200 – You Deserve to Be Heard with Carol Cox of Speaking Your Brand

You're listening to gift biz on wrapped episode way for it.

200 find those people who fan your flames,

who encourage you and motivate you and see your potential and

know that you can get there.

At Tinton gifters,

bakers, crafters and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

now you are in the right place.

This is gift to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal,

Sue moon Heights.

Thank you so much for joining me On episode 200 yes,

you've heard it right.

I've been podcasting now for almost four years and something really

interesting has just happened over the last couple of weeks.

I've had a huge jump in listeners.

I don't know why.

I don't know if it's the time in,

I don't know if people are just finding us.

I have no clue.

But obviously whenever you're advancing and you're seeing your numbers rise,

that is a cause for celebration.

If you'd like to help me celebrate,

there's a great way that you can do that and that

is by going over to iTunes and subscribing and reviewing the

show. So here's what happens when you do that,

and this is why it's helpful when you subscribe the episodes

when they go live,

automatically download to your phone so you don't have to worry

about missing a single show.

And then when you do a review,

it also helps get more eyes on this podcast.

It's a great way to pay it forward.

So other makers just like you can start learning and growing

their businesses.

Given that I'm celebrating podcasting today,

my guest is a perfect fit.

After all,

podcasting is doing what?

Sharing ideas,

right? Well,

today we're going to be talking about you getting your voice

to be heard and sharing your thoughts and your knowledge.

I'm going to do Carol's intro in a minute,

but here's what you're going to learn,

how to put your message out into the world in a

public forum.

Whether that's standing up and talking at a networking meeting or

a BNI presentation or actually doing a formal presentation at a

trade show or maybe even a keynote speech.

Why not think big?

We start with why you should think about doing this in

the first place.

She's going to talk about how to construct your talk and

make sure to listen through because Carol is sharing with us

a really valuable free download to help you construct your talk.

And finally,

the thing that I think is on all of our minds

when we think about getting up in front of people and

talking the nerves,

Carol talks about why get nervous and then the most important

thing, how do you overcome those nerves when it's time for

you to get up and talk?

There are specific things that you can do to calm yourself

down and make sure you're presenting yourself the best you possibly

can. You have a valuable message to get out into the

market and right now,

Carol has a valuable message for us.

So let's get right to our interview.

Carol Cox is the founder of speaking your brand,

which helps high performing purpose-driven women entrepreneurs and professionals create their

signature talks to grow their business and become recognized as influencers

in their fields.

So these are talks like keynote addresses,

TEDx and business presentations.

Carol is the host of the speaking your brand podcast and

a sought after speaker and trainer on public speaking,

business storytelling and women's leadership.

Carol teaches business and marketing classes at full sail university and

during election seasons serves as a political analyst on TV news.

Welcome to the gift biz unwrapped podcast.

Carol, Thank you so much for having me see you.

I am delighted to be here.

This is going to be a fun,

fun conversation.

I'm so excited to get into it,

but before we get started,

I like to ask you my traditional question that everybody answers.

So I know this is a little bit different for you,

but we're going with it.

If you were to share a little bit more about yourself

through the image of a motivational candle,

what color would your candle be and what would be the

quote on your candle?

Okay, so because this is who I am,

I'm going to go not just with a color but with

the smell.

Because when you were doing the introduction,

I thought,

I feel like I need some cookies around here because I

know that your audience and the people that you help are

bakers and makers and crafters and creators and so I'm like,

I feel like I need some cookies.

So my candle's going to be probably like a cookie dough

color, kind of like a vanilla ish color cookie dough color,

and it smells like cookies,

like chocolate chip cookies Being hungry.

I know,

I know.

I think it's because it's lunchtime,

so I'm ready to eat right now.

So that's what the candle would look like and smell like.

And the motivational quote that I would have on it,

this is one of my favorite ones.

I use it in my presentations a lot.

It's by the poet Rumi.

He was a Sufi poet from hundreds of years ago and

his quote is,

set your life on fire.

Seek those who fan your flames.

So find those people around you.

Find that community,

Sue, you've done that with the community you've created for the

people who listened to this podcast is find those people who

fan your flames,

who encourage you and motivate you and see your potential and

know that you can get there.

So important to have a support system behind you.

Absolutely. Let's dive into your background.

And it's interesting because a lot of people when they think

speaking, it's like they want to turn and run the other

way. Right.

So you dove into it,

your profession.

How did that all come about?

I've always enjoyed getting up in front of people and doing

presentations. Even back when I was in middle school,

grade school,

middle school,

high school,

that was one of the most enjoyable parts of the class.

It would be getting presentations.

And when I was in high school,

I was a member of the speech and debate team.

So I went and did that regularly.

And then when I was in college,

I was in the model United nations club.

So we would do presentations and speeches pretending that we were

different countries in the UN.

And so I've always enjoyed public speaking.

I enjoyed the performance aspect of it,

but I'm not an actor.

I don't have an acting talent,

so I can't pretend to be someone else,

but I'm happy to share,

share knowledge and information and to teach and to train others.

And so,

but I didn't actually start this business.

my graduate degree is in history and then I was in

technology. I became a programmer,

started to software businesses,

worked with all different types of companies from fortune 500 companies

to startups,

political organizations and everything in between.

And so part of that,

I would naturally go to conferences.

I would speak at conferences,

I would do software demos at conferences.

So it was always been a big part of what I've

done in my businesses and in my career.

And I realized that is such an important marketing channel nowadays,

especially because our focus tends to be so much online and

online is so noisy nowadays that it's easy to get lost.

