Transcription
Dave Bricker (00:06)
Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia Media, brought to you by Speakipedia .com. I’m your host, Dave Bricker, bringing you straight talk and smart strategies from visionary speakers, thought leaders, and storytellers. My guest is the founder of the Complaint Free Movement, which has improved the lives of over 15 million people worldwide.
He’s been featured on major television media, including Oprah, 60 Minutes, and numerous others, and in thousands of articles in publications like Forbes, Newsweek, and The Wall Street Journal. He’s an in -demand speaker and trainer who travels the world working with top executives and their employees. His best -selling book, A Complaint -Free World, has sold over four million copies, and the foreword was written by none other than Dr. Maya Angelou.
He’s the world’s leading authority on complaining, why we do it, and how to stop. Please welcome certified speaking professional Will Bowen. Thank you, Will. So Will, because we dig for the stories here, let’s start with yours. How did you become the world’s leading authority on complaining?
Will Bowen (01:13)
Hi Dave, great to be here.
I never set out to be the world authority on complaining. When I was in my twenties, I became enamored with professional speaking as a career and it really spoke to me. And so I did Toast masters, et cetera, et cetera. And then never could figure out what my niche was, what my forte was going to be because you’ve got to have a…
a niche and I decided that ministers get to speak every week and they get to write a new speech every week and so if what I want to do is speak and change lives I’ll do that and it took me 10 years to get ordained in the unity faith not Unitarian unity and 10 months in I delivered a talk
based on prosperity and actually Edwene Gaines wrote a book on the four spiritual laws of prosperity and I was speaking on chapter two of her book which was to go 21 days in a row without complaining. I thought well that’s great I’ll challenge everyone to go 21 days in a row without complaining but then it occurred to me how would you know what day you’re on? So I handed out
purple rubber bracelets like this and asked everybody when you catch yourself complaining, switch the bracelet to the other wrist. It’s a mindfulness tool. It’s not a cause bracelet. It’s a mindfulness tool. And this was before social media, before smartphones. This was just people telling people in a month, we had a request for about 9 ,000 of these people just wanting to take this challenge.
And it exploded under my feet. And so literally all of a sudden I’m doing three to five interviews a week on everything from Australian magazines to Irish radio stations. And they all want to ask me questions about complaining, like I knew something about it and I didn’t. So I began to study, study, study. I read every book I could find on the subject.
I interviewed people who had done research on complaining, partnered with one person at a university to do some research. And I gave myself the title, the world authority on complaining, because I’ve read a dozen books on the subject I mentioned in four and I wrote two of them. So I think that puts me, puts me there. And.
It was an interesting thing because it’s not something I would have chosen. It’s not a sexy topic. People love it when I present it, but there’s a lot of resistance because people think I’m going to be shaming their audience or complaining about complaining and neither is true.
Dave Bricker (04:35)
Yeah, and there’s a great lesson there for some of the speakers and aspiring speakers who are tuning into this show because, wow, you found this thing, but you didn’t say, hey, I found my topic. You said, I need to go and do my own personal PhD on this topic. I can’t get it from a university. I’m gonna read all the books. I’m gonna talk to all the experts. I’m going to become…
that thought leader, that authority. I think you can do that with any topic. I think I’ve spent the past 10 years just diving into storytelling, because that’s my lane. I think picking a topic is part of it and then becoming an expert in that topic is a really important step. And…
Will Bowen (05:21)
It’s, it is not a, it’s not a dramatic, aha, evangelical church moment. It’s not like, blah. For me, I was sitting in a Brendan Brushard seminar and I had been professionally speaking on the complaint free topic for seven years and I was done with it. I was burnt out on it, et cetera, et cetera. And he asked a series of questions, basically saying, have you gone as deep as you can with this? Do you?
