Unlocking Business Growth Through Public Speaking

Summary
In this episode, Orly Amor shares expert insights on how public speaking can transform your business, fill retreats, and create profitable speaking opportunities. Holly Porter guides the conversation through practical strategies for entrepreneurs and retreat leaders to leverage speaking as a powerful marketing tool.




Takeaways
The importance of public speaking in business growth
Statistics and industry insights for 2026
Defining retreats versus experiential events
Using speaking to fill retreats and build community
How to leverage your network for speaking opportunities
The value of owning your expertise and credibility
Strategies for building a profitable speaking business
The role of masterminds and retreats in business expansion
Effective marketing through community building and webinars
The mindset shift needed to monetize speaking engagements


Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Orly Amor
01:51 The Power of Public Speaking
04:12 Statistics and Trends in Public Speaking
06:51 Defining Retreats vs. Events
10:30 Creating a Mastermind or Coaching Group
13:34 First Steps to Start Speaking
20:46 Filling Retreats Through Community Building
24:28 RNR Outro Final.mp4
25:07 RR.Gift.RetreatRnR.com.mp4


🔗 Connect with Orly Amor
📧 Email: orly.gmc.founder@gmail.com
🌐 Website: https://meetorlyamor.com/
🔗 LinkedIn: Orly Amor
🎵 TikTok: @iamorlyamor
📸 Instagram: @iamorlyamor
📘 Facebook: Orly Amor


The Expert's Guide to Speaking for No Fee, and Monetizing Every Opportunity → https://crm.meetorlyamor.com/speaker-guide


🔗 Connect with Holly Porter | Retreat RNR 
📧 Email: holly@hollyporter.com 
🔗 LinkedIn: Holly Porter | Retreat RNR 
🎵 TikTok: @retreatrnr 
▶️ YouTube: @intlretreatassociation
📸 Instagram: @retreatrnr | @hollyporterinternational 
📘 Facebook: HollyAnnPorter

FREE GIFT: 2026 Retreat Industry Report
https://internationalretreatassociation.org/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to All Things Retreat Podcast. I'm Holly Porter, your host and CEO of Retreat R. With over 25 years of experience in designing transformative retreats. I'm here to share insights and inspiration to help you create extraordinary experiences. Whether you're a pro or just starting out, you'll find valuable ideas here. Enjoy the ride. Let's dive in. Hello and welcome everybody to the show. Today we're going to be chatting and having a great conversation. I know it because she's an amazing person. We are with Arly Amore, and she's a dynamic entrepreneur who has founded five successful companies. As a corporate trainer, best-selling author, and international public speaker, she has helped over 200,000 people worldwide boost their bottom line by multiplying their sales. A certified behavior analysis. Orly is a trusted coach for corporate leaders globally, known for delivering results. With 16 years of experience, she specializes in helping public speakers, coaches, and entrepreneurs create lucrative business models for public speaking. Orly guarantees her clients will make six figures from speaking or works with them until they do. Transform your passion into profit today, is what she says. So welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Holly. Okay, so this is a little bit different than retreat stuff today. I love the little twist because I don't think a lot of people realize how important if you are a retreat leader. First of all, your leader, it's in the name, so own that. Second of all, you are in sales, whether you admit it or not. You're in you're selling what you're doing. You're selling yourself and you're selling your retreat. So I love that we're gonna have this conversation and I'm excited to have you here.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Me too.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

All right, let's jump in because I have lots of questions for you, and I want to make sure we uh we probably will get through them all, but we're gonna we're gonna work at it. So um so let's talk about can anyone use public speaking for their business?

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Absolutely. So let's start by saying what is the best form of marketing worldwide from the beginning of time? Word of mouth. What is the second best marketing tool since the beginning of time? Public speaking. Literally, Jesus did it, right? How do you think he got the apostles to go out and spread the word, right? I mean, and this is what we're doing. We're doing the spreading of the word. And when we spread the word of what we do and what we need, then people are either gonna like us, not like us, or buy from us. But the goal is to be in front of many. So instead of doing the one-to-ones, one-to-many is what public speaking allows you to do to get more clients and visibility. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Well, and and it's okay if you're not for everybody. Be be glad about that because everybody's not for you. There's enough for everyone, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Yes. I say, you know what, not everybody's for me. And that's why I always tell people, you know, if you work, if you decide to work with me, my condolences in advance. You have me for life. So if you don't like me, let's not even begin. Absolutely, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:04

We're stuck like glue. That's funny. So, what are some statistics that you think people should know about speaking and advance in the industry in 2026?