But when you're standing in front of a room at a

conference or at a local group,

all eyes and ears are on you.

You're commanding attention and you're seen as the expert and the

authority on your subject matter,

which is so much easier to do when you're speaking in

person or even on,

I know we're going to talk about Facebook live video and

other videos too,

but then it is just to be just putting content out

online of course as a place for both,

but I think we've neglected the in-person aspect of our businesses.

I think so.

Especially when you talk about social media because that's the big

bright thing everyone's talking about and we kind of forget the

things that have been done before that still are really solid

business building tools.

Not as many people are doing it so you can capitalize

on that because others are not in that space.

Good point.

I just have to say when you were talking about your

background and how speaking and the performance part of it naturally

comes to you,

I just picture you in grade school or high school with

the groups.

You know how you used to get together as groups and

do a presentation or create something and then it's like,

okay, who's going to do the presentation?

So I bet you they always turned and said,

okay Kerala to you.

Yeah I am sure that happened.

Or I volunteered myself right away.

Right from the start.

Like I'd be happy to do that.

And everyone else probably side.

Yeah. Which means everyone wanted you in their group by the

way. So as local business owners and makers as you were

referencing before,

I think a lot of us,

and I also am one who likes to speak,

but I'm just thinking on behalf of our listeners,

never thought that this would be something that they'd have to

think about as a business owner.

So let's start with why should they even be considering doing

something that for many feels very scary.

What's the value?

Well, let me address why it feels scary first and because

I like the objections out of the way and then we

can talk about the value of it.

Carol, why does it feel scary?

It's scary for a couple of reasons.

Number one is that I believe it's the fear of the

unknown. When you go up and stand in front of a

group of people,

whether it's 10 people or a hundred people or 500 or

a thousand people,

there are so many unknowns.

What is the room going to look like?

Where are people going to be seated?

What is this age going to look like?

Where am I going to be standing?

How is the microphone gonna work?

How are my slides going to work?

If I have slides?

There are so many questions and because it's not an environment

that we're in every day or regularly,

we're not comfortable with it.

And so that fear of the unknown is what naturally produces

nerves. So there's strategies you can use to find out more

information about where you're going to speak and see pictures and

videos and do visualizations and get more comfortable.

So that's one part of it is the fear of the

unknown. The other part is really based on our physiology.

If we think about it,

our brains,

even though we're our modern civilization,

are still wired from tens of thousands of years ago,

and when we're standing in front of a group of people

all by ourselves in an open area,

we are considered vulnerable and so our physiology,

our brain is telling us we should not be standing here

by ourselves because if we were on the Savannah,

a predator could come easily get us and kill us.

Now, I know this sounds really weird,

but this is all happening subconsciously in our minds,

which is why when you get up in front of a

group of people,

you get butterflies in your stomach,

your heart starts to race,

you get a little sweaty,

you get short of breath is because your body is getting

ready to either fight or flee or freeze is having this

physiological reaction with the adrenaline and cortisol because you're feeling very

vulnerable standing in that spot.

Now I will tell you,

the more you do it,

the easier it gets.

I promise.

It really,

really does and people tell me this all the time.

It's just that unknown.

And then getting more comfortable with being in that environment.

Your body will start to react differently.

And there's breathing exercises and as I mentioned,

visualization that you can do to help you get to that

point. So for those of you who are listening,

who are saying to yourself,

I am terrified of public speaking,

I dread public speaking.

Trust me,

I understand where you're coming from.

But if it's something that you really want to do,

if this is a skill that you want to develop,

Oh, you know,

it can help you move your business forward.

There are things that you can do to get better at

it. So I'll,

I'll say that.

Well, and I think that what you've just said is really

important because I think a lot of people will think it's

just them.

They're the only ones who are so afraid of being in

the spotlight in front of a room.

And so they must not be cut out to do it

because they're so afraid.

So just by knowing what you went through,

that it's innately there in all of us.

I mean that's how we survived in the past.

And just understanding that that's where that comes from.

Should give people a little bit of comfort.

Yes. And also we are our worst critic on ourselves.

So if you go up and do a speaking presentation,

you probably notice if you had a few fumbles or if

you forgot something or if you were nervous.

But the audience for the most part probably has no idea.

They don't see what you're seeing for yourself and they're not

hard on you.

Like you're hard on yourself.

So keep doing it because you will improve.

And here's the primary thing to remember as the speaker.

It's not about you,

it's about the audience.

You have a message,

you have something important that you can share to them.

You can give them inspiration about how you started your business.

You started creating something in your home and now you have

a business.

There are people in the audience who have a dream to

do the same thing and you're giving them hope and inspiration

that they can do it too.

So we have to remove ourselves a bit from the speaking

process. And remember that it's the message that we're bringing to

the audience that's making the impact.

Yes, I agree.

Carol, I don't know if you've had this.

I bet you have,

and also give biz listeners.

I bet you you've seen this too where you've been to

a speaking event and someone gets up and they're so anxious

and the very worst fear happens.

They freeze.

They don't know what to say.

They want to run off the stage and I remember several

times when I've been sitting in the audience and that's happened

and all you want to do is reach out and hug

that person and just say,

it's okay.

Just tell me what you're here to say because we want

to know.

Yes, just start.

The first three to five minutes are good to feel shaky

because again,

your body's kind of getting into the groove and your mind

is kicking in.

You can get past the first three to five minutes and

just keep going.

You're going to start getting more comfortable and when I work

with my clients,

there are strategies that we do in the very beginning of

their presentation.