Are you inspired by it? Are you interested in it, et cetera? And I did that. I will say, and I’ve just released my own speaker training program, that one of the biggest mistakes people have is that, yes, you can go deep into any topic and become an expert on it. The question is, can you get corporations and associations to pay you? And for that to happen, you’ve got to do one of two things.
You’ve got to make them money or you’ve got to save them money. So my whole pitch is about the absenteeism, the burnout, and the psychological toll that complaining takes on an organization leading to lower productivity and a cost.
Dave Bricker (06:39)
And we’ll dive deeper into that a little later on because I love that you touched on that.
For the moment, let’s stay on those storytelling rails. Because as you know, it’s easy to get stuck in a story, maybe a story that’s been handed to us or foisted on us or one we make up to insulate ourselves from reality. And it strikes me that complaining is a symptom of that. It suggests that we’re blaming others instead of taking control and being accountable. So what are your thoughts on that from that storytelling perspective?
Will Bowen (07:14)
Life is a story we tell ourselves, full stop. Ergo, if you tell yourself, you complain to yourself, which complaining is always about what is wrong and what is missing. So if your focus is on what is wrong and what is missing, you’re going to be looking for what is wrong and what is missing. Gratitude, which is the opposite of complaining, is another story that you tell yourself.
The happiest people and the unhappiest people all are telling themselves stories in their own head, which they then share with the world. And they tend to find people who will act as an echo chamber to reinforce their beliefs. So the only way to change your life is to change your story. I mean, that’s, that’s straight Tony Robbins right there. So you change the story within your own head. You change the story that you tell the world. You change your life.
Dave Bricker (08:15)
So, the stories we write about our lives, or allow other people to write for us, are always fraught with he who hesitates is lost, but look before you leap contradictions. Where do we draw the lines between complaining and setting boundaries?
Will Bowen (08:33)
It’s not complaining to speak directly and only to the person who can resolve your issue.
It is complaining to go around and talk to other people. Therefore, when someone comes to us with a challenge or something like that, and it’s about us or whatever, we’ve got to develop more of a thicker skin. And I know that’s hard for me because as an author and a speaker, I tend to love praise and hate criticism. So we’ve got to develop a thicker skin with regards to that. The other thing is that…
We need to practice it ourselves. If we’ve got an issue with someone, we go and speak directly and only to that person. Eckhart Tolle put it really well. He says, “It’s not complaining…” It’s a long quote, but I know it. It’s not complaining to tell the waiter your soup is cold and needs to be heated up if you stick to the facts, which are always neutral.” “How dare you serve me cold soup?” That’s complaining.
Dave Bricker (09:37)
So there’s an approach that says, hey, help me resolve this problem, which is not full of blaming and shaming. And then there’s the exactly like you said, how dare you where you’re demeaning or diminishing the person you need to get a solution from. And we know how effective that is when you think of it in those terms. I’m going to criticize you and shame you and then expect you to help me. Yeah, how’s that going to work out?
Will Bowen (09:46)
Exactly. Right.
A lot of people do that and even when it’s not effective, they at least feel like, well, I told that person a thing or two. It’s a difficult situation, but again, it comes from the stories they are telling themselves in their head. And really, I was just rereading the book, The Courage to Be Disliked, and in it, the author talks about how we need to have the courage,
to express who we are and what we are without worrying so much about what other people are saying back to us. However, we do it in a neutral way. We speak to those who can help us rather than speaking to those who cannot.
Dave Bricker (10:55)
Yeah, I like that. And I’m just thinking recently where I had a client who was late paying me went beyond though not outrageously beyond the time the money was due. And I thought, well, I don’t know, maybe he’s busy. I’m not going to jump to this conclusion that he’s ripping me off and just send him an email. Hey, Joe, I’m just following up on that payment. Everything okay? And I got an email back.
Okay, any response means he’s engaged. Said, of course, I’ll look into it. Sorry about that. It took a couple of emails, but I was very gentle because I don’t want to upset the person and make them hesitant to pay me. It seems like such a basic principle, but so many people, you know, they call in the lawyers and they send out the nasty messages and just makes people hesitant to want to help you.
