Podfluence

Lorne Kelton asked AI to find research supporting an argument. It returned what seemed like a cited study. When he checked it, the study and researcher didn’t exist.

That experience opens a conversation about the responsibility speakers carry when they use evidence on stage. Lorne and John discuss why confidence can be mistaken for competence, how “fake it till you make it” advice can lead speakers astray, and what critical thinking looks like when a client wants to put it into practice.

They also disagree, or at least place different bets, on what AI means for professional speaking. Lorne sees pressure on familiar keynote topics as AI gets better at producing plausible content. John argues that an audience’s relationship with a live speaker still matters. Both questions are worth asking: how strong is the thinking behind your talk, and what happens in the room because you are there?

The conversation also covers Lorne’s use of AI during preparation, his approach to choosing stories, and the less glamorous reality of earning a living as a speaker.

In this episode:

• How an invented citation made it through an AI research request
• Why confidence and competence need separating
• How Lorne turns a critical thinking idea into a corporate workshop
• What AI can help a speaker do, and what the speaker must check
• Why a speaking business may need more than keynote fees

Connect with Lorne to find out more: https://www.thinkshift.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lornekelton/

Chapters:

00:00 AI Citation Hallucinations

01:14 Confidence vs Competence

03:48 AI as Speaking Partner

05:04 Generic Topics at Risk

07:11 Training AI to Your Voice

10:55 Fact-Checking and IP Rights

13:44 Will AI Replace Speakers

20:19 Critical Thinking Origin Story

22:59 Workshop Framework and Triggers

25:29 Biases and Motivation Industry

27:41 Evidence and Truth Seeking

30:14 Future Opportunities for Speakers

32:37 Owning Your Viewpoint

32:54 Expertise vs Relevance

34:32 Celebrity and Internal Competition

37:07 Making Speaking Pay

38:43 The Business of Speaking

41:32 Why Speakers Get Booked

43:35 Storytelling Over Slides

50:42 Finding Stories and Testing

53:49 Encouragement and Authenticity

55:27 Where to Connect

56:23 Host Reflection on AI

57:47 Final Sendoff

FAQ

What is the difference between confidence and competence, according to Lorne Kelton?

Competence is built through real experience and expertise. Confidence can be performed without either. Kelton argues that speakers, and especially newer ones, get told to fake confidence before they've built competence, which he says derails careers rather than accelerating them.

Why does Lorne Kelton think certain keynote topics are at risk from AI?

Kelton names leadership, productivity, change management and resilience as topics where AI can already generate passable content, which he expects will lead booking committees to question paying five figures for a human speaker on those subjects specifically.

How does Lorne Kelton recommend speakers use AI without losing their own voice?

Kelton feeds AI his own books, articles, emails and video transcripts so it can act as a sceptical research partner rather than a writer. He treats the deep, time-consuming version of this process as the only one that produces anything close to authentic output.

What happened when Lorne Kelton asked AI to find supporting research for an argument?

The AI returned a fully formed citation for a study that turned out not to exist, attributed to a researcher who also doesn't exist. Kelton now treats this as a standing warning to verify any AI-sourced research before using it on stage.

What is Lorne Kelton's process for teaching critical thinking to corporate clients?

Kelton works backwards from a specific trigger incident, then moves the person through reflection, surfacing their assumptions and biases, reframing the situation, and finally writing a concrete plan for how they'll respond differently next time.

What percentage of Lorne Kelton's speaker association members make a full-time living from keynoting alone?

Fewer than 13%, based on an internal survey his association conducted. The majority earn keynote fees as one component of a broader income that includes facilitation, training, MC work and consulting.

How does Lorne Kelton choose which stories to use in a talk?

He starts from the client's desired outcome and works backwards to find a personal experience, often a failure, that speaks to it directly. He then tests the story with a small trusted group before using it on stage.

What advice does Lorne Kelton give speakers who feel threatened by the current market?

Be authentically yourself rather than copying another speaker's style or delivery. He calls this the fail-safe way to get booked and rebooked, and warns against speakers who present themselves as facsimiles of someone else.

