The Truth About Getting Paid to Speak — Real Talk with Julie Cooley

Show Notes

In this candid and insightful conversation, Elaine sits down with veteran speaker manager Julie Cooley, who has worked with hundreds of speakers through NSA, the Colorado Speaker Academy, and her own business helping thought leaders build sustainable, profitable speaking careers.

If you’ve ever wondered why your inbox isn’t filling with paid gig offers yet — this episode will clear the fog. Julie shares the truth behind “overnight success” myths in the speaking world, how to build your reputation strategically, and what actually makes you referable and bookable.

You’ll learn how to reframe “free gigs” into strategic visibility investments, why three years is the magic number, and the mindset shifts that separate professionals from hopefuls.

This is the episode every aspiring speaker (and even seasoned pros) need to hear before their next “exposure opportunity.”

Takeaways

1. Stop saying “I speak for free.” Start saying you’re waiving your fee — and negotiate visibility assets instead.
2. It’s a three-year climb. Sustainable speaking careers are built on consistent visibility, trust, and results — not quick wins.
3. Relationships > reels. Referrals and collaborations with other speakers will book you faster than any cold email.
4. Proof matters. Collect high-quality photos, clips, and testimonials from every event.
5. You are your own best agent. Your clarity, professionalism, and follow-up determine how far you’ll go.

Julie Cooley
Speaker Manager
I work with professional speakers to optimize their processes, systems, and outreach so they can book more business and amplify their impact.julianecooley@gmail.com |  (860) 478-9279
Julie Cooley | LinkedIn

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Transcript

0:04

this is Elaine Williams with Captivate The Mic. This is a podcast to help you become a more effective speaker communicator. Whether you're doing videos, whether you're on stage, whether you're podcast guesting, I am using my 50 million years of experience and having amazing guests. You are in for such a treat, this woman, I wanna introduce Julie Cooley to you. She is a speaker manager. She's also a professional speaker, and she's the co. Director of the Speaker Academy for Colorado, NSA, which is National Speakers Association. If you don't know that, and I'm just delighted to have you, Julie, thank you so much for being here. Oh, thank you so much for having me here. I really appreciate it, and I'll just tell everybody. I've been performing my whole life. I've been a professional speaker since the early two thousands, and I meet a lot of people who do a lot of blowing smoke up your, you know what, and one of the things that had me wanna stay connected with Julie was. You were just laying down some wisdom and some truth and I told some of my clients, you have to connect, get connected with this woman because you really know your stuff and you know the insides of the whole speaking world. And you know a lot of people who follow me, they're. Either, coaches and wanting to expand their business by speaking, or their speakers who want to get paid speaking gigs. And, there's a lot in that umbrella. And Julie, why don't you tell us, first of all, I'd love to know how you got into this. If you could tell us a little bit about your entree. Absolutely. So like you, I've been a performer for most of my life. I wanted to be a singer and we all know how easy that is to get into that profession. So I loved the stage, but God had other plans. So singing didn't quite pan out. And for speaking, I didn't ever think of it really as a career. I joined Toastmasters in, I. Oh, Lord. Lord, probably 14 years ago my manager at the time I was in the corporate world. I said, Hey, you're doing some training for us. I think Toastmasters would be good, even though you know how to speak, it'll get you to the next level. And I loved Toastmasters and that's when people first came up to me and said, Hey, you could do this. And I was also in a Buddhist group where. I was leading the singing because my Dharma teacher found out pretty fast that, I knew chanting, I almost became a cantor in the Hebrew tradition. So he called me their cantor and then I started leading workshops for them too. So facilitating workshops, except my teacher didn't like me too much sometimes because he called me spiritually promiscuous.'cause I would do Don Ruiz. I wouldn't stick to just Buddhism, even though I would do definitely some Buddhism. But my take was if it helps my audience. I don't care what tradition it comes from. So I really love speaking between the Buddhist group where I was facilitating workshops and Toastmasters, and then I heard about NSA the National Speakers Association. So I. I was in Connecticut at the time and they didn't, they had a less than robust chapter. It was a smaller chapter. I attended a lot of their meetings because the president at the time brought in some amazing speakers. But I knew about Colorado even when I was in Connecticut, and I'm like, I'm holding