World of Speakers E.59: Shane Barker | Get more bookings by leveling up your networking

Shane Barker: That's — I mean, I'll take it, man. I'm just gingerly happy to be here. 

Ryan Foland: Excellent. Well, to start off the show, instead of going into your accolades and right into your advice, I always like to take a step back — and it’s story time. 

Find a story from your past that, if that was the only thing I had to share with somebody like, "Hey, you got to meet my buddy Shane. This one time..." 

What would that story be?

Shane Barker: And I have to tell you, Ryan, I appreciate the way that you're starting this thing off, because if we went over accolades, I mean, we only have an hour so it's probably better that I tell a story about myself. It'll be a lot quicker.

Ryan Foland: Totally. 

Shane Barker: Yeah, just straight to the end. It's funny, I was kind of thinking about that in regards to a story and this would probably be Shane 1.0. I'm Shane 2.0. I'll probably explain that a little later. 

Shane 1.0 as a kid, I remember this is a very vivid memory of mine, I remember camping. I was with my family, I live in California. 

We went to Oregon, and I'll never forget, we were camping and somebody had told me, "If you have cans, you collect cans, they'll give you money." 

And I thought they were kidding with me, but I collected cans pretty much like homeless people do today, but I did it by myself to make a little side cash because I was four years old, I mean what else was I supposed to do. Who else is going to pay for diapers? 

What I did was, I literally went and started collecting cans, and I'll never forget, I went up there and gave them to the people who collect the cans. They gave me, I don't know what it was, probably a dollar 50 or something. 

And it absolutely blew me away, and so my infatuation at that time, not quite as infatuated now, but my infatuation with money at that time when I was younger and growing up till probably when I was about 30, I was pretty crazy.

I remember going into 7-Elevens under the counters looking for change because I was like, "People are dropping money and they're just letting it go, they don't really even care." 

And even better than that—this is really funny—going to San Francisco there are these toll booths that they have. 

I almost jumped out of the car because somebody had dropped a few one dollar bills and they were flying and I really didn't get the point that you probably shouldn't jump out of a moving car to grab those three dollars. And my mom lost her marbles because I literally was trying to open the door and she was like, "What are you doing?" And I'm, "Look at the money," there was money flying by the car. 

I know for a fact, I was pretty quick as a kid. I could have grabbed at least two or three of those dollars. My mom stopped me. Shout out to my mom for saving my life, but I never did get that money, which is kind of the downside to the whole story. 

That was definitely me in the beginning. I wanted to be a millionaire by, I think I said 25, and I think maybe I conceded and said, "Hey, how about make it 30?" Which is a whole other story. 

I'm still money-driven, but back in the day that was definitely for me, that was a big factor. 

I didn't realize between lemonade stands and stuff like that, how much I was really into making money and the idea of different ways of doing that. So it's always been kind of intriguing. 

Ryan Foland: Yeah, I think recycling is a great way to get going in the world. I remember we started the Earth Club. 

We had a VW van that we would drive around to the different trash cans, and we made our own signs that said, "Please put your newspaper and recyclables to one side," and we were just obviously circumventing what people should be doing. 

And so we snatched up an entire van-full of newspapers and then cans and we'd go down and, of course, we would take that and just count the money over and over and then we’d send it to Greenpeace and it would be fun, and positive, and all that stuff.

Shane Barker: Good vibes all around. Anything in a VW bus is always good vibes.

I was raised by hippies. And I'm starting to wonder maybe if we have the same parents, which we should probably talk about outside of the show. VW Bug, I was like: "Oh Jesus if it's a white VW Bug and your parents were in the front seat." 

Anyway, we won't go into heavy detail about what they're doing in the front seat, but they were hippies. 

Ryan Foland: Actually this was a bus. Which is also hippie. We always had a family bus, a family van. 

Shane Barker: My parents had a Toyota, I think it's a Previa, I don't know how you say it. 

I loved that van, and my dad actually did have a Volkswagen bus, but this was before we got the Bug. I don't know why we even sold it. 

But yeah, I like anything Volkswagen. Once again, being raised by hippies in California, it's like an insignia. The VW sign and everything has always been popular around the family. 

Ryan Foland: Bug and bus, there is only one letter off. So it's very similar, very similar.

Shane Barker: That's what really threw me off. I mean, I'm not good at spelling but I thought I was like right, and then you said, "No, this is a bus," and I was like, "Oh Jesus, that one letter got me again". It happens. 

Ryan Foland: Now, you're jumping out of cars, ginger quick, to try to grab money on the ground. You're picking up stuff. You're looking where other people aren't. 

Do you think that that is what got you into this influencer space to try to find out where the money is that people maybe don't see? 

Because it's a relatively new phenomenon and essentially, influencer marketing is picking up the change on the ground from people that maybe aren't necessarily seeing it. 

Is there a connection there? 

Shane Barker: I don't know if you can tie that any better. 

But listen, as a red ginger ninja, I do believe that, when it comes to influencer marketing and the fact of getting people to be able to do something, for me, it was interesting obviously finding change underneath a 7-Eleven counter or running a lemonade stand isn't necessarily getting people to do stuff. 

But I definitely realized that when it came to what I would wear and how I would look when I was doing the lemonade stands, and this sounds probably pretty early, I was 6 or 7 years old, but how I could get people to react to certain things. 

I realized, and this is going to sound really funny, that if I had a puppy with me, or if I had another friend, another girlfriend of mine, and we were holding hands, and those other things I tried at a very early age to get people to see if I could make more money from doing that. 

And it was weird because my family wasn't really capitalistic, we had things but we were probably a—

Ryan Foland: Hippie chic?

Shane Barker: Yeah, hippie chic, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. 

We had a nice VW Bug, you know what I'm saying, it wasn't like the neighbors that were losers. But yeah, I mean for us, we were probably middle tier, or whatever. 

