365-SYB-Solo-Year-In-Review.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Carol Cox:
Here's my annual review of what worked, what didn't, and what's next. And you can use this template too for your own reflection. Listen in on this episode of the Speaking Your Brand podcast.
More and more women are making an impact by starting businesses, running for office and speaking up for what matters. With my background as a TV political analyst, entrepreneur and speaker, I interview and coach purpose driven women to shape their brands, grow their companies, and become recognized as influencers in their field. This is Speaking Your Brand, your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience.
Hello and happy holidays! This is your host, Carol Cox. Thank you so much for being here, and thank you so much for being a listener. I hope that you're getting some downtime during this holiday break. You're also probably spending some time reflecting on 2023 and envisioning what you want to do in 2024. Each year I do a Year in Review episode to give you insights into what goes on behind the scenes here at Speaking Your Brand, and ideas for how you can reflect on your own business, your speaking, and your visibility. In this episode, I'm going to dive into that, but I'm also going to share what I've learned from reading and watching Marie Kondo and how I'm applying that on only to my house, which is my project during the holidays, but also to speaking your brand. Now, I know I'm a bit late to the Marie Kondo craze.
Carol Cox:
I think she was big, probably about 5 or 6 years ago, but her Netflix show called Tidying Up with Marie Kondo from a few years ago popped up in my queue in early December, and now I'm obsessed. So I've been working on the house. I'm pretty good about going through my stuff every couple of years, but it's time again. So I've been doing that and it's been really liberating. And so I'm taking what I've learned about her approach, her philosophy of life, and also thinking about how I can apply it to the business and the speaking that I do, which I'm going to share with you here. So before we do that, I'm just going to give you a template for how you can think about reflecting on the past year and looking forward to 2024. So the first thing is to think about what went well. So what are your wins? What are you celebrating from the past year? And then after that, are there any things that you tried or that you thought that you were going to do that either you did not do or did not go as well as you had wanted to. And then looking at those, what are some of the larger lessons you can take from what worked and what didn't? And then after you do all that, then think about what do you want to do for the coming year.
Carol Cox:
Let's start with celebrations. What worked? Well, I know when we're very high achieving, we like to check things off the list, and we do so so quickly that we oftentimes forget to look back and to celebrate everything that we've accomplished. So I have three different buckets that I put these in. The first bucket is around the business. So business offerings. The second bucket is around marketing visibility and speaking. And then the third bucket is around thought leadership. So what we're celebrating regarding business offerings is that our thought Leader Academy, which is our signature program, is going strong. We launched it for the first group in October of 2020. So now it's been over three years. We've graduated, I think over 100 women. I would have to go back and count from it. And so I love that we have continued to improve it and refine it for each group that goes through it. And what we have decided is really the best fit and the best way to get them. The value is to combine both the group zoom calls and a one on one virtual VIP day, where we work with each woman to create their signature talk. And then earlier this summer, we also started creating short video lessons on different topics that we put into a resource library so that all of our clients have access to that going forward. So whether they want to find the short video lesson about storytelling or about speaker fees or about preparing for their talk, then they can just go in and rewatch those trainings.
Carol Cox:
The second business offering is our in-person client retreat. We did the second one earlier this year, so in February 2023, we have the third one coming up in February 2024, and that takes place in Orlando, Florida. And each time we've done this, I love bringing women together in person. Of course, I feel like I know them from our zoom conversations, but there's nothing like being in person. We bring in a stage, so for the three days that we're together, they get instruction and training and coaching and feedback on their stage, delivery, on their movement, on the stage, use of props and their storytelling. And then on the third day, we bring in a professional videography team to film them. And so in addition to them getting filmed, we also film ourselves doing some different segments. And so we got great video footage. The last time we did this that we've put on the YouTube channel, and we're going to do that again this year. And then the third business offering is that we've been doing different workshops on zoom. These are three hour long workshops where we really focus on one particular topic. So we do some mini trainings around it, and then we have the attendees work on different things. So that truly is a workshop. They're doing work during the workshop and getting feedback from us, the workshop topics that we've covered.
