Steps for Creating Your Speaking and Visibility Plan with Carol Cox and Diane Diaz: Podcast Ep. 367

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Carol Cox:
We’re sharing specific steps you can use as you develop your speaking and visibility plan on this episode of the Speaking Your Brand podcast.

Carol Cox:
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.

Carol Cox:
Hi there and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I’m your host, Carol Cox, a joined today by our lead speaking coach, Diane Diaz. Hi, Diane.

Diane Diaz:
Hi, Carol.

Carol Cox:
Well, happy New Year. We are kicking off the New Year talking about how to create a speaking and visibility plan for the year, because obviously, I’m sure this is a on your mind as thinking about what kind of speaking do you want to do? What kinds of events and conferences do you want to pitch at? Where are your ideal clients? Where are those audiences at? How can you pitch effectively, and how can you find those speaking engagements that are going to light you up? This is something that Diane and I do every single year. Towards the end of the year, we look back on the speaking engagements and the other visibility that we’ve done, whether it’s podcast guesting, presenting at virtual groups, attending different events, and then we think about, well, which ones not only were effective, but which ones did we actually enjoy attending or speaking at, and then using that as a guide to think about what we want to do for the next year. And so, Diane, thinking about the speaking engagements that you did in 2023, which 1 or 2 lit you up the most?

Diane Diaz:
Hmm. That’s a good question. Well, I really loved the speaking, um, engagement that I did at the Women’s Executive Council, which is a local women’s professional women’s group, and that was on the magic of storytelling. And I loved that talk because, number one, I love to talk about storytelling, but second, because the audience was excited about the topic as well, because I think it’s a topic that’s not often delivered to groups like that. And it was very interactive, and I made it fun because I incorporated magic and even magic wands. And so that was probably the most fun talk that I gave all year.

Carol Cox:
And storytelling is a fun topic anyways, because not only do you get to share the power of storytelling with the audience, but you get to kind of see the light bulbs go off for them when they realize, oh, like, actually, I should be sharing stories, even if it’s in a business context.

Diane Diaz:
Absolutely. And in the talk I had, of course, audience engagement, had them do some activities and then asked people to share the stories that they had crafted, and they did so well. And the rest of the people hearing them share that story, they were just blown away by it. So it really just worked on so many fronts and was so engaging and fun.

Carol Cox:
So then that says we need to find some more speaking engagements for you in 2024 that had to do around the topic of storytelling and obviously also personal branding, since I know that’s also another area that you speak about a lot. So thinking about my speaking engagements for this year for for 2023, my favorite was definitely Macon, the marketing AI conference that I went to in Cleveland, Ohio. That was in July of 2023. And because I started kind of getting excited about it and working with AI at the beginning of 2023 and then started pitching myself to speak at AI related conferences, got selected for that one. Had so much fun putting that presentation together about how to maintain your brand voice, even while using AI and tools like ChatGPT, because it kind of was a creative outlet for me to create something brand new content wise that I hadn’t done before, but then also incorporating props like, we had these really fun panels where people answered human or AI with them, lots of video clips and interactivity. So that was fun. So definitely going to be finding some more AI related conferences in 2024. So I know that, you know, for for the listeners, questions you may have would be, okay, so where do I find events or how do I know what events are the best fit for me, how to pitch or even maybe you’re wondering how to narrow and decide on the 1 or 2 topics that you want to pitch on. Maybe you have a lot of different topics that you could speak on, or you have spoken on in the past, but then how do you kind of identify which are the best ones? But it’s also more than just finding random events and conferences, because sure, you could do a Google search on a particular industry and you could find a lot of different events and conferences that are going on related to that, but it’s really needing to know which are your best events and which are the best audiences to speak at, to achieve the specific goal that you have.

