As a Business Coach for Public Speakers, Orly works with speakers, authors, coaches & business leaders who want to be booked as a paid speaker
Lauren: Good morning everybody. It’s December 28, and this is Lauren Cohen reporting to you live from sunny, South Florida, and I am here with my good friend, Orly Amor who has joined us on my podcast Investing Across Borders, though Orly herself doesn’t particularly invest across borders. She was born in Israel, but grew up in Canada Montreal, that other city down the 401 from where I grew up, and now she lives and serves clients from her headquarters in New York, in Brooklyn. We met about 10 years ago, on the phone, and we connected but then we lost touch and then we met, about a year and a half, maybe two years ago in Melbourne, Florida. I I said, I know you, and she said, oh my god I know you too, and that was it, and we were friends ever since. We’ve been trying to help each other build our businesses as Orly’s brands have been developing and growing as have mine. And as a fellow Canadian who’s doing business in the US who’s been through the immigration process, and had all that fun stuff happen, she’s often come to me for some guidance and advice. So Orly welcome to our show. Thank you so much for your time today just before the New Year, how are you How is the weather, how’s everything.
ORLY: Great, thank you for having me. That’s a loaded question but it’s freezing in New York it’s cold. You’re in sunny Florida so happy for you. But, yeah, it’s just beautiful and every day above ground is a good day.
Lauren: So, last year around this time we were both getting ready to go on the marketer’s cruise, which this year they’re having a virtual zoom party to get people together, they’ve delayed the cruise for obvious reasons for Covid, and thank God that we’re all healthy. Orly, tell us a little bit about your experience with global, working with people from all over the world. Global investors, global entrepreneurs, you certainly have worked with the plethora of them and tell us a little bit about your two businesses, obviously your speaking business getting paid for what you speak about, and about the global wellness endeavor.
Orly: Well, thank you for that. It’s also a loaded question but I’ll do my best to give all the answers.
Lauren: You can handle it girl!
Orly:
Well I’ve been in the speaking world for over 24 years and speaking full time all over the world I’ve been to 26 countries in 18 states speaking full time. And, across Canada. I started my speaking career in property management across Canada I was the youngest woman in Canada to receive the Businesswoman of the Year Award in the property management field. When I was 24 so it was a long time ago, almost 30 years ago, it’s horrible when you say that oh my goodness, I’m 50, I’m going to be 54 so yes, about 30 years ago. I feel great. I don’t feel a day over 20, I’m just kidding. And so I’ve traveled the world and had an amazing experience doing that, and when I spoke in a conference in Arlington, Texas, where I realized that some speakers did not get paid, I got paid well, I decided to coach speakers on the business side of getting paid as a speaker. I’ve always been paid so I didn’t know that speakers did not get paid, that was like my aha moment at that conference because you know, you don’t know what you don’t know. Well, that was the moment for me where I did not know that speakers did not get paid, while they’re speak to sell speakers, they make a lot of money too. But that is a skill set that you need to develop it’s not for everybody, and I am not that type of speaker. So, I decided to coach speakers and then the world just opened again. I have clients from all over the world, Australia, UK, you name it, Bahamas, they come from all over. And I have another program called the Mindset Mastery Program, which is also overcoming obstacles and trauma, and so forth, because of my own story.
Lauren: I’m just going to say because you’ve been there and done that yourself.
Orly: Yes, absolutely. So, at the end of the day, the world became smaller. That’s how I feel the world became smaller, but then there’s all these challenges of cross borders just like you were talking about, and of course, if I knew then what I know now right it always it comes back to that question. Why didn’t I know Lauren 20 years ago? It’s something like that right, you ask yourself those kinds of questions because you don’t know what you don’t know, but if you don’t ask you also won’t know what to ask.
Lauren: I mean that’s the biggest challenge for a lot of people, even people that are working with you that have businesses in other countries, they don’t know that it’s really important when you’re doing stuff in the US or in Canada to get advice on both sides, and they just, you know, a lot of real estate investors, you were in the property management space, I’m in the real estate space. They’ll invest in America and they have no clue that it’s going to impact them in Canada or Britain it’s a big deal.
