In The Moment With Tom AntionThis is the first in a series about Speaking Heroes.
What makes a Speaking Hero?
One who can stand out and bring
others to their own greatness. It is their
message, content, delivery,
information, willingness to share, and their heart, that
comes across on stage and makes them heroes.
Click here to download… Part of This Interview
or Click here to hear Tom
The audience was listening to every word. A cell phone rang. The
presenter stopped his presentation and looked in the direction of
the disturbance. Every one was silent, wondering what he’d do.
Not missing a beat in his presentation, he said, “If that’s my mother,
tell her I’m not married yet.” We all cracked up. The presenter was
speaking pro, Tom Antion. That’s the masterful way Tom handles
an audience.
Later in Tom’s talk, a person got up to walk out. Tom interrupted
them and said, “Excuse me. Come here. You need this.” He gave
them a big piece of paper with the words “Hall Pass.” It was another
crowd pleaser. Tom’s a master at taking things from the event
itself and weaving them seamlessly into his presentation. Tom speaks
in the moment, although many of these “spontaneous occurrences”
are actually from his suitcase of pre-planned, well-rehearsed
one-liners. You’ll find a long list of them on one of his web sites
www.public-speaking.org.
I first met Tom under some sad circumstances. Both of us spoke
at Dottie Walters memorial service. We both loved Dottie and learned
so much from her. Tom had the advantage of more years with
Dottie under his belt.
In the late 80’s, Tom was in the practical joke business, performing
for an entertainment company. But he kept thinking to himself,
“There must be something bigger than this for me. How can I take
my talents to the next level?” One day Tom was in Crown Books in
Greenbelt, Maryland, They were stocking the shelves. Tom leaned
back because a woman was coming through the aisle pushing a
baby stroller. Anyone who knows Dottie Walters’ story knows where
I’m going with this. Tom’s head hit a book. “Speak and Grow Rich,”
by Dottie Walters. In Dottie’s book, she tells how she saved the
family home by pushing her two babies in a stroller. Tom took the
sign, bought the book, called Dottie and booked a consultation
with her. They became good friends.
Dottie was a great influence on Tom in two ways - the things
she told him and the things he observed her doing. Tom often
helped Dottie give her “Speak and Grow Rich” seminars. “Every time
I helped Dottie,” Tom says, “she had loads of new material. Dottie
kept up with the latest on everything. She could’ve easily gotten
away with the same old stuff because there were new people in her
seminars all the time. But she didn’t. I may have been the only one
to notice that, but it had a huge impact on me.
I do all my seminars that way.”
It was Dottie who we can partially thank for Tom being so prolific.
“The thing Dottie told me that sticks out in my mind most vividly is,
‘Tom, you have to become a product machine.’ I didn’t get it in
the beginning. I got it a couple years later and I’ve been just cranking
out products like crazy. He certainly has. Today Tom has over 400
products. “That has created a massive presence for me and an enormous
cash flow. That’s what you’ve got to be because that also helps
spread your status as a celebrity and an expert,” he says. Tom could
quit working today, even tear down his web sites, and still earn
over $300,000 a year!
There are two main things Tom is passionate about: helping
people become professional level speakers and teaching them to
sell on the Internet. “My entire life, I’ve been doing what I want to do,“
says Tom. “I deal only with who I want to deal with. Most people go
through life and do what society expects them to do, try to get
a secure job, but live paycheck to paycheck. When I see this,” says
Tom, “I’m desperate to help them. I just love seeing people make the
transition to independence. That’s security for themselves and their
family. I’m no genius. I’m a hard worker who figured this out so
you don’t have to.”
Tom Has a Hero’s HeartYou can tell Tom enjoys speaking. His favorite part used to be the
laughter he’s been able to generate in his audiences “I really love
that part,” Tom said. “But recently I shifted a little bit. I’ve raised
a lot of money to give to those who are helpless. If someone is
standing on a street and can work, that’s not what I’m talking about.
If I give them money, I’m just teaching them to be a beggar.
They must learn to give value. I’ve raised $85,000 in one talk for
charity. It took fifteen minutes.” That is the power of influence.
Heroes have it. Especially Speaking Heroes.
(By the way, Tom has improved his track record. It used to
take him a whole hour to raise that much money.)