Carol Cox:
Because there’s a lot of different reasons. You could be speaking and doing visibility. So you want to focus on what is that goal that you have. So we’re going to talk about that today. What you’re speaking and visibility goals could be. And then how to determine your ideal events and audiences based on those goals. And we’re going to do an exercise together. That was I was surprisingly. Challenging to do, and I, I actually brought Diane in on this about a month ago to help me with this exercise, because my brain was stumped and I needed we needed double brain power on it. So hopefully we’ll be able to give you that double brain power today to help you through this exercise. And if you’re new to speaking your brand, welcome here. We work with women entrepreneurs, executives, and leaders to help them develop their thought leadership message and create their signature talks. And we do that primarily in our Thought Leader Academy online program, where we work on not only helping you craft your speaking and visibility plan and your personal brand plan, but also, of course, creating your signature talk. Talk about the business of speaking and so much more.

Carol Cox:
You can get all the details about the Thought Leader Academy as speaking your brand. Com slash academy. All right Diane, so let’s dig in first to helping listeners identify the best audiences and types of events for them. And let’s go ahead and start with that exercise that I had mentioned that left me stumped. So this came from a course, an online course from Michelle Warner. It’s called networking that pays. It’s a self-paced course, and I’ll include a link in the show notes. I highly recommend it. It’s very well done. I had she’s in one of the kind of communities that I’ve been familiar with for the past number of years. So I started going through the course and I ended up about halfway through. And she has this excellent exercise, and it’s based on the five whys you may have be familiar with the five whys. It may have come from Toyota and kind of like lean manufacturing or somewhere in kind of that industry. And the idea is if you’re faced with a problem or a challenge, keep asking why. So you don’t just kind of stop at the superficial reason, but like, why is this going on? Okay, well then why is that going on? But then why is that going on? And you keep digging down further and further until you get to the root. Well, you can apply the same thing when we think about what is the goal that you have related to speaking and visibility. And then once you understand why you want to do speaking and visibility, then you’re going to drill down into, okay, so then if that’s the reason why you do it, want to do it, that’s your goal, then what’s the next thing.

Carol Cox:
So then why do you want to do that? Or how do you get to the people that are going to help you? So Diane and I know you you we talked about this and we’ve been going through the workbook on it. So let me run through my example and then we’ll see how this goes. And then and give listeners kind of some questions they can think of for themselves. So in this case this was you know, why do I want why do I want to do speaking engagement. So this is for me personally for Carol okay. So I want to do speaking engagements to attract clients because every time I go out and speak, especially to women entrepreneurs and leaders, we always get clients from women who are in the audience because obviously speaking is a great way to develop, you know, credibility and authority. They see you in action, they get to know you, and then they’re interested and intrigued to work with you. Okay, so that’s a reason to get clients okay. So then if that is it, that’s the if that’s the goal is to get clients, then how do I find those speaking engagements that are going to have the women in them who are our best clients? So, Diane, how would you describe the women that we work with, especially, say, in the Thought Leader Academy, the type of women like, what types of conferences and events would they be showing up to?

Diane Diaz:
Um, I would say, well, generally they tend to be professional or entrepreneur women who are usually 40 ish to 60 ish, um, accomplished, you know, been doing what they’ve been doing maybe a while. And so the types of events that they might attend would be obviously conferences for professional women, or it might even be association professional association related organizations. Um, you know, organizations specific to certain industries where they’re in marketing or whatever they’re doing in that industry. Um. Local chambers of commerce also, and sometimes the sort of sub women’s groups within those chambers of commerce. Um. So those types of groups I would start with.

Carol Cox:
Yes. And so and so understanding not only okay, it’s professional women, entrepreneurial women, but like you mentioned in a certain age group, because that tends to be there in a certain place in their business, in their career where this speaking and thought leadership is, they’re ready for it and they want to do it. So then that tells us that even though going to speak to college age women, we, you know, we we may want to do that as a way to give back. But knowing that that’s the reason we’re doing it, the goal is not to get clients from there. The goal would be for something else, right. So that’s so thinking of that. Or say if you uh, we have also a number of clients who are physicians, pharmacists, therapists. So kind of like in that health related space. So again, like finding those, those events and conferences where those types of women go, yeah, knowing that it’s probably not the academic conferences that they’re going to be at or say like a conference put up by a pharmaceutical manufacturer, like we’re probably not going to show up and speak to the people there, but are there, you know, like women in pediatrics.

