Becoming a Confident Communicator: Insights on Video, Branding, and Self-Discovery for Speakers

Tim Newman [00:00:10]:
Welcome back to Speaking with Confidence, the podcast that helps you build the soft skills that lead to real results. Communication, storytelling, public speaking, and showing up with confidence in every conversation that counts. I'm Tim Newman, a recovering college professor turned communication coach, and I'm thrilled to guide you on a journey to becoming a powerful communicator. Today's guest is Cam Beaudoin. Cam runs a video agency that helps speakers, coaches, and entrepreneurs use video to get noticed, trusted, and booked without spending hours pitching themselves. His agency works behind the scenes to attract event planners through powerful story-driven video. Cam, welcome to the show. You know, we've had a few conversations.

Tim Newman [00:00:49]:
I love your energy. I love the way you approach things. I know this is gonna be a great episode.

Cam Beaudoin [00:00:54]:
Tim, thanks for having me. Yeah, likewise. This is going to be so great. So I hope I'm not too bubbly for a Wednesday morning here. This is gonna be great.

Tim Newman [00:01:02]:
I don't think you can be too bubbly. You know, to me, that's part of it, right? You've got to come with energy. You know, when you're on a stage, you got to come with energy. And I think when you're on video, you have to really come with even double that energy because it's— you can't feel that power in the room. You can't feel that energy. And so you have to really kind of really up that that level so that you really do connect with the audience that's on the other side of the camera.

Cam Beaudoin [00:01:29]:
Yeah, I talk about that a lot actually, like projecting your energy through the camera. You've got to add like 50% to 100% more. Raise that level because you know, how many boring videos have you ever watched online? Like a lot, right? Like you said, you're a recovering college professor, right? And how many college professors are just droning on in front of the room? And like, you can't be like that. You kind of got to project that every time. Every time you get in front of camera, you are on a show, like, this is what it's all about. And yeah, here's something interesting. If you go and do some like media training, they're going to tell you the exact same thing. They're going to tell you, like, if you go and you want to do, um, you want to get on the news or go breakfast television, they're going to tell you, like, you gotta, you gotta like project, you gotta like put that energy out there to go.

Cam Beaudoin [00:02:12]:
It doesn't mean you gotta jump off the walls. It doesn't mean you gotta be MrBeast or all these kind of like crazy YouTubers. But it does mean you gotta kind of take it from inside you and be like, I gotta, I gotta project this, this energy to whoever is watching me through this camera.

Tim Newman [00:02:26]:
Exactly. Because if, because if not, within 7 seconds, people are dropping off. You, you, you really have about 7 seconds on, on video to, to either hook them and grab them in or you, or you're really losing them. So you, you gotta bring it. And yeah, I talk about this every once in a while. So it's been about a year ago. So I've been doing this podcast coming up on 2 years. I've got another podcast I've been doing for 4 years.

Tim Newman [00:02:51]:
And up to about a year ago, I couldn't take a selfie because I didn't know where to look. And so I'm 57 years old. And so this whole technology stuff is really kind of new to me. But, but if you're trying to bring energy and be on camera and you don't know where to look and you can't take a selfie, it doesn't really kind of, it doesn't come together real well. So, you got to get better at your craft.

Cam Beaudoin [00:03:15]:
Yeah, yeah. And like, I think this is part of it now. It's, it's, we're coming up 2026 now, right? Like, I'm not sure when the show is going to be released. But you know, to anyone who's watching who must like, you know, I'll get to it one day. And I don't know, like your audience demographics and things. But it's, at one point, people were probably sitting there and arguing like, should I get on Facebook? Or should I use a smartphone? It's like, if you're not using video now, if you're not like getting used to this technology. And we're— it's resistance. It's human resistance to not want to learn something like this.

Cam Beaudoin [00:03:46]:
But really, we're talking about take a half day, learn how to— learn how to put your camera up here, like point it to yourself. Look, I like doing this picture-in-picture. It's a great little great visual, right? You do that, you give like, hey, I'm Cam, just like nice to meet you, you know, here I am doing this kind of stuff. You take a picture with your volume down button, boom, and it takes— it takes the picture for you. And, and like These little things, you're going to show it to somebody else, they're going to— it's going to blow their minds. You're going to be their expert. You're going to be an expert to them, right? It's all these little things that you kind of just got to get going and get doing.

Tim Newman [00:04:16]:
Yeah. So, so let's start with you. You know, you spent 7 years speaking on disability inclusion before shifting into actually helping speakers, you know, build content, demo reels. What was it that switched for you to make that transition?

Cam Beaudoin [00:04:28]:
Well, a little backstory. So I was employed at IBM and they would send me around all around North America to go and speak at conferences about digital accessibility, because that's what we, uh, like, they wanted to use that as a way to get leads. So by the way, speaking is a phenomenal way to get leads. And even if you're not getting paid to speak, I think we need to disconnect— we can maybe talk about this— disconnect the whole idea of like, I got to get paid for this keynote. Like, thou shalt not— thou shalt not pay me an honorarium. How dare you? It's like, we'll talk about that, we'll talk about that, right? But so they would send me around to go and speak at, at events and in the hopes of creating a presence where I, IBM, was seen as an expert on this topic of disability inclusion and digital accessibility. So that was where I cut my teeth on speaking. During the pandemic, I had this bright idea.

Cam Beaudoin [00:05:17]:
I'm like, I'm gonna go and learn how to become a better speaker. Like, I'd already done 30 stages by that point over my, my career there, and I said, maybe there's an opportunity here to still go and like become better at the craft. So I did, took a couple courses In one of the courses I was in, I witnessed the 10 people in the cohort. They all got like hammed up at the video portion and they were all kind of like the same situation. They were kind of like 45 plus, maybe 50 plus, and they had owned businesses or wineries. One was a lawyer, a politician. They wanted to learn how to speak better, speak gooder. They all got hammed up.

Cam Beaudoin [00:05:51]:
Like when our coach said, you gotta go get a demo reel done now and go watch your own content. They all said like, I'm not gonna watch my own content. My time is better served doing something else. So there became my first 10 clients, like right away, I saw an opportunity in the market. I said, there's a pain point that people have here. If these people have this pain, there's gonna be other people who have that pain point. And I just kind of rolled with— excuse me, I just kind of rolled with it with that. So I pitched them and I found more clients.

Cam Beaudoin [00:06:18]:
I found more people who needed help with video. I stopped doing accessibility because I got so busy doing the video stuff and content creation for speakers specifically that that. I just kind of left that. I didn't need to. And there's a whole conversation about branding we could probably have too. I didn't want to muddy the waters there. And so people, what are you doing? Are you doing speaking? You doing demo reels? You doing video? Like, what are you doing? So I kind of had to like really be intentional about that. So that's the story.

