The Love-Hate Relationship of Feedback and Collecting It from the Stage with Arel Moodie

Arel Moodie – Co-founder of Talkadot 

Arel Moodie is a highly respected speaker, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Talkadot, a platform revolutionizing the speaking industry by helping speakers collect stage-side leads, gather audience feedback, measure the impact of their messages, and build their email lists. Known for his engaging and insightful presentations, he has carved out a niche in the professional speaking circuit by emphasizing data-driven approaches and strategic growth. He advocates for the “land and expand” technique, where speakers focus on mastering one vertical and using data to expand their reach.

SHOW NOTES

Feedback and email capture are essential for speaker success, but they can also feel a bit self-serving. So, how can we collect these things effectively without the ickiness?

Today, Jess is joined by Arel Moodie, who is revolutionizing the speaking industry with Talkadot, a tool for quickly getting feedback from the audience, collecting testimonials, and capturing people in the audience who want to book you to speak again.

Learn how a platform like Talkadot can simplify building a speaking brand to get more paid gigs.

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Rate Amplify on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review for Jess Ekstrom.

Amplify with Jess is produced by Earfluence, and brought to you by Mic Drop Workshop.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Arel:
Yeah, I think the biggest thing we can do in 20 minutes is talk about, um, like tee up the idea of land and expand, where going after one vertical and, um, expanding in it is way better than randomly, or it’s not better, but it’s a, it’s a great technique. And then, um, data is going to help them do that. So I think that’s kind of where I think we can like zoom in and it’d be the most valuable for the audience.

[00:00:23] Jess:
I love it. Yeah. And now I’m able to share my own talk. experience, um, which, and I also do want to touch on like this idea of feedback and kind of what we were talking about before being open to it. Uh, so, and I love the example you shared of like, You didn’t realize that you were using something that some people were offended by, you know, like, I love

[00:00:46] Arel:
that.

[00:00:47] Jess:
Um, Ajay, we good? All right. And also I’m going to be looking up here. Um, so if I’m not looking at you, I’m not being rude. It’s just where our camera is.

[00:00:58] Arel:
I’m ready when you are.

[00:01:00] Jess:
Arel, and is that how you pronounce your name?

[00:01:04] Arel:
Perfect.

[00:01:07] Jess:
I will tell you that I was stuck in my ways and I was originally hesitant to start using Talkadot because I had my system down. Like I knew I, when I spoke how to get the leads from the stage. I was comfortable with how I was doing that. And I heard all these people talking about talk a dot of like, not only collecting leads from the stage, but also getting a survey response. And I was like, people aren’t going to do that. That’s too much time. But I was like, okay, it is my responsibility as someone who is like teaching, speaking and teaching people how to grow their business to do this. And I will tell you, I was so wrong. And I’ve now used Talkadot for like my past four engagements and it has changed the way my speaking business runs. And there’s so much I want to talk about, but first for someone who’s new, can you tell us what Talkadot is?

[00:02:07] Arel:
Yeah, so Talkadot helps every speaker, one, collect all of the stage side leads, all of the people that could potentially book you from your audience. We collect those for you. Two, we get feedback from your audience. We help measure what is the quantitative, the like numerical data impact of your message. We collect testimonials, we build your email list, and we do all of that by just allowing a speaker to put up a QR code at the end of their presentation that sends their audience to a survey. And the survey moves in lots of different directions to achieve all those goals and makes pretty shareable images. So you’re not only collecting it, but you can do something with it as well.

