The Speaker Lab Podcast

"Because a plan that you make alone on the last night of the year is a wish. And a plan you build in a room with coaches looking at your numbers and speakers holding you to it. Now that is a commitment and commitments are what get you booked and paid to speak."

Welcome back to The Speaker Lab Podcast! In this episode, Dan Irvin is flying solo with a big announcement — and a lesson that holds up long after the announcement does. The Speaker Lab Live, the first-ever Speaker Lab live event, is coming to Plywood Place in Atlanta's West End on Thursday, December 10, 2026. Dan and Lead Coach Erick Rheam are leading a full day of live coaching, breakout sessions, and 2027 planning — a "momentum day" designed to close out the year with energy and a real plan. But if you're hearing this after December 10, stick around. The reason behind the event is the episode.

Dan starts with the part of speaking nobody puts on a highlight reel: the drive home. The room was with you. People lined up afterward. And then you shut the car door and it's quiet — no team high fives, no one to debrief with. The next morning you're back at your desk writing outreach emails alone. Dan has talked with thousands of speakers, and that alone feeling comes up more than fees, more than niche. The speakers who grow fastest, he says, are typically the most connected — people who refer them, tell them the truth, and pass along gigs that fit. The ones who stall are often smart and hardworking, but they're doing it all by themselves, guessing at their fees, second-guessing every proposal at 11 at night. The Speaker Lab has lived on video calls and community threads, and that works. But some things only happen in a room: the lunch conversation where a speaker you just met knows the planner you've been trying to reach for a year; honest feedback that a comment thread keeps polite; and energy from people who don't look at you funny when you say you want to get paid to speak.

Dan shares the story of a speaker inside The Speaker Lab who spent 20 years in banking with a talk on leading teams through big change. She was smart, prepared, did every assignment — and told Dan, "I feel like I'm doing this on an island." She worked from her kitchen table, sent emails, got silence, and started to wonder if it was her. The team nudged her to connect with other speakers in the community. She was nervous and almost didn't, but she reached out to one. They traded outreach emails and pointed out what wasn't landing. Then that speaker messaged her: a planner was looking for someone on change, and she'd given the planner her name. A few weeks later, it turned into a paid booking. Her line: "The gig was great… but the best part was realizing I was not alone."

Whether you're planning to be in Atlanta on December 10, building your speaking business from your kitchen table, or just tired of doing this whole thing alone, this episode makes the case for the thing most speakers skip: finding your people.

You'll learn:

Why the speakers who grow fastest are typically the most connected — not always the most talented or the most polished

The part of speaking nobody talks about: the drive home, the quiet car, and the alone feeling that comes up more than fees or niche

Three things that happen in a room that almost never happen on Zoom: referrals, honest feedback, and real energy

How one lunch conversation can connect you to the planner you've been trying to reach for a year

Why Dan chose December — and why a plan you make alone on the last night of the year is a wish

What The Speaker Lab Live actually looks like: live coaching on real businesses, breakouts for newer and advanced speakers, and a 2027 plan built in the room

Who The Speaker Lab Live is for (you don't have to be a Speaker Lab student — if you're building a speaking business, you belong in the room)

The story of a speaker who went from working alone at her kitchen table to a paid booking after reaching out to one fellow speaker

Dan's homework, whether you come to Atlanta or not: write down the names of three speakers, reach out to one this week, and bring something real to the conversation

Why "My spouse is supportive, but they don't really get it" is a call Dan hears again and again — and what to do about it

And much, much more!

"In this business, one booking can pay for the trip many times over. I cannot promise you that booking. Nobody honestly can, but I can tell you where those bookings tend to start. They start with people. They start with people every single time."

The Speaker Lab Live — Thursday, December 10, 2026 — Plywood Place, Atlanta. One full day of live coaching, breakouts, and building your 2027 plan in the room with Dan Irvin and Lead Coach Erick Rheam. The date, venue, nearby hotels, and how to grab your seat are all at thespeakerlab.com/live-event. Pricing goes up as seats fill.

Building your speaking business and doing most of it alone? Book a free Speaker Business Assessment — a 15-minute session where the team looks at where you are, where you want to go, and what a real system looks like from here.

Episode Resources:

The Speaker Lab Live (Atlanta, Dec 10)

Speaker Business Assessment

MySpeakerFee

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"The audience first plan is not really a strategy. It's a hiding place. Because posting into the void is safe. Nobody tells you no."

Welcome back to The Speaker Lab Podcast! This is one of Dan's solo episodes — just you and him, coffee-shop style — and he's tackling a belief that keeps a lot of speakers stuck: the idea that you need to build a big audience before you can get booked and paid to speak.

Here's the truth about planners: they're not checking your follower count. They're asking one question — can I put this person in front of my people and will it go well? Dan breaks down who actually hires speakers (associations, companies, conferences, schools), what those buyers look for when they find your name, and why the four trust-building assets every planner checks have nothing to do with how many people follow you online.

