Personal Brand Building for Experts And The Domino Effect with TEDX Speaker, Corey Poirier

Elevate your personal brand and strategically expand your network with insights from Corey Poirier, a multiple-time TEDx speaker and international bestselling author.

What's Covered:

• The 'Domino Effect' in brand building and how it can amplify your credibility.
• Lessons from interviewing over 5,000 of the world's top leaders.
• Strategies for experts to position themselves effectively in their industries.
• Insights into Corey's journey as a columnist for Entrepreneur and Forbes magazines.

Tune in to discover actionable steps to enhance your brand and network strategically!

Corey Poirier is a multiple-time TEDx, MoMondays and PMx, Speaker and International Bestselling Author. He is also the host of the top rated ‘Get Paid To Speak’ Show, founder of The Speaking Program, Author of the For The Love of Speaking Book, bLU Talks, and he has been featured in multiple television specials.

A columnist with Entrepreneur and Forbes magazine, he has featured in/on CBS, CTV, NBC, ABC, is a Forbes Coaches Council member, and is one of the few leaders featured twice on the popular Entrepreneur on Fire show.

He has also interviewed over 5,000 of the world’s top leaders.

Books mentioned in the episode:
The Enlightened Passenger: The Flight That Changes Everything By Corey Poirier
Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind by Al Ries & Jack Trout

To learn more about bluTalks go to:
www.speakonblu.com
www.coreypoiriermedia.com

Listen to this next: Leaders Are Readers Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind episode

Simple & strategic marketing solutions for the busy coach and consultant. Visit www.reinventingperspectives.com

Transcript

[00:00:00]

Corey Poirier: Jack Canfield who created chicken soup for the soul. When I reached out to Jack's team, they said Jack's turning down nine out of every 10 interviews now. So it's probably gonna be a no Corey . Doesn't have anything. He's marketing. He's saying no pretty much to all interviews.

I had nothing to bring to the table that a lot of the big names reaching out to him had that was like my first big one I call it the dominoes it was when I knocked over the biggest dominoes so they could start knocking over the other ones. I've arrived today at a place where I can give you what I consider an actual strategy. 

It's time to reinvent.

Priscilla Shumba: Welcome to the lessons of entrepreneurship, the journey of reinvention. Today, I have a very special guest for you. I have Corey Poirier here. Corey, you've done some amazing things, but before we jump into that, please, I'll let you introduce yourself and what's your [00:01:00] mission.

Corey Poirier: I guess the myself part is I always jokingly say my origin story just like actors and superheroes say, but my origin story or my backstory is I grew up in a small town. I was raised by a single mother. I barely graduated high school. I didn't know the difference between fiction and nonfiction when I graduated and I didn't read my first book until age 27.

So that's where I started my yearbook. It wasn't written likely to succeed, let alone most likely. And that was my start. And then fast forward to today, how I help people is what changed my life was speaking on stages and writing books and being able to impact other people's lives in that way.

So now I help other people get on stages, write books, be interviewed for media, interview people as well. So that's how I help people now.

Priscilla Shumba: It's interesting that's how you started and, thankful for you for sharing that because a lot of people [00:02:00] often look at someone who's successful and think everything was great from the beginning. I'm interested to know. There must have been some kind of a shift at age 27 when you decided, okay, I'm going to open a book because that's a pretty big thing.

What had happened? What was the shift you think?

Corey Poirier: It's interesting because it was, What we might call a happy accident versus a intentional, this happened in my life and that's why I want to start reading now. I will say about a year, six months before I told my mother I wanted to write a book and she made an off comment that I think you have to read one first.

And so that was rolling at me or poking at me for the next six months or what have you. But what changed, what happened? It was literally, an action that happened that changed everything. I honestly think it was like the universe conspired to make it possible because I was at a company retreat for a company I was working for and my mother had bought this book for 25 cents.

At a flea market, and she threw it in my [00:03:00] bag when I was going off, and I still don't know what made her do that, what instinct, but I went to this company retreat, there were four cottages, three were together, and one was off in the middle of nowhere. So they had to send , one of our groups to the middle of nowhere, and they sent me to the cottage with three negative people.

Like the three most negative people. And I didn't really want to sit in that space. And so they said they were going for like a kayaking and doing all the stuff outside in the nature. And I had to think of something quick as to why I wasn't doing that. And I saw the book, just like a little bit coming out of the bag.

