480 – He’s spoken in 65 countries: Tom interviews Frank Furness

Episode 480 – Frank Furness
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:23] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode four hundred and eighty of Screw the Commute podcast. I'm here with Frank Furness and wow man, he and I go so far back I can't remember how far back it is. Maybe he'll remind me where I met him, but we've been around a long time. He's one of the top speakers in the world, I usually say in the country. But this guy's in the world. Spoken in 65 countries. Wow. And he's all kinds of accolades for his speaking prowess. And he's into video. He's got online courses. And, you know, you don't want to miss this guy, so bring him on in the minute. I hope you miss Episode 479 Another World Traveler, Lauren Resnick. And she really concentrates on women that she takes powerful women and gets them out of the nine to five and gets them over the hump to start their own business. And she also has this very cool travel writing business where she gets freebies from all the fancy hotels. You ought to see her her Instagram with all these gorgeous places. She stays on somebody else's dime and she has a course on that. So that was episode 479. Anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com slash and then the episode number 479.

[00:01:44] And I'm sure you want to come back to this one too or pass it around. It's four eighty with Frank Furness because he's got lots of gems for you. Now grab a copy of our Automation eBook. This ebook has saved me seven and a half million keystrokes. We actually estimated it about two years ago, so it's more than that now. It allows me to ethically steal customers from people too lazy to get back to people fast, and it reduces my workload by gazillions. I've been using this for years and years and years. That's just one tip in the book, folks. So there's a whole bunch of them. So grab it at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Hey, and while you're at it, pick up a copy of my podcast app. It's at screwthecommute.com/app and we have videos to show you how to use it. You know, a lot of people give you an app. You got to try to figure it out on your own. We got videos and screen captures to show you how to use it so you can take us with you on the road. Now, I normally tell you about my school, but now I want to tell you a little bit about a pilot project we're doing with my school, which I'm really, really proud of.

[00:02:56] You know, I've done a lot of charity and raised funds and saved, you know, fed homeless kids and all kinds of stuff. But and dogs, I mean, rescued loads of dogs. But I kind of as I look back, I'm really proud of those things. But I kind of look at them like a Band-Aid. You know what happens after I fed those 500 kids for a year? What happens then? So in this case, I'm doing a project where I'm getting persons with disabilities and getting them scholarships so that they can not only learn from home, they can legitimately work from home or start their own business or both. And it's just, you know, they've been dealt a hand that's, you know, a lot worse than an average person has. But like, for instance, if I want to go to 7-Eleven, you know, fifteen minutes, I'm there and back, but it might take them an hour just to get ready to get in a vehicle, you know, so I really want to do something about this. And their suicide rates are four times greater than average. Their depression rates about the same and their unemployment is massive. So what I did was make a go fund me account.

[00:04:09] We're going to actually hire some people that have disabilities to help run the program and we're going to put five people through. And then when I prove the concept, then I'm going to go after grants and foundations and roll it out really, really big and help lots of people and change their lives forever. So. So I'd love to have your help in this. If you go to IMTCVA.org/disabilities and click on Go Fund Me, you'll see some of the people, you'll see some of the updates and, and anything you can contribute. We really appreciate it. And hey, if you're really flush with cash you could sponsor a person yourself. How about that. So that's the story. Check it out and any little bit helps.

[00:04:53] All right. So let's get to the main event. Frank Furness is a CSP, that's a certified speaking professional, and that means he's organized because I could never figure out all the paperwork to get. He's a best selling author and international sales and technology speaker, and he travels between his homes in London, Spain and Florida whenever they'll let him back in a country that is, and he's presented in 65 countries now. He's a regular speaker at Entrepreneur's University and his clients include the British Olympic team, Sporting Champions and Sport England. Frank, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:05:34] Hey, I'm ready to screw Tom.

[00:05:36] All right. I know you you South African guys are always ready, ready for that. So how are you doing, man?

[00:05:43] I'm bringing a great to talk to you again, Tom. And you were just saying we did. We meet and I think it was at the Dorte Walters' thing that we used to go into every year in Hollywood. Can you remember that? Yeah, I remember the game, great might say.

[00:05:57] But I remember hearing you recently on talking about Thailand. Were you on our trip to Thailand? That one? I don't. Maybe not. That was I was in the early 90s. We had to junkets to Thailand. But anyway, I'm sure glad I met you, that's for sure.

[00:06:16] And we've been in touch all the time, and you and I, we I mean, we just bump over each other all the time because we got the same kind of great ideas, how to make money while you sleep. And I just remember learning from you that one day in Hollywood you were sitting in the back of the room, that you had your laptop open and all I heard was ka ching ching ching. And I got greener and greener. And I thought, geez, I'm going to learn from this guy. I bought all your courses. Best thing I ever did.

[00:06:40] Well, hopefully they're paying off for it, which they obviously are in the. But you've really taken off with the the speaking. I mean, you know, I like this at home. You apparently like to sit on airplanes because. Sixty five countries. Oh, my goodness. Is it getting a lot tougher now with this covid thing.