SPEAKER_01 3:17

I know, right? And it's already we're halfway through the year, and it's really amazing. Yeah, whenever people listen to this, it doesn't matter where you are, what time of the year it is, and which year it is, because this industry has grown exponentially for many, many years. I've been in it for 29 years full-time as a speaker. Uh, the 16 years, it's these 16 years I've been coaching people. So, um, what I'm gonna say about the statistics is that you need to know that right now we are short one speakers in the one million speakers in the world. We are short one million coaches in the world. And the other part of it is that it's $118.9 billion this year alone that will be spent on speakers and events. So if you're doing retreats, oh my God, did you know that there's money there for YouTube? Uh, it's not just being being a speaker or a retreat leader, it's about knowing the industry and and and and women. Oh my god, I have to talk to the women. Women, we are still only 1.9% of all the speakers in the world. This is unheard of. This is crazy as far as I'm concerned. I'm a big advocate, by the way. Oh, because you didn't.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Most of our listeners are women, but we welcome men. I am all about men's retreats. Yeah, me too. They're needed. So, yeah, I think so. Or men that are listening, you know, you have a you have a partner, wife, maybe, girlfriend, whatever. Um, listen up. Yeah, it's good, it's good stuff. So I agree. There's got to be balance, and it's way off balanced.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Mm-hmm. Totally for sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Absolutely. We work with men as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Oh, yeah. I work with men and women. Uh, I work with couples. Uh, sometimes they they do the same business or they're in business separately, but they want to do public speaking, so they take the whole program together because they want to get out there and speak. And of course, you know, they they get white glove treatment with me. Everybody does. And so it's from soup to nuts. They never feel alone, and they I give them the confidence that they can do that. How much to charge, when to charge, how to scale. It's a scalable business. You got to treat it as a business, though.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

So, Orly, are most of your events um, because you know, I'm in the event and retreat world, and so I have a little mix of both. And I know there's been a lot of discussion with some other people in the last couple weeks about do we call a retreat if it's an actual an event? If someone's coming and they're sitting in a conference room all day and staying in a hotel and they're calling it a retreat, is that I I think it's just another form, another model, so to speak, of a retreat. So I'm just curious when you like you're doing a cruise and they're learning, they're actually there. It's like a business cruise, wouldn't you call it?

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Yes, it's the speakers and authors cruise where people actually come and learn uh for the three days at sea, but they also get to to build relationships, camaraderie, and and an expression. And that's that's very important. Um, but I would like to go to your question of what is a retreat? We need to define what a retreat is. I feel like a retreat is uh, you know, I paid I paid Tony Robbins to go to his Fiji Island, blah, blah, blah. That was a retreat. We were 12 people. Uh, we paid a lot of money, OMG. But that's fine. But that was a retreat. That was where we are, it's it's quaint, it's small, it's intimate. 100 people is not intimate. I don't know how people can call it a retreat. Maybe 100 people they can call it an experience, not a retreat. Make sense? Because then it's an experiential event for three days. Not to mention it's exhausting, right? So it depends. What do you want to call your event? It's a it could be a retreat, it could be an experience, it could be a transformation, it could be a class, it could be a training. So, yeah, all these things are called something, but what is a retreat? We need to define that a little more before we say, Oh, I'm a retreat leader.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

I know it's very true because I I love the experiential. I, you know, and maybe through the association, uh, International Trade Association, we'll rebrand something because you think about when we're talking about the words, mastermind is a blanket statement as well, right? I mean, it feels like everyone, oh, it's a mastermind, it's a mastermind. And to me, if you go to Think and Grow Rich, a true mastermind is five people, which to me, a true retreat, I think I feel like to say it's a retreat and it's like this transformational thing. I think it's challenging to have more, like more than 12, you know, when you're content in this container. Um talented as a leader if you can do that. And I'm not dissing it. I think, like I said, there's models for all things, so it's just interesting what we are labeling our things, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:48