And I said, Oh, I'm going to read a book. And I'd never read one. I didn't tell them I'd never read one. But I grabbed the book almost to make it look So I figured like when they went outside and came back in, they would see I was reading and think it was true. But I felt like I'm going to really read. I'm not just going to try to fool them in reading.

And I read the first page and the book was called How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. And I read the first page and I was hooked. I was like, oh my gosh, I actually do want to read this. So now the story I made up is true. I want to read this book. And I [00:04:00] read it twice that same weekend.

So I'd never read a book before and that weekend by the time I left I'd read it twice. It wasn't really a thing that changed like a shift. It was more just this happy accident where , the book was an excuse. But then I was like, Oh my gosh, this is what people mean when they say that books are fun to read because previous to that, I tried to read three books in school, like the books back then we always get told to read like Lord of the flies.

Death of a Salesman, and I think it was To Kill a Mockingbird or whatever. And, so those three I tried to read and I never finished them, or got through them. And then I tried to read the book Cujo by Stephen King. And it didn't scare me, it was just, it didn't pull me in. The movie was scary, but the book didn't pull me in.

Those were my four attempts before that. But for whatever it was, this book, such a masterful storyteller was Dale Carnegie, that's what kind of pulled me in, never let me go. And that was the first book. And then the second book I read was a book called think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill. And I [00:05:00] always said, if you're going to start late, that's a big way to start.

Priscilla Shumba: Look, mother's wisdom and things just lined up. It's interesting , it's not that people don't want to read , but maybe they haven't encountered a book that is masterfully written and really speaks to who they are, essentially, because you are a masterful storyteller.

Corey, you've interviewed over 7, 000 influencers and I think there's that book, how to get yourself in front of people or how to meet important people. You could probably write a sequel to that. Let us know for the audience that's listening for those who trying to get an audience with an investor, with a certain business person, with a mentor, with someone that is out of reach.

Maybe you can tell us your most memorable how to and some tips . 

Corey Poirier: Yeah. So I've, I feel like I've arrived today at a place where I can give you what I consider an actual strategy. That if I was starting over, I would make sure I'm doing so I'll tell you the story of my first big get my first big one that was [00:06:00] like the interview. I call it the dominoes it was when I knocked over the biggest dominoes so they could start knocking over the other ones.

But it was Jack Canfield who created chicken soup for the soul. And when I reached out to Jack's team, they said Jack's turning down nine out of every 10 interviews now. So it's probably gonna be a no Corey . Doesn't have anything. He's marketing. He's saying no pretty much to all interviews.

And so that's where it stayed. I had nothing to bring to the table that a lot of the big names reaching out to him had. I just figured all I can do is just really keep reaching out and see if anything changed. But what happened was, it occurred to me at some point, maybe I can't reach Jack yet, but what if I could reach people that are in Jack's circle, and then once I've interviewed them, if I have enough of them, I can go and present that to Jack's team and they might say five of Jack's friends have been on the show.

Let's send Jack. So the first one I discovered was a guy named Dan Sullivan and he runs a company called Strategic Coach. And I heard him on Success Magazine, the DVD or the CD back in the day. [00:07:00] the magazine would come with a CD in the mail you could play in your car. And so I was listening to his interview Dan Sullivan's with Darren Hardy, the publisher of Success.

And he said it was his favorite interview at the end. I had a similar interview style as Darren. So what I did was I sent a clip of my interview style to Dan's team and said, I know Dan loved that interview style. Maybe this would be a good fit. They listened to it and said, we agree. Dan would probably love your show.

And so I got Dan on the show. Now how Dan was connected to Jack is Jack used to pay once a year to go to Dan's high level mastermind, which is like 25, 000 for three days. And so I knew Jack must have respected him if he paid that much money to spend time with him. So I had Dan on the show, I brought up Jack a few times and then Dan said I think Jack would love the show.

You should tell him Dan said he should come on your show. So then I took that clip and I sent it to Jack's team and then they sent me a message within, it was less than a day and they said, you've beaten us into submission. Here's Jack's link. Schedule your interview with Jack. And so that was the [00:08:00] sexy creative way that I landed the first big one.

Now what I know that the thing I would stress to people now is I view every relationship like a bank now. Just like a bank account or a bank. And I basically look and say, in this relationship, am I withdrawing or depositing? So depositing is giving value. Depositing is adding to the relationship.

So they say, Oh my gosh, thank you for doing that for me. And so what I try to do is deposit so often that by the time I withdraw, then I still have a big balance in there. So when I say deposit versus withdraw, the best way I can say that differently is give versus ask. So I try to give numerous times, deliver value add their life, do stuff for them, influencers, before I ever say, hey, are you willing to do this for me?

