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How Giving a TEDx Talk Can Benefit Your Business with Dr. Dan Young · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  Three, two, one, zero.
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  Ignition.
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  Lift off.
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  Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with the number one small business expert, Melinda
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  Emerson.
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  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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  Now here's your host, the small biz chat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
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  Have you subscribed to the small biz chat podcast?
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  Well, it's time.
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  Every Wednesday, we offer listeners bite sized actionable tips to start and grow a successful
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  small business.
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  In just twenty minutes or so a week, you can get a ton of insight and resources to propel
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  your business forward.
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  Be sure to subscribe to the Small Bitch Chat podcast today.
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  Alright.
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  Now what we're gonna do on the Small Biz Chat podcast, we're gonna talk about TED Talks, and
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  we're gonna talk with someone who has managed and organized five TEDx's in his region.
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  And right now I want to bring him to the stage.
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  His name is Doctor.
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  Dan Young.
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  Hi, Dan.
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  Hi, how are you doing?
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  And Dan is a dynamic entrepreneur.
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  He's the TEDx Wilmington organizer, and he's the founder of Ready Speaker One.
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  And he also has the KAROS class, And he has a passion for empowering individuals and
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  businesses, and he has dedicated his career to helping people build generational wealth
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  through education, personal development, and impactful communication.
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  As the driving force behind TEDx Wilmington.
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  Doctor.
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  Young has created a platform for thought leaders to share transformative ideas.
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  And through his Ready Speaker One program, he equips aspiring speakers with the tools to
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  become influential communicators.
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  For more information, you can go to tedxwilmington.net.
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  Dan, welcome to the Small Bitch Tech Podcast.
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  Having me, looking forward to it.
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  All right.
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  So tell us a little bit about your background.
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  How did you get into organizing TEDx's and coaching people how to be great on them?
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  Well, know what?
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  My first job out of college is I was a financial advisor and I had, I had, I was
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  blessed to be able to sell my practice when I was 35.
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  And at that point in time, being a really good position financially, but I always felt like
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  there's something missing and something more that I want to give and I happen to watch a
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  TEDx talk by a man named sir.
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  Ken Robinson from 02/2006, which is now the most watched TEDx talk in history.
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  And he talked about this concept of education being based on the Industrial Revolution.
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  We kind of put kids on a conveyor belt.
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  We pour information into their head.
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  We hope it sticks.
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  If it doesn't stick, you either become a blue collar worker, you become a go to the military.
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  If it does stick, you go to college, and how this process is starting to kill creativity.
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  When I saw that talk, was so inspired by it that I said to myself, you know what, I need to
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  sell my practice and get into education.
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  And that really led me to a career, as a college professor, as a director in an Ivy
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  League school, and doing lots of educational work.
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  So I really fell in love with TEDxs, and I was so enthralled with them that I basically quit a
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  career to be able to do more of them.
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  So I'm very passionate about them.
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  I've seen them change people's lives.
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  And I love to be someone who can get out there and talk more about it and get more people
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  involved.
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  All right.
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  So talk to us.
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  How can delivering a TED Talk elevate your personal brand and really position you as an
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  authority?
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  Well, a TEDx Talk does is it establishes you as a thought leader, and provides a highly a high
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  profile credible platform.
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  Obviously, many of us have seen really great speakers on TikTok on Instagram on Facebook on
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  a basic YouTube channel.
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  But one of the things that 10x does is it kind of puts a stamp of approval, on your talk that
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  a, it's a unique idea.
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  B, the idea does not have any sort of political or religious leanings.
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  C, that the talk is not there for commercialization of a brand.
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  And then also that there's no bad science.
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  So one of the things that is really important when you become a TEDx speaker is it's seen as
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  highly credible.
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  That it's not there for a commercial purpose.
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  It's just there to share an idea that can change everything.
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  And what this does is it positions you as an authority figure and a go to expert in your
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  industry.
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  So if you do it correctly, the talk could have a ripple effect, leading to more speaking
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  engagements, media interviews, and other business opportunities.
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  That brings me actually to my next question.
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  What are some of the things you can do to turn the TED Talk into a lead generation tool?
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  Well, there's a number of different things that you can do there.
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  First of all, part of most successful TEDx talks at some level of a call to action.
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  So you can't overtly sell inside of a TEDx talk, but you can craft a message that
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  naturally leads people to seek more from you.
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  So if I do it, if I do a TEDx talk, it then appears on ted.com, or then it's on YouTube.
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  And then those types of talks, all I have to do is attach a link to them because they're
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  available to anybody.
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  And I can put them as part of my already existing outreach strategy.
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  So having a great call to action helps.
