Rocking The Virtual World
I’m James Taylor, and you’re listening to the SpeakersU Podcast, a show for aspiring and professional speakers. This episode is with my co-host, Maria Franzoni. Enjoy the episode.
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How To Rock The Virtual World
James Taylor 0:00
I’m James Taylor and you’re listening to the SpeakersU Podcast a show for aspiring and professional speakers. This episode is with my co host, Maria Franzoni. Enjoy the episode. So we have a pretty fun guest today Maria doesn’t wait.
Maria Franzoni 0:15
We do because I mean, you know virtual for some people has been dull, but there’s nothing done about doing virtual with this man. So we’re best guy to start offseason and I think
Tom Morley
James Taylor 0:25
Yeah, so the 80s band Scritti Politti lost the drummer and quit the corporate world gained a team building speaker in the rip-roaring music business bust-up back in the 80s. That’s the short story for the longer one about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. You might just have to book him dubbed the rock star activator by Jamil Qureshi. At one of Maria’s courses a couple of years ago. Tom Morley has recently found international fame on zoom, dropping out of time getting people harmonizing on mute, pivot. Some say he may have invented the word please welcome, Mr. Tom Morley. -How To Rock The Virtual World
Tom Morley 1:00
Hello. I’ll give myself a round of applause. Maybe some laughter suddenly, it’s lunchtime.
Drums To Virtual
Maria Franzoni 1:09
Well, an introduction. Wow. What a fantastic introduction. I hope you wrote it yourself there, Tom. So listen, I remember when we met you, karting allowed route, so many drums in the back of your van hundreds of drums at a time loading them, unloading them, bringing them into corporate events. How’d you do that virtually?
Tom Morley 1:31
Well, I still have the equipment to transport but it’s in the form of wooden spins. And I have to carry them all the way from the kitchen to my studio, which is up here, which as you know, I’ve just run down to get them because I forgot to bring them. So I still can charge for transport, and loading and unloading. But it’s a little bit cheaper than it used to be. And I don’t have to haunt motorway service stations no motorway service station, nor do we have to be in time. That’s the whole kind of thing. On you just wouldn’t have thought it was possible before this pandemic. Because of the whole of history, the whole point of music has been able to play in time. And the more in time you’re playing, the better. And the more in harmony, the better. And we play out of time went on mute. That’s, that’s been my whole year.
Maria Franzoni 2:31
After a time, and I’ll mute that sounds like the title for good. Good luck, actually.
Tom Morley 2:36
Yeah. And how I’ve done that to be specific. Instead of getting everybody to play these drums our conference center, as you say, one to one loaded them and got it all spaced out and made sure everyone’s got elbow room. I just play music to PPO quite funky music, copyright free over the internet. So it can be played anywhere can be reproduced anywhere. I’ve already paid for it. And people play along on wooden spins or buckets. So I know James has got a shaker right there. I play a little bit. Yeah, just so you know, sort of thing. I wish I’d gone and got my spoons. Yeah, there’ll be something on the desk. Because you can just wave it around. Pretend to be playing it’s it’s my mean like the 80s were. Well, cut my musical teeth. Not that we were miming. -How To Rock The Virtual World
Yeah, so that’s what I’ve been doing. And I can say, Okay, everybody, go get yourself a hat. And then they’ll run off and get hats. And then I say, Yeah, you’re winning the prize there. Maria from Guilford. Wow, look at that. Look at her go. You know, I mean? Well, the amazing thing is right, it’s all about permission. You know, if I say Maria from Guilford, that makes you feel good. And, you know, Tony from New York, I’ve got better hat than that. So it sets up this kind of lovely team competition. And, and people do amazing things. I’ve had one, he, you know how you in order to do a kind of family day at a conference, you’d have to plan it three months in advance or the children will have to get letters from school. You don’t have to do that kids are waiting, right? watching their parents dancing around. And I said to one, I was playing a kind of Caribbean song. I said one Alright, so what would you do on holiday and of course most of them just started pretending to neck it. And then but the kids came in with goggles with math with them. And one little girl. I’ll always remember that she she went and got some suntan lotion. And she started putting it on And then she started swimming right towards the camera. So we’ll be swimming. Again, you can’t do this at a conference, it will take too long. And then a dad who is quite big guy picked her up. And she’s swimming right towards the screen. He’s moving backwards and forwards. So I just said, All right, this was, you know, some group of lawyers. So he people on the screen, so I said, everybody, we’re all doing the cruise swim towards the camera. So within two minutes, that came from a piece of music, holiday saying, the creativity coming from the people themselves, all I have to do, which is all I’ve ever done, really, is reintroduce people to their creativity and say, Let’s go, you know, and then know what to do now know how to kind of tweak it a little bit. So so it turns into something -How To Rock The Virtual World
James Taylor 5:52
tall. I mean, you’ve got pretty impressive set up there spit, like being invited into your kind of private studio or a backstage party. Is that is that that set up deliberate? Were you there.
