Then you present yourself as the guide, right? You present yourself as the person, the Gandalf, the person who can lead the hero, the audience member through that journey, because I'm here to help you out with your leadership problems, or your sales problems, or your AI challenges and things like that.

Cam Beaudoin: Then you talk about that transformation, the solution to the problem that you've presented at the very beginning. And you just end with a call to action that kind of closes off this reel. To anyone who's listening, if you've kind of got some of those components ready, you're like, okay, they know how to build a good hook into my talks, because I talk about data and that's fine. These are like, yes, I've got a very clear problem that I helped solve. And sometimes you gotta paint a Venn diagram because sometimes, I'll give you an example, I worked with a speaker once, and she spoke on high stakes interrogation.

Cam Beaudoin: She spoke on body language, and she spoke on disaster preparedness. Okay, she was an ex, I believe it was CIA agent. And like, we had to paint the Venn diagram. What, where's the, kind of like, what's the middle of all those topics that she speaks on? And we actually end up getting away from the disaster preparedness, because that was like, it didn't really fit in that model.

Cam Beaudoin: But the demo turned into like clear messaging around the problems that she helped solve was getting people to understand that interrogation is just an interview. Like how do you get people just to open up in front of you? And that was the whole throughput of that whole, that whole reel. So once you start to get clarity around that, then again, once you get in front of that event planner, you can say whatever you want. You can talk about whatever talks you have, but they need to be able to understand, ah, if I'm gonna bring Carl in, he's gonna come and talk about this.

Cam Beaudoin: And that's the clarity that you need.

Carl Richards: I know we got to wrap things up, but before I turn you loose, I do want to ask one more quick question about the reel process, I guess you could say. I've got a reel, it's serving me well.

Cam Beaudoin: I've had

Carl Richards: it for a couple of years now. How often should I be updating my reel?

Cam Beaudoin: Well, I like to say if your topic has changed, if your attire has changed, don't know, Karl, like, does old reel show when you had hair? I don't know, is that a, like, I'm asking for it.

Carl Richards: I haven't had it for a while.

Cam Beaudoin: I don't know.

Roxanne Derhodge: It's it's just a reel.

Cam Beaudoin: Because I've seen something. It's like people are still putting their reel out there that's 12 years old. Remember when there was no landscape, sixteen, nine by 16, right? That size, and you still got the four by three and you're like, what's going on here? You get some mixed footage of some as vertical, some as horizontal, and it's like, okay, there's no cohesiveness to it, or you're that was you like, it's like updating your website.

Cam Beaudoin: I know that it's one of those branding tasks, but demo speaker bureaus have said every six to twelve months, like that's a bit early for me even, like I don't think that's required. I like the eighteen to twenty four months, two, three years, pushing it. Because if your talk hasn't changed in three years, then that's probably communicating something to an event planner anyways. Are you really talking about the same AI that's relevant today as it was three years ago? Like, I don't know what that's communicating.

Carl Richards: Gotcha. Are you still talking about Clubhouse in your-

Cam Beaudoin: You still talking about Clubhouse and Periscope? Come on.

Roxanne Derhodge: So you have been a part of our organization for a while, Cam. And for people listening out there, tell them why you like hanging out at CAPS and some of the things that you benefited from in the last little while.

Cam Beaudoin: Actually, I'll tell you a story. I've been following, I've been on the outskirts of CAPS for about four years now. Know Denis Boudreaux. He and I are friends from industry, actually in the world of accessibility. So I've been following him and kind of joining some, some Toronto local meetups for a while, but I pulled the trigger just last December.

Cam Beaudoin: So I became a new CAPS member then. And I mean, one of the big things is when I went to the January in person event, and what I really appreciated was that focus on speaking as a craft and not just as a hobby, right? Like it's no longer this conversation around, Yeah, like we are entrepreneurs who speak. It's like the speaker first mentality. And that's a lot of fun to be around people who who treat that well.

Cam Beaudoin: And who is I think I'll do this twist who is speaking. And she was talking about text on screen. And she was talking about how you can leverage Canva and other ways to make your text look nice so that, you know, we all know that you shouldn't have a wall of text when you're presenting, right? Like images first or stuff like that. But she had a wall of text and she's like, Look, I'm the cardinal sin of speaking is not to have a wall of text, right?

Cam Beaudoin: But then she showed us how to dissect it and make a visual representation of a wall of text. It was like, Oh, you can have it. You just can't suck. Right? Like that was the whole lesson that Twist had.

Cam Beaudoin: It was like, you can do whatever you want. Like whatever the rules are, you can break them, but you have to be able to like, do that. And that was, like, big light bulb moments for me that helped me not only in presentations, like, in front of a live audience, but also presentations on video presentations. Like, like, it just helps all over the place. That was really cool.

Roxanne Derhodge: Awesome, awesome. Well, and in her twist own way, she does it very well, right? So she's showing us examples and you're thinking, Oh no, that's me. But this is possible. So it's nice to be able to know that every time you go to an event, and obviously we have the regional events, and I was actually there that night camp.

Roxanne Derhodge: And we have national events monthly where people, you can get subject matter experts across the continuum of whatever is happening in the speaking world and listen to people amidst us that can share such wisdom often. So I'm gonna let Carr close off, but what an inspiration it is just to listen and to know that we have you amidst us now. We can reach out and think through what are we doing. And I'm thinking through just my own space and what I need to do. Thanks for being with us here today, Cam.

Cam Beaudoin: Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me.

Carl Richards: Yeah. Thanks so much, Cam. It's been great having you here. Yet again, you and I behind the mics. It's been lots of fun.

Carl Richards: And if you've enjoyed what you've heard and watched, we do this every month, number one. CAPS is a speaking organization and it's canadianspeakers.org. Are you a member yet? If you are a member, you already know what CAPS is all about. If you're not a member, why not?

Carl Richards: Canadianspeakers.org is where you'll find out more information about CAPS and what we're all about. And we are here with this podcast every single month bringing you fantastic speakers. Roxanne and I have some fun, and that's it for another week. So canadianspeakers.org where you will find information about CAPS.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to Behind the Mic presented in part by CAPS where members are driven by the four pillars of Learn, Share, Grow and Belong If you liked what you heard today, leave us

Carl Richards: a comment or a review.

Announcer: And so that you never miss an episode, please subscribe to our channel. Be sure to join us again soon for the next edition of Behind the Mic.

Carl Richards: All the great things that we do as an organization, all the things, and you can meet people like Cam, if you do decide to come to some of our events as a guest, or even if you do decide to come out as a member as well. We'll be there, we'll be here, we'll be here rather, next month for another edition of Behind the Mic. It's been fun, Roxanne.

Roxanne Derhodge: Take care.