[00:02:45] Jess:
One of the reasons why I think this is so cool, um, is that as it pertains to like what we’re trying to do at Mic Drop Workshop, which is help women get paid to speak, is there is so much in the speaking industry that is just based on what you say about yourself, you know, Oh, you, I’m a 50,000 speaker. Because I claim that even though this is only the second time I’ve ever spoken, or even though, like, I am just going up there and winging it. And so what I think Talkadot does is it gives people the ability to say, this isn’t just what I think. This is what other people have said, and this is what the data shows of when I’ve stood in front of people. And this is what they’ve said. So for example, I just, um, spoke at an insurance summit on Friday and I use talk a dot and insurance is a new vertical for me, which I want to talk about. And, the response, the survey responses that I have now from this insurance summit that I used through Talkadot at the end. We’re now going to send that to all of these other insurance conferences because I can say this isn’t just like, I think I’d be good speaking in insurance. This is what 300 people in the audience said that they’re a hundred percent likely to want to hear me speak again and a hundred percent of the people thought this was valuable. So it gives me the opportunity to back up my pricing with data, which I think is something that is lost in the speaking industry that will help speakers who are on the rise or speakers who maybe don’t have like the notability or the platform like a Mel Robbins or something like that, be able to say, no, this is. I’ve had a good response with this.

[00:04:37] Arel:
You know, one of the biggest questions I get from aspiring speakers is how much should I charge? Or how do I know I’m charging the right number? It’s a very, um, you know, a ferial, hard to touch kind of thing. The great thing about Talkadot is when you, you think you did a good job. Like if you’re on stage, maybe I did a good job, but if you’re actually doing a good job, you now can back that up with data. You can back it up with numbers, the confidence building of it. And if you’re not getting good talk about store scores, you’ll know exactly where you need to improve. So you can make those small adjustments that are necessary to get to that level. So it gives confidence. And, um, I love what you said about expanding into other insurance professionals. I think that is the, that’s the beauty of it because people want to book someone who they know will do a good job with their audience.

[00:05:27] Jess:
Period. And I do want to talk about. If you don’t get a score or a review that is overwhelmingly positive. But I want to hit on this idea of what you call land and expand, like landing in a certain vertical and expanding there. People get really overwhelmed with speaking because they think like, well, every single leadership conference in America, I need to find the meeting planner for, but the way to make this process feel less overwhelming is, um, kind of what I was talking about before. I’m going to speak at this insurance summit. I’m going to get these testimonials, which I will also say, no one is more excited about you than that moment that you are right on stage. And so the idea of like following up a week or two later for testimonials and feedback, it works, but it’s not as effective as like when you’re right there in the moment and they are so freaking jazzed about what you’re talking about. And so it’s a perfect, I have never collected testimonials from the stage before. And I have gotten so much more from then when I am just like three weeks later, like, what’d you think? Did you like me? And so now this idea of like land and expand, okay, I’ve landed an insurance and now I’m going to use this. Talk to me about that because that’s kind of a term that, that you coined and have taken into your speaking career too.

[00:06:46] Arel:
Yeah. It’s how I’ve grown my speaking career. I think it’s, in my opinion, again, there’s lots of opinions, but in my opinion, it is the best way for any speaker to get more speaking business consistently, you’d land one. So in your case, you landed insurance professionals. Now, instead of going, great, I did it. Let’s now try to speak to bankers or try to speak to, you know, dentists, um, which if those come in fine, but now you can actively look at what are the other insurance conferences. What are the other insurance, um, customer experience, maybe software companies for insurance agents, they do, um, uh, events for their users, right? And they’re insurance professionals. You can then reach out to these conferences, you know, do a little research to find out. It’s just simply Googling insurance conference, right? Insurance association. Um, and then reach out to the organizers and say, Hey, I just spoke here. Here is the data, here’s a link to the data of what everyone had to say, here’s my topic and a video of me. I’d love to see if this would be a good fit for your audience. And then you get two, then you get three, then you get four, and you’re very focused in one vertical, so you just land one and then keep expanding in that versus throwing spaghetti against the wall.