Studio Set-Up
Tom Morley 6:03
And I’ve got different cameras like this, if people see if I put this one on people that aren’t really used backstage, well, that actually means is that all the other cameras have somehow trigger themselves off. And this is the one that’s in the laptop, which is the brain of everything. This is all four of them. So I can be and that is the that’s the kind of overhead so far, I’ll just go play a bit more music. Show you. I’m not checking my email, look away like that. Require like that right now. Okay, buddy, get some sunglasses, raffle money, headwear, turn into pop star, I could just bring the lights down. Yeah. And then what that does, is they say, oh, that guy’s doing all right, I’m gonna start using my filters. And then they start bringing out all the filters, all the same backgrounds that they couldn’t use in a board meeting. Excuse me, I’m gonna go down.
James Taylor 7:11
That’s, that’s the dance of the last dance of the night when you know, refer? If you’re, if you’re gonna have a lucky evening that evening.
Tom Morley 7:17
Well, that’s it. It’s very pertinent that you should say that because when I was a teenager, I always say to people, I’m an introvert. Right? So you wouldn’t think to answer your question, this whole setup. If you look interested in the right, then people come and talk to you as an introvert. So if you’ve got a hair, or you wear a silver jacket, or light one the wings on the back, then you can kind of start talking. Yeah, so I was always I used to get a teenage party, and it’s really boring, everybody’s glued to the wall, someone needs to dance in the middle to get this going. And we just turn it right down. And so I just thought, I’ll do it, you know, it will cost me because I’m an introvert. And an extrovert should do it, but I’ll do it. And then everybody would start dancing to the point -How To Rock The Virtual World
What challenges do clients want you to solve?
James Taylor 8:07
that brings your title, you’re the activator in that as well. So when clients come to you, let’s say, in most of your work office, you can have corporate clients. Yeah. When they reach out to you, what is the challenge that they’re looking to solve? Why did what was the reason for them reaching out to you specifically,
Tom Morley 8:24
they want to, I mean, now, as they’ve always done, but now especially they want to bond teams, they everyone says, I’ve got seen fatigue? You know, what do you do? You’ve got seen fatigue, one thing is you get up, still, be connected with your people on the screen. If you start swimming towards the screen towards the camera, you feel less fatigued. If I say you know who’s got a hit in the house or who’s got who’s ever wanting to play the guitar, they come back with all sorts of stuff. So there as far as what the clients want that Bond’s them, because not only do they get all the neurochemistry working, I won’t pretend to be anything. I’ve got the certificate, but Maria says, people won’t be interested because I look like a rock star. But I’d have to get near a chemist who didn’t tell you about it. But jacket. Yeah, all the chemistry, lab jacket, pens. So all that changes, but they have this collective experience, and the chat afterward or during It’s amazing. And so you get people to say I’ve never seen your door before James. I never know that. Oh, she said you’re the winner on guitar, you know someone else. So not only do you get this visual representation, you get this kind of List of chat, which I will send them after all the stuff that so they bond in a way that they would if you just paid you to know how many 1000s he paid to go to the Granger Grove Similar. So, -How To Rock The Virtual World
James Taylor 10:02
Maria, do you think I mean, obviously, you’ve, you’ve moved away from being the speaker, bureau person, you know, the speaker, trainer, Speaker coach now, but when you are definitely in full on in the bureau business, we’re using this trend really start to come up in terms that they can a team that can have team building because it obviously likes team-building kind of goes in waves in terms of interest for it, but you see it coming up a bit more now.
