Dustin Mathews
CEO of Speaking Empire, Dustin Matthews, chats with In The Clear’s Justin Recla to discuss how his business model helps others achieve a clear, transparent objective within their own business organization. Listen in to find out how to incorporate some of his techniques in your own business.
Welcome to the In the Clear podcast. I’m your host Justin Recla, and today we are speaking to one of the members of the Clear Business Directory. I’m super excited to have this gentleman on the show as he’s doing some phenomenal things out in the world. I’d like to welcome the CEO of Speaking Empire Dustin Matthews to the show. Dustin welcome.
I’m excited. Thanks Justin for having me on.
So Dustin can you tell our listeners a little bit more about what Speaking Empire is and what you do?
Yeah absolutely. If you’ve ever had to give a presentation or a message in front of others and you felt a little unnerved by that or you know you wanted to achieve a clear objective, that’s what Speaking Empire does. We work with thought leaders and entrepreneurs and business owners all around the world to write presentations with the whole goal of something happening at the end so it could be buy-in from your team members, it could be sell a product or service or heck maybe you just want to grow your fan base on Facebook or your email list. The whole goal is to just drive some sort of action at the end of the talk so you can help people get the results that they want.
I absolutely love that. I don’t know if I shared this with you or not, but we’ve got a seven year old who is mastering this right now of speaking in front of people, speaking in front of audiences, and the value and life lessons that it’s teaching her just to get in front of people is huge.
Well absolutely. I would say that there is a stat out there that most people would rather die than get up and speak in front of others. I definitely was that guy. I probably shouldn’t even be here doing this interview because my story goes I had to take public speaking in school in order to graduate so I avoided it and avoided it and basically found a legal loophole to get out of it and so I leveraged that loophole to get out of having to speak in front of others which is funny because now I train others to speak in front of others, and ideally if they’re the right marketplace for you, you want as many of them in there as possible because that’s your goal is to grow your business so I can definitely appreciate training them young and getting them ready because it is such an important skill set especially with all of these Facebook Lives and video platforms that’s coming out. Every business owner really now is on film if you want to call it that and has to present to an audience.
Yeah folks that right there is transparency. Hi I run Speaking Empire, and I run it because I had a fear of speaking myself. I absolutely love that. That shows how you were able to overcome your fear and you’re helping others overcome theirs.
Yeah that’s right. I was kicking and screaming. My first speaking gig basically the story goes the person I was working for was closing on their condo, and they said, “Listen you need to get up and cover for me.” I shared a little bit more in detail the story I just shared with you which is like, “Listen I’m the guy that got out of, found a loophole, I’m not your guy.” He said, “Listen you’re not going to have a job here if you don’t do it.” I said, “Okay great.” So there was no loophole this time. So long story short I did it and I was absolutely amazed at the results.
I know Justin, people are just getting to know me, but if you could imagine a guy with a baby face ten years ago from now so I’m in my 30s now and I look, people tell me, younger, and so if you can imagine me 10 years ago, I must’ve looked 13, 14, 15 in that range so the big hangup and the fear in my head was no one is going to pay attention to me. No one is going to think of me as an expert. No one is going to want to listen to me, and that wasn’t the truth because when I got up there and shared the information, I realized that I had specialized knowledge, and people that were there, they wanted to know it so age wasn’t a filter, race wasn’t a filter, they just wanted that information. I did it, and I said, “Wow this is pretty powerful.” All those mental things I was telling myself just aren’t true. Once I tasted it, I was like, “Huh. I wish I had done this sooner.”
It is so powerful when you can get up there and share your message with people. We’ll be right back.
What’s one piece of advice that you would give to somebody who was not sure whether or not they should be speaking or not?
I would have a whole lesson on it, but the one piece of advice is like I would just awareness I think is the first thing so if you look at Facebook, even though you might not get a lot of customers from there, but if you look at the way society is going, let’s come back to this interview in five years from now, ten years from now, I think you’ll agree with me or with this thought that video is becoming so important so you see SnapChat, you see Periscope all this stuff.
A lot of people say Speaking Empire, speaking on a stage, and I tell them, “Yes that’s just one part of it. Whenever someone turns a camera on and you’re one to many as we call it, that is speaking,” and so that term is changing speaking so I would tell you to lean into it despite the fear that you might have like I had because it’s only going to become more rampant, more prolific if you want to call it that, more in our face as video becomes even more and more popular.
A lot of people are doing this wrong nowadays Justin and they’re just getting in front of the camera and saying some words, and that is better than nothing, but also you should have an intent, an end in mind. So I would say the first thing is if you do have a fear of speaking in front of others, sometimes it’s easier to do it from behind the computer so do a Webinar or do a even start with a podcast. They don’t even see you there, but just start practicing the art of influential communication.
Yeah I think I have to agree. I think it’s just a matter of building up that cellular confidence of practice makes perfect and just fighting your footing in that like you said whether you do it in a podcast, whether you do it on the computer, whether you do it on video, whatever it is, I think it’s extremely important to connect with people in authenticity and transparency, and that’s kind of the purpose behind the Clear Business Directory is to show people hey this is who you are and what your business history is. Speaking of which, how long have you been at Business Empire again?