up for Colorado. So when we moved to Colorado in 2020. Started attending their meetings, went through their speaker Academy in 2023, and then volunteered immediately the year after to help the director and became co-director. That's so cool. I lo I love that. I love hearing people's stories. And you wanted to be a singer, and then you found a way to express that. I just love that. That's, my, my mission is to help heal the world with love and laughter. One joke, one video, one story, one speech at a time. And I think I help, I know, I help people come back to their voice. And sounds like that happened for you. So I love that. I love that so much. So Julie, when we spoke before you were talking about. Let's break some of the myths. Let's just break it down, right? So I know I was at a, I was at Pod Fest in January and there was a person there who was like, I can help you make$10,000. You can get a$10,000 gig and in, in less than a month. And it just. Bothers me because I feel like, oh no, people are going in with these high expectations and have I made I, I did make 6,500 for one of my speeches, but I've been performing my whole life. Unless you already have a lot of chops. So anyway, can you speak to that? When you hear those crazy promises, unfortunately there's a lot of people who take advantage of people who wanna speak and they'll make these grandiose promises. I saw on Facebook, somebody's oh, if you're not making$25,000 a speech, you're doing it wrong. And I'm like, oh, my dearest God, I hope nobody's falling for that. You hear about it because you hear about Les Brown, you hear about Tony Robbins, you hear about, wow. Damon John, he makes$30,000 a speech, right? I can do that. Yeah, you're not Damon John, right? And there are a few outliers. I will say. There are a couple people I've heard about that. Out the gate, we're able to command that. But that is the exception. That is not the rule. And we do have one person in our chapter who just does keynote speaking, but he's a famous football player. Carl Mecklenberg from the Broncos? Yes. He's got the name, he's got the reps like you. He did. He had a pre career that people find very. Interesting, appealing that they're willing to pay a lot of money for. So you know, folks like that, yes they can do it, but your average speaker, no matter how good you are, you're gonna have to do the reps. And I've had people say, oh, I wanna command$7,500 this. And I'm like, nobody knows who you are, right? You don't have target audience, you haven't done the reps, you don't have the connections. It takes a lot, especially now, speaking is it's similar to the arts, acting comedians, singing, dancing in that, first of all, it's very subjective. Second of all, anybody could, there's no barrier to entry. Anybody can say, Hey, I'm a singer, I'm a speaker. But you have to do the reps, you have to get yourself known. And these days it is not about what you know. It's not about how good you are. It's not even about who you know, it's about who knows you. And you have to work really hard to be visible, get that expertise out there. That when they're planning a conference, it's not like you're throwing email after email, a phone call, after phone call. They're like, oh, wait a minute. We have a great conference coming up and we want somebody entertaining, and who's gonna help people in front of the camera? Let's call Elaine. That's the ideal, but that takes years, and I was told, like I went to massage therapy school too. So that's a whole nother story. Wow. Julian, what a story. I love it. But they tell you it will take about three years before you'll break even. Of course they didn't tell me that until my last semester. Same thing with speaking, it's gonna take you. With hard work, with doing the right things, with making the right connections with the reps, with the video, with the website, everything you need, it's gonna take about three years. Before you really get that momentum going. And unfortunately, a lot of people don't realize that they have the stars in their eyes and, oh, if I just take this course and I have the website and I have the demo reel and I have the book, people are just gonna flock to me. And that's. Not how it happens. I love that. It makes me think when I was doing when I was a new standup comedian in New York City, they have all of these come do the show, get in front of the booker for Letterman. And it's first of all, it's like the assistants assistant. Second of all, if you're new, you don't wanna be seen yet. So yeah, it's interesting. What I have found, like I, I grew up performing, singing, dancing, acting, all the things, voiceover commercials. And then when I became a life coach, I knew oh, I need to learn how to speak as Elaine.'cause I didn't know how to not be like musical thi, so I started going to Toastmasters and it was, I remember doing my icebreaker, which is like the first one you do. And I remember sitting down and I was, I felt this vibe. Like my body was like, you're supposed to be doing it. I felt like my soul was quivering. I, it's, I had goosebumps