364-SYB-Samantha-Irwin.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Carol Cox:
Your stories and experiences from the past to the present, shape your thought leadership and your signature talk. Listen in to this conversation with our lead speaking coach, Diane Diaz, and our thought leader, Academy client Samantha Irwin. 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.
Diane Diaz:
Hi there and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I’m your host today, Diane Diaz. Today’s very special guest is Samantha Irwin. And Samantha is a recent graduate of our Thought Leader Academy. So we’ll get to that in just a moment. But speaking of the Thought Leader Academy, if you’d like to join us in the Thought Leader Academy where we work on frameworks, storytelling, creating your signature talk and more, you can get all the details and the pricing by visiting speakingyourbrand.com/academy. Again, that’s speakingyourbrand.com/academy. So as I mentioned today, our special guest is Samantha Irwin. And Samantha is going to share with us of course, what she does in her business. What brought her to the Thought Leader Academy, because she has a whole story before the work that she does now, and the goals that she has with her speaking. And we’ll talk about a recent talk of hers as well. We’ll also talk about the VIP day that we did together, what that was like, and how we worked through incorporating storytelling and all of that into her talk and some of her takeaways from that experience as well. So hi, Samantha, and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast.
Samantha Irwin:
Hello. Thank you for having me. It’s good to see you again, my dear. Yes.
Diane Diaz:
You too. I’m so excited to talk to you. And I’m excited for our listeners to hear from you, because you were so much fun in the Thought Leader Academy and your stories, and we’ll get to the VIP day in a minute. But it was so fun to hear the stories that you had to share. But before we get to all of that, why don’t you share with our listeners a little bit about who you are and exactly what you do in your business and your work?
Samantha Irwin:
Sure, sure. You have to help me. I don’t know how far you want me to go back. Sure.
Diane Diaz:
We’ll start. Start with just what you do now, and then we’ll get to the going back in time.
Samantha Irwin:
Okay, so what I do now, people who, uh, business owners in retail and hospitality in particular, hire me to help curate their customer experience. Specifically, what I’m passionate about is training those those customer service staff that typically people think, oh, you know, it’s transitional job. It’s not that important training those people with the people skills to deliver consistently excellent customer experiences because. They’ll forgive a crappy cup of coffee, but they won’t forgive a jerky person. So, um, it makes a huge difference to the bottom line of a business when their staff is is equipped. And and honestly, for my my mission, it it changes the culture in our community. When those people understand and step into those their power, we need to connect. So that’s that’s my personal passion. So yeah, there you go.
Diane Diaz:
And I love that because as I’ve told you, I am a sucker for good customer service. Like I love it and will I will go above and beyond if I get good customer service. So maybe this is a good place where you can talk a little bit about your previous life before what you do now, and what sort of brought you to this understanding of this helping people with front line employees in helping them deliver good customer experiences. So tell our audience a little about what you did before the work that you do now in your business.
Samantha Irwin:
Sure, sure. I’ll give you the Cliff notes version. So I was born? No. On a snowy winter’s day. Um, no, I my mask. I have a master’s in education, and I taught middle school for 13 years and loved it. Loved teaching middle school. So right there it tells you a little bit about my personality. I taught first grade and I ran for the Hills first grade. Teachers are amazing and that’s not my thing, so I loved it. Um, I did business part time during the my teaching tenure, and so I learned a lot about how people learn how to motivate people, people being teenage kids, um, or prepubescents and, um, really uplift them and inspire them. So that was my first chapter. Um, after about 13 years, I was kind of frustrated with the system, so and I was also leaning into what’s the next chapter? I was praying like, what is that supposed to be doing here? What are my talents and gifts and passions? And um, my second chapter, my husband and I purchased a boutique hotel in, um. It’s built in 1907. It had 21 rooms. Okay, it’s not huge because there’s rooms with most of them had private bathrooms down the hall. So 21 room, three story brick building built in 1907, which for us on the West Coast is old. And it hadn’t been open consistently as a hotel since the 1940s. That was another kicker. And then it was located in a town of about 600, 650 people.
Samantha Irwin:
So definitely when I walked in the back door with then owner Howard Green, my heart soared. I could it was empty. There was no furniture in it. It needed landscaping. So it was basically just this shell. There was some gone with the wind kind of curtains up there that were hanging and I could see in my mind’s eye what this could become and what it could become in the area. There’s not a, there’s not like a waterfall or something for people to see. It’s definitely is a retreat center. So after 11 months of a lot of sandpaper, um, and restoration, cosmetic restoration, um, opened it and had our first wedding and then had our first wedding there. Our second wedding learned so much, um, and then developed it into a destination wedding, um, event center and a boutique hotel. We operated, like, a bed and breakfast, so. And I don’t have it anymore. I had it from for about a decade, 2006, starting in 2006. So after I sold the hotel, I got asked to do some consulting for, um, a local business that was expanding into the wedding venue business, and that began my trajectory of where I am today. So where I am supporting small business owners, because you don’t have to invent everything. I’m here for you. I’m here for you on the hard part, the training, your people, how to interact with their customers in a in a meaningful business needle money moving manner.