And that's what's great about being an entrepreneur, right? I mean, you can label it anything you like, but you can also define it in the way that you want. I'll give you another example. Uh, I believe a retreat should be between 12 and 25 people. It's still good. People can still sit at the same table at 25 people. Yes, there are restaurants that can give you 25 people in one table. But what I would say is, you know, I had a retreat in Martha's Martha's Martha's Vineyard where we had 12 people and we flew them first class in a private jet to Martha's Vineyard. So that's to me a retreat, but it's very transformational. It's also achieving a certain uh outcome before coming back to land and reality. Uh so if a retreat is something that is uh um in a container, that is a retreat. It's something that is a container. It happens, it's done, and the relationships will continue afterwards. Whereas an experience, it's it's ongoing for the whole event. It's it's it could be 100 people, it could be 200 people. So you have to remember who you're serving and how do they want to be served. Sometimes people forget how people want it to get the information. You said mastermind. Mastermind is great, but what is the container going to have for this mastermind? In the think and grow rich, the mastermind is of people that don't do what you do, but can actually add to what you do. Yeah, they contribute to your life and your success and have your best interest at heart. Yeah. In today's competitive world, I don't think that we have that.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Right. And I almost want to compare a little bit a retreat to a mastermind. There's a lot of similarities because you are bringing other people, a lot of times that you don't know, in this container, in this retreat, and you're having some discussions, and it's very similar. I mean, I think it depends on the leader and how they are facilitating how that outcome is going to look. But it definitely could be a mastermind. I don't know. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

A mastermind also has a perpetuity type of uh event. It's every month, they meet once a month, once every two months, I don't know, whatever. But a retreat, it's a container that is one time. Yeah, you can do retreats a hundred times a year if you want, but that retreat per se, the one, is going to serve only the people there. And so that's great though, because I think more people are looking for that now. Retreats are much better now than they were then, and now the container that you as a retreat leader can offer so much more than what we were able to do before. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Okay, let's talk about this now model for a second. And my my brain is turning, and I'm like gonna try to communicate it how I want it, how my how it's gonna come out. That's how this gonna come out, I'm sure. All right, so let's look at this. Let's do a scenario. So um, I see okay, master. We're talking about mastermind retreat. I see if you if you have a mastermind and you have a paid mastermind, like say compare it to coaching group, right? And the end result or part of the program is a retreat. I see that model a lot and I love it. I love it by the way.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

I love it too. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

But I'm gonna put a twist into that on top of it because you're you really are the best at teaching people to get paid to speak. Okay. That's that's a your gift. Yes. Let's just say, let's take that scenario. Can you give me a wrap-in of how you could be a paid speaker to create your own mastermind or coaching group, right? That high-ticket item into and and bring in some kind of a retreat into it. Just let's talk about that for a second.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Absolutely. So, first and foremost, I believe that every single one of the people that we're talking to right now have a gift, whether they are a retreat leader or not, whether they've done any events anytime in their whole life put together, they have a gift that only they can deliver. Knowing that and taking ownership of that, because I love when you said earlier, own that, own that. It's you know, you're a retreat leader, own it. Um, when you when you own that, then you need to be available to have that credibility to guide people. And the only form of marketing or way of being in this industry is to be a public speaker. How heck are you going to do it? One too many. You need to let people know that you have a mastermind. You need to let people know that you're having a retreat. You need to let people who want to be in your mastermind that there is a retreat once or twice a year for everybody involved. So that, yes, some of the masterminds are on Zoom and you can definitely do the virtual thing, but then once a year or twice a year, you get everybody to meet in person. I think that's wonderful. And but and how does public speaking fit into it and why should people get paid? Let me give you the nutshell of that because it is amazing. I'm gonna say it bluntly because you know I have no filter between my brain and my mouth. What I'm gonna say is I don't care how old you are, where you've been, what you've done, how long you've been in business, how many times you failed, how many times you won, what accomplishments you have, all of that you paid for it. You paid for it with time, money, education, blood, sweat, tears, aggravations, ups and downs. And however how old you are, you've paid for all of it. Why wouldn't you get paid? That's your intellectual property. Why wouldn't you get the deserving of the credibility it gives you once you're on stage? When you're paid, people value your information and they believe that that information will enhance or amplify the audience that they serve. So why wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Yeah, I agree. You're doing a disservice to everyone by not showing people your gifts and showing up and sharing story. And I love that. Um so you help entrepreneurs create profitable speaking businesses. So, what would you say are the first steps that someone should take to start if they just don't even know where to start?

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Great. So before I became a business coach for speakers and entrepreneurs, I was a business coach for CEOs and set CFOs of Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 companies. And the first thing I always ask people to do is take account to um accounting of your sphere of influence. Who are the people you know?

