Standing Ovation Host Jay Baer: How to Craft a Million-Dollar Story

This transcript was auto-generated from an audio recording. Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors.  

Elaine Appleton Grant  

Jay Baer is a marketing guy. Actually, arguably, he's THE marketing guy. He's written six books, is in the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame, is funny, snappy, and he wears plaid suits. 

And yet, for all that Jay is one of the nicest, most thought provoking curious podcast hosts I've met, you are in for a treat because his show Standing Ovation does for public speakers what I'm doing for podcast hosts, but he did it first.

On every episode, he and a famous speaker unpack a story from a guest's keynote speech to figure out what makes that story work. Today we're getting meta. Jay and I dissect an episode of standing ovation, delving into what he learned from his guests on the small differences that make a story hit or miss. Also, when you should tell personal stories to business listeners, how to stand out in a crowded field, and why your story, speech, or podcast could be worth millions. That's on Sound Judgment where we investigate just what it takes to become a beloved podcast host by pulling apart one episode at a time together. I'm your host, journalist and producer, Elaine Appleton Grant. 

Jay Baer, it is a thrill for me to have you on this show. Thank you so much for being here.

Jay Baer  

I'm fired up to be here. I love talking about the art of podcast hosting. I don't know how many shows I've hosted now, seven, eight, or something like that. So this is a real thrill. Thank you.

Elaine 

So we first met Jay, when I called you, this was months ago, and told you how much I loved and had been binging on your show Standing Ovation, which is a craft show for public speakers, and said, “Can I steal your model for my show?” Which I didn't have a name for yet? And if I remember correctly, your answer was both generous and hilarious. You said, “Hell yeah. I stole the idea.” So tell me about that. Who did you steal it from? 

Jay Baer  

Oh, 100% stole it. So yes, I don't feel like I'm giving you anything that wasn't already given to me. I didn't even have the courage to ask the proprietor of this format. I just stole it without asking. So you are twice the person that I am. There is a podcast, long running, called Good One. And it's a very similar format, where the host asks professional stand up comedians to deconstruct their favorite bits, typically more long form jokes to make it a whole show. It's not just a one liner, it's typically more story format jokes, those kinds of things. And I love that show. I study stand up comedy a lot. I have for a long time. And that's how I found the show. And I said, Oh, I could use that same format in my own work. And so I did.

Elaine  

Okay, so just briefly describe Standing Ovation.

Jay Baer  

So the way it works is I interview a well known accomplished public speaker. And we listen to their signature story and the public speaking business. In many cases, you will have a story that you tell in almost every speech, it's something that happened to you or something that you observed. And it is sort of the tent pole that makes the larger case that you're trying to impart on the audience around motivation, or leadership, or employee relations, or marketing or customer experience, or whatever your topic is, this story helps unveil that and emphasize that to the audience. And so you tend to tell it over and over and over. But over time, those stories shift and morph and get polished and rearranged and re-architected just based on your own improvements as a speaker, what the audience demands, etcetera. And what I observed having been around a lot of professional speakers, is in almost no cases, do they actually know how that story has evolved over time. They have an inkling or some idea that it has changed, but they don't really know why or how and so the way the show works is we actually play that story for the professional speaker. And then we talk about well, is that the story? How did it get there? How have you changed over time? Why don't you make these creative decisions in the language that you use, the pacing that you use? In some cases, the props that you use, and what's fascinating, Elaine is, in most of the episodes, the participating guest would say, Oh, well, the clip that you have, Jay, I haven't done it that way in years. You know, I don't even remember saying it that way in the past enough, partially because you don't typically record every version of your story. So it's fun to talk about those topics that you know are important, but you never take the time to actually study.

Elaine  

So you are quite a notable public speaker yourself. You speak all over the world. You were named by the National Speakers Association to their professional speakers Hall of Fame. Presumably, you know a lot about public speaking. So what was it that gave you the idea? Were you listening to this other show? And thought, Oh, I could do that or why?

Jay Baer  

Yeah, that's certainly part of it is that a longer form joke and a longer form story in a speech is a very similar construct. But also this idea of most public speakers who are good, don't know why they're good. They don't. They know they are, quite literally, in this industry. It's not an exaggeration to say that if you have the signature story, that becomes the tentpole for your signature speech, and you give that speech 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 times a year, over a number of years, this story is worth millions and millions of dollars, millions and millions of dollars, and to not know why or how it's good, or how it has gotten better over time, to me is amazing. And that's why the show has been very, very popular in the speaking community, of course, and also beyond that.

