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Meridith Elliott Powell

  • CSP Summit, so when did you get your CSP?
  • I… that’s a really good question. I… I think that I got my CSP in, like, 2014?
  • Okay, cause it was right after that.
  • Yeah, so it must have been, like… it must have been, like…
  • You know what? I don’t… I don’t know.
  • Well, that’s okay, you don’t have to look it up, you don’t have to look it up, but that’s how I want to tell our story.
  • Yeah.
  • And we met at that dinner at the.
  • See, we met at that dinner. It was you, me, John Molidor, and somebody else.
  • John!
  • Right?
  • There was a…
  • support.
  • table.
  • I don’t… I can’t… I can’t remember, but we became fast friends after that.
  • It was the beginning, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It really was. So I’ll… we’ll start, and they’ll be coming in, and I will, I’ll just let people in, and we’re taping it, so for those that aren’t here, they’ll get this.
  • Meredith and I met at a CSP summit, and I want to say it was around, what, 2014, 2015, whatever.
  • Yeah, somewhere, somewhere in there.
  • And we started a mastermind that just turned out in the end to be us. And it was she and I, and I have watched her from the beginning. I actually spy… I was spying on you. Do you remember when Connie Podesta did her thing for.
  • Yes.
  • And you were there, I don’t know what year that was, but I was noticing that.
  • So I’ve been kind of following you, and then when we became friends, and I watched you really evolve and explode after COVID, I remember our conversation, you had just washed your hair, it was right when they shut down, and you were talking to me with wet hair, and you said.
  • I’m gonna do something, and I… did you write your book? Is that how it started?
  • Yeah, it was… it was the book, the book had kind of been started, and it sold before that, and it, and I picked it right back up in the middle of COVID, and that sort of became my passion.
  • It was Thrive, and I watched it, and guys, I mean, it was like really having a front row seat at how someone took their career and just blew it up.
  • And, you know, what can I say about her? She is a CSP, she’s a CPAE, she is, saying goodbye. I think, is it over now with the chairmanship of the board?
  • I passed, I passed the gavel at the, I passed the gavel at the CSP Summit.
  • It’s a tea, right?
  • Yeah, not this weekend, but, but next weekend.
  • Yeah, so how many years were you on that board?
  • I’ve been on that board for 10 years.
  • I… come on.
  • And not only is she on the board, very dedicated, guys. I mean, thinking about the…
  • the finance… I mean, really, she took on so much. So she’s doing that while she’s growing this career. She’s a member of the Million Dollar Club. She’s an author of, I think, 3 books?
  • I’ve actually got… I actually have 13 now.
  • Okay, 13 books, sorry, I was 10 off. 13 books.
  • And I feel like…
  • The reason that I love her when I asked her is because she has grown her career from the start.
  • And she started with the groups I started with. I remember banking? Remember banking at credit unions? I mean, that was.
  • Yes.
  • scan.
  • So, I would like her to share… I don’t know what you’re gonna talk about.
  • I’ve asked to talk about the trends that you shared at NSA, but I’d like just your insights onto it. Most of the people in this group are on the verge. They are growing it, and they’re ready to move to the next level. What does it take? I have several that are on that are just starting.
  • So, you know, I think that you have something to say for all of them.
  • Yeah, so, first of all, I wanted… first of all, thank you for having me. Karen, I just adore you and would do anything you ask me to do. You have helped me so much. But the other I want to say is that I’m here to serve you today, so I’m going to talk a little bit, but I think, honestly, you’re… you’re…
  • your time would be best served to ask me anything you want to ask me that would serve you in where you are in your, in your career. I think it’s really important to, to start. I wish… I wish somebody would have told me when I was growing my career. And when I say growing my career, I was probably
  • 5 to 6 years into it before I started to get any traction. I remember Kelly Swanson telling me right at the beginning, it takes 5 years to get anywhere in this business, and then you don’t even start to grow until after that. But I,
  • But I think it’s really important to remember that there isn’t a single million-dollar speaker out there, there isn’t a single CPAE, there isn’t a single…
  • CESP or, you know, whomever that you, you know, aspire to be that didn’t start exactly where you are, or far further down the line than you are. And I think I’m a great example of that. I mean, I was a terrible speaker, and I don’t say that to be humble. It was true. I was really bad. I had a lot of energy. I always had a lot of energy. People always responded to my energy.
  • But I didn’t understand. I used way too many slides, I used way too little type. I tried to grab 3 hours worth of information into a 2-hour, you know, into a, you know, into a 45-minute, you know, presentation. I didn’t know anything about speaking on stage. I didn’t know anything about getting a speaking gig. I didn’t know anything about running a speaking, business. And so, everything I learned
  • I’ve learned through my connections and relationships with the National Speakers Association. I’ll say with that, too, kimona open, I’m so open to ask anything that, you know, that you want to know, or that I could, help you with. I’ll certainly tell you anything, and then if I don’t know, I’ll, you know, I’ll find the answer out for you.
  • But, so I think that’s… I think that’s really important.
  • to know and understand is that how far you’re going to go is 100% in your mind, because the only thing I had going for me was I wanted to be successful in this business, and I believed that I had something to say. Now, I did not figure out what I had to say.
  • Until I started in this business in 2009, and I did not find my zone until 2019 or 2020. That’s when I found my real area of expertise. And I always worked and everything before then, but that was really when I found, my calling, so I think that’s important.
  • That’s important to know, too. But Karen had asked me to speak about the trends, asked me to speak about what I opened up Momentum, lab with, and I’ll just go over some of those briefly. Let me just tell you, these are…
  • these are trends according to Meredith Elliott Powell. These are not THE speaking trends in the industry. This is just my thoughts and my, and my opinion. But I wanna… I wanna say, first of all.
  • that I love the fact that we are doing this in December, and I love the fact that here you are, when everybody else is out shopping, or they’re already partying, or they’re decorating their houses, and you’re paying attention to your businesses, because this is what it takes. I probably work harder in fourth quarter than I do any quarter of the year. It’s my favorite quarter of the year, because most of my competitors take their foot
  • off the gas.
  • And, and,
  • I… it’s… and I’m a big believer that what you do in fourth quarter will determine how successful you are in, in the next… in the next year. And so, what Jamie had asked me to focus on, Jamie Nolan had asked me to focus on for Momentum Lab as I opened it up, was just the trends that I see and some of the biggest mistakes that I see speakers make. Again, just my thoughts and my opinion. So I’ll roll through this.
  • And that I’m so, I’m so open to… to answer anything that you want to know, or anything, that you want to talk about. So, as we get into trends, everybody expects me to talk about AI, and I’m not going to talk about AI. Not that I don’t think that AI is a trend, not that I don’t think that it’s important.
  • I do, but I don’t think that unless you speak about AI, I don’t think it’s the most important trend for speakers right now. And the reason is, you need to understand it, you need to know how to leverage it for your business, but
  • I don’t think it’s the trend that’s going to impact us the most. The biggest things that I think you need to take into consideration as you’re going through this program with Karen, and these are the questions you need to ask yourself, is number one, is strong opinions win? With AI, Google, and the amount of information at our fingertips.
  • We need to realize that you’re not being hired for a topic, you’re being hired because you are thought
  • Provoking, challenging, mind-shifting. I think it’s so important as a speaker to remember people can Google anything you’re gonna say to them. So I don’t need a leadership speaker.
  • I think I need a leadership speaker who’s going to tell me that the way we’ve always done leadership, it’s dead, right? Doesn’t work anymore. One of the biggest things I’m speaking about right now is uncertainty, obviously. It’s my area of expertise.
