Welcome to this episode of The High Profit Event Show, where host Rudy Rodriguez sits down with Sam Silverstein, founder of the Accountability Institute. Sam, an author of 12 books, past president of the National Speakers Association, and a Speaker Hall of Fame inductee, brings a wealth of knowledge to this episode, particularly on accountability and event engagement.

In this episode, Sam shares insights into the important elements of successful event planning, including the importance of networking and learning as the main reasons people attend events. He shares how balancing these elements can enhance the attendee experience by providing both valuable knowledge and opportunities to create meaningful connections.

Sam dives into effective event planning and execution, sharing strategies to keep attendees engaged and prevent distractions. He shares how strategically scheduled breaks and networking opportunities keep participants focused and energized throughout the event.

Sam also explores engaging presentation techniques and the importance of addressing the "what," "why," and "how" to create audience interest, facilitate decision-making, and build trust. He shares practical advice on opening and closing presentations powerfully, leaving a lasting impression and motivating attendees to take action.

This episode is a must-listen for event leaders looking to elevate their events with strategic planning, engaging content, and impactful presentation skills. Gain actionable insights from Sam Silverstein and transform your approach to leading events. .

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Welcome to today's episode. We have a special guest, Mr. Sam Silverstein. Welcome, sir.

Hey, it's great to be here, Rudy. How are you doing today?

Excellent, my friend. I'm really looking forward to today's interview. Actually, we've been going back and forth here for several months, and I've just been waiting for the opportunity to finally get to pick your brain today. For our listeners who are tuning in here and maybe hearing your name for the first time, you are the author of 12 books, and I think you average a book a year, and you're going to work on a new one very soon. You're also the past president of National Speak Association, and you've been inducted in The Speaker Hall Of Fame, and you've shared this book with audiences all around the world, and many have said that you're referred to as the most trusted source when it comes to accountability, so it's really special to have you on our show sharing your expertise when it comes to engagement at events.

Thank you, Rudy. I'm honored to be here, and I'm looking forward to our conversation and seeing what we can come up with that's going to make a difference for your listeners and viewers.

Thank you, Sam. In the green room, you and I were chatting about a few items, but you basically said, hey, there's only two things that – maybe not only two things, but there's two primary things that people come to an event for, and I just found that really interesting. Would you mind maybe just jumping right into it and sharing?

You bet, and I've been at the – not only have I spoken at hundreds of events, maybe thousands, I don't know, hundreds anyway. We'll go there. I've planned several large events as well, as many as a couple of thousand people, and been part of the planning team, led the planning team, and it's nerve-wracking, and I get what goes into it, and it's important to do it right. What we've discovered is there's really two reasons why people come to an event. They come for the knowledge. They want to learn something, and they come for the networking, and so they're coming for both. They want to learn how to do something. They want to leave with an applicable skill, something that's going to make their life better, and by making their life better, it might be a whole new business idea. It might be a way to improve their business, to take their business to the next level. They're looking for something concrete they can put their hands around and utilize. Now, sometimes they're coming because if it's focused on personal development and quality of life, then they're coming literally for something that will make their life better. They want to reduce stress. They want to have more enjoyment in life. They want to discover how they can control the happiness that they're achieving and make sure they're maximizing that on an ongoing basis. But whatever it is, it's something that they want to learn that they can apply. Then the other thing is they want to come for networking. They want to meet other people. They want to form these relationships that they can call on in the future so that they can help someone and someone can help them, and networking is really important.

The reason why it's so important, in my opinion, Rudy, to recognize these two areas is when you're planning an event, people are going to get the information and they're going to get the networking.

You want them to get that on your schedule, not on their schedule, meaning when you're in the room sharing, when you're in the room teaching, and when you're in the room enrolling into your programs, your masterminds, your offerings, you want the people in the room. You don't want them in the hallway networking. So if you create designated opportunities for networking and maybe even find ways to facilitate that, you up the value that you're delivering, which is always good, and you're controlling the flow and making sure that the people are in the room when they should be in the room, which is when you're in the room.

That's a big one because I know one of the top problems that oftentimes event leaders face is come time for inviting people to enroll into the programs, the room is thinned. People are in the hallway or worse. They're in the room, but they're on their phones.