Diane Diaz:
So yeah. Oh, Samantha, I love that story because I love not only is it super interesting and just the fact that you owned a hotel from 1907, I mean, and did all the renovations and refurnished it, and it’s just incredible. But also we talk a lot about thought leadership, obviously thought Leader Academy, but we talk a lot about thought leadership and building thought leadership and why that is so important. Because whether you work, you know, for yourself and own your own business, or even if you’re a woman in a corporate space building thought leadership and some area of expertise that you yourself own is so important. And it’s easy to see how the thought leadership that you built through owning that boutique hotel and what you learned about front line customer experience and customer service. How? All that plays into what you do now and what you speak about to audiences. It’s easy to see the connection there, because it comes up a lot when we’re having these conversations. That and it’s happened to me and literally happened to probably, you know, so many women about, well, I’m not sure how my past experience makes me a thought leader for X, Y, Z. Well, more than likely, there is something that you’ve done in the past that connects to why you have this particular thought leadership message and the work that you do and what you’re so passionate about. So I love that story because it really helps to inform the work you do and also informs obviously what you speak about, the message, the takeaways from your talks and how you can help your audience. So I just love that connection there. So when we when I learned about your story, when we were working together, I was like, this is fantastic. It’s so exciting.
Samantha Irwin:
I want to jump in and say it was really extremely beneficial because, you know, it’s that for you can’t see the forest through the trees, right? So when I had the hotel, I was like, I think it’s pretty cool, but I don’t know why other people might like it. Well, I had to have a coach to help me figure out, well, this is why, you know. Hello. And it’s the same thing for the thought leadership. It was very helpful to have you pull those things out and say, oh, no, this is unique. This is amazing. This is this is important. Um, here’s your experience and how it connects to your thought leadership. Um, that was very helpful for to have your perspective to do that. So thank you. Yes.
Diane Diaz:
You’re oh you’re so welcome. And it’s it’s a very good point because I don’t know who said this expression. I might have said this to you, but I don’t know who to attribute it to. But it’s that you can’t see the label from inside the jar. So we can’t see our own, the connections of our own experiences. We can’t see what is our unique message. But when someone else hears you share your stories and share your experiences and share what your knowledge base is, we can see the connection because we’re outside of it, right? It’s so much easier to see you.
Samantha Irwin:
Pulled it out like magic.
Diane Diaz:
Yes, well, it kind of is magic. Yeah, yeah. There. So if anybody is able to watch this video, you’ll see, um, behind Samantha on the wall, there are her post-it notes from her VIP day. And so before we get to the VIP day that we actually did together, what was Samantha, what was your speaking experience before you came to Thought Leader Academy? Had you done a lot of talks? How did they go? What was that like?
Samantha Irwin:
Yeah, I loved speaking. I mean, just as like I loved middle school kids. Like, people go, you’re wacko. I, you know, I, I loved I love speaking, um, I don’t. For people who might be listening, thinking, I don’t know about that. I don’t know if I could be a speaker. I’m not one of those people. Hmm. If I go into a room for networking, I’m not that comfortable. I’m more of an introvert than a lot of people realize. I love to host and I love to teach, and I love to share experiences and then elicit the things from other people. So, um, I do love speaking and I’ve spoken before. Typically my my talks are around the customer journey map because I have an intellectual property around one that I created and then, um, hiring and retention, and then I’ll do workshops on perception and on, uh, with small groups, um, or, you know, with staff, we have some I have some workshops that I do that really get them involved, um, in how they feel appreciated and then perception and what they want to communicate. So, so I really I like doing that very much. But where I was having a struggle is that if I wanted to speak more and I wanted to speak to a broader audience, I didn’t have what I felt like was, um, a keynote of workshops, but I didn’t have a keynote. So that’s where I was really keen on coming in to this Thought leader Academy and coming up with a keynote.
Diane Diaz:
Yes, I remember you sharing that. And you really wanted like this impactful message that concisely delivered some key points to your audience so that they could take action on them, but know better and understand better what you do and how you can help them. And I remember you also had shared that you wanted to generate leads from your talks as well. And so when you came into the Thought Leader Academy and we worked together in the VIP day, let’s start with maybe what what did you expect coming into that? What was your expectations?
Samantha Irwin:
Well, I was pretty excited because it’s like, what was it, three hour chunk?
Diane Diaz:
Yes.
