How to Keep Momentum in Your Business & Visibility When Everything Feels Uncertain with Carol Cox: Podcast Ep. 428

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

Carol Cox:
When everything feels so uncertain. You may have a tendency to hit pause, to overthink, or to isolate. But I invite you to think and act differently. And we’re sharing what we’re doing 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, joined by Diane Diaz. Hi, Diane. How are you?

Diane Diaz:
I’m good. Carol. Hi.

Carol Cox:
We are recording this on Thursday, April 10th, 2025. So very fresh and new and we have been chatting quite a bit in our own kind of internal meetings here, speaking your brand about all the uncertainty that’s going on and how that affects our own planning and the goals that we have and things that we want to do here at Speaking Your Brand. So we figured this is probably on your mind too, whether it’s what’s going on in politics or the economy or even just with AI and how quickly AI is evolving and all the different changes that are happening in our industries and our workplaces, it can all feel really overwhelming. And I from talking to, you know, various women over the past month or so, sometimes I get the sense that a lot of people feel almost like analysis paralysis, or they’re not quite sure what to do because things feel so uncertain. And so yes, there, of course, is a time and place to kind of pause and take stock and to think about what to do, but oftentimes stopping for too long. You also then lose momentum and you also potentially lose opportunities. So we wanted to chat with you today about that, to kind of give you just an insight on how we are approaching this and maybe give you some ideas for yourself as well. So Diane, let’s let’s chat a little bit about what what have you seen either for yourself or for some of our clients or women that we’ve worked with. And what are some of the challenges they’re feeling right now?

Diane Diaz:
Yeah, it’s a good question, Carol. Um, the uncertainty for sure. Um, you know, just I think just concern in general for, you know, things being uncertain and how that might impact their business impact, their work impact, if they work for a large company, impact their role at that company. Um, and just wanting to stay relevant, wanting to stay connected. So those are just some of the conversations that I’ve been having with people.

Carol Cox:
And, you know, it’s I think back to five years ago, which was April of 2020. So we were basically about a month into the Covid pandemic here in the United States. And that was also a huge time of uncertainty. We had no idea how the pandemic was going to affect us health wise, but also society wise. Schools, businesses work. I mean, we couldn’t even go anywhere. And so and I remember back then that, Diane, we saw all of our clients who we were running programs at the time, and they would come to us in our weekly mastermind calls and say, oh, my speaking engagement got canceled for May. Then my speaking engagement got canceled for June, and then my speaking engagement got canceled for August. And so we very quickly had to pivot. And we had to think about, well, speaking, your brand. Obviously, we were helping a lot of our clients with in-person speaking engagements because that’s most of what we did back then. Some virtual presentations, but a lot were in person, so we had to very quickly pivot and think about how can we best help our clients with where they are now to repurpose their presentations for virtual not in person, to help them find those virtual speaking opportunities, to help them get more comfortable presenting virtually.

Carol Cox:
So we had to listen to them, have conversations with them, change our messaging and our offers to reflect what they needed, but then also stay in community with them and with other entrepreneurs who that who that I knew and that I had been friends with for quite a while. And I what I feel like, what often tends to happen to me when things are uncertain, is that I have a tendency to isolate, to like, go quiet, and to want to be by myself. I am an introvert, so I tend to refuel and get more energy by reading, or being by myself, or listening to podcasts while I clean the house. But which is which is necessary. But sometimes. But I think a lot of times, especially those of us who are introverts, tend to overindex on isolation. And I feel like that’s the last thing to do, especially in times of uncertainty.

Diane Diaz:
Yes, I would agree with that. I’m also an introvert. I think it also if I’m just digging into my therapy my therapist brain, I would say that that is probably also partly a protective mechanism because it’s to make ourselves feel safe. I remember during the pandemic I was getting that anxious feeling, you know, we didn’t have any idea where it was going or what was going to happen or how it was going to unfold. And I actually had to write on a post-it note and post-it on my mirrors. You know, you’re okay, you’re safe, everything’s fine. Right? So, like doing a self-assessment, I’m like, I’m okay, everything’s fine. But I think that for me, too, I have a tendency to just want to kind of go in my cocoon, stay in my house because I know I’m safe here. Right. And so. But it is sort of an avoidance strategy, which I don’t think probably from the short term it’s okay for the long term, probably not healthy and does not help you reach your goals if you continue to do that, obviously.