And that can happen. Look, I was at an event just three days ago, and I thought they were going to break. Now, the reason I thought they were going to break is because they were overdue for a break. It had been too long. They should have already had the break, and they didn't have it. It seemed like they were going for a break. There was an exercise going on. I was done. I left the room. I created my own break. I voted with my own two feet. It was time for a break. So I left the room. Now, they did not go on a break. So whatever transpired when I was out of the room, and let me tell you, when I left the room, there were a lot of people out of the room. So I'm like, yeah, they must have gone. They must have said we're about to go to a break because all these people are out here. Well, all these other people felt the same way. They needed a break. They needed to go to the bathroom. They needed to fill up their coffee, their soda, whatever it was, to recharge. So how you schedule the time and how you keep people energized, man, I don't care if it's a one day, I don't care if it's a three day. It's critical.

I used to go to something that was a full day event and I would go quarterly. The one thing they did was it was 50 minutes on 10 minute break. So there was 50 minutes of teaching and there was a 10 minute break. It was this way every hour until lunch. Then there was whatever there was an hour for lunch. Then it was the same thing in the afternoon. So you knew you only had to focus for 50 minutes and you knew you were going to get a 10 minute break. Now, is that the magic formula? I'm not saying that it is. It worked in that environment. Whatever it was, it was communicated. It was well thought out and it worked for the people in the room. So I think it's important when we plan events that we make sure that we're thinking about those things.

Like I said in the beginning, they're going to do it. They're going to take the breaks. They're going to do the networking and better to set it up. So they're doing it on your schedule, not on their schedule, or it can be disruptive to your agenda and your plans and in your teachings and potentially other speakers as well.

Exactly. Wow. Way to drop the mic there. I mean, we could end that recording right here. We're done. That's right there. Just go do that and that's worth it. We're off to the beach. Time for a break. Psychologically speaking, Sam, I want to speak about my experience with the 50 minute thing. I have learned that there's something to be said about setting a timer or just a set period of time where you're asking people to focus and then have a set break. I actually do that more from a work environment. I normally do 20 or 30 minutes and then I'll take a break. But I can see how that applies to speaking in an event as well. So now the audience knows what to expect and and and you keep them engaged and present.

The challenge is if you let someone out of the room, the challenge is always getting them back in. So we want to get them back in and we want to get started. So that all has to be mitigated and maybe depending on how you're scheduling things, maybe you take an in room break. Maybe there's some sort of activity. If there's two speakers that we want to have during this session.

And they're both, I don't know, let's say 40 minutes or something, 45 minutes, and so now you're pushing, you're bumping up on an hour and a half. What can you do for five minutes in between that re-energizes the group? Maybe you just have them stand up and turn to the person next to them and share the best idea that they had. Or maybe you lead a best idea question from the stage or you do something that just changes the pace, changes them physically, changes them mentally and emotionally. Then you can get back to work with the next event. But whatever it is, all I'm saying is let's think about it. Let's let's plan it out. Let's let's do things on purpose for purpose and with purpose.

Brilliant. On purpose, for purpose, with purpose. I love that. Excellent. In the green room, you mentioned that there are three questions the people must answer as an event leader or as a speaker leading the room to get the audience to engage. I'm just really curious, what are those questions?

So, we talked about that, Rudy, and this applies in any presentation that we make. So if I'm doing a 45 to 60 minute keynote from an audience. This applies if I'm doing a full day or slot, this applies no matter what. We have to be able to answer these three questions in the audience's mind because they are going to ask those questions and until we answer them, they're not fulfilled and they cannot make a decision to move forward. That's ultimately what we want in an event is we want them to make a decision to move forward. We want them to decide to apply what we've taught. We want them to decide, hopefully, to enroll in our mastermind or other services that we may be providing for them. We need them to be able to make a decision and until they can make a decision, we haven't done our job. So this is going to sound really simple, but this is really important.

First question we have to answer is what is it we're talking about? What is it about? We need to answer what we need to get that out of the way. It's critical that we do that very thoroughly. Now, the second question that we have to answer is why? So what is it that we're talking about? Why is it important? Why is it important now? Why is it important in your life? Why is it important in your business? This must be addressed during the presentation because people are going to want to know that information. And then the third question we're going to need to answer is how? How do you do it?