Orly: You mentioned something very important, they don’t know what to ask, but my problem is not that they don’t know what to ask, Because in, especially in public speaking, and in business, in general, I would say this, a lot of people say, “I’ll figure it out”. And that is the biggest mistake people make is, “I’ll figure it out as I go”. Instead of talking about it, just talk. Just talk to a friend, so you know what I’m having this challenge, I’m thinking about this right, and let people tell you what they’re thinking, hear other people’s opinions about it. You don’t need to take their advice but get their opinion because not everybody is, you know, an expert in giving that advice, but you can definitely listen to people’s opinions, because people will tell you about a story of a client, or a friend, or a cousin or something that might spark a thought. And that thought can become a question, and that question is exactly what you need to be asking. So, I think that people’s ego’s get in the way of, “Oh you know what I’ll figure it out”, like people tell me all figured out. I’ll do my website, what the heck will you do your website for nobody knows who you are, what are you working on or what are doing your website for speaking? Let’s say you know what you are working on, nobody knows who you are, what are you working on? How do you know what to do on your website? Just give it to somebody to do your website, or you are doing it yourself really!
Lauren: What would you say if they came to you earlier and said, Oh, I didn’t do a website to promote my services, what would your answer be?
Orly: My answer will be, do not do it. You know why, because first you don’t know the business enough to know what to put on your website number one. Number two, you don’t know who your target market is. You don’t know how much to charge; you don’t know what you’re doing yet. Why would you put a website together, even if you’re going to give it to somebody else? Why don’t you start making money first, then pay somebody else to do it? Why would you waste the time to do it, right? Do you go to your mechanic to fix your teeth, do you go to your dentist to fix your car, I mean like literally that’s where it goes? And I think that that’s what gets in the way of people. So, the same thing goes for cross borders. When you don’t know what you don’t know, you just talk to people and people will give you their opinion, which can be advice that you don’t really need but don’t worry about it just listen.
Lauren: Right, right. And the other thing that people can give you and it’s, it’s interesting, we were out with a couple on the weekend, from Ottawa, we met after they did their immigration, but I’m working with them on some various matters and helping with some business stuff in they are significant investors and they were saying, how a lot of people just don’t even understand what the options are. And when you talk to people, “don’t go and talk to a million different professionals and get a million different answers”. What’s really important is to talk to people that can refer you to people that you can then trust, because it’s a short degree of separation, and you have that frame of reference and it’s really important because there’s an accountability aspect, you don’t just want to go searching for people on the internet. I’m not going to go and find Orly Amor on the internet, I’m going to know Orly from Joe and Fred and Shannon and Frieda and whatever. And that’s how you know that Orly is good people. Right so Orly, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your speaking business and how it’s been impacted positively and negatively by COVID.
Orly: Well, negatively it has not been impacted by COVID so here is my, my two cents on that. Everybody has been impacted somehow someway, yes. So, you know as entrepreneurs and if you have the entrepreneur mindset because this is what it’s going take, most speakers don’t have the entrepreneur mindset they have still the employee mindset, what is the difference, it’s not a bad thing or a good thing. It’s just what it is. The employee mindset is somebody that’s looking to have a paycheck or money that comes in on a consistent basis to pay the bills. An entrepreneur mindset is a creative mindset because they learn how to pivot around any kind of circumstance, any kind of dilemma, any kind of thing that is thrown at them at any moment, at any time. But what I’ve been teaching my clients is a process, it’s called the process. My clients say you got to change the name of that thing; it’s called the process, but you got to change it. And I said okay when you find a good name for it, let me know, but the process is something that I’ve been following for 20 years of my career, that has worked, and we pivoted, we tweaked it and so on to make it last. I mean to take less time to do the same kind of amount of money which is great. And during COVID now of course none of us were ready for this, none of us and the whole industry was not ready for this. The whole world, the whole industry, any industry, I get it. But, so the month of March was kind of iffy and weird and nobody knew what to do and what to expect and so on. But instead of getting into the gloom and doom of things and listening to the TV or the news from 9am to 11pm, like some people I know. I was not doing that. My point here is like, okay, what can I do during this time what is it that I need