Odell Bizzell is an inspirational storyteller, author of eight books, keynote speaker, and business marketing consultant. He’s been featured in USA Today, Yahoo Finance cnbc.com, and multiple media outlets about his expertise. He’s given over 300 live presentations in his career and has served the US military and over 240 associations and organizations. Odell’s expertise has been featured on some of the same stages as celebrities such as ESPN Steven a Smith, Emmy Award-winning recording artists John Legend, David Letterman, and Oprah Winfrey. 

Courageous Men Magazine got an opportunity to speak to Odell about his journey as a motivational speaker.

What inspired you to become a motivational speaker?

 If I’m being honest, what inspired me to become a motivational speaker is the same thing that inspires everybody else: attention, admiration, and income. Some people will be coy about it. They will be more deep and metaphysical about it. But I wanted the admiration. I wanted people to look at me and say wow, you’re doing great. And I wanted that respect factor. And I saw my skill set was speaking and communicating well in front of other people. I saw a way to use that to become a motivational speaker. And as I’ve grown into it, I’ve discovered the more deep and fulfilling things but what inspired me was seeing other people doing it, seeing the Les Browns of the world. All those individuals are the Jim Roans of the world; Zig Ziglar is of the world. That’s what inspired me. 

Tell us about your business as a marketing and branding strategist.

So one thing that I learned being a speaker is that there are different levels to it. So as I was building my speaking career, I found that people didn’t want to hire me early on because they didn’t see much of me speaking, and they didn’t see pictures. They didn’t see the video in context. So what I started doing was helping other speakers get booked. And I just taught them about marketing. Marketing is pulling people in, not pushing people into the door to see what you have to offer. So creating content and staging your pictures, staging your videos so that people look and see Wow, that’s great. And the biggest thing about my business is I help people transition from who is that person! Who is that person? 

In what ways can business owners earn over $100,000 a year from public speaking?

 So $100,000 a year is just a baseline if you’re doing business already, and you can add that to your bottom line for most people. That’s a good start. You can get to that point if you’re just starting your business. It’s a good start. So $100,000 a year, there are a couple of different ways you can do it. But if you think about math, for you to make $100,000, there are a few ways you can get 100 people to buy a $1,000 thing. That’s $100, that’s $100,000. How can you get 100 people to buy a $1,000 thing? Quite simply, you run a free, inspirational informational webinar. Every week.

You reach out to people via social media via email, and he just asked them to come, and then you make a $1,000 offer. You do that every week. If you mark it the way that you should, if you’re reaching out the way that you should get 100 sales within a few months.

And that’s the fastest way business owners can earn $100,000 A year from public speaking. They just know the free webinar, but you got to be good at presenting it, and I hope people do that.