"You have to have influence. That's the relational collateral that gets everything done. Think of it like a bank account — the more you put in, the more you can take out when you need to."
Welcome back to The Speaker Lab Podcast! In this episode, host Dan Irvin sits down with Kevin Sidebottom — a keynote speaker, sales trainer, and author who has spent two decades studying one question: why do people buy? And here's the fun part: the guy who teaches sales for a living is now out there selling himself, building his own speaking business. Oh, and he's a self-described introverted electrical engineer. As he puts it — he's not a unicorn.
Kevin and Dan dig into why introversion is actually a speaking superpower (airports, Ubers, and hotel rooms are basically an introvert's training camp), what joining The Speaker Lab's Speaker Bureau unlocked in his positioning, and the warm-up system that took his outreach from crickets to three calls in one week: connect on LinkedIn first, publish consistently, and let your content make the deposit before the email ever lands.
Then it gets tactical. Kevin breaks down why event buyers see speakers as commodities — and how influence is the only real tiebreaker. He shares his timeline for pitching January sales kickoffs six months out, why he refuses the shotgun approach in favor of the rifle scope, and the mindset he learned from a Navy SEAL mentor: follow a process, move forward, adapt, repeat.
Whether you're hearing way more no's than yeses right now or you're ready to overhaul your outreach entirely, this episode is a sales education most speakers never get!
You'll learn:
- Why introverts make exceptional speakers — and how Kevin recharges with JOMO (the joy of missing out)
- What the Speaker Bureau's gap report revealed about his positioning ("I was mortified — but gaps are opportunities")
- Kevin's LinkedIn warm-up system: weekly blog plus video before any cold email goes out
- Why buyers see speakers as commodities — and how influence breaks the tie
- The mentor wisdom that stuck: "If someone says yes too quickly, be scared"
- How "it doesn't have to be me" outreach to associations builds influence by the bucket
- Why making the customer the hero of their story is the key to word-of-mouth bookings
- The six-months-out timeline for pitching corporate sales kickoffs
- The rifle versus shotgun approach to outreach — fewer targets, deeper research
- Kevin's two signature talks: Sales Titans (Built, Not Born) and Magnetic Influence
- And much, much more!
"You're a salesperson as a speaker, because you have a business. All business owners are selling. And if they're not selling, they're not in business very long."
Episode Resources:
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Hearing more no's than yeses? That's the job — but your system might be the problem. Grab a free 15-minute Speaker Business Assessment at thespeakerlab.com/SBA and get a real look at your positioning, pipeline, and outreach.
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