275-SYB-Webinar-Public-Speaking-Has-Changed.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

275-SYB-Webinar-Public-Speaking-Has-Changed.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Carol Cox:
Public speaking has changed. Learn the three skills you need now to get selected, stand out and make money as a speaker. This is the audio from a recent live training we did on Crowdcast. Enjoy. More and more women are making an impact by starting businesses running for office and speaking up for what matters. With my background as a TV political analyst, entrepreneur and speaker. I interview and coach purpose driven women to shape their brands, grow their companies and become recognized as influencers in their field. This is Speaking Your Brand, your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience. Hi everyone. Welcome to our Speaking Your Brand. Live training on public speaking has changed to three skills you need now to get selected, stand out as a speaker and make money while doing so. Thank you so much for joining us today. I’m Carol Cox, founder and CEO of Speaking Your Brand. And with me is Diane Diaz, our lead speaking coach.

Diane Diaz:
Hello, everybody.

Carol Cox:
Say hi to us in the chat. I see the chat going off already. So glad to see you all here. I see some of our current thought leader, academy clients, some of our past clients, as well as those of you who I’ve seen on LinkedIn. And so thank you so much for being here today. I’m excited for us to dig into this topic is something that I’ve been really thinking a lot about the past few months. As we’re coming out of the pandemic and in person, speaking engagements are returning. You’ll see at the bottom of your screen there are two pools that you can answer. So go ahead and click on the polls there at the bottom and answer those questions. The first question is, how are you feeling about returning to in-person speaking? Either you’re excited and you can’t wait or you’re feeling pretty good, but maybe a little bit nervous about it, maybe feeling a little rusty. And then so so maybe you’ve gotten really used to speaking virtually and you enjoy that more than the in-person. And then the second question is, do you have an in-person speaking engagement coming up this year? So let us know. Yes, it’s already on the calendar, tentative. So you’ve put some feelers out there. We’re waiting to confirm for a specific date or not yet. So let us know. Go ahead and vote there. If you are having any technical issues with audio or video, my recommendation is to refresh your browser or to exit your browser come back in.

Carol Cox:
It is recommended to use Google Chrome. I think that’s the preferred browser for Crowdcast. All right. So we have for how are you feeling about returning to in-person speaking? Most of you say you’re excited, you can’t wait. Yay. And oh we have lots of people already have an in-person speaking engagement on the calendar. Super excited about that. All right. Let’s go ahead and let me share my slides. So here’s what I am seeing over the past few months as so many events in conference organizers, companies are really looking forward to coming back in-person. Virtual has worked really well for the past two years. I know we’ve done a lot of virtual trainings and presentations. I know a lot of you have as well. But really these in-person speaking opportunities are increasing. I’m seeing more and more of them and you want to make sure that you’re positioned in the best way possible so you can get those speaking opportunities and start putting yourself back out there. Diane and I did a webinar a little over two years ago right when the pandemic started, and this was one of the themes that we shared back then because pre quarantine, of course, that was pre-pandemic. We’re all out there speaking and fully dressed. And during the pandemic, let’s face it, most of us have had our comfy pants on at the bottom, comfy shoes on. I know my feet do not like they wear high heels anymore. And I’m sure, Diane, you probably feel the same.

Diane Diaz:
Oh, my goodness. And I met a standing desk right now, but I promise you, I have on pants, although it is shorts. I’ll be.

Carol Cox:
Honest. Yeah.

Carol Cox:
But now we’re doing the opposite again, where we’ve gotten so comfortable with our virtual presentations that we need to, like, put on clothes fully from head to toe, including shoes, and go back out there. So now we’re kind of like coming full circle back again. I also would love to know. Tell us in the chat, do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert? In most situations, a lot of us kind of maybe have one aspect or another, depending on where we’re at. But if we think of going to events and conferences, do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert.

Diane Diaz:
Introvert right here.

Carol Cox:
Like Amy Schumer It’s like, nope, like I’m good right here behind my computer. Or you like the minions, like you’re ready to party it up.

Carol Cox:
All right. Lots of introverts. Yeah.

Carol Cox:
All right. Lots of the extroverts in the house are. The extroverts are already out partying in person. They’re not here.

Carol Cox:
On our one hour training.

Diane Diaz:
Oh, we have one extrovert. Oh, Kathleen, thank you.

Carol Cox:
Yeah, okay. Like you said, she’s a mix.

Carol Cox:
And a lot of people think that speakers have to be extroverts or that most speakers are extroverts. We’ve done some informal polling in our groups, and I think it’s about half and half. And so if you are an introvert, you could absolutely be a public speaker, you can be a fantastic public speaker. Both introverts and extroverts have qualities that they bring to public speaking. And as an introvert, I know that I’m an observer and a listener of people. And so kind of like tuning into your audience can be a quality that you can bring as an introvert. And if. Of course, as an extrovert, you can bring the party, you can bring the fun. And I know I was so happy to get my my little name badge here for the event that I was at last week. And this is one of my techniques has always been as an introvert is to be a speaker at an event. That way I feel like I have a role when I show up. And so I’m not the one. I’m not the party coordinator, that’s for sure. But if I’m a speaker, I’m more than happy to have you come up and talk to me.

Carol Cox:
At any time.

Diane Diaz:
Same way.

Carol Cox:
Yeah. So that’s so definitely if you’re an introvert, there’s a place for you in public speaking. If you’re an extrovert, bring the fun. So I mentioned that I did this speaking engagement last week in Florida near where I live, and it was so great to be back in person again. And here’s a little iPhone video of that. So it was about 50 women. It was run by a group called She Is Fierce. Kelly Youngs is the founder and CEO of that group. She has a fantastic community there as well. And I was really honored to speak at her event to be her featured speaker. And I talked about this idea of thought, leadership and integrating more storytelling in the work that we do, which is, of course, what I talk a lot about on the podcast and with our clients as well. So what I’m sharing with you today are the same principles, skills and strategies I use for my own speaking engagements, because if I’m not practicing them, then I don’t know how I can share them with you. So whatever we talk about, we put into practice ourselves and from the speaking engagement, literally within 10 minutes of me sitting down back at my chair, I already had an invitation for a keynote speaking for this fall and a new client just within 10 minutes.