Carol Cox:
So far on the business of speaking, on building your personal brand plan, on storytelling for speakers and on AI tools for speakers. And so it was a lot of fun to do these. We brought in new women who hadn't worked with us before. We also had women who had worked with us before, who signed up for the workshops because they wanted just information on this particular topic. And then the fourth business offering, this was something relatively new, is that we worked with some faculty members with the University of California on developing their Ted style talks. The executive director of the University of California's Washington, DC center, Tanya Gillespie, is a graduate of our Thought Leader Academy. So she's the executive director now. And she put on an event this past summer where she had these selected faculty members present their research. And if she knew that she didn't want it to be kind of dry academic presentations. So she had us work with them to create their ten minute Ted style talks. And it was so much fun. And since then, I've actually gotten inquiries from some other conferences on US training and coaching their own speakers. So that is something definitely that we're going to look into in the coming year. Now the second bucket is around marketing and visibility. This podcast is definitely our best source of marketing and visibility. This is episode number 365. This coming February will be the seven year anniversary of the podcast.
Carol Cox:
I can't believe it. We have well over a half a million downloads, and I'm so grateful for each and every one of you who takes the time to listen, and of course, to share the podcast with a friend or a colleague. This podcast really is our best source of clients because obviously they get to know us, our personalities, our methodologies, our processes, what makes us unique, the value that we provide and then they want to come work with us. I also love the podcast for being able to showcase so many of the women that we get to work with. You've heard them on the podcast, they share their thought leadership ideas and what they do, and having this podcast is also helpful for me to think through my own ideas in the solo episodes I do, whether it's finding and developing your big Idea, where Idea is an acronym that I came up with. That was episode 354, did the episode I did in August, number 343 on Why You Are the Messenger for your idea under Marketing and Visibility. The other thing that I do often is be a guest on other people's podcasts, so that is something that I'm going to definitely continue. And then in October of 2023, I got a chance to attend the TEDx women conference in Atlanta. That was three days, 35 plus speakers. Seeing them live in person, deliver their talks on stage was such a treat.
Carol Cox:
I did an entire episode about the my takeaways from TEDx women called seven Things the Best Speakers Do, and that was episode 352. Definitely go back and listen to that one if you haven't already. The third bucket under celebrations. What went well is around thought leadership. This year I really wanted to delve into artificial intelligence, into AI, into really figure out what my voice was around that I have a background as a software developer, as a programmer, had founded two technology companies back in the 2000. So I've always loved technology, and I really see technology as a way for us to to progress as humans, to use it as a collaborative partner. And so earlier this year, we created the chat CIB app, kind of like chat GPT, but trained on speaking your brand content. So we've been using that. I also created some new frameworks called the Brand Voice Canvas, another one around personal branding, which we use in the personal brand workshop that we did. But the Brand Voice Canvas framework I developed because I was selected to speak at Macon, a marketing AI conference, which I went to in July of 2023, and it was so much fun. I used props and video clips and storytelling. I got excellent feedback from the audience. People came up to me later that day, and even the next day telling me how excellent the presentation was, but I almost got stuck in the expert trap, which is what I talk about a lot on this podcast.
Carol Cox:
And so in episode 342, I talk about how I almost got stuck, but how I got myself out of it when I was creating this presentation, going to Macon reminded me how much I really love going to conferences. I love meeting people from all over the place, and kind of having that energy and hubbub where you have 500, 700, 1000 people around and seeing all the different speakers and all the different topics that they present on. Further related to thought leadership in AI, I've been doing podcast episodes around that. I've also been doing guest interviews at other people's podcasts and YouTube channels around AI, and I'm also starting to develop an idea for a book. So those are the celebrations. Now, here are the things that didn't work as well or didn't go at all as I expected in the beginning of 2023. So the first thing is that as far as the marketing bucket, our primary social media channel that we use here is speaking. Your brand is LinkedIn. And I've noticed that overall impressions and engagement are down. I have tried so many different types of posts, whether it's short posts, long post posts that have one tip in it, post with the story in it, video, short video, it doesn't, doesn't really seem to matter. And so I feel like there's a big shift happening in social media and just the internet as a whole.
