309-SYB-Year-In-Review.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Carol Cox:
I’m taking you behind the scenes for our year end review. What worked, what didn’t, and what’s next on this episode of the Speaking Your Brand podcast? 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 and welcome or welcome back to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. Thank you so much for being here as we close out 2022. Each year I do a year review episode to give you insights into what goes on behind the scenes as speaking your brand. In today’s episode, we’re going to take a look at what we’re celebrating. That went well this year. Things retry. That did not go as well as we had wanted. The larger lessons we’re taking from what worked and what didn’t and what we’re planning for 2023. You can use this template yourself to reflect on and write down your own WINS, experiments, lessons and priorities. Let’s go ahead and dig in. I’m going to start with what worked and things that we’re celebrating because I’m not that great at pausing and smelling the flowers, as they say, and actually celebrating what went well. This is why I like doing this into the year episode, because it allows me to do this.
Carol Cox:
Let’s start with what worked, what we’re celebrating. And this year, in no particular order, The first thing is the speaker archetype quiz that we launched in July of this year. I have been wanting to do a quiz for a while and I was working with a fantastic marketing strategist and we really put everything together to launch it in July, and I’m so glad that we did. We’ve had hundreds of women take the quiz and it’s been so insightful to see how they answer each of the ten multiple choice questions and then which result that they get. There are four different speaker archetypes that I identify stellar scholar, spellbinding storyteller, fabulous facilitator and provocative performer, and about almost half of the quiz takers so far have been stellar scholars. The next one after that, the highest percentage is the spellbinding storyteller, and then the facilitator and then the provocative performer at the end. So it’s been really insightful to have that data to better understand our audience. Plus, it also has helped us to build our email list. So if you don’t have a quiz yet, you may want to consider adding that as far as an email opt in because it is really good for to get people on your email list, especially say, at speaking engagements, podcast interviews that you do and so on. And then you really get to understand your audience better if you have not yet taken our speaker archetype quiz is entirely free.
Carol Cox:
Ten Multiple choice questions just takes you a few minutes to get your result. You can do so at speaking your brand dot com slash quiz. The next thing that I’m celebrating is the in-person client retreat that we held earlier this year. In April 2022 in Orlando. We were very much itching to get back to in-person after. At that point I had been two years of the COVID 19 pandemic. Of course, we had wanted to do an in-person retreat back in the spring of 2020. Obviously that didn’t happen, so we were really excited to be able to do this. We had ten women come to the client retreat. It was over two days in Orlando. They practiced on the stage that we had set up, practice their delivery, use of props, vocal variation and storytelling. And then on the last day they actually got professional filming that they could use for their speaker reel. It was so much fun to be together in person. And I am not an event planner. I know I’ve said this on the podcast before, but it was so transformative that we are doing it again. The end of February 2023, back in Orlando as well. This time we’re doing it over three days so that we really have a time on the first day to give women coaching and feedback on the speaking segments that they want to film in the last day.
Carol Cox:
So the first day is all about working on the segments of their talk. The second day will be focused on practicing on the stage and getting our feedback, which is so helpful. You can see them instantaneously take our feedback and adjust what they’re doing on the stage. And the third day is the professional filming. If you would like to get information about the retreat and see if it’s a good fit for what you’re looking to do, that information is that speaking your brand retreat against speaking your brand retreat? And as of the time of this recording, I think we have three spots left in that. The third thing that we’re celebrating this year is our Thought Leader Academy. We launched the Thought Leader Academy in October of 2020, so we’re now going over two years. This year alone. In 2022, we’ve worked with about 50 women in it. And I just I enjoy it so much as women from all different industries, different types of businesses that they’re in, and really to see how much they learned from each other precisely because they’re in different industries and they can see what what’s possible, what they maybe haven’t thought about for themselves and how supportive they are as they go through the program together. And I’ll talk a little bit more about the. Thought Leader Academy in just a moment. The next thing that we’re celebrating is just in December of this year.
Carol Cox:
Just a few weeks ago, I decided to hold a half day online workshop around storytelling. We haven’t actually done this particular format before. I’ve done in-person workshops back before the pandemic, but not in a half day online workshop. But I wanted to experiment, so we did that and I really enjoyed it. The women who attended, we had about 15 women on the workshop. They really got a lot of value out of it because it was very hands on and they did the work in the workshop because that was the whole value proposition. We don’t want to give you a whole lot of extra work to do, especially at the end of the year. Come to the four hour workshop, get the instruction, work on your stories, and then practice sharing them and get feedback right then and there. So related to this, the next thing that we’re celebrating is that all through this year, I’ve been really focused on making sure that we’re creating more intellectual property assets and branded materials for the business. So everything from the actual printed workbook that we created for the client retreat, which we’ll do again for the next retreat, we’re also creating a printed workbook for the Thought Leader Academy, working on branded materials for our signature Talk Canvas framework. That three act structure that we use as we work with women on their signature talk. So creating branded materials around that is one thing that we’ve been doing this year and we’ll continue to do.