This ability to make a difference is what moves Tom’s heart. “That
money will feed 288 children for a year. Those little beings are
helpless,” Tom states. He’s also raised an enormous amount for
another group of “helpless beings.” “One of my favorite sites is
www.iamnotapoodle.com,” say Tom. ‘I’ve got two little Bichon Frise
rescue dogs. They’re just the cutest little things. I’ve got them right
here in the office with me right now. Maggie and Baby. Baby was
totally hairless which doesn’t look too good on a Bichon. They’re
really white fluffy dogs. We’re rehabilitating her. When you take these
dogs out, they’re so pretty with this big, white, fluffy fur, people say,
‘Hey what a cute poodle you have.’ Well it’s not a poodle. It’s a Bichon
and they’re going to get a complex if you keep saying that. We’re
going to have to go to the doggie psychiatrist over this. So we came
up with the site. We sell little t-shirts for the dogs that say, ‘I am not
a poodle.’ We have T-shirts for the owners that say, ‘My Bichon Frise
is smarter than your honor roll student.’ That’s where the humor
comes in. Ideas for websites can come out of nowhere. Everybody
was calling them a poodle. They’re not. We give a lot of money from
that site to Tidewater Bichon Rescue. It’s another way to help out
and have fun doing it.”
How did this Speaking Hero get such a great sense of sense of humor?
Tom said, “I think it came because I was the baby of six boys in
Claysville, Pennsylvania. You take one step and you fall off the face
of the earth. The town population was 500 and we lived in the
suburbs. I was by myself a lot. All my brothers were grown up
and gone so I had to amuse myself out in the middle of nowhere.
We didn’t even have any good farm animals to talk to. I got a
vivid imagination. It eventually led to the profession I had for six
years with an entertainment company. We custom designed
practical jokes like Candid Camera. I’m pretty sure that stemmed
from the fact that I spent a lot of time alone.”
A Hero’s HeroesFor someone so comfortable and impactful on the stage, who are
Tom’s Speaking Heroes? “I’m pretty hard to impress,” Tom says,
“but when I first broke into speaking, a couple stood out.
David Ring. I think he was a preacher. David had cerebral palsy.
He limped out on stage, looked at the 2,000 people in the
audience and said, ‘I have cerebral palsy. What’s your problem?’
It immediately broke the ice. During his speech David took us on
the most beautiful up and down ride. He had us laughing and crying.
He was a true master of the stage.”
“The other was Florence Littauer. She came from some pretty
extreme circumstances and crafted a speech called, “The Silver Box.”
It was about creating a gift for people with the words you use that
build them up. She was a master of the platform.”
Tom loves the speaking profession. “There are tremendous
benefits,” he says. “The financial rewards are pretty obvious.
You can look at speaker’s bureaus and see the amount of money
they’re charging for people you’ve probably never heard of. Your
social life will probably improve. People see you on stage and
they’ll want to take you to dinner. People will want to invite you
to their homes. Pretty much because of my enormous ezine, I can
go to just about any country in this world and somebody will invite
me to stay in their home because they’ve heard of me and know me.
So there’s a tremendous increase in your social life.”
“The emotional benefits are priceless. I had a lady in seminar on
“How to use humor in speeches.” She’s the only one not laughing
the whole day. You can’t miss this. I figured I must’ve said something
wrong. The whole day I’m thinking that this lady’s going to unload on
me. At the end of the day, everybody left. My assistants all packed up
but she’s hanging around. I’m thinking ‘Oh my God. I’m going to get
an ear beating today.’ I don’t know what I did but I’m just going to
take it. I don’t want to ruin this whole day by this lady being mad at me.’
She came up to me and said. ‘You know Tom, when I was a child, my
parents would tell me to sit down, shut up, and wipe that stupid smile
off that face. I never thought I could have humor in my life…until today.’
She’s in tears and I start crying too. We’re blubbering all over the place.
The whole day I’d been thinking I did something wrong
when I actually did something really, really right.”
“Luckily she talked to me about it. I’d have gone the rest of my life
thinking this lady was mad at me. A lot of people out there will never
come up to you even if you’ve touched their lives. That’s why you have
to be very careful what you say up there because somebody could be
hanging on a thread and you’re their last hope. There are speakers
I know that have gotten letters that people didn’t commit suicide
because of what they said. These emotional benefits of how you can
help people are priceless.”
The Number One Thing a Speaker Should DoWith all that experience and knowledge inside Tom, what advice
would he give to speakers out there? Tom says to focus first on
making enough money. “Because if you can’t stay in the business,
no one’s going to hear your great message.” Tom says that a lot of
great speakers are lousy marketers.
“One of the saddest things is when somebody who has a
tremendous message that could help hundreds of thousands of
people, can’t stay in the speaking business long enough to be
able to get that message out to the people that need it. They
must spend a portion of their time marketing themselves.
The way I do it is a little different. What I do is “media market.”
I’d make sure people heard about me on the radio, or read about
me in magazines and newspapers, or on TV. Whatever I could do
to make them hear about me.”
“One way that’s very effective is to attract the trade journals of
an industry. Those are the industry magazines that people read.