Connect with John:

• Find out more about the Known, Booked & Paid Blueprint
• Subscribe to the Serious About Speaking newsletter on LinkedIn
• Find me on Insta
• Find me on TikTok
• Find me on Threads

Discover the bottlenecks in your speaking business with the Applaude Vs Invoice Quiz

For speaking/podcast enquiries or to connect with me directly, you can email john@presentinfluence.com or find me on LinkedIn

You can find all our clips, episodes and more on the Present Influence YouTube channel

If you know a speaker who would enjoy this show, let them know. Thanks for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

KBPB final week offer

There's still time to grab one of the last few spaces left in the Known, Booked & Paid October founding cohort. Visit https://presentinfluence.com/kbpb for more information, or shoot me a DM on LinkedIn.

A man paid $6,000 to a speaker agency that promised him multiple $10,000 bookings. Six months later, he had nothing but excuses. John, your host, has been in the coaching industry for years and has either seen or personally walked into most of what he covers in this solo episode: six distinct ways new professional speakers get sold something that looks like opportunity and isn't.

Some of these are straightforwardly dishonest: fake agencies charging registration fees, pay-to-speak stages dressed up as exposure. Others are murkier: podcast invites that turn into PR funnels, speaking coaches with no paid industry experience, and PR agencies that deliver exactly what they promised but don't move the needle. John draws on his own experience getting pulled into a podcast-to-PR funnel, and on years inside the coaching industry watching credentials fail to guarantee competence.

Every example comes with a specific, practical question to ask before you hand over money or trust, the kind of question a legitimate operator answers without flinching and a dodgy one stalls on.

You'll walk away with a single filter that applies well beyond the six examples covered here: a real opportunity survives you asking one basic question.

4. FAQ

What is a fake speaker bureau/agency? A fake speaker bureau/angency charges new speakers an upfront registration fee, typically five hundred to fifteen hundred pounds, to be listed in their directory, without any track record of actually booking speakers into paid work. A legitimate bureau earns a commission, usually twenty to thirty per cent, only once it has booked a paying gig.

How can a new speaker tell if a speaker bureau or agency is legitimate? John recommends asking any agent or bureau to name three speakers they've booked into paid gigs in the last six months. A real bureau answers specifically and quickly. A fake one stalls or gives names you can't verify. Most proper bureaus will feature their speakers on their website, so you can ask directly.

What is pay-to-speak, and why is it a trap for new speakers? Pay-to-speak conferences charge speakers, typically five hundred to five thousand pounds, euros, or dollars, for a short speaking slot marketed as exposure to bookers or credibility building. The trap is that the audience is often largely made up of other speakers who paid the same fee, not buyers deciding whether to hire a speaker.

Is paying to speak at a conference always a scam? No. John Ball notes that paying for access to a room isn't automatically illegitimate, since some sponsorship arrangements are genuine trades. The key question is whether the room includes real buyers or mostly other paying speakers.

How can a new speaker tell if a podcast guest invite is actually a sales funnel? Warning signs include a show whose business name mimics a recognisable publication it isn't actually associated with, interviews that get rescheduled repeatedly for no clear reason, and a post-recording debrief that pushes toward a call with someone else who can "help with your business goals" rather than simply asking the guest to share the episode. John Ball notes that a defensive or angry reaction to being asked about this confirms it as shady.

Do certifications like ICF or EMCC guarantee a good speaking coach? Not at all. John Ball states that these bodies certify a coaching process, not a coaching outcome. He notes as an example that ICF certifies specifically in ontological coaching, a purely question-based, non-directive style, which is why he's never pursued the certification himself despite operating as a coach for over twenty years. No barrier prevents anyone from calling themselves a speaking coach, regardless of paid speaking experience.

What should a new speaker check before using a podcast pitching or PR agency? Ask how they actually find and select the shows they pitch you to, and whether they check for topical relevance before sending a pitch. John Ball notes that most of these agencies blanket-pitch the same generic message to any podcast that's loosely adjacent to your field, regardless of whether the audience would ever be an interested buyer, which is why the placements they deliver often don't produce any inquiries even though they're technically legitimate.