Will Bowen (11:50)
Yeah, but you know what? We all want to do that. That goes in our head.
Dave Bricker (11:54)
Oh yeah.
Will Bowen (11:54)
And I’m not saying it won’t go in your head. There was a wonderful Bloom County cartoon from many, many years ago where Steve is dictating through his secretary, Opus the Penguin. And he’s saying, hey, you idiot, my dear friend says, Opus, you know, where’s the damn money you owe me, you deadbeat. I’m anticipating receiving a check from you. So we’ve all got the Steve Dallas. We just got to present the Opus to the world.
if we want to get and maintain what it is we want.
Dave Bricker (12:25)
Super. I like that. I like that you have framed this in a way that we’re identifying what complaining is and also allowing that successful relationships, personal or professional, are built on boundaries. And it sounds like you’ve got that framed out very well. Let’s move on to the stories you tell your audiences about complaining. And you mentioned it shortly, but what is the impact of complaining in the professional world?
Will Bowen (12:58)
The impact on the professional world is that it creates a negative work culture. One of the buzzwords that was shown for 2023 through the survey of event planners, event professionals.
said that work culture is an extremely important thing, especially because COVID basically, I like to think of COVID as almost like within work culture. You know, you take a blanket and you snap it. That’s what work culture, COVID rather, did to work culture. It tossed everything up in the air and it left us back open to interpretation as to how to work together and in what context. And what has happened is,
it has ramped up complaining. And again, it’s not complaining to speak directly and only to the person who can resolve your issue. So to speak to management about a challenge or an issue is one thing, to just complain to others, we do that to get our social needs met.
Dave Bricker (14:06)
And there’s a lesson here for our listeners and viewers. You identified a problem, and that’s a problem many of your clients don’t even know they have. It’s costing them a pile of money, lost productivity, low morale, poor retention, et cetera. And then you developed a set of programs that solve that problem.
But if an event organizer is looking for a speaker, they say, leadership, employee retention, stress, motivation, DEI, another leadership, another leadership, more DEI, wait, complaining. Hey, what’s that? So two questions here. Talk about finding a unique niche that sets you apart from all the other speakers, and then talk about how you sell a soft…
Will Bowen (14:36)
Right.
Dave Bricker (14:55)
quote unquote soft topic to people who aren’t looking for solutions to problems they don’t know they have.
Will Bowen (15:03)
That’s a good point. The analogy I often use is when I was a kid growing up in South Carolina, everyone smoked, literally everyone. My pediatrician would lean down to check my breathing with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and I had asthma. We didn’t even notice it. Everything stank of cigarettes. Everything was coated with a yellow film. The walls, the pictures, the couches, everything, our clothes.
Same is true with complaining. And when you can get someone to go, wow, you know what, that’s a very good point. And complaining covers DEI leadership, company morale. I mean, literally everything. One of the things I did was I looked at the seven most popular topics from last year in 2023, eight topics that came out of that survey of event professionals and…
creating a complaint free culture addresses seven out of eight of them. So again, you look at it and you honestly research it and you have to be willing to take the results that you get. And I’m just fortunate that I have got a double edged sword of a topic. There’s only that I know of two other people that are speaking on this topic within our arena in NSA.
And they both do it part time and neither of them have sold four million books. I mean, you combine both of them and anyway, I’m not trying to compare. I’m just saying that I was extremely lucky too. That was another thing. I had no idea that my book was going to be the biggest selling book in all of China in 2007. And that just blew my numbers up big time.
And so I’ve just been really super lucky. I’ve been dragging, kicking my heels and dragging and screaming going into this topic the whole way. And yet it’s been very, very good to me and I’ve loved it. And I’m always learning more about it. And I can’t wait to talk about it. I’m speaking at my local rotary club a week from tomorrow today, and I’m super amped about it. So.