[00:06:59] Yeah. Yeah. For the last 18 months I haven't been able to travel at all. I can't even get to my place in Florida. So I just can't wait to I don't even mind sitting in the back row next to the toilet right now. I just want to get onto an airplane.

[00:07:11] I don't I've been watching TV. They're dragging people off and there's fights and everything. But but you've got all these online courses, though, so you weren't one of the the speakers. I mean, I remember when 9/11 hit some very big name speakers. I won't name their names, but went bankrupt because all they could do is run their mouth. They didn't have any of these other things, products and services. So. So tell us about some of the courses that you have.

[00:07:41] Yes. Basically, when it hit last year, I had everything was canceled. You know, any speaker that says I still get tons of work, I think they're lying through their teeth. I even have to give some money back to some clients that it paid me a deposit. And I just thought, what can I do right now? And I just thought about some of the things that I speak about, some of the things that I love. And I started to create online courses and I've got mine at the moment. I've got one on LinkedIn, LinkedIn I really know well. And I show people how to make money on LinkedIn. I got one on video on YouTube marketing. You know, you and I are really big on YouTube. And then I created one on how to sell using Zune because everybody has a new way of selling. Put that together. And the latest one I've got, which is really awesome, is with a great friend of mine called Freddie Ravel.

[00:08:27] Hmm. Yeah, Freddie. He's been at bootcamp.

[00:08:30] Yeah. Freddie is just awesome. I mean, Freddie used to be the keyboard player for Earth, Wind and Fire and Santana. He's worked with some of the greatest people in the world and he's a great mate of mine. And last year we decided to put a course together and we called it Life in Tune with Social Media, where we combine all of his expertise on the music side and mine. On the social media side, it's an absolutely awesome course. What's the name of that one? Life in tune with social media.

[00:08:57] Oh, OK. Now I probably I've blurted out butt camp, if new listeners would know, like, what the heck is he talking? So so folks, bootcamp is the longest continuously running Internet marketing seminar ever. And I came from a cosmic background and people were begging me to teach this Internet stuff. And and I said, man, I can't have a boot camp. Everybody has boot camp. So I was sitting there making all this money on my rear end. So I called it bootcamp and it caught on. And I've done it in 11 countries around the world, except I don't know if you know this prank. When I did it in London, they made me call it bum camp instead of butt camp.

[00:09:39] So, Freddie yeah, I haven't heard from him for a while, but yeah, he's been the been to butt camp. And so let's talk a little bit more about video. You've had been very successful using video, as have I. And I love to hear your take on what's going on in the video world.

[00:09:56] So I started doing video when YouTube opened up. I thought this is this has got to be something that we've got to get into. And I've got over a thousand videos already. Many of them have got half a million views. This stacked with hundreds of thousands of views there. And what I do know is also work with companies consulting them on the various strategies, because, I mean, you know, I know just simple things like companies have got the videos on and they embedded from YouTube and what happens at the end of it, they have somebody else's copy being advertised there and they they're not even realizing it. Right. And I mean, there's just so much you can do the things with the thumbnail. So I've put together a huge online course on what to do with video, how you can make the videos different ways of using video in your business. And yes, a great one. Video testimonials. So this one's been really popular because most people don't know how to do a video testimonial. And really it's made up of three parts. So the first part of it is the person giving the elevator speech, basically who they are and what they do. Oh, wait a minute.

[00:11:02] Wait a minute, Frank. So which perspective are you talking about, given the testimonial or getting people to give you testimonials?

[00:11:09] So getting somebody to give you the testimony

[00:11:12] And helping them along that. So it's so it's the best thing. Be right,

[00:11:16] Absolutely. So you catch them before they give it to you and and you say to them, listen, the first part is 20 seconds. This is where you sell yourself. You know how my name is? Tom Antion. I'm one of the world's top Internet marketers. I help people make money while they sleep. So that's the first part of it. The second part is where they talk about you or your business. But you've got to tell them, don't use words like fantastic or amazing, rather use solutions. So by going on Tom's but of increased my online wealth by three million or whatever. So they talk about what they got from you and then they finish off again with who they are and what they do, how the system Antion Internet millionaire, and that works really well. And the higher up the chain you can go, the better it is. So many years ago I do some crazy things like you, Tom. I didn't email cold email campaign to CEOs in the Middle East to say to them, listen, I want to come in and I want to speak for your company. And one of them came back to me. In fact, you came back to me. One was Dubai firm, which had been trying to get on to for years. And they said, listen, we just got this email sound just like we want you and can you come on the program? That was great.