Maria Franzoni 10:24
You know, I for me, it was always totally consistent. It was like one of those evergreen topics to be honest. And it’s just how do you do it differently? And I think now more than ever, it’s so important because the teams are remote. You know, but the challenge will be and actually this is the challenge for you, Tom, how do you do it? How do you make it work as hybrid when you’ve got a team that’s in person with you. And then you’ve got teams scattered virtually How does this work hybrid? -How To Rock The Virtual World
Hybrid Events
Tom Morley 10:48
Well, I have yet to do a lot of the visions in my head as a hybrid. But I would love to do you know, an on-site conference where you’re allowed, what 3050 people actually in the conference hall, because this is good for costs, you know, which as well as creativity. So but instead of all looking at me on the screen on the stage, I am actually on stage in London, right 50 of them they are looking at, maybe we have 10 cameras, so they’re looking just like they’d be looking at the zoom screens. So that they in their smaller teams, maybe seven or something. So they see themselves performing, just like they do on zoom as we are at the moment, I’m kind of leaving it from the stage, we have mixes on-site mixing all that on the screen around the world. Because we don’t need to be on time, I have to emphasize this, all we have to do is see each other visually moving. And so if someone’s if, say if it’s 130 beats per minute, right, standard dance, right, someone’s doing this, and someone else is doing that, it doesn’t matter, because we’re all out of time together. So actually looks like very expensive choreography. So we can, we can spin that around, you know, around the whole globe, we can play one song to song or we can be playing drums in London live in that venue. And that can be Trent kind of broadcast out and people can be playing along with it. So it and you know that whole self-health and safety thing. I like to dance on tables, right? I can’t do that anymore. Just and people want to say little dance on the table there. However, virtually, we can have a camera on them and transpose them. So they’re all dancing on tables. So I mean, it wouldn’t be difficult to do it with a green screen. So and we can put cutlery there, they can kick it off, you know, as if they’re kicking off the table, but they’re just be kicking it along with law. So I mean, that’s just one option where we can go way beyond where where we would have been, and we can do it cheaper. And we can do it with panache. -How To Rock The Virtual World
Maria Franzoni 13:07
I love that. I love that. Because also, it’s so unique and such an amazing experience. People aren’t going to forget it. And I’m sure because you’re so creative yourself, you’re going to come up with so many different ideas. So you heard it here first, let’s find out who’s gonna do it and let us know we’d love to see the video.
Tom Morley 13:23
Yeah, I mean, it’s like technology’s caught up with my imagination. I didn’t think it was gonna happen in my lifetime. So I’m glad I got a few years left.
James Taylor 13:32
I think it’ll be really fascinating. I feel that when everyone starts going back and doing hybrid events, I was talking to some school teachers the other day about it. And they said it’s so much more work doing hybrid. Yeah, just doing in person and just doing virtually. Yeah. And we will have our kind of compensation the way I was the I think about it is, it’s almost like when you do a stage when you do on stage. You’re almost a theatre actor. So you’re using stage you’re doing the blocking, you’re, you’re using your body in a certain kind of way when you’re in this format. We’ve got this kind of, you know, the smaller little thing that we’re trying to make use of that and got multiple cameras. And then when it goes to hybrid, I’m almost thinking it’s going to be a little bit like I Love Lucy, you know, filmed in front of a live studio audience Yeah, where you have to always say that in the UK they have this Mrs. Brown’s boys or an eye on the other TV show Mrs. Brown’s boys where she’s got all the actors got to really connect with this audience, the studio audience but they’re also doing it in terms of their timing for the laughs or whatever, for the people that are watching behind the screen. So yeah, it’s gonna be a challenge. It’s gonna be well, but -How To Rock The Virtual World
Tom Morley 14:42
yeah, so I think that the main thing and this is where the costs will be transferred. Hopefully, they won’t spend so much on the gala dinner because the people won’t be there or they’ll only have to make 50 gallons. But what they will need to do is spend the money On the team on-site, who are doing all the mixing, doing all the camera angles, and these people do exist that I know, in an earlier broadcast breeze, you said that in the world of TV, some of those people can be a little bit kind of tired, you know, let’s get the job done. But I think there’s a whole kind of new generation of filmmakers come out of being YouTubers, and working. I mean, they’re just kind of younger, and they’ve got better equipment, basically, which they carry in their pockets. If there’s, there’s a company out there called stream run by a guy called Dominic. And he only uses iPhones, he streams, he streams hold conferences, but he only uses a handheld camera, you know, small, deliberately, just so people aren’t kind of intimidated by huge bits of equipment point in them. So I think there’s going to be an upsurge in creativity in how to go hybrid. And that that’s what I’m really looking for. I’m kind of looking for, you know, putting my team together all the time, or people I know, who are kind of up for that. So I think that’s just gonna be exponential. -How To Rock The Virtual World
Maria Franzoni 16:14
Excellent. Excellent. before your next question, James, I just want to say to anybody watching or listening in, we do welcome your questions, and we will come to them at the end. We’ve got a few that we want to make sure we get through with Tom. So do put them in. Thank you for saying hi. If you’re here, and yeah, we look forward to your comments and questions. So sorry, James.