Dave Bricker (17:21)
And there’s a lesson there too, because I’m switching topics a little bit, but you hit on something important because so many speakers talk about fee integrity and you can’t, you know, you’ve got to get your fee to a certain point and keep it there. And speaking is about service. And I’ve talked to Hall of Fame speakers who do the same thing. I’ve got a free speaking opportunity, but I get to serve some people. I get to build relationships.
I get to make the world a better place. So I think it’s great that you’re speaking at a Rotary Club. I’m always happy to do things like that. It’s fun. You offer value to people. And I don’t think that you’re competing with yourself if a big conference organizer calls you and says, oh, I can’t pay you that. You spoke at the local Rotary Club for free. And you’re like, yeah, sure. Come see me at a Rotary Club near you. Otherwise, I offer value to your audience.
So people get stuck in that whole fee integrity question, and I don’t think integrity has anything to do with the way that they are actually seeing that.
Will Bowen (18:18)
Right.
No, I don’t either. And the other thing is that…
In almost every case, a speech begets another speech. It’s crazy.
how well that works. In fact, my closing now, I started doing this a few years ago, is I said, let me close with the three most common questions. Number one, third most common question, how do you get bracelets? How do you take my complaint -free challenge? Well, it says on your bracelet, at acomplaintfreeworld .org, go there. Second most common question people ask me is, how do we get you? My husband and my wife, they’re part of an association, they’re realtors, they’re this, they’re that, how do we get you?
Again, go to acomplaintfreeworld .org and click on speaking. And I will do that with the Rotary Club. And I will bet you somebody’s gonna reach out and at least find out what my fee is. And my lucky thing now is I’ve got people whom I’ve trained who will do my presentation for 75 % less than me. So it works out great for everybody.
Dave Bricker (19:37)
super, and we’ll get deeper into that business model in just a moment. You’re tuned into Speakipedia Media for aspiring and professional speakers and thought leaders who want to make more money by changing hearts, minds, and fortunes. My guest today is Will Bowen, the expert on complaining.
So Will, you offer keynotes, training sessions, a book, you were just talking about these programs. As a speaker and thought leader, how did you create your constellation of offerings? What are the puzzle pieces and how do they fit into the master plan of Will Bowen Business Enterprises?
Will Bowen (20:20)
Again, I was lucky and so you can’t count on luck. By that, here’s what happened for me. Started this thing, handing out bracelets. Everybody wanted bracelets, wrote a press release. When we hit 9 ,000, sent it to the Kansas City Star. That was picked up by a dozen newspapers. A few months later, we actually had some people complete the 21 days without complaining. I…
contacted the Kansas City Star again, sent a press release, followed up with phone calls. They did a story, this was picked up by McClatchy Media, which is around the world. That was in Stars and Stripes, the LA Times Today Show, People Magazine, Oprah Winfrey. You can’t replicate that. You simply cannot.
Based on that, I got a major book deal as a first -time author. I won’t explain what that is, but you can Google it. And it then became a number one international bestseller.
if I were to begin anew.
and start over because the speaking came from my literary agent knowing a speaking agent who then began to represent me which got me in front of big audiences for good fees but not often enough and from that I learned how to do my own business. If I were to start over again I would invert this whole process. First of all I’d do what I did do and that is go to Toastmasters, Toastmasters, Toastmasters and then Toastmasters.
because it’s like school. You learn something, then you do a lab. Toastmasters is the lab. That’s where you go do it. Thank you. And so you go to Toastmasters. The other thing is that I would begin to speak at…
Dave Bricker (22:07)
couldn’t agree more.