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

First, take accounting of that. Many people don't want to talk to the people they know. They don't want to say, hey, I'm starting a new business. I am going to be doing retreats. Hey, can who do you know who can open doors for me? Who can who do you know who can get me to speak to their group so I can share about my next happening retreat or my cruise or whatever it is that you're doing. Uh it starts with your network. And I have a talk that I usually give. It's called Your Network is your net worth. If you don't know, if you don't make enough money, you don't know enough people. And if you don't go to your network, then what the heck are you doing? You need to build relationships and know how to build those relationships. Look at us. I mean, we met on a cruise ship, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:59

In person, and in person, each other's lists and forever, but yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

And and and so we build up this relationship now that is you beautiful, and we actually decided that today we can call each other's friends. But you know what? Friendship doesn't happen with everybody, and it's okay, it's okay. But people will do business with us because they know, like, and trust us, but most importantly, they trust who we are connected to too. So we got to be careful on who we connect with, and then we need to go to our own network. Yeah, many people are afraid of that, and I think that's their first step to make a list.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

I would almost say I've been guilty of that, and then sometimes I think, oh, I my network's the wrong network, you know. I've had lots of different kinds of businesses, so I have networks and all kinds of different things, and it's like, yeah, it's it's just sometimes it's just changing our mindset around things and saying, Oh, look at that a little bit different.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Um, so I just want to add one little thing is that you know, many, many people like to network and then they network with, like you said, the wrong network. What is the wrong network? Stop if you're not making money, stop hanging out with the people that don't make money like you, because you're all in the same room and you're not gonna help each other because you're all suffering from making ends meet every month. So you need to get out of your comfort zone and stop hanging out with the broken broken.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Sorry, I want to add to that. I want to add, know to ask the right questions too, because Mike, I was sharing with you the other day. I did an event, I did an event that had 140 women at it, perfect for retreats, right? Well, 140 women, I got an afternoon, I got a table, I gave away these cute little um succulent plants because our theme was come grow with us. And I thought, oh, what cute, someone will actually home branded. But only probably, I'm gonna say like three people in that room of 140 were really people that I think were like ideal for for the International Retreat Association. But I was I already had all the stuff. It was on, you know, it was in Vegas, it was on my way to the airport, and I thought, oh, just okay. But then I was going to an event that only had about 38 people, but they were all my ideal people. So 140 with three, 38 with all. I mean, it's just knowing like being in the right room. I've networked so much, I am so careful now on the things that I commit to, the events I go to, because you're right, you gotta know like your right client, your right people, you gotta be in the right place to find them. Same with online. If people are doing things online, you you you need to be in the right Facebook groups if that's where you're looking for people to offer value so that you can get those conversations. Um, sorry, get off my line.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

I would like to I would like to say yes and because I believe that you don't know who's gonna be in the room. I'll give you a very, very funny story because people made used used to make fun of me. You're gonna speak at this uh at this corporation, they have only 20 employees. What are you gonna do there? 20 employees, that's all they have. And I'm like, well, you know what? They paid me, I'm going. That's the way it works, right? So I go to this event, and there was about 24 people, I would say. Don't quote me. But it was really nice, and I I spoke and everything was wonderful. And this tall man just came after me afterwards when I was packing up. He was like, you know, I really love what you had to say. I think you'd be a really good speaker for my wife's company. And I'm like, really? Um, and what does your wife do? She's like, Oh, he's like, Well, she's a vice president at Google.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

My gosh, like, right? And yes, sign me up.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Right, and and I want people to stop judging. Yeah, stop judging about what you see. You don't know what people are connected to. Now it's very and I'd love to share this with you guys because this is the math, and numbers don't lie. Are you guys with me on that? Numbers don't lie. So if you and I say that every person we know, and not you and me, because we know people, a lot of people, and that's a too many people on the but let's say we know each, it has been proven that we all each know 300 people, at least. We each know at least 300 people, however you want to call it. Personally, we know 300 people, and I'm not talking about family, so we can still include include them in the 300. Okay, but if those 300 people each know 300 people, we only need to know one person. One person knows 300 people, those 300 people know 300 people each. 300 times 300 is 90,000.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