James Taylor 16:32
back. No, it’s nice, because I know people got some new people joining us here on the show as well if you if this is the first time you’ve ever heard about Maria and I welcome. This show is called speaking business TV, you, hopefully gonna learn some things about professional speaking, we have a fabulous guest today, Tom Morley, who’s absolutely wonderful, we’ll be learning about his creativity, in terms of doing events, virtual live hybrid events. So, Tom, I want to ask it from a kind of personal learning standpoint, you’ll have you know, everything looks amazing, everything sounds amazing. But I’m sure you’ve made a few mistakes along the way, like all of us, as well as all the successes. So for anyone just getting into an on site, online, or hybrid, is there, maybe one piece of wisdom that you’d like to pass on for the fellow speakers or watching just now,
Mistakes In Going Virtual
Tom Morley 17:20
there is an I would say this, anytime, anytime, technology makes your job in a way or something turns out to change your job. Don’t, you know, I was a drummer in the 80s drum machines kind of put me out of business. And people said, Well, don’t be this sort of drummer or session drummer. And I looked at my hands, I thought, you know what, it’s not about digital skill. It’s about my outcome. I want to connect people, I want them to kind of make better decisions by being connected to their hearts and souls and you know so that they can be wise in themselves. Now that doesn’t rely on me to play my move my sticks a little bit quicker. You know, it, what it? So the same happened with the COVID. You know, what was I good at getting people in rhythm, we’re all out of time was that good at getting people to sing in harmony rule on mute? Was I good at taking people away to venues where they would let their guard down rule at home with the dog watch him? But however, so ever. And so all my digital skills were taken away as his hat. And this is my advice, by the way. Because if your job gets taken away, or if you’re just new to it, new to it, and it’s all changing around you just think what is the outcome? As I say, the outcome I want is I want people to be reconnected to their creativity during the session. So when they go away, they’re still connected to their creativity and they make better decisions. Another outcome someone might want? Well, I don’t know. Let’s see. I won’t even guess because that’s the only that’s kind of outcome that I’m almost addicted to. That’s what I go for. Yes, yeah. Let’s make better decisions. better decisions. Yes. So don’t think of the outcomes, not the skills. Your skills will be dismissed five times in your life if you’re 20 now, or 25. -How To Rock The Virtual World
James Taylor 19:25
I’m James Taylor, keynote speaker, and speaker business coach and this is the SpeakersU Podcast. If you enjoy listening to conversations that will help you launch and grow your speaking business fast new thought possible, then you’ve come to the right place. Each week we discuss marketing strategies, sales techniques, as well as ideas to increase the profitability of your speaking business and develop your craft. You’ll find show notes for today’s episode as well as free speaker business training at speakers you.com this week’s episode is sponsored by speakers you the online community for international speakers, speakers, you help you launch grow, and monetize your speaking business faster than you thought possible. If you want to share your message as a highly paid speaker, then speakers will teach you how just go to speakers you.com to access their free speaker business training. As I knew we were coming on today I was thinking about this. And I was seeing a lot of companies just now where their employees are facing burnout. But you know, for good reason as well, because, frankly, the company’s growing so much a lot of technology companies, the business is growing incredibly fast, but they maybe haven’t increased their headcount. So each person is doing like one and a half jobs. And as it does in the health services, lots of different industries as well. And I was thinking I thought, you know what, we should get people into buying a subscription to Tom Morley. So every month for all their company, why everyone does this, as a way because I saw the other day, Morgan Stanley, the big bank, in order to encourage people actually to come back in the office, there, they’re organizing concerts, because it needs to be much more about just coming in and sitting at a desk and a computer for a few hours. So I’m, I think, you shouldn’t have like, I don’t know, activation as a service or something. I was thinking about it. Well, -How To Rock The Virtual World