[00:08:03] Jess:
The other thing that I found really interesting about this experience and I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to realize that this is a good idea is like, ask for what you want. And that’s what we teach in Mic Drop all the time. We teach like, don’t just have, you know, inquire, uh, button on your website, have the button say, book me to speak, you know, ask for the thing that you want them to do. But one of the questions at Talkadot tees up that I honestly was hesitant about before, but now my speaking calendar says otherwise is prompts people to ask them, If they know events that I would also be a good fit for, or if they are actively booking speakers for other events. I was like, Ooh, I don’t know if that’s too aggressive or too forward. I spoke at an event, um, a couple of weeks ago and I used Talkadot. I had, uh, it was a room full of 3000 people. I had 1500 responses to Talkadot and 300 leads to new speaking opportunities. Which I never would have captured because I wasn’t asking for it. And so I think like just asking for help and what you want is so important in this, whether you’re using Talkadot or not.

[00:09:24] Arel:
Yeah. And, and one of the reasons why we actually built that question in and we built in some like, Very interesting logic to that. It’s called branch logic. The reason we built that question in is because the hardest thing for many speakers to do is sell themselves. For me to like walk up afterwards and try to ask people, Hey, do you book speakers? Do you book speakers? It’s uncomfortable. It’s unnatural. But by folding it into the, the feedback flow, that survey, people can self select in. So you, as the speaker, you’re, you don’t have to worry about being an icky salesperson, the technology does it. And what’s great about our technology is. If someone says no, they don’t book speakers, we skip any other lead generation questions.

[00:10:04] Arel:
But if they do book speakers, we then qualify for them for you. So you don’t have to do any of it. The software does it and now you just have a list of people that have risen their hand and everyone else who doesn’t, they didn’t get peppered with questions not relevant to them.

[00:10:19] Jess:
Yes, and I, I would have never, again, because I’m just focused on, this sounds bad, but like, I’m focused on, I don’t want to say being liked, but being like the good cop and not being like, Well, what’s next? Do you book speakers? And, and I would have never thought to like put that into a sales flow or anything like that. But it has shown that not only has it paid off, people have been excited to do it. So people will come up to me after and say, I filled out the form. I have my information on there, but we have an event in October and I cannot wait to like talk about this. And I’m so glad that planted that seed. But I want to, I want to go back to the, uh, this idea of getting feedback that might not be what you hoped for. And this event that I was talking about with 3,000 people, you know, 14 or 1,500 responses, I’m looking at it after. And it was like 99 percent of people thought this was valuable. 99 percent of people want to hear Jess speak again. And it was like 1%, like one person in there wrote, Oh, this was just too fluffy for me. And let me tell you, I was like on the plane ride, I was like, who the heck thought this was fluffy? And I am like ignoring all of these My life has changed. This was the best thing ever to then being like, well, this one person out of 3000 people thought this was fluffy. So first I want to talk about just the idea of receiving feedback and maybe a mindset around that because no matter how long you’ve been doing it, It’s still hard to open yourself up to that.

[00:12:05] Arel:
Yeah. So I have a 5 percent rule. This is, um, this is my rule. It served me very well. And, and I, I share it with people because you are not alone in that. Like 2 percent of the people did it. Forget the 98%, 2 percent didn’t like it. Right. So number one, um, there is no human in the history of the world that has had 100 percent of the world like them. You’re not going to be the first and I’m not going to be the first. Um, there, there literally is no one human we’ve all universally loved. So for us to have kind of the bravado to think that we’re going to be the first, it’s like, it’s failed.

[00:12:44] Jess:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, no.