Now, this may seem very simple, but here's what we've discovered. People communicate a certain way. We've heard some people are visual learners, some are auditory learners, some are kinesthetic. People absorb information and make decisions to move forward in a certain way and that is some people are what people? They just need to know what it is. If you tell them what it is, if you have the authority, they'll buy in and they'll move forward. That's all they really needed to know.

Now, some people need to know why they understand the what they're in the room to begin with. So they have a pretty good understanding of what they want to know and why and until you satisfy that, quench that thirst, they cannot make a decision to move forward. Then there's some people that need to know how and they're the ones that are, they want the systems and how it's done and and just tell me how to do it and I'll go execute. But tell me how to do it.

Then there's another group, and those are the what, why, how people and they need to know what, why and how. So we need to take the responsibility if we're leading that conversation of providing this information. Now, what happens when someone doesn't provide information? What happens when people start having to ask a lot of questions? Well, we find that there's a lack of trust. So, Rudy, if you have to ask me all these questions and then I'm answering them.

Well, it's like, what else did he not answer? What else did he not share? What else did he not tell me? So by taking the responsibility as the presenter, as the person communicating, and this applies whether you're trying to sell something in the room, whether you're trying to sell an idea to a team as a leader, whether you're trying to sell an idea to your kids as a parent, it's all the same thing. When you build trust, when you proactively give the what, the why and the how, then everyone's in a position to make the decision that you want them to make. They may not always make it the way you want, no versus yes, but they're in a position to make a decision. That's the most important thing, because if enough people just make a decision, then certainly a significant percentage of them will make the decision the way that we need them to make it. That's going to be best for them and obviously best for what it is that we're offering in that environment.

Wow. I never thought of it that way in the sense where if somebody, if there's too many things that are questions that are left unanswered in their minds, there's a breakdown in trust. If they have to keep asking questions, it's like, what else did they not tell me? I've never heard it put that way. That makes perfect sense. I'm thinking of an interrogation. It's like, why is the one person asking all these questions? Because fundamentally, they don't quite trust what the other person is saying. So they're gathering more information to come to their conclusions. I've never heard that before. That's brilliant.

I want to make sure, though, that we don't confuse that. There is a point in time when people, when we're dealing with a sales cycle, there's a point in time where someone's ready to buy. When they're ready to buy, our job is to shut up. Not get in the way, not talk them out of the sale. So it's not that I'm saying we have to share everything that we know. We have to share everything that we know that's important to the decision and that falls into this what, why and how framework that gives us the guidance so that we can give them that information.

Got to give them the logical reasons and the emotional reasons to make that decision, really not more than that. Not overwhelm them with too much information to make sense, which actually leads to my next question. How deep do you go into the content during the event?

Well, that's a great question. It really depends on the length of time. Part of it is how long do you have? But I believe that we need to always look to give more. The more we give, the more we get. I think it's just an unwritten rule of life. But if you have a system and there's five elements to the system, it might be that first element you go really deep on and you show them the depth that you have and that you use 70% of your time going deep into that one area.

And then those other four areas, you don't go so deep because that's what they're going to get when they continue on with you, when they come into your mastermind, when they invest in the system that you're offering. That's one way of doing it. Another way of doing it is knowing that people ultimately like help getting things done. So when you can set the table and then position yourself to where they say, wow, she knows so much about this. She has the answers. There's so much that you don't cover during that time. Then I think people will naturally want to continue on with you because you've shown that you have a depth of knowledge. You're the expert.

Look, if you're an expert, I work with leadership teams around the world on workplace culture, a culture that inspires accountability. We also offer our certified accountability advisor program where we actually license individuals to become certified accountability advisors and use all our materials with their clients. If I can share everything in 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes that I know, if I can get it all out there in 90 minutes, nobody should be investing in anything that I have to offer because there's no depth to that. My philosophy is always, when I got into this 30 years ago, I wanted to be an iceberg. I wanted that 10 percent of my knowledge that I'm sharing to be seen above water, but I wanted that 90 percent below the surface that I had to support it with. So when someone asked questions, when someone needed help, that I had what they needed because I had positioned myself to grow, to be an expert in what it was that I was offered.