So I gave you the sexy answer, but the other one is what I would recommend people do. Zig Ziglar had a great quote. He said, dig your well before you're thirsty. Start building those relationships now, make deposits. And by the way, people struggle because of what can, I do? To add value for somebody that's [00:09:00] at this high level, it could be as simple as, take a screenshot of quotes of theirs from their book or spots from their book and share it and say, I hope you check out this new book by Gary Vaynerchuk.

You're going to love it. And then for 10 days straight, share Gary's quotes and tag him in. And at some point he's going to say, why is this person doing all this for me? And so then you start getting on the radar as a giver. Or if you have a show, invite them on the show and tell them the five different ways you're going to promote the heck out of them and that you don't even expect them to promote the show for you.

So it's those types of things. I would say if you want to know how to get let's say endorsements, partnerships, investors, the best thing you can do, in my opinion, is to have a platform because it gives you permission to reach out. So a podcast like this or a Facebook live. Or, and it could be a book, any of those things.

So you can reach out and to me, it's it gives you a permission to say, I have something I can absolutely help you brand or promote you. And so what I would say is around that is even at the very least start a [00:10:00] podcast and just post just literally do one a month.

If you don't have the time to do a long term podcast or Once a week or a daily podcast, even do once a month, it still gives you permission to reach out to somebody and give to them first.

Priscilla Shumba: Thank you so much for that. I think you answered all the things that people be thinking I don't have anything to give. There you go. just got in the ideas of how to move forward with that. I'm interested to know of all the people that you've interviewed, so many great people, but the thing that you would say continues to come back to mind.

What's one of the most impactful things that someone said or that happened?

Corey Poirier: Wow. there's so many, and at the same time I right away start thinking of ones that really had a big impact on me. And so if I go from something that was said to me when I was younger, okay, this is a very weird way to explain this because it had an impact on me, but not in the way we normally think.

So my grandfather, when I was younger, he was a carpenter with a grade three [00:11:00] education and his whole life was about giving. And when he worked for people, they would ask anything. He always said yes. So he believed you should always say yes to everything. So if people asked, he would just say, yes, I can do that.

And now I'll figure out how. And so when I first started my journey, that's the advice he gave me. And he was like my father. Most of the stuff he gave me for advice changed my life for the better. That one thing was based on his life versus mine. So in other words, his life, he lived in a small town and because he said yes to everything, he got a lot of referrals.

He was a carpenter. So a lot of referrals to build homes and stuff. But I started interviewing people years ago and I started noticing. Is all these thought leaders were saying no more often than yes. So they were saying, no, I can't take that on. No, I'm too busy. I'm sorry. I have to say no. Or they just wouldn't reply or what have you.

And I know as they're saying no all the time, maybe 20, 30 times more than the average person says the average person, because most people say yes. And my grandfather told me I should be saying yes, but I [00:12:00] noticed the people that I want it to become like, and the impact I wanted to have that they were having.

They were saying no all the time. So that had a major impact on my life because I had to sit with which one do I want to take, which path. So I started testing no and I realized that was the right answer for me. My grandfather his was still accurate. Yes was the right answer in his circumstance.

But for me, if I said yes to everything, I would never have time to do anything. Like If I say yes to everything, everything you say yes to is a no to something else. So if I say yes to everything, even my family takes a backseat. So I had to say no because my life was a little more hectic and busy than my grandfather's.

That was something that he said that really was profound to me because of the fact that even though it was the opposite of him it made me learn that what is a yes for him was actually a no for me.

Priscilla Shumba: That's really profound because when you were saying that I started thinking of how people say protect what you're trying to do with the no, but at the same time I also Have that sort of background like yours where it's like you say yes, and yes But I think the idea then was [00:13:00] community was so small and the yes was yes to the community,

Corey Poirier: It changed my life so much that there's a section in the book, my new book just on the video side for people that can't see it. It's called the enlightened passenger and there's 10 life lessons in the book based on the interviews I've done. So what I did was I said, what are the 10 lessons?

I would teach my kids if I was in a room with them for 24 hours based on thousands of interviews that I've learned. And I tried to make sure the book had only those 10 things. And one of those things is the power of no. So out of 10 things I could choose, one was the importance of saying no. And then I also coupled that into, I believe we all should have our own personal mission statement, just like a company has a mission statement.