  • But when people ask me, why should I hire you, and I say, because everything you know, understand about change management, 100% out of date. 70% of change management, initiatives completely fail. Everybody you’re talking to that’s an expert in this field that talks about change, they’re trying to manage change.
  • That’s out of date, doesn’t work anymore. I’ve got a whole new program for you.
  • Does everybody agree with me? No. But he’s fought.
  • provoking.
  • You know, when I think about my sales presentation, my sales presentation is sales redefined, and when they ask me about that, I’ll say, the old sales funnel’s completely dead, it’s now an hourglass, it’s completely flipped upside down, and this is why. It’s thought-provoking. So, whatever you think about your area of expertise, you have to have a strong opinion, and you have to be
  • thought-provoking, because
  • I can watch videos on YouTube, I can Google anything, but I’m gonna put somebody on stage because they’re gonna get people on the edge of my seat… on their seat, and I’m gonna… I’m gonna look at their keynote and go, that is really interesting, I want that. So you’ve really got to have strong, opinions.
  • A couple of weeks ago, we… the executive board of the National Speakers Association, brought in a couple of thought leaders to really talk to us about where the industry is going and what is happening, in the industry. And what they told us became my second trend.
  • And that was, they started off when we said, you know, gloves off, tell us anything you want to tell us. They said, the age of the, motivational speaker, it’s dead, it’s over.
  • not coming back. If all you’re selling is pure motivation.
  • people aren’t interested in that. Right now, what they want is experts who speak. They said, they said that,
  • That is what meeting planners are looking for, because what audiences want today is depth. Someone who truly understands their problems, their industry, their pressure, and their goals. So, you need to be asking yourself as a speaker, strong opinion, what do you stand for, and why would people hire you? Like, why are you the foremost authority on this particular subject?
  • Again, I’ll keep using myself as an example when I follow this trend.
  • I feel like I’m the foremost authority on uncertainty. I’m obsessed with it. I research it, I study with it, I’ve got a formula for it, one I can guarantee. So, to think about what is it that you want to become an expert in. Now, here’s what tripped me up at the beginning of my career, is
  • I wanted to speak on sales, I wanted to speak on leadership, I wanted to speak on change, I wanted to speak on succession planning, I wanted to speak on cleaning your toilet if you would pay me money to do it, because I just wanted to get hired.
  • And now, when people ask me what I speak on, I say on uncertainty. Now, I still cover sales, I still cover leadership, I probably still even cover how to clean your toilet if you paid me enough money.
  • But I do it all under the umbrella of uncertainty. That’s what I am an expert in.
  • Trend number 3. You need to deliver an event, experiencing… experience. We are so beyond the keynote. In fact.
  • The biggest thing that I’m focused on in fourth quarter is figuring out what is my… I’m working with a company to really figure out what is my offer after
  • the keynote, to really get the return on investment from the keynote. But you need to be thinking, like, as you’re working through this program, about the entire event experience. What are you going to do before?
  • the event. How are you going to partner with them and help them to really get people excited, motivated, and engaged? What are you going to do to promote their company, their organization? What are you going to do to really customize this program? Then what are you going to do on site that’s going to be innovative, that’s going to be different, that’s really going to create an experience? I’ll give you an example.
  • One hour ago, I just sold a keynote where I was up against four of my competitors. And the thing that launched it was, he said, how long do you typically like to speak? And I said, I can work in whatever time frame. 60 minutes is really my sweet spot. I said, but you know what would be really cool in this experience? I said, what if we tacked on another 30 minutes? Because you said you, you know, you were open to anywhere between 60 to 2 hours.
  • And I did nothing.
  • But allowed your audience to hot seat me. I’ll roleplay with them, I’ll let them answer any question they want to ask, but you tell them ahead of time, they can bring their biggest sales challenge, I don’t want to know a single thing ahead of time.
  • they can just hot seat me right there. Now, that’s a whole event experience, right? I closed that deal because what I did for my competitors was I took it beyond the keynote.
  • Right? I made it bigger than that. It was something that they could get excited, they could, you know, they could get their, their, you know, their arms around.
  • Trend number 4. Trend number 4 is that, relevancy and return on investment, that’s the new standing ovation. Meeting planners used to want a keynoter who would get a standing ovation.
  • That is not what they are looking for.
  • The number one thing they are looking for right now is, do you have a topic that is relevant to the industry, to the market, and to our company? And what is the return on investment? You need to be able to clearly and succinctly say, when the audience leaves this room, this is exactly what they are going to walk out the door getting. This is how they are going to execute, this is how they are going to implement that.
  • For everything I speak about on stage, I use a QR code at the end, and that QR code takes them to a custom landing page, and on that custom landing page is a video from me talking about what an incredible event it was.
  • what my keynote highlighted, and exactly how they need to implement it. And for every strategy I talk about, I develop a tool, and that tool is downloadable for them to execute and to implement it. I sold two private equity companies by selling, two, after
  • keynote,
  • webinars, master classes, whatever, for 45 minutes, I would just get on there and hold them accountable to execute and to implement. But return on investment is what sold it for me.
  • And then my last trend, so we’ve covered strong opinions, we’ve covered experts who speak, deliver an event experience, relevancy and, and ROI.
  • One more thing I’m going to say about that.
  • I am nobody. Nobody knows my name. Like, I’ve never done anything important, I’ve never done anything impressive. I am not a professional athlete, I’ve never sung on stage anywhere, I haven’t traveled around the world with both my arms tied behind my back.
  • And unless you have something like that.
  • you have to be relevant to get hired. The only people… only reason people hire me is because my topic is relevant, for them. And I think that’s… I think… and I can deliver a return on investment.
  • And the last strategy, which I think is, kind of thought-provoking, goes with strong opinions, is that I think authenticity and simplicity are going to be more important than high-tech in 2000.
  • 26. When I think of the most powerful speakers on the platform, the people who really own the stages and command the most money out there, it’s the Brene Browns, it’s the Simon Sinek’s, it’s the Mel Robbins of the world.
  • And they’re all out there with nothing.
  • They’re out there with absolutely nothing, but they are strong opinions.
  • their expertise, this event that they’re creating around, and the fact that they give people something that they can implement and they can, they can execute. And so, we are getting so inundated in technology. Everybody’s a flippin’…
  • AI speaker, right? It’s technology all over the place. And I think what people are really looking for is people who can connect to them. So what does that mean?
  • That means that you’ve got to be so strong on your content that if you notice in the middle that the audience needs a little engagement.
  • you need to engage in that moment, even though it wasn’t planned in that keynote. You need to, you need to realize that they really are into exactly what you’re talking about right now, so maybe you need to throw in another story to connect with them.
  • I guess what I’m saying with authenticity is you have to be present on stage. And, you know, I was talking with another
  • speaker, somebody who’s a hall of fame, and and I was going over a new story, I was working in my keynote, and and I told him, I said, I did that… I did that story right on stage, I just decided to throw it in. He goes, how did you do that with your slides?
  • I said.
  • I… I just decided not to use those slides. He said, you can’t do that, not use those slides. I said, yes, you can. And you have to be… here’s what I believe.
  • and again, this is all just according to Meredith, I don’t know if it’s accurate or not, but it’s working for me, so don’t tell me if it isn’t, if you don’t think it is. But, I think when I am present on stage, and I am so engaged with that audience, I think they feel it. And when they feel it.