Will Bowen (22:17)
Rotaries, I would speak anywhere and everywhere for 100 % free and as soon as I was done I would hold up my camera and I would say, who are we, where are we, what did you just see, what did you think? And from there I would begin to build my website. Now, you’re going to have to pick some sort of a topic, so it’s better to pick…
One of the things you just mentioned, leadership, DEI, AI right now is ginormous. Everybody’s scared to death of it. And it’s become, when I do my pre -event calls, people are like, can you please address AI? And I’m like going, I don’t know anything about it, but sure. You find something like that that you have a passion for, and then you begin to drill deep and you…
offer and you speak. And then the other thing is there’s a hidden gold mine and I made most of my speaking money for several years doing this. In school districts, every superintendent has money for a teacher, what do they call it? I can never remember the title, staff development day.
And it’s usually they do one in August or they’ll do one in January or they’ll do both. And they have budgets for that.
And sometimes they’ll pay five to seven thousand and I have been paid upwards of sixteen just for getting together and talking to a bunch of teachers. So if you’re and their school districts all around you. So that would be one of the if I was to start over again, I would be talking to school districts and to talking to school school superintendents and offering, hey, look, when your principals get together, let me do a free 30 minutes for the principal.
to see what they think as to whether or not you should bring me in for your staff development.
Dave Bricker (24:13)
love that and for our listeners that’s just the kind of gold that that I hope we can bring on this program because that’s the kind of thing that could make somebody’s career just oh I’d never heard of that I’m gonna check that out wait I know someone who knows the superintendent and boom boom there you go another thing that that you have perhaps glossed over I don’t mean intentionally is this idea of tangible evidence and for example if
I’ve got a friend who sold a thousand books at a single speaking event. That same year, he sold 12 books on Amazon. When people see you speak, assuming you do a good job, which is what we do, right? They want that tangible evidence. They want something that they can take home with them. And I love the idea that you have this bracelet. You can afford to give it away or sell it cheap to the
meeting organizer or bundle it with your keynote fee, whatever, however it is that you work it out. But it’s, It’s got to cost you pennies to produce those things. And it sounds like people just love them. They, they want to hold that tangible evidence. And I don’t see a lot of speakers doing that.
Will Bowen (25:33)
The person who does it the best is Bruce Turkell. And Bruce does harmonicas and teaches everyone how to play a song together. So he takes this disparate group of people and he has taped.
with his logo on them. And then he charges for the harmonica, which becomes out, I’m not thinking clearly today, but it comes out of a, like a educational materials part of the budget as opposed to the speaking fee. Therefore he’s able to say, okay, my speaking fee is this, my conference materials budget, that’s it.
So we’ve actually begun to do that. We, at my level, we give away 24 copies of my book. But the reason we do 24 is I committed to my publisher that I would sell them at the event and I would schlep them there and sell sometimes some, most of them, sometimes not, and I’d have to carry them back. And so we just finally decided we’ll include that in the price.
Now we’re starting to break that out as a conference material and charging and making a little bit of money on it. And it’s, it’s working really well. So yes, having something I would warn you though, this is kind of my thing. And if you become, Oh, another bracelet. Oh, this it’s, it’s so it’s fine. If you want to do it, I’ve done 15 million. So when people see that a bracelet, they’re going to think me, not you.
or Lance Armstrong if it’s yellow.
Dave Bricker (27:07)
Yeah, and that’s important. I’m glad you brought that up because, you know, what is the original thing that you can come up with? Because not only just respect for intellectual property, I mean, somebody could come up with a rubber bracelet without infringing on your trademark or your patent or your, but at the same time, like you said, it makes them look like an imitator of you. It’s not the way to move forward in this business, not only because it’s…
not really ethical, it’s not really original, but because… it’s lazy… well…
Will Bowen (27:41)
It’s lazy, it’s lazy, it’s lazy. And the thing is, if you’ll dig deep enough, you’ll find something. There’s a woman who is in my speaker trainer group and her acronym is voice, V -O -I -C -E, and it’s all about speaking and et cetera, and using your voice for power, et cetera. And we were brainstorming the other day and what we came up with was she’s gonna give away these charms.
that are microphones and she’s got like her five principles and she’s gonna have them engraved on the back. And it’s a little tchotchke, it’s gonna cost her next to nothing, but it does make a statement. I must be a really valuable speaker if I’m giving away something valuable. The same with the harmonicas with Bruce, even though it doesn’t cost him much money.
