Engage, Educate, Elevate: Public Speaking Secrets for Real Estate Success

In this premiere episode of the third season of The WealthGenius Podcast, Alfonso Cuadra interviews Majeed Mogharreban, a seasoned public speaker and expert trainer. Majeed discusses his journey from starting as a professional speaker to building a successful business training others to use public speaking as a strategic marketing tool. He highlights the importance of creating high-ticket offers and using speaking engagements to drive sales and build trust.

The conversation delves into the role of public speaking in raising capital for real estate investors, with Majeed sharing valuable tips on overcoming fears related to public speaking and effectively engaging audiences through live videos. He emphasizes the necessity of mastering sales and marketing to serve clients better and grow a sustainable business.

This episode is packed with insights for entrepreneurs and real estate investors looking to enhance their speaking skills and leverage them for greater business success.

About Majeed Mogharreban

Have you noticed that the entrepreneurs who are having the biggest impact in their field are all public speakers?

Are you ready to become a more powerful presenter and attract more clients when you speak online or in person?

World-traveling father and professional speaker, Majeed Mogharreban is the founder of the Expert Speaker Institute, the premier resource for experts to grow their business with public speaking. 

Majeed, Like Magic, will help you go from the best kept secret to the go-to person in your field. Your story is your single greatest marketing asset. Majeed will help you tell that story so that your ideal clients choose you and ignore the competition.

Majeed is the number one highest rated instructor in the world at Learning Tree International, he is a two-time international best-selling author, and TEDx speaker.

Majeed has spoken at the United Nations twice and has worked privately with celebrities, politicians, an olympic gold medal winner, CEOs and top entrepreneurs.

More importantly, Majeed has worked with over 200 entrepreneurs just like you to make a bigger impact and a bigger impact with your message.

The ultimate real estate education platform awaits you! Find out more here:
https://www.wealthgenius.ai/

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Majeed Mogharreban, Alfonso Cuadra, Carl Richards

Carl Richards  00:05

Welcome to the WealthGenius Podcast. The WealthGenius Podcast, strategies for multifamily real estate investing, mindset, community, success. The WealthGenius Podcast with your host, The Godfather of Real Estate Alfonso Cuadra, who has expansive experience in business and massive success as a real estate investor. The WealthGenius podcast, let's dive in to today's episode.

Alfonso Cuadra  00:33

Majeed like magic, good to have you here, my friend, we've been friends for a long time. I'm thinking 15 years? 

Majeed Mogharreban  00:41

At least.

Alfonso Cuadra  00:42

15 years, it's incredible, and we've been able to see each other's career. I think that's pretty unique. And I wanted our audience to get to know you a little bit, expert speaker. You train people in public speaking. What does that world look like for you? 

Majeed Mogharreban  00:58

Well, you know you and I, we kind of started as professional speakers a long time ago. We didn't have any idea what we were doing.

Alfonso Cuadra  01:05

I think I got a My first speaking speaking gig. I got a gift certificate, like a chapters gift certificate. 

Majeed Mogharreban  01:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were trying to figure out, how do you make money from speaking? 

Alfonso Cuadra  01:15

Yeah.

Majeed Mogharreban  01:15

Right? And so we learned about keynote speaking and professional speaking, and we heard about these people that are getting checks when they speak, right? Well- 

Alfonso Cuadra  01:24

That was fascinating to me! 

Majeed Mogharreban  01:25

Yeah! So what I found was that there's lots of ways to get paid to speak. You can get paid to give the talk, and that's called a professional paid speaker, but then you can also use speaking to get paid. And so I learned how to do that to use speaking to get consulting contracts, to get coaching contracts, to sell online courses. And I watched you do it to raise capital and raise trust in the marketplace. Meanwhile, you're always educating. 

