About Us
Ken & Karen
FOUNDERS
The Speakers Alchemy Network was created by us, Karen Corban and Ken Wood, to support speakers in growing their businesses through peer-to-peer learning, networking and other resources.
We ran our own event promotion business for 22 years, producing 1,208 live events in 7 countries and generating $94 million in total sales at those events.
During that time we worked with 110 different speakers from around the world.
In some cases they were new to speaking when we met them and weren't yet well known. We raised their profiles and built a following for them as we filled their events.
We helped them to get their brand and positioning right, showed them how to tune up their presentation and we coached them on their sales offer to produce strong & consistent results from the stage.
At the end of 2014, we were ready for a change and decided to retire from running our own live events.
And we wanted to continue with the part of our previous business that we enjoy the most:
Helping speakers, coaches and business people to be successful in this industry.
We want you to use our successes and failures to reach your own business and event goals. This is also why we publish our blog posts and guides, so that you see what has actually worked for us.
This is the result. Here you’ll find people and resources to help you plan and produce your own live events, find more speaking opportunities and make more sales each time you speak live or on webinars.
Running an event where you speak and sell from the stage, allows you to reach more people, make an impact and is a hugely profitable strategy when done well.
You can quickly build trust, confidence and authority with new clients when you have them in a room with you, and are able to engage with them in person. It’s easier to make large ticket sales, such as masterminds or high-end coaching, at live events, compared to online or over the phone, because of the power social proof provides.
We want to help you get in the game and master it - fast. So take a look around, read some posts and contact us if you have questions.
Our history in LIVE EVENTS
Here are some facts & figures on our former event promotions business.
We ran 1,208 live events over a 22-year period, from 1993 to 2015
We promoted 110 world class speakers (a partial list is below)
Most events were held in Australia, New Zealand,
United Kingdom and Ireland, with a few workshops in Canary Islands (Spain), Portugal and Fiji
During our busiest 6 years, we ran 120 to 140 live events per year
We'd quite often have 3 events running at once, in different locations around the world, and a couple of times per year we'd have 4 events running simultaneously
Events ranged in size from as few as 10 up to 4,500 attendees
509,000 people attended our live events in total
Events varied in length from 1 day to 7 days
Together the events totalled 3,148 days (or 8 years and 7 months) of event time over the 22 year history of the business
Almost all of our events included one or more sales offers made from stage
We ran 202 events which each generated more than $100k in sales and 27 events which each produced more than $1 million in sales
In total, our live events generated $94 million in sales
Our annual revenue peaked at $16 million
Our business made the BRW Fast 100 list (fastest-growing companies in Australia) for three years in a row: 2007, 2008 and 2009
During the 5 year period covered by the Business Review Weekly (BRW) magazine awards, our revenue grew by 16 times
Our Director and Founder, Karen ranked in Smart Company's Top 40 Female Entrepreneurs in Australia, in 2010 and 2011.
Last but not least, live events are our passion, a wonderful adventure and a ton of fun. Now it's time to help you to grow your own profitable, live events and leave a lasting impact.
Speakers who we've WORKED WITH
This is a partial list of the speakers who've been on our stage at some point over the years. Some of them got their start with us and have gone on to even greater success.
From the USA
| Mike Koenigs | Chris Howard |
| Brad Fallon | John Carlton |
| Jay Conrad Levinson | Tom Wheelwright |
| Alex Mandossian | Joel Roberts |
| Jay Abraham | Robert Dilts |
| Joe Sugarman | Robert McDonald |
| Keith Cunningham | Tim Hallbom |
| Chet Holmes | Suzi Smith |
| Scott Hallman | Bob Bodenhamer |
| Christopher Guerriero | Dean Hynes |
| Cameron Johnson | David Fagan |
| Armand Morin | Scott Rewick |
| Tad James | Saen Higgins |
| Christine Commerford | Bill Walsh |
| Lorel Langmeyer | Melanie Benson Strick |
| Stephen Pierce | Michelle Masters |
| Dave Lakhani | Carl Buchheit |
| Joel Comm |
From Australia
| Siimon Reynolds | Johnnie Cass |
| Michelle Duval | Duane Alley |
| Kerwin Rae | Annette Huygens-Tholen |
| James Schramko | Terianne Palmer |
| Nik Halik | Sue Papadoulos |
| Andrew Barnett | Emily Gowor |
| Mark Rowland | Alan Furlong |
| Clinton Swaine | John Dwyer |
| Justin Herald | Darren Stevens |
| Andrew McCauley | Sean Rasmussen |
| Brendan Nichols | Ari Galper |
| Brett McFall | Jeff Slayter |
| Phil Anderson | Heather Porter |
| Cherie Barber | Paul Holland |
| Stephen Tolle | Alexi Neocleous |
| Travis Bell | Leah Barton |
| George Lee Sye | Julio De Laffitte |
| Joanna Martin | Shaune Clarke |
| Ben Harvey | Phillipa Bond |
| Mal Emery |
From the UK
| Simon Coulson |
| Marcus De Maria |
| Sue Knight |
| Daniel Wagner |
| Julian Treasure |
| Rohan Weerasinghe |
| John Lee |
| Glenn Armstrong |
| Rob Moore |
| Paul Avins |
| Juswant Rai |
| Sylvia Rai |
| Simon Zutshi |
New Zealand
| Sam Bakker |
Our VISION
To unleash the potential of business owners globally, through the integration of success mindset strategies and live events.