[00:12:26] I had a half an hour of self promotion, but the other one was a lady that said, listen, can you come in and work with our board of directors and just help him with some presentation skills? I see no problem at all. She comes back about a week later and she says, well, it's actually just one on one with our CEO. Can you do that? Yeah, no problem at all. And then she came back and said, we've checked you out, which means we looked at your website, we've looked at your LinkedIn, we've checked everything out. And I haven't told you the whole truth. It's not only the CEO of the biggest company, one of the biggest companies in the Middle East, but he is also the crown prince of Abu Dhabi. And so from that one cold image, I spent two days working in the royal palace. I was given Camilla. It was just unbelievable. But the powerful thing there was I got that video testimonial from him, put it up on my website, put it up on YouTube, and from that started getting calls all over the Middle East to sign all kinds of disclosures to say not who I was working with because it's sort of against the grain to be getting coaching. But just from there, one video testimonial, just tons and tons of work around the Middle East.

[00:13:33] Amazing. Amazing. Now that there's one technique we teach, it's called a 45 degree testimonial. And it's when you have to get a testimonial from somebody that's really, really camera shy and gets all messed up and it takes three hours to get a testimonial on them. So we put somebody at a forty five, we put the camera at a 45 degree angle. So they're not looking at it. And we put somebody off camera asking them questions and we'll say like, hey, Frank, what did you like about Tom's retreat center? And you're supposed to retreat. Repeat that. And then we cut out the questioner. So well, what I liked about the retreat center was blah, blah, blah. And then we get almost first take. We get a good test of so so.

[00:14:20] Oh, that's amazing. Yeah.

[00:14:21] So and and also there's a new thing that you're going to probably have to update your course on all these unless it's in there already on all these YouTube shorts. You know, the video short videos like Reels on Instagram and what's it called, TikToc, you know, so YouTube just had six billion views on when they rolled out their thing. So that's an up and up and coming thing on YouTube is changing so fast. There's so many things you can do that most people don't have never even heard of.

[00:14:54] I know YouTube has just become absolutely amazing. And one of the things I just heard lately, I don't know what your take on this is. They are promoting more videos that now are a bit longer, sort of eight to ten minutes, whereas before it used to be under two minutes. Well, what's your take on that?

[00:15:08] Well, they're going they're going both ways. So they're taking the really short ones one minute or less to compete with Instagram. Instagram has one called Real's, which is short videos. And then, of course, Tick-Tock, you know, is just blowing the roof off the world. And so they didn't want all those people leaving to go. Well, I mean, first of all, Instagram did it because people were leaving Instagram going to ticktock. So they put reels and then YouTube said, wait a minute, what are you guys going? Yes, they put in YouTube shorts, but YouTube has, you know, all length. The videos can do just fine. Now, if it's a good I've watched I watched an hour and 15 minute video, Frank, on how to raise chickens.

[00:15:56] It was interesting. And I you know, I was always thinking, you know, get the fresh eggs and all that stuff. And then I watched everything for an hour. Fifteen minutes is very interesting. And and then I decided, you know what, I'm kind of hungry for chicken. I'm going to KFC at the end of that. But wow, so so, yeah, all links can work if they're interesting, and then you have to make sure people watch a high percentage. It used to be the it was the number of views that was the Holy Grail, but now it's the percentage of watch time. So to make an eight minute video, you better make sure that it's interesting to keep them going for eight minutes, because if they only watch one minute of an eight minute video, that's a low percentage of watch time. And if it was a two minute video and they watched one minute, that's a 50 percent watch time. So so, yeah, I believe in all length of videos. If you're good enough to make them interesting. That's the whole thing.

[00:16:53] Yeah. And the other thing for me, YouTube has been the best thing in the world for search engine optimization. I can see these big companies that are paying absolute fortunes for PPC, Facebook advertising and anyone who's listening to this right now, if you just open up Google now, I don't care where you are in the world and just do a search for sales technology speaker, you will see that for the last 10 years I have actually owned the first page in any country in the world. I've been to China, Malaysia all over. And two reasons. A Tom one is YouTube, because every video I make, I make sure I have sales technology speak in three places. I have it in the title, I have it in the description and I have it in the tags. So of course Google owns YouTube. When it's scraping, it picks it up. I just went on just before we started the program and I never know which videos are going to be almost every day different, but because I've got a thousand up there and I'm adding every day, even my podcasts now I've got all of those things, those keywords in I own the first page. So for SEO, YouTube is absolutely amazing. The second thing is also if you do that search, you'll see by having my LinkedIn optimized as well for those keywords on that come up on the first page for a search term on LinkedIn for sales technology speaker

[00:18:16] As a perfect example of owning something, you know, people want to, you know, put 50 different things on their website and then they look like a jack of all trades to the search engines. And the search engines say, no, we want the top of the top and whatever somebody's searching for. And you just you you were smart to do that. And you don't you dominate paid off big time. Now you're doing some remote, like Zoom kind of speaking.

[00:18:44] Yes, I am. So a lot of my clients have gone on to the same thing, so that's pretty good. And we know as well you're not quite perfectionist at this kind of thing. You've got to have the right kind of set up, the right kind of lighting microphone sound and all of that. So I've spent quite a lot getting all that right. In fact, I sold at my place in London, Tom, and I've moved to a place called Great Yarmouth. I bought a place right on the beach and the office turned into a workspace. I've got the TV studio in the front and at the back I've got my percussion kit, I've got my electronic drum kit, I've got all my guitars and my saxophones. So as soon as I finished the session, I can sit down and play some drums or bass guitar, which is just brilliant. And that's what I say to people now. It's a whole different world. You know, we're not going into the office, create your own workspace and make it comfortable. Enjoy what you're doing.