  • I think that it is less about what is coming out of my mouth, and more about the fact that they feel like I am in that room with them, and that is more powerful than any slide or any tech I put on stage. I went crazy in the middle of COVID trying to get all that high-tech stuff, and it’s just not who I am.
  • And I just kept looking at the most powerful speakers out there, and they’re just authentic. They’re just real. They’re just present.
  • And I think that has always been important.
  • But I think in the world we’re in right now, I think it is going to be so important in 2026.
  • So, anyway, those are kind of my thoughts off the top of my head, just, you know, the world according to Mayer. But I’m really, you know, I’ll talk about anything else you want me to talk about, and
  • Answer any questions.
  • Here we go, okay.
  • the game.
  • Let’s start with Cricket. I’m gonna… I’ll go with whoever comes up on the screen. So, Cricket?
  • Okay, first of all, my apologies, I’m eating a very late lunch, that’s why I was off.
  • for you.
  • Okay, Meredith, I’ve seen you a couple of times. You’re phenomenal on stage, and I just have to ask, I was… I’m thinking of Thrive two years ago, I’m thinking of Influence this year.
  • do you… I don’t want to be as… I’m just gonna be blunt. Do you memorize those 30 minutes? Because, like, there’s no… I’m like, I don’t… and then the other side of me is like, how? How do you memorize it down to the way you’ve got it? Because you’re the only one I know that can memorize or do whatever you do the way you do it, and have it come across just so natural.
  • Yeah, what a… what a really, really, really good question. And so, this is what I do. This is my process. And, my process is that, like, influence and stuff is a really great example, or Thrive’s a great example, because it’s not typically what I talk about.
  • Right? Right. So it has to be a brand new piece of… it has to be a brand new piece of material. So, the very first thing I do is I leave my office and I go for a hike, and right before I go for a hike, I’ll put in my thought, what am I going to talk about at Influence? What am I going to talk about at Thrive? And then I put that thought out of my mind, and I just go for a hike. And the reason I do that is because
  • there is so much research coming out now, you need a quiet mind. You need a quiet mind to come up with your best material. And so, an idea will come to me when I’m on this hike, and I’ll come back, and Cricket, at that point, I…
  • I,
  • I lay out, kind of, in bullet points, what I want to talk about, okay? I’m going to need an opening, I’m going to need a story in there. I want to talk about the fact that, you know, this is what it takes to be a great keynote speaker. And then I know I want to talk about the fact that that’s not really what it takes to be a creative spirit. It really takes blah blah blah blah blah. And then I’ll let that go for a little bit. And over the course of the next couple weeks.
  • I’ll write out my entire keynote. And Karen knows this because I’ve sent her my keynotes completely written out.
  • And this isn’t a transcript of me speaking, it is me writing
  • that keynote, you know? Because I need to get out words the way that I want to say it. Here’s the difference, though. I don’t edit as I write. I just…
  • Spit it out. I’m not judging what I’m putting on a piece of paper. And then when I get that over the course of a little bit, I’ll get that really clean, like how I like it.
  • And then, I’ll start to memorize it. And I memorize it to the point that it falls out of my head and into my heart.
  • And the moment that it falls into my heart, like.
  • Cricket, if you asked me to give the keynote that I gave at Thrive.
  • Again, it would not be the exact same keynote, because I would never say it the same, because I’m speaking out of my heart, not out of my head.
  • So, that sounds like a load of work, but you have to understand, other than thrive and influence, like my Thriving in Uncertainty keynote.
  • I probably give that keynote 95% of the time when I’m on stage with the 80 gigs I do a year, with a couple of little different custom things thrown in. So, doing that process, getting it down like that, and thinking it through, it just slips out of my head into my heart, and it’s completely customized.
  • And can you, with that, like, so you’re on the stage, and you know what you’re gonna say, and something comes to you? Does that ever happen? Where you can, because you know your content so well, you can drift and come back.
  • Right.
  • Yeah, yeah. The other thing, yeah, I definitely… I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on stage, and I’ve thought, you know, like, I have this great story about, about Buc-ee’s, and it’s a… it’s a story about the fact that, I’ve never been to a Buc-ee’s gas station, and I get to, I’m a 62-year-old… there you go, I’m a 62-year-old woman, and I can’t go more than 2 hours from my house without having to go to the bathroom.
  • And, and so when I’m driving to Nashville, and, I know where I’m going to go to the bathroom, because Knoxville is 2 hours from my house, I know the gas station and everything.
  • and I come out of the tunnel, and I see a Buc-ee, I see a sign for Buc-ee’s that says 62 miles to potty like a rock star. Not every audience can take that keynote. It’s not appropriate. Like, if I’m a bunch of accountants, I’m not going to talk about the fact that I’m a 62-year-old woman who can’t go 2 hours from her house without peeing. But sometimes I get up there, and I will just feel an audience, you know? And they’re like, they’re gonna be okay with the fact that I had to cross my legs and
  • Drove 62 miles because I wanted to potty like a rock star. And so, to Karen’s point, I have all these stories out here, and sometimes I’ll just feel it with an audience, but it’s because I know that.
  • so well. One more thing I’m going to say about that, though, that I think is really important. If you’d have heard me give my Thrive keynote in 2019, you’d have thought.
  • She’s good.
  • You hear me give it in 2025?
  • I’m a frickin’ rock star.
  • I’ve been giving that keto for 6 years. 6 years! That’s what it takes. Now, some of the things have changed in there, but it is… I got the bones so in place.
  • that I feel really good about those bones.
  • One of the things that I learned… I’m just going to kind of drop in… I don’t know where… I learned something that helped me so much with your Bucky story. I learned to always have a pocket full of stories.
  • And sometimes you’ll know a story, and if you know your stories, you’re gonna say, oh my god, it wasn’t planned, but this audience needs this story. And so I tell people to keep your good stories, and call it a pocket full of good stories.
  • Yeah, for sure, for sure.
  • Okay, Jen, thank you, that was great. Jen?
  • Hi, I wanted to ask a question regarding the creating an event experience. I know you talked about adding the half hour of Q&A. What are other ways that you’ve heard are effective for adding interactivity or making it an event experience?
  • Yeah, so, right from the start, I always, I’m probably going to say more than you want me to say, but this is how I’m going to answer it. Right from the start, when I’m on the, meeting planner, like, I had a guy today, a chief revenue officer, call me and say, you know, would be interested in having you kick at our,
  • at our sales kickoff. I said, great. I said, he said, can I ask you about the keynote? I said, absolutely, I answer any question. And then I want to talk to you about how we can make this an experience start to finish.
  • And so, what I said was, let’s talk about some things that we can do in order, you know, to get this going right from the very beginning. And I said, you know, you’re not going to have this SKO until February. I said, I’ve got a series of,
  • articles that I think I could put together in some really fun videos for you on… I’ve got a couple on how to boost your business before year-end, so we can get them going right at the beginning of December, saying our SKO is starting right
  • now, right? Like, we’re gonna get this SKO going. And then I’m gonna do the promo video for you, like everybody does, but let’s drop a couple of nuggets as we go through January on how they can up, you know, on how they could up their sales game.
  • And then we’re gonna go into the, and we’re gonna go into the SKO. I’m gonna do a book signing, for them. We’re gonna do that, we’re gonna do that hot seat, piece, for them. And then we’re gonna, at the, at the event, we’re gonna, we’re gonna do a, we’re gonna do an actual case
  • study. So I’m gonna do a keynote for them, and from that keynote, we’re gonna, we’re gonna have an actual customer that they’re gonna need to walk through the steps that I just…
  • did. And so they’re going to divide them into, they’re going to divide them into teams, let them put together their, you know, their case studies, and then, and then we’re going to announce a winner when the whole thing is over.