So I always saw you doing your seminars. And so people come, they learn from you, they trust you, and then they do business with you. So adding speaking to any business brings people in, builds trust, builds goodwill in the marketplace, elevates your status. So that's what I'm doing now, professionally, teaching people how to not just be better on stage, but to use it as a business tool, to build brand, build awareness, build trust.

Alfonso Cuadra  02:18

I love it, so I went down the speaking route. And I wanted to learn everything that there is to know about public speaking, and obviously getting my 10,000 hours. But you went out and you started teaching other people how to build speaking businesses, you know. So what's the story there? Like, how did you get to that point? Because you might have just wanted to be a speaker, but when did it transition into training people on how to speak?

Majeed Mogharreban  02:45

Well, you know, if you can get paid to do the thing that you love, then you can do it full time. And I couldn't figure out how to generate a full time income from speaking, so I had a job, and I was speaking on the side, and then there was more speaking and less job until I figured out how to do it full time. And what really brought me into six figures, and multiple six figures was having a high ticket offer and learning how to sell that every time I speak. 

And people started coming to me because I found that most speakers in the professional association I was a part of, called the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers, most of them are not making $100,000 because they don't have this high ticket offer. So I started to just a few people. I just started mentoring a few people. And then I thought, you know, there's enough people that this will benefit that I built a program and built a business around teaching people how to use speaking to drive sales. 

Instead of my original idea was sell a speech and get paid to give a speech, like it's a performance, like that's the product. But in fact, speaking, in my opinion now, it's not the product, it's the marketing channel to offer the product.

Alfonso Cuadra  03:54

A lot of people think speaking, and that's the way I saw it. You do a speech, people hire you, and you walk out of there with a check. 

Majeed Mogharreban  04:02

Yeah.

Alfonso Cuadra  04:02

Right? And I thought that was- that sounds great. Walk in a room, 

Majeed Mogharreban  04:08

Yeah. 

Alfonso Cuadra  04:08

Talk for 45 minutes, and they give me a big old check. 

Majeed Mogharreban  04:11

Yeah. 

Alfonso Cuadra  04:12

And I discovered it's not like that at all. It's actually a business. You're operating a business, there's sales, you have to hire people. And, you know, how much does entrepreneurship go into building a speaking business? And what's your background on business?

Majeed Mogharreban  04:31

Yeah, so I think, you know, I'm an entrepreneur and I'm also an artist. I'm an artist because I create a work of art, which is my performance or my product. It's a work of art. My online course is- it's a work of art so I'm an artist and I'm an entrepreneur, and as an entrepreneur, we're always looking for, how do we solve the problem of the customer? So what's the customer's problem? Well, we're here at expand talking about real estate investing, and one of my early clients was a real estate investor called Darryl Bandoro in Ottawa, and I went to one of his presentations. 

It was at this restaurant in Ottawa, and I go, and there's a beautiful spread. There's nice meats and nice cheeses and red wine. And I'm like, This is great, you know, I don't normally get all these nice things. And he's talking about some building that hasn't been built yet, that they're gonna build in Toronto. And he's like, you know, if you want to make an investment with me, come talk to me afterwards. So he's giving a presentation. We're sitting in a room learning about some building that hasn't been built in Toronto. 

And I talked to him afterwards, and he says, tonight, I probably raised somewhere between $250 000 and $500 000 and I said, "dang, wow!" So he actually hired me to get better, because that was how he was generating his leads, and he knew that if he can get more speaking opportunities and be more effective, instead of $250,000 raised, he's going to raise a million. 

So that was one of the first times I even thought of real estate investors as potential speakers, because usually the speakers that I was working with, they're selling their knowledge, or they're selling their service, or they're selling their coaching. This guy, Darryl, was just talking about a building, but if you get better at it, you're more effective. You're going to raise more capital, because you can build trust.

Alfonso Cuadra  06:17

A big part of our audience are real estate investors. 

Majeed Mogharreban  06:20

Yeah. 