[00:12:47] Arel:
It’s just, it’s just a very humbling, like, look, there’s not one historical figure. You’re not going to be the first, right? And number two, I believe everywhere I go, no matter what I do, 5 percent of a group of people will dislike me, period. By voice, because of my gender, because of my tone, because of how I speak. Like there’s something, like I could step on stage. in front of a hundred people and say, I have found the cure for every cancer imaginable. And there’ll be 5 percent of the people who go, he just did it to get the likes. He doesn’t really care about people. He just wants to make money. Like there will be 5%. It’s just humanity. So I like to, that’s my base number. I like to stay as close to, um, under 5 percent as possible. Um, if it’s like 10%, then I need to go, okay, well, if one out of 10 people is not liking it, now I’ve got to go to the second layer of it, which is what’s the peel and what’s the seed. Um, there was this, um, really great parable told to me that when someone gives you a pomegranate, you don’t get mad at the person because they gave you that leathery red seed. part of the fruit, you crack it open and you look for the juicy seeds in it. So you eat the seeds and you discard the peel. And I love that because with every piece of feedback, there are seeds, you know, juicy seeds that you can use, and there’s peels that are literally not useful. So this is too fluffy for me. That’s a peel. I can’t do anything with that. I can’t use that. But what happened to me, and this is a perfect example of what feedback is that’s a juicy seed, I used to give this, uh, story of, you know, um, some people have obesity that runs in their family, but they still exercise, they still eat healthy because they’re not going to let their genetics dictate them and they’re going to control what they can control. But there are other people who have obesity that runs in their family. They eat whatever they want, they don’t exercise, and they say what’s the point? I’m gonna be obese anyway. Um, I used to say that all the time. And then when I started using Talkadot, I got a bunch of feedback from people saying, you’re fat shaming. And I was like, no, no, I don’t, I don’t want to, like, no, I don’t, that’s not the intent of it. So I changed it to heart disease. and saying some people have heart disease that runs in their family, they still exercise, they still eat healthy, and I didn’t offend people. So that was feedback that I could turn into a seed and not appeal.

[00:15:13] Jess:
Fascinating. And the thing is, is that you would have never known that if you didn’t open yourself up to feedback and ask. And the thing is, is that someone would have just, you know, You would have just been walking around being like, why didn’t I get a lot of spinoff from that event or why didn’t they book me again? And that’s where a lot of us live. It’s just like, Hey, it was great. And then maybe there’s not the followup that you wanted or not the, the spinoff opportunity from an event that turns into other gigs. These pieces of information. can help make your talk and your product that you’re selling better if we’re self aware enough to remove our ego from it and also bold enough to ask for it. But I think like if I was a speaker who was just getting started, Um, you know, I feel good asking for feedback now because I feel like I’ve gotten enough reps in and I feel like I genuinely, uh, have shifted my mindset from, like, we call it being a spotlight speaker, where, which is just all about how I’m being perceived, to a lighthouse speaker, which is all about how I’m serving the audience. But in the beginning, it’s almost impossible to not be a spotlight because it’s Such a vulnerable experience going up there and speaking to then like open yourself up and say, what did you think can be super daunting? So what advice would you have for someone who sees the value in Talkadot? Yes, I want the data. Yes, I want the testimonials. Yes, I want the leads. I’m just nervous about opening myself up to feedback.

[00:16:56] Arel:
Yeah, you know, I love what you teach, um, is so valuable for so many people. And I think so many people, uh, especially women who want to go to the next level, they need coaching because literally what you said just there is the game. Don’t be a spotlight speaker, be a lighthouse speaker, right? Like that is so elegant because most people, when they start the game, they’re self centric. It’s about me being great. It’s about me being awesome. I need people to want to take pictures of me. And, um, what I would recommend people do is, is hold onto the mentality of, if you want to be successful in this, if you don’t want to be successful in it, Stay the, you know, spotlight. You have to look at yourself as a craftsperson. Like I, I look at speaking no differently than any art form period. Yeah. You know, if I wanna be a good sculptor, I gotta sculpt, I gotta get feedback. I gotta, if I wanna be a good painter, I gotta paint, I gotta, I gotta make music that people want. So if I’m someone who goes, oh, I only wanna make music that I care about, and I don’t care if people enjoy it. Great, like, go up there, offend people, be Andrew Dice Clay, and, you know, don’t care. Or, you can say, how do I best serve others? How do I care about others? And you have to know the difference between the peel and the seed, um, to do that, because you don’t want to change the authentic way version of yourself. But if you look at this as a craft, as an art, then you should do everything you humanly possibly can to one, get feedback from an expert like yourself, because that’s a different form of feedback than the audience, which is very important. You need an expert’s feedback, but you also need an audience’s feedback as well. If you get those two, you will become world class in this game, period.

