Elevate Your Audience Engagement Skills with These Proven Strategies with Katie Anderson [In-Person Speaking Series]: Podcast Ep: 345

Elevate Your Audience Engagement Skills with These Proven Strategies with Katie Anderson

Subscribe to the podcast!

How do you keep your audience engaged throughout your talk or presentation?

There are basic strategies like asking questions of the audience, but there are more ways to keep your audience interested and engaged.

This is what I talk about with my guest and client, Katie Anderson.

Katie has been around the world, from Portugal to Poland to Brazil, speaking to audiences of all sizes.

In this episode, Katie and I talk about:

  • Strategies she has used that have worked well to keep audiences engaged
  • Fun things she has tried
  • The importance of storytelling, performance, and stage presence
  • A recent challenging speaking engagement that really tested her speaking skills (no surprise to me, she aced it!)
  • How attending our in-person client retreat speaking accelerator dramatically improved her skills and confidenc

This is the first episode in our new podcast series to help you up level your in-person speaking skills.

Registration is now open for our 3-day in-person client retreat speaking accelerator coming up in February 2024 in Orlando, Florida. Get all the details and apply at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/retreat/

About My Guest: Katie Anderson is an internationally recognized leadership and learning coach, consultant, and professional speaker, best known for inspiring individuals and organizations to lead with intention and increase their personal and professional impact. Katie is passionate about helping people around the world learn to lead and lead to learn by connecting purpose, process, and practice to achieve higher levels of performance. Her book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: Lessons from Toyota Leader Isao Yoshino on a Lifetime of Continuous Learning is an international #1 Amazon bestseller.

About Us: The Speaking Your Brand podcast is hosted by Carol Cox. At Speaking Your Brand, we help women entrepreneurs and professionals clarify their brand message and story, create their signature talks, and develop their thought leadership platforms. Our mission is to get more women in positions of influence and power because it’s through women’s stories, voices, and visibility that we challenge the status quo and change existing systems. Check out our coaching programs at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com

Links:

Show notes at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/345/

Katie’s website: http://kbjanderson.com/

Katie’s photos speaking at the Lean Institute Brasil Summit: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kbjanderson_how-do-you-respond-when-the-plan-you-had-activity-7077025294229909504-dZ-j 

Discover your Speaker Archetype by taking our free quiz at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/quiz/

Register for our in-person client retreat = https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/retreat/ 

Connect on LinkedIn:

Related Podcast Episodes:

Episode 249: The Relationship Between Speaking and Performance with Carol Cox

345-SYB-KatieAnderson.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

345-SYB-KatieAnderson.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Carol Cox:
We’re kicking off our new series on in-person speaking with this episode on how to elevate your audience engagement skills with my guest, Katie Anderson. 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 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 to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I’m your host, Carol Cox. We are diving into in-person speaking, which I am so excited about because we’ve been doing more and more in-person speaking here at speaking your brand. And I know that many of you are as well. So we’re going to take the next few episodes to talk about strategies you can use to up level your in-person speaking. Today we’re going to talk about audience engagement. So not only direct audience engagement, asking the audience questions, getting them to participate, but also how do you keep the audience’s attention for 30 minutes, 45 minutes or longer when you can’t ask show of hands questions every minute along the way? That’s what we’re going to dive in today. Today, my guest is Katie Anderson, who was on this podcast back in June of 2022, where she talked about how she’s incorporating more storytelling into the keynotes and the presentations that she does, which ding, ding, ding is a key component of keeping your audience engaged. So we’ll talk about that as well. Katie is a phenomenon. She is a recognized, internationally recognized leadership and learning coach, consultant and professional speaker. She has an award winning book that she published in 2020, and Katie will talk to us about that. It’s called Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn. And she has been all around the world this year speaking, which is why I wanted her to come back on the podcast to talk about some of the lessons and the strategies that she has learned. Katie, welcome back.