Cam Beaudoin [00:06:43]:
And I've been doing it for 3 years now.

Tim Newman [00:06:45]:
Yeah. I think you started off in a perfect way in that you want to get better at your craft. You've been doing it for a while. You've done 30 stages. And here's the deal. I've got a speaking coach. I've been speaking for 30 years. John Maxwell has a speaking coach.

Tim Newman [00:07:00]:
If John Maxwell has a speaking coach, who do you think that you are? That you're good, you don't need to get better. And maybe you don't need to get better, but if you're going to be— if you want to be good at something, you have to be getting better. You have to be doing things to get better and practicing and watching yourself on video is one of the easiest and best ways to get better. And because it's cheap, it doesn't, doesn't cost you anything other than your own embarrassment. Say, wow, that's what I really look like. So now I can start working on things. This is how I sound. This is how I can start working on things.

Tim Newman [00:07:36]:
And it doesn't cost you anything.

Cam Beaudoin [00:07:39]:
Yeah, I love that analogy. Like, if you were in— if you were an athlete, you'd be watching your content, right? Like, you, you would be. You would get together as a team and you would all say, like, okay, here's where you didn't swing properly. Here's where, like, you know, your team member should have been there to pass the ball to. Like, this would be done in every other industry. If you were in sales, if you're in sales, what do you do? You'd run mock calls, you do team training, you pair up and you coach and stuff like that. For some reason, it seems like once you become an expert or like an authority, or like you feel like I'm an expert on burnout or something like that, you're like, I don't need— like, the speaking is secondary. It's, it's all about how I was able to recover from trauma.

Cam Beaudoin [00:08:15]:
And it's like, it's like, whoa, like Slow down. You need to become an expert at your craft because look, there's no storyteller out there who hasn't listened to their story. Like comedians, right? Um, oh yeah, what's comedians? Uh, uh, Jerry Seinfeld to this day still goes to dive bars and rehearses and practices his skits. They all do, right? Because when they're getting paid $4 million to go do a Netflix special, do you think they want to— is that the first time getting out there and doing it? Like, no. So they're rehearsing, they're practicing, They're training. They're rewatching. They're like, "Oh, can I land this hook a little bit better? Can I do that?" One easy technique. Here's an easy technique for any speaker who, while you're watching your content, if you're a little bit embarrassed.

Cam Beaudoin [00:08:57]:
So, it's a 3-step tactic. So number 1, watch your video with no audio. Press mute. Don't do anything. Just watch and see how you felt. Would you be attracted to yourself if you saw yourself on stage or on video like that? Right? Are you engaging? Are you looking at the camera? Are you moving your arms? Are you being like, are you too close? Are you too far away? Then next step, shut off the video. Just do audio. Just listen to yourself.

Cam Beaudoin [00:09:21]:
Are you engaging? Are you changing your voice inflection? Are you able to like slow down the important parts? Are you speeding up where you want people to heighten tension? Are you creating those moments? Do you sound interesting or you sound boring? And then step number 3, you can go and just watch the whole thing with audio and video together to see if there's a match between those. Because sometimes we're up on stage super bubbly and happily when we're talking about something sad. And there's a little bit of like mismatch there as well. So, right, these are all things like these, just tactics. And look, when you're making a 2-minute video, like, is it really that much of your day to spend 6 minutes getting better at what you're doing? I think not.

Tim Newman [00:09:56]:
I think not, especially what, what the return could be on the back end of that.

Cam Beaudoin [00:10:01]:
Absolutely.

Tim Newman [00:10:02]:
On either way. So you said 2-minute video, if, if you just half-heartedly do it, how much, You know, what's the opportunity cost that you lost? How much could you have lost in business as opposed to, like you said, spend 6 to 10 minutes practicing it and getting better at it? How much more money or how much more contacts or whatever it is that your goal is can be gained from that extra 6 to 10 minutes?

Cam Beaudoin [00:10:26]:
Yeah, there's not a speaker that I haven't had a conversation with who doesn't say, I want more leads. Like, I want more speaking leads, right? Like, like, you know, like, like, what's the biggest thing? Like, I don't have enough stages. Like, I want more stages. And Like, it all starts with becoming like the greatest speaker that you can become. Now, you're looking at Tony Robbins and Brené Brown, you're looking at all these people who are celebrity speakers and you're like, "I could do that." You can't. Like, you can't right now or else you'd get paid that. Like, there's an entire business that's built around that. But it starts with you getting better at that craft, you getting better on camera.

Cam Beaudoin [00:11:02]:
That's why I love video so much. It's an amazing placeholder. If you don't have a stage, turn on your camera, write a darn script, go deliver your message to a camera and go put it up on YouTube. You'll get raw data on like, was this good? Because people talk a lot about this algorithm and it's like, oh, the algorithm hates me. It's like, no, the algorithm doesn't know what to serve it to because you're talking about burnout one day, then you're talking about how to get a job the next day, then you talk about how your dog got sick on day 3. It's like the algorithm doesn't know who to push you to, like what is your channel. So like there's this whole theory on like, like just like make better content, like get better at what you're at, your craft, then, then the opportunities will come.

Tim Newman [00:11:39]:
To me, you know, dealing with the younger population, you know, almost the entirety of my career, you know, they want things to happen today. I mean, they want it to happen quickly. And like you, like you just said, they jump around from topic to topic to topic as opposed to taking one, one topic, one, one area, refining it and becoming good at that. And like I said, we are going to talk a little bit about branding, and that's part of that branding process. Becoming the go-to person in that area, you know, knowing that area inside and out so that you can speak on that, so that you can coach on that, so you can provide services on that, whatever it is that you're trying to do. But you can't be that voice or that person if you're jumping from topic to topic to topic to topic. And now nobody knows. Nobody knows why they should even go talk to you or listen to you.

Cam Beaudoin [00:12:30]:
Right, right. And I think it's rooted in fear. Like these speakers who are like, I'll go speak to anybody about anything. We all know people like that. Like, Man, I met this lady, phenomenal speaker. Like her craft was really good and she was charging $10,000, $15,000 per gig. And to a lot of people, that sounds like a lot of money. But when we were speaking, it's like, what do you want to be known for? Like who hires you? Like, oh, I can't get any consistent gigs.

Cam Beaudoin [00:12:54]:
I speak 2 times a year, 1 year, then I'm speaking 4 or 5. So it's like, yeah, you can solve a lot of problems for a lot of people, but unless you're known, for that one thing. Like when people say, I need to, I need somebody who can help us with this. If you're not that first person, like within that first 3, let's just say, then your, your brand association's weak. Like that's what you got to work on next.

Tim Newman [00:13:15]:
Right. And that's not easy. I don't want people to think that that's an easy thing. It's not a light bulb type of thing. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes some serious introspection on, on your part as an, as an individual. And maybe you could help doing that.

