You're listening to The Vault Unlocked, where the real secrets of success are revealed. Every episode, one founder, one confession, one strategy that created income scale and unstoppable growth. Forget the hype. This is unlocking the code they swore they would never release. The playbook is revealed. The Vault is unlocked. And we're back on another episode with Mitch Carson. Mitch has done over 2,000 events over two decades. Mitch, welcome to the podcast. Great to be here, Kayvon. I've looked forward to this. It's been a few months until we finally got this nailed down to get scheduled in, and I'm looking forward to it. Yes, yes, I am too. Thank you again. All the way from Thailand. Yes, sir. All the way to Canada. So let's dive into this because, I mean, to produce 2,000 events is not a small feat here. So, I mean, how did you get into the business in the first place? I have been a professional speaker for four decades. This is a self-admission. You know, most people lie about their age. I'll divulge mine. I'm 65. I've been at this a long time. And at some point, the natural evolution of a speaker is to then start, they get frustrated with their producer or agent and think, I can do better than they can. And look at all the money they're making and I'm not making. so that's what cracks the the ceiling uh and then you start to go out on your own i mean hence the entrepreneurial spirit i then started to produce on my own events and i realized oh boy this takes a lot because if it's if they weren't just about me what i mean events i produce multi-speaker events for example if i were to go into the small business space and i needed a sales expert i would bring in someone like you. If I needed a Facebook ads expert, I would bring in someone like propeller head bill. And that person would cover that. Somebody else may cover organic advertising. Somebody may cover publicity. And that was what I found was the most critical. And there might be, I might have these experts in their category, but a, they may not be able to speak very well. B, they may not be marketed properly, packaged correctly. And that's what spawned what I do today. Because if a speaker isn't packaged in a Tiffany box, they're going to sell less. And I might not put as many butts in seats, which is the overall goal. Because then it's just math. It's really all about math. Are you still producing speaking conferences today? Yes, I am. I then went into, because of something called the COVID and the pandemic, had to shift and embrace the online mechanism. So I've run some online summits where I bring in speakers and there is no travel. And it's amazing how different that has. A, it's a lot less expensive to invest because you don't have to pay for rooms, travel, all that, moving a staff. So that part's there. But you do suffer with conversions. because when you have an in-person arrangement and you see people, the conversions are higher in a live environment. And that was evidenced by my very first live event that I produced right after the pandemic cleaned up. Let's just call it where there was some level of normalcy in Las Vegas, February, 2023. I produced the very first co-produced the very first conference on chat GPT because that was the only game in town at that time. Now there's so many platforms. And that event was stellar. And that was unique because we made money in the events business, in the arena that I operated where it's multiple speakers selling products. You typically rely on what speakers sell to get you into the black, to make you profitable. Because door sales, registration sales, rarely cover the upfront cost of advertising room costs and personnel, all of that. You're usually in the red. You don't get into the black until you start selling from the stage. So it's critical to have the right speakers that can sell, resonate, or resonate with the audience and convert predictably. And at that particular event, which was great to come out of the pandemic with, we were already in the black before the doors opened. The challenge was what we sold wasn't proven, had no testimonials because AI was brand new. We were literally the first in the world to produce that category event. Then now there are AI events all over the place. We had copycats left and right. So let's take a step back here. So we're in the producing the event model. And when we talk about the vault unlocked, it's all about what was the one thing. I mean, you produced over 2000 events. I went through a whole COVID, you know, the whole COVID situation there. And here we are today. So tell me, like, really, if we said, okay, what's the one thing that breaks events? What would that be? Oh, gosh. The one thing would be having the wrong speakers at the event that don't resonate with the audience is, you know, having a message to market mismatch. having a message to the market mismatch. So having an AI event and someone's talking about poodles and whatever, like just poodles and personnel. Yeah. I mean, unless, unless they had an AI product that fixed it to me, that's a no brainer. So to me, you're saying people have ran an event about a specific topic and brought speakers that had nothing to do about the event. Because it was their buddy who wanted to get into the speaking businesses. So they positioned Susie who's talking about basket weaving because I, I mean, or having the wrong lineup. I mean, to me, that's, I have to be honest. Like, you know, if I had a button here that the button would go off and I'd be like, this is stupidity. And that's like, I don't think I would say that's less than 