to do, what is it that I need to do about my business now my phone was blowing up my input my, my clients, and my boys everybody was calling to say Orly, do I still do the process and I said yes, they’re like yeah but events are canceling, I said you continue doing the process, no matter what that’s every day, every day, every day you keep going. That’s what you need, you need to stay in your lane no matter what is going on in the world, stay in your lane. Right. And guess what happened now. So, here’s the cool part right I wrote a book that just before COVID was published called Public Speakers You’re Not All That 12 Reasons Why. So, the cool part about that is that I interviewed 3400 event planners, who pay speakers, for this book. And it was interesting that I just published it in December. And so, when all this happened, I’m like okay what do I tell people now, right. Cool. Well, I called back some of these event planners, and I learned something, so instead of sitting around waiting for things to happen. I decided to take some calls and find out what really is going on. Well, here’s what I found out. I tell people there are 64,000 events, a day in America alone Canada and the United States that pay speakers. Now these did not vanish overnight because of COVID let’s get real right. People were like, oh, everybody stopped. No, it kept going. So, let’s divide those events into three groups. The first group canceled their events, because they didn’t know what they were going to do, so they need to regroup and reevaluate and see what they’re going to do, if they’re going to postpone it when to and how. That’s one group. The other group, they were so well equipped to go virtual that they just flipped on a switch, sent an email to all the speakers, sent an email to all the attendees, boom, they’re virtually seamless. I was one of the speakers at some of these events, so I know how it worked and it was awesome. I was already paid, why wouldn’t they go ahead and do it? There was no reason for not doing it. It was all the events from March to September that did that. And we’re talking about the three groups. The other, the third group. Here’s the coolest thing ever. The third group, not only did they cancel, but they postponed immediately with the venue for 2021 with a contingency that if again we don’t know what happens and how long this is going to be and take, and if the venue will be open, and so with that contingency, they will bring the event, virtually. So, then they will be ready. They’ll will prepare everything to be ready to be virtual or live. Beautiful. But they have another problem on their hands, and here is where the caveat is in any industry. They had a problem that the speakers were canceling, right, because they were not available in those new dates. How cool is it for my clients, and for those of us who kept in our lane, because we were getting hired? And we were making money during COVID. So, when I talk to people and I say you know what, April, May, June 2019 versus April May June 2020 I tripled my money on the positive side. You’re asking me what it was the negative, the negative is that I needed to pivot, and pivoting was doing webinars, like that was never my thing. I hated webinars to begin with. So, I decided I’m going to do webinars, but in a different way, that it’s not going to be all about Orly, and a half an hour talk about myself and then 10 minutes of content, and then 20 minutes of pitch. I don’t want to do that, never wanted to, so I stopped that. But I’d started group coaching, and then more people were able to afford it, so we got more groups going. And now it’s taking off, it’s beautiful everybody can join as a group instead of one on one coaching. Fabulous. And it works so well that it’s been amazing. So, you know what, that’s what the creative part about being an entrepreneur mindset is, you pivot, you create.
Lauren: You mentioned pivot and another thing that you’ve done very well is you’ve been doing a lot of cross promotion like we’re doing here, and bringing people on to your show what is it on Mondays?
Orly: It’s Ask The Expert Monday, but it must serve speakers Yes.
Lauren: So, it the beautiful part of that is that you’re giving these people that may not have pivoted as well as you a forum to speak, an forum for you to share their message with others and that gives you the, you know, it brings credibility to you, and it shows that you’re a giver, and at the end of the day, giving is what I think is driving us through this COVID time successfully. Have you noticed a difference, because obviously most of your clients are American, but have you noticed a difference in terms of reaction from out from people outside of America, that are, I’ll reiterate, or I’ll restate this, one thing I’ve noticed for me since it’s not as easy for me to travel, because I have a child is, I’ve been able to speak at international forums, which is my specialty which I would not have been able to speak at pre COVID because you had to physically be there or you were out, you weren’t even considered. Right, so now I I’m speaking at events on a daily basis I created a partnership with a Canadian company that I went to, I’ve never met in person and we’re partners, and these are the kinds of things that I’m sure you have seen day in and day out. And I’m just wondering, is there a difference in the mindset, from American clients versus outside of America?