Carol Cox:
That is the power of number one of public speaking, but that’s also the power of using the skills that we’re going to teach you here today. So, yeah, so public speaking has changed more so than ever in the past two years of the pandemic. And so I really want to share it with you. What are those skills that you need now as you put yourself out there? Feel free to ask questions along the way as as well. So our mission here, Speaking Your Brand, is to empower women to find and use their voice in the world to tell the stories that need to be told. And we know it’s because transformational change, challenging the status quo, changing the status quo to benefit more people comes from women’s stories, women’s voices and women in leadership positions, which is why we are so passionate about the work that we do here. As Speaking Your Brand and I was doing a research project last year, so I Googled famous thought leaders, and here’s what Google had to say about it. What do you notice about these results from Google? Yeah, they definitely have something in.

Carol Cox:
Common, don’t they? Thank you.

Carol Cox:
And you’re probably wondering the same question that I was wondering, which is where are the women? And not only are they all men, they’re all white men. Google thinks these are the most famous thought leaders. And why does Google think this is? Because there’s this kind of vicious circle where the men get the top positions of New York Times bestselling books, the top rated podcast, the top journalists interview them, the top keynote speakers. And so they tend to get more publicity, they tend to get more PR, they’re getting these high profile positions. And so Google thinks these are who the thought leaders are. But we know that there are women thought leaders out there. Bernie Brown, men to heart, Elizabeth Gilbert, Nikole Hannah-Jones. These women are out there and they’re well known to us, but we need more women out there as thought leaders so that Google starts to recognize this avalanche of women. They can no longer ignore us that we’re out there because there’s more and more of us speaking up and speaking up for what matters. Yeah, the same old, same old dudes.

Carol Cox:
All the time.

Carol Cox:
And so here’s something that came up. This is just in December of last year. This was a journalist and he was writing an article for a top tier media publication about COVID. And here’s what he said in his tweet, that a response he often gets from women experts on COVID when he asked them for comment to include in his articles is the women say thanks. But I don’t think I have much to add to what has already been said. And then he says from blokes he’s English. For men, not so much. The men are there, they give them the comments, they give them the quotes. So they’re always quoted in the media and we need more women to put themselves out there to be featured in the media. So again, Google starts to recognize here we are and we start to see more women out there. So this is part of the reason why we work so much on thought, leadership and public speaking is because we want you to develop that clarity and confidence so that when the media comes to you, you’re ready to respond.

Diane Diaz:
I’ve noticed that women have sometimes are scared to add in because of backlash, and then the men jump all over the comments they made. But that’s where this ability to speak out and use your voice is so important.

Carol Cox:
And just don’t read the comments.

Diane Diaz:
Don’t read the comments, do not read the comments. Not worthwhile.

Carol Cox:
It’s not trust me. And speaking of backlash, that happens with women who have a public voice. So those of you who have know me know that I do political analysis on the TV news. I’ve been doing this since 2000 and. Five. I was the chairperson of the Democratic Party in the county that where I live. So this is how I got to start on the TV news. So I was very used to having a public voice, to sharing political opinions. That’s what I was brought on to do. And yet there would always be the sexist comments on the Twitter posts or the Facebook Live feeds or whatever it happened to be. And and I could pretty much ignore those. But what really was challenging was when the people who were closest to me decided that I had too much of a public presence in too much of a public voice as a woman and decided they no longer wanted to support me. And I didn’t realize until years later, even years after starting Speaking Your Brand, that that is the reason why I started this company, is to really provide that support and that community so that more women have that support system and have the confidence to go out there as a women with a public voice and a public presence.

Carol Cox:
Because in our DNA, this is what we feel like happens to women who break the rules and challenge the status quo, who put themselves out there, whether it’s opinions or just talking about the matters of the day. There were witches burned at the stake or Hester Prynne with the Scarlet Letter. A were the suffragettes who were fighting for the right for women to vote? Yet we’re getting harassed and beaten and punished and jailed and literally yanked off stages so that they could not be public speakers. And this is what’s in our subconscious when we try to put ourselves out there and we feel that little bit of hesitation or that vulnerability or that I don’t know if I should say this and this is what we have to break through because we know that by doing so, we are also modeling it not only for the women who are younger than us, but for our peers as well. So as I mentioned, we do this work because we know transformational change comes through women’s voices and stories, and that includes your voice and your story. We have our podcast that is over five years old now. We do coaching and training and we run events. And we’re going to tell you more about our Thought Leader Academy later on.

Carol Cox:
So what we’ll be covering today is this old versus new model of public speaking. Some of the myths you may have internalized that keep you from impact and from generating more income, especially from speaking. And then those three skills that you need now as a speaker and we’ll give you real life examples along the way to inspire you to put yourself out there. As I mentioned, we do have our signature program is the Thought Leader Academy, and I’ll be talking more about that towards the end. Our next start date is coming up in just a couple of weeks on May 10th. So applications are currently open and all of the details are on our Speaking Your Brand Academy page, so you can be checking that out as we go along today. So I would love to hear from you all in the chat now when you think about creating an in-person presentation. So let’s focus on in-person for right now. What is your biggest challenge? Imagine you have a speaking date, let’s say a month from today. You’re going to go speak somewhere in person. When you think about creating that presentation, what’s the biggest challenge that comes to mind? All right. Kathy saying that she sometimes gets talked over by men. Yeah. And she talks right back.

Carol Cox:
Over to them. Good. Yep. And then Emily says that.

Carol Cox:
Emily says thank you for creating this space. Absolutely. This is what we’re here for. All right. So what’s your biggest challenge from creating an in-person presentation?

Diane Diaz:
It seems like with a lot of our clients in the other women that we speak to, oftentimes it’s worth it. Even start with that, right?

Carol Cox:
Yeah. Like sitting down with a blank document or a blank slide deck. Exactly. Yeah. Lauren says it’s more finding opportunities for the in-person presentations. Great. Yes. Kathy says every time a do so dude on her post, she quotes a woman.