When you first start to help build that comfort for yourself

so you're not starting cold.

Ooh, are we going to talk about those later?

Yeah, we can do that.

Make a little note.

I'm making myself a note.

We'll tease the listeners.

Keep listening,

but to,

to your point,

so am I podcast speaking your brand.

A few months ago I did an episode,

it was episode number 92 and it was about a TEDx

publicly what happened to me when I gave that TEDx talk

because as the speaking coach I messed up.

It was incredibly embarrassing to me.

Of course the audience was fine,

but to me I was mortified and knock his chair exactly

what happened cause you have to go listen to the episode

to get all the details.

But it happens to all of us and there's reasons that

it happened because of the particular content that I was sharing

and a whole bunch of stuff that was going on with

me mentally that led to that.

But no one's immune.

Sometimes things happen.

We have to give ourselves grace and know that life goes

on. Absolutely.

When you go up,

if something like that happens and you stumble,

let's say,

that doesn't reflect on you as a person and who you

are. It's just a point in time,

right? We're human.

Yeah, and so many times,

back to the idea that I was talking about where someone

gets up there and freezes normally when they actually start going

and get in the groove as you were talking about Carol,

then the rest of their presentation is awesome and then how

great does it feel when you walk off a stage and

you've done a good job,

you've delivered your message.

It's exhilarating.

It really is.

You get that runner's high because of the endorphins.

You get endorphins from speaking as well.

Oh, I didn't know that.

Oh yeah.

Oh, I mean,

or at least for people who enjoy it.

If you get to the point where you can actually enjoy

it and don't feel like you're just tolerating it,

you're going to get in.

It is,

your adrenaline is going,

you're excited.

You're seeing the connections the audience is making with the content

that you're sharing.

You're seeing those aha moments.

The audience is getting into it.

You're seeing the effect that they're having and they're getting excited

about what's possible for them.

And then you start to realize what a bigger impact you

can have other than just the product you're making.

Very interesting.

Okay, so let's talk now about why someone would do this.

Now we've laid the groundwork a little bit about where there's

anxiety and all of that,

but what would be the value to a business owner to

get up and speak in some format?

So there's a few different things when we're,

one would be to increase your,

the brand awareness,

so awareness of your business that it exists and what it

is that your business does.

And then we will come back to that.

So I would say number one,

brand awareness.

Number two would be your own personal brand as the CEO,

as the founder,

as the creator.

So if you want to develop your own personal brand,

so have people know about who you are as a leader

in your industry.

A leader in your community.

Speaking and visibility is one of the best ways to do

that. And then number three would be for lead generation and

for sales.

So I would say those would be for your audience,

the three primary reasons to do public speaking,

your business brand,

your personal brand,

and then for leads and sales.

Okay. So as we think about our marketing Strategies,

a lot of people who are listening are on social media,

which we've already talked about,

are probably doing some type of,

well maybe,

maybe, maybe not print advertising,

They're going out to craft shows.

So there's brochures.

So speaking is another portion of all of this.

It's another way of reaching an audience.

So it's not just a one all that's all you do.

It integrates in with things that you're already doing.

Absolutely. Yes,

it is a piece of your marketing and visibility mix.

Perfect. Okay.

So you were saying you were going to get back to

brand awareness.

Yeah. So if you think about,

so you mentioned that if you're going to a conference where

you're going to a trade show or even to a local

chamber of commerce or a local business group,

if you have someone's flyer or brochure or business card we

get all the time,

we kind of look at it and what usually happens,

it goes onto the corner of our desk or into our

bag or maybe even into the trash can,

right? Because we look at it and here today gone tomorrow,

easily forgotten because we have so much information that's coming at

us all of the time.

Now think about a speaker who you saw in the past

few months or the past year at a conference you attended

or a trade show or a business group or networking group.

You probably can picture in your mind that room and that

speaker at the front of the room talking and maybe you

can even remember a bit about what the content would that

person was talking about.

So you were going to a conference and that person was

talking about social media strategies or website search engine optimization strategies

or strategies for improving your visibility on Etsy,

whatever it happens to be.

Now, if you're ready to hire someone to help you with

one of those things,

that speaker is probably going to come up in your mind

first because you have a lot of cues to remember them.

You heard them,

you saw them,

you were physically in their presence versus someone's flyer that you

happen to walk by and pick up at a trade show

or at an event.

So it leaves a much deeper impact.

Yes, absolutely.

And because as a speaker,

you're that expert authority.

Now for your listeners who are the makers and the creators

and the bakers and the crafters,

you may be thinking,

why don't do social media strategies on service based business like

that? So in that sense,

then imagine that you are at a chamber of commerce or

you're at a conference and you have the product that you've

created and this is what's so great about your audience,

Sue, is that they have props.

They naturally have hops that they can bring with them to

speaking engagements,

service based businesses.

We don't really have really great props that we can bring

unless we make something up that goes with our content.

But you all can bring food.

People love food.

Absolutely. You're bringing examples of your products,

you're showing them textures and colors and whatever it happens to

be. So that's another way to for people to remember it.

And so,

and if you share your entrepreneurial journey as your signature talk

as a presentation that you're giving,

you're helping the audience understand what it is that you do

with the product that you make,

but they're getting value because they're hearing about your entrepreneurial journey

or some obstacle that happened that you got past or how

you never imagined that you would end up as an entrepreneur.

Whatever your story is.

That could be the basis of your signature talk.

I'm sure a question is,

well, why would I just,

I'm just gonna talk about how to bake my cookies.