Elaine 

That is fascinating. I never really thought about the monetary value of understanding that craft down to the, you know, six, seven minute deconstruct to this one story that has financial value. I certainly resonate with the idea that it's instinctive, because I think that most podcast hosts who are good at it, do it instinctively. And also cannot possibly say, this is what goes into it. Or maybe some you know, there's some who can. I cannot and I'm utterly fascinated, I've been a writer my entire life, I've always been studying the structure of stories and leads and what books people, it's the same kind of thing. You know, I love this stage. I think a lot of people who are podcasters also are speakers or want to be speakers, want to do live events, you obviously go back and forth, yourself. So it's a very closely related skill.

Jay Baer  

Well, I was named most likely to be a game show host in high school. So maybe that's the secret. If you were named most likely to be a game show host in high school, you probably should, at this point, have a podcast. I'm gonna go ahead and draw that correlation for the audience.

Elaine  

That's hysterical. And I will say that in my community theater in high school, I was most often cast as if there was an emcee. I was the emcee. Yeah. So we'll get into an epic dissecting an episode in a minute. But what do you like about a living case study about actually dissecting the work for the audience? And I guess also for the guests themselves to hear it back. What do you like about that? 

Jay Baer  

Yeah, that was one of the things that I really enjoyed about the show is that in many cases, the guest has never really done this examination. And so it becomes a lesson for them in real time, the same way that it's a lesson for the audience, because everybody tuning into a show like that, or this show, for that matter, envisions themselves doing it as well, right. And so it's almost a vicariousness, which I find really, really attractive, and I think is a show that combines entertainment, but also lessons that can be applied in your own work. And if you're going to spend the time, whether it's 20 minutes or an hour, if you're going to ask the audience to invest in that you darn well better both entertain them, and improve them in some way. That's just my bias. 

Elaine  

Yeah, exactly. It's like, I don't know, if you were teaching somebody to paint you would be demonstrating the painting, like a Bob Ross, while you're doing it is the same kind of idea.

Jay Baer

Yeah. In fact, it's funny. And the original premise for the show was that we were going to make Standing Ovation, a video show, although I will say and you are great at this, when it's audio, mostly, I just feel like there's a level of intimacy that you don't necessarily get when you have visuals as well.

Elaine  

I think there's truth in that, of course, I'm a little bit biased.

Jay Baer  

It feels confessional in some ways. And I really worked hard on that. Every single guest, I had a personal relationship with the entire run of the show. And I did that on purpose, because I wanted the audience to feel like they were just in the room where we happen to have a conversation. And when you have a personal relationship with every guest, it just warms it up so quick, right from the second you turn the microphones on, you can kind of get to a level of, of confidence is, frankly, that maybe you couldn't get when you're trying to meet the guests at the same time. Now, that certainly limits the number of guests you can have on the show. So yeah, it works for a while.

Elaine  

Yeah, it's true. And that is one of the skills, honestly, that I'm finding. I think the requirement to create some version of psychological safety is there with every conversation no matter whether it's a really difficult one, like I had Stephanie Wittels Wachs on from Last Day, which is a show about really hard things guns, suicide, substance abuse, talk about the need for psychological safety is huge, to things that are much less intimate, much less difficult than that there's still that need, especially because we don't generally know every guest. Yeah, you clearly did quite a bit of prep for every episode of Standing Ovation., 

Jay Baer  

More than any other show I've ever been a part of, by far.

Elaine  

So tell me about it. Let's take the one that we're going to talk about. The guest was a speaker named David Horsager. How did you prep for that particular episode?

Jay Baer  

It was fairly similar for all episodes in that first contact that person noted in the show? Yes. Hey, what's your signature story? First big question, because in some cases, they don't know or they have multiple, or they're not sure they never thought about it that way. So Dave actually has two. So firstly, to figure out which one we're going to use. And then it was well do you have footage of it is like, I don't know, I gotta look for it. So that's like a whole thing, right to find a version and he said, I think I've got two or three different versions on my YouTube channel, I have to go to his YouTube channel, go spelunking through every video this guy's ever done. Find versions of this story. And I think I found three or four different versions. Watch them all. Compare them, make notes on my own about how they have changed, but then have to rip a version right, cut it for the show, clean up the audio. So there's actually a fair bit of audio production that had to be done for every episode. And then really wanted to make sure because this particular show like yours has a conceit, right, there is a short format that is perhaps more obvious in structure than many other podcasts. So I really wanted to make sure that every episode wasn't me asking a different person the exact same questions. So I spent a lot of time coming up with questions about each guest signature story that were meaningfully different than all the other guests. And that took some actual time.