and I was like okay, this is cool. And I'm grateful that I knew, okay, I need to keep getting up in front of people. I knew that I, that was what I needed to do to get up as Elaine. The coach, thought leader, speaker versus acting and so one of the things I always encourage my clients is like. Go practice and there's a million ways, right? And as a comedian you get really good at I'd be like hey, can you gimme five minutes? I need to run my set. Thank you to all the people who listen to me. And now a quick message. I get it. You're super busy, you're super committed. You are speaking to grow your business, or maybe you're in the corporate world and you want to grow your career and you know that there are some things you're doing vocally and with your body language that don't serve you. My name's Elaine and I've helped hundreds of people just like you become more powerful communicators. There are some, so many things we don't realize that could be dissipating our energy. And with a few tweaks, you can become a rock star, whether you're speaking in front of 5,000 people or a room of five. I can help you become a more effective speaker. If this resonates with you, please reach out. All of my scheduling stuff is in the show notes. And now back to the show. So many ways, obviously going to the Speaker Academy is. Awesome. I do think Toastmasters is awesome for a while, but I do think it can pigeonhole some people too. So it's like it's a bridge, but don't get stuck on that bridge, in my opinion. Obviously hiring a speaker coach as either one of us would be great. And there's still a lot of other ways that you can do your reps, as you mentioned, right? I did train the trainer with Peak Potentials. I don't know if you've heard of them. And we would, we went through this whole intensive, and then we would meet once a month and practice doing the train the trainer stuff, facilitating, putting people in pairs. Opening, closing, all the things. And that was free, and it, but it was so cool'cause we were all really committed to grow as facilitators. And then I always tell people too, like stage time. So even though video is different than live, it can still be good practice because there's the pressure of the camera. And the lights, and it's a little different than, working the room, but it's still good practice. Do you have any other tips to add on to for that, Julie, or any, anything else? There's so many. Trust me, there are plenty of places you can speak for free. That's the challenge of the speaking business that people want you to speak for free. But you do, and it's different than most industries in that you have to in the beginning because first of all, you have to get yourself visible, but just because you're speaking for free doesn't mean you can't get value. So first of all. We don't wanna talk, say that we're speaking for free because we have value. We wanna say we're waiving our fee for you. Oh, I love that. Say that again. We are waiving you don't want us say you're speaking for free because we have value. You wanna say, I'm waiving my fee for you. And that's comes from Lois Kramer. I cannot take credit from that. Lois Kramer is the author of Book More Business and I call consider that the Bible of. Professional speaking so well with Kramer. Okay. Good job. Yeah, she has a lot of wisdom. I recommend that book to anybody who wants to be a speaker. So it's book More Business, make More Money Speaking. She just came out with a new edition last year, so she talks about this, so if you're gonna speak. And waive your fee. Then what you wanna do is say, Hey, can I get photos? Can I get videos? Can I get testimonials? Yeah, you want those speaker assets so that again, you can build that social proof, that credibility, and you wanna test your material because honestly, you might think, Hey, I've got the greatest speech in the world. And then people aren't laughing where you thought they would laugh, they might be laughing in places that you thought. Oh, I didn't realize that was funny. Or, they might not react to things the way you want them to react. So it's really important to test it. But the thing is, you also don't wanna get stuck speaking for no fee for years and years either. So the, that's where a lot of speakers struggle is how do I go from. No fee to getting paid. And it's about the value that people see in you and that you have to solve a problem. It's not about, oh I'm good. I know how to deliver and I, I look great on stage. No, it's, you have to solve a problem. That's what people want is they're paying, they're not paying you to be on stage. They're not paying for great delivery. That's expected these days, long gone are the days that, Hey, I'm entertaining. I'm gonna get paid for that. They don't hire the motivational speaker again unless you're less brown or Tony Robbins. But for your. Up and coming speakers, they're not gonna hire you for that. What they're gonna hire you for, especially in this economic environment, is what problem can you solve for me and how can you transform my audience? That's a big ask and that's