And what I said is when you have a personal mission statement and you're really dialed in and you know what your mission statement is, it allows you to also figure out what a yes and a no is. Because if you know what your, mission is, meaning, okay, I want to be the person that donates let's say, you just want to give back and that's it.

And then somebody wants you to do something that involves taking money from [00:14:00] people that's not on brand for you. So that would be an easy no. Or if somebody wants you to do a show about cooking and you don't know how to cook and , you're not even excited by that. Years ago, when I first started, I was like, Oh, it doesn't matter.

Exposure is exposure. But now I would say no to that cooking show, even though inside of me like, Oh, I can't believe I'm saying no to that television experience, but I would still say no because it's not aligned with my mission statement. So it's interesting because you can tag in the power of saying no to your mission statement because your mission statement will help you figure out what is truly a yes, a heck yes, as they say, and what is truly a heck no.

Priscilla Shumba: The enlightened passenger those two words enlightened and passenger I'm trying to understand the premise and, I feel like it's so much deeper. If you can give us a sneak peek.

Corey Poirier: Yeah. it Is definitely, deeper inside than maybe it seems on the surface. Like even the name, the title is very intentional. For example, when I get people to read the book, I always ask them, or I'm going to talk to them about it or what they read [00:15:00] it or what have you.

Always ask them, who do you think the enlightened passenger is? The story of the book is there's two characters on a plane. Sitting next to each other, strangers. And they weren't supposed to be sitting next to each other.

An old guy, young guy. And the young guy doesn't want to spend any time with the old guy. He just doesn't want to deal with it. , but the old guy shares in some way that he's made some money. So then the young guy wants to know how he made the money, so he puts up with him even though he doesn't want to be sitting next to him.

And so the flight turns out to the older guy teaches. Lessons based on his journey and when I asked people who the enlightened passenger is, because I'm curious who they think, some people think it's the younger passenger. Some people think it's the older. So the older people would think it's the enlightened passenger because he's already enlightened that he's teaching.

The younger person. Some people think it's the younger because of the fact that he's becoming more enlightened during the actual flight. And that part was meant to be like that. , I want it to be grey. I didn't want people to know for sure. But then it goes one step further because if you bring the book to somebody and you hand it to them, are you the enlightened [00:16:00] passenger because you now transported the book?

Or, if you're the person reading the book, are you the enlightened passenger because you're becoming more enlightened reading it? So when you said, I think there's more just in the title alone. I, meant it to be something that could be viewed from multiple angles.

Priscilla Shumba: . It sounds like an amazing book and you've made this natural transition, but also it speaks a lot to your work ethic because you went from interviewing all these big names. That's a lot of interviews. Okay, that's a lot of work. It's just you know, unbelievable And now you've become the sought after You went from seeking out the wisdom of all these people and now your wisdom is sought after so I do see that play on The enlightened passenger even with you because you went on this quest so I'd really be interested to know if what I'm getting is correct share with us, the process.

Corey Poirier: Yeah. How we compare it is I mentioned earlier, Napoleon Hill wrote think and grow rich and think [00:17:00] and grow rich was based on, depending on who you talk to, it's based on either 500 interviews or thousands with of the time they thought leaders of the time. So like , in his time be like Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, the thought leaders back then, and he interviewed all them.

Learn from them and then share it in his book, Think and Grow Rich. And by the time he died in the 70s, he wrote that book in 1937, he was the keynote speaker going around sharing what he learned during those interviews. And I feel like that's the journey that I took. And some of it may be intentional, some of it unintentional, meaning , I was already a speaker doing all this stuff and then I made this shift into starting to interview people heavily.

And going down that path, and then it carried over into my speaking. I feel like I was doing my own thing, but at the same time I had this real pull of wanting to both learn about other people because of curiosity, but also, more importantly, wanting to share their story and message with other people.

I wanted to learn, like I always said I want to dissect the insight or minds of [00:18:00] thousands of thought leaders so you don't have to. On one hand I wanted to learn and then share that, just like Napoleon Hill did. On the other hand, I have my own thing also going. So to me, , I think it just helped because it added more credibility to what I was teaching because now I have thousands of interviews to call from and sort through to back up what I'm saying.

What the difference was, it was, it went from, I'm sharing what I've learned, like what I've learned in testing it myself and what I believe. So it was almost like a belief. And I think. A lot of times as speakers, we're sharing what we believe to be true, but we have no real way to back up that it is true.