What is a Keynote Speaking Coach? A keynote speaking coach is someone with industry, coaching, and often additional experience and expertise who can help you improve your keynote talks, which in turn helps you get more bookings and referrals. Many keynote coaches only work with speakers on the talk and stage elements, but a select few, like John Ball, will first work with speakers on the business side of speaking before developing the stage and presentation side, which may still involve work on the keynote itself but will more relate to market positioning, becoming known as a speaker and developing warm relationships with bookers, as well as developing an opportunity engine that will help you to stay as fully booked as you want to. Programs like John Ball's Known, Booked & Paid Blueprint offer the full range of elements to help you grow your speaking business.

What is the Known, Booked and Paid Blueprint? The Known, Booked and Paid Blueprint (KBPB) is John Ball's cohort-based coaching programme for professional speakers, built to give speakers a structured route into the industry rather than having to work out what's legitimate offer by offer. Find out more at https://presentinfluence.com/kbpb

Connect with John:

• Find out more about the Known, Booked & Paid Blueprint
• Subscribe to the Serious About Speaking newsletter on LinkedIn
• Find me on Insta
• Find me on TikTok
• Find me on Threads

Discover the bottlenecks in your speaking business with the Applaude Vs Invoice Quiz

For speaking/podcast enquiries or to connect with me directly, you can email john@presentinfluence.com or find me on LinkedIn

You can find all our clips, episodes and more on the Present Influence YouTube channel

If you know a speaker who would enjoy this show, let them know. Thanks for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

KBPB final week offer

There's still time to grab one of the last few spaces left in the Known, Booked & Paid October founding cohort. Visit https://presentinfluence.com/kbpb for more information, or shoot me a DM on LinkedIn.

This isn't a normal episode. It's an announcement about where The Professional Speaking Show goes from here.

John explains the decision behind moving the podcast from weekly to fortnightly, why the numbers that once looked promising dropped off a cliff earlier this year, and why he's stopped trying to force a recovery that isn't coming.

He talks honestly about what it means to admit a show isn't finding its audience, why the podcast is becoming more of a personal passion project than a professional growth channel, and where his time and energy are moving instead: focus on coaching clients and speaking gigs, daily short-form content, and a new exclusive to YouTube content strategy.

He also shares a review point. At 300 episodes, he'll decide whether the show continues at its current cadence, drops further, or ends altogether.

If you're a speaker weighing up whether podcasting is the right growth channel for you, this episode is a candid look at what that decision actually costs, and how to know when a passion project should stop pretending to be a business strategy.

In this episode:

• Why John moved from weekly to fortnightly episodes
• What happened to the show's numbers this year, and why he stopped chasing a fix
• The difference between a passion project and a professional growth channel, and why the podcast is shifting to the former
• Where John is redirecting his time: prospecting, coaching clients, daily short-form content, and a new YouTube strategy
• His honest take on whether podcasting is the right move for speakers starting out
• The 300-episode review point and what happens next

Links mentioned:

• Known, Booked & Paid Blueprint: presentinfluence.com/kbpb
• Subscribe to the Serious About Speaking newsletter on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=6882642444815519744
• Find me on Insta: https://www.instagram.com/professionalspeakingpodcast/
• Find me on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@professionalspeaking
• Find me on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@professionalspeakingpodcast

Subscribe and follow on your podcast platform of choice. Rate on Spotify, review on Apple Podcasts, and subscribe on YouTube.

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Announcement Intro

00:25 Why The Change

00:57 Stats Drop Reality

01:49 Passion Versus Business

02:24 New Content Strategy 03:22 Podcasting Lessons

04:37 Six-Month Review Plan

05:08 How To Support

06:35 Back Catalogue And Coaching

07:15 New Cadence Farewell

Discover the bottlenecks in your speaking business with the Applaude Vs Invoice Quiz

Interested in the Known, Booked & Paid Blueprint?