Wow, that's a big value bomb there. I love the mindset behind that, like striving, how I'm interpreting to basically under-promise and over-deliver, and communicating enough so that they see that you have value to add, but then when they come to you, you have even more to give them. You can go even deeper on something, not giving everything superficially and then not being able to go deeper.

So also, we don't want to overwhelm somebody because it's like, you know how it is when you have so much to do, you don't know where to start, so what do you do? Nothing. You go to the beach. You can't handle it, and so we don't want to leave our audience in that position. We need to give them enough to have some understanding, but if we give them too much, they're overwhelmed and then they can't do anything with it.

So, for instance, one of the things we do with organizations, we do with individuals also, is we talk a lot about values. I just don't believe you can make good decisions if you don't have clarity in your values. Clarity is an individual, but clarity is an organization. We teach that the organizational values define the culture if the values are actually lived, so its lived values define the organizational culture. Okay, there, that's valuable information. Now, I go further. It's not about having great values. It's about having a great set of values. Okay, so I could say, what's one of your values? You say, oh, Sam, one of my values is honesty, and you can tell me what that means. What a great value. That's important, but unless it's part of a great set, it's not going to take you where you need to go. Now, a great set of values needs to have four things covered. The values need to connect to four areas.

One, there needs to be foundational values. So foundational values speak to the character of the individual. So one of my values is integrity, for instance. That would be a foundational value. Then one or more of your values need to connect to professional, or what I call professional values. What is excellence here? How do I want to live my life, or how do I run my business from a point of excellence? What's our standard that we accept? The third area is relational values. How do we conduct our relationships, either individually or organizationally? We need to be very clear on all that. And then community values. How do we connect back to and serve the community in which we live, in which we derive support? What is our participation in the community? Now, having all that has a great set of values, and we have a very specific system. We actually have two, one for individuals and one for organizations, that's going to help them determine what those values are.

Now, I just gave a ton of content, and I could have taken that content, Rudy, and we could have talked a half an hour about it. We could have gone deeper. I could have given examples of organizational values and sets and all that. But I didn't give my systems on how to do it. That's what I'm going to ask you to invest in.

So you can give a lot of meaningful value, and you could take that and go off and do it yourself. If that's what you're going to do, that's fine. But if you want my guidance, you want me to help you do this, then you need to join my mastermind. You need to be certified in my program. This is where we're going to get into, and I'm going to step you through exactly how to do it for yourself and how to do it for your clients. So that's what I mean by delivering value. Let people buy into your way of thinking. Let them determine if they're aligned. But then when it gets down to the real number crunching time, getting it done, those systems, tools, that's what they're investing in.

That's great. Thank you for that example. I was taking notes. I got all four of those bullet points. I'm like, that was great.

So when it comes to presentation, you know you're doing a good job if someone's taking notes, Rudy. That's the goal. Now, I used to have an assistant that worked with me for five years, and one of her main response, she traveled with me everywhere I spoke, everywhere I presented. Her main on-site responsibility, well, she had a whole thing, a list of things that she did. But once I went on the stage, she did one thing and one thing only. She made notes about where people made notes.

She watched the audience. She didn't watch me. She wanted to see what people were writing down, where people were engaged. Because then after that program, we would debrief. Okay, Sam, you know that new module you were doing on XYZ? They were writing notes like crazy. Oh, well, it must be important if they're writing it down. If you're coming back and you want next year's event to be better than this year's event, next month's event, next quarter, whatever, well, you need somebody watching the audience and determining what's hitting home the best with the audience because then you have the ability to break down what you did and make it better.

Wow. The camera or the focus not being on the speaker but being on the audience and what they're responding to. I've actually heard that from some of the best speakers. It's like they watch the game tape not for themselves as well, but they watch the game tape of the audience. What is it that made them laugh or made them take note or made them move?

Exactly because when we're teaching, when we're speaking, when we're presenting, hopefully we see the audience and we engage with the audience. But we're in a flow. So do I see that they're taking notes? Sure, I do. But I'm not in a position where I can write down. Oh, they really jumped on that when I said blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you're there and you're doing that for me, then afterwards you go, Sam, boy, when you talked about those four different types of values they had to have to have a great set of values, they were breaking lead trying to get notes written down that fast. Well, then I know that's important and then I can go, ok, how do we take that deeper? How do we add more richness to it? How do we serve them better in that area? It's a great way to analyze what you're doing.