Like it could be like, I think it's important that you create a customer service experience for your clients. So I think it's important that when they walk through the door, you say their name. And so we might believe that's important for customer service, but if I've done 7, 500 interviews and I've talked to the CEOs of let's say as arguments, say 3000 of those type of customer service companies like Disney and whoever I can actually say, this is a [00:19:00] fact.

Because I've studied it and I have the documented backup to back up what I'm saying. I think that's probably what made that transition happen is that I went from speaking my opinion on it to now all of a sudden it's my opinion and I have some facts to back it up. I don't know if that answered the question, but that's I think how the transition continued.

And I always kept doing stuff on the side on my own in addition to what I was doing to try to shine the light on others.

Priscilla Shumba: That's incredible. Because I can actually see how the strength of your brand but I get the sense that. The brand that you intended to build maybe you can speak to that because there are a lot of people who are like Oh, i'm trying to build a brand and like you said sometimes it's just what you think All right, and which is great that you have a perspective.

It's not that it's not good I think you've really gone the Extra mile way extra mile and doing what you've done So maybe speak to the people who are trying to build a brand in a certain space. 

Corey Poirier: Yeah, so likewise with almost everything. There's so many [00:20:00] different approaches we could take to the answer to that. Meaning we just talk about brand building. There's So many things popped in my head like instantly. I'll say it this way. This is what I think has been the biggest difference maker for me.

So if I were starting over, I always like to say that way. If I was starting over and could only do one thing right away, what's the thing I would do based on what I've learned that worked for me? And so I was going to talk about a book called Positioning. by Al Reis and Jack Trout, which I highly recommend the book.

And it's related to positioning yourself in the eyes of your clients. And they talk a lot of really cool stuff that they've studied. Like the fact that Coca Cola has been ahead of Pepsi in sales forever. And they make the argument that Pepsi will never, ever overtake Coke unless, Coke stops advertising or Pepsi doubles the amount of advertising they're doing.

And they tested it. Coke stopped for one month advertising. to see what would happen and Pepsi for the first time and only time ever overtook them. So you either got to be the [00:21:00] leader. If you want to be the top one, you got to be first. You got to be in first to become the leader or you create a new category.

So like energy drinks, Red Bull created a new category instead of trying to compete against Pepsi. So the book is fascinating in terms of branding. But why I bring up positioning and I'll also add the word leverage. I talk about this often. I believe that's been the difference maker for me. So when I say positioning, when we talk about how to build a brand, what I've done over the years I feel is position myself in the eyes of my client as the go-to person.

So how do I do that? Well I leverage opportunities? So for example, if I do a TEDx Talk, let's just use that as an example. Then what I might do is then I'll leverage that TEDx talk to get on a podcast. Reaching out to that podcast, I might say how if it's third person or first person, but it might say corey's also spoken on a TEDx stage about this. So let's say, how schools can inspire purpose. Why we need purpose in schools. He'd love to come on your show called Finding Your Why but then the idea is, let's say that's a big show.

[00:22:00] Now I've leveraged the TEDx to get the, talk, the interview, the next thing I do, now I have that TEDx talk and the interview to leverage. And then let's say I interview Jack Canfield like we talked about earlier. Then, I've interviewed, we talked about Jack and Dan Sullivan for my first interviews.

Now if I wanted, I could go to Mark Victor Hansen, who co created Chicken Soup with Jack. And even though they don't write together anymore, Jack and Mark both go to Dan's events and pay to go there. So now I can go and say, I've interviewed Jack and Dan. Here's the clips. Mark, I'd love to have you on the show.

And then when I have all three of them, then I can go to each of their websites and see who endorses them and who talks about them or what have you. And then I can go to them and say, Hey, I've had Mark, Jack and Dan on the show. And so it's all leverage. It's leveraging and positioning. And then.

After doing that over time, now all of a sudden it's built into a bigger thing. So it's like now if I go to my website, if I share a screen on my website, we have the as seen on and it's like Apple Roku, Amazon, Walmart, success magazine, what have you. And then there's [00:23:00] video clips of interviewing Gary Vaynerchuk and the different Ted X's I've done an interview in the late Bob Proctor.

And so I've. Leverage each one to get the next one. But now it's become this big thing where you ideally the brand is. You can trust Corey because look at how many other people trust Corey. So now that's, I'm there, I'm mixing personal and professional branding, but I'm just saying positioning and leverage, I think are two things, not enough companies use, and I think you should start doing it early on.