Orly: No, I have clients from all over the world, UK, Australia, like I said, and everywhere in Canada as well. Now, those clients are realizing that, the world is opening up for them, you know, I spoke at an event on the 14th of July, it was a nine-and-a-half-hour event, they were 115 countries and 30 million people attended.
Lauren: 30 million Orly?
Orly: Yeah, 30 million people in 115 countries.
Lauren: What forum was that on?
Orly: It was like an amazing, amazing, amazing event. It was unbelievable, literally something that I would have never even fathomed exists.
Lauren: Yeah, I guess that’s how Tony Robbins has been speaking to these masses probably is similar.
Orly: I don’t know but I my point here is, is that you know what it does open the world and events will get smaller before they get bigger again because of the fear that has been inculcated into people, what is real what is true, we don’t know but it’s controlled. So, at the end of the day, it’s up to you to forge your way and that’s why I say to people stay in your lane, do your thing. Don’t listen to the media, don’t listen to the news, everything is control, everything is a lie, everything is to keep fearing you so why are you even going there? Do what you need to do for your business and stop listening all around. Now you said something earlier that was very good about, who do you trust? You know people do business and refer business to people they know like and trust right, we all know this we’ve been saying it 100 million times. But here’s what people don’t do; is they don’t listen. Right. They just think that somebody is out to get them, always. That’s the fear that has been.
Lauren: Especially now that’s even worse now, I mean don’t use people. I know that I’ve watched it, I think because I was getting people access to the SBA money at the beginning, and they were so angry if they didn’t get it. And, they got a little bit jaded, and apprehension and what do you want from me? What’s in it for me? Right?
Orly: And, but I would say this, first of all, there are 7 billion people on this planet, and at the end of the day I did not speak to 7 billion people, no so at the end of the day, my point here is that I can’t, I can’t stereotype humans, you can’t stereotype humans, you’re going to run into those who care and want to listen, you’re going run into those who say no. What do you want from me? and they are scared. And then you’re going to run into those who are very open minded and say okay what do you have. And you know what I want to work with those who are open to listen. If there are at least open to listen, you know there’s a chance that they will either commit or not commit or decide later. And if it’s not, if it’s a no, it’s no for right now, you got to move on. That’s another thing people get attached to people, get attached, but more importantly possessive with their intellectual property with everything, so much so that they are missing out on opportunities and blessings, if you think about it that way. I think that people are missing out on the blessings that are given to them and it is by God, it’s just delivered in a human form. But if they’re not listening, you know we always say Oh listen to your intuition, it will never fail you. Listen to that intuition and it will never, ever, ever fail you. And unfortunately, people think so the rational kicks in, and it’s like okay what do you want from me. Right, well I know you want my money that’s what it is, and I’m like no I don’t want your money I don’t, I could care less about your money. What do you want to do in the world? How can I support you that way? Because maybe your money is no good for me. Maybe you’re not even a good fit as a client for me, maybe I’m not good for you. Maybe I’m not a good coach for you. Because I’m a very tough coach, are you willing to do the work and don’t hire me. Yes, I talk like that to people, because you must be real. You know, when people say, Oh, you got to be authentic. Oh God, I hate that word. Seriously, why because some authentic people. Some people say I’m authentic, but they don’t act authentic. So, you know what, show me this, show me who you are.