Carol Cox:
One of our clients runs a group called Women in Pediatrics for physicians. And so those are the types of groups. So that’s why it’s important to understand the goal you have for the speaking. And then thinking about, well where are those. Where are your clients at. Where are they getting to? Okay. So we understand then, and those are the types of events that we would want to be speaking at. So then the question becomes okay, so how do we actually get to speak there. Like what is right. What is the process to do that. So we’ve identified the types. And so then I would start. Well in the best way really is to build relationships with the people who put on those groups and put on those events, because you don’t necessarily you’re not, uh, networking or finding the clients, like, you’re not trying to network with the people who are going to be in the audience. You want to network and build relationships with the people who are running the events. So, Diane, what has worked well for you in that way?

Diane Diaz:
Hmm’hmm. I would say, well, on a local level, actually attending organizations meetings. So for example, if I’m using the talk I gave at Women’s Executive Council. My going to those meetings and meeting the president of the group, who is one of the people who looks for speakers for the group. Right. So when you’re attending the events and you can get a feel for the types of speakers they have, and then, yes, you could potentially get clients by talking one on one with women in the group. But if you can get a speaking engagement to speak in front of the group, then you can speak to more people. But that requires you getting to know the people who look for the speakers, right? So so I need to look for more groups like that and get connected with the people who are looking for the speakers for those groups.

Carol Cox:
And there’s an association called MPI Meeting Planners International, and they have chapters all over the place. They have a chapter here in Orlando where we live. So those are literally meeting planners. They’re they’re event organizers. That’s what they do. So we could number one, go to attend the events that they’re having locally to kind of get to know the people who show up, but then offer to speak. Maybe we could do a session for them on, like, how to identify the best speakers for your event. So then they get to know us in a way, rather than just kind of pitching them cold emails and say, hey, can I come, you know, keep me in mind if you need a speaker for your next event.

Diane Diaz:
Yes. You know, I want to say in relation to that little known fact, I think most people are under the misconception that you have to be a member of certain groups to attend their luncheons. Now, some groups probably you do a lot of groups, though will have a member price and a non member price because they’re looking to get new members. So they want to entice you to join the group and that’s how they’re doing it. But that could be a good way for you. Like with MPI I don’t know specifically if MPI does that. I’m guessing they do. You could attend as a non member. And then this is going to get you starting to know number one what types of events they have where they look for speakers. Also who’s in the group and who are those people that are possibly then looking for speakers for other events because their event, their meeting planners, this is what they’re doing. So you can at least start to get a feel for who is in the group and how you can network with the right people to get to the ones who are looking for the speakers.

Carol Cox:
Yeah. So that’s perfect. So we’re gonna we’re gonna go back here in just a little bit and kind of recap the different ways that we do this. But let me give you now a different example. So we talked about kind of local your local community and local groups. And that’s definitely where you should be spending some time there. And we’ll come back and share some more tips related to that. But let me go to the eye space which is which is different. So there’s definitely local groups that I could speak about related to. I there’s, you know, like tech developer groups. But then I’m looking at conferences. So then I start looking at, okay, what conferences are going to be going on in 2024. That number one, what I would like to attend anyways. So ones that are of interest to me. And so then I said, okay, you know, do they have a call for speakers open or do they have a date when they’re going to open a call for speakers. So then I could just submit my speaking proposal, which I could do, but to give me a leg up, but I would what would be better is to start interacting with those decision makers, to start interacting with the people who run the conference.