0.01% of the population. So assuming that they get the speakers, right. Correct. What is the thing that breaks the event? not having the correct not selling uh yeah not selling it's not filling the event so i would have to say well i would have to say there are two parts i mean there are multiple but the one you're saying the one thing i think there are two things but it's all under the umbrella cave on of selling without sales there is no business well we know that right yeah i mean And you know that you embrace it. I embrace, I've been selling my whole life. And if you don't have the right sales selling speakers, you're in trouble. So they have to show proof that they can sell from the stage. Lots of experts in their categories. I mean, lots of people could talk about leadership. Oh my gosh. Another leadership for a speaker. Oh, another personnel hiring the right people. But if they don't have a product to sell and they can't sell shamelessly and with vigor, the event's going to fail in terms of the promoter side you have to have selling speakers okay so that's a different conversation now so because there's selling speakers there's corporate speakers there's speakers who who only sell there's the pitch the pitch you know monster events so the events that you're putting on now getting a little bit more specific are i'm going to call what it is they're pitch events most of the time yes and but in order to and but you have to have also in some cases the lead anchor for example a friend of mine produced an event here in bangkok after jordan uh belfort had released that movie the the wolf of wall street yeah i'm sure you watched it being a sales professional yourself and uh jordan was the draw people wanted to meet the wolf and it was right after the movie had released the he brings in all he's a negative because you had to pay, I think it was about 150K for him to show up, and there's first-class airfare, et cetera, to fly him out here. So you're already sunk. You're negative before the door opens. You do sell tickets to the Thai audience, or this is what they did. They sold tickets. He's already produced a negative output. They're bleeding before he takes the stage. And he's supposed to speak all afternoon at the event. There were the selling speakers that preceded him. Yeah. And I could say who they are in a minute, but he was the, he was the anchor. Without him, there would be no attendees. Yeah. So, so you use that draw as a mechanism. So it's a hybrid, it's partial keynote. He was essentially the supposed to be the keynote. Now he sold the program. You said there's an anchor. So we're starting to get to the, what makes an event successful. I was still trying to really figure out what is that one thing that breaks the events. And obviously the wrong speaker with the wrong audience. I think that's a stupidity that we even have to say that, be honest with you. Oh, what happens all the time. Yeah. It's just, I just, it makes, when I hear things like that, I just have to be honest. It makes me excited of the competition that I'm against in the world. Yes. That's the competition. Well, like that, that makes me excited. So now we live in a world where you don't even have to be great. You just have to be good to be great. All right. I'm all, I'm all over that. But then you're saying sales, sales. And so what comes first? Do you get all the speakers and rent all the stuff and get all the marketing or do you sell first? It it it an uh I would say a changing marketplace And my answer would change has changed over the years I mean the I have an old model When I got into this business, it was direct mail in order to get people to register. That's how far back I go doing this. And yeah, so it was direct mail. Then it's evolved. And then you have to, we used to do tele, tele sales where we would have online pre-selling with teasers over phone calls. People would be doing this, and we're going back to the 90s when I would get on phone calls, and we would pre-sell the attendees. Come, and you're going to hear Mark Victor Hansen, who was the co-author of the Chicken Soup for Sale, Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Mark is an old friend and helped him with his event back in, when was this, 2002, as an example. there were all the speakers were required to get on the phone and call in there were there was no zoom back then and call in and people would be live in a phone room they would be waiting until the telesales opened up and we would pre-pitch what we're going to sell so we were seating them here's what i'm going to cover here are the three things i'm going to cover in my 90 minute presentation on X date at the Westin LAX as an example. And that's where it was held or Wyndham, I think it was. And we just discussed without how to fix it. Here's the problem. Here's what I'm going to cover as the solution. The formulas don't change. They're still the same. And we went through it. Mark was profitable because he selected selling speakers, selling speakers. and what built it around big names okay so we haven't got there yet so we're going to get there okay that's fine because you know in order to understand what success is we all still have to understand what failure looks like the failure is having the question i had was specifically was if i'm going to do an event am i going to invest all the dollars to get the to get the hotel get the room, get everyone organized and then start selling? Or do I sell pre-sell first before I go invest all those dollars? You pre-sell as much as you can. I think I absolutely, I was, the