Tim Newman [00:13:30]:
Helps somebody that can help bring that out of you and help develop that, that brand as well. It's not an easy overnight process. It does take time and effort.

Cam Beaudoin [00:13:39]:
Yeah, yeah. And, but it is a journey of discovery. It's not something you can just say, I want to be known. Well, you can. You hold on. Let me, let me retract that. It's a journey of self-discovery. Because you're going to say, like, if I wanted to become an expert on I don't know, like how to make the best headphones in the world.

Cam Beaudoin [00:13:59]:
Like if I, like, that was my goal. Like I want it, like I'm an audiophile. I love, I like great sounding music. Like the journey to become the best audiophile on the planet and then speak about it. The first step isn't going to spend $100,000 on every single headphone out there. Like that's a poor idea of what is good. Because then you're gonna, at the back end, you're like, but I spent all this money, but like the world owes me because I did all this work. It's like, no.

Cam Beaudoin [00:14:25]:
You gotta start to discover in public. You have to start to go and share the message on and on and on. And there's a whole idea around like binge watching your content and things like that. But if you then all of a sudden become this, oh my gosh, every time I talk to Tim, he's talking to me about these damn headphones, you know? Then that becomes like next time, or maybe I'll use me, every time I talk to Cam, he's talking about these damn headphones. Well, Tim, when you hear your friend say, hey, it's Black Friday coming up and there's like a couple headphones, I have no idea which one to pick. Do you know anyone? Like, do you have any recommendations? Who do you think you're gonna think of first? This damn guy.

Tim Newman [00:15:06]:
He's probably still talking about it.

Cam Beaudoin [00:15:07]:
He's still talking about it, right? Like, go watch his videos. Go like, and that's brand association in a nutshell, right? And, but it is not an overnight thing. It is, it is time. And, and you're absolutely right. Like a lot of people don't wanna spend the time to get good at, to get good at that thing and become known.

Tim Newman [00:15:20]:
Yeah. And just so the listeners understand this, I've been doing this for 30 years. I've been, I've been talking to people on stages for 30 years, and I've made a transition from being a recovering college professor now. And now what, what, what do I want to be? Right. And it's, it's still not easy. I know what I want to do, but it's— I'm starting to build a completely different brand, same niche, same area, but it's a completely different brand from what I was before, right? I'm still talking to, you know, the younger generations about, you know, connecting and growing their network and becoming successful in their careers. But it's a, it's a little bit different now. So building that brand association and I come back to just because you're over here and you, and you built this brand just like you, right? You had to make a transition and you had to, to, to do some of those other things.

Tim Newman [00:16:13]:
So that you're seen differently. And now, okay, now Cam was over here and Tim was over here and they made this pivot and now they're the experts in this area. So we have to write them from that perspective as well.

Cam Beaudoin [00:16:25]:
Yeah. And you can't be switching too much.

Tim Newman [00:16:29]:
Right, right.

Cam Beaudoin [00:16:30]:
Because you haven't given the market the time to get used to you in this new phase. Like, I can give two examples here. Let's do Mel Robbins because everyone pretty much knows Mel, right? You know, she was the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 lady. Lady, right? Like, she had that technique, and now she's becoming the Let Them lady because that's her latest book, right? Well, it wasn't like 3 months after 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 that she released her new book called Let Them. There's like the dissociation there. You kind of had to let the market see that, oh my gosh, like, Mel's an expert at this and she's changed my life. And you have to let those testimonials and the, the proof kind of catch up with you that you're the expert. And by the way, that proof is so undeniably powerful.

Cam Beaudoin [00:17:10]:
Like, testimonials and proof, like, the more of those you can load up— like, you gotta wait just to get that. Like, you gotta to get success, to prove success. Because I think that's what a lot of people also don't realize. Like, we're all in it for ourselves. So when you're out there teaching somebody about communication, you gotta wait for the people to say, oh my God, like, thank you so much, Tim, for helping me get this result. Because then you're like, okay, that worked. Now I can start to like build on that. Because if you start to make too many changes before you've got testimonials, people are coming in, they're like, hey, don't you do communication? You're like, no, I've switched to deck building now.

Cam Beaudoin [00:17:44]:
Like, it's like, what? Like, okay, well, nothing there to talk about, so I'll see you later.

Tim Newman [00:17:48]:
Exactly. And I'm not a self-promoter at all. And, and again, maybe that's one of my issues. It was one of my, my drawbacks. I don't know if you know this, I just, I just released a book about 2 weeks ago.

Cam Beaudoin [00:18:00]:
Um, congrats.

Tim Newman [00:18:01]:
Maybe it's 3 weeks now, I don't know. It's because time flies by so, so freaking quick in this business, right? And one of the things I'm I'm proud about, you know, when you do Amazon and you pick the categories, this, that, and the other thing, and I had, I, one of my, I had a reach category that I wanted to be a bestseller in, and in that category was Mel Robbins, was Simon Sinek, a couple other people. And through the first week, Mel Robbins was 1, Simon Sinek was 3, I was 5. I ended up— all right, so to To me, that's pretty good.

Cam Beaudoin [00:18:37]:
That's pretty good.

Tim Newman [00:18:38]:
Yeah, it's pretty good. Now, I'm no Mel Robbins, I'm no Simon Sinek, but, you know, it's those— when you're going to do something, also you have to set these goals and build that brand. It comes back to that. You can't just say, okay, well, I'm going to shoot for over here. And, you know, this isn't where my people are. My people are in this category and you have to go for it. You have to actually put yourself out there and do the work if you want to be recognized for that work and build that brand as well.

Cam Beaudoin [00:19:11]:
Yeah, yeah. Like, and like putting in that work, I mean, what you're talking about is outreach and advertising and letting people know that we— I have this theory and like to any speaker who's listening, I want you to prove me wrong. Okay, prove me wrong. When we get up on stage and we see 30, 300, 3,000 eyes looking at us and you're like, I'm a big dog now. Like, look at me. Nobody knows who you are. Like, it doesn't matter if you've been speaking for 30 years. Like, Tim, I love you, but I haven't heard of you until we started talking about this podcast, right? You may have been speaking or helping speakers and being a college professor for like 30-odd years.

Cam Beaudoin [00:19:47]:
I've never heard of you before, right? And if— and I think what happens is that we think that we are much bigger than we are because when we're on stage, we get a ton of validation. I'll give you like solid proof of this. Anyone's listening, don't know if you know Alex Hormozi. He's one of these internet guys. Um, big guy for, for, uh, lead gen and really awesome guy. In one of his ads, he, he was showing like the behind the scenes and he was running around Las Vegas with a bunch of people all dressed in green cuz the COVID of his book is green and he was promoting his book. Somebody stopped him and said, what are you doing? And he's like, oh, I'm promoting my book. He's like, oh, I've never heard of you.