[00:18:42] Jess:
One of my speaker friends told me one time, and I, I went through a phase, I still kind of am in this phase sometimes, it’s hard for me to watch footage of myself, but he called out that I would, and this was earlier on in my speaking career, I would say something, a quote or one liner that I really wanted people to understand, and I would end with, Right. And like, right. And I had no idea. Absolutely no idea. I was like, I don’t, if he told me that without showing me the footage, I would have said that he was lying. And so sometimes we just need, like we’re saying, to just take our spotlight out of it. And just focus on the artistry and getting better at the craft and getting better at serving the audience because people book speakers to solve problems. And so the better you are at solving the problem, the more bookings you’ll get and the more that you’ll get paid. But one of the things that I think Talkadot is does at a minimum that I think a lot of times gets overlooked is using your time on stage to collect emails. Now, this can be, Uh, collecting an email, controversial is not the right word, but sometimes people are like, well, isn’t that, isn’t that salesy if I’m asking someone for their email? And I’m like, well, um, you know. Guh. I want to speak to that and then I want you to speak to that because it did, there was like six years of my speaking career that there was a graveyard of emails that I never got because I wasn’t asking for them. And then once people started asking me to send them the slides and send them the recap, Oh, what was that quote that you said with this background? I was like, what if I just sent everyone the slides? And that has been a way that I can collect emails, but in a super intentional and generous way, where I start off, I say, Hey, y’all, don’t worry about taking notes. Don’t worry about, you know, taking pictures of the slides. I will send all of these to you. So you can just relax, absorb the information. I got you. And, And now, now it feels like I am providing them a service and added value and solving a problem and not being like, Hey guys, for six easy payments, you can buy my book and it can be yours. And then a lot of people, uh, so the, the idea of capturing an email can feel salesy, but it’s all in the value that you provide at the other end of it. Agree or disagree. Yeah.

[00:21:18] Arel:
No, a hundred percent. So a spotlight. will say, Hey, it’s really good terminology, right? A spotlight speaker will say, Hey, sign up for my newsletter. I’m going to send you a bunch of great stuff. One day that’s self serving. I’m building my email list. So give me your email. The reason why Talkadot is built the way that it’s built is because it’s saying, Hey, I want to get your feedback and I want to give something to you. I want to give you the copy of my slides, which how many people do you see whipping out their phones, trying to take a picture of your slide going, raising their hand. Oh, could you go back one slide, please? I didn’t get the picture of that. Right. So by you saying to them, Hey, don’t worry about all of this. I got you. I’m going to send all of this to you. Now I want to be. Because you’re giving me value first, right? And that’s like the value equation. Give value first, then you get, right? So by saying, I want your feedback, that means your voice matters to me. And I want to give you something. The only way I can give it to you is if I know where to send it, right? So let me grab your email. It’s CeeCee. Literally Talkadot was built so that the audience member wins because they get that giveaway, that, that slide deck. The host, the person who books you wins because they actually get a data report that’s more than like three people filled it out. And then you win because you get the leads, the email list, the, you know, the data, the testimonials. So the, the, that graveyard of emails that you refer to, I think is so important because speakers will say things like, I’ve spoken to 200,000 people. Those are 200,000 people that could be buying your books, that could be in your coaching program, that could be booking you to speak, and they don’t even know who you are anymore.

[00:23:01] Jess:
And it’s like I’ve had a lot of people who say, well, I’m launching a podcast or I’m just published a book and how do I reach people? Everyone who’s ever heard me speak. It’s like, well, that, that time has passed. I take it from me and learn from my mistakes. To build your audience before you need it. Like don’t wait until you have something to launch a book, a podcast, a course, a membership, to start collecting emails or start putting people together. Build your audience before you need it. What we also did now with Talkadot is we collect the emails, get a recap, and then a week later we send them some reminders because we know that that time when you’re on stage and that fire and post conference can fizzle out really quickly. And so figuring out like how do I keep. Nurturing these people so that when I do have something that I want to share with them, when I do have my next book or when we’re launching our next Mic Drop Academy and filling seats for it, it is, they are excited to open an email from Jess because they know what they’ve gotten so far has been helpful for them.