why a lot of speakers will offer consulting and coaching and aftercare programs because. You're really not gonna change people's lives in a 45 minute speech. But what you can do is open the doors for them and oh, okay. I didn't think of it this way, or, oh, I wanna learn more. So that's what it's about these days because we see in the news, there's tons of layoffs, ai. Everybody's uncertain what's gonna happen, right? Corporations are tightening their spending on training and speakers. So you have to be able to prove to them that, hey, I can solve a problem for you and you wanna, solve either money efficiency, time, productivity, right? Something that is tangible. And there are lots of topics that can do that. And in fact, I just saw right before our call on LinkedIn, they were posting us. Some of the topics. Ai, of course.'cause that's the new HA thing, boy, is it? Yeah. Storytelling and sales. Mental health leadership is always gonna be a hot topic, but it you have to differentiate yourself from literally the other hundreds of thousands of people who speak on leadership. So there are still hot topics that you can solve, but you have to prove, how am I different than all the other a hundred thousand leadership speakers you could book? What am I going to do for you? It's not about you. It's not about your delivery. It's about what you can give to them and how you can solve their issue. So well said. I love that so much. And I, I started out speaking, on the college campuses. So I solved, I talked about really heavy topics, eating disorders, drugs, alcohol, sexual assault. I would use humor to keep the college kids awake and engaged, but, I solved some pretty heavy problems and they liked it, that I was funny and motivating and relatable, blah, blah, blah. But, yeah you've gotta solve something and another thing I think sometimes I'm gonna ask you, so you know, I had a pretty heavy story. I. Lots of addiction, lots of assault growing up, lots of things, right? Things that should never happen to a little girl. And I've done a lot of work and I'm so grateful that I'm healed and blessed and can help people now. But people would compare their stories to mine and they'd be like, oh, I don't have a good story like yours. And I would say, just because you don't have as much trauma as I did, doesn't mean you still haven't overcome things. So one of the things I think is good. To be, to remind people about is you don't have to, been kidnapped and almost killed by your ex-husband or overcome a snake bite in the rainforest in Brazil or whatever. You don't have to have a super tragic story in order to have a really good overcoming obstacle story. Would you agree, Julie? Absolutely. So Matthew Dix, who is the author of the best storytelling book I've ever read, story where they. Has gone through a lot of stuff. He was homeless at the age of 18. He was arrested for a crime he didn't commit. He almost died a couple of times. So he's been through a lot of stuff. But what he will say is where people connect with him are the stories he would tell about getting his. Kid to eat vegetables or, the really small things that everybody can connect with. Yeah. So even though he's gone through these really horrific things and he will talk about it occasionally. That's not where people connect. So if you've gone through something traumatic, then look at the aspects of it. Okay where would people connect? How would they understand what I'm going through? Because it's the emotion behind the trauma that people can understand, right? So identification, right? Yes, but it's really the small everyday stories where people connect, and that's why a lot of coaches will recommend to people keep a story file because things that you don't think much of and that you'll forget in a week. Or where people are going to connect with you. Pe, everybody can connect with the bad boss or the hard job or the tough coworker. Yeah. Certain failures that we all go through, the heartbreaks that we go through in romantic relationships, family troubles, that's where people can connect. So even if you do have a great story, which you know, unfortunately a lot of people have, because a lot of us do overcome trauma. Then look for the emotion behind it so that you don't turn people off. Don't assume people's stories. And at the same time, you have to be careful too, right? Because you don't wanna trigger right? Somebody in your audience with your trauma as well. And the other thing is don't use the stages. Therapy. They talk about this all the time. You wanna speak from your scars, not your wounds. Oh my gosh. You wanna speak from your scars, not your wounds. Amen. Yes. Yes. And I think especially in these days when we're honestly all have gone through trauma in the last five years, that opening up and being vulnerable about what we've gone through is important. So if you do have that story, I think it is important to share it. Just realize. First of all, you don't wanna trigger people, right? You wanna make sure you're healed from it and look at the common emotionality, and don't assume, never