Katie Anderson:
Thanks, Carol. I am thrilled to be back here and to talk about how we engage our audiences.

Carol Cox:
Yes. And you are now such a pro at this because I know you do a variety of different types of speaking engagements, everything from workshops for executives at companies, whether that’s in-person and virtual. You also go on stages, whether there’s 500 people or 1500 people and more. You’ve had some really interesting stage experiences this year, which I want to dive into, but let’s kind of set set the stage, so to speak, for the listeners. And, you know, thinking about these speaking engagements, especially the ones you’ve done for the past year or so, what sticks out to you as far as the the main things that you have found? Keep keeps your audiences engaged and with you and wanting to keep listening as you’re going along.

Katie Anderson:
Absolutely. Thanks, Carol. And yeah, I’d say number one is is the storytelling, right? And so this is something that I’ve really been working on with you in particular for, is coming to your retreat in the winter, spring of 2022 last year. And really seeing that I wanted to Uplevel, you know, I’m a really good expert facilitator, you know, and I’m starting to speak on bigger stages about my book and really wanted to be bringing in that storytelling aspect. So I wasn’t doing this so much the teaching from the stage. And I have gotten tremendous feedback that the stories I’ve been bringing in and more of almost the acting, you know, you helped me like others part where I have a lion and I really like acted out, which didn’t feel comfortable to me in the beginning. But I had people coming up to me after my talks being like, I’m the lion too. And so the tweaks that are really like that emotional hook, the storytelling and much more of, you know, just using that physical presence on the stage has been really powerful. And then, of course, you know, as you always talk about having a framework to anchor your messages on so that it’s easy for people to remember and those those are your teaching points. And then you can always do things following. But those are the two things that I’ve found really been the most helpful for audiences.

Carol Cox:
Yeah, and I love the storytelling part and the performance aspects of it. And especially when you are in front of an audience and you know it. People also in this day and age with our social media feeds, I feel like we’re so used to having content go so fast and having short content in different voices and different things that we’re looking at that if you have one speaker on the stage for 30 or 45 minutes, even if there’s a little bit of vocal variation, audiences kind of tune out like our attention spans have have shifted. And I feel like the storytelling and the performance, even just that movement keeps our eyes kind of moving around and keeps then keeps our brains more activated.

Katie Anderson:
Absolutely. And I’ve really observed in the last 18 months of that, you know, beginning of 2022 when conferences were opening up again and then through now. So that 18 months, even how conferences and talks have shifted and the energy that you need to bring to really engage people is different than how it was potentially before the pandemic. I mean, people always enjoyed storytelling and a. Work, but it’s like even more so now because they could just watch you on Zoom. Otherwise, you know, or giving a lecture. There’s some there’s definitely much more of that performance element to it.

Carol Cox:
It reminds me of a presentation that I did at Marketing and Marketing conference in July, and I talked about it on this podcast back last month, and that there was a part where I told a story about the first time that I was taken to Disney World by my mom with my little sister, and how I ended up getting kind of lost, but just went on all the rides by myself for three hours and just like let my mom and my sister worry about me. And but I was totally fine because I was having a grand time. So I told that whole story as an example of great storytelling and how to what different elements to include. And I also acted it out as almost like I didn’t plan to act it out, almost couldn’t help it because I’m like getting into the line to go on the teacups and then I’m going over here and then looking for my mom, right? Yeah.

Katie Anderson:
For sure. For sure. And, you know, I really give a lot of credit to you. And going to the in-person event, it helped me practice in a safe space to do that because that I’m not, you know, I’m like, I’m gesticulate and I’m a very like, I’m a very physical person, but I’ve never felt comfortable with sort of quote unquote, acting, always very comfortable on the stage, you know, talking. But it’s doing that. And I’ve seen my growth as well. You know, one of the the we’re going to dive into a lot of the different specific examples. But one of the most rewarding things is after this conference that I was at in Brazil, some of the people who had seen me actually last fall, so nine months earlier in Colombia, they’re like, oh my gosh, you’ve like you even upped your game on that much on this different level. And all I can tell you more of what some of the things I’ve done that I’ve gotten more comfortable with it and I see the impact and it’s and because I’m not worried about it as much, I can just draw into that. And then it’s become part of my repertoire and it just increasing my confidence in that impact for the audience as well.