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  Also, I can create a website or an email capture and have a landing page that's linked
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  to the video description where people can access bonus material, free resources, or sign
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  up for the newsletter.
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  Also, I can use it for social proof and testimonials.
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  So I can use clips from the talk in promo materials and also testimonials that can
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  reinforce my authority.
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  And then finally, with follow-up engagement, I can share that TEDx talk on email campaigns,
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  social media, and directly with prospects to spark conversations.
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  So there's all kinds of different things that even though Ted, when you do your video on
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  TEDx, you can't actually sell in that.
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  You can you you want to think of that video as an asset that you can then leverage for all
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  kinds of other opportunities.
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  Alright.
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  So I gotta ask this.
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  What makes a good TED talk?
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  Because I feel like I've wanted to do one for years.
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  I'm a top keynote speaker, but I didn't feel like I had a unique or interesting enough idea
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  to to talk about, which is why I've never done one even though I've wanted to.
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  So, know, help me understand, am I overthinking this or what, you know, what makes a good TED
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  Talk?
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  Well, mean, think at the end of the day, TED's about ideas that change everything.
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  Last year was TED's fortieth anniversary.
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  And at that point in time, they changed their actual tagline from ideas worth spreading to
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  ideas change everything.
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  Part of that's just for a little bit of a refresher going into the next forty years.
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  And part of that, I think, is because a lot of people would come up to TEDx Talks and do what
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  I would call making their mess their message, right?
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  They'd say, hey, listen, I had this near death experience, but then I got through it, and so
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  can you.
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  And oftentimes, no one was giving a really solid call to action.
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  So first of all, if you believe that your idea is something that can resonate with a specific
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  target market, it's worth it.
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  Because oftentimes, and I'm sure, Melinda, you know this, and especially we are both parents,
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  we can tell our children like the best advice in the world.
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  But sometimes they need to hear it from another source that they consider more credible, like
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  more credible than us, which is crazy, right?
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  But they just need to hear they just need to hear it in a certain way from another person
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  and in hearing it in that way, that makes all the difference.
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  So anything that is an idea that you believe could change the world for a particular person
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  would be a great TEDx talk.
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  And I know of the experiences that you've had in media, in leadership, there's a number of
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  different things you've experienced that you have a very unique perspective on that could
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  certainly change lives.
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  So I certainly encourage you to do it.
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  Well, I appreciate the encouragement.
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  Can you talk to me a little bit about what are the best ways to promote a TED Talk after you
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  do it?
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  Because I think it's like this asset.
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  How do you promote it after the fact?
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  Well, what you'd be surprised to learn, Melinda, is very, very few people who do The
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  Talk ever actually watch it Talk.
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  And so the very first thing that you want to do and it seems so obvious, but you want to watch
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  the talk because in watching the talk back, not only will you see, you know, the product of all
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  of your labor and all of your planning, but it also you are now watching it as a consumer, and
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  that will give you ideas about how to use the talk.
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  The second basic thing that most that I would advise most people do is to include the TEDx
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  talks somewhere on marketing collateral that you use all the time.
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  So one of the easy ones is making the making a link to the TEDx talk, your part of your footer
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  on your email, if you send out business emails.
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  That's a very fast way for someone to be able to have a conversation with you.
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  And if you want and if they want to know in your heart how you are as a person or what you
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  value, it's very simple to say, hey, include my TEDx talk down in the footer.
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  The other thing I would encourage people to do is once the talk comes out, nine times out of
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  10, it's going to come out on YouTube.
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  Sometimes TEDx will TED will take your TEDx talk and put it around the platform, but that
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  happens less than most people would think.
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  One of the easiest things that someone can do is once it's on YouTube, those of us who've
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  seen YouTube before, the video comes out, and then underneath of that is description.
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  I would click on the description.
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  There should be a little a couple of dots in the word more.
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  When you click on that, the description expands.
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  And at the very bottom of that, you'll see a little blue link that says Show Transcripts.
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  You can then click on show transcripts, and the transcript of your talk, word from word, will
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  show up on the right hand side of YouTube.
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  There's a couple different dots there that you click to what are called toggle the timestamps,
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  which means take out all the numbers that are on that are that show how long the talk took.
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  And I would cut and paste that transcript into a Google Doc, and then save that and then run
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  that through an AI like ChatGPT.
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  Once it's in the ChatGPT, you literally can type in, please turn this TEDx talk into a
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  sales funnel for my business.
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  And it'll provide you with unlimited ways that you can use it.
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  You can create newsletters.
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  You can create training courses.
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  You can create books.
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  You can create podcasts.
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  You can create, you know, all kinds of add ons to existing business.
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  So I think that the best thing you can do is going to be 100% based on what your talk was
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  about.