Cam Beaudoin [00:20:25]:
And he talked a little bit about it. And then Alex turns to the camera, he says, see, Nobody knows who we are. Alex Hormozi has like 10 to 15 million followers across all his platforms, and still there is people in the city that he operates in that don't know who he is.

Tim Newman [00:20:40]:
They don't know who he is.

Cam Beaudoin [00:20:41]:
So like, like, like, for us to think that we're so big, that we're so popular, that we don't need to advertise for ourselves— like, I had that lesson like really early. That's, you know, one of the reasons actually, um, when I left IBM and I was, I was still trying to speak on accessibility, I no longer had the IBM logo behind me and people are like, who are you again? I was an IBM guy. Don't know. Don't remember you. Get outta here. Like, like I couldn't, like I had a hard time finding gigs after that. Like I had to like work to, to get those again. But really nobody knows who you are.

Cam Beaudoin [00:21:09]:
You must advertise and promote every single day and like start to like, that's part of the journey of becoming like one of these big speakers. If you wanna become a household name or if you wanna release a book, you wanna get multi-five-figure speaking opportunities, you gotta kind of get known.

Tim Newman [00:21:25]:
Yeah, exactly. And you got to be on camera to do that. I mean, because let's just say you're going to be a speaker and the most people that you're going to speak in front of— let's just say you bust out and you're speaking in arenas, you know, 15,000, 20,000. Most people you're going to be speaking in front of is 15,000, 20,000 unless you get on camera, right? And that's how you have to look at this. You, you can get a much bigger audience this way than you can, can being on stages.

Cam Beaudoin [00:21:58]:
100%, right? And there's no better way to become an expert than to start speaking on camera. And I think that's a big step that people miss. You think that because you've done one podcast, you've written one book— books are hard, don't get me wrong— but like, like, you know, you think you've done one thing or you're known in one area and you think that's going to make you an expert. Well, what do you think an event planner does right away after they hear your name? Let me look this up because mind you, like, if you're gonna spend— if you're gonna drop $10,000 on the keynoter for an event and you're like, I've got some— like, I gotta figure out who this person is, you don't think they're going to Google you next?

Tim Newman [00:22:34]:
Yeah.

Cam Beaudoin [00:22:35]:
Well, guess who owns YouTube? Google.

Tim Newman [00:22:37]:
Google.

Cam Beaudoin [00:22:37]:
And guess what? Like, that's why I encourage everybody, like, you must be putting your long-form keynotes up on YouTube so that people can see how you are on stage. And that goes back to the very first thing that we were talking about, which is like, if you're not watching your content to get better, maybe that's why you're not posting your stuff, because you're actually a little bit embarrassed. You're like, oh, screwed up there. I didn't like— do better. Like, that's the whole goal here is like, let's get better, but get better in public. Post that content so that when someone says, send me some stuff of you on stage, great, here you go, here's my YouTube channel, when do you want to talk? Like, it's like you're putting— like, you're putting that pressure on, not hold on, give me 48 hours to edit it, then like screen it to make sure. Because then you— the, the buying pressure is gone. Like, people are sometimes like ready now to talk to you, so put it up on Online, demonstrate that you're an expert in your craft by scripting and talking about your topic.

Cam Beaudoin [00:23:29]:
That's the goal. That's how you get speaking opportunities inbound in 2025, 2026.

Tim Newman [00:23:35]:
Yeah, it's critical to do that. But we talk about this a lot. I mentioned it earlier. You got about 7 seconds to engage with people. How does a speaker do that through a camera lens in 7 seconds?

Cam Beaudoin [00:23:50]:
So the easiest way is just ask a question at the very beginning. Call out your audience and ask a question. Hey, for any speakers out there, are you struggling to get leads coming to you? In this video, I'm going to show you the 3-step method on how to do that. And I'm not going to ask for much time. It's not going to require lots of sending out emails or something. Not going to require you to dance on camera. My name is Cam. I'm a speaker video expert.

Cam Beaudoin [00:24:15]:
So let's talk about this right now. Like, look, probably half your answer now is like, all right, Cam, tell me more about that. Like, tell me how to get inbound leads because I call it and you're not talking about headphones. Oh my gosh. Yeah, finally. Exactly. Right, right. But like, that's what it's like, know your audience, know, and this goes back to like, how well do you know the pains that they have and like what brand you want to know? So like, let's talk like, I harp on burnout coaches because there's so many, like, people think that because you've had one experience in burnout that you can come and become a $25,000 speaker on burnout.

Cam Beaudoin [00:24:48]:
There are so many people who go through bad experiences in life. You got to spend time going even more. But again, call your audience, be like, hey, um, let's, let's kind of like off the top of the, off the top of the head, for someone who's, uh, uh, maybe you're, you're, you're helping, uh, senior tech executives, maybe like that. I'd say it's pretty burnout culture there, you know, people who work at Amazon, stuff like that. So hey, why don't you even call it up, be like, hey, If you are a senior executive in the tech space and you just went through the last round of Facebook layoffs and Amazon layoffs and Microsoft layoffs, I've got 3 tips on how to find your next job and you're gonna get paid even more than what you were paid before. If you don't know who I am, I'm whatever. Like you just kind of roll off like that. Like, right.

Cam Beaudoin [00:25:29]:
You're gonna get people who are just interested to be like, all right, tell me more. Tell me more about like, like that. So that's how you hook. And, and by the way, I just wanna throw this in here. People, if you craft your hook even better on your public speaking talks, like when you're in front of, when you're in front of a live audience, getting good at your hook, it doesn't need to be as short as 7 seconds because, well, sometimes it does, like depending on who your audience is. But I've heard reports, and I've yet to prove this, but people who get it, who craft a better hook in front of a live audience, score higher in their, uh, in their, in their review scores of after a talk. So let me say that again. It's like if you improve your hook at the beginning of a live talk, you're going to get a better score at the end of it on reviews.

Cam Beaudoin [00:26:11]:
So I've heard this from a few people now. I've yet to see the real evidence from it. So I don't want to like, it's anecdotal, but like that means something as well.

Tim Newman [00:26:20]:
That makes total sense to me because if, right, because if you have them, you've got a less likely chance of losing them to be able to get to that, that good review as opposed to if you've never got them. Or if you take 15, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, a minute, 5 minutes in, wow, what just happened? What did he say in the first 5 minutes? I don't know. So I don't— I'm not even sure where we are. And now we're at the end, and that's where the bad reviews come because you haven't engaged them throughout the entire talk, whatever that is, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, hour, whatever your time frame is.