Elaine  

Well, if I'm correct, what you did is you studied that signature story and the questions that you asked were very particular to the story. And that does take some time. It takes some study, it takes some interpretation, it takes some creativity and it takes a lot of curiosity.

Jay Baer  

Yeah. And you nailed it. We talked earlier about, you know, what makes a good podcast host. I think curiosity is non negotiable, right? If you're not inherently curious, then I can tell you one thing for sure. It doesn't matter how you build the show, the show will be about you, not the guests, and shows they're about you not the guests are not a podcast, it's a monologue, doesn't mean it can't be successful. But it's a whole different thing.

Elaine  

Totally a whole different ball game. You mentioned that the show was very popular, especially in the speaking community. What did people say about it?

Jay Baer  

Well, I would get so much feedback from speakers on the road. And then certainly at the speaker's conventions, they would say, hey, but there's never been a show like this. And we've never had a podcast where people talked about in a deep way in individual segments of material. There are other podcasts out there about the speaking business. Many of them are quite good. But it's usually either about the speaking business per se or sort of the actual how do you get events to hire you and what do you charge in that kind of thing mechanics, or there are some that are a little bit more about performance, but it's more performance categorically not let's take five minutes and drill down on it there just no one's ever done it before. But it is so important. To have some great stories like that, that the people in the community really appreciate and also heard from a lot of meeting planners and event organizers and people who are adjacent to the professional speaking business. They've never really thought about it in that context before either. And that was actually really gratifying.

Elaine  

You know, I have a clip that I would like to play that gets exactly to that point, and it's going to sound possibly sort of elementary like Elaine, why are you starting with this clip?

Jay Baer  

(audio clip) I'm your host, keynote speaker, and emcee Jay Baer. Fans of the Standing Ovation show are known as clappers, and every clapper knows that you can listen to each and every episode of this show, and unlock special bonus content at Jaybaer.com.

Elaine  

So the reason that I wanted to play that is because you do two things that I found very interesting, just in that clip, and that comes before you're even a minute and a half into an episode. First of all, you don't say I'm Jay Baer, I'm the host of the show you say, I am keynote speaker and emcee Jay Baer. I think because you are a marketer, and you teach it, that that has to be purposeful, that had to have been a strategic decision. Tell me about that.

Jay Baer  

Absolutely. You want the audience to know, especially for that show that I am one of them, right, I'm not just a host interviewing people in abstract I am of the community. And then of course, because I did the show, to generate more speaking business for myself, you want to anchor that from the beginning, this idea that oh, you can tell them midway through the show, or at the end of the show how to get a hold of you or how to hire you? Well, here's the thing, if you ever look at your listening stats, you'll see that even for good shows the fall off is considerable. So if you get to tell somebody something important, say it at the very beginning of the show.

Elaine  

Let's talk about this episode. So I always start, as you did, you would say, What was your signature story? I start by saying to a potential guest, please share with me an episode that you either loved or you found particularly challenging to make. And you gave me episode number 16 of Standing Ovation, speaker David Horsager, who is an expert on trust in relationships. And the title was how to tell stories about your kids. It was really, really fun. Why did you choose this particular episode?

Jay Baer  

So I just feel like David's storytelling is really good, right? So it just makes for a nice listen in particular, but he and I are very good friends. So there's definitely a warmth in our conversation that even amongst my other guests, all of whom I know isn't always there. And then I find it really interesting in this particular episode of the show, how David both does understand a lot of the decisions he's made, but also in some cases isn't totally sure how those decisions were made or where they came from, etcetera. So that was a good examination of all the different sides of that. Yes, I know why I did this, but I don't know why I did that. I just did it randomly.