But my point in saying that is, for me, I was always intrigued about how people reacted. The kind of the psychology behind things. I didn't know what it was at the time. 

But like, "How can I get people to buy more stuff and how can I upsell?" 

We did little things of lemonade and then we would upsell cookies or brownies or whatever that was to get people to, "How can I get people to react?" 

And for me, it was about the money, but it really was also about the fact of like how I could benefit from it. 

And then for me, it was counting the money afterwards, and how I could reinvest that money, and do more. 

I actually got in trouble in junior high school because I was selling candy bars and I was competing, I just remembered this, I was competing with the local store, and I got busted. 

I would go buy candy bars for whatever it was, three for a dollar, four for a dollar, I don't know what it was and I would sell them for 50 cents or a dollar depending on who it was, different people would pay different prices. 

And I would go and sell these candy bars and I would make a good amount of money, and still do school and all that fun stuff. 

But I got into trouble. The school actually brought me in there and it was like, "You can't sell candy bars." I'm like, "Why can't I? Why can you guys sell candy bars?" Like, "I'm not paying to be here for god's sake, this is a public school." Like, "I feel like it's even territory." And that didn't work out too well. 

So needless to say they were like, "Hey, you can't do that. You can't sell candy bars." And I was like, "Well, not until I see restraining order am I going to stop selling these candy bars".

No, I'm just kidding, I did stop.

Ryan Foland: I think you're pushing the envelope. You're pushing it, but you're not tearing it. And I think that that is what gingers do. 

I think that's what people do, and that's what I think when we're young, we have the opportunity to do. 

Those doors sort of shut once we grow up. But it's finding those doors and inspired by the doors that have opened in the past that I really think shapes people. 

So here's the pop question for you. I'm always interested in the transition from when people are, say, doing things themselves to when the transition happens to where they're teaching others to do it. 

Was there a moment, was there an inciting incident later on in life where all the stuff is connecting and you're like, 

"Wow, not only is this working for me, understanding that a puppy is going to increase sales, but now I feel inspired to share this, to get up on the stage, to sort of use what I've learned to share with the world."

Was there an actual transition or a moment when that flipped?

Shane Barker: Yeah, there was. I mean for me, there was kind of that “Aha” moment. It was probably, and I'm so bad with numbers, probably maybe 12 years ago, maybe a little over that. 

It was what I realized, because the way that I jumped into having my own businesses was, I would just pretty much bootstrap businesses. 

I eventually was hired by people and went freelance a long, long time ago. And I would kind of learn how to develop these businesses out. 

And I finally realized like, "Hey, I am doing this for myself," and I'm like, "This is something where people need it". 

I'm seeing all these people ask these questions and there sort of became more profiles out there like Quora, and this kind of stuff, this was later. 

But where you see these people that they don't know how to, they have a business they've started it, but they really don't know how to market it. 

It's like the chef that opens a restaurant and he's great at food, but he has no idea how to market his business to get people in there. 

And so I realized at that certain point that I was like, "Wow, I've learned something," during my 18-hour days at that time. "I've learned something that I think is extremely valuable". 

So that was the point where I said, "Hey, I'm doing this for myself and I'm successful and I love what I'm doing. But I also like the idea of working with other people and helping them grow their businesses." 

So that's where consulting came in, and then from consulting obviously I jumped into speaking, and that’s where we're at today. So it's been an interesting transition, for sure.

Ryan Foland: Have you always been — I'm assuming that you've always been sort of fine with speaking in front of people, and just your tone and diction and speed at which you talk. 

Were you ever a shy kid? 

Was there any ounce of shyness or have you just naturally had the gift of the gab?

Shane Barker: I mean, I've always been pretty popular, if that's what you're asking, Ryan. 

Ryan Foland: No, the gift of the gab is your ability to choose the words you use, that's a whole different podcast. 

Shane Barker: Oh...okay, that makes sense. 

No, I have been very fortunate. I think I realized at a young age that that gift of the gab — I was very fortunate to have that. 

I mean I remember, and this is a terrible example, but I'm going to go ahead and tell everybody since I think the world needs to know what I did to Mrs. Schwartz in seventh grade. 

I would go in and write papers and they were like, just okay papers, so I was an okay writer at that time. 

And I remember Mrs. Schwartz said, I gave it to her and she was like, "You know, Shane," she was a little older lady, very sweet, hopefully, she's still alive and if she's listening, Mrs. Schwartz, I do love you, and I appreciate you letting me take advantage of you in seventh grade when it comes to writing. 

But what I did is I went in there and she was like, "Oh this is really...this," and she was kind of, "Ooh," and I could tell from the way that she was — she didn't want to give me bad news, but the writing really wasn't that good. 

And so I really didn't force her, but I was like, "Are you sure," I was like, "I don't know, but a C-," I go, "Here's the deal, the reason why I didn't get that done is I had this, and some other stuff going on, and my brother has this, and he had a recital, and so I was trying to get back to the house."

Needless to say, I got an A- minus on the paper at the end of the story. 

But I realized that it was like, I can kind of test people and I can evaluate people and better understand the psychology, how they are if I can move them a little bit if I can get them to help me with this or help me with that. 

And some people call it mind control, which is fine too, whatever you want to label the term. 

I've always been pretty quick-witted, which really helped me because, in my junior high, my elementary school that I went to I was one of the only white guys in the school and I was really skinny, like unhealthily skinny, 19 kilograms in total weight or something like that, maybe a little bigger, but I was really skinny. 

I kind of had to get myself in a situation where my tongue was the thing that saved me. Probably got me into trouble but also saved me a little bit too because people would come up and say, "Oh, this, that, or the other," and I would say some stuff, at that time it was like “your mamma" jokes or something.