[00:24:13] Arel:
Yeah. And that’s, I mean, that is actually the secret that some people get, but a lot of people miss is that community building is the new marketing. You build a community. If you build people who genuinely know you, like you trust you, when you have something to promote, people will buy it just because of the, like, like if someone’s listening to this, they should be a part of my drop workshop. If not now, eventually, because what you’re doing is creating value. You’re creating community. You’re creating a sense of there’s a place you belong and you can get the information you need to achieve your goals. And if we as speakers. actually create intentionality around community building. And the simplest community building is our email list. When we do have something, people will gladly be a part of it, but it’s hard to go from, Hey, you’ve never heard of me before, and I know you don’t know anything about me, but will you buy my book? Like, you know, how do I know you’re any good? Like, Oh, you have a book on sales. Well, how do I know you’re actually good? Oh, cause I’ve been a salesperson for 15 years. You could have sucked for 15 years. You just didn’t quit. Right. Like, how do I know? So community is the new marketing strategy.

[00:25:24] Jess:
I mean, I rarely, you are actually the first person that has been on this podcast that is the founder of something that I use that I’m like, everyone should buy this. I will only, and everyone should know this about me, but I’m only going to share things that I’ve used, tested, and have had good results from. Tokadot has definitely been one of them. So in the show notes I’m going to include a link to Tokadot and, uh, and. You also are really generous with the resources that you provide. You do like ask me anythings webinars, just helping speakers not just make the most of the software, but get over some of the hurdles that we’re talking about. So where else can people find you? Where, what can they be involved in? Maybe they’re not ready to use Talkadot yet because maybe they don’t have enough gigs or something on their calendar. So how can people still stay involved?

[00:26:17] Arel:
Yeah. So, um, luckily we have a weird name, which is Talkadot. So if you put that into any search engine, like YouTube, Google, uh, LinkedIn, um, we’re way more active on LinkedIn than anywhere else. You can find us. Also, my name, Aurel Moody. I’m the only Aurel Moody in the whole world. So if you can’t find me Wow! It’s because you’ve never looked. It’s just one of a, right. Um, but for those folks who are new, we, we do weekly AMAs. So we want people to have no hurdles whatsoever with getting started with our tool, using it, using the tool to expand their business. So I would encourage people to say, Hey, if you have speaking engagements. It’s no reason to not use Talkadot. We have a free version of our tool. We have a pro version, which is paid, but there literally is no barrier for any speaker to jump in and use Talkadot outside of the two minutes it takes to register for an account, right? Um, the AMAs and those webinars that we put together are to help people get off the ground with our tool. So, You know, the only reason why someone wouldn’t succeed with it is because they’re not willing to like try. And if you’re not willing to try, I can’t help you. But if you’re willing to try, we got your back. And when you have the coaching of someone like Jess and you have the software of tools like Talk or Die, success is inevitable. I generally think so, but you’ve just got to, you’ve got to try. And sometimes that’s the hardest thing for people to be willing to just try.

[00:27:36] Jess:
Hundred percent. I can actually say the one and only. Aurel Moody is here.

[00:27:43] Arel:
Thank you so much.

[00:27:45] Jess:
Thank you for being here. I’m going to link, um, everything to Talkadot in the show notes, but I really appreciate what you’ve built. Especially for women helping us back up our rates in the reason why we started is trying to, uh, challenge and disrupt the speaking industry and get women on stage as equally as men and their counterparts. And so you’re helping us do that. So I appreciate it.

[00:28:11] Arel:
I appreciate you helping to disrupt the male pale and stale world of speaking.

[00:28:15] Jess:
Yes. Love it. Thanks, Arel.