Adam Torres and discuss Speakerpreneur.
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Show Notes:
Speakerpreneur is helping business leaders realize their dreams of impact, income and influence. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Colten Andersen, Director of Events at Speakerpreneur, explore Speakerpreneur and Colten’s journey as an entrepreneur.
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Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to apply. Alright, so today I am in Las Vegas, Nevada. I’m right across from The Strip, and let me tell you, I’ve been looking forward to this interview for a long time.
I’ve been trying to track this guy down. I have Colton Anderson on the line. He’s He is a director of events over at Speakerpreneur, and I’ve been following Colton’s career as a rising star. He’s worked with a lot of people that I know and trust and, and really admire when what they’ve been able to do in, in their niches.
And we’ll talk a little bit more about that, but first off Colton. Man, welcome. I got you finally. Yeah. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure. So first, why’d it take so long to get you on the show, man? Why you don’t like, you don’t like mission matters? We’re busy. We’re busy. Two events a month all around the world, going to DR, going to Dubai, Orlando, Houston, all over the world.
Yeah. Yeah. So first off, just to kind of take the audience. Back. So where I first met Colton was he was introduced by a friend of the show, Christopher Kai, and I want the Chris story, man. How, how did you and Chris Kai is a mentor. He’s he helps with mission matters. We cover his gifters X talks as well.
So big fan of Chris and what he’s doing. How’d you meet Chris originally? Give me the Chris story. Yeah. So Chris story, it’s a really interesting story. So my aunt actually hosts events and she rented a castle overnight and she had Chris as a speaker there as a guest speaker there. And through that relationship, her and Christopher had an event over at up in the Northern part of the United States.
I attended that event because it was my aunt’s event. And I was like, who is this Chris Kai guy? And so I had read his book, I had known about him through other masterminds. And I was like, I want to meet this guy. So I dropped it. I was in door to door solar at the time. So I dropped all my appointments that day, gave up a lot of revenue.
I gave up a lot of revenue in that direct. Drove three and a half hours north of where I was at the time. And from there I met him and he, he tells his, has he told you the story or no? I’m asking you the story. What do you mean? Forgive me. We got an audience. People aren’t listening. What are you telling me?
I can hold that. Come on. So I went up and I was asking him questions and I do door to door sales for a long time in October, 300, 000 doors and all that stuff. Hold on, wait a minute. We’re going to get back to that. Finish the story, but I need to, I’m going to circle back to this 300, 000 doors thing, but finish the story.
Okay. Okay. So I was doing my, you know, my door to door thing and talking to him and he’s like, Oh, I got to put up with this guy. Cause he’s, you know, he’s this, this. This client of his, she’s, it’s his nephew. You know, I have to put, I have to talk to him. And then, and then obviously we, we kicked it off. We became friends.
I purchased this program his speaker program, and then became a client. And he’s like, Hey, you seem cool. Let’s do you want to be on the team? And I was like, I’m the team. What do you mean? I’m the team, you know, so I started doing events with him. Yeah. Right. And that’s how we got, that’s how we got connected up.
Yeah. It was through through through my aunt and doing a council event in Ireland. That’s insane. Briefly for everybody listening and watching. I met Chris at in century city, California. He was at a speaker. He was speaking. He was a speaker there at the century city chamber of commerce meeting. The particular day I was there, I was on their board and or whatever.
And I’m like, Man, what’s this guy here talking about? Networking with billionaires and all this. I’m like, well, who is this guy? And we’ve been, we have been working with them ever since. So that’s, that’s interesting. Now I want to, we’re going to take a little, little pivot here. I want to back up a bit.
300, 000 doors knocking, like give me the back story on this. That’s insane. Yeah. So I grew up on a farm up in Washington state. You know, my family does organic produce into whole foods and stuff like that. And that’s the, that’s the background that I come from. Yeah. It’s farming, hard work and labor, basically like slave child.
You know what I mean? So like work ethic, I was on this Hispanic crew also known as, you know, the heart of America. Keep your country going. Let’s keep it there. Go ahead. Yeah, for sure. So I did that and then graduated to, I was needing help with a website that I was doing and that led into doing door to door sales.
I started a company. I started a door to door team up in Washington state where I grew up. That company ended up selling for over, over 250 million, I believe. Maybe a little bit north of that. And then that started my door to door career. I did that for about five years. And then from that, I transitioned into doing events.