Carol Cox:
Well, let’s talk about that speaking engagement in Brazil that you had at the Lean Summit. And obviously, you know, you’re buying into the lean space because of the book and the work that you do. And then I remember we did a coaching session a couple weeks before you were set to fly down to Brazil because all of a sudden they sprung something on you that you had not expected. Can you tell us about that?

Katie Anderson:
Yeah, well, our coaching segment, I think was literally the week before I was going out, Carol, because it was it’s a good, good reminder. We should never make assumptions on format or anything going on and especially with different languages, Right? So so to back up a bit, my book is called Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn, and it’s about a Toyota leader named Asao Yoshino, who I met when I lived in Japan. And I work with continuous improvement practitioners and change leaders all across the world to really create these learning cultures in their organizations. And Toyota is one of the most renowned and well known, you know, continuous improvement learning cultures and oh, published my book in 2020. And since then my book’s been translated by many institutes and publishing companies into I guess we’re almost on 8 or 9 languages now. And so I’ve been invited to all these countries to speak on their main stages, you know, about about the book and my topics as well. So the most recent one was in Brazil, and they put on a huge conference. There were over 1500 people. It was I was both the opening keynote for 25 minutes. And then I was asked to, which I felt very confident on because I’d been doing that on different stages. So even though it was a bigger audience, I felt very comfortable in my delivery of that.

Katie Anderson:
Then the other two talks, which is where I pull, I call a friend really quickly to Carol. We were going to talk about something else is I was to do two separate breakout sessions, which I assumed were like other breakout sessions I’d done, which would be in a separate room with a smaller audience that was dedicated to just my session. And I discovered only through happenstance because I asked for a handout. It happened to be provided to the audience and they said, This is going to be hard. And I was like, I don’t understand. And they said, Well, we’re all going to be in the same room and you’re going to be on the stage with four other people. We’re breaking the 1500 person like Main Stage, which is actually it was massive. I mean, it was a huge stage out into four parts. And people are going to be wearing headphones. And I was like, well, what do you mean? Like we’re wearing headphones? I knew there were some people will be wearing headphones for me because they were doing simultaneous translation interpretation, which I’m familiar with from being in Poland and Colombia and other places. And they don’t know. The speakers don’t. Your voice is not going to be amplified. They’ll just go into the speaker and people can choose which channel they want to listen to.

Katie Anderson:
So people are sitting in the audience and they literally get to choose which of the four speakers. She said, Well, generally people sit in front of the person they’re listening to, so you’ll probably still have like 400 people tuning in because it’s a huge event, but you won’t know who’s there and you can’t do you can’t ask, you know, usually see a breakout session being much more a little bit hybrid of a talk, plus maybe a little workshop. So there can be some interaction. Maybe people turn to each other. And so none of that and thought, oh my gosh, I’m going to have to totally reimagine this. And I’m on a big stage still. So, yes, that’s what we call it called You was really like a silent disco. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to one of these where people like are listening to different things and they have their headphones on. And it was really eerie because I walked in to see a see this before my session and a room of 1500 people completely silent. And you can hear a tiny little voices on the stage of the speakers. But yeah, but it actually worked out great. And so let’s tell the story of what happened.