Carol Cox:
And said yes.

Carol Cox:
Okay. Joy says her biggest challenge is accepting that she’s not a slide’s woman. Totally fine. You know, I love slides, but you don’t have to use them. All right, let’s see. Oh. Monica says she’s concerned that her event may be canceled because of COVID. Certainly still a factor. And so that’s why I always like to think about how could you quickly take in-person presentation and do it virtually instead and and have that conversation with the event organizers ahead of time to have a backup.

Carol Cox:
The virtual option.

Diane Diaz:
Being able to be flexible between in-person and virtual is super helpful. And so that’s some of the things that you learn in the Thought Leader Academy as well.

Carol Cox:
So performance is getting the content concise. Oh, we’re going to talk about that today. Dee says she hasn’t done one yet. Mary Beth says she wants to share too much content. Oh, yes, I hear you, sister.

Carol Cox:
We all do.

Carol Cox:
So Mel says imposter syndrome, fumbling over her words. I’m so out of practice. Oh, yeah. Totally feel you on that. Doing podcast interviews is a great way to kind of warm yourself up, especially for doing some more formal speaking engagements.

Diane Diaz:
Oh, Heidi made a good point. Still doing non paid speaking events and not being allowed to add salesy info at the end. Yeah, we have a strategy for that. So it isn’t salesy info at the end. There’s a way to do it.

Carol Cox:
Yes. And Katherine says keeping the slides and content engaging in a boring.

Carol Cox:
Yeah, we definitely don’t want that. No, no, no. All right.

Carol Cox:
Well, thank you for sharing. Keep keep your comments coming there. So here’s this old model versus the new model of public speaking. And this has been. Shifting even before the pandemic. But like I said, it has become even more obvious now as we’re coming out of the pandemic. This old model of public speaking, I would say, was very one way. You kind of had the dude on the stage and he’s just basically kind of giving all of his information to the audience. It’s just one way the audience could be there, couldn’t be there. It kind of could care less. It was very impersonal. So maybe there would be some stories. But, you know, kind of the stories were always crafted for a particular outcome. It’s kind of like those are maybe a true story, but they’re also manufacturers like saccharine and like cotton candy stories where, you know, it’s not really real. Like there’s real parts of it that are being left out. The old model is also about giving your audience all the answers and then just providing them with lots of information, like, look at this strategy and this tip. I’m going to give you this and I’m going to tell you this. But after two years, especially now of virtual presentations, we are information out.

Carol Cox:
Oh, yes, we.

Carol Cox:
Have information at our fingertips. Podcast, social media posts. We can search on Google, we can listen, watch YouTube training videos instead. What you want to think about for public speaking is this two way communication with your audience. Really. It’s almost like having a conversation with your audience, being real and being imperfect in your storytelling. And we’re going to talk about that today, asking more questions of your audience instead of providing them all of the answers and giving them a sense of transformation of what’s possible for them rather than just a content dump and lots of information. I mentioned that I did that speaking engagement last week, and in addition to getting the speaking invitation and the client, what several women told me afterwards was that I gave them hope. It wasn’t that I gave them one tip that now that I get it, they wrote down they’re going to go implement the next week, which sure, they can do that. But it was giving them hope. That’s that transformation piece. And that’s really what I want you to think about as you create your talks for your audiences. So here are some of the myths that you may have internalized that keep you creating a lot of content in your presentations and and less of that personal and integrated storytelling. The first myth is that you believe that you need to teach and train to provide value, that your audience expects you to provide a lot of training content. And if you don’t provide a lot of training content, then somehow they’re not getting their money’s worth or there are times worth. Now, if you feel like this applies to you, if you have had this thought, let let us know here in the chat. I know Diane and I, we have done this.

Carol Cox:
We’ve done teaching and training for years now. And so we’re very used to this model. And what happens is that then our identities are very much tied to seeing ourselves as the expert with the answers. But when we provide all the answers to our audiences or even to our clients, we’re keeping them from really learning and growing themselves. And that’s why I want you to think about as you’re putting together your content. The second myth you may have internalized is that you may believe that your story, your personal story, your personal journey is either too uncommon or it’s uninteresting to the audience, or no one in the audience can relate to it, or you feel like you don’t have a story we’re sharing. And I know, Diane, when the women come through our Thought Leader Academy, sometimes they share this with us that they don’t feel like they have like a really great story to share or their story is uninteresting or uncommon. And so I at that speaking event last week, I shared more of the story about what happened with me when I was chairperson of the Democratic Party, and I shared the details of that. And then I asked later on in the talk, I said, How many of you have ever been a chairperson of a political party? No surprise. Zero women raise their hand because it’s not relatable in that sense. But they all could feel the, you know, the heartache and the disappointment when something that you truly love is taken away from you or when something that you truly love doing, it doesn’t go the way that you want. That is the relatable part of your story, but you need the specifics so the audience can put themselves into their own situation.

Diane Diaz:
Yes. And I think this sometimes it comes up that, oh, I have this story, but someone else is sharing a similar story. Yes, but it’s not your story. It’s not your story with your unique perspective and your unique twist and how you dealt with it. And so, you know, our clients mentioned that as well. So it all wraps into this myth number two.

Carol Cox:
Exactly. So this myth resonates with you. Let us know here in the chat. And then myth number three that you may have internalized is that your audience doesn’t want to be sold to number one. And number two, that you can’t make money from speaking. And I know we’ve had some people in the comments talk about they’ve been doing a lot of free speaking engagements and they can’t put offers even at the at the end of their of the engagement to let the audience know how they can work together. So we’re going to talk about here as we go along this training, some techniques that you can use to integrate more selling into your presentation without being salesy. But also, I want you to consider this myth that you may believe that your audience doesn’t want to be sold to. Right. It’s not that they don’t want to be sold to. That if you are giving them information and then you have a way for them to go deeper, for them to go further, for them to get that personalized support or whatever it happens to be that you do in your business. I believe you actually do your audience a disservice by not letting them know how else you can help them beyond just the 30 minutes or 45 minutes or the hour that you spent with them at that speaking engagement.