Carol Cox:
Yes. Oh, I completely agree. It is a coping mechanism, whether it’s, you know, self-protection, that sense of also giving yourself a sense of control when there are so many things that just are not possible for us to control external factors. So what can we control? And there’s actually a lot that we can control within our businesses, within the work that we’re doing. And so that’s what I tend to want to focus on. Okay. So what are the things that I can do when I can’t control everything else? Now I am also the type of person where I will make decisions pretty quickly. And I am very willing to experiment and try new things. So even again, back in that summer of 2020, we we decided to put together this all day live virtual summit with ten women speakers who we coached on their TEDx style talks. Basically, we had this idea and by October of 2020, the whole thing was live and it was amazing. And I feel like sometimes we a lot of people wait until, well, let me just see what happens next month, or maybe things will get better. Maybe we’ll get back to normal and then I can. I don’t have to experiment or I don’t have to shift anything that I’m doing, which may be the case, but also I like to look at this as an opportunity to maybe now is the time to refresh your offerings or refresh your messaging, because maybe it’s gotten a little stale or a little stagnant, or you’ve been doing the same thing for a while, and now you can have conversations with your clients or potential clients and figure out what are they needing right now, and address that instead of just kind of recycling the same stuff that you’ve been doing.

Diane Diaz:
Yeah, that’s a great point. And I think that sort of speaks to the idea that, um, you know, I think we’ve talked about this before personally, is that these things happen in the world, whatever things are happening, Covid, whatever. We don’t have control over that. And really, I’ve come to a place of like, who do I think I am that I would escape some something happening in the world, right? Like from the beginning of time, things happen in the world, right? And so we aren’t special that we’re going to escape things happening in the world. They’re always going to happen. So we need to figure out how to keep moving forward in that. And I think that idea of pivoting, refreshing your message, looking at what best serves your clients right now, that’s a good practice and builds a good sort of muscle for doing that again when the next thing comes along. Because let’s be real, that is life, right? Things are going to come along and change, and so getting comfortable and then staying stuck is not the answer, but figuring out how you can pivot and then being good at doing that. Being good at pivoting is a good skill.

Carol Cox:
Yes, absolutely. And when doing the pivoting is also being able to communicate that to your audience in a way that that it that you’re empathizing with them, that that you are understanding where they’re at and that you’re there to try to help them to solve the problems that they’re having. Because if you think about as a business, that’s what businesses do, is they help people to solve problems. And so the the problems that your clients may be having now could be different than what they had a year ago or three years ago or five years ago. So thinking about what that is, you could do a survey of your past clients, send them an email and ask them to fill out a survey. You can send out a survey to your email list, kind of get a sense of what they’re working on. We did this back just a couple of months ago to get a sense of where people were at and what they needed. We actually ended up putting together an online workshop back in February to help people identify and find speaking engagements, because that was the top thing that the survey respondents said that they needed help with. And the second thing on the list was to get help on creating their signature talk. So we’ll talk about that here in just a little bit. But before we get into the creating your signature talk aspect of it is that, again, a lot of times when things feel uncertain and we want to either isolate or we want to kind of press pause or say that we’ll do things later. But actually right now is the best time to do two things.

Carol Cox:
And the two things are contradictory. But but they are both necessary. The first thing is to double down on whatever is already working really well for you, in your business and in your marketing and in your visibility. And we’ll share what is working really well for us. We’ll double down on what’s working well, because, you know, you’re already getting results from that. But then the second thing which I mentioned earlier is experimentation. Pick 1 or 2 things that you haven’t maybe done before and start experimenting. For example, you may have noticed that we’ve been putting out video podcast episodes this year because Diane and I have been we are fortunate enough to be able to film in one of the studios at Full Sail University, where we both teach, and it’s a beautiful studio and we get and we give the students an opportunity to get hands on experience doing the filming. So that is something new that we’re doing, and then we’re cutting up the video episodes into shorter clips for YouTube shorts and on LinkedIn. So again, we’re kind of experimenting in that side of visibility. But let’s go back to what we’re doubling down on, and it is in-person events and in-person speaking engagements because we’re not in the Covid lockdown. Fortunately, we can go out and see people, which is really nice. And so, Diane, tell us about the speaking engagement you did at the beginning of February and how successful it was for us to get clients for an in-person workshop, and why you think that was?