I would say something and people were like, "Wow, that kid," and nobody really wanted to mess with me. 

Physically they could probably beat me up, but mentally, from the tongue perspective, they didn't want to get into a tongue-lashing because if it became a situation where kids were listening and watching, I usually didn't get second place. 

I realized early that I kind of had a gift there. And the speaking thing has been a natural transition into that. 

My only issue when it comes to speaking is that I speak fast. People are like, "God, how much coffee do you drink?" I'm like, "Wow, I just speak fast." 

There are two ways to look at it, it's either I speak too fast or they listen too slow. There are two sides to the coin here. 

So for me, it's if I slow down my cadence and talked a little slower, maybe it would work for me better, I don't know. 

I mean that's something I got to look into, but talking fast is just kind of my M.O. It's what I do.

Ryan Foland: Yeah, and just listening, one thing just from an outside perspective, it is the speed, but it's also kind of fun because you almost have a bit of a dialogue going on with yourself where you'll say something and you'll kind of comment on it, kind of from the outside, and then you jump back into it. 

It's actually entertaining because it's not just a single voice. You have like a few different things that are going on, which is kind of fun.

Shane Barker: Yeah it is. The thing is, and it's been that way for years, the thing is the medicine was supposed to help, like the medication I take. 

Because it's like, we're like, "Hey kill, don't kill him," "Yeah, but I don't want to hurt anybody," I was like, "But I want to hurt somebody." So yeah, it is one of those things.

Ryan Foland: You just did it again. 

Shane Barker: I know. And I don't even know, it's kind of like partly Tourette's or something. 

I don't know what it fully is, how we can better understand what it is, but I guess I do have a little bit of a conversation with myself on occasion, huh?

Ryan Foland: Yeah, I like it. You went back when you're talking about getting a C- to an A-  and you mentioned mind control. 

But at the end of the day, modern-day mind control is influence, and one of my favorite two-part definitions of influence, and I'd love to get your take on it, is that it really has to fulfill the two things for me to understand it as real influence. 

It's that you have to change the way people think and you have to get them to take action. So with your teacher, you got her to maybe think differently, but also change the grade.

So what do you think about that as modern-day mind control, as influence?

Shane Barker: It is. I mean, it definitely plays into influence. 

The idea is, can you put your point out there and get somebody to change their mind or do something that you want them to do, right? 

And so it sounds kind of aggressive. But influencer marketing is no different, right? 

I mean marketing is no different. What can you do when it comes to your content and the verbiage you're putting out there, and how you design things, to get people to react?

It's the psychology of that. What do you say to get somebody to react to be able to purchase something and that's marketing, right?

That's what we want to do in theory, with sales as your goal, and influencer marketing is no different. 

That's probably why I've been doing it for so long, about seven or eight years now and that's why I think I really enjoy it because it's really interesting to see how certain people react to certain types of content. 

And now you have these very specific communities you can tap into and pitch your products, obviously being ethical and authentic and all the other fun words that we use, but I think it's just really interesting that you can— 

Like I said, I enjoy now less the money and more about getting people to do something. 

Getting the reaction of that to me is really intriguing. I don't necessarily look at my numbers of what I'm making all the time. 

I look at like, "Wow, that was awesome. I was able to get 30 people, 50 people, 1K people to purchase something because of the campaign that we put together.” So for me, it's kind of the chase. I just really enjoy that.

Ryan Foland: Nice, and literally when you were speaking, even though we probably didn't have the same voice, I felt like you were talking about your lemonade stand as you're 6 years old, getting excited about the small changes in the atmosphere, the environment, what you say, what you're doing in order to influence an upgrade or a double sale.

So here's my challenge to you: next time we're speaking at the same conference, I would love to bring a pop-up lemonade stand and literally just have fun for a few hours selling legitimate lemonade. That sounds like a blast.

Shane Barker: Now you're just playing with my emotions a little bit. I have to grab a tissue. 

We can do that. I'll take the lemonade challenge anytime you want. I mean, I love to sell lemonade, and I got really good at it.

I can bring some puppies and stuff. I think you can go to like rentapuppy.com or something like that, or maybe even a baby, a baby would be kind of cool, some people are like, "Just trying to feed my baby," and we'll figure out the angles, but I think it'll be fun, for sure. 

Ryan Foland: I love it. 

Well, I definitely think anybody listening to this has a pretty good idea of who you are, what you're about, your history, and that's exactly what storytelling, what the result is. 

So I want to transition into some of these, I'm going to call them “Lemonade Stand Lessons” when it comes to speaking. 

And this is like the art of speaking, the way that you speak, the secret little tips and tricks that you've learned over the years. 

If you are going to do some lemonade lesson training for whether it's an upcoming speaker all the way to somebody who's a total pro making tons of money but has a learning mindset, where would you start and what type of Lemonade Lessons can you share? 

Shane Barker: Yeah, I think, of course, the Lemonade Lessons, which I should probably trademark after the show.

Ryan Foland: Hashtag. 

Shane Barker: All day. From engaging the audience, what I've learned in influencer marketing, and the way that I go about it, I want it to be entertaining. 

This was just last week, we did a workshop in San Francisco where we brought—Amazon brought—some really big brands, about 30 people. We sold out the workshop. 

The idea of the workshop was
a) influencer marketing, but
b) I want it to be entertaining: I want people to enjoy themselves. 

I was confident that the content was good because of what we'd created and the companies we were working with, but really I wanted them to have a good time. 

I've been to a thousand conferences and when you have people up there that just aren't entertaining and/or at least keeping your attention, that becomes difficult. 

I mean, I cut my teeth and I'm an instructor over at UCLA and that was a big thing for me, I was trying to keep millennials and trying to keep people off their laptops and listening to what I have to say and trying to keep that audience engaged. 