Carol Cox:
The next thing that I’m celebrating are the in-person speaking engagements that I got to do this year. I did one in January, April and then October and November, and I really enjoyed getting back in front of live audiences, talking to women there, hearing what they’re working on, and just having that energy being in person. I gave a keynote this past October and I really enjoyed working on that because that gave me a chance to take some material that I had been working on but then develop it even further. I integrated video clips, sound effects, music. I really like to make it immersive and interactive. And in that keynote that I actually developed a new framework. It’s around three stages that many of us as women go through when we start using our voices in those three stages that I identify were promise peril and then power. And I’ll be talking more about those in an upcoming podcast episode. So stay tuned for that. Speaking of the podcast and celebrating. So we’re definitely celebrating over 300 episodes of the Speaking Your brand podcast is Here is episode number 309. We have over 413,000 downloads now, and I was looking at the stats podcast downloads grew by 70%, seven zero, 70% this year and 2022 compared to the number of downloads for 2021. The increase was most likely due to people getting kind of back to their quote unquote regular routines after the pandemic 2020, 2021.
Carol Cox:
I definitely saw a decrease in podcast downloads because people I assume because they weren’t driving as much community commuting as which they kind of weren’t in the same types of habits. And so I think that’s why podcast downloads grew now this year in 2022, because people were getting back to that. The most streamed episode on Spotify was episode 275. This was back from the summer and it was titled Public Speaking has Changed the three skills you need now to get selected, Stand out and make money as a speaker. That was interesting to me that that was the most streamed episode. It was also probably one of the longest. It was almost an hour long because it came from the webinar. It was the audio from the webinar that I had done. If you’re a podcaster or Spotify has this kind of like unwrapped thing that they do for podcasters where you can see which was your most streamed episode, your listeners, things like that. And this episode was streamed by like 500% more than any of the other ones. So if you haven’t listened to that one, apparently it’s a good one. People liked it. So that was episode 275. The next thing that I’m celebrating are the incredible women who work with us here as speaking your brand. You all know Diane Diaz. She’s been on the podcast a number of times. Her four year anniversary, working with Speaking Your brand is coming up in February, so just a couple of months.
Carol Cox:
Selita Roberts is our client concierge. She’s been with us now for two years. We had Joy Spencer work with us as a coach and the Thought Leader Academy. I have a new executive assistant, Lacey, who is incredible. And we have other contractors and people that we work with, like graphic designers and copywriters and things like that. And I just I am so grateful for how incredible they are, the work that they do, but also how incredibly supportive they are of all of the women that we work with. And so really this podcast and speaking to your brand would not exist without them. So thank you to our team members. And overall the business is doing really well. I was looking at kind of the numbers here as we get to the end of the year and it grew by 30% for 2022 compared to 2021, which is which is fantastic. I’m so grateful for that because it allows us to continue to grow, to bring on new team members and to continue to to innovate and to think about the kind of content and programs that we want to bring to you. So those were the overall what worked what we’re celebrating this year. So let me talk a little bit about what didn’t work as well as I would have liked. The first thing is writing my book.
Carol Cox:
At the end of last year, I had I told you all and I wanted to keep myself publicly accountable that I was working on a book proposal for the book idea that I had. And I did work on a good chunk of the book proposal, including comparative analysis, the overview, even a sample chapter, all of the chapter summaries. And I just felt like there was just something missing in it that wasn’t quite wasn’t quite what I wanted yet. And I attribute that partly to just the headspace like I’ve been, you know, the business was was growing a lot. We were doing the retreat. We had all of our thought leader Academy enrollments. So I just I feel like I didn’t quite have the headspace to really devote to writing the book like I had wanted to. Like, I’m the kind of my creative process is that I need a lot of space. I’m not the kind of person who can say, get up in the morning and just spend 30 minutes or an hour writing and kind of incrementally get to the creative output. I’m the kind of person where I need like three or four weeks of space of no zoom appointments, like nothing else to do, just like clearing, like literally clearing my calendar clearing and then clearing my mind. And it takes me probably like a week to even get into that. And then I’m able to do that kind of this big creative push.
Carol Cox:
So I think that’s what I’ll need going forward if I when I get back to thinking about what it is I really want the book to be about too. The second thing that didn’t work as well as I would have liked is the other program that we launched at the beginning of 2022, our Catalyst Collective, which was our advanced program for women speakers, and we had eight women in it. It was a six month program, so we had eight women in it from January to June. And I think at least half of them, maybe five of the eight, attended our in-person client retreat. I absolutely loved working with them. They are amazing women. So that so the first six months of Catalyst work, great. But then I found that it was really hard for me to market and sell to different programs. So I had we have the Thought Leader Academy, which is our signature program, our primary program, and then the Catalyst Collective. And so trying to make sure that we were filling both programs was really hard. So I decided to pause on the Catalyst Collective in the summer and then we may bring it back in some form going forward. So that was one of the lessons that I took from that, is that the way the business is right now, the size of the business is right now really focusing on just the thought Leader Academy is what makes sense.