No, like that's probably,

I mean there could be a place for that,

but that's not what we're talking about.

Something bigger here.

You're sharing your journey and then the audience sees themselves in

you and then they refer you to other people for speaking

engagements for leads,

for bigger contracts,

bigger clients like Sue.

I know with your ribbon printing business,

you have large clients and big orders and so I'm sure

some of your listeners are imagining,

well, maybe that's something that I could do one day is

increasing to scale will.

It's through these relationships and networks that you're going to make

by being a speaker that you're going to start getting to

those people who are going to help you make that happen.

Yeah, I totally agree and I also think within our industries,

there's the challenge that there are other people that,

let's say someone's a jewelry maker.

Well we know there's a ton of people who are making

jewelry or cupcake shops or whatever it is.

Someone else is already making a similar product that you are

making. But by adding that overlay of a story,

I think it endears our customers to us and they're going

to want to buy from us more because they know our

story versus someone who all it is is a name on

a card or a name on it.

Even a storefront.

If they know your story,

it's a more personal connection.

Would you agree?

Oh absolutely.

Because not only do you remember it,

but then you're,

you start to think,

well I want to support that business.

I want to support that entrepreneur,

that founder because I heard their story and I understand where

they came from and I believe in them and I'm happy

to support them.

Versus either a larger company,

a larger conglomerate where you could buy a similar product from

whatever it happens to be or from someone else down the

street who you don't know.

So what do you say to somebody who says,

I don't have a story.

What would my story be?

And the way I started it was so easy,

so boring.

You may think it's boring because you're so close to it

and it seems maybe natural or inevitable or just the next

step, but if you really went back and looked about what

you were doing say the year prior to when you started

your business and then what has happened since you started your

business. There are way points along the way that are instructional

and helpful for other people to hear and then also think

about whose stories have you read or have you heard that

inspired you and what was it about their stories that inspired

you is because they come from a similar background as you

did they have similar obstacles?

It was it a similar product?

Did they start around the same time period as you,

so find what stories have been interesting to you and see

how those relate to your own story.

Love that direction.

I was also,

as you're talking,

trying to think of like what other angles for all of

us it could be and it might be things like how

you ended up developing this crazy technique that you now use

in all your products.

That never was around before and you created it.

What's the story behind that or funny events that have happened

now that you're a business owner that you would have never

known behind the scenes knowledge of a business owner that the

shop looks great from the front here,

the crazy things that happen inside,

you know I loved like the messy behind the scenes sneak

peaks and stories and that's really good.

Not just for speaking in person but also for videos.

Whether Instagram videos or Facebook live videos or YouTube videos is

not only showing the finished product but showing how it was

made showing the behind this.

Right? Absolutely.

All right,

wonderful. So think about stories you guys in terms of what

that could look like for you.

And now I think I've out that you're going to give

us some goodness here on how you get started and motivate

yourself. And I'm going to draw this out just a little

bit longer while we take a break and listen to a

word from our sponsor.

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for more information.

So let's say you,

You decided,

all right,

you're part of a BNI group for example,

and you are now going to be the presenter for the

next meeting.

What types of things should someone prepare in terms of content

of the presentation?

Should they have like a whole written out thing or bullet

points or does it depend on personalities or what do you

do with that?

I'm a proponent of having an outline with bullet points,

having a word for word script.

Unless you're doing something like a TEDx talk where it's time

limited and the content has to be very tight because of

the nature of that type of presentation.

Other than that,

you really don't want to script it out word for word

because you're making it more difficult for yourself.

Number one,

you would have to memorize all that and number two,

then you're worried you're going to mess up.

You're going to forget us a sentence.

You're going to mess up a word and so that's going

to add to the nerves so much more so you don't

need to script it out,

especially for a local presentation or a conference presentation.

Do an outline,

do bullet points and then you do want to practice it

because you want to get comfortable with the material.

You want to know am I hitting the time allotment that

I have,

whether it's 10 minutes or 30 minutes or 45 minutes or

what have you.

So you do want to do an outline.

Now there's a story structure framework that I've created that gives

you an outline to follow when creating your presentations and also

really for creating your videos or any other type of content

as well.

So you're not starting from a blank document or from a

blank slide cause that's a lot of time where most of

us started like,

well I don't know what to put first and what to

put next and that's where we end and walk away too.

Right, exactly.

Where it's like,

okay, forget it.

I'm just going to wing it,

move on.

I'm just not going to do it or I'm going to

wing it.

We don't want to do those two options.

So Sue,

for your listeners,

I do have a PDF download that they can get that

has a story structure framework in it so they can download

this PDF.

They can even print it out and then they can follow

that framework to create the outline for their presentation.

Oh wow.

Carol, thank you.

Yeah, no problem.

We didn't talk about that.

That's a surprise to me too.

Well I always like to give listeners because it's so nice

to have this resource and that's going to be a speaking

your brand.com/gift

biz. Yes.

Biz BIC is where they can download that.

Perfect. And this you guys will be in the show notes,

so if you're out and about and you don't remember it,

just jump over to the show notes and I'll have the

link there for that.

So exciting.

And so that will give us the outline in terms of

the first things you talk about and just the whole structure

and then we fill in the content.

We follow your outline,

the framework,

Right, exactly.

So like,

so for example,

a lot of presentations,

people start off with their bio slide,

you have your title and then you do your introduction about

me, about yourself,

about your company.

And that's what you should not do.

You should not start by talking about yourself and your bio

and your background and instead to,

because the audience doesn't have context yet as far as why

they should care about you or about the company that you

started in that you run.