Elaine  

So what I want to do is to set the stage I selected. It's a two and a half minute clip from his signature story, which is about Mutton Busting. Now I live in Denver. I've been to the rodeo but I'm from Boston, and so until I moved here 10 years ago, it was like rodeo, mutton, what are you talking about? No idea. And that plays a little bit into this episode. So listeners bear with a two and a half minute clip and trust me, you're gonna really enjoy it.

audio clip: David Horsager 18:01

The pros come in from Canada, Texas, Oklahoma. They do this great rodeo, but they let the local kids, five to eight years old, in the middle of the rodeo see how long they can last riding big Suffolk sheep. It's almost halftime. The Big Texas announcer gets up on the microphone. Ladies and gentlemen. Those of you kids or families that signed up for Mutton Busting, I'm going to read off the first 8 names. Come on down here to the bullgate, we'll get started. And he starts to read off the names.

Billie, Kimmy, Vanessa Horsager, Isaiah Horsager. I look over my dad, the stoic Norwegian. He just smiles. My five and eight year old, at the time, look up at me in terror. I put my arms around them. This is gonna be fun. We walk over to the bullgate. There's a lady who tells us how this works. All right, kiddos, here's what happens. You jump on the sheep. The sheep will take off. It'll run out in the arena. But the whole arena is sand. It's like a big giant sandbox. This is fun. My kids aren't buying it. They know how to do this in Texas. It's a new thing in Minnesota. They don't know how to grab the sheep. They sit up like this. They hold on to the wool like that. The sheep get out of there and the kids bam, bam, bam, every kid every night. But Vanessa is the last to go. The lightest kid in her class. It was her birthday. She turned eight that day. I said Vanessa, you can't do it like that. Vanessa, you gotta take those dangly legs, gotta wrap around the belly. You gotta pinch your heels as tight as you can. Vanessa, you gotta lay down. You gotta velcro your belly to the wool, you gotta wrap your arms on the neck. You're gonna dig your fingers into the wool. And whatever you do have enough. Don't let go. Got Hold on. I'm a great dad.(laughter)

Elaine 

So I don't know when the last time was that you listened to this, but I love it.

Jay Baer  

Oh, good. Yeah, he's incredibly talented. One of the hard things about hosting Standing Ovation is every week coming to grips with the fact that I am so much not as good as any of my guests like, like, I'm better than average for sure. But I'm really fortunate to be friends with and have had on the show some people who are truly exceptional, and very, very gifted speakers and Dave certainly among them.

Elaine 

Well, I'm sure you're, you're equally good. I would love to see you on stage. This particular story does a lot of things. It's obviously quite entertaining. But he's using it to establish trust with a business audience. And he talks about this. He says, he's a researcher, he provides a ton of data. And then he tells his crazy story about his kids at the rodeo. In your mind, what's the purpose of him telling this story? Or people telling stories like this, when they're trying to teach something, they're trying to impart a lot of information.

Jay Baer 

You will not remember, as an audience, very much of that story. You'll remember that it's about his daughter riding a sheep. And you'll remember that it was really funny. And you'll remember that the payoff is about her trusting him. That's all you'll remember. And you have to have those kind of emotionally rich components in a presentation especially as a keynote speaker as Dave is.  Because if it's all fact fact fact fact fact data, data, data, data data, the audience cannot absorb that much information. And then do anything with it. And this is going to sound trite, but it is very true in the speaking business. It's what Maya Angelou famously said, they will not remember the words that you use, but they will remember how you made them feel. And that is exactly what you're trying to do. When you're out on that stage by yourself holding a microphone. And Dave's really, really good at that. And he has a tremendous amount of actual data. He is a researcher, he is the foremost trust researcher in the world. But if it's just charts and graphs, it just doesn't work. In fact, I'll give you a piece of advice that was given to me by my good friend, Scott Stratten, who was one of the very first guests I've ever had on the show. And I started off as more of a content driven workshop speaker. Because I've been a strategist and consultant for more than 30 years, I've actually only been a speaker for 12. When Scott first saw me, he said, You can be really good at this. If you do one thing, throw away half of your material. And that was probably the best advice I've ever been given.

Elaine  

How did you know which half?

Jay Baer  

That's the trick. I didn't. It took a long time, it took a long time. Not only did I sort of get rid of everything that I didn't think was really germane. And you have to kill your darlings, in speaking like everybody has more material than then you've got time for it. But I had to figure out how to do just what Dave does in this episode, which is to combine what we call content with emotion. And it's not my natural state, like I'm a facts guy, right? Journalism major, political science major, I don't instantly gravitate towards the story side of it, I gravitate towards the data side of it. And so it took me quite a while to get there.