Tom Morley 21:14
that’s what I’m talking about someone who’s gonna help me with my book, which is kind of written but it needs to be organized. And at first, it was just gonna be a rock star activator. But she said it should activate your inner rock star and exactly what you’re describing is an experience that it’s not just kind of getting it right on zoom, famous, and saying the right things at the right time. Everybody talks about the water cooler moment. And it’s those it’s that serendipity those chance conversations, being at the gig, you know, remember gig, it also ties into other ado, we’re playing a gig in Berlin in screwy and there was a power cut, the lights went up, everything went down except of course the drum. So I just carried on playing. And then the crowd set up this call and response charm, which we joined in with and then the lights came on, all the amps came on, everybody started playing again. Now, there were people at the bar who later who said that that was really clever, that power card that you did, you know, it’s amazing the way it bonded everybody. Now, of course, we didn’t organize it, it was purely chance. But that is what people are missing. And they’re missing. The inventiveness that we had. And the relationship that we had with the audience and with ourselves as a group, in order to carry on Rome ago, was a bit shittier. And I wish we played somewhere else, which we had the option to do. People are missing those excuse my language moment. -How To Rock The Virtual World
Yes. All right. All right. So um, yeah, we’re gonna get you what you
James Taylor 22:59
want to feel like you’re in an event is an experience of having a demon kind of serendipity thing, things happening. And I mean, I know some great musicians who always even know that the set is exactly the same every single night. They make it feel like this is a one-off event. This is like an experience. Because of their craft, because they’re very good at what they do.
Tom Morley 23:25
Exactly. And Maria and I were talking about this earlier in the week about customization. Is that is what kind of add, customization has quality. And that sense of, it’s just today, it’s just us just what we’re doing together as a team. That conversation couldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been wearing his red hat. And someone said, Oh, that would go my red jacket, you know, all these chants things, you don’t know what’s gonna happen. And that is what people are missing. And also, as my wife, Dawn said, because she works with business groups, a lot of people are missing. And this is partly why they’re burning out. They’re missing that gap between meetings when they get up a walk to another meeting, or like get up and go and get a cup of coffee all day. So it when you say, and I’m not sure if it’s Morgan Stanley, that one company was saying what can they do as a culture, they should do all that sort of stuff. They should not go from one meeting to another to another Click, click, click, you know that it should, hopefully, it will get built-in soon that you could, you know, you’re told, do not come back to the screen to the have gone and got something from your car, you know, and you bring it back. This was in the car, you know, some sort of device like that, rather than go, you know, I’ll just stand out there and say up into the car. It has to be I mean, really their rituals. And you have to dedicate the time to them. -How To Rock The Virtual World
Fees In The Virtual World
Maria Franzoni 25:05
brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. So so I want to sort of taking some of those brilliant business ideas that are coming out from this with regards to your speaking business. So James mentioned having a subscription to Tom Morley. I think that’s a really excellent idea. Actually. Tell me about what’s happened in the virtual world with regards to fees for you. Have you maintained your sort of in-person fees? Or have you had to be a bit creative? -How To Rock The Virtual World
Tom Morley 25:32