Carol Cox:
And then the third thing that didn’t work, this is actually related to thought Leader Academy is that we tried ongoing enrollment prior to this spring of 2022. The Academy was cohort based, so everyone who enrolled would start at the same time and then they would all graduate on the same date. So it was a 16 week program, four months, everyone would start and then everyone would graduate. We did that in 2020 and all through 2021 and the beginning of 2022. And there were a lot of benefits to that because it was a cohesive group. Everyone was starting and ending at the same time. Everyone was going through the same materials at the same time. But then from a business point of view, it’s challenging because say, say someone who was interested in enrolling came to us a month after that group had started. They would have to wait another three or four months before they could join, which was kind of a long time. And so I decided earlier this year to try ongoing enrollment to basically have was like basically every month or so, every 4 to 6 weeks, women could join. So they would kind of just go into whoever was already currently in the program. So some people would be graduating, some people would be starting. And I think we did a pretty good job of making sure that our weekly group Zoom calls and the content that we were working on made sense for the women depending on where they were in the program.
Carol Cox:
But I also felt like we lost a little bit of that cohesiveness. Yes. And so this is now going so that was one thing that we try because I’ve seen a lot of other coaching programs do ongoing enrollment. And again, there’s kind of like the pros and cons to it, just like we experienced ourselves. So this goes now into the next section of our year in review, which is the overall lessons, the bigger lessons that I’m taking from what worked and what didn’t work. The number one lesson is to experiment with our offers and adjust our programs to best serve our clients. So one of the things that we’re doing is that we’re taking the Thought Leader Academy and we’re putting it back to cohort based enrollment like we had been before. Along with that, we are streamlining it from 16 weeks to eight weeks. So from four months to two months to really focus on thought leadership and the signature talk, the prior versions of the Leader Academy, the 16 week version, we did a lot in it thought leadership signature talk a thought leadership container like. Launching a podcast or a LinkedIn live show, we would talk about visibility and speaking strategy. There was a lot in it. It was very comprehensive. But the feedback that we get, we would get from some of the women who went through it was a little bit overwhelming.
Carol Cox:
There was a lot to work on, There was a lot of video instructions and things that we were talking about week to week. And so it felt at times overwhelming. So we’ve decided to streamline it from 16 weeks to eight weeks because really our big promise to the clients who work with us is to help you shift from being an expert presenter to a thought leader. And the way to do that is to make sure that you are creating a transformative talk and learning how to create a transformative talk, which means your thought, leadership message. But then all the elements that go into making a really great talk. So that’s what we’re focused on. During the eight weeks of the Thought Leader Academy, everyone who enrolls gets a virtual VIP day use so that you use our signature talk canvas framework to create your talk. And then we have the weekly group Zoom Calls to go through different elements of the talk and your thought leadership. And so for you to get feedback on that, our next group starts January ten, So it’s coming up pretty soon. You can get all of the details and you can’t enroll directly. If you know you’re ready, you can just enroll directly and sign up or you can schedule a call with us if you want to talk first about the program, all that information as a speaking your brand slash academy. The other thing as far as experimenting with our offers is doing that half day storytelling workshop that we did in December.
Carol Cox:
And so really thinking about doing more half day workshops and one day workshops both online and in person, it’s a great way for women to get to know us, get to know our style, kind of get to know the other women who we work with. You also get a lot of stuff done in that 4 hours or in that one day, which is nice. And it also helps us to create more materials and assets and IP as we do these workshops. So more on the in the in-person version of that in just a moment. So that was my number one lesson, is really experimenting with our offers and adjusting our programs to make sure that we’re best serving our clients. The second lesson is how important relationships are. Now, I know you’ve heard this before. This is no surprise, and any time anyone ask what’s important in business or in life is definitely relationships. But I added I included this in this lesson here for this year in particular, because I’ve seen how much the relationships that I have built over the past five or six years since I started speaking your brand, how much I still go back to those women that I met three, four, five years ago and how much I appreciate hearing what they’re doing, learning from them, sharing with them what I’m doing, and then just getting getting kind of that feedback, that validation and just that friendship that we have with each other.