Lauren: I’m from the most authentic place in the world. From Israel to Canada where they used to call me the stern Canadian because I didn’t know how to, cover up I was just kind of, this is me. That’s why you and I get along, you know, and sometimes we’ll butt heads, but at the end of the day, I love you, we know that we can trust each other, would never do anything to hurt one another, and a lot of the things that you said Orly, are so true. You know my four favorite words are staying in your lane. And when I speak not as much when I’m speaking about international real estate investing, but when I speak about the importance of having a proper legal structure, staying in your lane is critical. You mentioned pivoting, the entrepreneurs, pivot was the number one word for entrepreneurs in 2020, and if you couldn’t pivot? Look, I had six huge contracts that were signed at the beginning, in March and they all fell apart, and I could have buried my head and been depressed and you know, not that I wasn’t challenged, my kid was depressed, but we got through it and I pivoted and I made a difference that I helped people and that’s what made me tick. Another thing you said about this whole ability for all these people to impact more lives, and you being on that huge platform, that is the silver lining of COVID, one of them, and also creating very strong affiliate and joint venture relationships with people. So, and the other thing I wanted to mention is when we were talking about how technology has really taken a whole turn, like if we didn’t have zoom and all of these technology platforms, if this had happened 10 years ago, we would be, let’s just leave it. Not as good as a place as we are because we can talk. Every day we can talk live, we have FaceTime we have this, we have so much technology. And part of that as you mentioned about this huge platform, and you know that I’m part of this cloud based real estate company, which has gone from $8 in stock at the beginning of COVID to $85 on Friday. Okay. That story is a crazy story because it’s a real estate company that’s tech driven, and we have this platform where you go in and you have these little avatars, I tell you, Orly I still go in and hit the wall, almost every time no matter how many times to do a Mastermind in there, but life has changed and for those of us that are true entrepreneurs like Orly, that have been able to pivot and take their business online which is not something she would ever have planned, but she has done it with a vengeance and she’s made an impact. The other thing that Orly does which is super cool, is this health and wellness networking group, which I know she was aspiring to build when we first met, and now she has built it and it is international. Orly, tell us just a little bit about that and how international it is because it’s huge.
Orly: Yes. So, when, when I started it in 2015 it’s called the Health and Wellness Network of Commerce So, HWNCC.com, So it’s called the Health and Wellness Network of Commerce Corporation Inc. So, if anybody’s asking why the CC, it’s not Chamber of Commerce, its network of Commerce Corporation. And so, when I started in 2015, I did not know what I was doing. To tell you the truth, it just took a life of its own. And within a month we were in three countries in three states and then it just took off. What a problem to have for a business that you don’t know what you’re going do but I call it my pay it forward baby, because it’s not really for me to make money, it’s for its impact right, the mission statement is it’s a platform for health and wellness professionals, practitioners and service product providers to network with corporate professionals, while providing a sustainable system for both. It was created so health and wellness and corporates come together. Corporate meaning, lawyers, financial planners and real estate people. Everybody comes together and helps each other grow each other’s business because they don’t do it organically, see financial planners will hang out with real estate people because they can refer business to each other very organically. But what would a dentist have to do with a with a financial planner, well, maybe use his services but maybe, but maybe not, not to refer business to each other organically, and we wanted to change that because I’m a networker and I’m definitely a connector. I’m actually trademarked The Millionaire Connector so if I wanted to do that and to help people then I needed to build a bridge HWNCC became that bridge in 2020, because of my mentor Bernie Dorman that we both know and love and God bless his soul. I thank for him every single day because he envisioned what I really wanted for HWNCC when I took his, his raising capital class. And you and I stayed together at that forum, this whole thing happened because of you. And thanks to you believe it or not, thanks to you. Yes, the whole thing is thanks to you. Let me tell you, you are a big portion of this. So, what happened was, Bernie,
Lauren: I’m sorry to interrupt you, but Bernard Dorman whom we lost in 2020. Yes, I only knew him for two years, Orly for a year and a bit. This person, if you knew him, he supersized everything, it’s he was like the McDonald’s of entrepreneurs, and he just, there’s no way you could walk by him even my son, who at the time was nine or eight when you met him, could not walk by this man without feeling the energy, and that the impact.