You have to start with why are they there?

What's in it for them?

What are they trying to achieve?

You start there,

what's getting in the way of what they want to achieve,

what are those obstacles?

And then you bring in,

here's who I am.

I've faced similar obstacles cause I wanted a similar goal and

now we're going to talk about how to get there.

Okay, so why should they listen to you?

So what's in it for them?

The obstacles that have probably come up before that have prevented

that. And then the piece on you is the credibility play

of why are you the one to share with them,

how to overcome whatever That issue is.

Exactly. And then you go into the details of that,

of the actual content,

what the audience can do,

maybe three key ideas,

usually not more than three because we don't remember things when

there's too much content.

So break it down into three things and then the story

structure framework has all of this as well as some other

additional detail that will be helpful.

And so that's for content.

Now for a BNI group,

probably you have a shorter amount of time in that than

you would say doing a breakout session at a conference.

So what we've just talked about here would be like for

an hour presentation or 45 minutes an hour or something like

that. Yeah,

anywhere from like 30 minutes to an hour would be good.

I like conference or a chamber of commerce group or something

like that.

If you're doing a networking where maybe you only have five

or 10 minutes,

then really you still want to do the same thing where

you start with what does the audience want,

why are they there?

What's their goal was preventing them from getting there?

Your credibility and then you're really just sharing one key idea,

one key point to help them versus sharing a lot more

content because too many times we feel like we need to

brain dump everything we know to the audience in 10 minutes

or 30 minutes or an hour and we can't.

It's not physically possible to do that and then the audience

gets overwhelmed,

so instead stick to one to three key ideas.

I think that makes so much sense because I've seen so

many times and listened to speakers and they've said a lot

of words,

but when I walk away,

I have no idea what the message was or what to

do with it.

Oh, okay.

Or what to do with it.

Yeah. How to apply it yourself to whatever it is that

they're related to.

How can you actually take it and then apply it to

what you're doing?

So I've seen it conference sessions where they say 20 ways

to promote your podcast or 20 ways to promote your business.

Well, I'm not going to do all 20 because I don't

have the time or the resources to do that.

All 20 are probably not relevant to where I am in

MMI business or my podcast or whatever it happens to be.

So tell me instead,

what are three things I should be doing based on where

I am and how do I actually go about doing that

and what impact is it going to have?

So more is not always better.

Correct. So hearing 20 things because it seems like it's better

cause it's 20 really the three things are better.

Yeah, because then you get to analysis paralysis.

I don't know which one you to do or I've already

tried five of those and they didn't work well.

Yeah, they didn't work because they probably,

they probably weren't right for you as a speaker,

you're the authority.

You're the guide to help the audience to figure out what

is the right next step for them.

Beautiful. Carol,

you wouldn't have known this necessarily,

but we've talked a lot in the past about offering too

many options for your products.

So too many sizes,

too many colors,

too many options.

Instead of thinking that,

well then there's something for everybody actually confuses people and people

will walk out the door.

So we've had that conversation already about product selection and as

you're growing your product,

the base of what you're offering,

but so here,

applying it in speaking makes total sense.

Yes, we need guidance.

I mentioned before,

there's so much information that we get all day long.

There are so many decisions we have to make as creators,

as business owners,

that when it comes to certain areas that are not our

areas of expertise,

we're looking for someone to give us that guidance to tell

us, okay,

here are some different options,

but the best one for you is probably option a and

here's why and here's what to do next.

Tell them in no uncertain terms exactly how to do it

then too.

Yes, and make the steps really small.

I think also as you're explaining,

if it's something that has some type of structure to it,

because I think when we're so close to our content,

we will leave gaps that someone can't follow.

You know they fall off because they don't know from one

step to another.

Right. The gap is too big for them to leap across.

They need your guidance,

but they also need you to build a little bridge.

What is it?

A rope bridge.

Like a little rope bridge,

but a gap can't be too big because the rope bridge

won't work for some metaphors here.

I love it.

It works perfectly,

But it's really true because I think what's so obvious to

us isn't always obvious and that's where things fall short.

Yes, and there's a balance there because you don't want your

content to be too basic or too simplistic that it becomes

boring because the audience is already knows it or familiar with

it. So obviously you want to get a good sense of

who's going to be in the audience before you create your

presentation so that you align your content level with what the

audience needs.

So you don't want to go too basic.

So your content should have some depth to it.

Even if some people in the audience are at the beginner

level, they're probably going to be some people in the audience

who are intermediate or advanced and they'll appreciate you having some

depth to your content.

Okay. All right,

perfect. So we know we're presenting next week.

We've got the plan all set because we've downloaded your framework.

We filled it all in.

We're feeling really good.

We've practiced,

We are ready now.

The day comes,

we're driving to the event and we're freaking out.

Yes. Now what help Carol?

Hell yeah.

Listen to some songs that you really like,

like your power songs or you're like get into the right

kind of mindset.

Get into the mood songs,

like really pumped yourself up in the car on the way

there or in a hotel room and your headphones or what

have you.

So do that.

And do some visualization and some breathing exercises as well because

we tend to start taking shorter,

shallower breaths when our nerves kick in.

So you really need to be mindful and to really do

those deep breaths because that's going to physically calm down our

bodies visualization.

So imagine yourself standing in that room.

So either if you're at a conference,

go check out the room ahead of time.

If you're as a BNI group or a group that you

go to,

you know what the room already looks like.

So imagine yourself in that room.

Imagine yourself delivering your presentation,

your talk,

your pitch.

So imagine yourself doing that.

Like actually see yourself.