Katie Anderson:
So I called you knowing that I still needed to have an engaging experience. You know, it was this was an hour long talk with 15 minutes of Q&A and me just up on the stage speaking for an hour and had the two of these separate sessions. So two different talks. And we did have frameworks to use and pull from. But you know, it was so I also wouldn’t know who was in the audience listening to me. So this was another challenge and I wanted them to walk away feeling inspired and engaged and that it was, you know, the kid. They had a great experience, but I wasn’t going to be able to do it in the way that I knew. And one of the most disconcerting things for me as a speaker is I get a lot of energy from seeing the audience and getting some interaction. Even if you’re on the stage as a keynote speaker, being able to read people’s expressions. And so and to know that he’s actually listening. So I was a little worried about that as well, but I decided this was an opportunity to lean into everything that I have been working on and challenge myself to even go further. And so I decided to just go for it. And so, you know, I was using props.

Katie Anderson:
I used storytelling. I use the stage with acting even more like I was really just like, I’m running across the stage and like I was just like I had to amplify everything. And and also, I wanted to figure out who was who was with me and a good friend of mine. She’s like, You have to use the physicality of the room because we could use Slido to like do some polls, which is helpful. And I do use that at the end. I didn’t know who was listening to me, so I came. I had this epiphany using this, this two thumbs up, which is when I go to Japan, one of the companies I go to talks about how to get your enthusiasm and your engagement from your team. And so they do these startup meetings of the day and they in in Japanese is sort of the symbol for awesome. And so I was like, I’m just going to tell this whole story about being in Japan and pictures of me with big groups of like two thumbs up. And so I asked everyone in the audience to say, you know, one of the things about visualizations really important in this world of continuous improvement and lead. And so let’s use the visualization and told story about the two thumbs up and asked everyone to put their two thumbs up.

Katie Anderson:
And I could see there were hundreds of people watching me. And then everyone else in this silent room was able to see, Oh, there’s a lot of engagement going on here. So we’re able to use the physicality of the room as well. So that was one way I’d used audience engagement to really not only help me as a speaker, but also to create that community of who was in there and then not just using the Slido polls. I use that same element of physicality where I’d ask questions to the audience and ask them to put their hands up. And so then we got the we still got the feedback. They can see who was engaged. And I already had sort of a baseline of who was with me. So we could we could work from there. So that was kicking that off is that that first audience engagement was so critical both for the audience but also for me and also freed up my mind. Oh, there’s another story to how. Of in here and had a video that I was able to share later. Of me actually in Japan doing this in two thumbs up so he was able to as he able to think of things that I hadn’t previously thought of for a talk Kitty.

Carol Cox:
Well, a couple of things that pop out to me. First, I love that you were excited about the challenge of doing something that you had never done before. That seems very nerve wracking. Think about you’re on this huge stage with three other speakers. You have no idea in the audience who is listening to you. They all have headphones on. Everyone is silenced. Like you said, you don’t get the same energy and feedback as you would from a regular talk that you would be doing so. But I love that you embraced the challenge of doing that and found ways to to make it work for you and for the audience. And then the other thing is that you talked about having to amplify your presence on the stage and go even bigger and reminds me that I went to New York City in August for for my birthday with my mom, whose birthday is also in August. And so we love to do this trip together. And we went to see a musical on Broadway, which we always love to do. And the same thing with these Broadway performers. I mean, it’s a much smaller venue than what you were in, but they have to be larger than life. They have to amplify everything that they’re doing, the expressions on their face, they’re acting, they’re singing, they’re dancing because they’re on a stage performing for the audience. They can’t give 90%. They can’t even give 100%. They have to give that 120%.

Katie Anderson:
Yes, absolutely. And so it was it was almost liberating, though, to say, you know what, this is a brand experiment for me. And I actually started my talk saying this like saying like, you know, I found out about this format. Like, I have no idea how this is going to go, but I’m here to still deliver on, you know, you having an engaging experience, learning something, feeling inspired. And so those are the principles that are guiding me and let’s go for it. And so it was kind of a nice segway to get into it. And then speaking of other audience engagement, I’ve used this Daruma doll so you can see, you know, I’m obsessed with these Japanese figures that represent the proverb fall down seven times, get up eight. So knowing that we’re going to have setbacks and challenges along the way, the reading at the bottom. So they come back up. And I remembered that in Japan I actually had a daruma I hadn’t used yet. This sad is in I’m showing you right now on my blue Daruma. It says in Japanese. This says in with the Daruma doll showing a thumbs up.