He also shares the story of a speaker inside TSL's coaching program — a manufacturing operations expert with just over 200 LinkedIn followers — who landed her first paid booking about six weeks after one phone call to someone already in her network. Her line afterward says it all: "I spent a year trying to get strangers to notice me when the person who could book me was in my phone the whole time."

Whether you're a new speaker wondering when you'll have "enough" of a following to start reaching out, or an experienced one still defaulting to content as your main growth strategy, this episode lays out a clearer, faster path.

You'll learn:

The one question every event planner is really asking when they find your name

Why "build an audience first" looks like a strategy but often functions as a hiding place

The four kinds of buyers that hire paid speakers — and the two things every one of them is hiring for

Why a clear talk title beats a clever one (and the three-second test to know the difference)

What your one-sheet is actually for (hint: it's not about impressing the planner)

What a demo video needs to show — and why a break room with 40 people works

Where content actually fits in the booking process (it's the second impression, not the first)

How one speaker with 200 followers turned a single warm phone call into her first paid gig

The forward test: the one exercise that tells you if a planner can sell you internally

Why more stages — not more posts — is the fastest path to building real trust

And much, much more!

"Every month you spend waiting for an audience is a month that room goes without you."

What would a planner see if they looked you up right now? Find out with TSL's free Speaker Business Assessment — in just 15 minutes, the team evaluates your talk title, abstract, video, and testimonials and shows you exactly what to fix so planners trust you enough to book you.

Episode Resources:

Speaker Business Assessment

MySpeakerFee

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"I made a decision in my head, I'm going to America. I'm going to come here, build a business, live a life, get a green card, then get citizenship, do it all above board. But the decision was massive. How do I make it stick?"
Welcome back to The Speaker Lab Podcast! In this Alumni Spotlight, Dan pulls up a chair with Julian V. Taylor — a British-born media entrepreneur who spent more than two decades building businesses on both sides of the Atlantic. Julian started in magazine publishing in London, launched RedCoat Publishing in Boston, and produced television for networks like the History Channel and Discovery. Now he speaks to CEOs and leadership teams through his workshop, "Decisions That Stick," part of his broader Bold Bridge Method for working with the C-suite.
Julian walks through how a couple of outreach phone calls landed him in front of Vistage groups — one of the toughest rooms there is — and what it was like running his first workshop for a brand-new group in Tallahassee after losing his voice on a London work trip. He breaks down the hands-on tools he brings into those rooms, including a Decision Contract (each participant writes a contract with themselves to keep a decision on track) and a Consequence Ladder that maps where a choice actually takes you. He also gets honest about the session that didn't go well: a third workshop with too many people dialing in remotely, a score that came back below where it needed to be, and the rule he built from it.
But the real surprise? The content wasn't the hard part. Julian expected building his curriculum to be the biggest climb. It wasn't — that flowed naturally. The brick wall was everything else: who to call, who to talk to, and the hours it takes to work the phones. Dan and Julian dig into what's actually working now — from a longtime friend who told Julian poolside that his team needs exactly what he teaches, to Vistage chairs recommending his workshop to other chairs. Dan coaches on depth over breadth (go deeper into rooms you've already been in before going wider) and the 85/15 reality of speaking: maybe 15% of the time is on stage, and the other 85% is everything that gets you there.
Whether you're building your first workshop, trying to crack into executive peer groups, or grinding through the middle stretch where the content is ready but the pipeline isn't — this conversation is full of practical, honest insight on what it actually takes.
You'll learn:
How two outreach calls to business owners in Ohio turned into three back-to-back Vistage meetings in Florida
Why Julian ran his first Vistage workshop with almost no voice, and why not overthinking it helped
The Decision Contract: the agreement each CEO writes with themselves, on paper, to keep a decision on track
The Consequence Ladder, Julian's three-lane interstate for seeing where a decision's consequences push you
Why you can't blanket-call or blanket-email Vistage chairs, and what to do instead
What a low score on his third workshop taught him, and why he now turns down rooms full of people dialing in remotely
The part Julian expected to be hardest (building the content) vs the part that actually is (finding planners with an event six months out)
Dan's 85/15 rule: how little of a speaking business actually happens on stage
Why a friend's comment by the pool and chair-to-chair referrals beat a bigger list, plus Dan's case for 30 minutes of outreach a day
How speaking pulled Julian into consulting, including a succession plan for an owner whose four kids are buying the business

"I've got two or three other chairs that are considering my curriculum and my workshop. And they've spoken to the other chairs. So now they're, oh, you came highly recommended. How would you do this for my group? That's worth its weight in gold."
Are your best opportunities hiding in rooms you've already been in? Take the free Speaker Business Assessment and find out where your speaking business actually stands.
Episode Resources:
Speaker Business Assessment
Julian V. Taylor
JVH Media Group
MySpeakerFee
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"The famine is not caused by the famine. The famine is caused by what you did not do during the feast."