Alfonso Cuadra  06:21

And entrepreneurs. And a lot of the times when people get into real estate investing, they don't understand that raising capital is a public stage, right, like maybe you're talking to one person, but you are now presenting an offer, and so there has to be a systematic way of doing it. 

What would you suggest for the people that are listening, that hear you talk about getting on stages and creating platforms and getting on social media, and they're just terrified. They're just like, I don't know how I'm going to be able to do this. Maybe real estate investing is not for me. If I have to be on social media, if I have to get out there, if I have to be on stages, what would you say to someone like that? 

Majeed Mogharreban  07:02

Well, I think we can look at what their core beliefs are, and you'll find a lot of people, their core belief is, I don't like to sell. I don't want to make a sales pitch. And the belief under that is, I don't like when someone sells to me, because I don't want to feel pressure. I don't want to make a mistake buying the wrong thing. So you go all the way back to people's buying experiences and selling experiences. If you can replace those beliefs with people are lucky to get an invitation to buy something from me all of a sudden, that makes it easier to sell, because you're just giving them some opportunity. You're giving them an invitation to buy something that maybe they want. 

Now, in terms of liking putting videos on social media, again, if you think about this video I'm making, it's a work of art, and it's a gift to the people who are lucky enough to get it coming through their feed. And so just imagine someone's watching a video of you, and they love it, and they're so grateful. And there's they're like, "this is really helpful. Thank you so much!" Right? Most people think "if I'm watching some- if someone's watching my video, they're gonna judge me. They're gonna say you don't know what you're talking about. They don't- say you shouldn't be making videos." 

And what does that mean? Probably it means that person who's watching videos is judging other people, you know. So we get down to the core belief again, and if you can appreciate videos on your own phone as like, that's a work of art, that's a beautiful gift, that's a contribution. Thank you. If you could be grateful for what you're seeing coming through on videos from other people, then you can have that same perspective of, I'm making this work of art as a gift to humanity that people are lucky to see. 

So both of those beliefs, one's about sales and one's about putting out videos, if you can think of them both as a gift, then there's no guilt, there's no shame, there's no resistance, there's no fear. But the default mode of the brain is always people aren't going to like me, and people might reject me because these are, like, survival beliefs. So you have to create these new mindsets that makes it easier to sell and easier to make videos.

Alfonso Cuadra  09:07

And so being more comfortable with the camera, getting on social media, lives. You know, when I say people, when I tell people lives? Oh no, no, I can't do it live. What are like some tips that you can offer, like, to get on camera. Like, how do you do it? 

And, and I know this because you do this very well, right? I watch all your live, all your lives. I've been watching them for years. And so, how should we approach alive and what should we say? Because you can't just say, "Hey, I'm raising capital", right? Like, what, what do you want to what should you say? How do, how do you become a magnet? 

Majeed Mogharreban  09:42

Yeah.

Alfonso Cuadra  09:42

-Using those lives, 

Majeed Mogharreban  09:43

Yeah. So I love live video, just like you, and the reason is because I'm lazy. I don't like editing videos. I don't like giving myself homework to do later. So if you make a regular video, you have to edit it, you have to upload it later.

Alfonso Cuadra  09:58

It will never get uploaded, 

Majeed Mogharreban  09:59

Right? Live, you push it, you start talking. It's done, right? So I like that production process. 

Alfonso Cuadra  10:05

Yeah.

Majeed Mogharreban  10:06

The first time you do one, you think, oh, no, my hair doesn't look good. Oh, I have a double chin. And, you know, but you get over that. So the first few you do, you get over it. Then you start to get better at it. And one way is to think about, you know, when you do like a FaceTime to a friend that you're like on a video call, yeah, and you're just looking right at the camera like you're looking at your friend, same thing. So think of a live like FaceTiming a friend, because everyone who's watching it is just one person that you're talking to right now, a live video, the one that gets posted, like a Facebook Live or an Instagram Live, they get posted so they stay there forever. 