So it depends what your brand is, but let's just say, I'll use it cause it's an easier one, but let's say you want to be a coach or a speaker. The first thing you could do is if you look and see that there's an event coming to town and it has 10 big name thought leaders, let's say, and as part of the event, you get to take pictures with each one.

What I would do, and let's say the pictures are at different times. What I would do in that case, if I was starting from scratch, is I would bring a kit bag and I'd have 10 different shirts. And when they give you the lantern that you put over, I would take that off for every picture. So I wouldn't want people to know I'm at the same event.

[00:24:00] And when you have the lantern, it looks like you just got the picture because you're at the event. So what I would do is I'd have 10 different shirts and I would get 10 pictures with different thought leaders with different shirts. So it looks like it happened at different days. And now all of a sudden, that one day, that one event you went to and paid for, you now have 10 photos for your website of you with different thought leaders.

So that's rapidly doing it. And another thing I would do is, they say an as seen on banner. So when it says as seen on it lists all these places, increases your credibility by up to 70%. So what I would do as well is I would get on 10 shows, could even be smaller shows. In the next month, let's say, I would ask for each of their logos and tell them I want to use it in my banner.

And then I would go to Upwork or Fiverr or one of those freelance sites and pay 40 bucks and get a banner done saying, Corey's been seen on, and then I would have those 10 logos. And then as I started getting bigger names, then I would switch out the logos. So eventually, your banner might have Forbes, ABC, NBC, but at first, you just get the smaller podcasts.

So those two things and then take those banners as well, [00:25:00] those logos on your main website and say, Corey's been seen on and have that in your website at the very top because it increases credibility. So that's the kind of things I would do if I was starting from scratch trying to build a brand. If the catch is if I wanted a person to be the face of the brand again, this is all different.

If we were talking about you're creating the next Coca Cola. Or whatever it is, because that's a bit different when it's a brand that doesn't associate it with a person. But what I'm talking about is if I were launching Apple and I was Steve Jobs, then I would have Steve Jobs doing those things. Going and getting the As Seen On, going and building relationships with the Bill Gates of the world and all that, and getting photos with them.

So you go to the website and you're like, Oh Bill Gates is the top of that business. Jeff Bezos and all this. And all of a sudden, Steve went to one event with different shirts, and you now see Steve Jobs with all these people. And So hopefully that answers the question, but that's what I think I would do in the branding side if I was starting over.

Priscilla Shumba: I think so many times people get paralyzed at that point of Oh, I don't know anybody. Nobody knows me. Instead of actually taking those small steps to build [00:26:00] that credibility. And over time, like you said, switching those out for bigger names and building yourself up like that.

I'm interested to know Your unique interview style. Cause myself as a podcaster, I'm thinking, okay, Corey has a style that every time you interview someone, people say that's the best interview that I've ever been on. I'm interested to know the process of how you developed it or I'll let you speak.

Corey Poirier: No, I appreciate that. And I'm doing an interview next week and I'm really stoked for it because it's a person that I've watched from afar for a long time. I've admired his work. I've invested in his work and , he was on my show and he said wow, you've interviewed over at this point, it was 6, 500.

You've interviewed over 6, 500 people. I get it. Bring you on my show to talk about how to interview people. And literally, this is what I'm talking about on Monday, on this big show that I've wanted to be on for a long time. So it's, fascinating because they're questions. I was just reading them today.

Normally, I don't even want to know questions in advance, but they sent me questions, and I noticed a lot of them around. When [00:27:00] you're interviewing somebody, what should you say here, and what should you do here? And this wheelhouse, because I'm passionate about it. For me, it's a bit different. , so I'm going to say what I would do at the beginning and then what I do now and how it's evolved.

So at the beginning, what I did was I had let's say eight or 10 planned questions. Now, mostly I might not send it to them. They might not ask for it. Some did. But I would have 8 or 10 planned questions, and I would mostly stick to the questions. But if I asked a question about, I'm just thinking of something out loud, but, , what do you want your legacy to be?

And then they start talking about some story nobody knows about, how they were undercover, as a cop, and whatever. Then I'm gonna, obviously I'm not gonna ignore that question and just stay with my 10. So that's how I did it at first. I had a plan and because I had a plan, I felt comfortable deviating from the plan.

So what I'm saying is I originally had planned questions and that's what I needed to do when I first started. But I also, what made me somewhat maybe unique and does is I have a standup comedy background, so I did have a bit of a comfort. I'd been used to going in front of an audience and bombing, [00:28:00] meaning like telling a joke, nobody laughed to and standing in front of that audience not knowing what to do next and being heckled by an audience.