[00:19:35] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like I said, I mean, preaching to the choir. I mean, I've I've never had a job, so that's why I screw the commute, you know, so and I actually I don't know if you do this. I had the second biggest nightclub in the state for six years and I lived above it. So technically, I had a nightclub in my basement.

[00:19:56] Yeah. I think any guy in the world could say that nothing surprises me about you.

[00:20:01] And, you know, another thing I like about YouTube is that it's one of the best bargains on Earth. If you do want to do paid ads, you know, those those ads where you can click the skip button, you know, I can get two to four cent views on those when the same keywords in the regular search would cost me a buck and a half to five bucks. And so and then also, if you click the skip before thirty seconds, you don't have to pay anything, you know. So we actually do that. Sometimes we say click the skip button. If you don't care about this, you know, and get back to the video you want to watch. That way you don't have to pay for it. So love, totally love video. Another thing we do Francos seem to think about this is we absolutely apeshit. Love video. YouTube, however. We love YouTube to capture people and channel them to my website or to an email list or something, but once we get them to my Web site, we don't post the videos on YouTube.

[00:21:06] Oh, absolutely. I got a permit for this because otherwise you're getting all of the ads and everything coming up there.

[00:21:13] Yeah, and it's too easy. The YouTube's always going to make it easy for them to go back and watch some stupid cat video. So, yeah.

[00:21:22] Don't you find amazing how many big companies are still doing that using the YouTube embed videos on their website?

[00:21:28] They hire people that never made a nickel online, but they're technically OK and they say, oh yeah, this easiest way to do it. Yeah, well, they don't think past that where we're thinking as marketers what we want people to be psychologically. We don't want them distracted once we get them. It's like a one way valve. And once you get to my website, I'm not going to make it easy for you to go back to YouTube, you know, so. So that's all that stuff's in your course, right?

[00:21:55] Yeah. Got all of that stuff in the course. And then I've got another course on LinkedIn. And of course, LinkedIn is the hottest thing at the moment for B2B or B2C business. In fact, it's where I'm driving all my business from at the moment. Tom.

[00:22:09] All right. So I want you to talk me into why I should put some time into LinkedIn, which I have pretty much ignored my whole career.

[00:22:18] Ok, so a couple of things. The first thing, if you optimize your website for those keywords, you're going to get onto the first page of a Google search. So there's a good one straight away.

[00:22:30] Oh, I want to ask you something specific. Your profile. Should it be first person or third person?

[00:22:36] Oh, absolutely. First person, anything that you're doing online, any videos or anything, one person is watching you. One person is reading that. It's like you're sitting in front of the person having coffee and that's why you got to talk. So never in the third place.

[00:22:50] That's a mistake on my profile. Currently it's in the third person.

[00:22:56] The second thing is using all of the key words, that's a great place for stuffing key words, because in your description, you can go in there and you can put in a ton of stuff on the on the description. And a lot of that I would put in. Frank's speciality is LinkedIn, YouTube, and I'm putting all of those in again when Google scraping it. It's picking up all of those keywords. If you can just take a look at mine, which is just linkedin.com/in/frankfurness. There's a space over there where people just put in what they do. Basically, it's the description. And if you look at Monday's four different things that I put in there that are optimized for so one would be YouTube specialist and then you have a space and you have that straight up thing called a pipe, which is really saying to Google, we're going to put in a different key phrase now. So I've got four different key phrases I'm optimizing in, but right throughout LinkedIn, I'm putting those in all the time. So that's the first thing is just optimize your profile to get found. The second thing is now you can go hunting because I know who my target audience is, basically who I want to sell products to. I've got a great online course for financial advisors. In fact, it's the biggest online course for financial advisors, over 500 videos. It's absolutely huge. So what I've got to do is I've got to go after them so I can go in. I can do advanced searches for all of these people. And I use what or two little secret programs over there that does it in the background that connects four with 100 people a day or and sends them a personalized message.

[00:24:34] This program also what it does is it goes and it wishes everybody happy birthday. Some touching. I've got nearly thirty thousand people, which is the maximum you can have. So it's touching thirty thousand people a year without me having to do anything in that car. Frank, it's so nice to hear from you again. By the way, can you come in and do some work for our company or. We've got a conference coming up. Can you come and speak? And the third thing you've got to do is you've got to post regularly. Now, what I've done is I post four days a week, Monday to Thursday. And again, I've bought every LinkedIn course. I've spoken to all of the experts. And what I found out is Monday is your personal day. So you write a personal post, something that happened to you that weekend. A great little story. People love it because they like to get to know the real you. Tuesday is your best post of the week. And also every post you do, it's going to drive people to do something. Either come to one of my webinars, buy my course, download my free ebook. It's no good just putting, you know, so many people just going a post for the sake of posting, which is absolutely useless. You and I know. Yeah, we sell them every time we do something. So every time I have a post at the end of it, it's sending them to do something or buy something or join something or even just sign up for one of my email lists, which later on I'll try and sell them something.