Welcome back to The Speaker Lab Podcast! In this episode, Dan Irvin pulls up a chair for another one of his unfiltered coffee shop conversations — just you and Dan across the table.

Everybody talks about the stage. The standing ovation, the packed room, the nailed close. Nobody posts about the morning after — back in your home office, adrenaline gone, thank-you messages slowing down, staring at a calendar with nothing on it. Every speaker has had that Tuesday. The ones with full calendars and the ones who are stuck had the exact same Tuesday. They did something different with it. Dan breaks down the feast-famine loop most speakers are trapped in — land a gig, ride the high, go quiet, panic, scramble, repeat — and what it actually takes to replace it, starting with the 85% of the business that happens off stage. He walks through the five pipeline stages working speakers run every week, shares the simple math behind consistent bookings, and opens up about the personal experience that made him swear he'd never build something for someone else without building something for himself.

Whether you're booking your first paid gig or you've had your best year ever and still can't see next quarter, this episode is the framework for a calendar that fills without the panic.

You'll learn:

Why the feast-famine cycle isn't “the business” — it's the absence of one

The 15/85 split: what the stage actually represents vs. the work nobody sees

Five pipeline stages every working speaker runs on repeat — prospect, reach out, follow up, close, rebook

Dan's illustrative math: how reaching out to 10 organizations a week could map to roughly 24 paid gigs a year (your numbers will differ, but the shape holds)

Why your outreach emails aren't landing — and the simple flip that gives planners a reason to reply

The real reason planners don't respond, and why following up three, four, five times isn't desperate

Dan's post-gig routine: the handwritten thank-you note, the Zoom call, and the question most speakers never ask

What you actually need to run a pipeline — a tracker, a weekly block, reminders, and a checklist (that's the whole infrastructure)

The reframe for speakers who say “I didn't get into speaking to be in sales”

Why Dan still does his own outreach — and the personal story behind his pipeline obsession

And much, much more!

"The stage is the reward. The pipeline is how you earn it."

Wondering what the gaps in your speaking business actually look like — and what to do about them? Book a free Speaker Business Assessment — a 15-minute session where our team looks at what you're doing now, where the holes are, and what your system should look like.

Episode Resources:

Speaker Business Assessment

MySpeakerFee

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Undercharging is not humility. It is a positioning problem and oftentimes a confidence problem. And that confidence problem is wearing a humble costume."

Welcome back to The Speaker Lab Podcast! In this episode, Dan Irvin digs into one of the most common — and most expensive — mistakes speakers make: undercharging for their talks. And not just because it shrinks your paycheck. Dan makes the case that pricing too low actually makes you harder to book.

Here's the scene he sets: you're on a call with an event planner, the conversation is going great, they ask what your fee is — and a much smaller number comes out of your mouth than the one in your head. Dan's been there himself, early in his career. Inside The Speaker Lab, he's had this exact conversation with speaker after speaker. The problem goes deeper than money. When you price too low, planners treat you differently — worse time slots, skipped introductions, ignored A/V requests. Same speaker, same talk, totally different experience. Dan breaks down the three traps that keep speakers stuck in the discount cycle, shares a story about how one "we don't pay speakers" event turned into more than $50,000 in workshops, and walks through his own approach to the fee conversation — the questions he asks, how he frames his number, and why he doesn't commit to a final number on the discovery call.

Whether you're brand new and figuring out where to set your first real fee, or you've been speaking for years and suspect you've been leaving serious money on the table, this episode gives you a clear framework for pricing with confidence.

You'll learn:

How undercharging actually makes you harder to book, not easier

The three pricing traps that keep speakers stuck (free gigs, comparison shopping, and fear of hearing "no")

How "exposure" builds the wrong reputation and trains your market to expect you for free

Why somebody else's fee tells you absolutely nothing about what yours should be

The direct link between your fee and how event planners treat you — from your time slot to your introduction

What actually determines your fee (hint: it's not just how good your talk is)

Why getting uncomfortably niche leads to paid gigs

Dan's story of turning a "we don't pay speakers" event into more than $50,000 in workshops

How to handle the fee conversation without apologizing, hedging, or negotiating against yourself

The one question Dan never skips on a discovery call — and why it reframes everything

When to adjust your fee down as a strategic choice and when to raise it

And much, much more!

"Stop discounting yourself. Your message is worth more than you're charging for it."

Not sure what you should be charging — or how to say the number without flinching? Take the free Speaker Business Assessment — In 15 minutes, the team looks at your positioning, niche, and assets and helps you figure out the right fee and how to present it. Dan's on some of those calls himself.

Episode Resources:

Speaker Business Assessment

MySpeakerFee

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.