Carol Cox:
I'm going to talk a lot more about this on the next episode, which is all about trends for 2024. So if you've been sensing this, know that you're not alone and there's something bigger going on which I'll talk about in the next episode. The other thing that didn't work at all is that at the beginning of the year, I have been thinking about doing in-person workshops and maybe even offering in-person VIP days here in Orlando, Florida, as well as offering some one day in-person workshops in some cities around the US, whether it was New York or San Francisco, Denver or Charlotte and so on. So unfortunately, that did not happen. And what I'm taking from that is that it seems on paper like it's pretty easy. Well, just put a workshop together in a city and just fly there and, and do the workshop. But in practicality, there's a lot of moving pieces, there's a lot of planning going on. And so and because we were focused on some other initiatives this year, we didn't get around to that. So the lesson that I'm taking from this is that pick one thing to work on for that quarter or even that six months, and really focus on that rather than trying to spread yourself too thin. So this goes into the lessons that I'm taking from all of this. The first thing is to balance streamlining in your business.
Carol Cox:
So not too many offers or too many projects at one time, or too many marketing channels. So you want to balance streamlining that so you can really focus on what works well. But you also have to be willing to try new things, to experiment with new things, because you don't know if there's going to be something else that works even better, or that you enjoy even more. So, how I've taken to balancing this and trying new things is by doing these zoom workshops. So we kind of test the topic to see what the interest is. We put together the content for it. Oftentimes we create a new framework around it. So we're creating some intellectual property, but it's very quick. So it's a three hour workshop. We market it, we sell it and we put it on and then we get the feedback from it. The other thing that we tried this year was developing this AI app and then putting myself out there as a thought leader on AI. So again, balance the streamlining with the experimentation. The next lesson goes back to Marie Kondo, which I talked about in the introduction. So that is this is my house project for the holiday break. But as I've been reading her books, I've started thinking about, well, how can this apply in the business as well, not just in the house and the physical possessions that you have. And if you read Marie Kondo's book, you'll realize that what she's talking about is not just tips and tactics about organizing.
Carol Cox:
Sure, she teaches you how to fold clothes, which is such a game changer. I have so much more room in my dresser drawers now than I ever did before, but it's so much more than that. It really is. Her thought leadership. And let me pull a couple of quotes from her book that really stood out to me. First, she says. The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past. And so as you're going through your different items and objects that you have, whether it's clothing or books or sentimental items, she really encouraged you to think about who do you want to become? What is the lifestyle that you want to lead going into the future? Not who you were in the past, and by decluttering, by tidying, by kind of unloading ourselves of these things that are weighing us down, we can become that person that we want to be. And I think about this in the context of our business as well. If we're doing things in our business that we always have been doing, because we learned early on that that was what everyone did, or we're doing things in our business that we feel like everyone else does. So these should be things that we should do as well is really thinking about.
Carol Cox:
Is that serving us and our business today, and is it serving the business that we want to have in the future, or is it serving the business we had in the past? And to really examine each of those different things and decide where it fits the next part about her thought leadership that I'm really absorbing is that she talks about. We should choose what we want to keep, not what we want to get rid of. And this is so counter to how I know myself, and probably most of us, go about decluttering and organizing as we look through all of our clothes or our objects or our books, and we say to ourselves, okay, I want to get rid of that. That doesn't fit that. I don't like that style anymore. I don't read that book anymore. So we kind of focus on what we want to get rid of. And she says, no, do the opposite. Look at all of your things, like lay out all your clothes on the bed and decide, look at them, pick each item up and say, is this something that I want to keep? Is this something that sparks joy for me? And it's such a flip and it seems so subtle, but it's so powerful. So again, think about this in the context of your business, of the speaking topics that you do, of the way that you present your information. What is it that you want to keep? What sparks join you? What lights you up? Because, she says, to truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose.
Carol Cox:
And then the third part about her thought leadership that I have highlighted is she talks about the section about books. So what books to keep and what books to discard. And this is hard for someone like me. I read so many books and I don't have as many physical books anymore because I read most of my books on my Kindle, because it saves a lot of space. But I also recognize that I have a lot of Kindle samples, so I'll download a sample, decide if I want to read it or not. But then I have so many of them that I kind of have to get get through and decide which are the ones that I want. So here's what she says in her book. The moment you first encounter a particular book is the right time to read it. And I know that's so hard. For those of us who are collectors of books we want to read in the future. But I think about my own habits. I'm like, oh, she's so right. If I put a sample on my Kindle and I start reading it within the next day or two, I am so much more likely to actually finish it or to decide it's not for me, and to remove the sample.