Dave Bricker (28:33)
and Kelly Swanson has these little medallions that say, what if you were brave? I think it’s, there’s so many wonderful ways to do that, but it’s a good hook for people. And the other benefit of not copying somebody else’s tchotchke, not to diminish it, but just to put a word on it, is what I love is I can call Will Bowen on the phone. I can say, Will, I have…
Will Bowen (28:38)
Right.
Dave Bricker (29:00)
God, a client who wants XYZ, I’m not sure how to answer them. Can you help me out? I have so many speakers I can do that with who are not my competitors. They’re my collaborators. And if I were to call up and you say, well, Dave, I’d love to help you, but those purple bracelets you have, they kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Now you’d probably say it in some other way, but…
I think it’s really important to have those relationships, not just with clients, but within the speaker community, because you cannot do this profession alone.
Will Bowen (29:37)
No. And if someone were to do something like that, other speakers would come to me and go, do you see Bricker’s doing that? And I would say, he’s entitled, but they’d go, yeah, but he’s copying you. And you’d lose their relationship too. Yeah, we’re kind of a tight group.
and in a good way. And I would do the same thing if I saw somebody, I was like, hey, this new person is handing out microphones just like you, not microphones, but harmonicas just like you, Bruce. I would go, whoa, I’m gonna steer clear of that person because they’re just in my mind, not an integrist person. And that’s what’s important. That’s why I’ve always said I didn’t come up with going 21 days without complaining. I did not.
What I came up with was switching a bracelet from wrist to wrist every time you catch yourself complaining. And that tangible connection is what made this sound.
Dave Bricker (30:39)
Yep, that’s wonderful. So on your website, you offer a free ebook called, Learn How to Avoid the 10 Common Mistakes Event Professionals Make. I see a lot of power in that small strategy. Can you unpack that for our viewers and listeners?
Will Bowen (30:51)
Yes.
Well, it was originally done because I got tired of doing events that were not up to my standards, to be very honest with you. Once you’ve done the top of the table, which is the million dollar round table’s top 5%, they treat that like a television broadcast. It is as well run as when I was on the Oprah Winfrey show.
And once you get used to that, and then you go back to doing like school districts and you have to replace your own microphone batteries in the middle of a speech, which I’ve had to do. I’ve had to walk backstage and there was nobody back there, look around for batteries, find them, switch it out. So I wrote up this sort of like 10 things treatise. And of course the biggest mistake event professionals make is they don’t hire me.
So that’s the number one. But the top nine are things like scattered energy. I did an event recently that was in a room for 1 ,000 people, and they had 75 people. And rather than blocking off the back seats and making everyone come together so the energy is together, they allowed people to sit as.
Dave Bricker (31:49)
And the second one is they don’t hire me, but hey, that’s not in your book.
Will Bowen (32:16)
wherever they wished, which was mostly in the back of the room, far apart from each other. And so it’s like trying to conduct an orchestra that, because I always use that analogy. We play the audience like a conductor. And so if the orchestra is a thousand yards away, it makes it very difficult. So anyway, yeah, I made that. And what’s interesting is we were looking just the other day, because we offer it as a free ebook.
when people go to exit my website, it says, wait, don’t forget the, you know, how to avoid the top 10 mistakes event professionals make. We looked back as to who downloaded that book and a disproportionate number of the people who downloaded that book hired me. So it has, it was initially something that I did to try and create a better work environment for myself. However,
It has created real value. So now we have printed them and after someone has expressed serious interest, which means they’ve asked for a date and a fee, we then mail them by two -day mail that how to avoid the 10 mistakes. And it gets great feedback, great, great results.