  • So, it’s just about… I’m trying to listen to… tell me what the biggest problem is, and the biggest problem for this group was they didn’t believe that uncertainty was their greatest opportunity. So, I’m trying to create an experience all around that to solve that problem.
  • But the other thing I would say, Jen, is I wouldn’t even worry if I didn’t have the answers to that. Like, just that line of saying.
  • look, let’s just start now. What are some… ask them, what are some ways we could get… we could get people going? What are some things that we could do? Wouldn’t have to wait till February for me to do a keynote for you. I’m happy to get going now, and more and more things will come to you in those… in those arenas.
  • Thank you!
  • So, as your fee goes up, do you find yourself having to give more?
  • Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And, and with that, you know, sometimes I, you know, when my fee goes up, I definitely
  • feel like I need to offer more, and I want to deliver more. That’s why I throw some in there at a lesser fee. It’s like, I’m exhausted. I don’t want to do that many that are that much work. It’s nice to get on a plane and just, deliver a keynote, not have to even customize it that much, so it’s the balance of those things.
  • It is a balance, but I think a lot of people, and many that are not on the call that will watch this.
  • I feel like they just say, I’m gonna raise my fee, but I feel like there’s definitely…
  • a process, or a ceremony, a fee-raising ceremony you have to go through with what are you going to give them? As your fee goes up, the expectations also go up. And I feel like we don’t talk about that enough.
  • Yeah, I’ve got a, I’ve got a full fee keynote January 14th, and
  • I’ve probably been on 6 calls with them.
  • Yeah.
  • You know, already. I mean, you know, and so it’s a lot of work to do a full-feet keynote, but they deserve that, right? I mean, they’re paying full freight for me, so they deserve that, yeah.
  • Yep.
  • Okay, are any… okay, Amy?
  • Hi, Meredith. First of all, I want to say thank you for your service. I was the president of NSA St. Louis when you took over, and I, I just remember us being on this conference call when
  • the plane was about to crash, and you were talking about how we were going to bring it back up, so, it was so inspiring, and, it really just want to say that first, but my questions are twofold. Number one.
  • The first question I have is, can you share with us, like, what, like, from a business perspective, and you don’t have to give us numbers, but what percent of your business is keynote speaking? Do you do consulting? Do you do any other, you know, revenue streams? And then the second part of the question is, did you start out in sales?
  • So, so let me… I’ll talk about, I’ll talk about my… how my business is designed. So, I have, a multiple revenue streams, so I do coaching.
  • I do only… I keep 10 executives a year, and, I do leadership development training and sales training, so I usually take on 2 big clients a year to do, to do those. That together, is probably about… I think it’s…
  • I think that’s close to 40% of my revenue. The other… the other…
  • 60% is probably 10%, passive income coming from, like, my LinkedIn Learning courses or my other, online courses. And then the last is keynotes.
  • And keynotes drive my business. They’re the only part of my business that I promote.
  • And the reason they’re the only part of my business I promote is because I don’t want to confuse the marketplace like I do all these different things.
  • Yeah.
  • And if I can get on a stage, I can sell you everything else.
  • And so, if you listened to one of my keynotes, you would see that somewhere in there, there’ll be, there’ll be a… there’ll be something about my coaching. There’ll be something about my leadership and my sales training. You’ll know that I do those other things, but I don’t want to clog
  • I don’t want to clog the market with the multiple ways that I make revenue, so the only thing that I promote are the keynotes, and that’s… that’s how I sell everything else.
  • Yeah.
  • That is really important to hear, because I feel that
  • people are putting consult… they’re putting a lot on the websites, and you’re confusing the buyer, and they’re just going to move on. If you ever confuse the buyer, it’s easy just to go next, because I’m not sure if they’re really a coach.
  • People are not crazy about coaches as speakers. I’m gonna be honest with you, when they see coaching, they feel like you haven’t put the energy into holding their audience.
  • They want a speaker who can hold that audience, and so I feel like you’ve said the right thing. I think that we can sell our key… we can sell our services while we’re on that stage.
  • Yeah, I kind of learned that, from my husband, actually. My husband, was a dentist, he’s retired now, but, in 2004, his dental office got flooded out, and we had to, open back up, and in that market, you could throw a rock and hit a dentist in Asheville. I mean, there were, I mean.
  • So many, it was ridiculous.
  • So we had to find a differentiator, and he got into this high-tech dentistry, something called CERAC, you could do a crown in an hour. It was all we marketed. Now, he did a load of other things, but that was the attractor to get people in the door, and once people in the door, we sold them everything else, everything else that we could do. But all we did was market that, and the practice grew like crazy. And I think it’s the same for Keynoter, like, I’ll… if you can see me on stage.
  • gauge, you will Hire me to do other things.
  • I love this, yes!
  • And so, and so I don’t want a cloud that I do a million other things. You’ll… you’ll hire me to do those things. So that’s kind of valid. And then you asked if I started out in sales.
  • I’m gonna say no, and then yes. So, so…
  • I… I was raised in a, in a family where, girls just didn’t talk about money, and girls should grow up to, grow up to marry well, and the last thing you ever want to do is bother people by calling them on a telephone or doing anything like that.
  • So I get into the business world, and I got a job being a marketing director for a company, and all my job was to do… to go around and deliver cookies to doctors. And I was really good at that, because I was raised to deliver cookies to doctors. I was… that was my man, if I ever was working in a zone.
  • But unfortunately for me, or fortunately, I’m not… I’m not really sure, but my first husband was, was an alcoholic. He ended up dying at the age of 41. He never really worked. He was never really functional. I had to be the breadwinner in our family. And I’m old enough that, it was a very male-dominated world. I could never have gotten a salary.
  • making the kind of money to buy a house, or to pay our bills, or to do anything like that. The only outlet I had was sales.
  • And, and so I… I crossed over, and I got into the sales space, and I was awful, because I was being trained by salespeople who were taking me the art of the clothes, the aggressive salesperson. I sucked at it. I was sucking wind. So I… but I was desperate. Like, if I didn’t earn money, we were gonna go under. And, so I had to develop my own sales process, and my own sales process was all about developing relationships.
  • And the consistency of it, and the learning to ask for the business. So, I answer that yes and no. It was very uncomfortable for me. The very first time ever to make a sales call. I literally walked into my boss’s office, he had a bathroom in there, and I threw up.
  • I didn’t think I could do this.
  • But I had the pressure that I had to succeed, so I just had to develop my way of doing it. So, I’m really about consistency, and
  • And delivering relationships like crazy. It’s my sales process, but…
  • Make no mistake, I just had my best year on record. I’m gonna close out. I’ve never done as well as I’ve done this year. This morning.
  • I made 5 sales calls. Tomorrow morning, I will make… I make 3 every day, sometimes I get a little aggressive. I make them every day, whether I need the business or I don’t need the business. So, with that, I want you to understand that I’m really consistent, but it was not a comfort zone for me.
  • Great, thank you.
  • Mark?
  • This is great, Meredith, and I’ll second what Amy said. I was on that call, too, so that was awesome.
  • You talked about presence, being present in an audience. So, I’m fairly interactive.
  • But sometimes it’s hard to tell what the… what the audience is thinking, just sometimes the audience and their personality, and I’ve learned not to read into their… their body language, but what are just the practical ways that you…
  • really read the audience and can tell if they’re ready for that story about Buc-ee’s.
  • Yeah, so, again, what a really good question. Like, nothing… nothing worse than being in front of a bunch of engineers or a bunch of CPAs.