When you're at a conference, you're there for half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour, whatever it is, doing a speech. It's a little easier to keep people engaged. 

When you're at UCLA and I've got a three-hour class and they have to see me and hear me every week, it's a different deal. 

So I try to keep it engaging, I try to obviously keep it interactive, get the audience involved. 

I'll put something at the beginning that will shock somebody, something that will be like, "Hey, did you know this," or I’ll have some crazy music, or I'll come out dancing or maybe without my shirt on — I'm just kidding. That's a whole different show. 

Ryan Foland: It's a whole different stage right there, yes. 

Shane Barker: It really is. It's probably not something you want to see there. We dim the lights...

Ryan Foland: It's more of a body language kind of, you let your movement speak for itself. 

Shane Barker: It's more my hips, but I get what you're saying. Yeah, it's more of a gyration type thing. 

But for me, it's like I said, I think it's getting the audience involved instantly and getting them intrigued about what you're going to be talking about and keeping them on their toes a little bit. 

Ryan Foland: I'm going to stop you there for a second, because I think I'm sold on the fact that you want to get them interested, to get them excited, aside from running out with your shirt off and doing a hip-gyrating dance, which is awesome on its own. 

For the professional environment, whether it's a conference maybe outside the classroom, what are a couple of specific examples or things that people can actually test or tryout? 

You said like an intro song, is it that you're coming in like a WWE wrestler, what are some of the things you can take off your shelf and put onto somebody else's for them to try?

Shane Barker: Yeah for me I think the music that you come out to, and you see this a lot of times with boxers and stuff. 

But for me, The Eye of the Tiger, I mean I play some stuff and kind of come out have some fun with it. It gets people's attention. 

Or if you play a Tiffany song or something that people— you have to think about your audience and think about what maybe their favorite song is and you come out, I mean for me, that's kind of how you're starting things off. 

And then I have some kind of a statement that talks about something that's a crazy fact when it comes to either let's say influencer marketing or SEO or whatever I'm talking about, like "did you know" type stuff. 

The idea of it is just to get people thinking and get them engaged. 

And so that's usually what I do, is, in the beginning, I'll do something to once again engage them, keep them engaged and then ask some questions and then, keep them going. 

Ryan Foland: From a technical standpoint, because I know that it's not always on the tip of the tongue when an event organizer is getting you prepared. They're not always like, "All right, so what would you like your fight song to be?" How do you bring that up in the conversation? Is that part of your negotiations? 

Like, "I'm cool, got my fees, but I still need to come out to Eye of the Tiger, we need that in the contract." 

How does that play out? How do you convince them if maybe nobody else is doing that?

Shane Barker: Yeah, my thing is, it is actually in my contract. 

I have had a little bit of pushback, but I'm like, "Listen, this is the thing, if you want me to get people's attention, you're obviously bringing me there to entertain and educate, this is part of it. It really shouldn't be that much, I can bring the CD or cassette tape, whatever you guys need, if that helps out from an AV standpoint." 

Usually I don't get tons of pushback unless I don't bring it up with them, and so it is something in my contract like, 

"Hey, these are the three songs that Shane would be able to come out to, are you guys okay with it?" 

And they can usually pick one as well. I just want people to go like, when I hear a song I haven't heard for a long time, "Oh man! I remember that song."

Or it kind of brings out some kind of emotion. The idea is that I want them to know that I'm coming out to perform and that, "You guys, there's going to be a show that's coming on," 

And then I'm going to mean every boxer who says, "Hey, I'm going to beat this guy up, and I'm gonna do this". 

For me, it's, "I'm going to come out, I'm going to entertain you, I'm going to show you, I'll educate you", and this is kind of what it is. It kind of sets the table. 

Ryan Foland: Nice. I don't necessarily go and say, "I want this intro song", but from now on I definitely am going to do that as an ask. I mean, never ask, never get, so I dig it.

Shane Barker: I mean, I think like “Beaches” or something like that would be a good one for you. 

I'm just trying to think of like, you kind of start off a little emotional. I don't know. I mean, I'm not a musician by any means, but I'm just trying to help.

Ryan Foland: Yeah, I know. I appreciate that help. 

What about your preparation? I'm always interested in how people create what they speak about. 

Do you have any magical ways to create your keynotes or do you make it up as you go? 

I've talked with some people they're literally like, "No, I have no preparation. I just know my stuff. I show up and I just crush it!" 

What is your strategy when it comes to prep for organizing and getting your talks going?

Shane Barker: Yes, I think each one is a little different, it just depends on me. 

If I'm talking about a subject I've talked about a thousand times, like influencer marketing or something, my prep is usually pretty easy because I've already done it a thousand times, right?

So, that's not too difficult. If it's a new speech I do, I want to practice it and I go through the whole regiment of practising it actually on a stage. 

I have a stage here in Sacramento, they let me use it every once in a while. Then I'll go out and actually talk on the stage and kind of actually act like I'm there.

Ryan Foland: Oh, that's cool. 

Shane Barker: Yeah, it is really cool. It was difficult to do, I was part of a— I'm trying to think of this. 

There's a local speaking club that I joined just to kind of get in front of my peers and once again try to talk about my cadence and how I engage the audience and really kind of improve that kind of thing. 

Because I always feel like, speaking is something that can constantly be improved, right? 

I always feel like there's a way that you hold things, the way that you pause, the way that you do things I think that can become intriguing to keep the audience's attention. 

But yeah, for me prep is usually right before I go to the speech, I'm actually kind of usually by myself, which is kind of interesting.

I don't really talk with a lot of people. I'm kind of getting ready. Most of the time it's funny, my intro is not the same each time. 

I customize my intro to the audience and to where I'm at. 

I did a keynote in Sri Lanka and it's a crazy story. They took me on a 7-day tour before I went up to do the keynote. 