Katie Anderson:
So I brought it as another prop that connected to my story. And so it was just another element that I was able to use. And then I decided, you know what? I always give Daruma dolls these mini ones away as gifts. And instead of giving them my workshop, I decided to throw them into the audience. At the end of my talk. I’m a terrible thrower. It was a little embarrassing, but that also created engagement and enthusiasm in a different way. So, you know, still into this audience, over 1500 people are sitting. But I know most people are sort of in the section in front of me just throwing dolls out and like making it fun, right? Yeah. So that was the best speaker that I’d heard at the conference. They loved it. Both talks and continue to get messages on LinkedIn for people saying how inspired they were by me and not. The energy and also the messages. But if I’d had a talk where I was not being engaging, the messages wouldn’t have landed. And so both the message was important and the delivery was so critical as well.

Carol Cox:
Yes, I love I love the use of the props. And for those of you listening, you can actually see the video of our conversation right now where Katie showed the Daruma doll on the show notes page for this episode. So just click on in your podcast app, go to the show notes page and you can see the video of our conversation. And speaking of props, so that presentation that I did at Makan, I also had a prop where I had these paddles. One side was a smiley face representing a human. The other side was a robot representing I. So different parts of the presentation. I would ask the people in the audience to raise their paddle whether they think the robot or the human either wrote this or who would be better at such and such. And it was just a fun way to have something literally tactical and tangible to have them have that audience engagement.

Katie Anderson:
And absolutely. So that’s great for a somewhat smaller audience where you’re able to set that up in advance and encourage people to think about how could they use Show of Hands or, you know, other physicality from the audience, especially when you’re doing more of a keynote or what seems to be a one way engagement where you’re not able to have people turn next to each other and have conversation as well.

Carol Cox:
Yeah. All right. Katie And so I’m so glad that you had that experience in Brazil and now you’re able to come and share that with us. Let’s talk about some other audience engagement techniques for smaller venues or even even conference sessions where maybe you only have 50 to 100 people. So you can have a little bit more interaction. You mentioned Show of Hands, which is great. One thing that I keep my kind of my attention to is the time of day. I’m speaking at a conference and what participants have done right before my session. So, for example, if I know as towards the end of the day or right after lunch and people naturally are getting a little bit more tired, they’re a little more sluggish, I will sometimes ask questions where instead of show of hands, I’ll have people stand up. So, you know, if if you’re, you know, if your podcast is in this genre. When I spoke at a podcasting conference stand up, if it’s in this one, I really I don’t really care so much about the question. I mean, I do, but I don’t. I just literally want them moving their bodies for a few minutes.

Katie Anderson:
Yes, absolutely. So that that getting people to stand up is great is great as well. The hands, the arms up, any physicality from the audience is different than what they’re used to. Yeah, we can go on to the smaller audience too. This one also fits for a larger or smaller audience. And I did find using something like an interactive slide presentation or the short poll works for doing like a one word, like what was what’s the one word you have taking away or asking a poll here or at the end to get some engagement? So it wasn’t like it totally open, but then it went up onto the main screen so people saw the engagement and the reaction others were having, either in a word, cloud or ranking the things that I was then because I wasn’t able to ask the audience directly always. And so I interspersed the show of hands with the poll online. And so that was another way to also mix up the format that you’re using for engagement. And so that could work for a small conference or for a large one as well.

Carol Cox:
That’s a great, great idea. Katie And also it could work whether in person or virtual presentations.

Katie Anderson:
Absolutely. And I was actually leveraged in a lot of what I have learned from doing so many virtual presentations and not just training, but like he knows I’ve done a lot of those keynotes were really like, I’m looking at my slides and having to project energy to nothing and, you know, and so I was like, I just I’ve gotten really good at just how do you project that energy and engage people? Even if you can’t get this feedback directly from them with eye contact? So how do you use those things as well?