  • Right? And you’re like, I don’t even know what these people are thinking. I’m not even sure they’re paying attention to me, or not. So, a couple of things I do when I read an audience is that, I think one of my
  • One of my,
  • secrets, I’ll call it that, because it’s not an expertise and it’s not a talent, is, is I make a lot of eye contact. I really, I really find people that are looking at me, or that are engaged in me, that are nodding their heads and that are interested, and I will talk to them for a solid 5 minutes.
  • I learned that a long time ago from a… actually at a dental conference with my husband. I was listening to a presenter, and he was actually a member of the National Speakers Association, but I didn’t even know any of that at that point. But, he told me, whomever you’re looking at, and wherever your eyes are, everybody else will look at you because they’re afraid that you’re going to call on them next. It’s some subliminal thing. So I’ll lean in
  • to the people that, that seem to be leaning in to me. And then, when you’re really present, Mark.
  • There’s something that will come over you that says.
  • you feel it. It’s like you get into a zone, and when you get into that zone, you go, I’m telling that story. Like, you just… you just feel that coming, you just feel it coming over you. And if I don’t feel it, like, it’s not coming here that I should tell that story. I’m feeling it here.
  • that I should tell that story. I’m feeling it with my, you know, with my body that I should tell, that story. Sometimes I’ll play with the audience a little bit. I might say to somebody in the audience, you know, I got the greatest story. Now, it’s a little off-color.
  • who in here thinks I should tell the story? You know, and to get engaged and kind of warm them up.
  • you know, warm them up in, into that. But more often than not, I’m just looking around, and I’m finding the people that engage with me, and if I feel it, if I feel moved to do that, I’ll tell the story. Here’s the other thing, Mark, is
  • who cares if I’m wrong? Like.
  • You know, sometimes I’m amazing on stage. I’m so good, I, like, can’t even believe that’s me. And then sometimes I suck. I missed it so bad, it wasn’t even funny.
  • But we’re normal people who go to work, right? Like, you remember when you worked in a corporate office? Someday, you were there, you were awake, you were alert, you were incredible, and some days you were just barely hanging on. And… and so…
  • sometimes I throw out a story, and it was the wrong time to throw out the story, but every time I step on stage, I take it as a learning experience. I’m getting better and better and better every time I get on stage. And so even when I fail at it, or even when I do something that was… that just did not work,
  • I’ll… I’ll learn from that, and I’ll basically adjust, you know, the next time.
  • Thank you.
  • You remember the ones, though, don’t you? We remember the ones that don’t work.
  • Yeah, we do, we do. But you know what you,
  • you can’t… you can’t learn without that. I’ll tell you a quick… I’ll tell you a quick story about failing, is I was on stage, this was probably 10 years ago, and I,
  • I failed. I mean, it was really bad. It was really bad. And, I got in the car to drive home, it was 2 hours, drive home, and I called Connie Podesta, and I’m in tears. I’m like, Connie, I don’t think I should do this job. I’m awful. Oh my god, that was terrible. I mean, I bombed.
  • And, and…
  • And Connie said, Meredith, she said, first of all, you’re going to have to develop a thicker skin if you’re going to make it through this, you know, this thing. But she helped me understand that what I had done was I’d let the meeting planner talk me into a different topic that I didn’t talk about.
  • In fact, I didn’t really know anything about it, so I had put together a keynote. It was a beautiful keynote.
  • But it had no substance in it, because I didn’t know what I was talking about.
  • And, and that, you know, that really… that was the greatest learning experience ever. I’m not good because I’m good. I’m good because I…
  • I know what I’m talking about. Like, I’m in.
  • Right.
  • Confidence. You told me to go out there and talk about AI. I can put together a beautiful keynote, but none of you would buy it, because I don’t know what I’m talking about. I can, you know, so it’s…
  • you know, it was those types of things that I… as much as I hated that experience.
  • it was really powerful. The other thing Connie did for me that night was, for 2 hours on the drive home, she walked me through every single time she’d failed on stage. And when she was done, she would say, do you want another? And I’d say, yeah, give me another, and she’d tell me another. And it made me realize that, you know, she was a million-dollar speaker when people weren’t even million dollar speakers. She was a Hall of Fame speaker, and she had failed.
  • And there she was. She kept getting back up and kept getting better. So…
  • Yep, I’m thinking about him right now.
  • Alright, I liked… well, we’ll get to that later. I wanted to let everybody talk. Okay, Julia.
  • Thank you. Thank you so much for being here, Meredith. So my question to you is around the comment you made when it’s like, you’re not promoting multiple things.
  • And so my question is, when you think back to earlier, when maybe in the business everything wasn’t coming, you didn’t have 12 or 15 keynotes lined up, how did you manage, kind of, the revenue stream if you’re not promoting anything else, and you’re still waiting for that next keynote to land? Just curious about those, the kind of earlier seasons.
  • Yeah, so, yeah, so early on, I mean, it really was, I would do anything you needed me to do, right? But I made a conscious decision. I joined NSA, I think it was 2009, I believe, and I made a decision in 2009 that I was going to market keynotes. So, at the very beginning, I had to eat.
  • though, right? Like, I had to, you know, I still had to pay, the bills.
  • And I quit my corporate job at this point. For a long time, I had… when I started out, let me go all the way back. When I made the decision to go into business for myself, I was just selling coaching and consulting. I’d never heard of speaking. I was a strategic planner, a coach, and a consultant.
  • I got a company to hire me.
  • For $100,000 a year, because $100,000 a year would pay all my bills and would take care of things, and it would allow me the ability to relax.
  • So, what I say with that is, if you want to get going in keynotes.
  • Sell the other first, that you can get something up under your belt so that you can pay the bills, because keynoting has a long tail. If you start selling keynotes right now, you probably won’t book them till 2027. You might book one here or there in 2026, but
  • if you’re just getting going with keynotes, the point isn’t to make money at keynotes. It’s to get on stages so you can get the video, so you can get the experience, so you can get the things, you know, that you need. So, early on, when I made the decision to start selling, keynotes.
  • I made sure I had enough income coming in from other places, so the majority of my sales process could go at keynotes. Still made sales calls to get coaching clients, still made sales calls to get, strategic plans.
  • But I had enough revenue to cover the bills.
  • to start to focus on my, to start to focus on my keynote, business. The other thing I would say with that, too, is you reach out, to people, you’ll find out a lot of times they need other things, you know? Like, you know, you should tell everybody you know, anybody you’ve ever worked with.
  • That you’re doing keynotes now. Because they think of you however they think of you in the last
  • way they thought of you. So your best, your goldmine isn’t anybody you’ve ever worked for. You just reach out, you say, hey, this is Jen, I’m really excited about 2026, it’s going to be a spectacular year, and to take it to another level.
  • We’ve added a whole new, a whole new platform to our business. I am moving into the keynote, speaking space. This is what I speak on, this is the ROI, and I’d love to work together. Because you don’t know if your friend’s grandmother
  • Is, you know, her… her grandson runs some
  • big multinational company. You should tell everybody you know you’re getting into that space.
  • Right, you know, right now. And you just do it in the sense, and people say, you know, Julia, are you still coaching and consulting? You say, absolutely, I’m still doing, you know, those things. So, it’s… it’s a matter of, you know, making sure that you can cover the rent and cover the… not first, but at least some of those sales calls need to be going out there, and right now.
  • do not… I don’t know where you are on your speaking journey, but if you’re within the first three to four years of it, the point is not making money. The point is to get on stage, get the experience, get the things that you need, so when the opportunities come, you’re ready for them. And the beautiful thing about getting on any stage
  • If I get in front of a Rotary Club and nobody gives me any money.