Carol Cox:
And I think about the mastermind groups that I was a part of way back in 2015, 2016, 2017, and how important those relationships are and also how important the relationships are that I have in the Orlando community where I’ve lived. I’ve lived here in Central Florida for almost 20 years and everything from my days and local politics to my time and tech entrepreneurship to then when starting speaking, your brand and all of the women’s business groups that I used to be a part of, So many of those relationships have not been nurtured over the past few years because of the pandemic and obviously not going to in-person events. And a lot of those groups and activities had to pause and then some of them are starting back up, but really thinking about how much relationships really contribute to not only the success of a business, but really just the enjoyment of going of having a business and the enjoyment of going through life. So that’s the second lesson, is relationships and really focusing intentionally on those. And then the third lesson is marketing is changing and oh, it is changing big time. I’m going to talk so much more about this on next week’s episode on Trends. That’s my favorite episode to do probably of the year is the Trends episode I do at the beginning of every year.
Carol Cox:
Oh my goodness. You’re cannot wait to listen to this one, because if you’ve been hearing anything about what’s going on with artificial intelligence, stable diffusion and Dolly with the the artwork chat, GPT, it is amazing and also terrifying at the same time. So marketing is definitely changing. And I know here speaking your brand, we’re going to be very much attuned to how a changing and what to do. And I’ll put a plug in here for public speaking. The best way to get in front of an audience so that you know that they are listening to you and paying attention to you and interacting with you is to be in person in front of them at an event or at a conference or even virtually doing like a smaller, you know, a presentation to 20 people or to 100 people online. But really, public speaking, I feel like is going to be even more important going forward as some. With marketing is going to be changing online. Let’s talk now about what’s next for us for 2023. So we’re definitely going to be focused on doing adding more in-person work to the work that we do. Obviously, we’ve been doing basically everything online for almost three years now. Before the pandemic, we did quite a bit in person as well. Women would fly in for VIP days tier to Orlando. I would do workshops here in Orlando, so I really want to get back to that.
Carol Cox:
I’m looking to see about finding an office space that we can use in Orlando that also we can use as a podcast studio so that we can have clients come to us to do workshops and VIP days. And also I’m considering going to different cities in the US to do one day workshops where we have concentrations of clients. So places like Charlotte, San Francisco, Denver, New York City and so on. So that is something that is an idea that we have. If that’s something that’s of interest to you, definitely reach out and let me know. And then of course, for in person, we also have our client retreat speaking intensive in person. That’s coming up at the end of February in Orlando. So the second thing for what’s next for 2023 is Diane and I have been talking about starting a local women’s business group. Because of the pandemic, some of the business women’s business groups kind of went dormant, haven’t come back. And we really feel like there’s an opportunity to to have one that’s really focused on community conversations, storytelling, vulnerability, all of those things. And so that’s really what we want to do coming into 2023. I’ve been reading a new book about Purpose by Gina Bianchini. She is the founder of Mighty Networks. That’s the the community online community software that we use for the Thought Leader Academy, Mighty Networks. She was she was on the podcast, I think, back in 2020 maybe.
Carol Cox:
Anyway, so she has a new book called Purpose, which is all around building community, really great book if you are interested in building community. So that’s our second initiative for 2023 is starting a local women’s group, the third initiative for 2023 or what’s next is related to actually this podcast that you’re listening to right now. This coming February will be the sixth year anniversary of the podcast. I can’t believe it’s been nearly six years. I have so enjoyed doing the podcast, interviewing women that I find online that I want to get to know better, interviewing our clients to bring them to you so that you can learn about these amazing woman that we work with doing the solo episodes. But I also recognize that I really want to change it up. I want to try some different things on the podcast, so we’re going to have some guest hosts come on so that you can hear from their perspectives. I also have some ideas to do a series of episodes to explore a topic from different angles and perspectives and industries. So maybe we’ll do a series around artificial intelligence and look at it from different angles or different industries. Maybe we’ll do another podcast series around, I don’t know, maybe like a particular industry, like women in STEM, but have different angles of it. So some ideas for kind of how to kind of bring some fresh energy into the podcast.
Carol Cox:
On a personal note, as far as what’s next for 2023, I really want to have more experiences, obviously, then having been through this pandemic and having curtailed so many of the things that I love to do, whether it’s going to plays and performances and concerts and travel really want to get back to doing that. Diane and I have even talked about taking a stand up comedy class together. We took an improv class back at the beginning of 2020, which was so helpful, even though it was really hard. And we know the stand up comedy class is going to be really hard as well, but we want to push ourselves. Plus, it helps us to understand humor and comedy for our own speaking engagements and helping you all with using humor into your talks. I also have a trip planned to New York City to see some Broadway plays and really just getting back to in-person events and conferences as well. So take what I just went through to reflect on your own year. Celebrate what went well. Consider what didn’t work as well as you would have liked the big picture lessons that you can apply going forward and what you want to focus on for the coming year. As I mentioned, next week we’re going to take a look at trends for 2023. You won’t want to miss that episode, so make sure to hit, follow or subscribe in your podcast app. Until next time. Thanks for listening.
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