Carol Cox:
So find them on LinkedIn, especially LinkedIn. Connect with them. Start commenting genuinely on their post. Right? Like share their content. That’s good. If they have good content, you know, share it. See if there’s a way that you can kind of get to know them a little bit better. If you host a podcast, see if they want to be a guest on your podcast. That’s an excellent way to build a relationship where it’s an easy ask. So most people will say yes to being on a podcast because they know it’s visibility for them. But now you have an opportunity to have a conversation with them versus a, can I just have a 30 minute call with you? Because I want to pinch myself to speak at your conference, which, you know, they’ll be less likely, uh, maybe to say yes to that. So like, again, think about how can you start getting your face and name known to the decision makers well before you’re pitching to speak there?

Diane Diaz:
Yes. And you might also consider a couple of things there may be, depending on the conference, some opportunities to volunteer for the conference. So maybe there’s something that you can provide where it’s helpful to them, but then it kind of gets you in with the event organizers and the conference organizers. So that’s something to think about. If, of course, if you have the time. And the other thing is, when you’re looking for these conferences, some conferences are not like in the I example, they’re not necessarily an AI conference, but there’s a conference where there’s an AI track because they’re trying to teach the attendees something related to AI. So I would suggest some conferences will say, um, they’ll have a page on there about the conference and they’ll say, uh, training sessions in the past have included or we’re looking for training sessions that include and then they’ll have. This listing of different topics. And so sometimes you’ll find one and you think, well, that’s interesting. I didn’t think this group would be interested in AI, but oh look, I can talk about that. Let me submit to this conference. So be on the lookout for all of those things.

Carol Cox:
Yes. Like, I know there’s associations of accountants and PR professionals, and I know we’ve been looking at some of these different associations or they have reached out to us. And for whether it’s about personal branding or about AI. And you would think, well, I’m not presenting it a topic on accounting, but that’s great because they don’t really need that, like they don’t need necessarily. They probably know speakers in their industry. They’re looking for adjacent topics where they don’t necessarily know who to go to. For those.

Diane Diaz:
Yes. So try to explore the. So for instance, let’s say that the conference from the accountants already happened this year. But maybe they they say like what all the different speakers spoke about. And you can see what the breakout sessions were. And if there were breakout sessions on, let’s say, personal branding. Oh, okay. So maybe this group is one I want to target.

Carol Cox:
Yeah, that’s a great idea. All right. So then so we kind of you know we so once you have a good understanding of what are the best types of events and audiences for you, don’t limit yourself to just the industry you’re in. So again like go to accounting and PR and engineers and physicians, because depending on the work that you do and your speaking topic, it could, you know, it could be applicable to all of those different things. And that will give you a way to kind of pitch yourself with a unique angle to those specific types of events. So let’s let’s go back and kind of give the listeners a concrete way to start thinking about this as they’re working on their speaking and visibility plan for the year. So the first thing is we started with is definitely fine local events and groups to speak at, because getting known in your local community, number one, you’re going to build relationships that are going to last for years to come. Diane and I, I have relationships with event organizers and with women in the community that are 20 years old at this point. Basically, I’ve lived here for in this area for 20 years, and I still see them at events like we still are in contact with each other and I’m so grateful for that. So start. So speaking your local community, you can search on Google obviously with your the name of your city or town or your area, search on Eventbrite. Eventbrite oftentimes has a lot of event listings on there. So search there. Look at coworking spaces in your area. A lot of coworking spaces or membership groups have events going on. Professional associations. A lot of times they’ll have local chapters.

Carol Cox:
Also ask people, you know who live in the area, just like reach out and say, hey, you know, I’m looking for some groups that are kind of like a that do this thing or have these types of people in the audience, you know, do you have any that you would recommend that you know of? And then you’re going to probably you’re going to have a list, maybe your list has five on it, maybe you has 10 or 20. Pick three. That’s it. Just pick three groups to start with because. And then just kind of maybe just say like which ones seemed the most interesting to you. Like don’t overthink it or overanalyze it. Just like which ones seem the most interesting and fit your schedule based on their when they’re having their luncheons and their meetings and then show up, don’t just send them an email to pitch to speak right off the bat, show up at their events, get to know the other members, get to know the event organizers, be genuinely interested and contribute back to what they’re doing. So then after you’re kind of you do that, you may end up out of those three initially, you may end up with one group that you really jive with, like you really feel like this is a good fit for me. So keep investing time in them, and then maybe go back to your list and find that another group, maybe the other two didn’t work out initially, find that other group and then start attending them. But like pace it like, you don’t have to do this all within the first month of the year, right? Diane? Right now.