Carol Cox:
Yeah, and let’s think. So some more audience engagement techniques that I know that have been useful to me both virtually and in person, is obviously you can ask questions of the audience again, depending on size. If it’s like the 50 to 75 or even 100 people, you can ask them to answer out loud. The thing that is key and I say a lot of speakers run into this problem, is that they ask questions that are way too complicated for the audience to be able to answer quickly and succinctly. So make sure if you are wanting them to, first of all, let them know you want them to shout out loud or you want them to respond out loud, just like popcorn style. They don’t have to wait for a mic or what have you and then make the questions easy enough for them to figure out an answer really quickly.

Katie Anderson:
Absolutely. So the way I do that in a virtual setting is use the chat function and it doesn’t matter. I mean, I’ve done this with a few hundred people and just you see the words coming through. And then as a facilitator, you can scroll and through and just starting to say some of the words. So it’s still and the people are able to see that as well. So that’s a really nice way to get the that engagement interaction. For people as well.

Carol Cox:
And the one thing also to do is to put the question on the slide that you’re asking the audience of whether you’re in-person or virtual, because sometimes you’ll ask a question and the audience, you know, they were looking at their phone or they just like zoned out for a minute and then like, oh, wait, wait. She asked a question, What did she ask? And and then they feel lost. So always put the question on the slide.

Katie Anderson:
Absolutely. So I try and intersperse having a very simple, dynamic visuals behind me and then use those questions or like a few words to anchor and intersperse as well. Also to mix up the format for people as well.

Carol Cox:
Yeah. All right, Katie, anything else come to mind as far as audience engagement techniques that well, anything that you’ve tried that you’re like that didn’t go as well as I had anticipated.

Katie Anderson:
Yeah. You know, I’ve also been doing some hybrid events as well, like I did this one recently for they were probably 800 people participating in a mix of multi in-person sites. This is for a private client for one of their leadership retreats and being virtual. And so we are trying to figure out we did it twice in the same day. So we had a chance to learn from what worked and what didn’t. And, you know, I think what was hard is we wanted reflection to come in from all the groups, and that was a really hard thing to do. But we had enough people there that we were able to just use the reflection from the people who were in the virtual format. So, you know, it’s challenging to be doing different hybrid things. So I was remote with about a few hundred people remote and then several hundred people in in person. And so how do we still have that engagement and feedback that that that can happen is just something we have to be continuing to experiment with. But they had bunkered on ground facilitators. They were able to have that discussion themselves, but we weren’t able to do it as effectively in that in that environment, but also think it still had a good impact. And so that ultimately doesn’t totally matter. But I think it’s a I’m still my brain’s thinking, how can I make that better for next time in a similar format?

Carol Cox:
One thing that has definitely come out of the pandemic is that there are so many different ways to set up events and speaking engagements. Now, a days before the pandemic, it literally was. You just showed up and you were in person and the whole audience was in person. Or you happened to do a webinar that was online. That was basically the two options. Now there are so many different configurations. And so as the speaker makes sure you’re having conversations with the event organizers, that you understand exactly what the tech is. The setup is in person virtual hybrid, so that you feel confident going into it.

Katie Anderson:
Absolutely. And and clarifying, too. Are you giving so for a virtual session, are you giving a keynote or are you doing a webinar format Because it you show up in a little bit different way and structure things differently as well. So getting clarity on what what the client is expecting can be very helpful.

Carol Cox:
Yes. And on double check with them like a week or two beforehand as well as whatever conversations you had much earlier.