Carol Cox:
If I had left that speaking engagement last week and hadn’t told that audience what else we do here, Speaking Your Brand and how they could work with us, they kind of would have felt like, Well, well, wait a minute. Like you gave us all this good stuff, but like, I want more, and then they wouldn’t have known what else to do. So I believe that you actually should be telling your audience what you do and then letting them know that they can go further with you. So if myth number three resonates with you, let us know in the chat. So here’s what I see happens to a lot of women and women entrepreneurs, but women in corporate as well is they get stuck in what I call the expert trap. Most of us are high achieving. Women were very highly accomplished. We have degrees, we have credentials, we have lots of experience. We have lots of expertise in the work that we do in our business. And your clients want you to be an expert in the work you do for them? Absolutely. You need to be an expert in that.

Carol Cox:
And yet, if you want to position yourself as a paid speaker, if you want to get those higher profile speaking opportunities, if you want to start putting yourself out there as a thought leader, you need to get out of this expert trap because that is what’s keeping you confined in kind of almost like a commodity of your speaking. And that’s why you’re getting only three speaking engagements or they only only want to pay $500 is because you’re pretty much interchangeable with other experts that they get higher for very similar things. Instead, how are you positioning yourself with your story and with your big idea so that they want you, not someone who also happens to do similar work that you do? So this is the shift that we take our clients through in the Thought Leader Academy is shifting from expert presenter in to thought leader and this is what’s going to help you set apart and get those higher profile and paid speaking engagements. So here are those three skills that we’re going to talk about today that I’m seeing that you really need as a speaker. Number one, structure. Number two, storytelling. And number three, selling. And of course, there are three S’s.

Diane Diaz:
A little alliteration.

Carol Cox:
Diane and I cannot create a piece of content that does not have either alliteration or an acronym in it. It is literally impossible for our brains.

Diane Diaz:
Totally.

Carol Cox:
So we have the three S’s here structure, storytelling and selling. So let’s get into more details on that. So here is why I want you to think about the structure, storytelling and selling before we get into the details is that the result is that you will track those opportunities, the recognition and the clients that you want. So I’ve been featured in Forbes a couple of times. I was named as one of Orlando’s Women of the Year in 2021. Those things directly came from my thought leadership. It didn’t come just because I’m a founder of a business, but it came from the thought leadership content that I put out consistently. Here’s an example. I think Jackie is on the chat here live today. So Jackie Ruby went through our Thought Leader Academy. She graduated a little over a year ago and she has been doing amazing things since she went through. She launched a podcast called Through Inspired Eyes, and then as a result of her thought leadership message that she puts out consistently on her podcast and in social media, she’s been invited to high profile speaking engagements, including being flown. You can see there in that picture, a business class to Dubai last fall. She’s going back again this year to speak. And so how exciting is that? She’s also been featured in this Entrepreneur’s Herald magazine for the work that she does.

Carol Cox:
And so Jackie is incredible. Make sure to check her out. Her website is inspired. Journey Consulting dot com. Congrats, Jackie, for everything that you’ve been doing. Here’s another one of our clients. Dr. Christina Maddison is a public health pharmacist. She lives out in Las Vegas, Nevada. She’s in our Catalyst Collective Program, which is our advanced program for keynote speakers right now. And as a result of the pandemic having started a little over two years ago, Christina started being invited to come on television to talk about COVID. Now, of course, Christina has a background in public health as a public health pharmacist, but she didn’t have a background in COVID. Nobody had a background in COVID 19 at the start of the pandemic. But she still said, yes, I will come on TV and I will talk about this. I will figure it out. I’ll do my research and I’ll learn about it just along with everyone else, as everyone else in the world is learning about it. And because she has done that, she’s been on TV over 200 times in the past two years. She’s doing a TEDx talk next month in May at TEDx Reno about how important not only the message is related to public health, but who the messenger is, especially women, especially women of color, especially people of color in those communities that need those public health messages.

Carol Cox:
And I’m so grateful for Christina and the important thought leadership work that she is doing. So let’s talk about structure. So when you think about creating the content for your presentations, there are so much you can share. I know because you are expert and what you do in your business and in your topic and in your industry, but you don’t want to be all over the map. You need to pick a spot somewhere and then take your audience through that journey so that they are walking through what I see go wrong with a lot of speakers, especially conference breakout sessions, and where they’re teaching on something related to what they do in their business is that they have so much they want to share that they kind of put it all in their presentation, like slide slides, slide, slide, slide. But there’s no cohesion to it. There’s no we don’t understand why we’re going from this step to this step to this step. It’s just like, here’s everything I know about this topic and I’m going to share it with you. Audience in 45 minutes. So instead, you need to pick pick one thing that you want to share. You could always create more presentations later if you want. If you’re like me and Diane, we’d like to have.

Carol Cox:
Presentations all the time. You don’t have to do that.

Carol Cox:
You can just have one signature talk. But if you really like creating your presentations, you can do multiple of them. And so and the reason I say this is even more important now coming out of the pandemic is your audience’s heads are full of information. We have so much in our minds that if you if you don’t have something very clear that you’re sharing, it’s going to be very confusing for your audience. So, for example, in our presentation today, we’re sharing a lot of content, we have a lot of slides, but we’ve structured it around these three S’s, the structure, the storytelling and the selling so that you can follow along and so that it makes sense and then have one particular kind of outcome that you’re looking at for your audience. In this case, our outcome is that we want you to think about these three skills you need as a speaker now coming out of the pandemic, back into in-person engagements. What are those skills? So it’s very specific, very focused information that we’re sharing here today, because what happens and this happens to us, too, is we have so many ideas. I know, Diane, you’re working on a presentation that you’re delivering tomorrow. I am. So all of our ideas and content. It’s all these beautiful branches of this oak tree. There’s a branch upon branch upon branch, and they’re all over the place. And it’s lovely. You say this for a book.

Carol Cox:
You can do this in a book. You cannot do this.