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  But I find that by just uploading that transcript to an AI like a chat GPT, it'll give
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  you, it'll tell you exactly the sales funnel to use with the talk that you just did.
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  That's an incredible, like, I felt like you just dropped a brick of knowledge here.
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  That is amazing.
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  I never actually would have thought about that and I'm a big AI person, but that's brilliant.
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  So the last question I wanna ask you is really about how do you prepare?
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  Like, I've had people tell me that they got selected for a TED Talk and there's like this
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  four month bootcamp program you gotta go through before you do it.
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  Like, help, is that how it works for TEDx too?
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  Or like, like, how do you prepare?
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  Well, you know, we always used to have a joke.
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  You know, I was, I taught for twenty years, we used to say, you never ask a marketing
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  professor a question because the answer is always dependent, maybe.
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  So here's the answer.
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  It depends, because for some folks, they will take a full six months of planning, prepping,
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  training, scripts, all those different things.
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  I myself have given two TEDx talks that I stood in for a friend on last minute.
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  They said, Hey, Dan, we had some people drop out last minute.
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  We know you know how these talks work.
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  Can you come up and do a talk?
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  And both those talks I put together the night before.
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  Now, I wouldn't say you want to do that, but it all depends on the person.
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  So preparing for a TEDx talk is the exact same as preparing for a TED talk.
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  The only difference from one to the other is a TED talk is one that's done at one of Ted's
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  conferences.
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  The large nonprofit a TEDx talk is always local.
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  So my TEDx TEDx Wilmington, it's done in Wilmington, Delaware.
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  So there's no real difference in the type of talk or the length of talk.
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  They're all going to be eighteen minutes or less.
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  They're all going to be an idea that changes everything.
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  So that's not different.
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  But I what I would say the number one thing I think people don't do is they get onto a TEDx
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  stage and they want to start storytelling.
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  I think the most important thing that you can do is if you have a story that's the bedrock of
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  your talk, you want to first turn that story into an idea.
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  So for example, my first talk, I talked about the concept that I grew up with ADHD and
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  dyslexia.
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  It was difficult.
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  I had a hard time reading.
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  I didn't want to be seen as a weak link in my parents, all these different things.
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  But my idea that came from it was that more college professors should teach their
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  classrooms as though there was neurodiverse students in the class.
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  It's an idea that's worth spreading because that would then change up how not only schools
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  look at their curriculum, but also how accrediting bodies of schools look at
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  curriculum.
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  And it changes everything because it possibly changes the entire structure of how curriculum
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  works in schools.
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  If they made sure that the curriculum was was feasible for both linear thinkers and thinkers
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  with ADHD and dyslexia.
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  So how to prepare start with you going to start with a baseline idea, but then make sure you go
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  through this extrapolation process that it's an idea that changes everything.
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  And then from that point, start writing and make sure that there's authenticity to how you
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  write based on the way that you speak and the way that you present yourself.
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  I love it.
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  I love it.
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  All right, Dan, what's the best business advice you've ever received?
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  Well, I mean, I think the best business advice goes back to a book that many entrepreneurs
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  have read and that's from the e myth and that you have to work on the business and not work
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  in the business.
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  And I think that that's one of the things that I've always loved about using AI.
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  And we had a conversation about that, that in the grand scheme of things, we as
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  entrepreneurs, there are two things that are always around our head.
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  There's our brain, the mind, and there's our spirit.
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  And most of us as entrepreneurs, we work so hard in the business, we forget that there is
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  limited capacity up here in our brain.
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  So we're working so hard putting together things and doing payroll and doing HR that when
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  it comes time to work on our business, we're exhausted.
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  We just can't even think about it.
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  Plus, because we did the work to work in the business with our brain, we have confirmation
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  bias.
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  We think, well, I definitely got it right the first time, so I don't really have to work on
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  this business that much.
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  And all of that energy saps our spirit.
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  So the reason why I love using AI is, in most cases, I can use AI as my brain, which then
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  reserves all of my strength for my mind, which allows me to look at the AI results and work on
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  the business.
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  And then that saves my spirit because I'm not using all my mental energy to work both in and
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  on the business.
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  So that's why I'm a big proponent and a number of companies that I run, they could not be run
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  without the use of AI because the use of AI allows me to work on those businesses instead
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  of working in those businesses.
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  Well, Doctor.
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  Dan Young, thank you so much.
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  You have dropped so much knowledge on us, and I really appreciate your insight and sharing your
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  time with us today.
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  Really my pleasure.
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  Thanks for listening to the Small Biz Chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
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  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us next Wednesday for
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  more fantastic information and interviews.
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  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
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  website, succeedasyourownboss.com.
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  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.