So there's the live time, which is when you're speaking while you're doing it, but then there's the recording, and most people are gonna watch the recording. So when someone's watching the recording, their experiences, they're scrolling, they're scrolling, they're scrolling, and then they see you. You've got one second to keep their attention. So that first second is really important. So I like to kind of move the camera. I like to say, hey, you know, high energy, and then tell them what they're going to get in this video. 

So you say in this video, I'm going to show you what we're doing at WealthGenius Expand conference, and I'm going to tell you the three things I'm most excited about at this conference. So now, in the first five seconds, they're hooked, so we have to get their attention. Then we have to give them something valuable. The payoff is by giving what we promised. Here's Now, here's the three things I'm going to give you. The first thing I'm excited about expand, the second thing, the third thing, and then at the end is a call to action. 

So for example, if I'm making a video here at the Expand conference, I'll say it's not too late to join us. Where's Today's Friday. Come tomorrow. Send me a DM right now and come down to the Western Harbor Front in Toronto. I'll see you tomorrow. That's the call to action. Or if you're raising capital, at the end of your video, say, if you're interested in learning more about the projects we have going on and how you can grow with me in investing. 

Just send me a message and say, I'm interested in investing, and let's talk. So that's the call to action. That's how we go from the media to actually doing business. And this is, this is what I learned as a professional speaker for 15 years. We can be very entertaining. We can even get a round of applause and a standing ovation, but if nobody's doing anything after our speech, we failed. 

Alfonso Cuadra  12:27

Well, I say that to people all the time, the worst thing that could happen is someone comes up to me and says, "Your talk was the best I've ever heard." 

Majeed Mogharreban  12:35

Yeah. 

Alfonso Cuadra  12:35

And they didn't- they didn't buy from me. That means that it was not the best they've ever heard. Yeah, they're just being polite, 

Majeed Mogharreban  12:42

Yeah, yeah. So-

Alfonso Cuadra  12:43

Because people need to be directed.

Majeed Mogharreban  12:45

Yeah. So we can inspire, we can direct, we can incite action, even through video. And that's why we talk more and more about video, video, video. Because when you and I started 15 years ago, there wasn't high definition, super high speed cameras in our pockets.

Alfonso Cuadra  13:00

You would need a whole recording studio- 

Majeed Mogharreban  13:03

yeah.

Alfonso Cuadra  13:03

-to walk around with you.

Majeed Mogharreban  13:04

Yeah. So it's so powerful what we all carry in our pockets now, and all it takes is a little bit of courage press a button, and we can help a lot of people. 

Alfonso Cuadra  13:13

In your experience, what's the hardest part about I want to say public speaker, but I think more of a lead magnet, or how would you put it, what you do, because not everyone's going to want to be a professional public speaker. They're just using public speaking in order to attract clients, get more business, etc, etc, etc. So how would you put it? You would say they're just an expert, just a perceived expert. So what's the hardest part from your perspective, about becoming the expert?

Majeed Mogharreban  13:44

Well, most people are really good at what they do, and if they have clients, they do great work for them, and they're so good at what they do, but they don't love or they're not good at selling and marketing what they do. And what I've found is if you want the privilege to serve and deliver your service, you have to master the sales and marketing. So for me, you know, I love sales and marketing now, because I've practiced it, I've mastered it. I feel like it's a noble craft.

Alfonso Cuadra  14:12

People tend to hide from sales. Yeah, it's the last thing they want to do. 

Majeed Mogharreban  14:15

I feel like it's the most generous thing I can do for people is to sell them my service, because I know how lucky they are to get my service, but that's a mindset that I had to come to over time, seeing that I do good work, and seeing the results of people getting sales people at the beginning of their journey, they're scared. What if someone buys from me and I can't deliver what if someone buys from me and they get upset?