And so I was with 52 influencers and we traveled to Sri Lanka for free, it was absolutely amazing. I went to the best hotels, private little planes, I mean, it was a phenomenal experience. 

And so I went up and when I got there they are like, "Hey, we just need you to be a speaker," and then by the end of it, they're like, "Hey, we want you to keynote, are you okay with that?" 

And I thought that was an interesting way to not have to pay me as much but anyway, it all worked out in the end. 

I go up and so the first thing I said was like, "Hey, you know what, you guys," because they showed this video that actually had me up there and a whole bunch of influencers and people up there, but they actually had an interview of me saying, 

"Hey, here I am in [XYZ] jungle and this is awesome, thank you so much for the experience. I just didn't know there were so many birds in this area," and this little speech thing. 

And I didn't know I was going to be up, I didn't know I was going to be in the video, that footage was taken 7 days before. They clipped it in the middle of the night and redid everything and then had it ready for the event, for the hotel to put this on. 

Well, I go up on stage and I wanted to catch everybody's attention because I knew that it was an international crowd and here I am a big, red, ginger beard.

And so I go up there and I said, "Hey as much as you guys just saw that video, and you know, I did have a really good time." 

The gentleman who hired me was actually in front and he went on the tour with us, so he kind of knew my personality. 

"I have to be honest with you guys," I said, "Even though I had a great time, there were 3 things that were kind of difficult for me on the tour." 

And I looked down at him and he looks up at me. He's like, "Okay Shane. What are you doing?"

Like, "Whoa, whoa, what do you mean? What didn't you like about this?" 

I'm in front of 300 people in the hospitality industry. This is one of the largest hotel chains In Sri Lanka. I came up with this literally a half an hour before I jumped onto the stage.

And I said, "I have three major issues that I kind of wanted to bring up and you guys are in the hospitality industry so I figured this would be a good time." 

And now, the CEO of their Sri Lankan Airlines, which is like United for the US, just went down, everybody's on a kind of cloud nine, and here I am with three issues with the tour. 

And I said, "The first thing is that we have this thing that we call Tech MV, and so you put me out there with all these guys and all this great equipment. And here I am,"

I'm like, "I obviously can't steal it from them because that's just not right. But now I've got to go back and spend $10K on equipment. And if I spend $10K my wife's going to spend $10K. So really this free tour that you guys took me on just cost me $20K," and everybody starts laughing. 

And I said, "The other issue is, they explained to me as being a professor and this and that and the other, so you guys didn't explain that I'm a foodie and the problem is when you bring me to Sri Lanka and you bring me to some of the best food in the world, I'm going to eat everything. And so I've eaten everything."

And I go, "The problem is my pants don't fit now. So after 7 days, I've gained 7 pounds and I have an issue with that, and you guys need to warn people ahead of time," and everybody's clapping and laughing. 

And then I went into my last thing. The idea behind that was, I figured like, "How can I pull these people in", and what I can do is go up in front of a hospitality industry crowd and tell them, "Hey, let me tell you the issues that I had with this free 7-day trip." 

And they are like, "What? What do you mean? What is this guy talking about, it was a free trip, he didn't pay for anything."

 And then I went into that. That's how I pulled the crowd in. 

So for me, my prep is usually a half an hour before I'm thinking of ideas, but it's strictly in my head and then I go out there. 

And in the beginning it was, I don't know that's just for me. That's my prep on how I get things together. It's usually very customized to the audience and to the people that are there. 

Ryan Foland: Nice, and I saw you at Ontraport, that was the first time I saw you speak, and you did, you came out hot, you definitely made it feel like you were there for us. 

And I forget what the song was, but definitely, you have that stage presence that gingers usually have. 

But my question now is how do you gain that type of energy and stage presence if you're not typically that energetic? 

I mean it's hard to translate authentic energy if maybe you were a little bit shy. 

Do you have anybody that you've worked with and helped them through that or any pieces of advice for people to tap into their inner ginger?

Shane Barker: This is the thing, it’s that tapping into your inner ginger would start by just growing a beard and coloring it. 

I mean because you just kind of need to get in the mindset, you can't just go in and like I mean—

Ryan Foland: Method acting. There is a philosophy in that.

Shane Barker: Yeah, are you all in, or not? Either you are going to do this or you're not. 

So for me, it's always, if somebody is not really good with the energy, and for me, I always tell them like, "Drink coffee and Tequila, together, probably two or three." 

I wouldn't say bottles because it all depends on what your levels are.

It's not to say that if you don't have the energy you're never going to have the energy. For me, it's always been very natural. 

Because when I talk about stuff it drives my wife nuts. When I talk, like she can't be in the same room because I talk loud. Where I'm at right now, it's like I'm in quarantine. I'm surprised you don't have like things on the wall so they can't hear me. 

I'm naturally a loud, more energetic type person. 

Coffee or no coffee I just am, and that's just the way that I am. I don't try to get people if I'm coaching people,

"Listen, I'm not saying you can get to my level, but there are things that you can do when it comes to it. If you're excited about something, if you're passionate about what you're talking about. If you're not, then that's something you have to think about. 

Because if you're talking about something that you're not passionate about, that you don't fully believe in, that's going to show in your speaking."

And not everybody has to be funny. You can be dramatic, you can be this, there are other ways to pull in the audience and get their attention. 

For me, I give you a great example when I did a speech in India. I came out on the stage and I had a dress on, and here I am, I'm 6'1''. 

I've got a big red beard, puffy hair and here I am in an Indian dress and everybody's like, "Okay, what just happened? I feel like the Matrix. I just got shut down, is this our new ruler? I'm so confused about what's going on right now." And that's what I did. 

I went out there because I thought it was customary, I thought that was important to be a part of the culture. 