Diane Diaz:
It’s true. You could literally go to something every week or multiple times a week because there’s so many groups and they all have luncheons. I mean, you could be so busy doing just that. You do want to be strategic about how you’re doing it. And that’s how I identified this Women’s Executive Council that I really felt a connection with. So now I go to their meetings regularly and then that frees up time. So maybe I tried out some other ones and I’m like, not quite a fit. That’s freed up some time that I can explore some new ones and see if they’re a fit too. And then that way you’re being very strategic about how you’re spending your time, where you’re going.

Carol Cox:
Exactly. And then once you start to kind of get to know the the people who run the group, and then you’ve shown up a few times, you can say something to like, you know, I really have enjoyed this. You know, I have a topic that I speak on that I think would be really valuable to your audience, to the members, and obviously kind of craft the angle of your topic to to truly fit what you think would be a value and interest to them, and then just say, you know, I’d be happy to come speak at your next luncheon or, you know, your luncheon in three months or whatever it happens to be, and, and kind of try to get a date on the calendar.

Diane Diaz:
I want to add to two other things or other potential resources for looking for groups. One is that don’t discount your local universities. Colleges because they often have professional groups connected to the college. That they’re not full of college students, but they’re full of business people going to these these meetings. So junior colleges, senior, you know, universities check those out. Also, if you have a large conference center like we have the Orange County Convention Center here, they will often publish a list on their website of conventions coming to their space. So that’ll give you an insight to local conventions. Because if maybe you’re someone who doesn’t want to travel for conventions because there’s often unpaid speaking, but if it’s local. So explore what organizations are coming there, and then go to those websites to check out what the conference is going to be, what sorts of tracks they’re looking for, and speakers and all of that.

Carol Cox:
That’s a great, excellent point. Yes. Yeah, I like the convention centers or like places where, you know, a lot of events tend to happen in your area.

Diane Diaz:
Yes. And we live in the Orlando area, so we have a lot of places like that. But I’m almost every city has a at least a place where a lot of events happen. So check out to see if they have a calendar on their website.

Carol Cox:
Well, and speaking of conferences. So that’s our kind of next bucket. So we talked we talked about local groups. So let’s talk about conferences. So as I mentioned like searching Google is one of the best ways to find conferences. Start again. Start with kind of the ones that you think would be most interesting to go to. Maybe you’ve heard other people have attended, or maybe you’ve heard other people who have spoken at particular conferences, and those are the ones that are interesting to you when you’re searching on Google. Uh, Diane, what do you find is effective for kind of either, you know, because search results can get really, really long.

Diane Diaz:
Yes, yes, actually, I was just doing this yesterday, so it’s very timely here. Um, I like to search rather than just conference. You can start with conferences, maybe conferences and then a topic, maybe something like if I was in the medical profession, medical conferences or something like that. But oftentimes what you’re going to find is just a huge list of conferences. And it’s like, then you have to dig through and find is the call for speakers open, or are they do they even look for speakers? Who knows? I like to Google and this is what I did yesterday. Call for speakers and then a year. So 2024 because we’re 2023 is over basically. So call for speakers 2024. And then because when a conference puts out a call for speakers, it’s obviously on the internet. And so Google is searching on these terms. So then it’s going to find those. And then I can go to that and see. Now maybe I’ve missed the call for speakers. This happened yesterday. I missed the call for speakers for an upcoming conference that’s happening in 2024. But it’s like mid 2024. So they’re already done selecting their speakers. But what I found when I went to their website and you have to do some digging, I could sign up with my email to get notified when the call for speakers opens for the. So for 2025, which that call for speakers is going to open in 2024, do I want to be on that list? Yes, I do so I put my email on that list. So I’m going to get notified. And I also put it on my calendar as a reminder. But they’re going to send out an email when they open it up for the 2025 conference. And I want to be on that list because I know this conference does trainings. It’s in the real estate industry, but they do trainings on things like personal branding and, you know, techniques like storytelling and things like that. I want to be in there. I want to be able to submit for that.