Diane Diaz:
Yes. So I spoke at a local women’s group and, um, for professional executive women and I, that speaking engagement came to me by way of a connection, who I met years ago at another women’s group who I hadn’t frankly talked to in quite some time. But she remembered that I spoke on the topic of personal branding. And so when that came up, when they were planning their programming for the year, she reached out to me. So this had been planned last year. So the date they chose was February. And so I gave the talk on personal branding to this group. I would say there were I think there were 65 women in attendance. Um, and they were engaged. They were energetic, they were excited. They were fun. They played along with all the activities, which was fantastic, and it was incredibly successful. We got some really great footage, and because the topic was personal branding and storytelling and your brand voice, we connected it to the workshop that we were putting on at the end of February, and we were able to get three registrations from the women that attended my talk at this organization that ended up attending our workshop, which was great, and they already knew they could see us. Me, us speaking your brand in action. How we do things. So they were super excited to come to the workshop.

Carol Cox:
Yes, and I 100% attribute that to being in person and them literally seeing you speaking, because we know when people see us speak and because we do a great job at it, that they’re like, oh, I want to learn from Diane, or I want to learn from Carol because I want to have the same impact in the same results from when I go and do presentations. So yes, the timing worked out great for that. And so even if you’re so even if you’re not speaking coaches and people, I’m not going to hire you because they see you speak. But there is so much trust that is automatically generated when you’re with someone in person, number one. And that is whether you’re a speaker or you’re just meeting someone out at an event, or meeting someone at a lunch or a coffee, there’s instant trust when you’re face to face with people in real life. And then when you are a speaker, there’s also instant credibility Ability and authority because you’re there speaking in the front of the room or on the stage to that audience. So you don’t have to kind of prove prove to the audience that you can do what what you do in your business because you have that instant credibility and authority. And the third thing is that you’re also in front of an engaged audience who is not distracted by a whole bunch of stuff on their computer screen, scrolling through LinkedIn or Instagram and all the emails that are coming in and all the work that they’re doing on the different browser tabs, they’re there in the room with you paying attention for 20, 30, 40, 45 minutes. That’s incredible. You really can’t get that type of attention from people online. It’s much, much more difficult to do that. Except, of course, you’re listening to the podcast, which is another great way to do that.

Diane Diaz:
Yeah, I think they also the other thing that they get in person that’s unique to in-person speaking engagements is they get the collective energy from everyone around them, which then fuels their excitement about it. So it’s it’s like it feeds on itself, which is hard to do virtually.

Carol Cox:
Oh, that’s such a great point. Right. So they see one woman getting excited or one person getting excited and interested in what it is that you do as as a speaker and business owner, then other people naturally want to get involved too. It’s like that aspect of social proof, but it’s so tangible when you’re in person. And then I know that, Diane, you’ve been doing a lot of in-person coffees, and I go to a lot of lunches as well, like reaching out to our network and really just and it’s not about a sales pitch or it’s not even like really a business development conversation. It’s just to build those relationships and then get back to feeling in community. I know every time I go to lunch with a woman that I know here in Orlando, and we’ll chat about kind of what’s going on in the world or in what’s going on with our businesses, is that I feel less alone. I feel like I’m not the only one who’s thinking this or experiencing this and that, and that I feel like lessens the anxiety and gives me a much greater sense of, yes, we’re going to get through this and we’re going to get through this together.

Diane Diaz:
Absolutely. I’ve gone to so many coffee meetings lately, and I’ve also done some virtually. I just did one this morning with a woman that I literally just met yesterday on a webinar, so invited her to a virtual coffee, which was a great conversation. Um, and it’s it is it does make you feel less alone. And I think it also makes you feel like you are taking some action steps towards building a support system and a community, which I find to be empowering because I am a person who tends to be more introverted and am fine being alone. But I know that I can’t. You know I need to get out there with amongst the people, right? Like I need to be with people. So I know that I need to do that. So it helps me feel like I’m actually building that network. And, and then I always try to then connect them with other people, because that sort of sort of furthers it and aligns with the values of speaking your brand and the values that I have. But it sort of continues the momentum, and I think it creates some good juju in the world. Right?

Carol Cox:
Well, I love that you just met a woman yesterday in a webinar and invited her to virtual coffee today. I think it’s also that taking immediate action or just going ahead, like get it done, keep the momentum going and try to kind of keep I try to keep focus on what am I doing this week? I try not to scroll away about what are things going to look like in three months or six months or a year from now, or anything like that? I kind of try to stay focused on the next week or two what’s on my calendar, and if I’m finding like, oh, my Friday lunchtime is free. Let me, let me reach out to someone and schedule a lunch with them.