[00:25:58] Now, the other thing is you've got to get people's attention as well. So always have a headline that's all in capitals and ask a question or make a startling statement. You know, this Tom you the master of this kind of stuff. And but you've got to do that. You've got to grab their attention, then go in and do your normal post. And and then at the end of it, again, you ask a question so that they go in and comment, because just like YouTube loves interaction, so does LinkedIn. So the longer the people stay on your posts, the more they like that. So the more comments you're getting, the more they love it. Now, start off and I've had my posts promoted last week. I took posts that had over fifty thousand views and about 1100 interactions on the posts. And I gonna tell you another cool little thing, a way of getting leaked. So you're now always thinking of sales. So there's a couple of different ways that you can post. One is video posts. They don't get many views, but they really good if people actually take their time. But there's got to be a pretty short video. I try and do between one minute, two minutes. Most people don't really have the time. The other one is they love PD. So if you've got an article, just put it into big writing, put it into a PDF, because what it means is people then have to page through it and they stay on it longer, then just quickly reading a post. And again, the algorithms love that.

[00:27:27] So they're not downloading the PDF? They're just opening it on LinkedIn.

[00:27:32] Yeah. And they paging through it. Got it. And then you've got your normal kind of post. But my favorite kind of post where you get the most interaction is on the polls. The polls are just fantastic. Every time I do a poll I get between ten thousand and one hundred thousand views. But the thing that you want is it's going to drive people to doing. Or something, so I might be asking a question. Let's say about video and give them four different answers. So let's say 200 people go in and they make a vote. What you can then do is go in and see everybody who's voted and you can now go back to them. So I have a guy in India who goes back now for me and he says, listen, I see you took part in this interaction over. By the way, did you know Franck's got a course on this? So all of these people have expressed an interest and that is now can either connect with or turn them into a lead source to try and sell something to do. So LinkedIn is just brilliant if you know how to use it properly.

[00:28:32] All right. Now, I got to ask a question about this software, because, you know, over the years, lots of places, Twitter, YouTube, have had software, third party softwares that eventually got banned or got people banned. So is this a short term thing that this is something that's working now that probably will go under or this is something LinkedIn allows or what?

[00:28:58] Linkedin doesn't like it because it's LinkedIn wants you to be doing the stuff. So it sort of works behind the scenes, but it's been really, really good. And what it does, it feeds things so slowly that it actually looks like you.

[00:29:13] Mimics a human.

[00:29:16] Yes. Yeah. Because some of the software just they just stupid. I'll get you banned straightaway and I'll never do any of that stuff because it's taken me a long five years to build up thirty thousand followers. So I'm not going to take any chances.

[00:29:29] Got it. All right. So what happens on Wednesday?

[00:29:33] So Wednesday and Thursday is just your normal kind of post, again, driving people to do things so normally on Monday, I have a personal thing. Tuesday would be my poll because that's my big day. Wednesday would just be a regular kind of post. First, I would either be a video or a PDF document. And then Fridays I have a thing called Fun Fridays where I just have weird and wacky stuff and just get people laughing. And they also had a specific time to actually post. So posting before seven thirty is pretty good and before eight 30 I try and get in and comment on other people.

[00:30:10] I know you mean seven thirty a.m.

[00:30:12] Seven thirty. At what time zone. So whatever time zone that you're in,

[00:30:18] I bet you do stuff around the world, right?

[00:30:21] So so, yeah. So I try and stick to the UK times. I know, OK, because that works pretty well for me.

[00:30:29] Ok, got it.

[00:30:31] And I might switch to the U.S. when I get when I eventually can get there, but at the moment I'm stuck. Yes, I'll just stick to that one.

[00:30:37] Well, it's not here anymore. We left. You're gone. It won't be here by the time we're allowed to go.

[00:30:46] Just lock the door. The last person leave the keys.

[00:30:48] Right. Well, OK. So you convinced me I need to put some more effort into that. But I'm a boy, know, I've been so there's just so many options to things that you can do and that have been making lots of money. For me, this is another thing on the plate. But but it's certainly so it's not one of these fly by night things. And, you know, the reason I'm always skeptical is because I remember MySpace. Yeah. And how it was the greatest thing ever to hit the world and then boom, gone.

[00:31:22] Yeah, I know this. I think you and I are pretty different. But anyone else listening to this, you know, if they've got any kind of business or they're entrepreneurs, it's just a great way to connect with your right kind of target audience. Show them you're the expert, feed them some stuff and say, hey, listen, this guy knows what they're doing, you know, whatever business and I want to go and do business with them.