Carol Cox:
In a 45 minute presentation. Instead, I need you. I want you to think of a palm tree, not an oak tree, for your presentations. A palm tree has a very large trunk and then it has some branches up at the top, but not a lot of them, and doesn’t have branches upon branches upon branches. It has a very strong through line and literally everything you talk about hangs off of that through line. So as you’re working on your content, what I do is I have what is that outcome I want for the audience? What are the three key points I want to share? And then everything else has to hang off of that. If it doesn’t, then it goes away and I’ll save it for something else. Another presentation? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Go ahead, Diane.

Diane Diaz:
I was say, I find it’s easy to start with an oak tree and then whittle it down to a palm tree, start pruning back those ideas, pruning back, pruning back until you finally end up with a palm tree. That’s nice. That’s how I was working on my presentation. It started with all this stuff and I was a little overwhelmed. And then I brought it back together.

Carol Cox:
Such a great point. And they’re really editing. Whether you’re editing an article, a book or a presentation that is the art, that really is the art of great content is in the. Edit. Yes. And so here’s an example of a client that I worked with. This is about five years ago, and she has a company that works with defense contractors and health care providers. And so kind of like larger companies. And this was here the slides that she was using before she came to work with me. What do you notice about these slides? A lot of text, first of all, on the slides. So it’s for sitting in the audience. It would be hard to read all of all of the text that’s on here. And as the speaker, you definitely don’t want to be reading these slides to your audience. That’s the last thing your audience wants. That’s the old model of public speaking and standing there and reading the slides. Yeah, you don’t want to do that. But also the other problem with that, just beyond the slide design, is that it was too much content, it wasn’t focused, there was no structure and really just getting lost in the weeds. Like they literally took everything they do in their business. And we’re like, here you go. I’m going to drop it on these slides and try and try to explain this to you, and that’s too much.

Carol Cox:
So instead, we work together and here is the after version of it, obviously much better. Slide design, use of images, much bigger font use, really good use of graphics and infographics. Has some case studies in here, has audience questions. Taking the audience on a journey showcases the thought leadership within this company. That is what you want for your presentations. And so this is the framework that we have created that we use for our own presentations and that we teach in our Thought Leader Academy and then that we use when we work with our clients. It’s called the Signature Talk Canvas Framework. And so it’s laid out in three acts. Act one is where you’re setting up the situation for the audience. What is the goal they have? What’s those problems or challenges that are in their way of achieving their goal? And then what is that real problem underneath the surface that you’re going to help them with? And then your bio and credibility are integrated into Act One. Then in Act two, you give them those 1 to 3 key points based on your thought leadership. So what? What are the things that you have found? Help them get past that real problem that they’re facing and you integrate some client stories, case studies into there. And then Act three is the next steps for your audience.

Carol Cox:
What can they imagine in this better world for them and within their company or for themselves? What are those next steps they can take, either on their own or of course, that call to action to work with you and then wrapping up with something inspirational and aspirational for them. So this is the framework that we use. You can take this and use it yourself as you’re create your presentations is super helpful. So here’s an example of a client that I worked with, Tania Smith of. She’s got papers and you can see this is the, the, the three act board here that we do. So when you work with either me or with Diane in a VIP day, which you can do in the Thought Leader Academy, we actually create your board with you in a half day zoom session. You can see Cynthia is laughing and smiling because it truly is magical. Every single time we do this, at the end of that session, the clients are like, Oh my gosh, I cannot believe you took this jumble of mess that was in my brain. You just asked me these questions, and now it’s all laid out on this board with the stories, the audience engagement, the key points, the supporting points. Everything is on there because we’ve done this number one so many times. And number two, we know the questions to ask to get what we need on that board so that you can create an impactful presentation.

Carol Cox:
So here’s an example from one of our Thought Leader Academy graduates. Shanta Wilkinson is a DTI consultant, and she started her company just over a year ago. And then she came through our Thought Leader Academy, in which she found was really helpful, was learning how to integrate her personal stories into her talk. And the reason she decided to join the Thought Leader Academy in the first place was because she knew that there were a lot of D-I consultants out there and she didn’t know how she was going to differentiate herself. Why would a company hire her to come in and do trainings versus another DEI consultant out there? And so she came through the Thought Leader Academy and we helped her work on that, only the positioning of her business, but then integrating these personal stories into her talk. And as a result and she’s done a number of strategy sessions with Diane because Shanta is also now in our advanced program Catalyst. But Shanta now is getting repeat revenue from clients who are booking her again to keep coming back to do more workshops and trainings. Because Shanta is adding this personal element. She’s not just maintaining this kind of impersonal distance, which was that old model of public speaking.

Diane Diaz:
Yes, I love it because she’s getting she speaks to a group and then they say, oh, now come in. You’ve done you’ve spoken to this. The executives now speak to the volunteers. Now speak to the staff now. So she’s getting this opportunity to deliver her message over and over again and getting paid for it.

Carol Cox:
Yes. And having a huge impact on those organizations that she works with. Yes. Love it. All right. So that was number one that was structured. So I want you to ask yourself, as you’re creating your own presentations, is does my presentation try to do too much? That goes back to that, pruning it down, editing it. What’s the through line of your presentation and what’s the number one take away for the audience? Is there a clear beginning, middle and end of your presentation? And then ask yourself, what am I sharing that’s new or different than what other people in my topic or my industry are also sharing? What’s something new or different that I can add to my presentation? That’s where that thought leadership comes from. So let’s talk about the second skill, which is storytelling, which very much relates to the structure that we just talked about. But then now how can you integrate more storytelling into your presentation? Here are what I have seen out of the essential ingredients for thought leadership. So your expertise is your foundation, the expertise of the work you do, how long you’ve been in your industry, the degrees you have, all of that you absolutely need your expertise. On top of your expertise is your big idea. What is that? What does that thing that you want to change, whether it’s about your industry or about society, what’s the thing that you want to see that’s different? So if we take Speaking Your Brand as the example, so obviously our expertise is around public speaking.