Carol Cox:
Yeah, that’s a really good tip about saying call for speakers, because that will narrow you down quite a bit. Yes. Okay. Yeah, definitely sign up for their email list so that you get notified and then track those deadline dates. Like Diane said, in a calendar we use asana. So, you know, you can assign a person in a due date. You use clickup, whatever it is that you happen to use, but it has to be something where the date is coming up. You get an alert, a notification is sometime, otherwise you will forget that it is coming up. So definitely do that. And here’s the other thing that’s great about speaking at conferences, especially conferences again that you would already be interested in going to is that I would say 90 plus percent of conferences will give you a free ticket as a speaker, if you’re if you’ve been selected to speak there. Now, I have we’ve had some cases recently which I’ve been very surprised at, where I we have seen people get selected to speak at a conference. So they’ve submitted the application, they’ve been selected, and then the conference still wants them to pay the registration for the registration ticket. I never used to see that happen. I think it’s probably kind of the after effects of the pandemic. And, you know, them not having been able to run live events. And obviously, you know, it’s expensive to put on events. But I feel like as a speaker you’re providing the like you’re the they really they should be paying you. But that’s a whole nother thing, right? But for them not to give you a comp ticket. Yes. When you’re speaking, I just don’t understand that.

Diane Diaz:
Right. Because even if the event is local, which in this case it was, even if the event is local, there is a cost involved, which is just your time putting the. Whole thing together on your time. They’re delivering it and creating. You’re creating an experience. You’re actually helping to make the conference the experience that it’s going to be for the attendees. So in my mind, your ticket should be comped. So that’s up to you. If you want to pay even a discounted rate that they’re saying that you have to pay. Um, yes, that’s up to you. But but just pay pay attention to that. Typically they will comp the ticket. I’ve spoken at numerous conferences and I’ve never paid for a ticket.

Carol Cox:
Right. And so I would say the only the exception would be if you if to pay would be if you feel like the people in the audience are your ideal clients, like you feel pretty confident you could get some clients from that event that would offset the cost of the ticket, and that obviously you’re not selling from the stage because conferences are not going to want you to do that. But they, you know, you have a really effective presentation where you’re planting sales seeds throughout and using some of the other techniques that we talk about, uh, to make sure that you are getting quality leads from your presentations. So that and the second reason would be if you know for sure that you’re going to have a great looking venue where you can get video of video from of you speaking, do not rely on the conference to give you the video. You have to bring in your own videography team to do that again, but you would have to basically have some type of contract, a contract that says that you’re going to be in such and such room so they don’t switch you to like a tiny little room and then you think you’re getting good video. So that’s probably not a great reason for as far as conferences to do it. The only reason would be if you feel like you have really great chance of getting clients from it. Okay, so then we talked about local groups. We talked about conferences. The other part of visibility is being a guest on podcast. Diane and I have been a guest on numerous podcasts over the years. A lot of the times people hear us on another podcast and they come listen to this podcast because they are listening to podcasts, which is great, and a lot of them end up becoming clients, which we love, because when you listen to the podcast, you get to know us so well.

Carol Cox:
Here’s the thing about getting to be a guest on podcast back five years ago, having a company pitch on your behalf and send a whole bunch of emails out used to work. It did like because podcasting was relatively new, there were a lot of podcast hosts needed guests, like they hadn’t kind of refined their own podcasting strategy yet. That is no longer the case. Most podcast hosts that they’ve been podcasting for a while. They know exactly the topics and exactly the kind of guests that their listeners want that are going to provide listeners a value to their listeners. I get basically, I would call them spam pitches to be on the podcast every single day of the week. I delete them, I don’t even save them. I don’t even read them because I just know that I know what they are. The exception is if someone who I know sends me a personal email and says, hi, Carol says, you know, whatever. Nice greeting. I have someone who I think would be a really great guest on your podcast. She and I have worked together or she was a guest on my podcast and her topic is related to this x x, y, z. Would that be something that would be of interest to you? Then I will, then I will read it and I will see like is this a good fit? And probably nine times out of ten the answer is yes.