say all or everyone has gone through this'cause that bugs me. Yeah. I had somebody who said you have been successful in your life and you've earned hundreds of thousands of dollars, and now you wanna move to the next level. And I'm like maybe you haven't, so that's where operative words, like maybe, or perhaps, you wanna incorporate that.'cause you don't wanna have objection in your audience's mind immediately. You don't want,'cause they'll just shut off and they won't listen to another word you're saying. So don't assume anything about where your audience has been or where they're going through. And unfortunately right now. You can pretty much bet somebody in your audience is grieving somebody in your audience is having a really hard time. So just be mindful of that when you're speaking and you wanna be compassionate, empathetic from the, from your story as well. But just realize people are hurting and you wanna connect with them. And once they feel heard and understood, then change can happen and you can lift them up. But, you have to be very careful and never do all nothing when you do your talks.'cause you don't know. You don't know. I love that. And yes, and I am, this is my podcast, so I'm open with my story, but obviously if I was going to speak in a corporation or in a professional setting, I would not mention, I would put it a different way. And I always tell people, you get to. Decide how much you wanna share.'cause some people aren't. They're like, I don't wanna go there. And I'm like, okay. It's, it is all about like crafting. I love the everyday stories and helping people identify with the emotions. That's really what's it about, what it's about. In aa, they talk about that. They would tell me when I was new don't compare, but try to identify with the feelings. And I just, so many great things about the 12 step world. Julie, another thing I. I see is sometimes people just wanna go hang out with other speakers, or they'll pay a lot of money to get a speaker directory, but then they're competing with all the other speakers who are in this directory for one spot. So I always tell my clients, go find event bookers. Go find, go hang out, go develop relationships with the people who actually could book you. Do you agree? Can you expand on that? Speak yes, speaking is a huge relationship building business. And I'm gonna be a little unpopular here. I don't really believe in a lot of the paid services. I think there is a lot, many ways, especially with AI now that you can find your own engagements. Oh, trust me, there'll be plenty of people who wanna sell you their systems. Oh, my system. We can go get you two. We'll apply to 2000 gigs a month. For you and all sorts of things. Be careful, especially when you're beginning, as you go along. Then ask established speakers. What's worth it? What's not worth it? Don't just invest, be careful because there are lots of money. Who are, lots of people who are willing to take care money. But one thing that you really wanna do is build relationships not only with event planners, but with other speakers. And contrary to most other businesses with speakers who speak about the same topic you do, because you might view them they're my competition, Julie, why the heck would I wanna build relationship with them? Because speaking is a different industry, if. You get booked for a great conference, they're not gonna bring you back no matter how awesome you are the next year, most likely. There are a few exceptions to this, but they want butts in seats. So they're going to bring somebody different because they wanna attract, people to buy tickets to the conference and be like, but I saw Elaine last year. I knew she was awesome, I wanna see somebody different. If you're friends with Elaine and you knock it out of the park, Elaine will be like, Hey, I know this great speaker that would be wonderful for your conference. So you wanna be referable. And the way you're referable is by building relationships with other speakers and referring them first because you've got the law of reciprocity working in your favor. It's really important to build relationships with other speakers. First of all, it's a lonely business. Second of all, you wanna learn from their expertise and have them learn from yours. And third, you wanna be able to refer each other. So yes, it's great to establish those relationships with the event planners too. And what I always suggest to people, cold outreach is hard. I was reading in one sales book that it takes, I think it was 20 to 50 touch points. Oh my gosh. Completely cold outreach. Got really tired. That's a. So what you wanna do is you wanna build the relationships and add value, because that's what sales is. It's building relationships and adding value. That's all it is before the conference. You wanna get yourself top of mind and keep top of mind by adding value. Come up with some resources, create newsletters. How valuable post on LinkedIn connect with them on LinkedIn and for God's sake, do not pitch them as soon as you connect with them. Oh please. If I get one more, I've