Carol Cox:
Our big idea is that we need more women as high profile speakers as high profile thought leaders, because that’s how we’re going to challenge the status quo and change things. But then we don’t stop there because if you stop there, you lose that personal aspect. Then we add our stories on top of it. And it’s not just this is and it’s not the saccharine story of like the rags to riches. Well, I was here and then I was here. And again, you’re leaving out like the real stuff. Like, we want the real big we want the real stuff in there. That’s where you have the the real honest stuff. That’s where that emotional courage comes from. And that truly is the hardest part of doing it. But that is the most rewarding not only for your audience, but really the most rewarding for yourself and your own personal growth and development. So my question to you then is if you think about maybe this idea of sharing your personal story or going into detail, feels a little off putting. So my question to you then is, do you truly want to offer a transformative experience for your clients and your audience? If you want to continue to provide information and strategies, you can do so.

Carol Cox:
And there there is a market for it. But I know you’re here because you want to do more than that than just doing the same thing that you’ve always done. You want to reach, you want to reach bigger audiences and you want to have a bigger impact on them. So let me give you an example. Back in 2017, I helped Tami Lowry on her TEDx Orlando talk around money shame. Tami had obviously never done a TEDx talk before. She hadn’t done a lot of public speaking before that. But this opportunity came up and she said yes, even though she was scared to death. And she talked about this when she came on the Speaking Your Brand podcast, even though she was scared to death, not only of just public speaking on a TEDx stage, but also of sharing a very personal, very vulnerable, very tragic family story. But she did it because she knew the impact that she could have and literally the lives that she could save around the world. And she’s done exactly that. And because of how real and personal and imperfect she was in her storytelling, her talk now has over 2 million views.

Diane Diaz:
Wow.

Carol Cox:
Most TED talks get a couple thousand views. Very few of them get anywhere near this. And so, Tami, not only has she grown her business, she wrote a book after this, but really it’s the impact that she’s had on so many people who’ve seen her talk. And when you think about sharing your story, those of you who listen to the podcast and know me, know I love the musical. Hamilton And so I, of course, have to bring in some of those references. And here’s the thing characters. And that includes. People. People with flaws are so much more interesting. Perfect is boring. No one really likes perfect. There’s nothing there. Like there’s nothing there to relate to. We want those. We want to hear people’s stories that have those flaws, that have those challenges. This is why I like the character Aaron Burr so much in the musical is because he tries to hold it together in the beginning. But by the end of the song, The Room where it happens, by the end of that song, like he is like full out, like frustrated, disappointed, angry. Like he doesn’t understand why he can’t have what Alexander Hamilton is. And it’s those qualities about himself that make him so much more interesting. And also, characters are people who share their emotions and their heartache so much more interesting in the storytelling that you do when you share not only kind of just the facts of the story, but how did you feel? What did it cost you? Where is the heartache in that? Like when I share the story about what happened with me in politics. Like I closed off the career opportunity, maybe forever. And that hurts. Like it hurts a lot that I went through that. So I can kind of share like the glossy stuff about being in politics and going on TV. But frankly, that’s kind of boring. Instead, sharing the real stuff is what connects me to you all. So that’s what I do when I do my speaking engagements as well. And I promise you, you may have what we call vulnerability hangovers.

Carol Cox:
Where you’re like.

Carol Cox:
I don’t know how that was received, but when people in the audience come up to you and say, Thank you, I could relate to your story, even though I’ve never been in politics or even though I’ve never had that situation and you gave me hope. That is what you want to hear. So here are some kinds of stories that you can share when you think about incorporating more of your personal stories into your presentations. Think about your childhood, growing up, your family. Were there experiences that shaped who you are, that shaped your beliefs, your behaviors, your interests? Why do you do what you do in your business today? Can you see something that you liked as a child that influences what you do today? You can also think about crisis of confidence stories so experiences that shook your faith in yourself. This is often referred to as that dark night of the Soul and the hero’s journey. So something that just kind of really changed you, put you into a different direction in your life and in your career. The third type of story is a change in belief system, so an experience that cause a paradigm shift in how you see the world. So a mental model of how you saw the world was one way, and then something happened and then it changed it to something else.

Carol Cox:
Now these experiences could be literally one day, one moment in time, or it could be something that builds that built up over a period of time. And then the fourth kind of story is what I call compelled to take action. So an experience you had that led you to do something new or different in your life, your career, your business. So you experience something, you’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Like, this needs to change. I didn’t either realize this about myself or realize this about my industry, and now I’m ready to take action to change this. So these are the different kinds of stories for you to start journaling about. Get your your phone and start voice memos and kind of talk about some of these things and see what comes up for you. So ask yourself, what’s a personal story that you can share? And then ask yourself, How can I go even deeper into the story? So you have kind of like the main parts of the story, but then peel back those layers. How can you go even deeper into it? And then you want to think about how can you frame that story to align with your overall message? So obviously, we want your stories to still connect with your thought leadership idea, with what you do in your business, and there’s ways to do that.

Carol Cox:
So that story that I share about my involvement in politics, I have different ways that I can frame that story. I can frame that story around belonging. I can frame that story around losing my voice. I can frame the story around losing my purpose, having resistance to my purpose. So there’s different kind of like these universal themes that exist in good storytelling. You can take one story and decide to emphasize different parts of the story depending on the theme or the lesson that you want to share with the audience. Yeah, definitely. Like going deeper into the story is always where the like digging for gold, that’s where the gold is. That’s really where you’re going to find that is the deeper you go into your story. And Diane, I know that in our Thought Leader Academy calls, that’s what I really love when I see the women, when they’re ready to get more vulnerable with each other and they’re willing to share some deeper aspects of their story. And we appreciate that because vulnerability is contagious and then other women are willing to do so. But then we like I literally see like the shift going on in my mind.

Diane Diaz:
Yes, I love it. It is a visual and just a shift in sort of the whole feeling of and dynamic of the group. Once one person starts to open up and share and then it just cascades from there, it’s just so beautiful to see.

Carol Cox:
And the same thing happens with your audiences when you share a personal, deep story, your audience will open up as well. When I share something and then I ask the audience, Can you share an experience? Then they are much more willing to go deeper themselves because I modeled it for them first.