I mean, I literally, I mean this is a whole side note, but I bought three dresses out there and I wore them the whole time, it was absolutely awesome. 

For me, I'm very aware of what the culture is, and I think I was probably the first, Irish-white, red-bearded guy that came out on stage in a dress, and it caught everybody's attention. 

I think first, some people they were, like, taken aback, and then they realized that this was a thing for me to just show appreciation for their culture. 

It helped bring them in and helped tie them in. 

When you're speaking, like I said from the beginning, that's what's really important is how do you get people's attention, and there are different ways of doing that. 

Ryan Foland: All right. So I'm going to make up a new word here. I heard you say something about energy and immersion, right? So this idea of an ene-mersion.

Shane Barker: I like it. 

Ryan Foland: Energymersion, there's something there. 

But this idea, so you're immersing yourself into the content you're passionate about, you're immersing yourself into the culture in which you're speaking, you're immersing yourself into the value that you're providing, and that sort of can be that engine generation. 

So maybe it's “immersionergy”. 

No, okay. We're going to work on that one. It's not good enough for hashtag at this point. 

Shane Barker: No, but you are very close. 

It was kind of cool, every time you would say it my lips would move. I felt like I was just trying to— kind of like the Care Bear stare with gingers. I kind of felt like I was like, "Maybe if I just move my lips that it will help Ryan with that hashtag," but we will figure that out. 

Ryan Foland: That would be a good gif if we had caught that on camera. Speaking of gif, Is it pronounced jif or gif? What do you think?

Shane Barker: God, Jesus? That's the hardest question you've asked me so far. I say gif, but I don't know. I mean tomayto-tomahto. 

Ryan Foland: All right. So here's how we're going to transition. I'm not challenging on it, but we're going to add a "T" to your pronunciation. 

We're going to go with a gift of your insights on how to get on the stage more. That is where we're going right now. Gif or gift, it doesn't matter. We want your gifts. 

How do you find yourself getting more stage time? What are the tips and tricks that you have delivered as a gif-t?

Shane Barker: Yeah gif-t. There is some basic stuff of networking, right? When you go to events, I mean, how did you and I meet? On stage, right? Not the first time we met. 

Ryan Foland: At Entrepreneur, I think you were walking by and I went up, I was like, "Hey, dude, I really enjoyed your talk and we're ginger so we should connect."

And then you were like, "Yeah". 

Yeah, and then we had a good chat at the fireplace afterward and we've been buddies since. So, yeah, just the act of reaching out and connecting with people. 

Shane Barker: And that's what's awesome about it. It doesn't get any better than that, right? 

And we've talked about that obviously on our Slack Channel that I don't know if I am supposed to talk about yet because not everybody's invited. It's kind of a private deal, but it's the networking.

Why would you not meet, you have an opportunity to find potential clients and go up there and speak and show that you are a thought leader and you have knowledge. 

But talking to the other speakers, I mean you and I just as an example, we were just talking about this, like there was an event I was going to go speak at in Turkey and then you guys said, "Hey, listen, there's this other one over here," and I think it was an MDMC in the Midwest you guys pitched and I said, "Hey, I think I actually can make that." 

So I'm making that but it's making it so I can't make Turkey, which is a whole other deal. And guess who is probably going to Turkey? 

Ryan Foland: Maybe me. Yeah. And it is that synergy between. 

But I have a question before we dive into that. We say it's easy to connect, and that's because we're gregarious.

We have no problem getting out there and sort of stopping people as they're walking by. But one of the things I want to get your ear on is how do we convince people that we're all equals? 

And I think it's challenging when you have this keynote speaker and you're like maybe intimidated by them because they are at such a high level, they have everybody coming after them.

I was just at Social Media Marketing World and I wanted to connect with Mari Smith, and she was like the big keynote and everybody was like intimated. 

I was like, "No," I hit her up on Twitter. I DM-ed her, she sent me back her cell phone, we texted each other until we connected and I had just a great conversation with her. She'll be on the show soon. 

How do you get people over that initial outreach? 

Do you think speakers are really open to people coming up and connecting with them? I think that there's a gap there that we can help people cross.

Shane Barker: Yeah, so for me, I've shocked people in the sense of like if somebody sent me an email, I'll send them email back and they go, "I didn't think you would have responded," or when they come up for me, I want to engage the audience. 

I want the audience to come and shake my hand. I want to talk to people, but I'm that type, I enjoy that kind of interaction. I enjoy talking to people, I enjoy hearing people, the good things and the bad things and how I can help them. 

For me, you and I are the same. I have no problem with reaching out tomorrow. I can say, "Hey, we should chat, we should do this." 

I mean, that's the value of these conferences. Most of the time the speakers or the people that are there, I would hope, will say, "Hey, yeah, we should meet. Hey, let's have coffee."

That's kind of the point of being there, right? It's that networking, and you should do that. Not enough people do. 

I'll never forget, I was speaking. This was one of the influencer marketing days or something like that.

And they actually had an app that you could go on and you download the app and you can contact people ahead of time and do this and do that and kind of chat with people. 

I thought that was awesome and I was taking full advantage of it. I'm talking to speakers, I'm talking to these people. 

There are these forums. I'm literally like probably 80% of the comments. I'm like, "Hey, what's going on guys? Hey, what are you guys doing here? We see this and got marketers here and sales here, sales this is one thing I've seen." 

And people were like, "Oh my god", like people probably thought I was putting on the event. For me, I'm like, "Why would you not take advantage of that time to network?" 

This is before the event, I had booked out I don't know how many people with lunches and drinks and beers and stuff like that. I had probably seven or eight of them in one day before I even went to the conference. 

Take advantage of that because I think you'll be really shocked that if you reach out to somebody and you're genuine and saying, "Hey, I just wanted to connect and I was wondering if maybe we can do a coffee?" 