Right. And so doing the one to one to one to many. So hold on. This 300, 000 doors. All right. There’s a, I’ve always been fascinated with knocking on doors as silly as that sounds. I feel like the people that can do that business can do anything. Am I off on that? Like what’d you learn not getting 300 in dollars?
Dude, the stories that I have. Give me one. Give me one, give me a crazy one. I want a crazy one. I’ve been hit on. I’ve been chased down the street with a drill and like all kinds, all kinds, like wild stuff because you’re interfering in people’s lives while they’re doing their day to day home life. Dang, man, what, you know, people was, you know, it’s just that old guy who was just like, they don’t like people, you know what I mean?
And so you, you, you meet so many different personalities and you enter people’s lives at so many different, there’s such various times in their lives, you know, they’re sad, they’re happy, they’re excited, they’re, they’re just, Angry people. You know what I mean? You get to meet and you learn how to manage all these different kinds of scenarios and take someone from being mad to signing a piece of paper, you know, and wraps and wraps and wraps.
And we would knock the busiest days in the summer when the sun out, the longest, we would knock close to 300 doors in a day. Now you said, we, I want to start with you personally, before you were a sales manager, like what got you through it to the point to where now you could help others and teach them, like what got you to that point?
I would give a lot of credit to my parents in the farming culture background. I think that work ethic, because there was a lot of city kids who would come in and nothing against, you know, city versus farm. Yeah, I’m against the city kid. I’m from the city and we’re lazy sometimes, you know, whatever. I remember as a kid, this lady made Olga.
And if Olga sees this, she’s going to laugh at us. Wow, man. Olga and Olga. Go ahead. There’s always an Olga, dude. This lady and Olga would pick me up at 4 a. m. from my house and, you know, parents would drag me out of bed. And you’re like tired and you’re like, oh, she’s like, did you put your big boy pants on?
I already been up. I’m picking you up. That means I woke up before you. It was a love hate relationship with Olga and I’ll tell you why. Because she made handmade tortillas in the morning and she would make us, you know, these tortillas. Beautiful, delicious, handmade tacos. Yeah. You know, and if you asked me as a kid, what I want to do when I was growing up, I’d be like, I want to grow tacos.
Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I farmed for a few years and stuff and did that, you know, she would, she would come pick us up four o’clock in the morning and I would go out and work on those crews pulling weeds and onion fields. And that work ethic at that young of an age, like that is what I believe.
I believe I won in door to door sales because I stayed on the doors for 14 hours. Interesting. And everybody else would tap out after six hours. Does that make sense? It does make sense. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s, it’s the, it’s the work ethic. And now the next step in your career, I would argue is when you’re managing a team, you’re growing your own team.
Like that’s different than doing it yourself. How do you get other people to do what you did and teach them? Like, how’d you do that? Conviction. Conviction. People, people buy, people buy into people. And when you, I’m a firm believer in do something, figure it out. Show the results and you’re convicted about it and you share those results with other people.
Yeah. They’re attracted not to the product and the service, but they’re attracted to the conviction tied with the results. Yeah. Does that make sense? I’ll throw in a little bit of the leading from the front. Like you were still out there. Were you still knocking? I feel like I always had the best numbers.
Like that’s the thing. See, that’s the thing that I talk about. I’m like, I never, I’m not going to ask somebody else to do something that I wasn’t willing to do, or I won’t do myself. And if I can’t at this point, based on the size of the team and other things, go out and do it, usually there’s people around that are like, no, Adam, you said.
To do this, like, no, you better do it. Like whatever. I have a story around like that process is here because of this. And this is why it works. Like most people, if you educate them and they know that you’re not sending them on wild goose chases, like they’re in there. And, and that you, if you they’re bought it, you’re bought into their success.
As much as sometimes you want it more than they want it. Like they’re in. Yeah. And it was a very important part, portion, key aspect, I should say, of leading a team. You always lead from the front. Yeah. And when I was, when someone is struggling, you sit with them and you knock with them and you work with them until and help them until they succeed again.
Yeah. Just being that right hand. Does that make sense? But there were times where, you know, I let that manager sink in and I was like, Oh, the team’s doing the work. I’m not. Well, guess what? The team’s numbers did. Right. And when I was up there leading from the front, guess what? The team’s numbers did. Right.
Mm hmm. Right. Yeah. So the interesting thing about that is over time, like that compounds, like the people’s that the people that are, that are knocking with you, their success becomes your success and vice versa. And that lifts everybody, right? Yeah, it does. Yeah. So circling back, first off, before we go further what was, you said it was your aunt that was the original castle event.
