How to Get Booked When You Don't Have a Track Record with Bill Englehaupt

“Constancy of purpose says we're in, we're locked, we're going until we get to a point where we have sufficient data or an understanding of what we're doing that we need to make a change.”

Welcome back to The Speaker Lab Podcast! In this episode, Dan sits down with TSL alumnus Bill Englehaupt — founder of Auditology and a 30-plus-year veteran of financial services audit. Bill works with CPA firms and Fortune 500 internal audit teams to root out what he calls “the hidden factory”: the invisible, below-the-line work that quietly eats organizations alive.

Bill's speaking business had been dormant for months. Then he submitted a proposal for a national conference in Las Vegas, got the nod, and walked into a breakout room with more than 200 people — his first talk back after a long dry spell. He's also an author twice over: his first book, Managing the Hell Out of Your Audit, became the springboard for Auditology, and his brand-new second book, The Productive Auditor, just hit Amazon. He didn't wait for anyone to hand him credibility. He stacked proof: one book, one webinar, one talk at a time.

Whether you're trying to crack the chicken-and-egg problem of getting booked without a track record, wondering if writing a book is worth the time, or just trying to stay consistent when outreach feels like shouting into the void, this conversation is packed with real-world tactics from someone building it right now.

You'll learn:

• What “the hidden factory” is and how Bill turned a 30-plus-year audit career into a speaking niche
• How he landed a 200-person breakout session at a national conference after months of his business being dormant
• Why writing a book gave him “a platform to stand on” — and why you don't actually need one to get started
• The chicken-and-egg problem: what to do when event applications ask for experience you don't have yet
• How webinars for continuing-education content providers became his lower-barrier proof engine
• How to turn one strong talk into a demo reel
• Dan's five-week contact strategy and why most responses come from email three, not email one
• Why Bill calls the book “an avoidance activity” — and how to catch yourself dodging the real work
• W. Edwards Deming's concept of “constancy of purpose” and what it means for speakers chasing shiny objects
• The 30-day win Bill is actually chasing — human-to-human contact, before any booking
• And much, much more!

“Well, for a speaker, it's just stick to your plan, right? I think that's the one main thing. You know, if you've got your power hour, get your power hour going. If you're, you know, having trouble getting your follow-ups going, stick to the plan.”

Ready to stop guessing and start building your own proof-stacking plan? Take the free Speaker Business Assessment and find out exactly where you stand.

Episode Resources:

• Speaker Business Assessment
• Bill Englehaupt
• MySpeakerFee
• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify

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