Cam Beaudoin [00:26:59]:
Right, right. And I think TEDx has done a really good job at helping people kind of like break the mold in their minds, because a lot of people's goal is, so I want to get a TEDx stage. Okay, great. Whatever any listener's opinion is on TEDx, like, I don't care. I think it's a great institution. I think it's helped the entire craft of public speaking level up. I think it's helped confidence for a lot of people. I don't have a TEDx talk, but I know many speakers who do have it.

Cam Beaudoin [00:27:21]:
And I don't think I've ever heard a TEDx start with Hey everyone, my name is Cam and, um, I'm an expert and I have 3 dogs and 3 kids. Like, like putting people to sleep, right? Like, I think— exactly, I think TEDx has done a really good job at saying this is the format that you kind of got to like at least be aware of, and because it's a good format to creating talks. And so if you can just like create your talk, whether it's on document remediation or something super dull like that. Like, but if you start with saying like, how many people here have ever struggled at making their document adhere to the government Class 3 section, whatever, like you're going to get immediate audience interaction. Oh, I've done that before. You're calling out the pain right away, right? Great way to start your talk and great way to hook an audience right away. That's it.

Tim Newman [00:28:11]:
Yeah, it's— and it's, you know, the whole— that whole idea of, of you've got 15 minutes or 12 to 18 minutes is whatever it is, and you've got to be on point. And so you've got to come in right away, nail it. And, and that, that formula that they've developed, it doesn't really matter what TEDx that you're on, that formula is the same. It's the exact same formula. And if you go through, you can go to YouTube and watch, you know, 30 different types of TEDx talks, they all follow that Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Cam Beaudoin [00:28:45]:
And it's a good format. It's a good format. It's a good storytelling format. Another good one is The Moth. Do you know The Moth podcast? Ever heard of that one?

Tim Newman [00:28:52]:
I've heard of it, have not listened to it.

Cam Beaudoin [00:28:53]:
Yeah, it's another one of these like storytelling podcasts. And people are invited to The Moth because I think they're in San Diego. Don't quote me on that one. Who's the fact— like here, there's an audience. Who's the fact checker who's going to drop a comment in this video going to correct me? So I'm going to say San Diego and I'm going to get it wrong just to get some interaction there. So, um, but The Moth, you, you go to The Moth and you give it— you tell a story. It's totally story-driven. I think you've got like, again, 5 to 20 minutes, like really, really short.

Cam Beaudoin [00:29:25]:
You got to condense it into there. But people work to get on The Moth because it's, it's, it's proof that you've worked your craft enough to become like, like good at this. Like they— you, you want to be on it. So anyway, all that to be said, it's like there's a— sometimes this format, there's a reason why, because it works.

Tim Newman [00:29:45]:
Yeah, well, let me ask a kind of a, maybe a shift question here. What do you think about origin stories and, and people? I'm, I'm kind of, I'm over the— and I get it, people have trauma, people have these other things, but I, I think, I think the origin story of trauma is so overused. And you don't have to have a— at least from my perspective, you don't have to have this, this great amazing story, whether good or bad, to have an origin story or to be engaging or to hook people in a keynote or presentation, what have you.

Cam Beaudoin [00:30:24]:
See, I think what's important to remember is that we are all very self-serving and that we are all very self-focused. So if you come up on stage and say, "I lost my house from a fire," and it's like you're just saying, "I, I, I," if you're starting off being like, like talking about the I, I statements, like, it's got to be the most impressive, massive story that you, that you've ever heard. Like, we, we love stories. We love stories of, of underdogs coming back. But if you're just shoehorning your story in there just to get an emotion, it's gonna fall flat. I know I tried, uh, during COVID my grandmother passed away and I tried to put that into like a story, and I heard feedback afterwards being like, why? Like, um, The feedback I received was like, you abused your grandmother, or like you used the story of your grandmother just to get like a feeling. And it sucked. It sucked even reading those comments because it was like, oh, like, and I did, I did.

Cam Beaudoin [00:31:17]:
I was like, someone told me to create a story, so I create a story about my grandmother passing away over through COVID. It's like a wrong intention. So, but if your story is central to your talk, like if you are speaking, if you're a motivational speaker and you can speak about that, well then you've got to become a great storyteller in general. Like, don't just— like, again, if you're a document remediation person, to go and talk about your origin story is like, what's the lesson that you learned? But, but I say that, and, and there's another angle from this. Like, if you can make people relate to you— because what do stories do other than make an audience relate to us? So it's like, if you're going to tell your origin story, you got to get good at telling your origin story. When I just told the story about my grandmother, it wasn't to relate to anybody, it was just to like unload trauma. Like, that's a whole angle. It's like if you're going through your divorce, you don't talk about your divorce, right? Like, you got to come up with a lesson at the end.

Cam Beaudoin [00:32:13]:
You know, all the kids' stories, all the, um, what are they called, the, uh, the nurseries, uh, not the nursery rhymes, the, the tales that we learned as kids, right? They all have like problem, amplification of problem, solution, transformation. Like, it's a pretty standard storyline. You got to kind of follow that format because if you just go and say, you Oh, I'm going through divorce, everyone. Let's talk about document remediation. You're just, you're just, you're just not going to get like a feeling. You'd be like, wow, what a loser or something like that. Like, that's just what people are going to think.

Tim Newman [00:32:43]:
So that's the Michael Scott version of that's right.

Cam Beaudoin [00:32:46]:
That's right. Michael Scott version. Totally. Snip and un-snip, snip and un-snip.

Tim Newman [00:32:52]:
Oh, that's crazy. That's, that's the first thing I started thinking about. Cause oh, he's so, it's just so funny. Actually, one of the things that I'm working on is developing stories that have, that have a point, right? Because like you said, we all have points, right? I mean, we all, we all have stories. And, and one of the things I'm working on is, is taking stories, condensing them down to 2 to 3 minutes that have a point, that have a point that we can actually target to whatever the point is of the presentation or the keynote or whatever it is that we're overall talking about. And sometimes stories can have more than one point. But it's, it's much better if you can have a condensed story that's powerful, that, that goes on that, that story arc that invokes emotion, invokes more than one emotion, and makes the point.

Cam Beaudoin [00:33:49]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And this is, this is why I feel it's so important to get testimonials from your clients, because then you can retell that story of them working with you. And that like is a double-edged sword. Like you, not double-edged sword, like it's double whammy what I'm trying to say. Because not only do you get their story that you can tell, it's their story of working with you and you get to talk about that transformation. Like for example, some of the videos that we've done have doubled the speaking fees of some of our clients. I've got a client, Joe. Joe was struggling because his brand didn't match his level of speaking on stage anymore.