Katie Anderson:
Then clarify if a breakout session is indeed a breakout in a separate room session or that you will be in a silent disco format with multiple people on the stage. I do want to say that I was really worried about was I going to hear other people and it actually was fine. As the speaker. I just spoke to the first few rows of the audience because they could hear me like a normal, normal speaking voice. And so that’s when I really focused on and then project, you know, being bigger than life and projecting out. But it wasn’t as awkward as I thought it was going to be.

Carol Cox:
Right? You weren’t having to scream because obviously you have a mic. So you’re you’re being miked and they’re they’re listening to you through the.

Katie Anderson:
Headphones like, all right, I’m just doing like a workshop of 30 people. Um, oh, another audience engagement thing which I experimented with, was bringing my iPhone on the stage and then taking a selfie with picture with people behind because I had this huge audience. So I had them all doing this thumbs up thing. So then I turned around and, you know, everyone was really excited and happy to put that up. And so I don’t know, it can that can be another fun thing depending on the format that was sort of a spontaneous thing that emerged. But people were so excited. I was like, Oh, let’s take a picture.

Carol Cox:
You have great photos from that Brazil event and I’m going to link to your LinkedIn post in the show notes for the photos that you that I think one of the photos is that the selfie that you did so the listeners can go check that one out and make sure to of course to connect with Katie on LinkedIn when you’re there. Katie, you mentioned earlier that you had attended our in-person client retreat. We did that the first one in April 2022. We did our second one earlier this year, February 2023. We’re doing our next one now. It’s third annual in February 2024 in Orlando, Florida. It is three days. The first two days are practice on our stage. And then the third day is professional filming so that participants leave with video clips that they can use. And obviously all of the practice and feedback from us literally on the stage. So that to work on storytelling, props, the audience engagement, using the stage, the vocal variation and all of that. Katie you mentioned that how helpful it was to you, especially going into a lot of these in-person speaking engagements. What else do you have to say about that experience?

Katie Anderson:
Absolutely. So from a practice in really was the beginning of me getting more comfortable and you challenging me to like do more of the acting and try things out. So that was really tremendously helpful. In addition to all of our virtual coaching as well, and also just the cohort of women who were there. Like I’ve made lifelong friends. I’m working with one of them actually as my business and branding coach that I’ve been working with for a year. And so professional connections, personal connections, just really amazing people that come together with you. Carol. So and the support that we all gave each other to uplevel our. King and was so helpful. So the practice and the being in person and getting back on the stage and trying something different. So you’re not trying it totally on in front of an audience with a real reassuring, reassuring thing for me. And then I was able to build on that. And now 18 months later, I’m like, you know, I always have there more room for improvement than I was so thrilled at being in front of 1500 people and then doing all these other events and really feeling like I really solid and not not nervous. I wasn’t nervous at all. It was great.

Carol Cox:
Well, I feel like Katie, I know you’re a stellar scholar from our speaker Archetype Quiz, and I know so many of our clients are and listeners are. And I, you know, I tend to be that as well. And we live so much of our lives in our heads. We’re smart, we’re high achieving, we’re intellectuals. We think about content a lot. You know, we think about our frameworks and the messages that we want to share with our audience. And I feel like having the practice literally in person on the stage gets us more in our bodies, but then also helps to cement our content in our bodies in a way that’s different than just thinking about it in our heads.

Katie Anderson:
Absolutely. So, you know, I’ve seen it was uncomfortable for me to act out some of these things that we actually created while I was there at the in-person retreat. So, you know, some of the lion mentioned the mathletes, you know, like physically do this and then like map out things and like, oh, this feels really unnatural to me. But doing that and then doing it a few times on stage when it didn’t feel as comfortable for me. So I really had to be thinking about it more than I was able that I’m able to pull those elements into different talks at different times now and just release into into it and can actually be bigger now in the acting it out because I’m not thinking about it so much. So that practice, practice, practice really creates that muscle memory and then you can uplevel your speaking as well because you’re, you’re just in the moment and not having to think about it so much. So I highly recommend Carol, you know, the speaking your brand in person retreat. It was not only great fun and great women, it also just great practice that really up leveled my speaking and I’m getting such positive feedback from it now.