reason I paused when you said that is because there's an evolution. The model has changed and it's gotten so fiercely, you either invent, you reinvent or you lose money. It's fiercely competitive today. so you need to sell either premium packages so i went to the model of there was general admission only then vip came in well there was advanced seating you get to come into the room first you get a water bottle and you get a black table cover as opposed to sitting on in a white so there's true delineation of where you sit and a lot of these tricks you had to learn by and it worked in small environments 40 50 people two thousands in a in a conference tony robbins is was or still is one of the trailblazers in that market he's top of the food chain and yeah we know that absolutely he is yeah and then grant cardone is trying to be number two well i think he's done actually grant's uh i think he's done um which we can discuss that but uh so now we're talking okay so we know that in the event space to be successful you got to have the right speakers that resonate with the audience and it's got to match. Sounds like you got to have the pitch people. So the speakers need to be able to offer something so you can make the money from that. And then we're talking about pre-selling. The idea is to pre-sell them, pre-sell the seats. You've got to sell the seats at different price points with different value associations so you can cover your butt before the doors open. That's the key is how do you, yes, you, So the answer is yes, you must pre-sell something. And one is the seating. Number two, it might be if you buy the program now, you can get a discount when it comes to the event. So you've already captured money. The excitement is there. That's another option. And do this now, and you'll save, because at the event, it's going to be this price. and or you leave it open by a premium buy because they know they're going to be sold at the event they know that this if you bring in russell brunson as an example the guy created he's going to sell you whether you like it or not your credit card better have some slippery grease on it because it's coming out it's coming yeah yeah no i hear you i hear you and if you want to buy Russell's program, it's going to cost this. It's going, your investment's going to be three grand, but if you buy now, uh, you can save 10%. That's certainly a way to reveal the obvious and save now before you get there and or fire or loosen up your credit card limit because you're going to invest at this event. So that's certainly a way to pre-sell. I like that question. That's a great question. Do you pre-sell or not? Yeah. Why not? Shamelessly. Because a lot of people are afraid to sell. It's like they love to present and share and educate. They don't make any money. The people with the mindset of I'm going for the throat, I'm here to sell and you're going to buy from me. Well, it's interesting you say you're going through the throat, right? Yeah. It's interesting you say that because that that right there gives the the public speaking pitch fest the name it has going for the throat i actually disagree with you okay i i highly disagree with you i don't think it's going through the throat it's actually going for the transformation it's going to actually serve and help people and if you're actually believing that you're helping and serving people in order for people to actually get the transformation they need they got to invest they got to invest time they got to invest energy they got to rest resources and they got to invest money because nothing comes for free and in fact people don't value for free so as a speaker my job isn't to cut the throats of my enemies because they're not not cut the throats yeah no go go throw whatever go for the throats right i'm i'm more like how can i serve people at such a high level that the only solution for them is to move forward and i just think that's a different perspective but what i am here as an event coordinator let's get real back on the tracks is we got to make money in order to make money in order for me to be profitable as an event coordinator i gotta have every one of my speakers making money i mean i know these models i've been these tonies ran those models there was a company i don't know what the name was uh that was success resources there it is exactly success resources in the world they were the biggest in the world to me i didn't know this was pre what i do now uh had i gone to it when i had my eyes open it probably different but as an outsider of that world i was disgusted i couldn't believe how bad uh every hour just a pitch just a pitch just a pitch you're waiting there just to see tony right so i'm actually don't like that model but they make money and they work uh and that's fantastic if someone's trying to run that type of model what's the thing that that's like you need this one thing for success without that it's over well okay it may sound harsh metaphorically to say cut for the go for the throat the other is to expect well but it is it's our job to sell people and then if i the the backup or the follow-up to that is and this will answer your question value associated with them investing, sometimes people are hesitant to invest. They don't know what is there. You have to have the right speakers with integrity that deliver as they promise. So yes, the value has to match what is sold. And bringing in the speakers who sell, because there are, I can name five off the top of my head, who sell things and then disappear. They're one-off. I can name you more than that. We