Orly: You’re right, he had such an impact he saw something and yes. So, even in that raising capital class you know, we had to give the presentation to the whole class. So, when I went up there after we learned all weekend what to do, I went in front of the class and Bernie just took over, he just said, you guys realize this is a $5 million company, and I’m looking at him thinking is he talking about me, is he talking about my company? That doesn’t seem right. But it’s okay, the supersizing was not the issue because I didn’t think about money. I think I thought about the vision about what my app and what my website will do, but I had no plan. I just wanted seed money for it. So, here’s the cool thing in the beginning of 2020, somebody called me and gave me an opportunity to have the exact, the exact platform for this, that technology is a $30 million dollar technology that encompasses LinkedIn, Facebook, Event Bright, Match.com Angie’s List, all these apps, all this technology in one. And now this is what took off. And now we are now going to be in eight countries because we were in six, but now we’re going to be in eight countries in 18 states and we have 57 chapters all over the world, and we’re growing by the day. And if you go to the app, you’ll see, there’s over 350,000 users already and we have just started like to join the app. It’s free as a user, completely free and you can go to all the health and wellness. Its HWNCC that’s the app. You cannot miss it. You cannot miss it. The logo that’s behind me there but I know you don’t you won’t be able to see it but HWNCC is the Android it’s on the app store I mean like, iOS, and we are just in the beginning, this is the beginning of the iceberg but it’s going take off. I was able to mention the launch of it at that big event, Excel, unbelievable I’m so happy it’s a big deal and we’re just looking for more people to come on board, because it’s a movement of paying it forward.
Lauren: What a difference a year makes right?
Orly: Yeah, but it’s all through COVID, everybody’s thinking oh COVID, oh let me stop, let me wait let me, you know, and my clients were getting hired as speakers, virtually. And they were paid virtually. So, anybody that wanted to press pause, missed the boat. There you go, that’s for sure.
Lauren: Orly, what would you say to somebody who is an aspiring speaker either from another country that wanted to become a global speaker, what would your number one tip be for them?
Orly: Contact, and don’t give up because the problem with people is, they give up before the six. The six second miracle. And I don’t know if you know the story about the six second miracle but check that out. It’s a real story. it’s a real story of a man who bought a house because he heard about this goldmine in the backyard. And so, he started digging, and then he gave up after a few years, and the person who bought the house found the gold. That’s really what it is, it’s true. I’m making it very short but it’s such a beautiful story that people need to read it, it’s the six, microsecond miracle, and it really is that exact thing, do not give up. I had a person who came on one of those speaking events, I was hired to speak, and one person that was in that audience on virtual, said event planners don’t even get back to you. I’m like, excuse me, what do you think event planners are doing all day, you know, like what do you think they’re busy with? So, if they’re not looking for things they’re not going to respond. Oh, first, they’re not going to respond to you if they’re not looking for speakers, maybe you should just continue contacting event planners every single day no matter what. And those who will, will, you know, some will, some won’t, who cares what’s next, continue, continue, continue and then if you do it methodically and you do it consistently, then you will get hired. If you just continue. If you just go and stop, going stop, going stop, then you don’t have consistency in your business, why would anybody want to do business with you. A little bit of a tip, 48% of speakers don’t even get back to event planners, yeah 48% in this day and age. We’re in 2020. End of 2020 we’re four days away from being in 2021, 48% of speakers.
Lauren: No matter how good you’ve done, I’m glad 2020 is about to be over. Because I remember when 2020 was starting, we’re all excited because it’s like, you know, 2020. But God It just can’t get, can’t get a whole lot a whole lot worse than this year was especially health, all that other stuff. Don’t worry, I am going to share all of this on the show notes but how do people reach you?
Lauren: Orlyamore.com, HWNCC.com, join the platform it’s completely free. You can join all our events for free, and you can connect with me on there as well. And through the app you can just connect with me as the founder of HWNCC and text me through the app, it’s all free. So yeah, it’s, it’s amazing and you can connect with so many other people around the planet and around the country, locally, internationally just join in and you can get on my calendar anytime for even a 20 minute conversation to see where you’re at and how I can support you completely free again.
Lauren: No hard sell, Orly really is here to support you and share her wisdom with you and I mean she, she knows her stuff. And as you can see, she’s a woman. She’s a real woman not authentic, although we are authentic we can’t help it was a pleasure as always, I am excited to post this I’ll obviously share everything with you, and thank you so much and I wish you an amazing, amazing 2021.
Orly: Same to you, Lauren Thank you for having me appreciate you.
Lauren: Bye for now everybody Investing Across Borders, we will see you at our next show. Thank you so much. This is Lauren Cohen signing off for today.