Find out more at presentinfluence.com/kbpb

For speaking/podcast enquiries or to connect with me, you can email john@presentinfluence.com or find me on LinkedIn

You can find all our clips, episodes and more on the Present Influence YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@PresentInfluence

If you know a speaker who would enjoy this show, let them know. Thanks for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

KBPB final week offer

There's still time to grab one of the last few spaces left in the Known, Booked & Paid October founding cohort. Visit https://presentinfluence.com/kbpb for more information, or shoot me a DM on LinkedIn.

Most speakers are told to be visible: post more, show up more, build a personal brand. Susanna Reay thinks that's backwards. In this episode, framework thinking expert and author Susanna Reay makes the case for framework first, visibility second: the idea that without a clear, ownable structure behind your ideas, all that visibility just evaporates the moment you leave the room.

Susanna walks through the difference between a personal brand (built on personality) and an authority brand (built on intellectual property), why the best frameworks borrow "safe but new" shapes the brain already trusts, and the five core structures she uses with clients: the linear roadmap, the circular model, the pyramid, the Venn diagram, and the two-by-two matrix. She also unpacks her own Framework Thinking Triangle, built from visual recognition, impact detection, boundary setting, and transfer integrity, and explains why she deliberately avoided forcing it into a clever acronym.

Expect practical rules on naming (five letters or under, no repeated letters, don't force it), the neuroscience of why visual frameworks are 65% more memorable three days later, and a genuinely useful tangent on how colour choices in branding aren't just aesthetic, they're strategic.

Connect with Susanna: frameworkthinking.uk or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susannareay/

Chapters:

00:00 Why Frameworks Fail

01:02 Framework First Branding

04:12 Umbrella Framework Metaphor

07:41 Authority DNA And Energy

10:28 What A Framework Is

13:54 Simplicity Design Thinking

15:51 Frameworks On Stage

20:20 Make It Visual

23:11 Five Visual Framework Types

28:14 Iterate Your Framework

32:51 Acronyms And Naming

39:21 Book Showcase And Branding

43:34 Colour And Consistency

49:28 Connect With Susannah

51:48 Show Updates And Wrap

FAQs

What is a framework, according to Susanna Reay? A framework is a structure that brings ideas together in a way that's simple for others to understand. A good framework is simple, clear, unique, and specific to a defined space, rather than a long list of steps that functions more like a process diagram.

What is Susanna Reay's "framework first, visibility second" principle? It's the view that experts and speakers need to establish their intellectual property and structure before focusing on personal visibility. Without a clear framework, ideas don't stick with an audience after a talk ends, no matter how visible the speaker has been.

What is the SPARK process? SPARK is Susanna Reay's trademarked process for authority building: Self, Premise, Art, Reach, and Kudos. It starts with self, meaning personality, passion, and prowess (the "three Ps"), which she says most people skip when trying to imitate other speakers' styles.

What are the five core IP families for building a visual framework? Susanna Reay identifies five recognisable shapes: a linear roadmap (A to B), a circular model (mastery through repetition), a pyramid (layered progression, as in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs), a Venn diagram (overlapping pillars of thought), and a two-by-two matrix (two axes of transformation, as in the Eisenhower Matrix).

What is the Framework Thinking Triangle? It's Susanna Reay's own framework, developed iteratively from an original two-by-two matrix into a triangular structure. It has four elements: visual recognition (top), impact detection (bottom left), boundary setting (bottom right), and transfer integrity (centre, representing whether ideas travel beyond the room without the speaker present).

Does a framework need to spell out a word or acronym? No. Susanna Reay says a framework always needs a name and title, but its internal elements don't have to form a word. When a word does work (like SPARK), she recommends five letters or fewer with no repeated letters, since anything longer becomes harder for the brain to hold onto.

Why does Susanna Reay recommend visual frameworks over verbal ones? She cites research suggesting a presentation is 65% more memorable three days later when it includes a visual, and that the brain processes visuals roughly 65,000 times faster than text. A visual framework also travels intact when shared, unlike a spoken message, which tends to degrade the more it's retold.