could have a private conversation. I know everybody in the business has been doing this for a year. Absolutely. They'll never be on my stage again. Yeah. Never. Absolutely. So, I mean, now we're talking about the integrity of a speaker. But what I'm hearing, we're talking about how you produce 2,000 events. And you don't produce 2,000 events unless you're successful at it. Yeah. So, when we talk about producing 2,000 events and what I'm gathering here, if people are listening, is it's pretty simple. Step one is you need an anchor speaker. I don't know if you guys would call them, but you need a speaker with a big name who's going to bring in people. Ideally, they have a list. Ideally, they're ready to also market to that list. Once you have that anchor speaker, you can build the event all around that speaker. Without it, you're doomed. Good luck trying to fill seats, especially in a competitive marketplace. Unless you've got a product that is so hot and trending, they'll come no matter what. And that's why I started with the example of the chat GPT event. That was the one exception in my life that filled in four days. We sold out in four days because the topic was so hot the speakers were irrelevant only because cave on nobody was an expert then maybe sam altman who start who founded who wasn't even an expert himself he did they probably didn't even know what they were doing back then in terms of where this is today there was no there was no tiffany value it hadn't been established yet today there are all sorts of people jockeying for that position in the AI space, whoever's written the most books or publications or spoken here or there that is a different argument But in most cases you correct unless it is in such a hot topic Oh my God I wish I doubled the gate fee I would have made so much more money. But hindsight's 20-20. But yes, you're correct. I agree with you. It is a grind if you're bringing in the same speakers who've spoken there the month before. They've already been seen. And you have to freshen the lineup, too. And why I do what I do is helping people become the authorities in their fields. And that's where they get branded with all the media. You know, write a book. It's a formula. It's a formula. A serious speaker has a book or more. Okay. So what's the formula? Let's talk about that. So let's say someone has a message. They don't have the greatest audience, but they have an offer. They got a message and they're looking for the winning formula. What's the formula that's going to get me on the right stages? So that I can be seen, I can get the content, and I can start building my brand. Now I can go right into my roadmap. And this is something that I perfected over the years. It starts with creating your authority positioning. Number one, today, it's different than it would have been before, but it's evolved. The only thing that's changed has been the mediums. So today, if you're not podcasting, you're missing out. So you got to have a podcast. You heard that. You got to have a podcast. You got a podcast. You got to go on podcast shows. Which one? Both. I guess I'm your guest. I have a show. Guess who's getting invited onto my show? Yeah. Well, I'm going to assume me. Yes. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Authority. Reciprocity. Work with reciprocity. And a long term. Why I've been successful for four decades is I work off the rule of reciprocity. Yeah. If I put somebody on my stage, if you don't give back. you're not you don't play correctly in the sandbox yeah just how it works in life if you don't scratch my back after i scratch yours several times you're a taker not a giver yeah so that's that's that's part of the the potion is if the mindset of giving give give give why alex hermosi was so successful he gave tremendous free content until he then went for the throat exactly yeah you're right and then he went for the throat and he did well and then he did it the first time and he didn't go for the throat this last time 105 million people don't realize he made 105 million dollars in one hour no he didn't he made 105 million dollars in three years of correct it was a long-term play he's the tortoise he won the race yeah the rabbits get eaten up by by hawks and eagles and snack on them as they're running down the road quickly so let's let's let's go back here because you know we have a formula people are listening i want them to you know i'll give them the formula okay yeah so we have authority positioning positioning authority positioning i would suggest what the the top of the food chain is have a top blank podcast in your space that you can brag about with the validation of the screenshots of apple itunes or spotify so that that's there have high conversion if you can show the numbers that relate to your podcast topic okay or then you and if you're just a guest and i don't say just a guest but it's important i guested myself a hundred times before i started my own podcast and i still guest on occasion i think it's important to continue to market endlessly. It's not over. It's an endless marketing outreach. That's not sales. That's marketing. Sales happen because you're marketed well. So number two is have yourself in major publications and the biggest, this is the service I provide, is guaranteeing people media placements on television networks. oh wow on television networks television networks yes i'm a host on nbc 3 in las vegas i go back and record and then return and i that's that is my big deliverable i found is when they actually experience lights camera action in a studio