I've had that too. So for me. Doing the interviews was slightly easier because I was okay with thinking on my feet because I had to do it and stand up. But even then I started with written questions. And then if you had said something that was like, wow, I need to go there. I would go there. But then my next thing I would do is I go right back to question number 7, the very next question.

So I was very structured in the first year. And then I recognize that I was asking certain questions that I didn't have to write down because so if I asked, how do you define success? Let's say that became early on a main question. I want to ask. Or what does legacy mean to you? The big one I eventually started asking was if you could jump into a time machine and go back and talk to your younger self.

What would you tell them? I started having these core questions, and then I would, from there, now I wasn't reading them or anything, I would know my core questions that I could go to if I needed to, and then I would ad lib from there. I might throw in five questions I didn't plan to ask.

[00:29:00] And eventually, after doing that enough this is the unsexy answer. , how did I get there? It's by working. I went and did the work. I went and did, at that point, hundreds of interviews practicing this, and in some cases failing, and not having the next question, or what have you. It was a really a work in progress.

I put in, they say the 10, 000 hour rule. I've literally put in more than 10, 000 hours being able to do that. And so the difference now is instead of me planning, what do I want to ask next? What I'm now, the only question I know that I'm usually gonna ask is the time machine one, and sometimes I ask a passenger question on a plane relating to the book beyond that, I'm going to go wherever it takes me.

I don't know what the question is going to be, and I might say, I just did an interview before this with Joe Vitale. Joe Vitale was in The Secret he has a lot of books on the Law of Attraction, and we had an event, we were running a book club, actually, for my book, and I was interviewing Joe, and I didn't go into that saying, what are the five questions I'm going to ask Joe?

But, I know Joe enough, so I've done enough research, not by actually going and interviewing him. [00:30:00]Spending hours reading before that interview, but because I believe in his work, I know his work. I know enough about Joe that I can come into that interview and say, I wonder, , he was in the movie, the secret, the documentary.

So I wonder how that came about. Did he want to go into it originally or did he decide to go into the end? Was there anything fascinating that happened? So I'm thinking, what question can I ask him about the secret that nobody else would know? And so that's where I'm at now is mostly, I know who the person is and 

I'm passionate about what they do. And so now I can wing it on questions, but the, newest part, and this goes to your point about somebody saying, Oh, you asked me things nobody's ever asked me before. So in the last few years, that's been my latest thing is my goal is to get somebody who's done 5, 000 interviews to share something they've never shared in an interview.

And usually how you do that is you go in with deep questions. , for example, Stedman Graham. Who is Oprah's partner. I, looked up on his Wikipedia page, and I found a non profit that he was involved in that he had found years earlier. But I knew it was not [00:31:00] operating anymore.

And I said, tell me about the non profit. Like, why did you start it? Why isn't it going now? And he goes, who told you about it? How, did you find out about that? And it was just on Wikipedia. But because of that, was my first or second question. Now, all of a sudden, he's oh, what's this guy gonna bring out of me?

Priscilla Shumba: Mm 

Corey Poirier: So again, the answer is I do enough research to at least know some things about the person that I can ask that they probably aren't asked that often. And I've been doing it long enough that I can wing it, but I don't want to gloss over the fact that when I started, I had planned questions and I had structure.

Priscilla Shumba: That's a masterclass in itself. Thank You so much for that, Corey. I just wanna reiterate that you have this book, the Enlightened Passenger Available Everywhere Books are sold, and you are the founder of Blue Talks. You've done all these amazing things.

You've spoken to all these amazing people. I'm sure you've got ideas floating about in your head all the time because of all these amazing, meetings and interviews with people. What fires Corey up today?

Corey Poirier: This is a great question. And this is for me [00:32:00] it's a big question because, part of it is that mission statement I mentioned, but for me, I always think about is there ever going to be a point where I'm not fired up is, like this magical pill. I call it vitamin P that I take every day, which is vitamin P is for passion and purpose.

So every day I love what I do. I get excited about it. But there's a part of me that often thinks, I wonder if that'll ever disappear for some reason. And what is it that drives that? And ultimately, for me, still what gets me fired up is impact. That's the biggest word in my life is impact. Can I impact other people's lives?

And so what keeps that going? I just shared this on this event we were doing tonight, that what keeps me going even with the book? What's gonna drive you with a book When you have the up and down months like you're talking about the book, but maybe it's a year old, so maybe only sell 30 copies this month.