Alfonso Cuadra  14:38

What if someone invests and I lose people's money, right? Which is legitimate, you should be scared. That means that you should maybe, you know, get more education or learn what you're doing. 

Majeed Mogharreban  14:48

Yeah.

Alfonso Cuadra  14:48

Continue.

Majeed Mogharreban  14:49

So what I love to see for an entrepreneur is for them to fall in love with sales as a service, fall in love with marketing as a deep connection to other people. Marketing is communication. Sales is helping people make a decision. So the hardest thing is seeing someone who's brilliant at what they do, they're a genius, they're a master, but they can't sell it. And so I love to give them that skill of selling and marketing through speaking, through storytelling, through communication, so that they have the privilege to do what they were meant to do in this world and offer their service.

Alfonso Cuadra  15:21

I love that. If you're not selling, you're dying, yeah, yeah, you don't have a business. If you don't have sales, yeah, right, if you're on Shark Tank, and if you've ever watched a Shark Tank, you've seen that the first question that they asked, What are your sales?

Majeed Mogharreban  15:34

Yes.

Alfonso Cuadra  15:35

It's a great idea. No, it's the best idea. We're presale. 

Majeed Mogharreban  15:39

Yeah. Everybody has great ideas, yeah.

Alfonso Cuadra  15:43

But it's only the people that sell, get it, communicate those ideas, those are the people that actually win. Yeah, right, because ultimately, that's what's gonna keep the lights on and then the doors open. How do people work with you? Like, what's the process? You know, you're expert speaker trainer. Like, what's like, what would be the process, you know, like, do we do, like, hundreds of speeches in front of you? Like, how does it work?

Majeed Mogharreban  16:08

Well, you know, you and I, we put on our boot camp, yeah? And in three days, we teach personal branding, we teach signature speech, and we teach, teach how to get on sale, on stages, yeah? So my philosophy is you need to have the right stage, which is the right audience. You need to deliver the right speech and you have to have the right offer. 

When you have all three of those things matching, you're going to make a lot of money and help a lot of people. If you only have two out of three, something's not going to work. So that's the process we go through. Is we say who's your audience, and what we mean by that is who is the ideal clients. So for real estate investors, for example, let's say they want to work with accredited investors net worth 1 million and above, and so they're going to speak a certain language that's going to resonate for those ideal clients. 

So step one is to choose the right audience. Step two is to have the right speech. We call it the signature speech. And so what I do when I work with my clients is we build a signature speech together that captures people's attention at the beginning, shows people what it's like to work together, teaches them sort of the method that the expert uses, and inspires the ideal client to take action. So step one is audience. 

Step two is speech. And then the third thing is, we make sure we have the right offer. So the right offer should feel so good and irresistible to the ideal client that it makes perfect sense. So now the speaker can give a speech, get off the stage, and there's a line of people saying, How do I work with you? I want to I want to sign up. And that's the result we create.

Alfonso Cuadra  17:35

When someone has the right offer. You know, obviously that has to be cultivated. And how often do you see that people have the wrong offer? And they've been doing that for years. 

Majeed Mogharreban  17:47

The most common thing that I see about offer is what I would call the wrong offer, is simply talking about the logistics of the offer instead of the results of the offer. 

Alfonso Cuadra  17:58

And this is huge for real estate investors, because they start talking about the returns and the size of the building and the rooms and the square footage, and people like, you're killing me, dude. 

Majeed Mogharreban  18:07

Right, right, right. So imagine a real estate investor is talking about this building, yeah, okay, and they're saying the glass is made out of a special kind of glass that is extra clear, and the construction, we use brass screws instead of steel screws, and they're talking about all these details that maybe is very fascinating for them as a developer. 

But what sells the real estate investing is, imagine you're on a beach and you get a text message that says $20,000 was deposited into your bank account, and you get that text message every month. You travel the world with your family. Imagine paying for your grandchildren's University before they're 10 years old. Yeah. Imagine taking your wife on a new honeymoon every year. Yeah, right. 