See the people in the room did that.

And then when you actually get to the event,

sometimes speakers make the mistake of going and hiding somewhere.

So going and hiding into another room or kind of standing

off and not talking to people because they're nervous or they

feel like they have to not talk to anyone until after

the presentation.

But then you should actually go talk to people,

talk to people in the audience because first of all then

you'll see familiar faces when you actually are standing up because

you'll recognize people shaking someone's hand or hugging them,

whatever the appropriate,

depending on how well you know the person that you're saying

hello to,

but shaking someone's hand actually releases oxytocin in our bodies and

oxytocin is that feel good hormone that we get and so

shaking someone's hand releases.

That also helps to calm down our systems and I like

to chit chat with people in the audience beforehand because then

I will refer to them during my presentation so I'll say

something like,

Sue and I were talking before we got started and she

mentioned that one of the things that's been going on in

her business is that she's seeing whatever it happens to be

that's related to my content.

So now the audience is more engaged because you're showing that

you're making the content relevant to them.

Sue, you sit in the audience are just going to be

beaming because you got mentioned by the speaker and now you

have a stronger connection with that speaker and the speaker has

a stronger connection with some of those people in the audience.

You're going to see them out there smiling.

They're going to be more likely to participate.

When you ask the audience questions.

Sue, because I mentioned you,

you'll probably raise your hand and volunteer some information if I

ask a question cause that's how then you get that audience

engagement going.

Perfect. Okay,

so here's the summary power songs.

So you're revving yourself up kind of spiritually,

I guess you will.

Like you're really the mindset is there,

visualization, deep breaths,

and then talking to your audience beforehand and those handshakes.

I didn't know that there was some physiological effect There.

That's really interesting,

Carol. All right,

and so then you go on to stage and then you

just get started with however your presentation is going to start.

And again,

I just want to remind everyone what Carol said way in

the beginning,

which is it's okay to be a little bit nervous as

you're getting started and you'll get into your groove after the

first few minutes.

The point is just to get started.

Yes. And now I know we teased the audience earlier about

what are some strategies they can use at the beginning of

their presentation to help them with the nerves.

Do you want to talk about that now,

Sue? Love to,

yes. Okay,

so I like to pull the audience in the beginning,

so ask them questions,

especially at conferences where we don't really know who the audience

is going to be,

what level they're at or what type of business they have

or whatever it happens to be.

So I'll do a show of hands questions.

I'll even have the audience members stand up if this applies

to you or stand up if you are this or that,

especially if they've been sitting for awhile and you need to

kind of get their blood moving.

And so I'll have them do that.

I'll have them do the show of hands.

Questions. I'll even have some people shout out answers from the

audience. There's a couple of reasons why to do that.

Number one is that you're getting a sense of who is

in the audience so you can tailor your presentation a bit

for them as you go along.

And the second thing is because now you're not starting cold.

You're not starting with,

Oh my gosh,

I have to deliver my first line.

I have to remember it.

It has to be perfect.

I don't want to stumble over it.

Instead you walk up,

ideally someone has introduced you before you came up to the

front of the room or onto the stage.

You come up and say,

hi everyone.

Great to be here.

Let me start off with a few questions so I can

get a sense of who's in the room and then you

do the show of hands.

By the time you do that,

it's been a few minutes.

You're moving around,

your hands are moving around,

you've been walking around,

you're getting out some of that nervous energy,

and then now you can launch in to the main part

of your presentation.

I've done my fair share of speaking and one of the

things that I found works really well for me and I'll

be interested in your opinion,

Carol, is I have very well-rehearsed my very first line,

like I know word for word what my first line is

going to be.

Now, do I change it maybe as I'm up there maybe,

but I never,

because I used to,

I never struggle with the very first line.

I found that to be really helpful for me.

What do you think about that?

No, that's great Sue.

If that works for you,

then keep doing it.

Yeah, because I just think polling the audience,

pulling the audience.

Okay. You can only do that so much.

What if you haven't found anything to roll off of and

then you're not sure how to start,

like how to get started,

Right? Yes.

If that works for you,

that's great.

For me,

having something memorized is probably is not my particular style,

but this is what I do when I work with my

clients is we figure out what do they feel comfortable with,

what is going to work for them,

and then we create that for them.

Okay. And then what about ending?

Is there special or some thoughts on how to finish so

that your talk stays memorable?

Yeah, so you definitely want to finish strong and not feel

rushed. So whatever time a lot and you've been given,

so you've been given 45 minutes,

I recommend then your presentation content being around 35 minutes and

not pushing it to the 45 minutes when you're creating or

when you're practicing it.

The reason is because you may end up starting late because

the sessions are going over time and now you don't have

45 minutes anymore.

You have 40 minutes or something happens and there's a microphone.

It has to get readjusted or something like that.

So you want to make sure that you practice for less

time than you're allotted because you don't want to rush your

end game because you're ending.

The audience is going to remember the ending more so than

anything because that's the most recent thing and too many times

Indians also become summaries of what the presentation just was.

It's fine to summarize towards the end of your presentation what

it was,

but you really want to end your presentation on a story.

Ideally a story that connects back to something that you talked

about in the beginning of your presentation.

So you were tying everything up with a bow.

So the beginning is related to the ending.

You want to end with a story or something inspirational,

something that's going to lead the audience that they too can

do what it is that you just talked about and the

impact that it will have on them.

So you want to end with that story.

Then close your thank you's and close and then you can

open it up for questions afterwards.

If you do have a Q and a time built into

your session.