Carol Cox:
Oh well, thank you so much, Katie. And for those of you listening, as of right now, registration is open for February at speaking to brand.com/retreat. Again that’s speaking your brand.com/retreat All the information is on there. The dates, the location, the pricing. What we’re going to do over these three days. Testimonials from women who’ve attended like Katie. It really is an incredible group of women and I feel like I, I feel like I know so many of our clients from Zoom because, you know, we do spend a lot of time literally on screens face to face. But there is something that’s special about having that time in person together. Wow.

Katie Anderson:
Absolutely. So it was it was great.

Carol Cox:
All right, Katie, where can listeners best connect with you and you have a new channel that you are diving into as well?

Katie Anderson:
Thank you. Yes, I’m I’m a high achiever and always putting something new goals in front of myself. So first, my name is Katie Anderson. You can reach me on my website, which is CBJ Anderson with an n.com also. That’s my handle on LinkedIn. So Katie Anderson on LinkedIn is the best social media platform to connect with me there and I have a podcast as well. It was sort of a soft launch, but we I’m working right now to actively uplevel the podcast and make it even bigger right now. It’s been author interviews that I’ve been doing for the last few years and making audio tracks of that, and now I’m going even bigger. So it’s called Leading to Learn, which is part of my my book’s title. So go to Leading to learn on your favorite podcast channels and check out the content that’s there and know that more and better content is even coming more this year as I continue to Uplevel So thank you.

Carol Cox:
Fantastic. Katie Well, thank you so much for coming back on the Speaking Your Brand podcast and for sharing your in-person speaking experience. Here’s to many more fun and challenging ones in the future.

Katie Anderson:
Thank you. I’ll be phoning at Carol to help plan the next ones that come up. Thank you so much.

Carol Cox:
I know I learned a lot of great tips from Katie in this conversation that I’m going to try at my next speaking engagements. I hope you will, too. Be sure to connect with us on LinkedIn and also check out all the details for our upcoming in-person client Retreat Speaking Accelerator happening February 20th, 24 in Orlando, Florida. You can get all the details at speaking your brand.com/retreat. Again, that’s speaking your brand.com/retreat. We’re continuing our new series all around in-person speaking. Next week, we’re going to talk about the impact of expression, vocal variation and body movement. So be sure to stay tuned for that. And until next time, thanks for listening.

Sonix is the world’s most advanced automated transcription, translation, and subtitling platform. Fast, accurate, and affordable.

Automatically convert your mp3 files to text (txt file), Microsoft Word (docx file), and SubRip Subtitle (srt file) in minutes.

Sonix has many features that you’d love including share transcripts, collaboration tools, advanced search, powerful integrations and APIs, and easily transcribe your Zoom meetings. Try Sonix for free today.

Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast!

Get the #1 Proven Lead Generation Tool for Speakers

Leave a Comment





Other podcast episodes you may like...

Feeling Stuck or at a Plateau with Your Brand or Visibility? It's Time to Break the Rules with Carol Cox: Podcast Ep. 423

Feeling Stuck or at a Plateau with Your Brand or Visibility? It’s Time to Break the Rules with Carol Cox: Podcast Ep. 423

SYB-422-Julia-Korn-LinkedIn-1200x630-v2

How to Create a 10-Out-of-10 Keynote that Leaves Your Audience in Awe with Julia Korn: Podcast Ep. 422

100x Your Speaking in a Day: Insights from Our Recent In-Person Workshop with Carol Cox: Podcast Ep. 421

100x Your Speaking in a Day: Insights from Our Recent In-Person Workshop with Carol Cox: Podcast Ep. 421

Speaking Your Brand -Finding and Developing Your Big I.D.E.A. with Carol Cox: Podcast Ep. 354

Finding and Developing Your Big I.D.E.A.: Podcast Ep. 420 [Best Of]