Dave Bricker (33:35)
The other thing I like about that is most speaker websites, you go to the website and the speaker is saying, here is the value that I will offer your audience. It’s audience centric and of course we’re there to serve the audience. But there’s another message which is, hey, meeting planner, meeting event planner, I understand.
what your challenges are and I’m here to help you. Your website is actually serving the person who hires you and their audience. There’s a whole other level of engagement just in offering that book and I don’t think event professionals are finding that on any other speaker’s website. You’re really…
Will Bowen (34:20)
I don’t know. I do know that certainly nothing on that topic, but what I’m finding, especially now more and more and more, you’ve got to be willing to do anything and everything that other speakers are not. We’re doing little things such as I have a business manager who you know, which is my daughter, who handles everything right up, usually until they, I don’t usually speak to the client.
usually, usually until they’ve already submitted payment for to secure the date. Well, we’ve we’ve changed that when she gets them on the phone or Zoom now to do an initial call.
she makes sure that I’m available and lets me know she’s going to be on. So she’ll go, you know, it just so happens. I know that Will is in his studio right now. Let me click him in so you can at least meet him so that we compress that. And then within 24 hours, they’ve gotten a handwritten note from me, other materials. So yeah, you’ve got to just do more and more of what other speakers.
Don’t do, and what most people think we work an hour, three times a month being on stage, you gotta work your ass off to get on stage. And especially, I mean, I could do 30 events a month, but none of them at the level I wanna go out and get paid for now.
Dave Bricker (35:52)
Yeah. And again, we’re back on that theme of tangible evidence. It’s the handwritten note. It’s the bracelet. It’s the book. It’s all of that stuff that comes before and after the actual presentation. Love some of the stuff you’ve covered. So another thing, and you’re talking about people think we work.
three or four hours a month and we get paid big money to just run our mouths on stage. What a glamorous and lucrative profession. But people see us up on stage with those lights and they think we’re larger than life and hey, we’re just people like everybody else. Can you share a teachable moment when things didn’t go as expected during a performance?
Will Bowen (36:37)
Oh my God, how much time do you have? I’ll tell you my best one. This is my best one. There’s a client that hired me to do, they do, it’s like a paid rotary club. Think of an expensive rotary club that you pay, I think it’s 15 grand a year, and you get to go and it’s industry exclusive and you get to meet other movers and shakers within your city.
and they have these like as franchises around the country and I think they’re probably up to a dozen now they did eight they had eight and they really liked me so they sent me from event to event to event and I was getting at the high end of my scale then you know the high end which was good not paying anyone else as an agent or anything like that so I was making good money and I did a bunch of events made a lot of money.
They then had the idea, what do we do if, because we’re running eight of these, is it a month? Yes, it’s a once a month meeting. We’re doing eight of these a month all over the country. What happens if a speaker we are bringing in, that’s 96 speakers, what if, that’s more than that, anyway.
No, it’s 96. Anyway, what happens if they get snowed in? What happens if they have a flight canceled? What happens if this? What happens if that? So they said, well, let’s ask Will to come and do a speech and we will videotape him. And I’m going to name a number, but it’s below my range, but I’m going to name it just so you’ll understand the story point. If we will videotape Will and…
If this happens in any market, they will have a disk, this was back when everybody was using hard copies of stuff, with Will’s presentation and they can run that and we will pay Will $4 ,000. It’s an emergency, but if we have to run it, Will gets paid for doing nothing new, right?
So I’m like, wow, this is awesome. So they bring me into the Bridgestone Amphitheater in Nashville, Tennessee. And I’m not speaking in the main arena where the games are played and the concerts are held. I’m speaking in the outside where you would go and get your popcorn and peanuts normally during, or your t -shirts during a game or whatever, a concert, the arena outer perimeter.
but they’ve turned it into an executive meeting and it’s all these presidents of companies and I’m up on a stage but I’m on a very small stage, smallest stage I’ve ever been on. No bigger than where I’m sitting right now and monitors on either side so I’m wearing two microphones, one for the camera, one for the audience.