[00:31:43] Yeah, absolutely. So. All right. So you also you just you alluded to it a little earlier, but you help people with speaking.

[00:31:53] Yeah, absolutely. So that's going to be my my next online course. In fact, in about three or four months from now, it's going to be a membership site for speakers. And, you know, there's so much to speak. And you've got to be a fantastic speaker, number one, to get the gigs around the world. But secondly, you've got to be an incredible marketer. I've done very little work through speaker bureaus. I've always marketed myself, and that's where I've got myself around the world. So I'm going to be teaching speakers how they can actually market themselves, how they can get the big international gigs way to go, how to get started. And even for seasoned professionals, I have a lot of seasoned professionals. I run, I think, called Speakers Bootcamp. We are take people away for two days and I just show them how to make money speaking and especially on the international circuit, because, I mean, what can be better? Somebody flies your first class, they put you in a beautiful five star hotel. You go up, you do 45 minutes and they pay you a few dollars. And what I always do is I always add on an extra week if I'm going to an exotic. Right. Right. Well, I go to Singapore or Thailand or Malaysia, fly in, fly out. I think it's just crazy that speakers do that. I retired twenty years ago. I'm living my retirement, but people pay me to go and travel around the world and sit and have fun, you know, which is I think it's just so great for speakers to do so. I also started a private Facebook well and open Facebook group for anyone that wants to join. And I'd love you to come and join because we're sharing all kinds of ideas on that Facebook group.

[00:33:31] Yeah, yeah. I think I joined the other day, but yeah. Everybody listening. What's with how do you find it.

[00:33:38] Ok, so if you go to the Facebook group, I'm just looking it up now and I'll

[00:33:42] Have it in the show so they can click on it.

[00:33:44] So yes. So is Facebook forward slash groups and then speak for profits. That's the name speak for profits. That's the name of the group. Yes. Speak for profits.

[00:33:58] OK, great. Yeah, I'm sure it'll be a lot of great stuff there. The only thing I run into sometimes quite a few times is people come to me and say, Tom, I just I just want the business of speaking because, you know, you got to be on stage and the business, two different things have to work. And and they say, yeah, I'm already good at speaking and I just want the business. And and I look at their demo tape and I'm think you're good compared to what. Yeah. They, they, they all they want to make the money, but they don't understand that being really great on stage makes the money too, you know, because if you could get the first job and then go up and be terrible and then the money is not going to come very easily because the word will spread that you suck.

[00:34:46] Yeah, I mean, you just got to do one or two really bad things and that's it. The word spread so quickly. So, I mean, you've got to be unbelievable on stage and then you've got to be unbelievable on the marketing side, you know, so it's two sides to the business. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you were a great speaker before you really started your millionaire business. And you know what it takes, you know, getting up there, speaking to audiences, you've got to be really on form every time.

[00:35:12] Well, I was a big proponent of very high levels of customization. So a lot of times and I have you know, I did a thousand comic performances in my entertainment company before I ever got to be a professional speaker. So entertainment value is really, really important. I know you're a funny speaker because people are just bombarded with all kinds of information and screens. And and if you can't keep their attention, it doesn't matter how brilliant your ideas are.

[00:35:46] Yeah, and you and I are so similar because we love the whole technology thing, but unless you bring some humor and add stories in, the whole thing just falls apart. People get bored.

[00:35:56] Yeah, I mean, I've been hired before, probably you two on like a signature story, something you couldn't remember my name, but get that guy that told that story and you know, and then they couldn't remember who I was, but I got the job again, so. Yeah, honing. And it takes a while to hone your stories. I mean, you know, I probably told the same story a couple hundred times in front of a live audience before the final version emerged, you know, trying little nuances here and there to get reactions. And, you know, it's so many people want to be a pro speaker, but they don't act like a pro. They just want the money and say, oh, I just get up there and I got great ideas. Well, there's so many little details to it.

[00:36:37] Well, what they do in the UK is a lot of the top professional comedians. They want to come up with a fresh show every year. So they'll work for months and months on that show and then they'll go to the little theatres and you can actually go in and see the show for free. And they'll be testing these stories. They'll be testing their jokes and they'll do that 10, 20 times at different theaters for free until they know what works. And then they'll launch themselves and go out there. And most speakers don't even taste it. You know, they they go on stage and they'll test and it doesn't work. And why didn't it work?

[00:37:10] Yeah, I have been to some of those comedy things. It's very interesting. They have they have notes up there and different jokes and and they scratch something out and, you know, they're working. They're being professionals. I tell the story one time where, you know, there's so many different factors like time of day. So I'm a pretty funny speaker. So early morning, super early bird sessions aren't that good for me. So I was booked at an early bird session and there's five hundred people at this event and a bunch of breakout speakers and and there's 50 at the banquet. There's 50 tables of ten people. And I decided, you know what, I'm going to skip the meal, which, you know, that doesn't happen very often for me.

[00:37:57] I know the feeling.