  • I’ll find a consulting job, I’ll find somebody who needs a coaching job, you know? So, you know, it’s that type of thing.
  • Awesome. Thank you.
  • Okay, Sylvia?
  • Oh, I think cricket was first. Cricket, your hand’s been up, so go for it.
  • I’ve already asked one, you go ahead.
  • Oh, okay. And thank you, Meredith, for sparing time to impart all this knowledge on us. So, one of the things that has been coming to my mind, I’ve not been one who’s been good at reaching back out to my old keynote clients, you know, and I think about… and I have a little bit of a dilemma, because
  • 5 years ago, right, what people were paying me versus what they’re having to pay now is such a contrast, and I just would love some insight into how you navigate the conversation for them, right? It may be hard for them to conceive.
  • Yeah. Yeah. First of all, it’s really important to reach back out to them, and I feel your pain. I’ve got people in my database that, when I was running around speaking for $500, they’re still in my database, because I never let go of anybody. So the way that I… so I think it’s really important to reach back out to them, because I also want to say, we just reached back out to somebody I spoke for
  • two years ago, and I did not get my full fee two years ago. They’ve grown so much now, they just paid me my full fee to get on stage for them.
  • I had no idea that was there. It was just a crazy, you know, reach back out, to them. But the way that I navigate that is that I would, you know, reach back out, and I would say, hey, you know, this is, this is Sylvia. It’s been a while since we’ve connected. I’d love to jump on a call, hear what you’re focused on for 2026, and I want to share some new programs and some new, some new things that I’m offering in
  • In my business. And I might include, like, a, like an article that kind of covers my areas of, of expertise. Like, I have, I have the, the,
  • five stats you need to know about uncertainty, you know, like, that I… that I share with people as a value add. And then if, you know, if they reach back out and say, oh my god, we’d love to have you as our keynote, and I would say, well, you know, you can imagine my fee’s gone up a little bit, but let’s talk about how we can make it
  • work. And a couple of things around that, Sylvia, is number one, you’ve let them know that you’re
  • you know, that… that you’re looking to be hired, you’d be surprised if, you know, maybe they’d be willing to hire you for 2 or 3 keynotes. Maybe they’d be willing… I’ll send you guys my, I’ve got this list of,
  • I forget what I called it, I called it something impressive, but it’s, it’s, it is, it’s basically 16 different ways that… what to do when people don’t have your fee.
  • Right? So, like, so, like, if I don’t have anything on my calendar next month.
  • And and Karen said, will you come to Houston and speak to the, you know, Houston realtors for $500? You know, I might do that, but I might talk to the Houston realtors, and I might say, hey, you know, maybe you could refer me to the Texas Realtors Association. Will you give me a video testimonial? Would you be willing to buy, you know, 200
  • copies of my, you know, of my books. Like, I’ll have these other ways that I can get my fee in there. But I think it’s…
  • You know, I think it’s important to reach back out to your existing clients, let them know that you have new programs and new things, and if they don’t have your fee.
  • Ask them for a referral. They loved you, right? Ask them who else they could connect you to.
  • Okay.
  • Thank you.
  • Okay, well, Cricket, do you want to go? We’ve got Cricket and Sean, and then we’re going to be winding it down.
  • Well, let Sean go, and then if there’s time, I’ll ask…
  • Thanks, Sean.
  • All right, thanks. Meredith, I was wondering, first of all, when it comes to, like, prospecting and cold calling, I get the following up with your regular clients, that’s so important, or your past people that have booked you in the past.
  • But if you’re looking for new business, like I think I am, some of us are, you know, we don’t… we haven’t built our base that we need, what are some tips on prospecting, cold calling,
  • Do you use a lot of social media? Like, what are some ways to open doors, let’s say?
  • Yeah, so I do a lot of cold calling, and I do a lot of prospecting.
  • You know, when you think about that, I mean, I’ve been at this for a really long time, and I definitely reach out to my past clients, but not everybody that hired me before is going to want to bring me back. Some people have a, you know, kind of a strict rule on they’re not bringing a speaker, you know, back, or to Sylvia’s point, they’re not in my fee range, anymore. So I do a lot of prospecting, so…
  • Here you go. So, while most of people are spending December celebrating the holidays, I still am, but in December, I create my top 100. And my top 100, I decide the 100 associations and or companies I want to speak for in 2026.
  • I particularly… I do this through Sam Richter’s Intel engine, but you can do it by using Google, you can use it by doing whatever you want to do. And because I use the Intel, engine.
  • I take about, 6 speakers that I know speak at about my fee range. Like, if you ever, you know, had Karen McCullough, you’d probably like to have me on stage. So, in Sam’s program, I can Google where Karen spoke last year, and I can find 5 or 6 companies or associations she spoke for, and I’ll put together my top
  • 100. And my top 100, about 25% of those are existing clients.
  • 75% are prospects.
  • And I get all the information about them. So this… it’s a… it’s a labor of love in the month of December, and I’ll tell you why I do it in the month of December in a moment. But I get their email, I get their snail mail, I get their, I get their… I get the name of the event.
  • I get the date of the event, and I get the phone number. And then, beginning in January, I will call on those people
  • 50 in January, 50 in February, 50 in March, 50, and I’ll call on them all year long. 70% of my reach out will be value-add. I’ll be sending them an article. I’ll be inviting them to a master class.
  • That I’m going, to. I might be, I might be, you know, inviting them… I might comment on something on their social media,
  • channels. 30% of the time, I flat out ask them about speaking at their conference. And what I mean by… I always pick up the phone, and I always call people. And the reason I always pick up the phone and call people, 99% of the time, nobody ever picks up the phone.
  • But if you ever hear me on the telephone and hear my energy, first of all, it shocks you, because all of my competitors are only emailing.
  • Right? So, I got that energy across. And my thing on the phone is always like, hey, Sean, this is Meredith Elliott Powell, we’ve never met, I’m a keynote speaker, super interested in your, in your conference. Don’t worry about calling me back. I’m going to shoot you an email with all the information. I’m excited to talk soon.
  • click the phone. And then… then I’ll send out the email, and the email will be… my subject line, will be the conference.
  • And then I might open up by saying, hi Sean, this is Meredith Elliott Powell, just left you a message. I work quite a bit in your industry. And then I will flash a testimonial right under that line. So the very first thing you see is that I spoke for Berkshire Hathaway. I spoke for the Million Dollar Roundtable. If you never spoke for any of these people, it doesn’t really matter. Who did you ever work for that’s impressive?
  • And that testimonial with a name, because
  • The thing about a cold call is.
  • a cold email is, who are you? Like, I never heard of you. But if I look it down and I go, oh my god, you spoke for the Million Dollar Roundtable? Now, all of a sudden, you have credibility to me, you know? So, and here’s… here’s the difference between me and everybody else, Sean.
  • I don’t ever care if you answer my email, I don’t ever care if you call me back. I am reaching out, because I put out into the universe every single day I’m looking for business, but I don’t get hung up as to whether you call me back.
  • or not. I am going to stay in touch with you all year long, because eventually, you are going to take notice of me. I close…
  • about 25% of my top 100 for the year, and but I’ve been at this for a long time.
  • Right?
  • But I get a lot of laws of left field. Things drop out of left field, like… and I think it’s because I’m putting that out there all the time, but 70% of the time I reach out, it’s just giving people something of value, because I’m trying to get them to get to know me. I’m an expert. Like, here’s an article I wrote, here’s a video I shot. I’m doing a master class.
  • Right? My year always starts in January with my New Year’s resolutions.
  • my top solutions to how to make 2026 your best year on record. I mail that out to everybody, and then I invite them to a master class in the end of January, and that’s how we kick off the year.
  • And then I roll.
  • We love this idea of your top 100, and I think even for those of you that are just really starting to click with your fee.
