BY SOPHIA WILSON ON OCTOBER 24, 2019
This candid interview with Clint Arthur on Celebrity Speaking was originally published on The Daily Scanner: https://www.dailyscanner.com/clint-arthur-on-the-secrets-to-becoming-a-celebrity-speaker/
In an exclusive interview, celebrity entrepreneur Clint Arthur peels back the curtain on what it takes to become a VIP Speaker. With over 20 years’ experience running his own gourmet foodservice company, this award-winning entrepreneur now also hosts ‘The Greatest Show of All Time’ on 77WABC Radio in New York City, inspiring millions to Do More, Be More, and Have More.
Clint, what is a Celebrity Entrepreneur?
Celebrity Entrepreneurship is the deliberate, systematic, methodical process of positioning yourself, in the eyes of customers & prospects, as someone they are excited to pay lots of money to for products/services.
The reason you become a Celebrity Entrepreneur is so that people will show up in your office or on a phone call or at one of your speaking engagements predetermined to buy you if they can get you.
Primarily, Celebrity Entrepreneurs utilize 6 marketing methodologies:
1. Celebrity attachment — Photos and stories of you with gigantic celebrities.
2. VIP Speaking — Speaking at Very Important Places, corporations, universities.
3. Best-selling authorship
4. Awards
5. TV appearances on News & Talk shows
6. “Lifestyle” marketing assets, photos, videos, “trophies”
How did you become one of America’s most sought-after motivational speakers?
I built my positioning as a VIP Speaker by paying to get stage time at conferences, and then by figuring out how to speak at very important places, including NASDAQ, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, USC Business School, the Harvard Faculty Club, and at West Point where I shared the stage with Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin — whose Message for all of us that day was “Nothing is impossible.”
How do you help your clients to market themselves?
Celebrity transformations I provide for clients range from total “rebirth” to consultative advice on how to improve their performance, marketing, or messaging.
Most clients come to me for media training, or speaker training, for the videos we create when they speak at our events in very important places, or for the stories I craft for them out of their own life experiences.
What they’re not expecting is the personal and spiritual transformation that comes along with being a celebrity entrepreneur, and which creates a much more valuable product for you as a client then you ever anticipated: a better YOU.
In today’s hyper-competitive global economy, where unique products and services are very few and far between, your most important point of differentiation, your most competitive marketing asset, the only real advantage you truly have against the guy down the street, in the next town, or the national expert in your topic is WHO YOU ARE.
I employ guaranteed methodologies to build you into a bigger “who“ in the eyes of your customers and prospects so that they will be excited to pay you lots of money for whatever you sell or do.
The key point to emphasize here — which I wrote about in my first bestseller, “What They Teach You at The Wharton Business School” — is that you must already have an excellent product or service. It’s a basic assumption of business. Everybody has a great product/ service, and without that you cannot expect to compete or survive for very long in business.
But with that given, with all else being equal, if you are a “celebrity” and your competitor is not, then you are going to get a much bigger, tastier, and prettier slice of the pie.
I’m not saying that you have to be famous. You most likely will never be famous. But if your customer and prospect sees you as a “celebrity” in your category then they will choose you and pay you much more, and this will put millions of dollars in your bank account every year and for as long as you choose to employ this type of marketing.
Before you became a celebrity entrepreneur and speaker, what was your business?
After graduating from the Wharton Business School, I chased the Hollywood Dream for 13 years. I had fantasies about winning an Academy Award, getting rich and famous, and becoming someone very special. I did become someone special: “The Wharton Taxi Driver.”
People ask me if I resent those 13 years of broken dreams, spilled blood, and countless tears that I experienced while all my fraternity brothers from college were becoming millionaires, some of them billionaires. I don’t.
Hollywood taught me the most important lesson in business, something they don’t teach you at Wharton or any business school: Who You Are is more important than what you actually do or sell.
I could have been the greatest actor in the world, but Nicolas Cage was getting paid $6 million per movie, while I was struggling to earn $600 a week behind the wheel of Yellow Cab #6087 – because he was Nicolas Cage, and I was nobody.
People don’t pay lots of money to nobodies. If you want to earn lots of money you’ve got to be “somebody.”
One of my VIP Speaking clients summed it up best: “Never talk to anybody until they know you are Somebody.”
You have written a large number of books – is there a common theme that runs through them?
Every book I write is about sharing something to help you Be More, Do More, and Have More in your life.
As an entrepreneur, most of what I offer is designed to help others like me who are authors, speakers, coaches, consultants, advisers, experts of every kind to have more impact, influence, and income.
Earlier this year I took this theme to the airwaves (and on all the podcast outlets) with “The Greatest Show of All Time” for WABC Radio in New York City. This is really a great avenue for me to share stories from my life and my work with clients that can help other people like us.
If you could give one message to a prospective entrepreneur, what would it be?
If I could get my kid to understand one thing, or if I could go back and get my 20-year-old self to understand one thing, or if I could get any client to understand one thing, it would be this: your #1 job as an entrepreneur is to raise your status in the eyes of Customers & Prospects. You need to become a bigger “who” – – and if you are spending your time, money, or efforts on anything else, then you are wasting your time. If you are not “who-ing” you are doing the wrong thing.
If Arthur’s words of wisdom have inspired you, have a look at his website https://clintarthurreviews.com for more information on how he can help you reach your personal best.
ABOUT SOPHIA WILSON
Sophia is a professional journalist with a keen eye on latest technological advancements, its details, and its participation to human beings’ way of life. She received her degree in journalism from Boston University where she prospered and developed her technical abilities. She started her professional writing career as a freelance contributor to multiple websites. Today, Sophia is The Daily Scanner’s Editor-in-Chief and is responsible for the daily production of the news website.
CLINT ARTHUR
350 5th Ave, 59th Floor
New York, NY 10118
(212) 888-2999
© 2022 CLINT ARTHUR