Amy is amazing at what she does. Brilliantly creative.
Want more & better speaking invitations?
I optimize in-house speaking businesses for those who attract attention. More info on that work is HERE.
- The ones who achieve jaw dropping results – multiple millions in annual speaking income – share something essential: They clearly signal: “I’m a Category Of One in my niche – and I use that powerful position to help my audience achieve something vital.”
- The rest send mixed signals around their speaking. Mixed signals create friction. Friction stifles interest and introduces doubt – both kill well paid invitations.
Mixed signals often result from good intentions gone awry, but sometimes stem from arrogance or egotism. - No matter what: Mixed Signals hur your paid speaking.
To help others who want to achieve extraordinary results, I created my Category of One, 2-day immersion. It helps ambitious, smart people laser focus on their best lane for their paid speaking.
They become the stand out option in a sea of sameness.
Do you need this service? Try the “$25 and 15 minutes with a stranger” test at the bottom of this page.
If the answers are fuzzy, or perhaps don’t jive with what YOU thought was obvious: You are dulling your ability to woo your best buyers and the most lucrative speaking invitations.
The antidote is a laser focus on your Category of One. All of my private speaker’s agent work begins with this process – to form the deliverables we need to build a lucrative, rewarding paid speaking business together. We spend two insanely productive days together, with a day off in between. I mix the content I capture in those two days with intensive offline thinking, personalized research, and spidey-sense intuition built over the past three decades. The result is organic, powerful, productive, focused, & fun.
In a world of hurry and hype, we create magic by diving deep and getting gritty.
Give yourself the gift of two full days of undivided attention on your speaking business.
Only Five Done Annually
Click the "+" for Crucial Details
Outside of my private representation clients, I accept only 5 individuals per year for my Category of One Immersion process.
The resulting deliverables offer a tremendous advantage no matter how that person chooses to handle their speaking: self-representation, speaker management, or exclusive representation by a traditional speaker bureau or talent agency. The output offers incredible clarity, fuels momentum, and boosts visibility in a massively crowded marketplace.
Not everyone is fit for this journey. Only those committed to uncovering their highest / best contribution to the world and applying their energy to that niche should consider it.
It offers you a fully confidential space to shed the public persona, open up, and get gritty.
This immersion might suit you if you are absolutely serious about taking your speaking across the threshold of ordinary – into the land of extraordinary. This is not a process for dabblers.
You’ll need thishttps://www.newleafspeakers.com/2-day-immersion/ password to gain entry: Only5
Then click THIS BOLD TEXT for specifics on the Category of One, 2 Day Immersion
The Category of One process is for those who want to stand out in a sea of sameness —- regardless of how you manage your paid speaking.
I’m not here to break up the band or secure private representation clients. My capacity for that work is limited to an intentionally small roster of ten or fewer at any one time. I’m simply making this process available to additional, exceptional individuals to use as a tremendous amplifier of their speaking success. Period.
The process provides a deep dive into what makes you uniquely valuable to your core audience. What drives you. What creates energy for you. What you’ve earned the right to speak about through your hard work over the years. It combines self-awareness with a clear look at the competitive landscape you face in your niche. We excavate. We distill. We craft a position for you as a Category of One niche expert. The result? Your unbeatable lane. No one has the same combination of passionate interests, credible expertise, and uniquely valuable content that you do.
You directly benefit from:
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my decade of experience as a corporate keynote buyer,
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the lessons I learned over more than two decades as the builder of multi-million dollar speaking businesses for my private clients,
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my deep obsession for non-fiction business books over the past three decades (and counting), and
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a soft focus that allows golden threads of connection to form.
You emerge with your ‘Category of One.’
This positioning fuels your speaking, social media presence, your site, articles, the focus for any podcast guesting you do, and possibly inspire your next book. Applied consistently and well, it positions you to earn your best speaking fees and have the highest impact. The results form the crown jewel or seed of potential for your multi-million dollar speaking success story.
I am very selective. Time is precious and I want to ensure we align in values and expectations before jumping into this commitment.