  • There are so many associations, especially your state associations, that this might work.
  • Up and.
  • I think it’s also great practice. Yeah, I think these are great ideas, and you don’t have to be, right now, a million dollar roundtable. You can start because they’re still putting on events.
  • And you start with your state associations, if that’s where you want to go. But you want… I think getting rhythm, and doing this, and being consistent
  • is really the key to your future business. Doing something consistently.
  • I love these!
  • Yeah.
  • I love your energy, and that you don’t really care that they’re not gonna answer, but you’re… you’re… I remember when I took the course with Donald Miller, he said, nobody opens my emails, but my name keeps coming up in front of them, and they remember me, and pretty soon, who was that person?
  • It’s not like they remember even what you speak on, but that’s really what we’re doing, is growing the brand.
  • Yeah, I make 3 sales calls every day, 365 days a year. Yes, I reach out to, either Jewish clients or, or Muslim clients at Christmas. So, so my point is, I can do 3. I can’t make an excuse not to not do 3, right? Like.
  • Sometimes that’s an email, sometimes it’s a phone call, sometimes I put things in the mail. But I am so consistent. Think about this, I’ve been at this since 2009. I’ve made 3 sales calls a day since 2009.
  • I am not speaking because I am better than anybody else. I am just more frickin’ more consistent than most people, are. So, like, but three, you can’t make an excuse. Cricket.
  • Well, that was a perfect segue, because that was kind of along the lines of my question. So,
  • First of all, kudos to you, you look amazing, because you gave us your age earlier, and I would not have known that. So, that’s part of my question, is the energy, you golf, you tennis, you play pickleball, you’re doing 80 gigs a year and all that stuff. I want to know what your day looks like. What is a typical day out… I mean, I’ve heard you time and time again on the sales calls, but what does the rest of this look like?
  • Yeah, so if I’m home… so, this is such a good one to… this is such a good one to end on. I’m so glad you asked me this question, because…
  • When I was 36 years old, and I was working in corporate America, I, I got this promotion, and I walked into the office where they gave me this big corner office, they gave me big money, and they gave me 3 country club memberships. And I remember walking into that office and going, thinking, I don’t want any of this. I don’t want to live in this town.
  • I don’t want to work in corporate America.
  • I don’t want to belong to three country clubs, I don’t want any of this. And I realized that I had had a goal, but my goal was for my professional life. I hadn’t made a goal for my personal life.
  • And, and your goal should be your goal. And so my goal is for my life. So, if you got up with me in the morning, I’m hanging out here in Asheville right now, right in this desk drawer, is my, vision.
  • For where I see my life one year from now. My vision has five points. It has a business and career goal, it has a financial goal, it has a relationships goal, it has a health goal, and it has a spirituality.
  • Goal.
  • So, my day looks like this. I am, I wake up somewhere around 4 AM. It’s the only thing you will ever, this is very odd with me, but I do not set an alarm. Whatever time I go to bed, I will wake up 6 hours later. I do not move, I do not roll over, I sleep solid exactly 6 hours. If I went to bed at 10.01, I would wake up at 4.01. It’s just the way I roll, I don’t know what that is. But I sleep exactly, 6 hours.
  • I wake up somewhere around 4 a.m, I go downstairs, I get a cup of coffee, I come right up here to my desk, and the very first thing I do is I meditate. It’s not impressive, I only meditate for 10 minutes, but I meditate. And then I read my, my,
  • my goals. I think about my vision and my goals and where I want to see my life, and I really let that sit in. That’s my first 15 minutes of the day. Like, really, I want to get my head
  • Right.
  • The next thing I’ll do is I’ll think about, I choose what 3 people I’m going to call on that day. It’s usually pretty easy for me, because it pops through my, CRM. I’ll work a little bit, and then about 6 AM, I’ll run over to the Asheville Racquet Club, and I’ll play tennis for an hour and a half with my friends. And then I’ll come back here.
  • And I’ll work again till, you know, noon. I can be doing anything from making sales calls, to working on content, to putting together contracts, to meeting together with my, with my team.
  • Somewhere around, noon or 1, I’ll either go for a walk, I’ll go for a hike, I might, I might go meet my girlfriends and walk 9 holes, of golf.
  • I’ll come back, I’ll work a little bit more than my husband and I, I’ll either, whatever sport I didn’t do that day, we might go hit tennis balls again, we might, we might play a little pickleball, we might ride a mountain bike, we’ll eat dinner, and then I get in the bed somewhere between 9 and 10. You can count on in seconds, as soon as I get in, I look at my husband, I say, what a great day, let’s watch something cool on television. Three seconds later, I’m sound asleep.
  • So that’s… that’s my day. I’ve never… I started a Christmas movie 3 nights ago. It will take me until January 1 to watch the whole thing. But.
  • Jealous of the sleep.
  • Yeah, but yeah, but here’s my point, is that, if the most important things to me are
  • My family and my health.
  • And they always come first in head of my work, meaning that if I got in late, if I didn’t get in late… if I got in late on a keynote, and I got up the next morning, and I have the choice to practice my keynote, or go outside for a walk, I will go outside for a walk before that keynote, because my health is better, I feel.
  • the better I am on stage. I did not understand that at the beginning of my life, and now that I…
  • now that I feel like I lay out goals in every area of my life, my health, my finances, my relationships.
  • I’m just better on stage because I’m more balanced in those. If I go play tennis with my girlfriends, I work better when I come back. So I kind of mix that all… mix that all together, and I really screwed that up at the beginning of my life. My… I was overweight, I was in bad financial shape, I obviously had no relationship, I was married to an addict,
  • And everything was a disaster except my career. And I think far too often in speaking, we get that way.
  • You know? And one thing I vowed when I became chair of this association is so many, speakers have blown their businesses up when becoming a chair. And I didn’t want to do that, because I thought, why would you join an association when the person who runs it can’t even run a successful business? I think it’s stupid to me. So…
  • I’m very clear about what’s most important, and I make those decisions first, and I make no excuses for it at all. And so…
  • F it.
  • Thank you.
  • Yep.
  • That was wonderful, and you know what? You saved our association. I know that, Meredith. You put the… I mean, it… it’s just… what you’ve done. You walk your talk, and we love you. This was the best. You…
  • Oh, you’re so… no, it’s such an honor to have you, with… and if I can do anything, to help you, don’t hesitate to.
  • You opened up and shared, and they’re going to listen to this one over and over. This was something… this was the best. This was amazing. I don’t want to say it was the best, but this was fabulous.
  • Thank you, thank you.
  • I’m really, you know, I want to respect your time, and I know that you gave us an hour of your time. Thank you so much.
  • Well, thank you so much for having me. It was an honor, and I’ll see y’all at Influence, or CSP Summit, or wherever I’ll see you. But please, if we’re not connected, let’s, please reach out and connect, and if I can do anything to help you follow up on anything we’ve talked about, I’m so happy to, I’m so happy to do it.
  • Thanks!
  • Alright, so…
  • Ew.
  • Thank you, Meredith.
  • Is it 2 o’clock where you are, or 3 o’clock?
  • It’s 3 o’clock where I am.
  • Thanks, Dennis.
  • Yeah, I’m gonna go play golf, I’m gonna go walk 9 holes of golf.
  • Bye-bye. Bye. Bye, everybody. Hey, guys, that was great. That was so great. That was… that was unbelievable.
  • Yeah, we got so much out of it. We’ll go back and listen to it all. She really opened up. I am so honored that she gave us an hour.
  • I always knew she didn’t sleep.
  • 4 o’clock in the morning. I just… I’m reading this.
  • And I’ve eaten a meal with her, and she doesn’t eat either, so that’s why I was like, what keeps her going?
  • You know?
  • It’s amazing.
  • It’s been great. It’s been great. This was just great.
  • Wonderful, thank you for bringing her in.
  • Yeah.
  • We’ll talk again if you guys come on. We’ll talk on Monday, if any of you want to come in. We can talk about some of these things that she said, because she said a lot. Anyway, I loved it. See you guys later. Bye-bye.