Elaine  

I think that's very interesting. I grew up doing theater, and so I'm fascinated by the performance aspects of both public speaking, and podcast hosting, something that nobody ever even uses the word performance. But it is. And he has some really interesting things he talks about about being there. Let me play a clip..

audio clip: David Horsager 24:43

Maybe one of the best pieces of advice I could give to speakers, when people have affirmed me for being for storytelling, it is I try to be there, every time I try to go back there. And then of course, some things become that way, every time, the way this happened, the way that happened, the way that you know, the rodeo Queen came out or whatever. So it's changing less and less. But I still try to be there because that's the transfer of emotion that happens when you be there. I mean, the most powerful story I can tell, I hardly tell from the stage. It's my drowning accident when I almost drowned. But the reason that story is so powerful, even though I rarely tell it, is because I just go to that moment of drowning and almost obviously almost drowning. And that's the same of the sheep one, I just put myself there, remember watching it for the first time, remember the sheep going across there. So you know, for me, I'm less on the blocking, this way, in that way, and making sure it's not that there's some things I maybe do naturally, or maybe they were learned. But I try to be there.

Elaine  

To me, that was what you know, at NPR, we would call a driveway moment, which is when you've gotten home, you're sitting in your driveway, but the story's not over. So you have to sit there until it is. So that story was like that for me. I'm assuming it was for you.

Jay Baer  

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, he does. He makes some really smart choices there that I'm not even sure he fully understands that he makes. One is he says the thing he doesn't tell the thing. When the woman is giving the children instructions about how to ride the mutton. Dave doesn't say. And then what she told the kids was this, this this and say it in his own voice. He just says it in a different voice, ostensibly her voice, which pulls you into the story. You should never do that. You should always just say what was said and not say and then she said because then it creates this whole remove from being in the story and his vocal inflection and really the passion and the energy with which he tells all the different parts of the story. I will tell you this as a speaker. He makes it seem easy. But it's not. Because when you're telling the same story Dave's a very busy speaker, he's busier than I ever have been. I just talked to him this morning actually, and told him I was going to talk about the Show, he's got five events in the next five days in five cities. And that's not at all atypical for him. He will literally tell that story 100 times to share to 100 different audiences in 100 different cities around the globe. And to be able to tell it 100 times, and make the audience think they're in that arena requires a performance commitment that a lot of people just won't go to. It is like being an actor, it's, Hey, we're doing six shows a week on Broadway or Off Broadway, or community theater or whatever. And you got to put the same emotion into it every single night at 7pm. It requires a lot of fortitude. And it's really easy to just be like, Look, I'm just, I'm just sort of reading the script. And, and the audience can tell the difference, that's for sure.

Elaine  

In what way, is there any similarity between that and hosting a podcast

Jay Baer  

In every way, I mean, literally, in every way, because once you've done, I'll make up a number. Once you've done 10 episodes of your show, you have some sense of the routine of the show, flow of ins and outs, how you do reads, how you do introductions, kind of the key questions, you'd like to ask the syncopations and the rhythms. And it's really easy to say, Wow, the more of a formula I can apply to this, the easier it is for me as a host to produce an episode. But there is an inverse correlation between your ease as a host and the audience's enjoyment of you as a host. The harder you have to work, the more they will like to listen to your work.

Elaine  

Because you make it sound easy.

Jay Baer  

Yeah. But it's not. It's really hard to make it sound easy.

Elaine  

It's very true. It's very true. One thing that I notice about his storytelling with that rodeo story is that he's speaking in the present tense. And that is something that new storytellers often don't do. They'll say, oh, you know, I went to this rodeo, and this happened. But no, it's we're at the rodeo. The sand is under our feet, we're smelling the hay, etc. You're right there. And that's such a simple little tweak.

Jay Baer 

Yeah, Vanessa was like 22 now, right? So this happened, she turned eight, the day of the Mutton Busting, so this is a 14 year old story. And he tells that as if it was right now. And that's such a good observation, Elaine, and it's exactly right. Just the little word choices, and perspective changes. Look, if you're a business speaker, your audience has heard a bunch of keynote speakers. And they've probably all been good. And it's just like podcast listeners, they've probably heard a lot of podcasts and a lot of good hosts. So what can you do to be better than good? That's the real question. You gotta be asking yourself.