environment and get interviewed for four minutes on live television this is what your parents would revere okay you're on live television with the real call letters, not this fake BS of sending out a press release and think, oh, I'm covered on Canada news. No, you're not. You submitted a press release to their secretary at the front desk. That doesn't mean you were covered on the news station. But if you have the proof assets and you have to have irrefutable proof, irrefutable proof that when someone clicks on the logo, you come up. You show your coverage on that TV show. So I guarantee four networks in Las Vegas, ABC, NBC, the CW, and CBS. You get covered, guaranteed. And I created that program for all of my speakers who then travel the world with me. I produce these events taking people around the world, 19 countries, as a matter of fact, where I would get them TV coverage in each city we went to. In Dubai, I got everybody on CNBC Arabia. I got everybody on Dubai One Television. Then we got covered in the newspaper, the Collegiate Times, which is the leading newspaper in the Middle East. And then they can say they were covered on, and that builds the authority, irrefutable proof, that they are, in fact, the leader in their category. Okay. Because there are a lot of people that talk. I'll use you as an example. Okay, Vaughn, if I can reciprocate, because I think you've got Teflon skin, can handle it. And the book. Oh, my God. If you don't have a book or a series, I don't think you're serious as being a speaker. It's an essential. It's the right arrow in your quiver. Yeah. You need to show all of these feathers. I liken it to, let's talk about a peacock. You've got a peacock. Okay. Americans, Canadians, I'm going to throw you in the mix. Yeah, no, I love that. So let's just take a step back here. We talked to, take it back here, right? It's, we got authority. Authority is number one. Well, how do you create authority? We create authority by going on a podcast. Correct. We create authority by getting on publications. Yes. We create authority by creating a book. and we create authority beyond network television and radio shows and network publications yeah and getting your name out there now for those people that don't know how to do that i mean what do they do like i understand this game because i've been in this game but there's people going okay well how do i even get on a podcast how do i get write a book what do you mean write a book like right like oh my god do you help them with all this all this because it's a service i had to out of need it yeah because there was a problem i learned about creating the solution yeah i didn't invent wheels you know you just so now no let me let me say this because i got a podcast right let's let's use me just as an example fine fine i got a podcast i have my book i'm on publications i've seen i have been on you know some news stations and i have my publications see you know, CEO weekly and Huffington post. And I have my, you know, press releases. Let's call if you want to call those there. Sure. Um, and, uh, and I go on podcasts, right? Okay. No one's calling me to speak on stages. All right. How do I convert all of that to actually get on stages now? You've got the essentials right now. Do you have a speaker reel now? Now we're getting into the meat. Love it. Got the speaker reel, got the speaker website, got me shown as a keynote speaker. Keynote speaker. Keynote. I'm not just a speaker. I'm a keynote speaker, baby. Come on. All right. You're in the category of sales. Do you have numbers? If I were to approach Richard Tan, who's the owner of Success Resources, as an example, he's in Singapore. He's a two-hour flight for me. And Richard, well, Douglas Chu is the one that finds, who's his brother-in-law. he came to me when i spoke in japan he saw me close the room 6 000 people and do you have proof of the back of the room rush because that is what's you've got to have the right feathers you've got all the feathers it sounds like you're already branded yeah smartly cave on oh i'm just wondering is proof of like proof of the rush would that be uh back in 18 when we ran a um a conference and in one hour we had only 500 people in the room and before the pitch happened we had eight million dollars of credit cards because we sold is that proof enough for you that's huge proof huge um i love it this isn't about me this isn't about me we could talk no it is about you because it's about the audience we're all we're always the first radio station call letters is WIIFM. What's in it for me? And you absolutely are part of this. And if you, you asked me the hard question, you've ticked the right boxes. You've got the feathers in place. And if you wanted to get other people's stages, all you have to do is shake them. And the key, the key is, okay, he's got a book, he's branded. And Ken, is the guy going to embarrass me and hurt my reputation is issue number one from the person that reviews the potential speakers. If you don't come by referral. If you don't come by referral. I'm going to break. We're going to decode. This is decoding. This is all about decoding here. And I calling BS on that one just because there actually a step before that Because you just assumed there is this guy going to embarrass me Can I trust he going to show up which is all great I want to be very clear 100 that goes through How do you even know I'm the guy? Because I've referred you. Because I've referred you. All of my gigs. Now, when I refer to 2,000 events, I've produced and I've been invited to. I've either spoken or