My, it’s embarrassing. My fees have trebled this year. And it’s through. Do you know what? I’m not exactly sure what it’s through, but it I think it’s through my LinkedIn presence because that and I don’t have a regular motivation Monday or anything like that. My, my social media presence. I’ll tell everybody what I’m doing all the time. If it’s getting a flat tire on and by the way, people know about it, if it’s doing 200 people drumming worldwide, people know about it. Now that there’s something, I suppose in a way I’m doing that kind of watercolor thing online, people are getting to know all sorts of stuff about me. And then clients who, you know, we’re all trying to get clients, meetings with clients when the world is working normally. They’re all on LinkedIn all the time. So I’ve had people come, there was a pharmaceutical company from America I worked with 10 years ago. They said, Tom, you’re so busy. Have you got a slot for us? You know, and the week they were talking about, I looked at my diary, that’s kind of tumbleweed blowing through it. I said, Yeah. I think I’ll just fit you in. And, and they, yeah, I can tell you that. I mean, they gave me 20 grand. So I was just working individually with people and then putting a compilation video together. And they it was well worth it for them. They said it’s amazing. Everybody loves this video, I had a fantastic time. Because I was able to work with people individually. I didn’t have to do it all in half an hour or, and, and, you know, I like editing videos. So it’s like everything came my way or another, you know, a brilliant job I got was someone said we don’t want any interaction with fed out with interaction. We want to be entertained. So I went to Cirque du Soleil, I said, Could I have a contortionist and Aria, I mean, I didn’t go to the organization. But look, tap those people through an agency on. And so we did this whole circus delay online for 20 minutes twice for a team to teams. And, and you know what, the most moving piece of feedback? I mean, there were all sorts of one-liners. Yeah, I do that every morning as my warmup technique. But there was one person who said, Thank you legal it was the legal department Thank you leave legal for supporting the arts because I made it clear. These people, you know, they were served this way. And that normally be you know, all spangle that but here they were in the front room on a yoga mat, doing this stuff. And it really touched people. And I mean, talk about customization, you know, to look in someone’s eyes another guy doing somersaults since the kitchen, is running up the walls and -How To Rock The Virtual World
James Taylor 28:31
dragging Tom what you’re doing actually, it there’s a heritage to it as well, going back to the 1930s in the 1930s and 40s. A lot of the big companies around in the US, were commissioned like the great composers and the great people do a lot of the West End shows to do like many musicals around the company, where and it was all usually up in upstate New York and Woodstock and where they had lots of camps and things around there. And the deal was he would bring like great composers of musicals, they would write that composer would write a whole musical for about the products and the company. And then it would be performed by the employees at their big annual event as well. So we’re kind of doing something that’s like, happened like 100 years ago, but we’re kind of putting out new, you’re putting that new spin on it now. -How To Rock The Virtual World
Tom Morley 29:22
Yeah, and that now exactly what I say I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it, because we have done that sometimes today on site conference, but now, and especially with that pharmaceutical thing I was talking about, if I can work individually with people and say, Okay, what are you? What are you actually good at because you get all sorts of things out and these people and I go, Well, you know, I play the saxophone. Alright, play me a bit of sax, Alright, we’re going to mix that in. So just like they would do that, as you described by getting everybody together on site. We can do that online over two months, you know, and then that can be your anthem for the whole year. You could start every meeting with that anthem. And any wouldn’t be Yeah, we got some further writers and anthem around our values at the beat here we are dancing, creating something where our values mean something to us, you know, so this is as this is, this is a, and it’s indisputable. Here we go, here we go, you know, he’s so inside his hands. I mean, we -How To Rock The Virtual World
James Taylor 30:28
think do you think speaking business TVs that we should be getting our own?
Maria Franzoni 30:34
I wrote that down, I thought we should do that we should get a lot of speakers because we know that some of them are very shy. We should get a lot of speakers together that we you and I work with because you and I work with lots of speakers, get them all together and get on to create a great big video mile. -How To Rock The Virtual World
James Taylor 30:47
Without being How can that be? Yeah, really? Really? Wow.