Cam Beaudoin [00:34:22]:
Like it was living in the dinosaur age from 10 years ago when he still had hair. So So, when after working with me, we went through all his content. We recorded a new session with him. I put him on in front of 2 4K cameras and we interviewed him in a studio. The output of that was confidence and the ability to get up to that $14,000 speaking fee. And that was over a course of about 6 to 8 weeks. Boom! That's a story. Like there's a transformation in there.

Cam Beaudoin [00:34:45]:
There's a problem in there. There's where he was before, where he's ended up afterwards. And like, that's a story that you can tell again and again and again. Brings in leads that helps like an audience trust you. You can, I can show proof of that. Like there's so many ways to do that. So it doesn't only have to be a personal story. You said origin story, but like that is a story and you can demonstrate expertise, but I actually like grabbing stories from like, and, uh, from, from as, as many places I can.

Cam Beaudoin [00:35:13]:
Let me give you an example of that because I, I love this idea of storytelling, but I think we put too much weight on finding the perfect story. Because what I can do is I can tell a story about what happened this morning. And once you get good at understanding story frameworks, then everything becomes kind of easier. So this morning, um, I woke my son up. He's 2, he's 2 and a half right now. And yeah, great age. He's a terrorist. I gotta say, like, it's, it's so bad.

Cam Beaudoin [00:35:40]:
He woke up super sweet and I showed him, I said, I'm going to make you a, like a chocolate milk. Do you know those chocolate bombs? You know, you know those chocolate bombs like that? You drop it in, it melts in the, in the, in the hot milk and stuff like that, right?

Tim Newman [00:35:51]:
Yeah.

Cam Beaudoin [00:35:51]:
Okay, so I showed him that and he was so fixated on the fact that it was like a chocolate bar that he lost it. He started full tantrum. It was 35 minutes before I calmed him down and he was trying to grab the pot of milk and like pulling it down. And we're talking scalding milk on him. Like, obviously I didn't want that. It was in the microwave and stuff like that. So, uh, it took us 35 minutes to calm him down. And so now I know that sometimes not even showing what you're gonna do is the most important thing to do.

Cam Beaudoin [00:36:19]:
And how many times this happened with clients too? You start going into explaining too much of what you're going to do and they're like, dude, I don't even care about this. Just, just like, just like, I want the output of that too. So it's a reminder again that sometimes as humans we don't need to know every single detail before the end result. Because had I just poured chocolate milk for him, hot chocolate for him, he probably would have been super happy with that.

Tim Newman [00:36:38]:
It would Yeah, boom, that's a story that happened this morning.

Cam Beaudoin [00:36:41]:
I didn't need to prepare for that. Like, I just know a story framework where I gotta relate it into people. And like I said, client story with there as well, because that's a human thing. Relating it to the overall human experience is kind of— is, is really what we're all trying to do here. So I don't know, I might use that again, I might not, but that's a great example, like, you know, of when humans aren't, uh, you know, you know, it's an amplification of a problem that, that a little tiny human had, and we can just relate that to so many different stories. So It's only Story Framework. Never going to do that.

Tim Newman [00:37:08]:
Exactly. And it made me think of something that happened to me last week. So I'm helping somebody, you know, build an audio thing for HOAs so they can have meetings and so forth. And someone was talking about feedback with having multiple microphones. I said, look, I don't know how it works. I just know that it works. I know we have— so you can have 7 microphones there. You plug them in.

Tim Newman [00:37:29]:
I don't need to know how it works. I just need to know that it's going to work. So don't get into this transistor and that transistor and this. Just, just need to know it works. Because if you start, like, just like your son, you start going down that road, I don't really care, and people are going to shut off and shut down. And now you're just talking to talk and nobody really cares.

Cam Beaudoin [00:37:52]:
Or you can sometimes get yourself in hot water too, right? So here, here, here now we are. Here we're talking about a story which was, which was like 35 minutes this morning. We're still talking about it now, right? Like, how does this relate to human— like, people and stuff like that? Like, that is the power story. So you don't have to ignore stories, but if you get good at storytelling in general— like, I don't have a really strong origin story for me to tell, um, like about my divorce or, or about, um, you know, um, you know, my travels and things like that. Like, to the wrong audience, it's just like— it just doesn't matter to them. Like, they don't care. They just don't care about you. They care about themselves.

Cam Beaudoin [00:38:28]:
So everything has to be relatable in some way. So unless you're able to relate and have a point and stuff like that, then I think that like the origin story itself is important, but it's not the be-all end-all.

Tim Newman [00:38:39]:
Yeah. So we talk about stories and how they translate. It doesn't really matter if you're on stage or video. Talk about confidence, doesn't really matter. You got to have confidence on video, confidence on stage. You got to have enthusiasm or whatever word we want to use on video and on stage. What else translates both, that you got to have both on, doesn't really matter whether you're on video or you're on stage or just, or just regular interpersonal communication. What are the things that you got to have?

Cam Beaudoin [00:39:10]:
Well, I think empathy is huge. And I think we don't have enough of that these days. I think it's really easy to sit on a soapbox and just say, you know, this is what I think and this is what I believe, but it's really in the continuous understanding of people where you're really gonna do the most growth. And I, I think it's so funny, when I started learning about marketing in general, I learned so much more about people. And it's like, that's the core of what marketing is. Even starting on like, like a simple concept of, of we want to move away from pain and go towards pleasure. We are hardwired for that. Think of it like, you know, tens of thousands of years ago when we were hunter-gatherers and things like the pain of of, of killing an animal and then not being— not like, uh, uh, like breaking it down fast enough because there would be scavengers coming, right? Like, that's the pain.

Cam Beaudoin [00:40:03]:
You gotta hurry up. Like, let's take— like, cut down this animal. Let's go, let's go. And the pleasure of, of being able to be rewarded, of coming back with the meat for the tribe— like, those are, those are diametric. Like, those are opposed. Like, you got to make sure you separate those and, like, speak about that too. So I always try to think about What's the problem? What's the pain? What's the issue that somebody's experiencing right now? And am I able to help solve those problems and go towards that too? So understanding those two, those two levers and how you can use it, I think that's hugely important in, in, in all types of communication. Like, stop talking about yourself, start talking about the pains and problems that other people have.

Cam Beaudoin [00:40:41]:
And through that, you'll understand empathy too. And it it will get you a much better result long-term than what you think of just on the surface.

Tim Newman [00:40:52]:
Exactly. And then I look at that and take that, you know, just one step further, right? You know, the whole idea of, you know, people talk about authenticity and what really is authenticity. You know, I don't know that I can define authenticity. You know, when I talk about it, it's just, just me being, it's just, there goes Tim being Tim again, just Cam being Cam. It's just whatever it is.. And one of the things for me, and I'd like for you to talk about this, when I stopped trying to be buttoned up, locked in, on point, Mr. Professional, Mr. And this goes for everything that I was doing.