Elaine  

It is a great question. What can you do to be better than good? I love that question. That is wonderful. You talk a lot about relevancy. And about how that is so, so, so important. As a marketer, you know, your profession. But it's also obviously incredibly important as a speaker, or as a podcast host, to make everything relevant. And it's really tricky, because you can either niche so far down, that you're losing whole stories, and you're losing emotion and there's no breathing room. There's no relatability or you don't know where to edit and you're throwing everything in but the kitchen sink.

Jay Baer  

Yep. It's tricky, for sure. And that's the challenge. When you niche so far down. You can also run out of material.

Elaine  

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I wanted to ask you about audience response. Let me play a clip for you. 

Audio clip: Jay Baer 31:13

And the first time we took it to the stage, did you get the kind of audience reaction we knew like oh, yeah, this is gonna have to stay in like this. Yes, this is a keeper.

audio clip: David Horsager 31:22

It is, definitely. I ended up, you know, once I got the reaction and then you know, from there, there's work to tightening into making it better and to do the whole Seinfeld thing, you the key to making a joke is, is taking it from 12 words to nine or whatever, just tightening it up. And, and I think it's probably even tighter today. But, that even that first time when it was, you know, twice as long it was like that's a fit.

Elaine  

So my question is, when you're on stage, you get some kind of an immediate reaction, especially if it's good, you know, it works. If it's not good sometimes, you know, right. Then I go, you know, that fell flat. As a podcast host. We don't get that. We're talking into a vacuum most of the time. So, I know you've done several shows, but for Standing Ovation, was there anything that you changed over time, because somehow you got enough response or you just felt like this has got to change?

Jay Baer  

The nice thing about Standing Ovation is that the guests themselves had never been asked questions like that before. And I've never had a conversation like that before. So the feedback I got from the guests who are also representative of the audience, in that case, which is very useful, was so strong that I knew I was onto something. I didn't change too much of the show during the run of the show. Other than trying to, in later episodes, tighten up the initial story, I realized that in some cases, they were five or six minutes. And that's a long time for the audience, to stay with it, even if it's a great story. So I would actually do some cuts, to make that initial passage a little shorter, and kind of get into the meat of the show faster. But I was really fortunate in that the guests themselves provided so much feedback, but you're exactly right. Podcasting is the loneliest art form. And it's actually akin to what happened in speaking, during COVID, because I was doing 60 or 70 events a year in front of a big room of people. And then COVID happened. And so I had to build a whole studio in my house and I did 90 events in the first COVID year, virtually. Problem is I do new material all the time, tons of new material, and you have no idea whether it's working, none, you're like, I think this is pretty funny. But I have literally no evidence of that. And then it was really fascinating to go back out on the road after COVID and use some of that material be like, Oh, it wasn't as funny as I thought. You know, you just get used to that, you know, having that instantaneous notion of whether something lands and then having been robbed of that for like two years was, was challenging. But it was actually useful to me, having been in the podcasting business for, you know, 10 or 12 years, used to that vacuum a little bit, but I think of podcasts feedback, a little different than speech feedback. So it was challenging.

Elaine  

So basically, the lesson there is that all podcast hosts should go out and do some live speeches.

Jay Baer  

I mean, it's not a bad piece of advice. And as you said, many podcasts hosts want to or do that already. It's maybe not exactly the same kind of material that you would do. But it certainly helps your ability to stay in the moment and to gauge the room and that ability to just sort of put yourself in the mind of the audience right now. And what are they thinking while they listen to you, that's really a skill that you learn on stage. And again, that kind of instinct is one of the reasons why I tighten the open end of the show. Because you just feel it you just know what they're thinking at some point that I got, this is going on too long.

Elaine 

I have one last clip that is short.

audio clip: David Horsager

If I think of you know being the rodeo announcer I kind of grip the podium and look like I'm gripping the podium, I kind of get a certain stance when I when I become the clown I'm I might my physically becomes at so my auditory becomes it  also

audio clip: Jay Baer

It's such a great tip clappers. Listen to what David's saying here. When you change your voice on stage, change your body on stage, which naturally not only will change your voice a little bit, but also gives yourself kind of that that cue to say, Okay, now, I'm a different person and just slight little changes in how you carry yourself on stage will give the audience additional visual cues that indeed now you are another person…

Elaine  39:07

Here you are talking directly to the listener, you call them out as clappers, and you give them some instruction. Talk about making that choice of giving your audience members a name in this case clappers. Some people do that and some people do it really well. Others don't do it at all. And some people do it and it just sounds really cheesy. How did you decide to call your audience clappers? And how does it feel to turn to them as if they're in the room with you and say okay, clappers. I want you to get this point.