The first step is always my signature, focused, 1-hour together. This is a paid session and provides standalone value – whether you and I proceed to the Category of One process or not.
I hold just a handful of 1:1 hour sessions each month, self-booked at the link below. You’ll gain immediate, practical insight in that session that you can apply immediately to your next best step in your paid speaking. If we ultimately decide to work together on your Category of One, I offset your initial investment in this 1:1 session by adding a second, one-hour ZOOM check-in to be held 3 months after our on-site work together – to follow up on your implementation efforts.
In-House Personal Speaker's Agent for these Category of One Clients
Blake Mycoskie
Kartik Hosanagar
Kevin Boehm
Category of one SELF-TEST:
You’ll need: $25, 1 stranger, a 2 minute website browse, and the stranger’s willingness to answer 5 questions about that browse.
Recruit a complete stranger to give you 15 minutes on their laptop or desktop computer, via a recorded ZOOM, in exchange for $25. Tell them that you have a website you’d like them to spend 2 minutes on, strictly timed, and then you’ll ask them 5 questions about what they just saw. That’s it. An easy $25. Give them no additional context – you want them to go in ‘cold.’
Who should you recruit?
It can be someone who you think might be a perfect fit for your products and services OR it can be a member of the general public — either perspective will be valuable. Why? The more compelling and understandable your images and copy are, the easier it will be for a visitor to understand exactly what you bring to the party. On the flip side, if your site copy and images convey over-used terms, platitudes, cliches, and copy that could apply to literally hundreds or thousands of others in your space: The visitor will be have a tough time with this task.
Ready?
- Have your site URL ready to paste into the ZOOM chat and a 2 minute countdown ready to start on your computer or phone.
- Start the voice recorder app on your phone or desktop.
- Start the dictation app (Microsoft word has this feature available free).
- Start the AI assistant (if you have that feature available) in ZOOM.
- Begin recording.
- Have your stranger log into the ZOOM.
- Let the person know that you’ll share the URL in the chat and ask them to browse the site for 2 minutes.
A casual visitor to your site won’t spend two minutes – so your recruited stranger is actually being generous by spending 2 minutes. Let them know they can take notes if they want, but it is not required. You just need them to scan the site for the 2 minutes, close that screen, and answer 5 questions for you. - Share the URL and have them click on it.
- Start the timer.
- Close your camera and microphone so they are not distracted by you.
- At the two minute mark, start your camera and microphone again, and have them close the link to the website.
- Reset your timer for 10 minutes and start it.
- Ask them these 5 questions – and have them reply based SOLELY on what they learned in those 2 minutes — without prompting them with additional information, offering more clarity on the instructions, or allowing them to look back at the site to find the answers:
- Who is this expert or organization OBSESSED with helping?
- What is the highly PAINFUL PROBLEM this expert or organization solves for the group described in the last answer?
- What is expert or organization’s SOLUTION to this problem?
- Who has TRUSTED the expert or organization to solve this specific problem?
- What makes this expert or organization WHOLLY UNIQUE — offering a combination couldn’t find anywhere else?
Once you have their answers, see how their answers jive with what you thought – or hoped – they’d say.
You have just gained a TREASURE trove about what you are signalling in the three main places an event host or agent from a bureau will look for information on you- from someone who doesn’t know you at all. This is GOLD. Wherever the information is fuzzy – you can clarify and improve.
I can offer more insight into how to consider their responses – just drop me a line at ‘COOinsight@newleafspeakers.com’ and the autoreply will give you that information. By emailing me, you’ll grant me permission to send you the very occasional outreach on email – and you can unsubscribe at any time for any reason.
BONUS:
Repeat this process with another stranger – but instead of having them view your site for 2 minutes on their computer, have them view your site on their phone.
Repeat this process with another stranger – and have them view your LinkedIn profile on their computer.
Repeat this process with another stranger – and have them view your LinkedIn profile on their phone.
Repeat this process with another stranger – and have them view your Instagram profile on their phone (not their computer).