Hopefully, a good percentage of them would say "Yes". If somebody reaches out to me, I always say yes. 

Ryan Foland: Yeah and if they say no, who cares, right? It's kind of a numbers game too, but I generally feel that if you're at a conference, you want to maximize it and I think that even as attendees who want to become speakers or with other speakers on stage, that's where I've gotten my best connections with other speakers is at these speaking events. 

Shane Barker: It doesn't get any better. That's literally, I have this network of people that would say, "Oh, Ryan is a great speaker, I've seen him speak," and now they can recommend you. I mean, that's how we met, right? 

We would not have this ginger connection, and I mean it's a strong ginger connection, I'm not just saying that because people are listening. 

I mean, it's like that's how we met and that's what's interesting to me, is that networking, people skip out on a lot. They go to the conferences and it's just kind of, "Okay, I gotta go, do this. I'll kind of learn a few things," like take advantage, you are literally there, either taking time off or you're there because your employer told you to be there. 

Network. If you hate your job and you're going to one of those, guess what? You should be networking to go find a new job. 

There's always something to do, like shake hands, kiss babies, hand out business cards. Do your thing but stay in the mix, whether it's speaking or anything like that. 

Like why would you not take advantage of that? 

It drives me. I used to do trade shows back in the day for my own companies, and this was many moons ago, this was when I had a bar and a product and patents, a long time ago. 

But it would be crazy when I would go to these events and I'm paying $10K for this booth in Las Vegas and I look at everybody around me and they're like sitting down on their phones and looking around, not doing anything, and I'm like, "Why are you not taking advantage of this moment?"

Maybe it wasn't their company, they didn't care, but for me, it's like, "This is a golden opportunity. These are people that are intrigued about your product. They're intrigued about you."

If I come off that stage, you're never going to see me run to the back and not come out. I want to talk to people. 

I want to chat with people because I enjoy that engagement and that's my time. That's my time to go and interact with everybody and I want them to feel like they can interact with me. 

I get this a lot with the speaking things, they are like, "Where are you going to speak and is there any way that, maybe, at the end, you can talk to the media? Is that going to be okay?" 

And I'm like, "You know, I'll talk to the media for the next week. We can sit down as long as you have water and put a little food beneath the door. I will keep talking, you can bring Forbes and bring anybody in."

I don't care if it's a local newspaper and they have seven people that subscribe to it. I will talk to anybody. 

I have no problems with it because you never know who's listening. You never know who's in that audience. 

Once again, I'll be there for a day, two days, whatever you guys need to do, I'm there.

Ryan Foland: Yeah, well you heard that. This is pretty much an open invitation for people to blow you up on the direct messages, which is great. 

Now where's the best place for people to find you and get you, or if you had a platform to choose where they would actually reach out and be like, "Hey, I heard you on this podcast and Ryan basically said I could reach out to you and you said reach out to me on______."

Shane Barker: Yeah, [email protected]. That's the one. Check that one out,send as many emails as you can folks because there's going to be only so many that I can receive on that email because it's a very private email address. 

No, I'll tell you my email, my direct email is [email protected]. And so that's it. I mean, it's literally my direct email. I really do, I respond to everybody. 

I talk to everybody and if people have questions about this, and whether it's business or influencer marketing or being an instructor, whatever that is, or speaking, I don't have a problem. 

The way I look at it, and we've talked about this, Ryan, is I'm an open book. If I can help somebody learn something, whether that be on stage or whatever, that's my goal. 

My goal is to give back and then if you feel like I'm a good fit for your company or for your brand or for a workshop, then great, then reach out to me. 

But for me, it's all give. It's like I'll give 10 times and then guess what it's going to come back to me 20 times. I know that because I believe in that. 

And so that's just for me. I feel like I don't ignore anybody. If anybody sends me an email, I respond to everybody within a year, year and a half. :-)

Ryan Foland: And what I like about this advice is that if you were on the other side of the audience or you are on stage, then be the kind of person that works towards being an open book and replying to everybody. 

And just a quick story is that after we had connected, that was the first dot. But you have to have that second dot to create the line. 

And I got approached by Microsoft for an influencer deal, and I was like, "Who do I know about influencer deals, and I literally hit you up. I'm like, "I know we just kind of met but I need some help," and man you were on it. 

You sent a video reply. You hooked me up with the right people and I landed the deal. So it goes further than just speaking, but it gives you a network to tap into for other things that people aren't experts on. 

Shane Barker: Well, this is the thing. I know when we talked about Microsoft, I know I'm not supposed to talk numbers, but even though you got a million dollars, I thought you could have got two million. I mean, I don't want to put that up there for everybody to hear. :-)

Ryan Foland: You helped me to come into a spot where like I was comfortable with because this was my first technical, legitimate sort of deal with that company and having that confidence by having you on my team, like, really helped me to get that and that's the kind of thing that just makes a huge difference in my Compass Course now. I'm more confident now I've got you still as that lifeline.

So I love that really what we're talking about, the way to get on more stages, the way to build your speaking business is simply right in front of you. It is the person on the stage at the event that you're at. I love that. 

Shane Barker: Yeah, connect. 

I mean, why would you not. I don't get it why you wouldn't. I mean to me, it fathoms me that people go and do their own thing, go back to their hotel room. For me, like I just can't shake enough hands and kiss enough babies.

For me, it's like, "Hey, now's that time, I go out. Let's have a drink. Let's do this." Like, how can I add some value? And I think that's a great example, it means the world to me, but that's a great example of things kind of being paid for.

For you, to help with the influencer thing for me it's a no brainer, here I am, here goes a video, I can send you an email which will take all these misspellings, I am like, "Why not do a video," so I send you a video, you and I jumped on a call and then you closed the deal. To me, that's awesome. 