Diane Diaz:
For that? Yes, because it comes through somebody that, you know. Yes. And I, I get the same pitches to the Speaking Your Brain podcast that Carol gets probably in a fewer number, but I do still get them and it is clear that they’ve done. No, it’s just a form email with a bunch of information about a potential guest that usually is not a good fit.

Carol Cox:
And I I’m sure a lot of these guests are lovely, like potential guests. I’m sure there’s, you know, they probably have great topics and all of that, but I just don’t have the time to wade through them and to figure out which would be good or not, because I need someone. Basically. That is what a warm introduction does. It vets the person for you, for whoever the recipient is. And that’s what so many of us, especially if you’ve been podcasting for a while, you know that you need that vetting process first before you accept someone. All right. So then the fourth area for visibility. So we talked about speaking locally, finding conferences to speak at, finding podcasts to be a guest on the fourth area. We’re going to talk about here is optimizing your LinkedIn profile. So you know that Diane and I that’s really the only social media platform that we use is LinkedIn. It is really great for growing your network. So, you know, you meet people at speaking engagements. Go connect with them on LinkedIn. Make sure to connect with us here. As you’re listening to the podcast, our links are in the show notes because then we like LinkedIn because it’s a professional network.

Carol Cox:
We can see what people are doing. We can see speaking engagements that they’re doing. We can see conferences that they’re attending that may be of interest to us or of interest to our clients that we can pass on. And so you want to make sure that you’re optimizing your LinkedIn profile, because we have gotten speaking invitations from event organizers who have searched and found us on LinkedIn based on the topics that we speak about, because we’ve optimized our LinkedIn profile by putting things like keynote speaker, workshop facilitator in our headline and the about section and the experience section. Diane is an expert on this. We have a whole master class called LinkedIn for speakers. It is so good. Everyone who’s gone through it has raved about it because literally, Diane shows you exactly what to do on each section of your LinkedIn profile and then you just follow along. So in the Thought Leader Academy, you actually get that LinkedIn for speakers master class as a bonus. And so that you can go through it. So that so definitely just kind of just make sure you at least have the word speaker in those key places on your LinkedIn profile. Anything else, Diane, regarding LinkedIn.

Diane Diaz:
Yes, I would say when you do a speaking engagement and before and after and maybe even during, share on LinkedIn about it. Because you want to show evidence that you are a speaker. Yes. Put it in your headline. Yes you can. Under your experience section, you can create a second sort of role where you’re keynote speaker and you can talk about that, but also share evidence of this post about speaking somewhere. And also grow your network on LinkedIn, because you’d be surprised if you let’s say, for instance, you want to be on podcasts, look at your LinkedIn network and find out who’s a podcaster. I would be willing to bet all of us know at least ten people who have podcasts, because everybody has podcasts. So you can start there if you’re looking for a podcast, but you’ve got to optimize your LinkedIn and start using it on a regular basis so that you can start to position yourself as a speaker. So then when other people see your LinkedIn profile, they know you’re a speaker. In fact, you can even include in your background image on your profile page. And I have it on mine, an image of you speaking on a stage or in front of a group or, you know, leading a workshop or something like that. Again, evidence of you being a speaker.