Brilliant. Sam, my final question was really going to ask you, what is the most important part of a presentation? I feel like you started to speak to it there, seeing what the audience responds to is an important part.

Well, I mean, that's in the analysis afterwards. There's different ways of looking at it but to me, I want to open and close strong. It's critical. I want to open in a way that captures the people in the room and they want to know more. They want to connect with me and they want to hear what I have to say. So that's really important.

But even more important is the close, because after the program, I want them to take some sort of action, whether it's application, whether it's signing up, whatever it is. So the close is critical. So I would look at all the content that you want to share. There's the old adage, tell them what you're going to tell them. Tell them, tell them what you told them. Oh, that's true. That's fine. But I want to wrap that. I want to make it a gift. I want to open with something that they can enjoy, that they'll learn, that'll bring them in. I try to always make my opening story.

The goal is something that's maybe self-deprecating, that has humor to it, but connects to a point and that point establishes the need for what's going to come in the next X minutes. Then when I close, I want to close with a story that really grabs them, that that viscerally touches them and leaves them in a position to not only do they feel good about themselves, they feel good about moving forward with what or how I've suggested they should move forward.

People don't remember what you told them, they remember how you left them feeling. That's what came forward to me as you said that. What is the ultimate feeling that you're leaving them with? Well, it's powerful, Sam. Thank you for sharing that. As we wrap up here, Sam, any final words or best advice that you give to our audience as event leaders to maximize the engagement and ultimately the percentage of people that are going to move forward into their coaching or mastering program when it comes to engaging the room from the stage?

I think it comes down to relationships. If you're doing all the presenting yourself, then ask the question, how does this impact my relationship with the audience member? Does it show respect? Does it show care? Does it show that I understand them? Does it show that I know what their needs are? When you build these types of relationships with people, then they're going to want to respond in kind. If you're bringing other people in to speak at your event, so you're not the only one, then I think it's important to have these conversations, not that you're telling someone how to do their job. But I think you want to have a conversation. If it's your event, you are responsible for the culture of your organization, the culture of that event, and what people are going to experience. It's critical that you own that. Not only for your presentations, but if you're bringing me in to speak, if you're bringing Rudy in, if you're bringing Sally or Mary or Beth, everyone needs to know this is the culture that we want at this event. This is the way we want people to feel. This is what we want them to experience. It's important that your piece of the event, that your presentation contributes to that culture, not take away from it. So when you look at the culture of the event and what you want people to experience, and if you're bringing me in, for instance, and you communicate that with me, that helps me do a better job for you.

Wow. Culture and the event leader ultimately owns the culture of the event and the entire experience and being able to communicate that culture, not just with the audience, but also all of the speakers and vendors and everyone to bring that together.

I told you I was just at an event this past weekend and it was an event that I started 15 years ago. It's not my event, but I started it for an organization. At the end of the event 15 years ago, people came up to the stage with credit cards in hand to sign up for the next year's event. I kind of think we hit the bullseye.

At this event, just this past weekend, 80% of the enrollment of the capacity was sold out at the event a year in advance. That's because the culture of what's supposed to happen during that time has been so well defined and so well stepped out and it aligns with what the people in that market are looking for. That's what's making it just a homerun.

Wow. That makes so much sense. You know you've done a good job when people are already signing up for the next event and 80% of it's already pre-sold. Beautiful example, Sam. For our audience here, as you're tuning in, I know I've been getting tremendous value learning from Sam here. Especially when it comes to values and culture. Sam, you have a very special gift for our audience that they can download on your website. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Well, as I've shared, I think it's critical that we all really are in touch with our values. I think we live a better life and I think we contribute to a better world when we truly know what those values are. So for an individual, we've created a values worksheet that will help you step through that. It's just a free gift from us and it's available at valuesworksheet.com. It's that simple. You can download it and you can work on identifying your values and defining your values because once you've done that, you can step them out.

Perfect. Valuesworksheet.com. We're going to include that link here in the show notes as well as links to your website where listeners can learn more about you and what you do. Thank you, Sam. This has been a great interview. You preach, you practice what you preach. I've been completely engaged, taking notes the last 30 something minutes. So this has been wonderful. Thank you, sir.