Oh gosh. I’ve been in the speaking world for over ten years now. Let’s see. 13 years now I’ve been in it so Speaking Empire we started that in 2009 so that’s eight years. I started it part-time at first because I wasn’t sure if it was going to take off. Testing new things as we do as entrepreneurs, and we did a seminar to launch Speaking Empire and that was called Speaker Makeover when we first got started which didn’t stick of course but it transformed into Speaking Empire so eight years really showing people to dial in their message, find their message, and really put it in a way like you say that’s transparent and really communicates. So times are a-changing and you really just speak your truth but do it in a way that gets people excited by telling the right stories and man you can really connect with who you’re meant to connect with out there.
So in eight years of doing this, what are two key things that you’ve learned in either connecting with your clients or building Speaking Empire up as a business? What are a couple key points that you’ve learned along the way?
I don’t want to sound tried and true that you’ve heard this before, but at the end of the day, I think business is relationships so even though you may speak one to many or you may be on Facebook Live or a Webinar with hundreds of thousands of people, it’s hard to make that relationship. That’s one part of creating the relationship so what I’ve found is finding who the influencers are, and what I mean by influencers someone who is already collecting your customers or clients or patients out there, and figuring out how to build value with that person because that person can really unlock the door to a lot of business quickly. I like smart relationships, leveraged relationships so rather than try to create 1,000 relationships or a relationship with everybody which is ultimately the goal, but we just don’t have enough time in the world to make that happen. What I like to do is look for the influence out there where my message makes sense to bring to them and figure out well how can they share me with their tribe?
Yeah I love that. That falls into what I call the smarter not harder philosophy.
Amen.
A lot of people I think are afraid to leverage those relationships and you hear the concept oh it’s a win-win, and I don’t like that. I like the concept of it’s a win-win-win because if the end-user, if the client, doesn’t benefit form it, then the relationships is only self-serving so that’s how we run our businesses is we establish relationships so we make sure it’s a win all around so I think you’re spot on. That is by far probably one of the best pieces of advice that you can give somebody is to build up your business within the relationships that you have.
Absolutely and Justin you just reminded me probably an even greater piece of advice or something that became clear as we were talking about is whether you’re building a relationship with an influencer or even your own client or heck your spouse or your kids, at the end of the day, you have to build more value. If you come into any sort of relationship or interaction with somebody with the mindset of I’m going to build more value or I’m going to deliver more value to them than I’m going to get back in return, I think if you come in with that mindset, that’s going to serve you big time. I know that has done me big-time and sometimes I question it, but it’s always paid off and maybe not from that person directly, but just keeping yourself in that positive mindset.
If you really want to create transformation on the planet, which I suspect you do because you’re part of this community, that’s what attracted me to the community, that you come with that mindset and you will always win. Sometimes it comes out of left field or a different spot, but coming in with that mindset just makes the community stronger. All high tides rise all ships if I’m getting that right. I think that would be the thing I would love to this on this interview is building more value than you may get back from that specific person because it will just pay dividends in the long haul.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Dustin, what is a good question or what is something that somebody should be asking you before they choose to get involved with Speaking Empire?
A good question.
From your own due diligence perspective to make sure it’s a good fit, what should somebody be asking?
I would have them ask actually a client of ours. Obviously we’re in sales and marketing and some of us are better than other and some of us are smooth and suave and some have honed the skill or were born with it, so no matter who you’re talking to from a company, their intent is to try to sell you something. So yes I would for everyone to come to Speaking Empire and learn so I would say this. I would say, “Ask me for a list of clients. Go talk to my clients. Go talk to someone who’s been part of the Speaking Empire family because then you can grill then and you can get as unbiased an answer.” Of course, I’m an owner. I run the company. I’m going to think of the great things so I would say go talk to somebody that you see as a peer, someone that you’re equal, or someone that you respect, that have been through the program of course or been through Speaking Empire and just ask them what’s the feedback? What’s the good, bad, ugly? What can I get out of this? What can I expect? That would be my most honest piece of advice to somebody that was interested in Speaking Empire.
I love it. I absolutely love it. I love the fact that by doing such, they’re going to get that unbiased opinion. They’re going to get somebody’s this is my experience especially if it’s somebody that they know and can connect with. That’s really valuable because that speaks volumes for your brand and your business.
Dustin what’s the next upcoming events that you have for Speaking Empire?
Oh wow. We actually do a lot of workshops so our kind of niche in the world is we love to interact with people as much as possible in the live format just because where we grew us was quoted in the seminar and workshop space so that’s how we know to create change so short answer to the question is we always have something going on. We just came off a big event where people get to know us called Amplify. The Amplify Experience. So I will say the next one of those is going to be later this year in the Fall and if folks are interested, then they can go to our website and check out all the different workshops that we offer to help you empower your communication and marketing.
Fantastic. What’s the URL for that site?
Oh very simple. SpeakingEmpire.com.
Fantastic. You can also find more about Dustin and the Clear Business Directory at his profile, but you can also go to speakingempire.com to find out about all their workshops, and I’m looking forward to learning more about the Amplify event myself. We’ll have to bring Neva to that event because I think she’ll have a blast with it.
Absolutely. Everyone is invited for sure to come hang out and just see what we’re all about.
Fantastic well Dustin thank you so much for being on the show today. I look forward to our continued conversations and building out relationship, and just learning more about what you’re doing and helping you getting out there and connecting with people. I think what you’re doing is absolutely amazing and so needed in the business world nowadays. It’s just how those relationships get started and connections so I appreciate you taking the time to share with us today.
Absolutely. Thanks for having me on.
Okay. Before next time, before you get involved with anybody in business, make sure that business is in the clear.
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