They’re a lot easier to get into than the mainstream media. Every
industry has one or more trade magazines. Of course, the bio line
would say that Tom Antion is an expert on so-and-so and speaks
on so-and-so. They’d call me. When someone calls you, the whole
power struggle of the call changes. Instead of you calling them and
saying ‘Oh, do you book speakers? Do you have a budget?’ they’re
calling you and saying, ‘Can we afford you?’ and ‘Are you available?’
That’s a whole different animal there.”
Master of the InternetTom is a master of the internet. Maybe even an internet hero too.
“Once the internet came along, I said, ‘Wow this is great! Not only
can I be in the mainstream media but also I can have an enormous
web presence. That’s when I started really learning the Internet.
I realized all these people could see me right in front of their computer.
I jumped on the internet bandwagon with both feet. The internet is the
first place somebody’s going to check you out. They’re going to go see
if they like you or what your presence is before they call you.
Another key point is once you reach your fee level, the only way to get
ahead is to get better known. If you’re more well known, you can
exceed the average, or even the top fee range for an industry if
you’re a celebrity in that industry. That’s the way I do it.” Tom now
has a massive Internet presence. “That’s by design and it’s much
cheaper to do,” he says.
Speakers Must Be EntrepreneursTom has some observations about entrepreneurs. He says many small
business owners are told to delegate but Tom says that this is a sure
way to the poor house. “Some things need to be delegated but by
learning how to do certain things yourself, it frees you from enormous
expense and gives you the knowledge you need so that you don’t
get taken for a ride by your designers and the other people you hire.”
Although Tom could well afford now to hire any web designer,
he says he has probably created 10,000 web pages while he’s watched TV.
Yes, Tom Antion is a Speaking Hero. And he has created many other
heroes. One of his success stories is Joan Stewart, “The Publicity
Hound.” Joan wanted to work from her home in rural Wisconsin.
Tom loves to tell about Joan’s deer mural on her basement wall.
Tom has helped Joan create about 60 products and make a very
nice five-figure income – per month! “She took my Butt Camp,
(Tom’s humorous take on creating money while you sit at your
computer). I’m really proud of her. I’ve had 600 students and
many of them now make, $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000 a month.”
No one standing on the platform has got there without making a
mistake or two– even a Speaking Hero. So to prevent any of you out
there from making this same faux pas, Tom shares it. “ The biggest
mistake I’ve ever made speaking was when I was telling an audience
how they should create a nice work space and surround themselves
with photos of their family, their pets, their children, and
grandchildren.
I had the crowd laughing and having a great time. I went up to this
woman and said, ‘Don’t you agree? Don’t you think you should have
photos of your grandchildren on your desk?’ She didn't answer.
The room went instantly silent. They’d been laughing just
a moment before. I pushed it and asked her again. More silence.
Luckily it was near the end of my presentation. I found out
afterwards that she was only 36 years old!” Tom and I concurred.
Never “suggest” a woman’s age, nor presume a pregnancy.
The Hero Behind The Hero What would Tom say his best trait is? Probably “tenacity,” he says.
Tom learned it from his father. “My dad only went through the
second grade. He came over on a cattle boat from Syria when he
was a little child. He grew up with nothing, educated himself,
and shined shoes. When he had me I think he was in his fifties.
I was the baby of six boys. Dad told me that even when I was just
crawling, he’d throw pillows in front of me and put my toys on the
others side of them to teach me to overcome obstacles. He thought
he might not be around when this child grew up so he had to make
him tough. To this day, I’m totally unstoppable. I won’t cheat, or steal,
or step on people, but I’m going to get there - if there’s a goal worth
going after. I’d probably say “tenacity” and
it was all because of my dad.”
Is video on the internet going to explode? Here’s Tom’s take. “That’s
an understatement,” Tom said. “I’ve created 200 videos last month.
As we’re recording this, there’s a big thing going on with google
called “google universal search’ where they’re now putting video
responses in with the main search results. I’ve been jumping on this
like crazy. I shot ten maybe fifteen this morning before I came into
work. It’s based on keywords that people are searching for. I make
the video match the keywords. Then I load them up to youtube.com
and about thirty-five other sites. I’ve been doing this since 1994.
I’ve never seen a place where you could dominate the search engines.
I never believed this would ever come about again but because they’re
starting to put videos in, it’s like the Wild West out there. Back in the
old days (1994) I was able to dominate the search engines with maybe
4 or 5 out of the top 10. Now on many of my keywords, I’m getting 20 or
30 results because of all these video sites that are getting a lot of
credence in the search engines.”