Was that right? What’s your aunt’s name? Shelly. Shout out to Shelly for getting this job. Like what? Like, like, I wish I, I mean, my aunts, I have a couple of really cool aunts, but my cool aunt doesn’t have like a castle going on. You know, I’m sure she prayed a penny, a pretty penny for her, but I don’t care.
That’s just cool. What was the event about? I’m curious. It was about writing a book and branding yourself, man. So you said, is that, is that in your like DNA? Like what’s going on here, man? Yeah. So she goes, she goes heavy on networking. Yeah. Networking to create other opportunities. Which is why she had Chris the billionaire networker and like right on brand.
All right, man. So fast forwarding a bit, I’ve been watching your journey. I’ve been watching Roddy, Rod and his deal. And I’m like, man, I wish some of the videos, those private videos of the motivation, these guys are doing next level. We can’t release those. Right. He rod. I understand, man. But you, you motivate me often.
I’ll just say that, but looking at what you’re doing now, I noticed that you walked in earlier and you had on this speaker preneur shirt. And I asked you, Hey, was that a speaker? Selfish Speakerpreneur shirt, meaning where’s mine? How you come into the studio and don’t bring me a shirt, man. Tell me what size are you?
Extra medium. Extra medium? Extra medium. I never heard of that one. Well, what is an extra medium? It’s like when you’re too buff for a medium, but you’re too small for a large. It’s right in between. Right in between. There’s still, is that a large gone through the dryer on too hot? I don’t know. It’s, it’s, you bring me both next time.
All right. Tell me about this brand. Speakerpreneur. Speakerpreneur. So Speakerpreneur is a product of Paul Getters. Are you familiar with who Paul Getters is? Paul, man, he’s got the Am I familiar with Paul Getters? Who isn’t? The bow tie, the look. How come Paul hasn’t been on the show? That’s another question.
Let’s start with Speakerpreneur. Yeah, yeah. So Speakerpreneur, what it is, is we host events all around the world. Like I was saying earlier, we do two events around the world. We got Tampa coming up. We got Orlando coming up. We got Houston. We got Dubai coming up. We got Salt Lake City coming up. Oh, you’re not busy.
No, not at all. Not at all. Just go, go, go, go, go. But I would rather be busy than bored. I don’t know about you. But. So, so go further in a speakerpreneur. What’s the aim? What’s the goal of the organization? Yeah. So what we do is we help people build credibility around their brand and frame them to be able to build a, a credible business that has, because nobody wants to be the best kept secret.
Right. I mean, think back into your early days, right? If you may have been the best podcast or the best brand out there, you Right. But if nobody knows about you, you have nothing. And so we put people on stages. We help them write a book. We help them build their sales fund. We introduce, we do what we call power introductions, right?
Take them from their specific industry and power it because we know so many people around the world, influential people. He’s worked with Tai Lopez, Greg Cardone, Bob Proctor, all these huge names. Paul is the secret behind a lot of those guys. And a lot of those guys kept him a secret for a long time. And so, but he was the nerd behind the scene making all that happen.
Yeah. That, that master brand strategy that really grew those brands. Right. And so we have the credibility in that. And then we take away, transfer that to other people, right? Like the event we just did in Toronto, you know, Evan Carmichael, the YouTuber 650 plus million views. He was a guest speaker there, you know, he came by.
Right. Yeah. Got to spend some time with him. Super cool guy. Mm. Yeah. So, if you’re looking at your ideal, let’s say, person that is thinking about becoming a speaker, building a brand, doing all these things, like, we hear this a lot about, you know, visibility. Like, how, how do you feel working with so many people through the years, and, and especially with what you’re doing right now with Paul and Speakerpreneur, how do you feel that somebody knows when it’s the right time, or they’re the right fit, like, how do you, are there any signals?
Yeah, that’s a really good question because there’s multiple different facets to it of like what makes someone ready to be able to do it, right? Obviously conviction in themselves, belief in themselves, being connected with someone who can lead no matter where you’re at in life. Like Paul, look at the level of business that he does.
He still has mentors. Yeah. You know what I mean? Whether you’re coming in, it can only afford a thousand dollars or you’re looking at a quarter million dollar package. You know what I mean? Everybody needs help to get to the next level, right? Because just no matter where you’re at in life, there’s always someone above you, always someone below you.