Diane Diaz:
Yes, I love that.

Carol Cox:
And so thinking about kind of what we’ve talked about here so far is number one, kind of re-examine your offerings and your messaging. Think about what your clients need right now, where they’re are. Have some conversations with them. Do a survey with them. Double down on what’s working really well for you right now in your business and marketing and visibility. And then also add some a little bit experimentation. I we really, really feel like you cannot go wrong with in-person coffees, lunches, events, speaking engagements. That really is going to accelerate that trust and that sense of authority and credibility and also attracting clients to you. And then the other thing is that as you’re working on kind of thinking about, maybe you do need to pivot your offerings or your message a little bit. It’s don’t try to just do this all in your own head without a sounding board or feedback from someone else, because raising my hand from personal experience, I mean, I have like pages and pages of handwritten notes in Google Docs, and I’ll even will use ChatGPT as a thinking partner to help me generate ideas. And it’s helpful to a point. But honestly, then I get so overwhelmed because sometimes it comes up with so many ideas that I don’t even really know what to do next. And so that’s why I’m so grateful to have Diane, because we’ll have our meetings and we’ll talk. We’ll talk, and then we’ll just figure out what’s the next thing that we’re going to do, not the next ten things or not, what we’re going to do from here for the next year. But like, what is the next thing that we want to do and how can we help our clients?

Diane Diaz:
Yes. Yeah, I love that. I like that idea of focusing on just the next thing, because then you can always have a next thing. There’s always something that you can do. So just what’s the next thing, what’s the next thing, what’s the next thing?

Carol Cox:
And Diane, in the notes for our conversation today, you you put in this and I love this. You said AA has a saying about this. Do you want to share what that is?

Diane Diaz:
Yes. And this, by the way, this comes from my being a rabid fan for the Armchair Expert podcast. This is where I heard it, because of course, the host of that is is in AA. Um, but I just they have a lot of great pearls of wisdom from AA that they share, and this is one that keeps coming up over and over. And I love it because I’m a person of action. It’s that we don’t think our way to right action, we act our way to right thinking. And you can apply that to anything, right? We can say, I wish I had the motivation to work out, but guess what? The working out gives you the motivation to want to work out right? So it’s the doing of the thing that creates the action to want to do the thing. So you actually have to do it even when you like. If you’re just thinking about doing, you don’t have to wait for some motivation to strike you to go have coffee with someone. Just do the thing. And then the more you do the thing, the more you’ll do the thing.

Carol Cox:
Right and well. And thinking about the work that we do with our clients, I have heard from so many of them over the years who are have been hesitant to go and deliver the first their talk for the first time. So whatever talk that we’ve created with them and then we’re like, okay, but you’re never going to figure out how to make it better, or what you want to change about it until you give it, because it’s it is never going to be perfect. And number one, it will never be perfect. And it will change every single time you deliver it. But you’re never going to know that until you go and actually do it and deliver it somewhere.

Diane Diaz:
Yes, there’s so much power in action, and I think we forget that, which I think again, speaks to that idea of just invite someone to coffee, even if you just met them yesterday, invite them to coffee. Reach out and connect with them. Connect them with someone else. Just taking that action of what’s the next thing can create more action. It’s amazing how that works.

Carol Cox:
Yes, yeah. It’s like it builds like the momentum builds on itself. So in in keeping in all the things that we just talked about here today and we of course want to walk our talk. So we too have been surveying our clients and talking with them and figuring out what is the best way that we can serve you all. So we are hosting another in-person workshop in Orlando on June 5th. So just coming up in less than two months, we the ones we did last fall and then this past February were so successful. The women loved them so much. It was so high energy. It was so fun. They had a great time not only building their stories and building their messaging and building their talks, but being able to practice it on the stage that we have there in the room in such a safe, supportive, encouraging environment. And they literally just love meeting each other and getting to know this incredible network of other women entrepreneurs and professionals. So this workshop we’re calling narrative that sells because we know that in these uncertain times, what your business needs is to continue to attract leads and clients to keep the cash flow going. So we want to help you to do that. Now, you may be thinking, well, but you all do public speaking and signature talks. And what does that have to do with narrative that sells well? What we haven’t done a great job at messaging to you all. Is that so many of our clients, when they have they have their signature talk created after working with us.