And in your head, can you calculate how much is 90,000 times 300? A death each. Well, some people immediately go to oh, it's 2.7 million because three times nine is 20, you know, 27. Yes, but they'll be so wrong. It's 27 million. Wow, you and I and all of our friends put together in one room will never be able to contact 27 million people. No, so the goal is to get maybe three, four raving fan individuals that are actually that's why masterminds work. That's what Napoleon Hill was talking about. Because it's not about getting in front of 100 million people, it's just to find just three or four amazing ones that will be our referral partners for life. We don't need to work anymore. I'm telling you, if you find the right ones, you don't need to even work worry about marketing or anything like that anymore. That's true.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Yeah, I love that. Well, so okay, a big thing that comes up all the time with retreat leaders is that more they want to fill their events. And I think a lot of retreat leaders right now are, uh, at least the feedback I'm getting, they're they're struggling to fill their events and people are traveling though, so it's like you just need to get them to travel to your event. But how can speaking become one of the most effective marketing tools that they have? I think let's talk about how they can fill their retreats by speaking.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Right. So the people who actually fill retreats, if you go back to Tony Robbins and all these guys, right? Or to fill an event, any event, if you look at what they did first, they didn't fill up events, they built a community. Yes. And in this day and age, it's to build a community first. Build your email list, build your community, get in touch with your people by maybe creating a webinar once a week. Bring value to your community. So they invite two friends and they'll tell two friends and they'll tell two friends. I feel like the Fabrijay Organic Shampoo commercial in the old days, you know, and they'll tell two friends and they'll tell two friends, but this is really, but it's really true. So when we build a community and then we make an event, like say in this year, I'm building the community. I'm not doing any events, I'm not doing anything, I'm just building a community. I'm gonna do a free webinar once a week, invite people to it, give value, and connect and connect and connect, do one to ones, continue those relationships. By the time I announce that there is an event coming up or a retreat, and it's only room for 20 people, you're gonna fill that up right away. You're not gonna have a problem with doing that. So you need to fill up the first one properly. 20 people is enough because it costs you less. And it also gives value to your attendees. They get to experience you on a more intimate level. You get video footage and testimonial and all the credibility you need to build with that one event. And then you launch it again so that you can get more people. And that's how it grows. It doesn't happen overnight. And a lot of people just want to say, Oh, I'm doing a retreat. Oh, and it's gonna take three months to put it together. Okay. And then how long will it take to market it with no people in your list?

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

People think LinkedIn is friendship, Facebook is friendship. No, those are not friends, people, they're just eyeballs, and that's all they do is oh, I looked at it, I liked it. There you go. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yeah. Well, dang, we're out of time. Um, okay, we're gonna forego rapid fire today. Um, but that's you were giving juice, you were giving juicier stuff than I was gonna ask anyway. So that's all good. And um, I want everyone to know that all or these information is gonna be in the show notes to get a hold of her. If you go to our website, you can get the calendar and everything there. Um, anything else, any last words you want to share?

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Follow me on social media, subscribe to my YouTube channel. You will get more out of that than anything else. And of course, you have my calendar, so let's have a chat. What a what can I support you in? There's no sales pitch. This is not about sales, this is about getting to know you, helping you with whatever you're looking for, giving you subjective advice. And um, there you go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Well, and I'm gonna say, so Orley and I had a conversation the other day about the uh International Retreat Association, and she gave me such a hot tip that it'll probably be the best one I have all year if I can if now I just need to go and close it, right? So it's on me. But she gave me the information, and sometimes with that information, you can change, change so many lives. So I know that will change mine. So especially this year, starting a new company. So thank you so much. You're a great guest. Maybe we'll have you back another day. We'll talk about because it's juicy stuff, and I would love that. Go everybody, subscribe, check us out, check Orly out on uh YouTube, and you can also leave comments if you're listening to this on YouTube. So we'll always love to hear those. But until next time, uh we will see you on the next show. Bye for now. Bye for now. Thank you for joining us on this episode of All Things Retreat. We hope you're leaving with new ideas, fresh inspiration, and the motivation to take your retreats to the next level. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. It helps us grow and reach more retreat leaders like you. And if you have any questions, topics you'd like us to cover, or just want to say hello, send us an email at infoweretreatrnr.com. Follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all the latest updates. Until next time. Remember, great retreats start with great intentions. Let's make them extraordinary one step at a time. Thinking about hosting a retreat? Before you dive in, let's make sure you're really ready. Grab your free Are You Retreat Ready checklist and find out if you've got everything in place from your purpose and pricing to your audience and agenda. Don't guess. Get clear. This quick checklist will show you exactly where you stand and what you need to make your retreat a success. Click the link below in the show notes to grab your gift and take the first step toward hosting with confidence.