Does that make sense? So as long as someone has that drive, wants to, has, and that’s part of what we do is we come in and we analyze because we don’t just onboard and help anybody. Yeah. It’s we call, we have a hundred percent success rate with our inner circle package is because we do the front load. We qualify, we push out, right?
We know what it takes for someone to succeed. And so we do that. And when sometimes we do, we push people away. Yeah. You’re like, you’re not ready yet. Yes. You can get here. But you, you need to start with something very small to build up to this. Does that make sense? What’s your favorite part of doing this work?
Dude, I meet the coolest people around the world and to take, to take such influential people and to be able to link them with other people in the industry, to link them with the brand growth strategies. And watch their brand go like this. We have people that come in personal trainers, lawyers, doctors, they’re doing two, 3, 000 a month.
Now they’re doing 30 to 40, 000 a month. Right. And that’s on the lower end is obviously there’s like the celebrity packages that are, they’re way bigger, right. In the financial side, but. It’s just that growth and watching them, just their eyes light up. Yeah. You know what I mean? What is I mean, brand strategy, some of the things you’re saying, I mean, pretty fancy for everybody at home.
Like I get this sometimes, but sometimes I mean people mean different things. Like can you give an example, like brand strategy, otherwise, like what does this mean? Yeah. So it really depends on where you’re at in your business and where you want to go, but it depends on, it also depends, varies upon your niche of industry, right?
Like a lawyer is going to have a different strategy. Then a personal trainer, right? So like a personal trainer, maybe we may help them write a book never credibility. Put them on stages, put them on podcasts, all that type of stuff. So it really depends on what industry that they’re in and what the strategy that we’re bringing.
So take me, we’ll, we’ll do me right now. Pretend you know nothing about me. I want my podcast to be the number one show in the world. Undisputed. I go to Paul and I’m like, Paul, man, You know me. Come on. Mission matters. You don’t know me. That’s the problem. All right. That’s the problem. How do I become number one in the world at what I do?
So off the top of your head, what are some of the ingredients? Okay. So you obviously write books, right? Okay. Okay. So I need a book. You’ll have you. What else? You have a book. You obviously have sales funnels. I need a sales funnel. Do you have a sales funnel? Well, I have a lot of things, but we’re going blank.
I don’t know anything. We don’t know anything about you. Nothing about me. Nothing about me. No, so just give me the ingredients. All right. So I need just, and it’s obviously different proportions, whatever. You want to know exact, the exact proportions and you’re watching it, listening to this thing, contact Paul and his team.
But today we’re going to play the game of give me the ingredients. We’re in the kitchen, grab stuff off the shelf, man. We’re cooking. So I need a book. Okay. I need a sales funnel. What else do I need? So you need a book. You need a sales funnel. We put you on stages all around the world. I need to be on stages.
People need to see my face. Things like Ted, Ted talks. Okay. So we did an event with Chris Kai with Richard Saul Wurman. Right. I actually spoke right before him on stage. It was in Miami. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, I was there and I’m pretending I wasn’t there. I didn’t speak, but give me any more.
We’re acting out. We don’t know each other. Come on. So what else? I need to speak. What else? You need to speak obviously. And then there’s the, there’s the. The content of the Instagram of the social profiles, TikTok, Instagram. We have studios planted all over that. We have partnerships with all throughout the U S all around the world.
You come in, we bring clients in, tell them, Hey, bring six, six changes of clothes, shoot six months of content. Here’s the strategy of the type of content you’re getting, man, you’re, you’re dropping the jewels today. That’s the level generate like 90 to 150 like lines that we can show you that we can ask you.
It’s like the behind the camera person asks you, and then you answer the question, right? And that’s all like visual visual, you know, effects and all that make it look pretty, make it look professional because it is professional, right? But it takes effort. So, but it’s having those partnerships and having, knowing that process of from the book to the sales funnel.
To, you know, education or sales then into the speaking. Because think about this. I actually learned this from Chris. When you walk onto an airplane, usually first class is on the left, right? Yeah. And then on the right, there’s business class and then there’s economy. When you think about the last time that you did this.
When you walk onto the airplane, you see first class on the left. And let’s say you’re going right. I assume you find first class, but you’re trying to ride better. You get better pay for the upgrade. Whoever’s sponsoring this, when you hear this driving to look, so you see the first class and you turn it, right?
What do you, what goes through your head about those people? Tell me what goes through your head. Who are they? What do they do? What do they do to get there? Like what? Like what’s up? They’re successful. They have money. For sure. They’re a trust fund kid or something about that. Right? They’re out there in the speaking world.