Diane Diaz:
Yes, love that.

Carol Cox:
All right. So let’s go to the third skill which is selling. All right. So we talked about structure. We talked about storytelling and now selling. So how do you feel about selling? Let us know in the chat. Number one, is that how you feel when you think about selling or.

Carol Cox:
Are you more like number two? Let us know in the chat which one is the one that you’re.

Carol Cox:
Feeling when I think about when you think about selling and Diane so Diane and I both have a cat, so we are cat moms. And when I was searching for memes to put up here, I found the second cat, the one shaking its head. No, pretty quickly. But, Diane, you know what? I cannot find an excited cat.

Carol Cox:
You know, you’re.

Diane Diaz:
Not going to find that. Know they’re all they might for a second exhibit, excitement is deep seated fear.

Carol Cox:
So they basically had to do an animation of an excited cat because.

Diane Diaz:
Good for you. Mary Beth. Mary Beth is excited. Cat.

Carol Cox:
Oh, right. Yeah. Okay, so we have some.

Carol Cox:
Twos for catnip.

Diane Diaz:
People like cat moms here.

Carol Cox:
All right. Lauren says she feels like number two, the no, but she’ll do it. All right. We have. Yeah, no one is excited.

Carol Cox:
Doesn’t exist.

Carol Cox:
They have just, like, the same expression on their face.

Carol Cox:
All the time.

Carol Cox:
All right, who else number? When you think about selling, are you number one or number two? We can think about also like in your presentations when you talk to event organizers about your speaking fee, how are you feeling?

Diane Diaz:
Okay. I’m mostly number twos.

Carol Cox:
Here and we’ll see. Number two is all right. I know I am the number one. Like I love it. I really feel like selling is a service and I feel like it’s an exchange of value between you and the other person. Are you in the audience? So I want you to think of the same thing when it comes to selling and when we work with our clients and the Thought Leader Academy, there’s this aspect that we call the business of speaking. And so here is how you can generate income from speaking. Remember back to that earlier myth about you maybe believe that your audience doesn’t want to be sold to or you can’t make money from speaking. Well, here are the ways that you can make money from speaking, first of all, is getting leads and clients from your presentation. So just just like I did last week, having new prospective clients come to you, new leads, new speaking opportunities. So that’s one way. The second way is to charge for your workshops and trainings so you can charge whether you’re charging individual attendees or you’re doing workshops and trainings for companies and organizations. And then also you can get paid as a keynote speaker. So there are definitely ways to get paid for your speaking.

Carol Cox:
The thing is though, you have to position yourself as a paid speaker. What I see what often goes wrong is that a lot of event organizers will contact you, but they assume you speak for free. And why do they assume that? Because you haven’t told them otherwise. And anything in any of the your speak, your page on your website or any content that you’re putting out there. So, of course, hey, who doesn’t like free event organizers are going to want that. But you as the speaker, you know the value that you provide to your audience and it’s not the hour that you’re there at that presentation. It’s all the value you bring that enables you to create a truly transformative experience for the audience. It’s not about the information in your content, it’s about the experience. So here’s an example of one of our clients, Angela Hoskin. And so when she worked with us through our program, she was. Able to raise her speaking fees, which we also encourage many of our clients to do. A lot of times we’re also charging way too little for what we’re doing, whether it’s workshops and trainings or for it’s keynote speaking.

Carol Cox:
So we definitely encourage you to to raise your speaking fees. We in our Thought Leader Academy calls, we talk to you about speaking fees that we charge that we’ve seen other people charge. So we’re very open and we share all that information with you. So Angela was able to five X her average speaking fee so increased by five X amazing. She filled her workshop using the selling techniques that she learned from us. You made multiple four figures and tickets, and then she also really grew her business as a result of all of the speaking that she was doing. So here, I know that some of you mentioned in the chat earlier about not being able to sell in your presentations. And yes, especially when you go to conferences, a lot of times they’ll have you sign something that says no selling from the stage or you can’t sell at the end of your presentations. And the reason they did this is because marketers ruin everything. And Diane and I can say that because we’re marketing that hard and because what happened was that all these speakers would go to these conferences and all they would do was sell the entire 45 minutes.

Diane Diaz:
Yeah.

Carol Cox:
Which is obviously not great for the audience, not great for even organized either. So basically they just kind of said no more selling from the stage. So here’s what to do instead. Plant sale seeds in your presentation all along the way you noticed we’ve been doing that today here in this training. So like I said, we walk our talk. We’ve mentioned the Thought Leader Academy several times. We’ve shown client examples and case studies along the way. So you don’t have to. If you can’t enjoy your presentation with a direct sales pitch, you still need to incorporate into the presentation content itself what you do and who you do it for so that your audience knows that. Here is Sarah Lynn Wallace. She is on the Speaking Your Brand podcast. Diane interviewed her to talk about how Sarah has been getting more speaking engagements as she’s gone through the Thought Leader Academy. She graduates next week. She started with us back in January. So definitely go and listen to that episode. And what has been so key for Sarah is putting herself out there contacting companies who she has some relationships with. Some of them actually have been cold outreach from introductions that she has gotten from other people and really taking action. But it’s also because Sarah has positioned herself as a thought leader around the Enneagram, which is the work that she does. So it’s not just a matter of come to me to get what your Enneagram number is, it’s more come to me because I’m going to help you understand how to do marketing and visibility better based on your Enneagram, because that’s going to tell us so much about what you enjoy doing and what’s going to feel the best for you and get you the best results. So Sarah, really, that’s why she joined our Thought Leader Academy is because she wanted to understand how to differentiate herself in the work that she does. And now she’s she’s getting so many speaking engagements because of that.

Diane Diaz:
And paid speaking engagements, she’s not afraid to ask to get paid.