Tom Morley 30:53
That would be you know it, you know when people say, Can we see their speaker reel? And they’re kind of in front of the curtain? Saying the right things you’d say, well, also, if you want to see them when they let their hair down, look in the top right. And -How To Rock The Virtual World
Maria Franzoni 31:09
fantastic. People. So go. All right now just remind anybody listening in, we are very happy to take your questions very shortly, we probably do. One more question from James. And then we’ll make some comments and questions from the audience. And do stay tuned to the very end, because we’re bringing back the tool or tip of the week that everybody loved from this weekend’s events. And we’ve got a very, very good tool for you later. So, James, I’m sure you’ve got another question for Tom. -How To Rock The Virtual World
James Taylor 31:38
Well, yeah, so you come from the music industry. We’re having artists managers is the thing like most artists have asked my age to do their job myself. I was the can ciliary they had to go in and break the bones if they needed to be broken. But today in the world of speaking speakers, there’s few of them that have managers, Speaker manager. So can you talk about the benefit of actually having a manager for your speaking business? -How To Rock The Virtual World
Having A Speaker Manager
Tom Morley 32:03
The benefit for me, I know, specifically, is that 20 grand job, what they said, How much is it? And I think they asked me first? And I said well speak to my managers? And because do you know what? I was so excited by the concept either done it for five, to be honest. And this is why I need a manager because I said speak to Michael, Michael leaving. Michael used to be a lawyer. And so he said leave me, Tom. He said, What? What did you charge before? And this was kind of years ago, and there’s three of us in America in Chicago, we charge them 50 grand? He said Yeah, well, 20 seems about right. So what it’s just I and I went out to fly. Yeah. 20 sounds about right. So. So anyway, he went in with 20. They came back with 15. He said no, they came back with it. And he said no. They said Oh, and then 20. Now, I would have given in at five. So if you’re asking what’s the benefit of having a manager? It’s to keep me out of the equation. And, and what is so wonderful is on an exploratory call. And we can actually use this and kind of good cop bad cop way. And I can say I’m so excited by the project. Do you know what I would do for free? It’s so brilliant. But speak to my managers, Lego 20 grand. We prefer to deal with Tom. -How To Rock The Virtual World
James Taylor 33:35
Yeah, but a bit. It’s also interesting, because, as you say, there’s that relationship between the speaker and the manager, or the artists, the talent and the manager as well. I know when I used to be a manager many years ago, sometimes my, many of the artists I worked with, like were absolutely fantastic business people. They had great business brains. But they wanted to put a little bit of a distance between themselves because then they had to go into delivering the creative for this particular thing. And they just wanted to have that little bit of separation so they can have more kind of clean hands in a relationship.
Triple Income
Tom Morley 34:07
Yeah. And I think also the client prefers that, to be honest. And so it’s absolutely perfect. You know, we can have the big kind of vision talk together. And I say, talk to these people about the logistics and the money and the flights. And so, so it’s been an amazing opening actually, like I say, as a result, I’ve tripled my income so far this year. So -How To Rock The Virtual World
James Taylor 34:32
that is amazing. That’s amazing. Now you mentioned as we start to finish it, we’re gonna have some questions here. But before we get to questions, I want to make automation. You’ve got a book that you mentioned a book that’s coming out later. So tell us a little bit about the book you’ve got coming out.
Tom Morley 34:46
Well, as I say it only since yesterday, I think it’s just that the title is changed to activate your inner Rockstar rather than Rockstar activator, which was work. Which was kind of anecdotes from me like that Berlin one, you know, where if the lights go out, keep playing, you know, there’s a metaphor there, but it that they’re all based around stories, real stories that have happened to me in pretty much in the music business. So I’m and I’m, there are all sorts of anecdotes that don’t quite fit in that. And here’s the business message. So I’m going to have them as a sort of sketchbook at the end like a columnist, I might call that the economist Manifesto. Also have had so many and I’ve kind of read, design this book in my head about 10 times I’ve done all the covers, they’re all really slick. These covers where people say are great, I must read them. Now tell me the color. So I’m gonna have all of them at the end as well. So if I can get it past the person, this -How To Rock The Virtual World
James Taylor 35:55
is creativity sometimes a very iterative process. It’s exactly an evolutionary process sometimes as well. Yeah. We’ve got questions here for you, Maria. What fantastic questions. Let me I have my I know, thank you.