just gotten to where I'm just like, do not try to sell me anything. It's yeah, it's so rude. I people don't understand sales and honestly, I'm sorry. There's no excuse for it right now. There are so many books, there's so much stuff out there that teaches you how to sell for free. You could borrow from a library and there's no excuse. It's about building relationships, adding value. You do that, you're not gonna have as much difficulty when it is time that you want something, and again. What you're doing again, is you're providing value, you're solving a problem. So a lot of people think, oh, I can't sell myself. When you're not selling yourself, you're selling a solution to a problem. You're selling a value. Yes. And if you reframe it as you're doing them a favor because they have a pain point and you have a solution, then that takes the icky factor out of it that a lot of people are scared about sales, but honestly speaking it. It is not about speaking, it's about sales first. David Arin, who is a well known NSA speaker, he always says, speaking is not the business. Getting the gigs is the business. And a lot of people don't realize that when they get in the speaking world is that you're gonna be spending 90% of your time marketing outreach, follow up relationship building, and 10% speaking. Wow. Sobering. Sobering, but good. And if you are a coach, author, expert, and you just want to grow your business, speaking for free is absolutely okay. Absolutely. It's, I think it's good to say, you know what? This sounds like a whole other career, which it is. It's a whole other income stream. And for a while I had to put my speaking on the shelf'cause I was just so busy caretaking and coaching and, I just knew okay, that's just gonna go over here for a minute. And it's absolutely okay to be like, you know what? I don't wanna do all this extra work. And just go speak for free, which I do all the time. I love speaking and I love lifting people up and I'm trying to practice discernment because I need to get back to the paid thing too. Julie, you were just dropping so many golden nuggets. I just went after our conversation, I was like, I have to stay connected with this woman, and we are gonna be working together in the future, and I'm gonna be sending you more people because I just feel like you're very. Pragmatic. There's no smoke up your ass. There's, and yes, it's competitive. And being a professional speaker is also rewarding. Yes, it can be lonely. I definitely had a few nights in my hotel rooms by myself, tired, exhausted, and ah. But I've also gotten to go to some amazing places, haven't you? Like I've spoken in 44 states. I've been to places. I don't need to go back to North Dakota, but I've been, yeah. To go back to your statement about. Hey, if you wanna be a coach or you're trying to feed a different side of your business, absolutely speaking, it's a great way to go. I have a friend who is fantastic on stage and she spoke for the Project Management Institute and they don't pay, or they don't pay much for engagements. However, she knocked it out of the park so much it fed her coaching pipeline, so that's what I always tell people is, please do not. Treat a no fee engagement oh, they're not paying me, so I don't care because you don't know who's in the audience. Never know. I've heard so many of my speaker friends say, I got this great engagement out of a no fee engagement, you have to treat every time you step onto that stage as a privilege that you know you're adding value to them. They're spending their valuable time to listen to you, so you wanna knock it out of the park. And how that's gonna benefit you is word of mouth, because that is the best marketing you could ever have. It's not the fancy website. I have another friend who. Is a multimillionaire from speaking. He was in sales first, and then he's my website's not fancy. He doesn't get his business from that. It's because he has a really unique personality in delivering and he delivers value and he understands the relationship building part of sales. And that's what he teaches is how to build relationships. So I love that Julie. And I wanna speak to that too because, as a comedian coming up in New York, you do a lot of like basement open mics for three people, five people. But it prepares you for the crazy stuff that happens out on the road.'cause sometimes you have a warm, slightly tipsy audience. They're tightly packed in, that's a hot crowd. And you can over, you can think, oh, I'm hilarious. I'm so killing it. And then sometimes it's actually it was a really hot crowd. You're good. You know what I mean? So I'm so grateful I came up that way'cause it helped me be versatile and bulletproof as my ex comedian, boyfriend used to tell me. But also, yeah, as a speaker. Even if you're like, oh, I thought there were gonna be 500 people and there's five, you never know and you don't wanna phone it in. I've gotten amazing things from smaller audiences and also the gift of being prepared. So I was in, I was asked to speak about quitting smoking on a college campus in Queens. I've