Carol Cox:
They use it, yes, for their speaking engagements, their business presentations and their keynotes and conference sessions, but they actually end up using it for so much more. They use it for email nurture sequences, copy on their website, social media posts, podcast episodes. If they have their own podcast, they use it for stories and their thought leadership, for podcast interviews or doing other people’s podcast. They use it in sales conversations because now they can understand for their audience and for their potential clients what challenges are they’re facing, and then how do they, as the business owner, as that expert and thought leader, help them to get past those challenges so it makes them stand out and differentiates them from other people who do very similar things that they do. So our work has always been about this idea of, I guess persuasion maybe is is a is a good word, but I really want to you all listening to think about this idea of narrative that selves is how can you get people interested in what it is that you’re doing, whether you’re attracting leads and clients for your business, you want to attract more speaking engagements and opportunities, maybe media and podcast opportunities. So that’s the work that we’re going to do with you in the full day workshop in the morning, you’re going to actually create your signature talk using our signature Talk Canvas framework. So I have it. If you’re watching the video of this episode, you can see it here. So we’re going to supply you with the poster board, all the post-it notes.

Carol Cox:
And then we’re going to walk you through step by step how to fill it out for yourself. And the same process we use in the VIP days that we do with our clients. So we’re going to give you the same prompts, the same questions. You’re going to fill it all out. Then we’re going to have lunch together. And then in the afternoon we’re going to talk about delivering your message. So how do you embody your message. So yes, for speaking engagements, but also when you’re meeting people at networking events, what is that elevator pitch, but in the best way, like in a conversational way? How do you tell people what you do? How do you how do you embody that sense of confidence that you have in your business and the work that you do with your clients? So that’s what we’re going to get you on the stage and where you’re going to have you practice a story or have you practice a portion of your talk. It truly will accelerate your messaging and your speaking delivery skills. With this one day workshop, you can get all of the details as speaking your Brand.com workshop and as a podcast listener. You can use the Coupon Code podcast 200 to get $200 off the price. So the coupon code is podcast 200. So altogether podcast 200 to get $200 off. And that’s at speaking your brand. Com slash workshop. And of course then you’re also going to be in a room full of other amazing entrepreneurs and professionals. Diane, what’s your favorite part of these in-person workshops?

Diane Diaz:
I think the connection and just seeing seeing the attendees, sort of the light bulb moments of when they really get whatever the thing is we’re talking about and it really sinks in and how they can use it. And I want to add to just I know some people are going to hear this podcast episode and think, oh, but I don’t want to be a speaker. You don’t have to want to be a speaker for this to help you if you do sales calls with potential clients, if you, um, network, which we all do, right? If you do, if you do anything to promote the company that you don’t work or that you don’t own, right. Any of those things, if you’re promoting anything of any kind to anyone, even just yourself, promoting yourself to other people, this is the workshop for you, because you are going to have those light bulb moments of like, oh, that’s how I can say that. That’s how it’s going to resonate with someone. That’s how it’s really going to sink in. So they understand what I do and how I can help them. So I just wanted to share that.

Carol Cox:
Yes. Thank you so much for adding that note. So if you are, whether you’re a business owner, if you are in marketing, if you’re in sales, if you are a in a nonprofit and you’re doing fundraising development or you’re doing business development for a company or an organization, understanding how to explain what it is that you do and why you do it is absolutely essential. And I know that for those of you listening, you probably do this already. But then like like we’ve been talking about. But as things change externally, we also have to we have to refine and we have to change how we talk about what we do. And you need that sounding board of other people, especially other people who are not within your company, organization or your industry to give you that feedback. Because a lot of times we’re in our bubbles and we understand what we say really well to the people who are around us in our companies and organizations, because we all understand the same things. When you go talk to someone else who’s not in your industry or doesn’t work in that nonprofit space, and they’re like, what? I don’t really understand what it is that that you’re doing or what you want me to do next. So again, get all the details of Speaking your Brand workshop. We would absolutely love to have you here. In our last workshops, we’ve had people fly from Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington, DC, Texas all throughout Florida to come here to Orlando. So you don’t have to be in the Orlando area or in Florida. You can come from anywhere. It’s on a Thursday, so you can come and stay for a long weekend and enjoy the sunshine and the beaches here in Florida as well. All right, Diane, well, thank you so much once again for joining me in this conversation.

Diane Diaz:
My pleasure.

Carol Cox:
Until next time. Thanks for listening.

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