Maria Franzoni 36:09
So first of all, let’s say hello to Scott MacArthur. Thank you very much for saying Isn’t he saying you’re looking fab top. We have a LinkedIn user saying, interesting new channel. Thank you. Without names. Sadly, if you don’t allow streaming, I’ll tag your names. I won’t know who you are. Anthony states is lovely to see you from PSA. London, he says, sounds like the AV crews will be getting bigger to deliver hybrid properly. That makes sense, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Another LinkedIn user, this looks great, I super love people who say things like that. And we’ve got another LinkedIn user. I’m doing that water cooler thing online. I like that I talk to my clients about replacing watercooler conversations. And this is a great illustration of one approach. It’s nice. Yeah. Okay. And so, -How To Rock The Virtual World
Tom Morley 36:58
can I just say something about that? Because I saw someone else. Another speaker talking about that, you know, that you can put in a question into to start a water cooler conversation, rather than just appear online and go standing on adding ideas, get started with one question does hardly matter what it is, you know, and then then the water cooler moment starts. -How To Rock The Virtual World
Tool Of The Week
Maria Franzoni 37:25
Fantastic. And I hope I pronounced that right. Solvay. Biddle, I think is saying she’s loving this. So that’s wonderful. So, so no questions from the audience. But I think we took we actually taken almost all the time chatting with you anyway. So it didn’t give them any time. It’s been amazing, Tom, but don’t go away. Because I think you might be interested because I know you like your like tech. Now. I know you were resistant. But yeah. And I think James has got a bit of a testing tool for us tool of the week. Yeah. So -How To Rock The Virtual World
James Taylor 37:53
every week, what we’re going to do is we’re going to do our tour of the week. So Maria or I or the guest is going to maybe share a tool or something that we’re just going to find useful. And I wanted to share this one. This is especial of interest if you do when your presentations of your speaker, or even if you’re not a professional speaker, you’re just doing a lot of presentations, and you’re using things like PowerPoint, like keynote a lot. One of the challenges that we sometimes find is like I’ve just now up here, I’ve got three screens in front of me, but I’m using a computer I can only have so many screens here. But really what I want is I want a screen right in front of me right where the camera is facing me just now. So what I do is I have an autocue usually as I have just now just underneath this. And this allows me just to have all my notes and things. But the thing I could never try and work as I what I wanted to do is I wanted to actually have the notes from my PowerPoint up here. So I can see my PowerPoint. That’s what gets shared with the audience. But up here, I can see all my notes. And I looked at all these different tools, and it was a nightmare trying to find the right one, but I finally found one. And I’m gonna share with you It’s called action air display, Arbitron air display super easy, you connect it to your computer, either via Wi-Fi, or I actually just use a cable because it makes it just a little bit easier. I just placed that under my camera, and I have my autocue here as well. So I can read all of my notes. And I would say if you’re a speaker that’s doing a lot of presentation, so. So this week, I think I’m giving six or seven different completely different presentations. And it’s very hard to hold all that stuff in your head at the same time. So sometimes just quite nice to be able to have those bullet point notes for individual slides as well. So that’s the tool. Definitely, I think it was about $19 it was very inexpensive. We’ll put a link if you go to speaking business.tv speaking business.tv then you’ll be able to get linked to this. It’s called Arbitron air display. So that’s my little tool of the week. Hopefully, that’s useful to everyone. I need to tell ya, I’ve got one -How To Rock The Virtual World
Tom Morley 39:57
Yeah, I’ve been using wooden spoons, the microphone And getting other people say if you think of a baseline just sing in dog or toto. I’ve just got this in the post today. Let them that’s the branding dabbler that’s that I thought was that it was a floppy disk that I have to get the software on. I have to scan that right. Move. But there he is microphone. I’m just seeing into that. Singer baseline or singer drum pa da doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. Now hit this button and it comes back as a base. Now, I’m downloading software yet, so it’s still just gonna be done to do that. But this is your opportunity as a TV show, which you now say, Tom, what do you come back and see us again, when you’ve actually recorded the baseline? And you can say? Yes. Yeah, I think I think yes, Tom. I -How To Rock The Virtual World
James Taylor 40:58
think it’s storytelling. We call that opening a loop. Technique opening. So Well, I’d rather do you for best storytelling there at the same time. Yeah.
Maria Franzoni 41:07
Until much was that Tom? Because we like to share coffee.
Tom Morley 41:12
That was 256 pounds and 11 pence?
Maria Franzoni 41:15
Yeah, well, now that you’re owning all the dots, you can afford to have all these microphones and all it
Tom Morley 41:21
doesn’t even matter if I just give it to a charity shop. can use it for karaoke, which is still
Maria Franzoni 41:30
could you play us out so we can have a little bit of a drumbeat
Tom Morley 41:34
to see where this side so royalty-free? Let’s see where we are.
Maria Franzoni 41:43
So we will see you next week. Everybody.
James Taylor 41:45
See you next week. everyone has a great week. Thanks so much for joining us. You can subscribe to the SpeakersU Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts while you’re there. leave us a review. I really appreciate it. I’m James Taylor, and you’ve been listening to the SpeakersU Podcast.
-How To Rock The Virtual World