Tim Newman [00:41:28]:
I've got it all together, whether I had it together or not. When I stopped trying to be that person and just relax and got back to being awesome, being Tim, that's when I saw a big shift. What are your thoughts on the whole idea of the locked-up professional versus just being normal and who you are?

Cam Beaudoin [00:41:47]:
Well, here's the thing, okay? I love cigars. Oh, here we go. And I like a scotch. Okay, I like that. I like that a lot. But for me to be authentic, and for me to be authentic and, and sit here at, uh, 10:30 in the morning Uh, drinking a scotch and having a cigar is my— what I, I would love that, and that would be my authentic self, right? Your most authentic self does not have to be released to the world. Like, it does not. Maybe there's some people out there, maybe there's some people out there who like to walk around their house like in their birthday suit, and you're like, maybe that's their true authentic self.

Cam Beaudoin [00:42:28]:
That does not need to be released to the public. I don't believe that's what authenticity is. I think it's a version of— we all have different versions of ourselves. You've got a version of yourself with your family. You've got a version of yourself with your kids. You've got a version of yourself with your clients. And I will guarantee that you're probably not speaking to your clients in the same way as you're speaking to your kids. So does that mean you're being inauthentic with your clients or being inauthentic with your kids? No.

Cam Beaudoin [00:42:54]:
It, it, like, I, I don't really believe that's what it is. I think authenticity is being true to your deeper beliefs, your ethos, you know, any moment. Like, I wouldn't go and steal from anybody. And so therefore, even if I was in the— with a group of people who are like, hey, it's okay to, to, to kind of just like, you know, we're hanging out here like doing some stuff, like it would be wrong for me to say just because I'm with a group of people that I would do this and become a different person. So it's whenever you feel that tug, like, I, I don't mind dressing up in a suit. In fact, dressing down is a bit of a new thing to me. Like, I sold jewelry for most of my 20s, and that was my background. So I would wear full-on three-piece suit with a vest and a tie because I wanted to be at a higher level.

Cam Beaudoin [00:43:37]:
Like, that was what I was expected of me. I don't mind wearing that here, even alone in front of camera, and sometimes I will because that's the— that's what I try and portray. But when you become good at expressing your true self. I think that is authenticity. And I may have a version of it or a facet of it when I speak to you, or when I'm on stage, or when I'm speaking to my kids. Like, I will still speak about, um, well, I was talking to my other son. I have an 11-year-old as well. And I was talking about, um, when you hold yourself to a higher standard.

Cam Beaudoin [00:44:10]:
That is something I speak about to a lot of people because I A lot of clients, they come in and they, they, they just like what we were talking about before, right? Like you need to hold yourself to a higher standard. At some point it's not somebody else telling you you should be better on camera. It's you being like, I suck on camera and that's okay. Like I gotta just get better. Like, and that's holding yourself. Like I will talk about that on podcasts in one way, to my son as a life lesson, to my little, little kid in a book. That's all a very deep like value of mine is, is to speak about that. So I think I think that's what authenticity is, is am I able to speak about something that is like a true value that I have in different ways to different people? That's the best way I can describe it.

Tim Newman [00:44:53]:
Yeah, I love that. I, I love that, especially the, the end piece about, um, you know, we talked about this before, the whole idea of continuous improvement. Doesn't matter where you're at, continuous improvement, lifelong improvement, lifelong learning, getting better at your craft. If you want to be good, you've got to keep practicing. And the whole piece about dress and how you're perceived is huge, especially in a professional setting. Right? So again, and I used to talk about this when I was teaching a lot, when you get to a certain level, you have the right to dress however you want to do that. But if you want to be associated with the level that you're at, You need to present yourself at that level. As a student, if you want to get to a certain level, you can't come in dressed like, you know, in sweatpants and a t-shirt.

Tim Newman [00:45:51]:
There's, you know, whether you like it or not, right or wrong, there is that perception of other people that you, that at some point you have to reach or meet. And then when you get to a certain level, you can do what you want. But I would still suggest when you can do what you want, you still portray the, the role that you're portraying. The President of the United States is not running around at a press conference in, in shorts and a t-shirt, right? You know, do you want— and, and I'm not just talking about this, I mean, it could be any president. Go back and look. When do you ever see the President of the United States not in a suit and tie, right?

Cam Beaudoin [00:46:31]:
Exactly.

Tim Newman [00:46:31]:
Ever. Exactly. Ever. Except on the golf course. I mean, it's— but that's different. When do you see a chef not in a white shirt and a white hat? Exactly. Yeah. Because they're in a position of authority or power or whatever it is, and you've got to play that role.

Tim Newman [00:46:52]:
Now, playing that role and looking that way does not mean that you don't say and do stupid things. Right. And how you, how you react to that and how you, and how you play that off is, is a different piece of that. And you've got to, you've got to learn and grow into that to who you are. And I think especially at the, at the younger levels, the younger professional levels, that's a tough, tough lesson to learn.

Cam Beaudoin [00:47:17]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're, you're exactly right. I've been in a hiring position before and I'd get someone in and like, Did you even— like, that's first impressions, especially if you're not known. Going back to brand, we didn't get much time to talk about brand, but it's like, that's like, that's, that's— if you are known before, then you kind of have a bit of grace to do that, right? If I'm hiring somebody like a contractor and I already know he does good work, if he shows up sweaty and gross, he's like, I just came from another job, then I'd be like, okay, no problem. But if I hired that same person to build a new house for me and they showed up with like torn jeans. It's like, I don't care if you came from another job.

Cam Beaudoin [00:47:57]:
I'm about to spend, you know, half a million dollars to build a new house with you. Then, then like you owe it to me to dress up with like a little bit better than just coming from— anyway, like from a different job site or something like that. Like, right. But that's, that's kind of like, again, many of us think that we're owed, we are owed more respect or, or whatever than really what, what it is. It's why don't you just Put the extra effort in, put on a nice shirt, going back to wearing clothing. Like, and you'll try, like, like, you're not seeing me here smoking a cigar on your podcast, you know, at 10:30 in the morning. Cause it's like, expect, hey, would you put that out for a second? It's like not going to attract the right type of person. The podcast doesn't want to be off-put by, yeah, I'll do that tonight with the boys.

Cam Beaudoin [00:48:36]:
That's fine.

Tim Newman [00:48:36]:
That's what I want. Exactly. I could talk to you for hours. I mean, you know, when I look at the notes that, that I have and and some other things. Um, so I'm like, right now I've kind of skipped some things, but I'm on page 2 of like 6. So I mean, I've got lots of these to talk to you about. And you know, one of the things that, that I love about guests, especially guests like you, you come at it from a, from a different perspective of, you know, it doesn't always have to be serious and step by step and you have to, to be locked in. You can't have fun with it.