[00:37:59] I went to each table and did a funny magic trick that I could reset real fast. And I said, Hey, hey, everybody, I was funny, but hey, I'm going to be the early bird speaker in the morning. And, you know, I know it's early, but if you get up, I'll really make it worth your while. I went to all 50 tables and did this. So. So this is a seven, seven a.m. session, six a.m. It's standing room only out the door. And the meeting planner is freaking out, begging me to stay and do another session in the after. And all the other speakers were empty. And I said, well, you know, I'm sorry. I did what I had to do to do a good job. And you didn't use that night eight. And so so there's just loads of things like that you can do to really, really, you know, you can't afford for the amounts of money that we get paid to have an empty room and a and a pitiful performance.

[00:38:52] No, I remember one talk at the Tom, which was really interesting the first time I ever went to India, didn't know what to expect. And they said, you're opening keynote speakers. Okay, great. What time is it? Nine o'clock. I said, no, you're on a six. What, six? And I'm thinking, bloody hell, nobody's going to be in the room at six a.m. I'll go down. I might be, you know, a few guys that are still sleeping from the night before I went down five thirty to set up six hundred people sitting, waiting. I never seen anything like it. They travelled from all over India. This was a highlight of their year and they were there at six a.m. in the morning. Just amazing.

[00:39:29] Yeah, it's. And you've done way more international speaking to me. But but it's you know, it's that's another critical thing. You can do one wrong thing and offend the whole crowd, you know, just because you don't know any better. I know I was speaking I was speaking in Thailand. I've been there twice. And there was a couple things I think I might have invented this idea, but the people in the crowd spoke English. But the set people didn't speak a word of English. So I took pictures of all the kinds of stuff I need a screen, a projector. And I and I just showed them a picture that, OK, you know, so that was something that would have been a disaster because everything was running late chaos. But no. And I couldn't speak. Tell them what I wanted. So that was one thing is shown pictures. And then the other thing that happened was that the front row of seats where all these beautiful pads, you know, chairs and the rest of them were just regular chairs. And so I normally go around and shake hands with people and say, hey, want to sit up front, you know? But I found out that only the bosses get to sit up front. Right. And had I force that person who doesn't want to. Offend me, the speaker, to sit up in the front and violate the norms of their whole company. But you have to know those kinds of things before you you stand up there because you could like I said, you could do one thing. I think one time somebody said, somebody don't cross your legs if you sit down because you're the sole of your foot is very offensive to people, you know. And so, yeah, just stuff like that that you probably know way more than I do. But but that's again, being approached, checking all this stuff out ahead of time.

[00:41:19] I had one that I didn't, one of the Middle Eastern company countries where dancing is banned. And it was about eight speakers there. And I'd really done my homework because I'd gone through every slide, made sure there was nothing offensive. And so what I did is I got some of the crowd just to stand up and do some things with me. And it was great. They were all interacting and really enjoying it. So the next speaker came on and he thought he was going to do something a bit different. He was going to get the crowd to stand up and dance to tell you what it was just like this dead silence. And then the guy that hired me was the translator. He was fighting me on my mobile. He was knocking on my door. They want to come and kill me. I get people off the stage.

[00:42:03] The I think, well, there's two of the worst things I ever did was when I first started back in the early 90s, I was coming out of my entertainment company and I was talking about humor in the workplace. And that was very common back in those days. And so so I'm talking about how putting pictures of your you know, your relatives and your kids and stuff on your cubicle would make you feel better during the day. And so I woke up to this lady and I say, first of all, you know, the whole thing was kind of a humor seminar. So everybody's laugh and have a good time the whole time. So I walk up to this lady and I say, hey, you know, wouldn't you feel great putting pictures of your grandkids around your cubicle and all that stuff? The whole place goes, oh, she looked at me with daggers in her eyes and I'm thinking, Oh my God, they must have died in a car wreck or something, or she lost them and and some horrendous thing. So I get it. I finally get out of there. And I asked the meeting part, hey, what happened when I asked that lady about her grandchildren? And she said, she's only 35.

[00:43:11] Oh, he said, yeah, yeah. We made those mistakes.

[00:43:18] Oh, wow. I couldn't help that one. But so he's. So you're coming out with a you say you already have a boot camp on this. Is it like online or it's live or what? What is it?

[00:43:31] Well, I'm actually doing a live boot camp, but it's going to be weird timings. I'm doing it for a lot of the speakers in Malaysia and that's going to be next month. If anyone wants more information, just drop me an email. It's going to be on. Zoome So Frank at Frankfurt is Caucasian.

[00:43:46] Yeah. OK, yeah it's alive but it's Memorex. It's you don't have to be in Malaysia in other words.

[00:43:53] No, no. So you can be anywhere in the world. It's just going to be the time zone is more geared to Malaysia.

[00:43:58] What's the email again?

[00:44:00] Just Frank@FrankFurness.com.

[00:44:05] I think I've been pronounce your name wrong all these years, I said Furness.