Carol Cox:
Okay, I’m so glad you mentioned that. And let me say I have two bonus tips. The first bonus tip is for those of you who are reluctant to call yourself a speaker. Yes, we hear this more honestly, more than I would expect from a lot of the women that we talk to. And and I’m just and I feel like because so many women have this image of a speaker, like a Tony Robbins, where they’re on this gigantic stage and this huge auditorium with, you know, thousands or maybe just hundreds of people in the audience or the lights and the, the fancy stuff every round. And that’s what they see as a speaker. That is one type of speaker. But it’s not every everyone does not necessarily want to do that or need to do that. And so what we always say that, I would say 99% of you have done some type of public speaking in the past. You have facilitated workshops, whether it’s for a company that you work for or for local groups that you’ve been a part of on behalf of your business, you have conducted zoom presentations, you know, presentations on zoom, whether it’s for your own clients, a group of clients, or for other people’s groups. Uh, you have I mean, you’ve presented in front of, you know, maybe team members at work like you have been a public speaker. So please don’t feel like, well, I can’t put speaker on my LinkedIn profile because I’m not really a speaker. Yes, you are a speaker. Absolutely. Yes.

Diane Diaz:
We give you permission to say that you are a speaker.

Carol Cox:
Now, my bonus tip for those of you who already know that you’re a speaker like you are actively doing it. You speak at groups, you speak at conferences like you’ve got all of that down. So what I would encourage you to do, since you’ve already, you know, claimed that identity and you feel comfortable with that is think for yourself. What is that next stage as a speaker that you don’t feel so comfortable claiming for yourself? Maybe you feel really comfortable in those conference breakout sessions where they feel very tangible and tactical with the with the strategies that you’re presenting. Maybe you love doing workshops, which I love doing workshops too. It’s more intimate. You can have kind of that dialogue with the people there, but then maybe you feel a little bit less comfortable with the idea of being a keynote speaker or a TEDx speaker like that maybe feels a little bit more intimidating to you. So for those of you who maybe are in that camp, start getting comfortable with calling yourself that and you could even put it on your LinkedIn profile. I would encourage you to, even if you’ve never, even if you feel like you’ve never done a quote unquote keynote talk, you can still put it on your LinkedIn profile. Because guess what? If you come join us in our Thought Leader Academy or our in-person retreat, we will help you to get that clarity and confidence and the skills so that you can put yourself out there as a keynote speaker.

Diane Diaz:
Absolutely. It’s a really good thing to bring out in the open, Carol, because there is not a woman who has gone through Thought Leader Academy who has not at the end. I had such a boost in confidence about not only their ability to deliver an effective talk, but how they see themselves. Yes, as a speaker, as a thought leader, as a keynote speaker, as a TEDx speaker, no one has ever gone through the Thought Leader Academy and said, well, I still don’t believe it. Everyone comes out with such. It’s it’s miraculous to watch the transformation that happens throughout the time that they’re in the Thought Leader Academy and see sort of the metamorphosis that they go through and the way their confidence changes and then watching what they do after that, it’s incredible.

Carol Cox:
It is. And I agree with you. And in their graduation speeches, there’s so many of them who say, like, I’m a speaker, like I’m a keynote speaker or whatever it is that it happens to be that they want to claim for themselves, I love that. So if you would like to join us in the Thought Leader Academy, now is the time. You know, 2024 is is kicking off and so you can work with us to create your signature talk from beginning to end. We do that with you one on one in a virtual VIP day. It’s just it’s you with me or you with Diane. So you get your entire talk mapped out from beginning to end. Clients say that this is the best process they have ever gone through to create their talk, which then they can use again and again for other topics that they want to create. So you get that. Plus you get the weekly group calls, which are so much fun because you get to meet the other women in the group. You get to share experiences, you get to learn from each other, hear the other questions that they’re asking. We talk about things, everything from developing your thought leadership message, how to tell great stories. The business is speaking. So like we talked about today, finding those speaking engagements, knowing what to charge for speaking engagements, knowing how to negotiate your fee. We talk about adding layers to your talk and a lot more. You can get all the details as speaking your brand. Com slash academy again that’s speaking your brand.com/academy. Diane thank you so much for coming on the Speaking Your Brand podcast.

Diane Diaz:
Thank you Carol. It was fun.

Carol Cox:
Until next time. Thanks for listening.

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