Tim Newman [00:49:14]:
I think if we can't have fun doing what we're doing, why are we doing it? Yeah, life, life is just way too short to, to not enjoy what you're doing and have fun with it. And when you mess up, you mess up, you laugh about it, you move on and, and, and, and that's that. You know, it's, you know, I also think that it's really good. I talk about this a lot. For our audiences to see that, okay, you may look at us as experts and we never mess up, but we mess up all the time. I tell people, spend the day with me. I'll say— I say stupid stuff and do stupid stuff all day long. It's just part of who I am.

Tim Newman [00:49:57]:
And you take it and you move on. I don't take myself seriously. I take what I do seriously, just like the conversation that we had before we got on air. Our expectations of our work product, right, is not here, okay, for cameras. It's not here. It's way up here. And we expect those people that are, that we're associated with, for their expectations to be up here as well. And if they're not, we've got to work, figure out how to, how to get them to that point.

Cam Beaudoin [00:50:23]:
Yeah. You know, what is an expert other than somebody who just knows a little bit more than you? Right? And, and when we— I just want to actually say one thing about the word expert, because, you know, event planners hire experts. So anyone who is looking to get on stage, like, become an expert, right? Like, become— like, don't be a journalist. Become an expert. Like, become unreasonably good at one thing, because that's what people really want to hire. They want somebody who's really good at speaking and unreasonably good at one thing, so that when an audience member's like, tell us more about basket weaving, and you're like, ah, I can answer that question, you're not just got it. Yeah, I got it. Answer that person right away.

Cam Beaudoin [00:50:59]:
That's the whole goal. Right. This is like, this is the self-discovery journey and like getting better at the small things. And so, so I mean, I don't have a video background. Actually, it's really funny. I once got, uh, one of my clients was, she said, hey, I do all my editing with these guys. Uh, do you mind? I know you're doing my demo reel cam, but do you mind just like getting on the phone with them? Because, uh, they just want to talk to you about like, you know, some tips and stuff like that. Absolutely.

Cam Beaudoin [00:51:28]:
And then as soon as I got on the phone, these two guys, they start off the conversation like, yeah, so I've been, uh, 32 years in film and television. The other guy's like, oh, I've been scriptwriting since I was like 12, and like I wrote my first, uh, play. They had all these credentials, but didn't matter because the client paid me, right? Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, right, none of all that matters. Like, nothing matters. I thought they were giving me advice and I was the expert to the client. And so they were talking about like, oh yeah, in this one scene her left eye is not dead center in the middle of the frame and that's creating distraction. I'm like, I didn't even know that was a thing. But now thank you for the free advice because that's not something anyone could probably have told me before.

Cam Beaudoin [00:52:09]:
And now I've got that as freebie advice. That's awesome. Like, I got that info. So like combined, I got 60 years worth of advice giving me tips on how to serve the client who paid me. You don't need to be the best ultimate expert at totally everything. You just need to know more than the person that you want to teach and coach and train, right? Like, that's, that's what the whole goal is here. So that's mentorship to some people, that's writing a course for other people, that's writing a book for some others, that's starting a YouTube channel for other people, that's getting on stage for other people. Like, it means different things to different people, but like, you're, you're— yeah, you always have to push your standard up, because we've all worked with people who claim to be experts and you're like, I know more than you, and that sucks.

Cam Beaudoin [00:52:49]:
But like, like, you just need to know more than, than the person that you're— that who's trying to pay you for some stuff.

Tim Newman [00:52:55]:
That's it, right? And my guess is for you, you're open to that feedback too.

Cam Beaudoin [00:53:01]:
Oh my gosh, yeah.

Tim Newman [00:53:03]:
Like, I have to be open to it, right?

Cam Beaudoin [00:53:05]:
Yeah, you have to be. You have to be open to that feedback. And I, I prep people As soon as I sell anything, I say, look, this is a relationship. Like, if you can't be honest and tell me that I'm not doing my job right for whatever reason, then I can't fix it. And people are so afraid to say that to clients. Like, they've got to be this idol of perfection to them. It's like, your client does not expect that because you probably don't, unless you're spending like, you know, $50,000 on it. Like, you probably expect a certain level, but let's be real, the majority of people are not.

Cam Beaudoin [00:53:34]:
Like, that's not what you want. You're looking for a partner to help you get to a a destination.

Tim Newman [00:53:38]:
That's what people usually are, right? Exactly. Well, again, like I said, I could go on for hours, probably go to sleep, even though we, you know, we've got good engaging content and we're energetic here, but they'd probably drop off. So maybe at some point in the future, we could hop on and do it again and really talk about branding. Because I do think that— I don't think this— I know how important important branding is. And it's, it's not just a logo. It's not just a color scheme. It's, it's more than that. It's so much more than that.

Tim Newman [00:54:10]:
Um, and I do think that, uh, people need to hear that. But oh my God, maybe we can hop on another call. Yeah, another time and get you back on.

Cam Beaudoin [00:54:18]:
Yeah, for sure. People are so fixated on their colors. Like, get off it. No one cares. Like, no one's buying your color. Like, anyway, sorry, sidebar. No one cares about your, your script logo. Oh my God, I speak to so I've had speakers who are like, they paid tens of thousands of dollars for a stupid logo and a font.

Cam Beaudoin [00:54:35]:
It's like, when I make your video, I don't even use it. And they're like, no, you have to use it. It's like they're more attached because they spent so much money on it. Because like, when was the last time that you're like, oh, because that speaker brand is in the bottom right of that short-form content, oh, now I'm gonna spend money on them. Like, no, it's not how things work.

Tim Newman [00:54:52]:
It's not exactly, exactly. But we're in the meantime, where can people connect with you?

Cam Beaudoin [00:54:57]:
Best place to find me? LinkedIn's one great place. If you need to have a chat back and forth, YouTube. Otherwise, go look at my content on YouTube. I've got so much content more about what we've just talked about— video and branding and getting speaking leads and how do you do outreach and all that kind of good stuff. Like my brand association, it's like, oh, Cam, you're that speaker video guy. That's what I'm trying to build as my speaker brand, as my brand. So find me on there, probably the best place. Give me a like and subscribe.

Tim Newman [00:55:21]:
It's Always great, dude. That's awesome. Again, I appreciate you spending some time with us, and we'll get you back on again real soon.

Cam Beaudoin [00:55:27]:
Amazing. Good to see you, Tim. Thanks for having me.

Tim Newman [00:55:31]:
Be sure to visit speakingwithconfidencepodcast.com to get your free ebook, Top 21 Challenges for Public Speakers and How to Overcome Them. You can also register for the Formula for Public Speaking. Always remember, your voice has the power to change the world. We'll talk to you next time.

Cam Beaudoin [00:55:45]:
Take care.