“Today is the time to jump on this. You can set up a little place in
your house with a video camera, some lights and just knock out
videos like crazy. Little short ones, just two minutes or so. You can
just go to Youtube, type in “antion.” As soon as you find one of my
videos, you can click on the little link that says “antion” and it takes
you to all of them. Today there’s about 210 videos up right now.
It’s increasing all the time. Yes, I’m definitely going crazy on video.”
“Anybody can do it. One of my students shot a little video of a product
that she liked, put it up there and got $407 in commissions in the
first hour. She was an affiliate of some other company. She didn’t
even have her own product. So it’s really a time to jump on.”
The Future For Speakers? “I can picture myself on stage somewhere as a hologram,” said Tom.
“People will think it’s me. You’ll think I’m up there giving my message
but I’ll actually be at home eating a pizza.” Seriously Tom says he feels
that “From now till eternity, there will always be the value of a live
person in front of you, inspiring you.” I agree. Especially if it’s Tom Antion.
“The Speaking Business is one of the most rewarding, financially,
emotionally and in helping people and beings who are helpless,” says
Tom. “To do it – you must be serious. There are challenges but if
you stick with it, the rewards far outweigh the tough stuff.”
Tom’s “Speaking Hero” Tips* Follow The Leader “Others can be heroes of the stage if they can use that privilege that
they have up there to do tremendous good for people,” says Tom.
“When you’re onstage and you do a great job, people revere you.
People will follow you. People listen to you. It’s your choice if you
want them to follow you and do good things, or follow you and do
bad things. I say do good things. Find some charities you can tie
yourself to.” For Tom it was the Bichon animal rescue and the
children he wanted to help. People are happy to help, given the
opportunity pointed out by a hero. “If you’d just be the leader and
help them and make it easy for them to help others,” Tom says,
“you can do a tremendous amount of good. Although you might
not be heroes to the people in the audience, you’re heroes to all
those helpless beings and souls in the world that can’t stand up
for themselves.”
* Use Technology and Keep Your Education Current Use mobile universities, the latest in computers and Ipods, “I have
an ipod on my desk I can hardly find it’s so small,” said Tom.
“Give teleseminars.“ Tom uses all the tools available now to help
him stay at the top.
* Listen While the other speakers were talking, Tom seemed to be sitting
over on the side working. He was actually taking notes quietly
in the background. At the end of the seminar. Tom was able to
deliver an outstandingly funny list of the many things they’d said.
It made Tom an even bigger Speaking Hero. Tom follows his own
advice: “Listen to other speakers and write down things
that will be funny later.”
* Become a Product MachineBy continually sharing his knowledge and expertise Tom has created
an empire which he shows people how to emulate. Tom imparts very
beneficial information from his years of experience. “I love to create
things that never existed before.” Tom created his retreat center at
his own “home” where clients come and actually live with him, eat
with him, and work in his TV studio.”
* Communicate and Have FunWatch Tom and that will be obvious!
* Look for Media Opportunities to Influence More PeopleUse the media so that people hear about you. “Cold calling? said Tom.
“I did that for maybe ten minutes fifteen years ago. When I first started
out, the goal was to do everything you could to get your name seen at
every possible place on earth. Use the internet to full advantage”
To find out more about Tom go to
www.amazingpublicspeakers.com. There are over 250 videos there. You can join for a $5 trial. Tom says,
“This site is a reflection of what my dad taught me years ago.
‘Be really good at something and people will notice and ask you
to help them learn how to do it too.’ It’s a membership site
that teaches you all the stuff I’ve learned in the speaking business
via video, audio, and written articles. We have over 250 videos there.
Teaching you the things that I’ve been learning over the past years.”
Tom got so good selling on the Internet, people started begging him
to teach them. That’s how
www.greatinternetmarketingtraining.com was spawned. “This big mansion I live in where people come in and study with
me which is the only place in the world you can do this.
They can watch a video there.”
www.kickstartvideos.com is where you can
see a half hour television show where Tom talks about the nine different
revenue streams he has.
“www.antion.com is my first site.
I don’t solicit speaking engagements anymore. It’s just there and it gets
enormous traffic. Most of the time, it’s by people that want to learn to be a speaker.”
“I also have
www.public-speaking.org. Now this is a lousy domain name by present day standards but it’s a
“Best of the Web” in Inc. Magazine. The panel of CEO’s said ‘Hey it was
easy to get around and we found what we wanted fast.’
So it beat out three other million-dollar websites.
Tom Antion is a true Speaking Hero. Watch him when you can.
And if you are ready, Tom can guide you to become a hero in your niche too.
Terri Marie is an award winning author, producer and composer.
You can sign up for The Spiritual Arena News at
www.spiritualarena.com and get a “Year of Cheer.”
Labels: Bichon Frise, Hero, Internet, Public speaking, Terri marie, Tom Antion