And then guess what? You guys reached out to me about an event to speak out here. And now we've started this—

Ryan Foland: Yeah, because I was already scheduled, so I'm like, "Hey, this guy helped me. Do you want the stage? I've already got it lined up." It's like boom, boom, boom. 

Shane Barker: Yeah to me, it's like I said, if you're a speaker and you're hearing this and you don't want to do it, please don't do it because I will just continue and I will just take all the business. So how about that? 

Ryan Foland: Yeah. I think if somebody's listening they're like, "Well that sounds too good to be true." 

Are there any things or ways that people should not approach other people? Is there like something that sticks out in the mind? Is there a wrong way to approach somebody to connect with them? 

Shane Barker: So for me, when I'm on stage and when I'm gyrating my hips is not the time to ask for an autograph. 

It happened a few times, people have almost gotten injured. But no, I mean, I don't know if there is a right way and a wrong way because everybody's a little different. 

For me, speaking for myself, there is no right or wrong time. If you see me and as long as I'm, if I'm engaged with somebody having a conversation then you know, please don't come up and interrupt.

Now if I'm giving you the look like I've been talking to this person for 35 minutes, then I give you that wink like, it's kind of like, "Are you safe or you're not safe," give like this secret wink and you're like, "Hey I want to come and nterrupt." 

If you see me, let's chat. I think maybe other speakers might be a little more standoffish potentially, but once again, I'm an open book. 

You can come up to me anytime, in fact, I enjoy, I kind of I really enjoy talking to people. 

So for me, it's always good but for other speakers, I don't know. 

I mean, maybe that's what I mean, I hate to say like, "Go run up to any speaker at any time", but for me, it's all good.

Ryan Foland: And if you do do that and it goes wrong, now we have someone to blame. We'll just blame you and forgive you later on.

Shane Barker: I get it. It's like being married. Yeah. I mean, that's it. I have no problem with that. I can be blamed and then we can forget about it later. Go to counseling.

Ryan Foland: Yeah. Okay. Well, this has been a lot of fun digging deep into just some simple stuff and my favorite advice is hiding in plain sight, and our relationship, the fact that you are here is an example of how powerful just a simple connection, a simple, "Hey, hi, how are you doing?" 

And then taking that and when it's your time on stage, you're essentially channeling, immersing yourself into the energy that gets you fired up, and not forgetting to get out on the stage with a theme wrestling song or something that's going to get people going crazy from the beginning, because if you're boring on stage, if you don't engage them, if people fall asleep while you are talking then why would they want to connect with you after the fact. 

So it all kind of full loops in that circle, you come out the gates and you present yourself as approachable and as entertaining, you probably increase your chance of creating those connections.

Shane Barker: Man, that's it right there, Ryan.

Ryan Foland: That's the whole 45 minutes and 45 seconds. 

Shane Barker: Oh good lord. I don't even know if they listen to the podcast just that right there's like, that's like a mic drop. I feel like we're done. Hey, boom. 

Ryan Foland: Boom. Well, I don't want to drop my Yeti black-on-black here because I just realized after 2 years speaking to it into the wrong end, I now actually have a newfound appreciation for it.

Shane Barker: Yeah. Well, that's cool. You got to be careful talking in the butts of Yetis because it just doesn't, that's so odd. :-)

Ryan Foland: Well, hey Shane, this has been a lot of fun. I'm excited to see how our connection keeps connecting dots and helping to support each other. And anybody that I know that's fearful of reaching out to somebody — I'm just going to send them to you just to reach out as a little test pilot and then they'll gain their confidence and get crazy from there.

Shane Barker: All day. I mean we can sit down have some lemonade or something like that. As long as they have cash. We get some lemonade and sit down and talk. I got no problem with it all. 

Ryan Foland: Alight, so my challenge to everyone who is out there listening.

No matter where you are, the next time you see a coin on the ground whether it's heads up luck, whether it's got the opposite side, whether it's a quarter, whether it's change, whether it's a dollar flying by — I want you to think and create a memory trigger right now that when you see change on the ground, and when you stop to pick it up, I want you to think of this podcast, think of the lessons learned, because there is loose change everywhere and not everybody stops to pick it up. 

But when you're the person that stops, takes the effort, looks for it, picks it up puts it in your pocket, those are the kind of changes that will create the change that you need to go from wherever you're at, to where you want to go. How does that sound? 

Shane Barker: Just a wordsmith…. I don't even know how to handle this right now.

Good Lord. I was like, I was like, I was trying to write it down when you're saying it, I was like Jesus. That's just whoa. 

Ryan Foland: All right, forever I will think of you, Shane when I see loose change, and I encourage people to tweet about this. If you like this, share it, if you love this, leave a comment. These kinds of podcasts if they're just posted in a forest and no one's there — it doesn't exist.

So I think this is a great one to share, and how would they share it with you? Where are you on social, we'll have it in the show notes but where do you like to get people to reach out to you on social? 

Shane Barker: Yeah, you can go, I'm on Twitter shane_barker, Instagram is just Shane Barker. 

And then LinkedIn is just Shane Barker and then obviously my website shanebarker.com, You guys go over there and check it out, get on the newsletter. 

If you guys are a brand looking for workshops in influencer marketing, don't be shy, reach out. It really will be fun, I promise you. That's about it. 

Ryan Foland: That is it. Alright, we are shutting it down. We got more of these episodes, check out worldofspeakers.com.

Shane, it's been a pleasure. I'm excited to see where everything goes.

Shane Barker: All right buddy stay gingerly fantastic.

 

A bit about World of Speakers

World of Speakers is  a bi-monthly podcast that helps people find their own voice, and teaches them how to use their voice to develop a speaking business. 

We cover topics like: what works versus what doesn't, ideas on how to give memorable presentations, speaking tips, and ideas on how to build a speaking business.

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