never smoked, but I did all this research because I wanted to be prepared and. It was horrifying and inspire. It's like some of the, we had doctors recommending cigarettes and dentists, are you kidding? But I went and I was so over prepared and I had so much stuff and they were like, Elaine, the other speaker, something happened. Can you stretch? And I was like, yep, I got it. And so that's another thing. You need to be flexible because so many times they're like, you know what? We're running tight. I know you're supposed to do 30. Can you do 15? And you wanna be able to say, yep. And that's when you'd still do the opening and the closing and you pull out some of the middle or Oh my gosh, somebody didn't show. Can you stretch? Yeah. How much time do you need? And that takes practice. That takes mastery. That takes working with somebody like me or Julie, however. That Booker will love you and be so grateful and they will probably spin, put your name all over the place because you saved their butt. Do you wanna add to any of that? You need to be easy to work with. You hear these horrifying stories. Certainly the, in the music world about how difficult people are to work with in the acting world, their divas. But in the speaking world, it's a privilege. Don't. Yeah, and you need to be very easy to work with. Do they give you a deadline? Submit the paperwork before the deadline? Yes. Be prepared and for God's sake, be on time. So you're not the reason that the other speaker has to cut their time because you do that, first of all, the other speaker will remember that. For other events, event planners talk. They're gonna be upset with you, so that's gonna hurt you on their, some practice with a timer. That's where Toastmasters is really handy. Yeah, it's, make sure you are within that time because you never want to be that speaker that causes another speaker to have to cut their material. So be very easy to work with. Let them know when you get there. Let them, ease their minds. Offer to help. I'm sorry, you're not too good that you can't help. Help set up, or you can't help chairs or you can't help them with other things. Being a meeting planner is one of the most stressful jobs. Yeah. And there is always something that goes wrong. Yeah. And you don't want to be the reason for their stress at all. So think put yourself in their shoes. What can I do to make their lives easier? Yeah. Every step of the way. I love that. And one of the things is. I have a checklist, right? So make sure everything's charged. Bring your own dang water. Don't expect them, if it's there, sweet, if it's a super duper green room, awesome. But that's not always the case. And another thing is, yeah, I text them, I'm here, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I don't like sitting around because I get tight and constricted, so I will. I will tell them I'm gonna go walk around backstage or if they don't need help. And I will say, I'm here, but I'm just gonna be over there because. That way they're not going, where'd she go? What? I need to ask her a question. Have your intro printed out, even laminated. Keep it simple like there's a million tiny nuances. Anyway, Julie, I think we're gonna have to do a part two because there's so many things I forget that I know, and you've helped remind me of all the things that I know and, part two, maybe we'll do something about what's the worst mistake you've made? Or, so if people wanna know more about you, how do they find you? What's the easiest way? LinkedIn. I live on LinkedIn, so Julie Cooley. Julie Cooley. Okay. Julie Cooley. Julie rhymes. So I, and I'm gonna have that in the show notes too. Thank you so much for joining and sharing your expertness, your. So authentic and real, and it's just refreshing in this crazy business.'cause there's a lot of people who unfortunately are not. Anything you wanna say parting words, just be careful out there because again, they, there's so many people who wanna take advantage of you as a speaker who will promise you the world and there are some legitimate up. People out there, so you don't wanna, it's not all or nothing, but I highly recommend the National Speakers Association. Most chapters will let you visit for free for the first meeting. Check it out. But even if you don't join NSA. Surround yourself with other speakers who are above what you're doing because that will elevate you and then help other speakers as you grow in your speaking career and ask them, because most of us have made mistakes in investing in the wrong things or have heard, and you don't wanna make those same mistakes. So don't, you have. Surround yourself with a network so that you can say, Hey, I'm thinking about this, or This sounds too good to be true. What do you think? And so you can get that experience and ask multiple people. That way at least, hopefully, that you know their mistakes can save you from making the same ones. I love it. I love it. Thank you Julie, so much and I look forward to. Working with you and connecting and doing a part two. Alright everybody, bye. Take care. Thank you.