Here are the biggest takeaways with Meridith Elliott Powell.

1. Strong Opinions Win

  • You are not hired for information. Google has that.
  • You are hired for point of view.
  • If your message feels safe, it’s forgettable.
  • Ask yourself: What do I believe that challenges how people currently think?

2. Expertise Beats Motivation

  • “Motivational speaker” alone is no longer enough.
  • Buyers want depth, credibility, and relevance.
  • You need one clear expertise umbrella.

3. Stop Selling a Keynote. Sell an Experience.

  • Think before, during, and after the event.
  • Add value beyond the stage.

4. ROI Is the New Standing Ovation

  • Meeting planners care about implementation.
  • You must be able to say what changes after you leave.

5. Authenticity Beats High Tech

  • Slides don’t save weak content.
  • Presence matters more than polish.
  • Know your material well enough to adapt in the moment.

6. Market One Thing Clearly

  • Promote keynotes only.
  • Sell coaching, consulting, and programs from the stage.
  • Don’t confuse buyers with too many offers.

8. Build a “Top 100” List

  • Identify 100 organizations you want to speak for.
  • 25% existing clients, 75% new prospects.
  • Reach out all year long.
  • 70% value-add, 30% direct ask.

9. Consistency Beats Talent

  • Three sales touches a day.
  • Every day.
  • No drama if people don’t respond.
  • Visibility compounds.

10. Your Life Fuels Your Stage

  • Health, relationships, and balance matter.
  • You perform better when your life is aligned.
  • Burnout does not build great keynotes.

Bottom Line

  • This is not about being better.
  • It is about being clear, consistent, and committed long enough for the work to