And the other thing that you want to do after you

finished your story and after you do your thank you before

you open up for Q and a is I use feedback

forms and my clients,

I'll use feedback forms when they go and speak and the

feedback forms give you feedback on your presentation,

but they're also a tool for lead generation.

So in that PDF download that I mentioned,

Sue, there's also the feedback form template and how to use

it along with that story structure framework in there so that

listeners can get both of those.

Perfect. So that's a way that they can reconnect with you

if they're excited about your product.

Maybe even though you're not selling during this presentation,

store locations,

whatever it is,

Right? Referrals for other speaking invitations,

referrals to be on people's podcasts.

It could be that maybe you want to do a workshop,

whatever it looking for,

you can customize that feedback form to get the information back

that you want.

Perfect. All right,

great. So now another question because I have to do it

cause you are the pro Carol.

What if we have some experienced speakers who are listening right

now and they've been thinking a little bit about a Ted

talk. Can we talk a little bit about why you would

consider a Ted talk and then a little bit of the

experience in terms of how to find out if you qualify

and then how all that works.

Sure. So why to do a Ted talk or a TEDx

talk, it's really about your personal brand because it is such

a well known platform and Ted is such a well recognized

brand that you now become associated with that when you become

a TEDx speaker.

So it's your personal brand is also because you can share

your message to a much wider audience because you're going to

be doing your talk at a local TEDx chapter,

but then that video gets uploaded to YouTube on the TEDx

talks and YouTube channel,

so people all around the world can end up seeing your

talk so you can share your message much wider.

I had a client of mine,

her name is Tammy lolly.

We worked together on her TEDx talk that she did in

a very powerful personal story about what happened in her family.

And she shared that as part of her TEDx talk and

around this idea of money shame and what happens with money,

shame and families.

Well, it ended up that her story was so powerful.

Her talk was so powerful that the parent company,

ted.com chose her talk to appear on their homepage and the

homepage space is limited.

They don't pick every talk around that happens around the world.

Well, they selected hers and her talk now has over 1.5

million views on it.

Wow. Because of that prominence that the national Ted organization gave

it and she now gets clients and people contacting her from

all over the world who've heard her talk and been impacted

on it.

So that's the reason to do the Ted talk.

Now, Ted talks are really,

they're very unique as far as the structure,

the key idea,

how to do them.

I have a number of podcast episodes that I've done on

my podcast related to Ted talks and TEDx talks,

how to find your idea,

what types of ideas are what are considered Ted worthy ideas.

So that's probably the best resource for your listeners to go

to because it would probably take us 30 minutes more to

go through to talk about what makes a good Ted talk

idea, how to structure one,

how to find places,

how to get selected,

how to apply all of that.

So I covered all those topics and a number of my

episodes. What would you say is the time investment to do

something like that?

If we're all business owners and we're very involved in the

day to day,

is it even worth trying to do that if we're so

busy? That's a really,

as a personal preference.

As I mentioned,

my client,

Tammy lolly,

she probably spends,

I don't know,

100 hours over three months working on it as far as

content and practicing and preparing all of that.

Was it worth it to get 1.5

million views?

Yes. Obviously there's no guarantee that you're going to get that.

But, so I would say yes.

Other clients that I've worked with have not spent a hundred

hours on it,

but I would say a minimum.

I'm trying to think.

I just coached some speakers for TEDx Orlando that happened a

few months ago and total they would practicing and all of

that. They spent,

Oh, probably at least 40 to 50 hours over a period

of a couple of months.

That doesn't sound like too long actually.

It's manageable,

I would say is manageable as long as you start early

and you don't try to do it all within,

say a month.

Right. Alright,

well, yes.

So I'm going to direct people over to Your podcast,

speaking your brand,

and then they could probably just search for TEDx talks or

Ted talks or something to find the episodes.

That would be good because I know there's a whole structure

behind it.

You have to apply and then when you're accepted,

they still want to see,

you have to actually do it live in front of them

several times before the real performance,

right? Oh yes.

And you would want to do that.

It's way more of a performance than a talk,

I almost would say Yes,

exactly, and really for those,

for the TEDx talks,

most of those are scripted.

Pretty much word for word because of the tight time limit

and you can't ad lib.

You can't really go on tangents cause the time has to

be right and the content has to be really tight.

Got it.

Perfect. Okay.

Final comments for somebody who's on the edge of their seat,

they're sounding like this is a good idea,

but tomorrow when they start thinking about it,

they're going to say,

I'm not sure anymore.

Again, what would you say to that person?

Try it.

You just might like it.

Yeah, no,

seriously. I would say start local.

Start with a group that you already know,

that you feel comfortable with and start and reach out to

them and say,

I'm happy to give a presentation on my entrepreneurial journey or

how I started my business.

To your members or to your audience.

I think that would be valuable to them.

You can just start small,

start local,

and then build up from there.

And podcast interviews are actually a great way to start getting

more comfortable with your story and with the message and content

that you're sharing so you could even start looking for podcasts

to be on.

There you go.

Perfect. Carol,

thank you so much.

This has been so informative.

So on behalf of myself and my listeners,

we would like to present you with a virtual gift.

It's a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your future.

So this is your dream or your goal of almost unreachable

Heights that you would wish to obtain.

Please accept this gift on behalf of all of us and

open it in our presence.

What's inside your box?

Ooh, now I can do some visualization of my own.

So for the business,

speaking your brand,

the bigger vision that I have is I really see it

as going well,

national and going global to provide communication and leadership training and

resources for women entrepreneurs and women leaders so that we can

see more women in these positions of influence,

whether it's in our businesses,

on boards,

on prominent boards,

on nonprofits in the media and politics and government,

and providing that leadership and communication skills to get them there.