Our Personal STORY
Karen's dream as a teenager, was to travel the world and to help people.
Born into an entrepreneurial family, she observed her parents build and operate a series of retail businesses and later a resort hotel. Discussions around the family dinner table were often about business and it was anticipated that the kids would grow up to be entrepreneurs themselves.
Karen went from university to opening her own retail clothing store at age 22, and other fashion businesses followed.
Her first business wasn't plain sailing. There were ups and downs, years of profits and years of losses. Her youthfulness had it's own set of challenges and yet, luckily she had a mentor to guide her which made a huge difference.
Eventually, Karen's passion for personal development led her to take a year off and attend seminars all over the world.
At an event in Hawaii, she approached the American speaker, Tad James, and invited him to come to Australia.
Having committed to fill a room of 400 people (her first event), she flew home and started learning about the seminar and events industry.
Within a couple of years, Karen was attracting more attendees to her events for Tad James, than he was seeing anywhere else in the world.
Ken met Karen when he attended one of her first live events, in 1994.
It was a training on Ericksonian hypnosis; a fact which caused much amusement to their friends once they started dating. The rumours that Karen may have hypnotised Ken at our first meeting were finally put to rest when we married in 2001.
In 2004, Ken sold out of his IT business and joined Karen in Universal Stars. Together they grew the business, expanded to the UK and travelled the world.
For 27 years we've had the honour of helping men, women and teenagers to grow by transforming their lives and businesses—to dare to dream, live their passion and make it a reality.
It’s been a wild ride, and a mission we love.
There were times that were scary, times we felt burnt out, times we wanted to give up.
And yet, we hung in there, received coaching, enlisted the help of wonderful mentors, kept learning and worked hard.
We made many costly mistakes and we also celebrated wonderful wins, travelled a lot and had tons of fun. Our passion and mission kept us going through the challenging times.
Fast forward to 2014, and we were both ready for a change.
After a few years of running 4 businesses simultaneously, we definitely needed a break and a new challenge. So, it was time to change our business model, package up our combined decades of expertise, and continue to help business owners all over the world to reach their goals.
Without an office that we needed to be near, Karen could finally achieve a long-term dream of avoiding cold Sydney winters. The tropical north beckoned and now here we are.
What OTHERS Say
If you are even thinking of running an event then you need to become part of Karen's community today. With expertise in both smaller intimate events and events with several thousands of people and all the logistics that entails, Karen knows more about events than anyone I know. Her generosity and charm combined with real world strategies will help you get results fast.
Pauline Martin-Brooks
Founder JV School
As I transitioned from working for someone else to successfully launching my own training company, coaching business and events management company, it was only possible because of the skills I learnt, that I was mentored in, taught and coached by Karen and Ken.
Duane Alley
Personal Development Speaker
I'd like to thank you personally, because way back in the beginning you shared some advice with me and you always had time for me when I wanted to run something by you. Some of that advice that has got me here today: you guys have been the platform that's allowed me to go out and do what I love.
I know I'm just one of many people who can tell a very similar story.
Terriane Palmer
Personal Development Speaker
THE COMPANY
Proudly brought to you by Universal Stars Training Pty Ltd.
PO Box 685, Mackay QLD 4740 Australia
Australian Business Number (ABN): 56 167 942 636
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