I get announced, I go onto the little small stage and I’m killing it for about 10 minutes. And then all of a sudden we start to hear this, music. And it is so loud, it is bleeding through both of my microphones. Everyone is looking around like this. I totally.
lost my audience. I’m keenly aware that I need to make this speech land because there’s an opportunity for years worth of revenue from this one speech. So I turned to the local president of the chapter and I said, would you please go find where the music‘s coming from and ask it to stop for the next 45 minutes. And this guy
I mean, this guy looks like a bank president. He’s wearing a three -piece suit, silver hair. He rushes but very stately out of the room, out of the area. The music stops. I resume, figuring we can cut it together, right? Another 10 minutes and it starts again. And it’s way louder this time and there’s drums and there’s singing.
And someone walks up to me and says, it’s 8 .30 in the morning now. Okay, 8 .30 in the morning. We are very sorry, but that is Kenny Chesney and his band. They are playing to a full arena tonight and they have chosen to rehearse right now. And we cannot go down and ask them to wait on this meeting of 125 local.
business executives. We’re very sorry. So I shouted my way through the rest of the presentation and as soon as I got off stage I called the owner of the company and said, thank you for the opportunity. You are not going to be able to use it. There is no way and I understand completely. So that’s just one of many. I have garbage. I’ve had garbage cans being dumped behind me.
right during my presentation. So yeah, there’s always, and in that audience, in that time, you make or you lose your audience entirely. You have to handle this with the most amount of grace you can muster, because they are judging you.
Dave Bricker (42:04)
And that’s the presentation sometimes, because everybody sees you up on stage, and they see that you’re dealing with these circumstances they certainly wouldn’t want to have to deal with. And okay, if you could fall off the tightrope, sometimes you can’t help that. The wind blows, you get knocked off, can you land on your feet? That’s what wins the audience. It’s not whether or not you stay on the tightrope. And hey, let’s…
Let’s bring this full circle, right? So many people fall off and then they complain about the tightrope.
Will Bowen (42:38)
Yeah, and really I’ve had such great experiences with like, I had an event in Malta last year where they said, instead of telling me the configuration of the room will be this, they said, how do you want the room configured? You’re speaking to a thousand people. Where do you want the people? Where do you want the chairs? Where do you want the monitors?
Most cases, that’s not the case. It’s you’re standing over here in this dark corner. Why is it a dark corner? Because we saved, I’m just speaking the truth, we saved $250 on a spotlight because we, but we want to make sure that the screens are huge. It’s so that, that again, that’s mentioned in my. Yeah. So there you go.
Dave Bricker (43:17)
Sorry about the pillars all over the room. Yeah. So Will, you have sat with me through this whole interview and not one complaint. Thank you very much for that. Where can our viewers and listeners discover more about you and the value you offer?
Will Bowen (43:34)
WillBowen .com, www .willbowen .com, that’s the portal. If you wanna know about the Complaint Free Movement, just click on Complaint Free. Wanna know about me as a speaker, that’s what the entire website’s dedicated to.
Dave Bricker (43:48)
and I’m sure your speaking academy is impressive. Do you have a link or access to that?
Will Bowen (43:56)
It is www .complaintfreetrainer .com. Not plural, trainer .com. www .complaintfreetrainer .com. And it explains everything.
Dave Bricker (44:13)
Wonderful. So Will, thank you so much for joining me today.
Will Bowen (44:19)
My pleasure, Dave.
Dave Bricker (44:20)
Alright, so I’m Dave Bricker, inviting you to explore the world’s most comprehensive resource for speakers and storytellers at www .speakipedia .com. If you’re watching this on social media video, please love, subscribe, and share your comments. If you’re listening to the podcast, keep your hands on the wheel, stay safe, and I’ll see you on the next episode of Speakipedia Media.