referred. It's all by referral. But for those that don't know you, right, and you're not going to be referring them, where's the gap, the chasm from they got all the right assets, they got the book, they got the publications, they got their podcast, but the gap between that and actually getting on the stages. And yeah, when they get the chance to get on that stage, that's up to them. You get one chance to get the next stage. Correct. You don't get two, you don't get three, you get one. You blow it, it's over. Well, I'll answer that question. How do they get that chance? How do you get that chance? I've produced events all over. Most of the time, the speakers that I have placed, I'd say 80% of the time, have come from referrals of other speakers who say, Kayvon's great. I need a selling speaker for my event in Singapore. The last event I produced, here was the example. And I like to use examples because it explains better. I had an event with 600 people, paid, ready. I had VIP, and then I had general admission. in Singapore at the convention center. And it was all about social media. I had my keynote guy that brought, because he was a TV show host on CNN in the Philippines, came in. He talked about YouTube because at that time, he had a following of about a half a million subs on YouTube. His name is Chinky Tan. So these are real people. People can read. Today, he's got about 3 million. So this was right before the lockdown. So this was February of 2020, right before the world shut down. So this was my last event. It was profitable before, almost profitable before the doors opened, almost. And then I knew what I would be able to sell. I had a Facebook ads person. I was the MC slash closer at the end who sold everybody's product as a mother of all offers. And I. each speaker was perfectly positioned based on what the audience wanted to hear about. So I polled the audience. What would you like to hear? And then I placed the speakers. One of the speakers earned a late spot. I had two people. One was Facebook advertising and one was Facebook organic. That was splitting hairs. It was the same platform, but I had two speakers. because the Facebook advertising guy I placed, I wasn't going to have him. His name is Alaric. Alaric. Alaric. Yeah. Yeah. I know Alaric. Yeah. Singapore. Oh, in Singapore. No. Okay. No, not Alaric Heck. Not the YouTube guy. Okay. Totally different. No, he's, that's, that's another discussion. I know about him. I've seen him speak. No. Alaric Ung is 40 times the speaker that Alaric Heck is. Yeah. Yeah. 400 times better yeah and the you can't understand a word he says because he speaks english so fast he's only appropriate in that market because nobody would understand him in north america because there's so much accent with the singaporean english however i saw how well he sold i sold on his stages in kuala lumpur and johor baru in malaysia i saw the guy close the room better than me now he had the right product for the audience my my my product was not exactly the best fit for that audience of attendees he did very very well and he was the event host so he was what drew them in i said i i said what are you doing on february 18th in in when you go back to singapore i said i have my speaker lineup is full i'm going to cut back time on the other speakers because they all had 90 minutes. I'm going to put up an hour. I need a space for you because you will sell into this audience. I'm going to split the category. My co-producer, her name is Surya Sparks, who was the big social media expert in Singapore. You wouldn't know her, but in that area, she was great. She shared the stage with Mark Zuckerberg in the past. Very big speaker. She was my co-producer. I said, I want to have you talk about ads. I'll convince her to split the category. Because she was all about Facebook. Yeah. And he added the value. He sold very well to the audience because he resonated. It was message to market match. It was clear. And he was a fellow Singaporean. He was a fellow Singaporean. So I brought in also all the speakers were Asian. Except me. So I wanted to bring in people that they could relate to. Yeah. And that's an important. you can say there's the one thing you know it's the right message to right market you can't bring in somebody who will not resonate with the audience absolutely so i could not bring this man who sells very well in that part of the world he wouldn't work in america because or in in canada for that matter because you wouldn't understand him so fast yeah and i don't know if you've been to singapore uh have you been okay no i'm not understanding them it took me six months to get my ear tuned to what they were actually saying. I didn't even know it was English. And that's an example. You got to, yeah. So I had a selling speaker. He didn't have a book until I told him he needed one. And he wrote a book. And he wrote a book between that time and just so he could show it on the screen. It wasn't even published. You get that idea. Yeah. I love it. So we are coming to an end here. Where can people find you? GetInterviewedGuaranteed.com. GetInterviewedGuaranteed.com. GetInterviewedGuaranteed.com. Mitch, it was great to have you on the show. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. And that was another episode with The Vault Unlocked, where proven builders, real strategies, and unstoppable growth happens. Subscribe now because the next unlock could be the one that rewires your business forever. This is where the playbook is revealed and the vault is unlocked. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
