Speaking / Association, franchise and company events
Contractor keynote speaker who leaves a framework
You booked the room, the caterer and the audio. The one thing nobody can order in advance is whether people are still listening forty minutes in.
This page is written for whoever owns that decision. It covers what Shawn speaks on, what your audience can do afterward, how a session gets cut to your program, and what he needs from your team to make it land.
Shawn Derrick, founder of Legacy Sales Engineering, is a sales speaker for contractor audiences: association chapters, franchise conferences, trade events and company kickoffs. His material comes from 25 years of selling in person at the kitchen table, and it hands the room the Solution Based Questions methodology instead of a motivational set. Call (352) 612-3327
What are you actually buying with that slot?
A speaking slot is the one part of your program where a single person decides whether the whole day felt worth it.
You are not buying forty-five minutes of talking. You are buying what members say to each other in the parking lot, and whether the education committee has an easy job next year.
So the useful question is not who looks impressive on a stage. It is which speaker can stand in front of people who install, quote and collect for a living, and say something they have not already heard from four other speakers.
That is a narrower search than it sounds. Most speakers who understand a room of business owners have never carried a bag, and most people who have carried a bag cannot hold a room. You need both in the same person.
Why do most speaking slots vanish by Monday?
Contractors are a hard room, and they are hard for a fair reason.
They have sat through the motivational hour before. Somebody told them to believe in themselves, sold a book at the back, and left. Nothing about that hour changed a single appointment the following week.
So the room protects itself. Phones come out around minute twelve. Two people step into the hallway to take a call. The rest stay polite and gone.
That is not on your audience. Your members gave up a working day to be there. They earned something they can use, and the risk you carry is a slot that costs them that day and returns nothing.
What a forgettable slot costs you
01
Attendance softens next year, because this year’s program did not pay anyone back.
02
Your board asks what the speaking budget bought and you have only anecdotes to offer.
03
Sponsors watch the back half of the room thin out and draw their own conclusions.
04
Members remember the venue and the lunch, and cannot name one thing from the session.
05
You rebuild the education program from scratch instead of building on what worked.
Who is actually sitting in your audience?
The person in seat four spent this morning on a roof in the heat and will be back on one Thursday. He is not hostile to learning. He is protective of his time, because time is the thing he sells.
That audience does not need to be inspired. Most of them already work harder than whoever is holding the microphone. What they have rarely been handed is a repeatable way to run the conversation that decides whether the job gets signed.
Shawn speaks to that person directly, in the language of quoting, change orders and the homeowner who needs to think about it. Nothing in the session assumes anybody in the room has a sales background.
What can Shawn speak on?
Four subjects, all drawn from the same body of work, all cut to the trades in your room.
Solution Based Questions
The core of everything Legacy Sales Engineering teaches. Instead of lines to deliver, it is a sequence of questions that gets the customer describing their own situation, so the recommendation is assembled from what they just said.
Buyer types
Why the same approach lands with one homeowner and dies with the next. Attendees learn to recognise who is in front of them early, and adjust before they have talked themselves out of the job.
The seven-step framework
The shape of a consultation from the door to the signature. Built for a room where everyone runs the visit differently and nobody could write down what the company’s process actually is.
Stop Selling. Start Solving.
The posture that gives the rest of it teeth. A crew that sees itself as solving problems outsells a crew told to close harder, and owners in the room usually recognise their own company in it.
What does the room walk out holding?
Four things, and none of them are a feeling. If your members cannot use it on the next appointment, it did not belong in the session.
01A sequence, not a pep talk
Attendees leave with the order of a consultation written down: what to ask first, what to ask next, and what has to be true before a price is ever discussed.
03A way to read the buyer
The buyer types, and the tells that show which one is sitting across the kitchen table, so your members stop running the identical visit on every customer.
02Questions they can use tomorrow
The actual wording of Solution Based Questions, phrased for the trades represented in the room, so nobody has to translate a retail example into their own work on the drive home.
04One habit to change this week
Shawn closes by asking each person to pick a single change and run it on their next appointment. Small, specific, and easy to report back on when your group meets again.
How long should the session be?
Scope the format on a call rather than picking off a menu. The right length depends on what the rest of your program is already doing.
A keynote slot works when the session sits inside a larger agenda and the job is to give the whole room one idea it will repeat. A breakout works when a smaller group wants to go deeper on the questions themselves.
A half-day workshop is a different animal. There is time for people to practise on each other, which is where most of the change happens, and it suits a company sales day or a meeting with a working block built into it.
Tell Shawn the slot you have and who is in it, and he will say honestly which of those fits. If a shorter session would serve your program better, that is what he will recommend.
Events these sessions suit
Trade association chapter meetings and annual conferences.