And what's going to keep you doing five interviews that each take an hour of your time for 30 books cause there's so much else I could be doing with blue talks or anything else that could generate more revenue and [00:33:00] what it does it for me. And I think this answers the question in general is getting a message from somebody saying, I read your book on a flight.

And this is how it's going to change my life. Or I had a message not that long ago from somebody and she said, I've been reading your book to my 12 year old autistic son and we're actually using it back and forth for how it can improve his life. So it's like getting a message like that from somebody.

I think that's what keeps me fired up. Knowing that every day is a new potential to maybe impact or improve someone's life for the better.

Priscilla Shumba: I can feel it. The passion and the impact that you're out to make. You do incredible work and you work really hard and, the passion can be, felt. Thank you so much, Corey. And please, to those who are listening, who are, tell me, is it for speakers? Is it for coaches? Teaching people how to get in front of stages?

Who's ideally for? Because that's a really important skill.

Corey Poirier: Yeah, so BLU Talks BLU stands for Business Life Universe, so it's B L U. I've said that we're like, if you take Chicken Soup for the Soul and TED Talks, [00:34:00] and get them married, and they go off on a honeymoon and have a baby, we'd be the baby. So that's how I describe us. But basically what we do is we run live events in places all over.

We've done roughly 45 events in the last four and a half to five years. So we crunch the numbers. It's like an event a month , we're actually going to the event. That's not us having somebody local run it. We're bringing everything to the event, running it local for that city. So similar to TED talks though.

We run live events and speakers speak on our stages. Anywhere from 20 speakers at an event with a couple of days. We've done as many as 30 some speakers over three days. And so they share 20 minute talks or less. So almost like TEDx. Messages that can hopefully change the world. And then we have a book series.

So it's multiple authors, a multi author type book series. That we put out every few months basically. Then we have our live podcast and virtual stage. And the other thing that we added not long ago is that we call it the Experts Bureau. And this is where we're actually pitching other [00:35:00] people to try to get them opportunities.

I said all that to explain what BlueTalks is but how we help people is people that want to become speakers, whether they aren't a speaker now and they want to become speakers, whether they want to get paid to speak, whether, as you said, you mentioned a coach, whether they want to build a coaching practice, whether they want to become an author.

Basically I call it experts, like the expert space. Whatever part of the expert space they want to be, what we try to do is get them everything they need to build that business. So when I say that, you talked about branding earlier, and I said positioning, right? So I said, if you can say you were seen on Apple and Roku, and you've spoken at MIT, and you've co authored a book with, insert name here, and you've shared the bill with so and your burns, a noble bestselling author, all those things increase your credibility in the eyes of clients.

So what we do is we take a person that in some cases might never, have spoken on a stage in their life. And like within four months, they can say they spoke at, like I said, an event at MIT or Columbia or Oxford. [00:36:00] They can say they coauthored a book with so and all those things I just mentioned, that's really what we're doing.

We're helping them get all the credibility, but what's also unique, I think about Blue Talks. Is we also have platforms as well. So we're not just helping them get all the assets I call them, but all the things they need for their website so that they look like the rock star. But on top of that, we also are on what's called AM FM, two, four, seven syndicated radio, and that's 22 FM stations with over 2 million listeners.

Our podcast is also top 1%. So they get appear on our podcast. We also are on Apple TV, Roku, connect TV at a Hollywood. network, Amazon fire and so on. And so we get the message out to thousands or millions of people. And at the same time, we help people learn the craft of speaking and writing and how to launch their books and all that other stuff.

And they also walk away having all those things they can use to market themselves. So who we're for is somebody that wants to get more clients or somebody that wants to build a speaking business. or somebody who wants to [00:37:00]grow their coaching practice. I feel that we can help them do, like I said, in four months, what took me hundreds of thousands of dollars and truly 15 years to do in real time.

Priscilla Shumba: You've covered all the, Aspects of what's needed, because like you said I on the podcast people who are really experts, but because they don't have all those other things the visibility, the positioning the credibility in the marketplace, people don't know that the experts and you encounter so many experts who are like that.

That's Really impactful work. Thank you so much, Corey. I know I've gone way over time. I had too much of a good time asking you questions. It's been awesome. Please to the audience, if you want to know more about Corey, please go to www. coreypoiriermedia. The link will be in the description where you can learn more about Corey.

Thank you so much.

Corey Poirier: Awesome. Thanks so much, everybody.