Carol Cox:
Exactly. So ask yourself, how are you planting sales seeds in your presentations? Also know what is your speaking fee? And are you prepared for a conversation with an event organizer about your fee? All right. So the time is now to get prepared for all of these speaking opportunities that are coming here is again, is what we do in the Thought Leader Academy is we help you escape this expert trap to become a story speaker and a thought leader. So our Thought Leader Academy is open for enrollment right now. Diane will put the link in the chat so you can all grab that as that Speaking Your Brand academy. So we start on May 10th, so you want to get your application in as soon as possible because we are doing console calls from your applications right now. So we want to make sure that we get you scheduled for a console call. Once you submit your application, we help you work on your big idea and your story related to your thought leadership and then integrate that into your signature talk. We also help you with your visibility strategy, both for podcast and for speaking engagements, setting your speaking fees, and, of course, delivering your presentation both virtually and in person. We have weekly group Zoom calls with the women who are in the program.

Carol Cox:
Plus, you also get one on one coaching calls because we know the value of having me or Diane to talk to to get these ideas out of your head so you get the benefit of both the group and the one on one. We also have on demand video lessons in our resource library. So if you ever need to go work on something in particular, go grab a video lesson on one particular thing, whether it’s on creating speaking proposals, sending a podcast pitch, working on your signature talk, adding more storytelling and multimedia, you can go grab those lessons as needed. And Mary Beth, I know, is on the chat here today. Mary Beth Simone is the owner of Niche Partnership Consulting. She graduated from our Thought Leader Academy last year, along with Jacquie Roby, and she’s currently in Catalyst and she has been doing a lot of speaking engagements as well, including an in-person one not too long ago. And then Usha Tewari also graduated from our Thought Leader Academy and I just heard from Usha today and she said that she has more podcast interviews, book plus speaking engagements, and she does a lot of TV media as well to raise awareness around Alzheimer’s. And to get more research money for Alzheimer’s.

Carol Cox:
Well done. So those are some examples. So we do have three different tiers in our Thought Leader Academy based on your needs and your budget. Tier one is the Academy. So that’s the weekly group Zoom calls for four months +21 on one coaching calls with Diane Tier two, as you get all of that, plus a VIP day with Diane to create your signature talk. That’s a magical process. Literally have your talk done in half of a day. And then tier three, the highest tier is to have the academy plus the one on one coaching calls and the VIP day with me. So the one with me is very limited. I only have one spot available as of right now live that we’re doing this. Diane has a few spots available for her for the VIP day. So if you do want to do that, definitely get your application in today so we can schedule your call and move on to the next step with you also submitting your application and getting enrolled locks in the current pricing that the Thought Leader Academy is at. We haven’t increased the pricing for a year, which means that probably sometime very soon after our May ten enrollment date, we will be doing so again. This is the VIP to create your signature talk.

Carol Cox:
It’s an incredible process to have it done. It’s such a relief and a confidence builder to have this done. So that’s in tiers two and three. So why enroll now? You may think, Well, I’m just going to wait a few months or wait until the fall, is that you want to get on the roster for those events and conferences that are booking speakers now for this fall and next spring? They don’t wait. They book months in advance. You need to get on the rosters now. Also, don’t leave money on the table. We know you’re probably not charging enough for your speaking and your workshops and your trainings, maybe even for the offers in your business. So we want to help you make sure that you’re pricing accordingly and also differentiating yourself and your business. The clarity of your message and the clarity of your thought leadership idea will set you apart not only as a speaker, but also what you do in your business. And so the sooner you work on these things, the sooner you’re going to get the ROI from having done this. And so these are the different milestones. I’m going to stop on that. So let me go and see what questions we have here.

Diane Diaz:
Carol. We do have some questions. I’ll I’ll captured a few of them. So one of them was does does the storytelling have to be your story or can it be a client or another person’s story?

Carol Cox:
You can do both. You can definitely talk about client stories, but you should have your own personal story as well.

Diane Diaz:
And then the next one related to storytelling, how much of the personal story is enough to share without going too long?

Carol Cox:
Yeah, that’s a good question. So it really depends on that particular engagement. If your story is a core part of that particular speaking event, say if a keynote your stories is going to be a lot longer. When I did a keynote last September, my story really was probably about half of the 30 to 25 minutes that I was up there. And then I kind of wrapped the lesson around the story. So I probably spent a good ten, 12 minutes on the aspect of my story, other events where I’m doing a little bit more of the strategic teaching, then I’ll include the story. But it’s probably not going to be 12 minutes. It’s going to be a shorter version of that.

Diane Diaz:
Right. And that first question was from Monica. That second question from was from DBA. She also asked another question in the questions box, which was, can you elaborate on what is meant by framing in the story?

Carol Cox:
Hmm. Okay. Yes. So that is when I mentioned that you could have one story like the story of my involvement in politics and to decide what is it that you want to focus on for that particular story. So I could focus on the sexist comments and the backlash that I got as a woman in politics. So that’s one framing is kind of like what happens when you’re a woman in public. Another framing could be I really felt a sense of purpose and a sense of belonging in my role there. So what did that feel like and what are the lessons that I took from that? Another framing could be from that particular story is what happens when you’re living your purpose and you get resistance to your purpose. Do you try to push through? Do you pivot? Do you go quiet for a while and then continue later? So that’s this idea of like resistance and purpose. So you can choose how to frame the story based on kind of what that audience wants to hear and what the takeaway is that you want to share with them.

Diane Diaz:
All I saw as far as questions go.

Carol Cox:
Okay, great. Well, again, if you would like to join us in the Thought Leader Academy, we would love to see your application come through and do a Zoom call with you. The oh, here are some of our graduates. I’ll show this real quick. So these are the graduates that we’ve had so far, incredible women. I have so enjoyed getting to know them and they really build a community of support with each other. Some of them even have met in person, attended each other in person, speaking engagements. So it’s been so much fun. So here are some of our graduates here. And then again to get your application in, going to speakingyourbrand.com slash academy, fill out the application and then the next step is scheduling a 30 minute zoom call either with myself or with Diane, where we’ll go through your application, answer the questions that you have, and B is the best fit for you and your goals, and then then take you to the next step. All right, everyone, thank you so much for joining us today. It was so great to see you in the chat. And we’ll see you next time.

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