Franchise conventions, regional meetings and owner summits
Company kickoffs, sales days and all-hands training blocks.
Buying group and mastermind gatherings for business owners.
Supplier and manufacturer events built for contractor customers.
Why will your room believe him?
Stop Selling. Start Solving. A room of contractors can feel the difference inside five minutes.
Shawn Derrick
Legacy Sales Engineering
25 Years of Real-World Sales Experience
Shawn Derrick spent 25 years selling, most of it in person at the kitchen table, in the same conversations your members have every week. The framework he teaches was built there. It was not assembled out of other people’s books.
He is not a full-time speaker who studied the trades from outside. Legacy Sales Engineering works with home service businesses, including Always Fire and Gas, whose complete rebrand LSE handled. He also runs the Legacy Builders Mastermind for owners.
That matters on stage for one reason. When somebody in the back row pushes with a real objection they heard last Tuesday, the answer comes from having stood in that doorway, not from a slide.
Why will your room believe him?
25
Years of doing it, not theorising
25 Years of Real-World Sales Experience
Shawn Derrick spent 25 years selling, most of it in person at the kitchen table, in the same conversations your members have every week. The framework he teaches was built there. It was not assembled out of other people’s books.
He is not a full-time speaker who studied the trades from outside. Legacy Sales Engineering works with home service businesses, including Always Fire and Gas, whose complete rebrand LSE handled. He also runs the Legacy Builders Mastermind for owners.
That matters on stage for one reason. When somebody in the back row pushes with a real objection they heard last Tuesday, the answer comes from having stood in that doorway, not from a slide.
Stop Selling. Start Solving. A room of contractors can feel the difference inside five minutes.
Shawn Derrick
Legacy Sales Engineering
How does booking a date work?
Three steps, and the first one is a short call that settles whether this is a fit for your program at all.
Tell us about the room
Who is in the audience, what the event is, the date you are holding, and the slot length sitting in your agenda. Ten minutes on the phone usually answers it.
Shawn cuts it to your program
He shapes the material around the trades in the room and around what the rest of your agenda already covers, then confirms the format and sends your team what the run sheet needs.
He shows up ready and stays
Shawn arrives early enough to meet people before he speaks, runs the session, then stays for the hallway questions afterward. Those are usually the ones that matter most.
What does Shawn need from your team?
Very little, and nothing exotic. A microphone the back row can hear does most of the work.
A screen and a way to connect are useful for formats that use them, but the session does not fall apart without one. Your audio and visual crew will not be asked for anything unusual.
The more valuable thing is context. If your association has been pushing one topic all year, or the franchise keeps seeing the same problem in the field, say so early. That is what turns a good session into one that sounds built for your group.
Send these ahead if you have them
Two different people run the same call and it sounds like the same company.
The last five minutes of a visit stop producing surprise discounts.
Every open quote has a next contact date attached to it.
Fewer angry callbacks, because nobody was sold work they did not need.
You are no longer the only person who can save a job going sideways.
Questions event organisers ask first
How long is the session, and will it fit our agenda?
The session gets built to the slot rather than the other way round. A keynote slot, a breakout, or a working half day are all on the table, and the right one depends on what your agenda is already doing. Tell us the slot you have and Shawn will say what fits it.
Will the talk be tailored to our members, or is it the same set every time?
Tailored. The framework stays the same because it works, but the examples, the trades and the language come from your room. Send the agenda and a sense of who is attending, and Shawn builds around what your group is dealing with right now.
Do you travel to events outside your area?
Travel is part of the conversation when you call, along with the date and the format. Rather than publish a radius that would be wrong for half the enquiries we get, we work it out per event. Call (352) 612-3327 and ask about yours.
What audio and visual setup do you need from us?
A microphone the whole room can hear is the essential piece. A screen and a connection are useful when the format uses slides, but the session does not depend on them. Nothing about the setup should surprise your venue.
What will our members actually be able to do afterward?
Run a better conversation on their next appointment. They leave with the order of a consultation, the questions that belong inside it, and one specific habit to change that week. It is built to be used, not admired.
Can the keynote turn into training for our member companies later?
Yes. Shawn also runs team sales training and one-on-one coaching, so a session at your event can extend into deeper work with individual companies afterward. That path exists if anybody in the room wants it.
Tell us about the room and the date
One call settles it. The date you are holding, the slot, who is in the seats, and what the rest of your agenda is doing.
If it is a fit, Shawn will say so and start shaping the session around your program. If your event would be better served by somebody else, he will say that on the same call rather than take the booking. The version of this that works is simple. Your members walk out with questions they can ask on the next appointment, and you get an easy answer when the board asks what the slot bought.
You can also email service@liftinglegacies.com.
Not ready to book a speaker? Look at team sales training or one-on-one coaching for your member companies, or start at the training hub.