Connect with John:

• Find out more about the Known, Booked & Paid Blueprint
• Subscribe to the Serious About Speaking newsletter on LinkedIn
• Find me on Insta
• Find me on TikTok
• Find me on Threads

Discover the bottlenecks in your speaking business with the Applaude Vs Invoice Quiz

For speaking/podcast enquiries or to connect with me directly, you can email john@presentinfluence.com or find me on LinkedIn

You can find all our clips, episodes and more on the Present Influence YouTube channel

If you know a speaker who would enjoy this show, let them know. Thanks for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

KBPB final week offer

There's still time to grab one of the last few spaces left in the Known, Booked & Paid October founding cohort. Visit https://presentinfluence.com/kbpb for more information, or shoot me a DM on LinkedIn.

Part two of the AI and keynotes series. Last episode covered the tells that give away a keynote written too much with AI. This one goes underneath that, to the parts of a keynote that were never AI's to write in the first place, even for speakers who've already cleaned up the obvious tells.

John draws the line between a personal story and a personalised one: a personal story is something that happened to you; a personalised story is something that happened to you, chosen and shaped to do a specific job for a specific audience. He walks through four questions he uses with clients to audit which stories actually earn a place in a keynote, including a real example from his own experience: the story of being a flight attendant working the flight that turned back on September 11th, 2001, and the communication breakdown that followed.

The episode also covers a practical structural point: why a keynote built to run exactly 45 minutes and nothing else is a commercially fragile talk, and how to identify the load-bearing throughline that has to survive at 20 minutes, versus the expansion material that fills you out to 60 or 90 minutes.

Closes with a brief mention of frameworks, teeing up next episode's conversation with Susanna Reay, author of Framework Thinking.

Find out more about the Known, Booked & Paid Blueprint founding cohort here: https://presentinfluence.com/kbpb

Any questions, you can find my LinkedIn and email info at the end of the show notes.

Chapters:

00:00 AI Tells Aren't Enough

01:35 Personal vs Personalised

03:21 Four Story Audit Questions

06:00 Why AI Can't Write This

07:51 Build Talks That Flex

09:37 Steel Thread and Expansion

10:25 The Real Principle Behind It

11:27 Frameworks and Next Episode

12:50 Subscribe and Program Invite

13:39 Final Send Off

FAQs

What's the difference between a personal story and a personalised story in a keynote?

According to John Ball, a personal story is simply something that happened to the speaker. A personalised story is something that happened to the speaker, deliberately chosen and shaped to do a specific job for a specific audience. The distinction is what separates a keynote that gets a warm response from one that gets people talking about it afterwards.

How do you know if a story belongs in a keynote?

John Ball uses four questions with clients: did the story cost the speaker something (embarrassment, money, relationship, status), does it have a direct line to the specific argument being made rather than just a thematic connection, can the audience map it onto their own situation, and could literally nobody else on a stage tell that story.

Why can't AI write personal stories for a keynote?

AI has no access to which parts of a speaker's actual life carried real stakes. When prompted for a story, it either genericises the material it's given, smoothing out the specific and awkward human details, or invents a plausible-sounding story that means nothing because nobody lived it.

How long should a keynote be?

John Ball recommends designing the core skeleton of a keynote for 45 minutes, but identifying which sections are load-bearing (the talk stops making sense without them) versus expansion material (adds richness but isn't essential), so the talk can flex to a 20-minute or 90-minute brief without falling apart.

Why does keynote length flexibility matter commercially?

A talk that works only at a specific length is structurally fragile. Speakers either turn down briefs that don't match their fixed version or deliver something that doesn't quite work, both of which cost bookings over time.

Connect with John:

• Find out more about the Known, Booked & Paid Blueprint
• Subscribe to the Serious About Speaking newsletter on LinkedIn
• Find me on Insta
• Find me on TikTok
• Find me on Threads

Discover the bottlenecks in your speaking business with the Applaude Vs Invoice Quiz

For speaking/podcast enquiries or to connect with me directly, you can email john@presentinfluence.com or find me on LinkedIn

You can find all our clips, episodes and more on the Present Influence YouTube channel

If you know a speaker who would enjoy this show, let them know. Thanks for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

KBPB final week offer

There's still time to grab one of the last few spaces left in the Known, Booked & Paid October founding cohort. Visit https://presentinfluence.com/kbpb for more information, or shoot me a DM on LinkedIn.