It’s the same thing. You have the speaker on stage. IE first class. Yeah. Right. You have, then you have the VIP CD. IE VIP CD. Yeah. Add an event front rows. And then you have. The general admin tickets and which is IE economy, right? Same thing. It’s, it’s a different level of status. And so we put you as that first class person.
Yeah. We brand you as that first class person. Right. And obviously you have to be able to, and then there’s the PR side of it, you know, you know, Forbes articles, you know, all the, all the PR stuff, right? So it’s all intertwines together. Because what people are going to do is they’re going to Google you. So hold on, pause there for a second.
They’re going to Google me. We’re going to pick that back up. But Matt, I think we need to cut this clip out and we need to send this to the sponsors that just send us over to Orlando, because I want to be like, man, they didn’t send us first class. So there’s people walking by us and I’m like, Hey, I covered this conference.
What about the people that were walking in? They should have saw us there. Right, Matt? Yeah. Yeah. Continue the Forbes article. Yeah. Yeah. So, and then there’s the whole PR side of it. Right? Like when people, when people Google you, yeah, you have to be, you’re going to be visible and visible or perceived as an expert.
Yeah. Right. And so what do you want to be when someone Googles you and your brand, what do you want to be perceived as? Yeah. Invisible, visible, perceivable, as an expert, which one would you want? Expert, and I said number one podcast, So, it all intertwines together, right? But a lot of people don’t know, like, it’s so fascinating to me.
That to me, it seems like a simple process, right? Nah, it’s not simple. It’s in your DNA. From your aunt to Chris to Paul working at like every step of your career that I’ve followed. You keep on leveling up, leveling up, leveling up. And that becomes interesting. What’s your vision for this going forward?
Like you, like let’s say we’re going forward, you know, five years. Speakerpreneur, but what does Colton want to do? Like what’s the, what’s the game? Cause I see you as gathering all these skills, all this stuff. Like what’s the master plan? You know, that’s a really good question. And as, as everybody goes through multiple plans in their life, right?
And so the, the one that stuck with me the longest is I felt like I bounced around multiple different industries in my life from farming to door to door sales, to starting an event, you know what I mean? And this is where I feel at home is the events on stage, go traveling. Like some people have the home gene where like their home bodies, I think is what they call them.
And some people have the travel bug. I got the travel bug, man, you know, and so going out and going to two different, two new cities, somewhere around the world, every single month, just like gets me excited, you know? And so, and then working with these influential people, it really. And so I just view taking that on a bigger level and instead of packing out, you know, smaller events around the world, but to do the same thing, but a little, a little higher with arenas of 10, 000 people.
That’s my vision. That’s where I want to go. I travel a lot, but I got the home bug or you see these big casinos in the background. If you’re, if you’re listening to this in your car and you can’t see the big casinos in the background, there’s a bunch of big casinos. I got the home bug. I just need Bellagio, Aria.
I need one of these people. I need my Vegas residency and I’m staying here. I ain’t going anywhere, but for now I travel. There you go. So I got the home bug and that’s where I want to be. All right, Colton. So last question, I want you to get into events that are coming up. How people can participate. How do they learn about Speakerpreneur?
Yeah, for sure. So events are coming up. We have Tampa this weekend. Right. And then we have our, this weekend is what date? Okay. It is January 25th. Okay, so this will probably be out before this weekend. So some people are going to hear it. Some people are not. But January 25th, 2025, what else you got coming up?
And then we have Orlando right after that. And then we have Houston after that. And then we have Salt Lake City is not solidified yet, but it’s probably going to be after that. And then Dubai. Awesome. And then I think we’re going to do a Dominican Republic. We don’t plan too far in advance. That’s what we have on the schedule right now.
Amazing. How do people like, where do they see all this content? Where do they get the dates as they become solidify? Where’s all that at? Yeah, yeah. So if you Google speakpreneur and, or just. Here’s, here’s a good one. Paul has the original name. His Instagram handle is at Paul P A U L. Amazing. Yes. And what’s your Instagram?
How do people follow you? Anderson Colton S E N on Anderson and then T E N on Colton. All right. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, for everybody watching, just so you know, what we’ll do is we’ll put the links to the website, all that other good stuff. Stuff in the show notes. So you can just click on it and head right on over.
And speaking to the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters, and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show each and every day. We’re creating new content, bringing you new interviews and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well.
So again, hit that subscribe or follow button and Colton, man, glad we could finally do this. It’s a pleasure.