So that's for the business.

Now, personally,

I would love to coach speakers,

women's speakers at the United nations.

To me that seems like so rewarding and so fulfilling.

So I just imagine myself at the UN building in New

York city and I'm helping some of the diplomat or the

different NGO speakers who are coming there and helping them develop

and create their presentations to have a global impact.

Love it.

I could so see you doing that Carol.

I'm putting it out there.

Public Lake and we'll see when you say things out loud,

the universe sometimes conspires to make them happen.

It's so true.

All right,

we're going to be watching.

Okay. And so we already know about the framework,

so that's one thing that people can get from you and

also listen to speaking your brand,

the podcast,

Carol's podcast,

and it's on all the podcast platforms,

right? Yes.

Okay. Is there anywhere else you were direct,

some of our listeners to go,

You're also welcome to join the speaking in your brand community.

It's a private Facebook group now.

This is for women speakers and so if you go to

speaking your brand.com/join,

you can get access there.

It's a free private community,

but it's a fantastic group of women,

speakers and entrepreneurs.

They're incredibly supportive.

You can go in there and ask questions,

get feedback.

Sometimes people ask,

I'm thinking of,

I need to charge for a workshop that I'm doing.

What do you think is a good price or what's a

good way to phrase this topic?

So it's really an excellent resource.

Perfect, wonderful.

And I'll connect that over on the show notes page as

well. Carol,

such great information as expected.

This was a really,

really fun talk,

but a lot of really great content and direction for our

listeners. So thank you so much.

I really,

really appreciate your time today.

Well, it was my absolute pleasure,

Sue. I've tremendously enjoyed talking with you and for all of

you who are listening out there,

I do hope that for this year going forward that you

make speaking as part of your marketing strategy.

I couldn't agree with Carol more.

I'm going to give you a little bit of a challenge.

If you do start speaking this year or if you want

to share some of your experiences and you're using some of

Carol's techniques and possibly even downloading that framework and following it,

let us know.

Jump over to gift biz breeze,

my free and private Facebook group and we can continue the

conversation over there.

So I'm usually pretty good at keeping secrets,

but I'm spilling the beans.

I can't help it.

I'm so excited.

I just want to tell you guys what I've been working

on over the last few months.

It's been a little bit of a secret project because I

wasn't sure exactly what the timing was going to look like

on it,

but I can't wait.

I have to share with you my secret.

Many of you have been following me for a while.

Know that I wrote a book that came out last may.

It's called maker to master,

but that's not what this is about.

Although it spins off a similar concept.

When I was getting serious about writing that book,

there were actually two books that I had in my mind.

One was maker master and that truth be told was the

harder one to do,

but I also was really interested in writing a book that

was an inspirational book kind of inspiration a day.

I know you've seen those out there where it's 365 inspiring

thoughts for your year or something like that.

I think very often We get defeated by our own self-talk

and we also sway away from core solid business growth values

because there's a new social media site.

It's available or other things come up that take our mind

off of the really important things that we need to grow

our business.

As things happen.

My idea continued to evolve and I came up with the

idea of instead of doing a 365 inspiring tips type book,

it would be way more helpful for you if it was

included in some type of a planner so that every day

when you're planning out your day,

you'd also then see a tip.

If I look at how I work with things,

I don't know if I would have a book on the

side of my desk and every day look at one day's

inspiration and then another days operation.

Way better to have everything in one place.

Consequently, I have created a planner.

It's called inspired a daily planner specifically for you,

our wonderful community of gifters,

bakers, crafters and makers.

I'll be sharing more in the upcoming days,

but let me give you a few highlights here.

One of the cool things about this planner is you can

start any month of the year if you've ever been like

me, where all of a sudden in may you decide I

want to start doing things different.

I want to get myself really organized,

but then you go to find a planner and they either

start in September going into the next year or you have

to buy a year and all the prior months of the

year are useless for you because you're all in fee in

may with this planner.

You can start any time.

If you're listening to this announcement in January,

you can start it right away.

If you're hearing this in may,

you can use this planner starting in may.

It has monthly and daily layout,

so you'll be able to keep yourself really organized and special

life enhancing sections.

More on that later.

It also includes what I've been talking about earlier and the

reason I changed this from a book to a planner and

that is daily inspiration.

Things that you need to be telling yourself,

affirmations to get in the right mindset as the owner of

your business.

Also, business tips and ideas.

Some of them you're going to read and you're like,

yep, got it.

It's cupboard,

and then others might give you some pause ideas of things

you might want to implement into your business.

To further Either solidify or grow What you already have going.

That's all I'm going to share with you right now,

but I will tell you that we are just weeks away

from getting this out to you.

I'm going to do a limited first run and if you

want to be one of the first ones to know when

it's available,

jump over to give biz unwrapped.com

forward slash add me and you'll get an email when the

planner is ready.

That link again is gift biz unwrapped.com

forward slash add me.

There is no time like the present to take the next

step on solidifying the dream you have for your business.

The new inspired planner could be just the ticket to make

it Ensure that that actually happens for you this year.

That's a wrap and I want you to know how much

I appreciate you listening to the show and supporting me each

and every week.

We've been talking about how you can get visibility for your

business through speaking,

but that's not the only way.

I have another approach for you of how you can get

more attention on your business.

We all know more attention.

It means more prospects,

more customers,

and more sales.

That's coming up next week on the gift biz on wrapped