Jay Baer  39:42

Super intentional in that show to call them clappers and to sort of break that third wall and kind of pull them aside during the podcast. My friend Pat Flynn who is a legendary podcaster and a great author and speaker as well. He's got a book called Superfans, which I adore. It's all about how to turn an audience into a community. And he was on my other podcast, Social Pros and we were talking about this whole idea of making the audience feel like they're part of a tribe. And one of the ways that he recommends doing that in his book is to give them a name and give them sort of a metaphorical t shirt to wear. That's why I decided to start that with Standing Ovation and tried it and it was massively successful. To the degree that in comments on Facebook, when I promote a show episode, we'll say I'm a clapper and a proud clapper. And people would come up to me at conferences. I'm a clapper like it really became a thing. So in that particular case, Pat was absolutely right. And I would do it again, the next time I start a show from scratch, for sure, I would make that same creative decision. In terms of calling them to the fireplace, if you will, during the show, that's tricky. You really have to make sure that if you're going to kind of stop the guest, and say, let me interpret what the guest just said for you, audience. You darn well better bring some fire to the conversation like it better be worth their time for you to stop the guest. But I think I can get away with it for a couple of reasons. One, I know the guests personally. Two, I know the business really well, because I am a professional speaker and three, the professional speaking community already is a community, like a lot of the listeners know of Dave Horsager or they know of me. And so I think you get a little bit of a different dynamic in that regard. I don't know that I would do that in other podcasts. But I think it works in Standing Ovation, just the nature of the audience and the familiarity that they have with one another.

Elaine  41:41

I do it at the end, after the interview wraps, which is a whole lot easier.

Jay Baer  41:46

Yeah. recontextualize it Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I didn't plan that that was all that was on the fly. None of that was scripted. It was just me hearing something he said and say, you know, I want to make sure that they understand what I think that means. And I did it in almost every episode. It was all in real time. No stops, no edits, just like, let me just tell you what I think that means.

Elaine  

I'll tell you why I thought it worked so well. As someone who wants to know as much as I can about public speaking. I mean, I speak when the opportunity arises, it both clarifies what I think I'm hearing, it clarifies it from someone who I know is experienced and is doing that themselves. And serves as a reminder, it's like saying, hey, take that note, here's a highlight.

Jay Baer  

Yeah, I think that's the idea. Yeah, that's absolutely, the premise is to just make sure they don't miss a key insight, a nugget. And because the show is pretty loose. Sometimes I felt like it was important to pull it back to an action item in that moment.

Elaine  

Exactly, exactly. So speaking of action items, first of all, I'm going to say, if you have an idea for what I can call my listeners, clappers is taken, I would love that. And I'm going to throw that out too. This is one time I will turn to listeners and say listeners, if you have an idea for what you should be called, then write to me.

Jay Baer  40:18

I will increase the stakes on that. I am the number two tequila influencer in the world. So if one of your audience members does end up coming up with the name that you use for the show, I will give them a bottle of tequila from my personal stash. I'm happy to make that offer. So, now you've got a incentive people.

Elaine  

I love it. And I should just clarify not a name for the show. This show is Sound Judgment, but a name for who you all are, in the context of the show. I love that. Thank you, Jay. That's great. Absolutely. All right. So lightning round questions. How did hosting Standing Ovation change you as a person in ways you did not expect?

Jay Baer  

It certainly made me rethink my own storytelling on stage. And that's probably an obvious answer to the question. But it also in a larger sense, made me be more intentional about a lot of things in my life that I formally took for granted. Because that's really what the show is about. Yes, it's about public speaking. And yes, it's about storytelling and story choices and creative decisions. But this shows really about intentionality, versus instinct. And I am someone who has led a lot of my life by instinct, and hosting that show taught me that maybe that's not always the superior approach. And so I've tried to make more purposeful decisions, in my relationships, in my business, in my community as a result of the show.

Elaine  

I love that. That is an answer I did not expect. That is fascinating. It's going to give me a lot of food for thought. What do you know now about hosting a podcast that you didn't know before you hosted Standing Ovation?