Carol Cox:
Then all of those other samples I put on that I end up not doing anything with. So if you think about the moment you first encounter a particular book, is the right time to read it. This also applies to other things like podcasts. You know, I'll go through and I'll maybe find a new podcast. And if it sits too long in my podcast app, and I never started at all like it's a brand new podcast I've never listened to before, I most likely will never come back to it, but if I start an episode, then I'm much more likely to either continue or again to decide this isn't for me. The same goes for coaches, programs, vendors you want to work with. I know that I have listened to some podcast hosts for a long time before deciding to work with them, and then I think to myself, well, why did it take me so long to decide to work with this person? Because I've gotten so much value out of their podcast, and now I've gotten so much value out of working with them as well. And then Marie Kondo has a section in her book where she talks about how so many people, and this is primarily when she was living in Japan and working with Japanese clients, and she would go to their homes and they would have so many books and workbooks from seminars that they have attended.
Carol Cox:
Now, this was back when most of these things were done in person. So she asked, you know, why do people pay for courses? And I would say also, you know, programs, coaches courses, why do people pay for them when they can get the same content for free or for very little money? So a $10 book or, or very nominal fee. And Marie Kondo says, quote, because they want to feel the passion of the teacher and experience the learning environment. I was like, oh, that is such a great way to put it, because again, we can listen to lots of podcasts and YouTube videos and and read books on a particular topic. But if we really want to be immersed in it, we really want to master it. We do have to find that teacher, that coach, that guide to help us along and experience that environment live. So think about this for yourself, for what you want to invest in in the coming year, and thinking about it from your own potential clients perspective and them investing in you. Now, the last thing I'll say about Marie Kondo and her philosophy is this also applies to your presentation content. Less is more in your presentations. Focus on one core idea. Go deeper rather than wider with your content. So here's what's next for speaking your brand. In 2024, we're going to continue the podcast. I love podcasting, it is such a creative outlet for me.
Carol Cox:
And as I mentioned, I love showcasing the women that we get to work with. You may have noticed that in the fall we had some weeks where released two episodes instead of the normal one episode per week. So during peak months, peak listening months which tend to be like January and February, so the beginning of the year and then in early fall we are probably going to release two episodes per week. Some of the episodes will be shorter, and then we're also going to release some best of episodes and other months of the year, because I know that there are so many of you who are relatively new to speaking your brand. Obviously, we have a very long back catalog and there's some excellent podcast episodes, and I know it can be hard to kind of find different ones. And so we're going to release release some best of episodes in addition to the new episodes that come out every week. As I mentioned earlier, our third in-person client retreat, Speaking Intensive, is happening at the end of February in Orlando, Florida. As of right now, and when I'm recording this, which is right before the Christmas holiday, we have four spots left out of the 12, so maximum of 12 women can be there. So we have four spots left. And just before we kind of close for the holidays, I had two women submit applications who I'm going to talk to in January. So potentially we have two spots left out of the 12.
Carol Cox:
So if you're interested in joining us go to speaking Neubrand comm slash retreat. Again that's speaking your brand.com/retreat. We also have our thought leader Academy. Our next group starts January 16th, 2024. And as of the time of this recording we have three spots left for that. That says speaking your brand.com/academy again that's speaking your brand.com/academy. We're also going to do those three hour zoom workshops again like we did this fall. So we have those scheduled every other month. You can see those as speaking your brand.com/workshops plural. Again the speaking your brand.com/workshops. And then as I mentioned, I'm also starting to develop my idea and book proposal for my book around brand voice, how important our voice is, whether it's for our business, our personal brand or for a movement, how that helps to put ideas out into the world, and how artificial intelligence, how AI will impact all of this. So as you reflect on your year and look forward to the next year, celebrate what went well. Consider what didn't work as well as you would have liked and why. Think about those big picture lessons that you can apply going forward, and decide what you want to focus on for the coming year. Next week, we're going to take a look at trends for 2024, which is one of my favorite episodes to do every single year. Until next time, thanks for listening.
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