Samantha Irwin:
Yeah. A three hour work session with somebody with just dedicated time. I mean, who gets that? I mean, I get that sometimes with my clients, but to get it myself, I’ve done it with, uh, Nikki Roush for VIP day. But I was pretty dang excited because I was, you know, it’s dedicated time to work on my business with someone who’s an expert.
Diane Diaz:
Once you ended up with your talk. And we did, by the way, we did incorporate your story, many of your stories into the talk. And at least for me, that’s always the most fun part of the process, is hearing the stories and seeing where we can fit them in. What did that feel like for you? Pulling out all these stories and getting to incorporate them and connect them to the content and.
Samantha Irwin:
Well, it’s fun. It’s always fun to tell the stories of my own experience and my staff’s experience and my client’s experiences. Um, I, I just did a talk yesterday using the framework that we came up with.
Diane Diaz:
Yes, you did it. So maybe let’s share about that. So so this talk that Samantha gave for everybody was after we finished the Thought Leader Academy, she graduated from Thought Leader Academy and then actually got to deliver the talk that we worked on. So yeah. Who was the talk for. How was it. How did you feel giving it. How was it received. Tell us all the details.
Samantha Irwin:
Sure it was. It was received. Well. It was it was fun that you had asked me the question about the, uh, stories, because one of the comments that I got, while a number of the comments, was that they liked the stories and how they related to so oh, how wonderful. I better give Diane that feedback. That was.
Diane Diaz:
Good. That’s so good to know.
Samantha Irwin:
Yeah. So that was fun. Um, so the talk that I had given was to the there’s a Fit Life club is, um, it’s a membership. And a platform is not a right word, but the Fit Life Club membership. So in the Pacific Northwest. Um, if you have, say, Snap Fitness or you have a sports club or a racquet club or something like that, you can be a member of Fit Life and they support you. They support owners and, um, managers. So this conference was actually in my town. So that was kind of nice. Uh, there were two of us from our area that got to speak, and, um, it was a conference for owners and managers. So they were a great group of people. They were super collaborative with one another. Very supportive topic was about hiring, attracting, hiring and retaining quality staff that contribute to the success of your business.
Diane Diaz:
I know you gave the talk. How did you feel during that? Nervous. Comfortable? Yeah. What was it like?
Samantha Irwin:
Yeah. Um, it was I was I’m always nervous before, so I prepare a lot. Um. I was. I wasn’t super nervous during. I was the right amount of nervous for me. For me, like whether I’m going in to speak or I’m going to play tennis or whatever, I, I like a little bit of that heightened feeling. It helps me to make sure that I’m giving good energy to people. Um, and. It was. I know it was fun. I like to move around using the stories, using pregnant pauses. Um, I was more comfortable using pregnant pauses and just thinking about things. I was actually telling the story that you had told me about your first job. Um, in a grocery store? Yes. And it was because. Because it was very it was very much related to a question that someone had asked me at the end. Nice. And you’re gonna laugh, but I completely blanked out, and I couldn’t think of the word grocery store. I stood there for a minute and I was like.
Diane Diaz:
The place where you buy food.
Samantha Irwin:
I did, and then I and I, then I finally came to me, and it was a fun moment of levity. People laughed because I was like, I’m real. I just totally forgot the word grocery store. So but they were, you know, could be because they were such a great group of people. But yeah, I felt pretty comfortable and the timing was fantastic. Like we had time for the the reviews at the end and time for some questions. And we actually ran out of time. Um, there were some more people that had a couple questions comments, but we had to wrap it up. So yeah, I was I was very excited. I’m ready to do the next one and kind of improve and tweak upon it. So.
Diane Diaz:
Oh, great. And you, you told me before we started recording that you got really great feedback from the audience. So that is so fantastic.
Samantha Irwin:
Yeah, it was fun. It was fun. I loved doing it. Yeah.
Diane Diaz:
Samantha, what are your plans for speaking and for thought leadership going forward now that you’ve done this talk?
Samantha Irwin:
Um, well, I’ve got a number of more on the on the docket. I’ve got.
Diane Diaz:
Good.
Samantha Irwin:
Let’s see, I’ve got, um, I think 3 or 4 times when I’m speaking in the future, some of them I’ll be able to use the keynote that we’ve kind of created and others are more of a workshop. So, um, I’m excited about that. And then I’m just going to start working into pushing myself more as a speaker and offering not pushing. That sounds weird. Offering myself, yes, pitching, pitching myself more as a speaker. Um, yeah. Yeah. I’m excited.