Jay Baer  

Being a podcast guest and a professional public speaker is not necessarily the same skill set. Even within a group of guests, who are all very accomplished public speakers, some of those individuals are better in a podcast format. Others are not as adept. And I guess that makes intuitive sense. But it was interesting to me to kind of come to grips with that in a week to week sense. Another thing I will, I would say, I was always reluctant to produce a show that was as quiet and conversational, and intimate as Standing Ovation is. I just always felt it was too personal. Not showy enough, I guess is how I would describe it. And what I learned is, in some cases, that's actually what the audience wants, right? They want that conspiratorial, you know, fly on the wall, access. And it really opened my eyes and my ears to a lot of possibilities for maybe shows I'll do in the future.

Elaine

That's really interesting. And my first instinct was to say this is from the guy who wears plaid all the time. So that makes sense. I love those pictures. And then my last, of course, lightning round question comes directly from you, which is, who's your dream guest for Sound Judgment.

Jay Baer 

My dream guest for Sound Judgment, Pat Flynn would be great. As I mentioned earlier, John Lee Dumas would be a terrific choice just because he was one of the ones that pioneered kind of the do it every day show format, which, even though he batches that requires a level of sort of stamina, and courage, and commitment that I can't imagine doing a daily show. He's a really interesting guy in his own right, and obviously a very successful podcast host and a cool person to hang out with anyway. So yeah, I'll say John Lee Dumas.

Elaine 

Great. Well, thank you very much. This has been just an absolute delight, even better than I expected, and I knew it was gonna be so much fun. 

Jay Baer 

Oh, thanks so much. It's really kind of you to say, don't forget, come up with a name for yourselves, free tequila on the line people.

Elaine 

At the end of every episode, I give you just a few of the many takeaways from these conversations. Here are some from today, you'll find more in the show notes. And also in our Sound Judgment newsletter.

One, your story could be worth millions of dollars. But most speakers and most hosts don't know why their material is good. They're just operating on instinct. As Jay said, a good keynote speaker tells the same story many, many different times a year, often for several years. That means a story could be as he says, worth millions and millions of dollars. He also said to not know how or why it's good or how it's gotten better over time is amazing. And he didn't mean amazing in a good way. That's one reason he started Standing Ovation and a big reason why I started Sound Judgment. And I am on this quest to identify the universal skills of hostiness. 

Two, when and why should you tell a personal story if your podcast isn't personal? Say you run a podcast for small business owners or fitness enthusiasts or fly fisherman? There are two tests. Is it relevant to your ideal listener? Can you tie a lesson back to the topic at hand? And two, does it elicit an emotion as Jay said, if you just barrage listeners with one piece of data after another, they won't remember it, but they will remember how you made them feel? 

Three, name your listeners. It's a great way to create a community. When we're identified by a name we feel good about. We feel like we've made it into a special club. It's a metaphorical shirt we can put on. Glenn Washington calls Snap Judgment listeners snappers. Jay calls his Standing Ovation listeners by coincidence clappers. And here's where it gets really fun. What should I call you? What metaphorical shirt do you want to wear? We are running a contest inspired by Jay. Whomever comes up with the best, most fun name for yourself and your fellow listeners will get a bottle of tequila from Jay's personal stash. That's really cool because in addition to being a marketing guru, Jay is the second most popular tequila influencer in the world. To enter submit your ideas through the link in our show notes or our newsletter, which comes out most Thursdays, but do it fast. The deadline is Saturday, February 4 at midnight, you'll also get a shout out in our newsletter if you win. Also on the podcast and in our social channels. I can't wait to read these entries. 

That's all for today. I hope you had as much fun as I did, and learned something. I encourage you to look at more of Jay's amazing guidance on how to market your show and your business. We'll obviously link to his work in our show notes. And you have to go there anyway to see the plaid suits, trust me. 

Thanks for being with me on sound judgment. Please follow us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. And if you haven't subscribed to our newsletter yet, what are you waiting for? Our goal is to help you make great creative choices in your work every day. 

Also, you can help us do that. Take one minute, just one minute and rate and review us on your favorite podcast app. Every single one of you matters. Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies. It's produced by me, Elaine Appleton Grant. Sound design and editing by production manager Andrew Parella. Our cover art is by Sarah Edgell and podcast management by Tina Bassir. Coming up on the next episode, a conversation with the host of Dinner Sisters, a cooking show that catapulted its hosts onto a reality TV show. But it's not simply an episode about how to make a great cooking show. It's far more. This one turned out to be about grief. Do not miss it.