Imagine you never have to deal with the crap from your boss again, because now you're retired and you're making money in your sleep because someone else built a ten million building that you were smart enough to put some money into, yeah, and now they're going, that's what I want. I don't care about brass screws and special glass. 

So that's what I call the wrong offer. Or to use your terms, wrong offer is to talk about the components, the logistics. I like this metaphor. It's like I'm on this island. I want to get to that island, and I want to take your boat. I don't care how you built the boat. I don't care what it's made out of. I just want to know, does it get to the island I want to get to.

Alfonso Cuadra  19:34

I love it. You know, we've known each other for over 15 years, and it took us a long time. I don't know. I think we try to figure out ways of working together in the past, until we finally did it and we nailed it, yeah, and we started our boot camps, our make money speaking boot camps where, you know, we take people through this process right in, you know, creating their signature speech and all of that. And we do it all in three days. 

And we really don't know when someone's going to be listening to this, but I would say, get on Eventbrite and look for one of our events wherever you are. But definitely, I love working with you. I think it's a it's a match made in heaven. And we're, we're helping a lot of people. I think this public speaking piece was crucial to real estate and real estate investors, and I'm loving the results and all the speakers that have come out of it. We're at expand conference right now. We're going to be seeing some of these guys on the main stage, and it's incredible.

Majeed Mogharreban  20:34

Well, you know, as you told me, once many times, the most valuable real estate is the stage, yeah, and the most successful real estate investors are the ones who learn how to raise capital. The ones who are raising capital tend to be the ones who could put on a good presentation. I have to compliment you on your skill to create partnerships that are win, win. And what's so neat about this conference, this is my second expand conference, we see all these partnerships taking place within these walls where we're meeting and online in the communities, and I just appreciate that you've recognized the opportunity for us to create a partnership, and I'm sure we're going to help lots of people.

Alfonso Cuadra  21:13

What inspires you?

Majeed Mogharreban  21:15

What inspires me, is people who live life like it's a work of art, and I call it the art of living, and you're one of these creators, where you can just create a future for yourself. I'm going to be here, I'm going to be there, I'm going to be here. We're going to do this, we're going to do that, we're going to do that. And people like you who just create and live to the fullest. That inspires me.

Alfonso Cuadra  21:38

I love it. Majeed, like magic. I never asked you this, but where does this magic, Majeed like magic, Where does it come from? Real quick.

Majeed Mogharreban  21:45

Okay, I saw this guy doing Facebook videos, and every time he does a video, he does this kind of like strange, like salute. It's like, it's not like a regular salute, it's kind of like this strange salute. And I asked him once, why do you do that? And he said, I just want to get people's attention on Facebook. 

Okay, so I started doing this, right? And I have a name that's kind of strange. Most people never met a Majeed, and so they don't know how to pronounce it. Some I grew up in California, and they say the J, like an H, so they say mahid, because they thought maybe I'm Hispanic, right? So I wanted to give people a way to remember my unique name, so it's Majeed like magic, but now I say Majid like magic, and it's more memorable this way. 

Alfonso Cuadra  22:25

I love it. I love it so much. And how can people reach out to you?

Majeed Mogharreban  22:29

You'll find me on Instagram. Majeed Mogharreban. You can find me on expertspeaker.com

Alfonso Cuadra  22:35

Yeah, beautiful. Thank you for coming by my brother. Whoo! 

Majeed Mogharreban  22:40

Pleasure!

Alfonso Cuadra  22:41

And that's it. We'll see you guys at the top! 

Majeed Mogharreban  22:43

See you at the top!

Carl Richards  22:44

Thanks for listening to The WealthGenius Podcast. If you have a question or comment about something you heard today, reach out to The Godfather via social media or email him anytime. All that information is in the show notes, and of course, don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode of The WealthGenius Podcast. The WealthGenius Podcast, until next time, see you at the top!