[00:44:08] Said, no, I just meant yeah, I've got to finish and finish the same thing. They say if people want to come along and they will say, I'm going to be having the the program that's going to be coming online program in about three or four months. But in the meantime, if you join the Facebook group, there's going to be some brilliant interviews. I did an interview with you last week, didn't I?

[00:44:30] I think we did.

[00:44:31] Yeah, but just some amazing ideas from you that will help speakers make millions, really?

[00:44:38] Well, I have. And they still use them to this day, that's for sure.

[00:44:51] So they'll find them all at a website called www.Productivitycentre.com. And that's about the the UK way and all of the courses are on there.

[00:45:07] Ok, good, good, good, good, good. Wow, Frank. So yeah, we could go on for months now and start up. So, so we're kind of closing thoughts. Do you have for folks in the. And also before I let you go though, I do want to I always ask all our guests, like, what's a typical day look like for you now? Is that the pandemic's on which do you get up early to have a morning routine? Do you work out? What do you eat? You know, what's what's a big shot like you do every day?

[00:45:36] So normally I'm up at about six thirty in the summer, eight thirty in the winter. But somehow the sun comes up early and I'm in the gym at about six thirty. I have a good workout, come back, have a bit of breakfast, and then I'll be in the office till lunchtime doing some work and play some drums, have a bit of lunch. If the sun shining in the afternoon, you'll find me on the beach or in the afternoons I'll be playing tennis or a game called Paddle, which is a mixture between tennis and squash. And then maybe in the evenings back doing a little work again, but just working at my own pace and just absolutely enjoying every minute of my life. I think that's what it's all about. I know so many people that are sort of working himself to death. I just like why you've got to enjoy it.

[00:46:19] Not only, you know, I do what I want to do. I only deal with who I want to deal with. That's what I like. Because if I don't like you, take a hike, I have to deal with you. That's the beauty of all this online stuff. So you got a great online business and a great speaking business. So so this pandemic happens again or keeps going on. So what does stay on my little bit longer?

[00:46:43] Yeah. And I bought myself my car of my dreams two years ago, so I'm often I just get out. I bought myself a Bentley flying space.

[00:46:50] Oh, so. So you're a big rock star too. And I guess with all the drums and the how many instruments do you play?

[00:46:59] I just play drums, percussion section guitars. Yeah.

[00:47:02] Oh just. Oh but you don't know the two instruments that I've played as a kid. OK, so you wouldn't guess either.

[00:47:15] Well, I would have put you at a bass player. I could see you playing bass in a rock band.

[00:47:20] No, I played the violin.

[00:47:22] Wow. And I learned that's the doubt I would never see you doing right now.

[00:47:28] You never see that. I've played the trumpet to violin. Trumpet.

[00:47:32] Ok, yes, a trumpet. I could sort of see you in a sort of Earth, Wind and fire Tom here and standing out there trying to, you know, tower of power.

[00:47:42] Boy, did you. So have you played in a band?

[00:47:45] Well, when I left school, basically, I grew up in a blue collar town. My dad was a miner and my mom decided I was going to be an accountant, but I was such a maverick. I got fired after ten months and I'd always been a drummer. So my very first job was playing drums in a rock band. I did that for ten years, didn't didn't make much money. But the fringe benefits.

[00:48:06] Yeah, that's what I know. But I tell you, I don't want to make this an explicit episode. I could

[00:48:14] Write a book about that, but that would be banned on every to

[00:48:18] Put it under a pen name, you know. Yeah. Some super rock star name.

[00:48:25] But that was just an amazing lifestyle.

[00:48:28] Yeah. I'm afraid to even know about it. Yeah. Now now for me, you know, I had the nightclub, but I was I'm allergic to alcohol. So that was the best thing ever, because most likable owners are alcoholics, because it's all free stuff, but I did eat up all the pizza all the time. That was the problem there. But but, yeah, I've been allergic that my whole life. And I think if there's one thing to be allergic to, that's probably the best thing because, you know, I never saw anything good come from a nightclub, that's for sure.

[00:48:59] What are the guys I play pedal with you some of the biggest nightclubs in the UK and lost everything because of that.

[00:49:06] Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, man. So great. We'll catch up with you again sometime. But we want everybody to check out www.Productivitycentre.com when you're cool and you come from the right side of the tracks, that's how you spell things. You know,

[00:49:26] That would be great if I can check that. Also, look at my normal website, which is FrankFurness.com. Right. And as I say, Tom, if they want to contact me for anything, just frank@Frankfurness.com.

[00:49:45] OK, great. All right man. So we'll have all this in the show notes and hopefully we'll have some folks on your on your bootcamps and your online courses and maybe we'll have a webinar someday and sell some of this stuff for you. So so thanks so much, man.

[00:50:04] Hey. Being great and looking forward to catching up with you and having a cup of coffee in Virginia Beach sometime. So I'm ready and speaking again someday

[00:50:12] If they ever let you back.

[00:50:14] Absolutely. All right, buddy.

[00:50:17] All right, everybody. We'll get you on the next episode. See ya later.

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