Diane Diaz:
Awesome. Well, I’m really excited. Again, I just want to reiterate how excited I am that we were able to connect the work that you had done, owning that boutique hotel, to this message that you’re sharing now for the consulting work. Because, you know, we we don’t often look back and see what we can draw upon from previous, what I call previous lives, right when we had these other careers, because we’ve all had careers that have meandered and changed and we’ve rebranded ourselves and, you know, so it’s I think it’s, um, not only interesting, but I think it helps to flavor the talk, but also make the connections of thought leadership, which is what you’re, you know, positioning yourself as when you’re doing this, you’re on on that stage or in front of that group, you’re the thought leader, you’re the one with this particular expertise. And it’s nice to be able to draw on those past experiences and that past knowledge and weave it actually into the talk to.
Samantha Irwin:
Yeah. So that’s I agree. Um, you had said something earlier about one of my goals was for it to lead into my talk, to lead into some of the services and products that I have. Yes. Um, and I have to give you a win because there were let’s see, I think there were about 20 clubs represented at the conference, and there were about 35, 40 people there. So one two, three four, five. Yeah. About that much. Um, and I have a, I use these cards because one of the tools that I created for for leaders is this weekly deck. It’s a yes conversation pieces to help you infuse knowledge and experience and excitement into your staff. So, um, I had these cards like you had talked about. I had them as some of the, um, the the slides.
Diane Diaz:
Yes.
Samantha Irwin:
And, you know, they have the question on the front and they have, excuse me, the quote or stat on the front and the question on the back and. I didn’t. I didn’t pitch it hard. I just like, use them and then told people I’d have them available. And I think I sold like 11. So half of the people, half of the clubs purchased one, which was super fun for me. I’m very excited to hear their results as they implement this drip irrigation for your people, for your staff.
Diane Diaz:
Yes. That is so fantastic to hear. So just for everybody listening, just to sort of clarify what Samantha is talking about. When we were creating her talk in different points being made or supporting, using outside sources for credibility, third party credibility. Samantha has this deck of cards that she sells as part of the offerings through, you know, working with our clients on this customer experience. And so the idea was to take the image of the card and use the image of the card as the slide with that quote or that piece of credibility statistic or something like that. And so the audience is actually seeing the image of the card that is Samantha’s offering her product, that she part of what she offers. And so it’s a great way to sort of pique their interest in like, oh, what is that? Hmm. I need to know about that. So it’s, it makes me so excited that you actually sold some of those from that. So imagine if there’s maybe a little bit more intentional messaging around that. I mean, that’s incredible, though, that you just showed it to them and they were already interested in buying them. That’s fantastic.
Samantha Irwin:
Yeah, it was fun. Thanks for explaining. For the people who are listening to the podcast, because I’m like showing you a picture of it on the video and you’re like, yeah, that’s not really gonna translate so well.
Diane Diaz:
Well, and they weren’t, they weren’t in our VIP day. It was just you and me. So they didn’t know what we did. Right.
Samantha Irwin:
Like this is a podcast even though I can see you.
Diane Diaz:
Yeah I gotta describe. Yes. Yes. And so yeah. So that’s so I just wanted everybody to understand. So when you’re creating your talk for everybody listening, think about how you can tie in the things that you do to the talk stories of, you know, past experiences, past work you’ve done also, you know, work that you offerings like Samantha’s with those physical cards because it’s really fun to give the audience something more tangible like that. And again, I like that it’s positioning you as a thought leader, because again, those cards are your sort of brainchild, right? And they’re they’re what make you a part of what makes you a thought leader in this space, is this way that you present this information to people and that those cards are part of that. So it’s a really great tie in with the thought leadership. So Bravo.
Samantha Irwin:
Thank you very much. Thank you for your help and bringing in the stories and planting seeds. It was it was all very it was super fun. I just loved it. I loved I loved adding value to this conference, and my goal was to exceed the expectations for the woman who hired me. And, um, hopefully I did that.
Diane Diaz:
So yeah, well, Samantha, you have to walk the walk and talk the talk, right? Because customer experience and then you delivered on that customer experience didn’t you.
Samantha Irwin:
Yeah. Hope. And so yeah.
Diane Diaz:
You certainly did I think I did. Well I know you did because you got really great feedback. So we know that for sure.
Samantha Irwin:
So yes that’s true. That’s true. There was it was good. It was good. So yeah.
Diane Diaz:
Thank you. Yes. Well thank you. And thank you for being here and coming on the podcast. So I’m glad that our, our listeners get to hear your story. And I, I hope that it that they’ll reach out to you and connect with connect with Samantha. If you’re in need of anything customer experience related or you’re looking for a speaker on that topic, she is your go to. So we will definitely share that information in the show notes. So again, Samantha, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And as I said, I’ll be well, you’re very welcome. And I’ll link to all of Samantha’s information in the show notes there. Um, and again, as I mentioned at the beginning, for those of you listening, if you would like to join us in the Thought Leader Academy, you can get all the details at speaking your brand.com/academy again, that is speaking your brand.com/academy. Until next time. Thanks for listening.
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