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Speaking Strategies for Solopreneurs with Jenn Espinosa-Goswami, Barbara Boldt & Bobbie Carlton Ep 126

• Brenda Meller • Season 1 • Episode 126

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This was a panel discussion on "Speaking Strategies for Solopreneurs" with Jenn Espinosa-Goswami, Barbara Boldt, and Bobbie Carlton

Register to watch the playback and get presenter resources mentioned in this podcast episode here: https://www.mellermarketing.com/shift

Here are some of the key questions discussed during the panel discussion:

  • How do I find paid speaking opportunities?
  • How do I monetize my speaking engagements?
  • How do I sell myself to a meeting planner?
  • What resources do I need before I start looking for speaking opportunities?
  • Should I publish a book before or after I start speaking?
  • What kind of speaking opportunities should I be looking for?

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My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.

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Speaker 1:

We're going to be talking about speaking strategies for solopreneurs and ladies. I am delighted to have all of you here today. What we're going to do is we're going to start first with. I'm going to bring each of you into the hot seat, so to speak, and I'll allow you to introduce yourself to our audience. Jen, why don't you take us first?

Speaker 2:

Good morning, good afternoon, whatever time it is where you're joining us from. My name is Jen and I live in Minneapolis. I'm an internationally certified speaker coach, so what that means is I help service providers and usually solopreneurs deliver their message more confidently, consistently and with more pay, from stage and on camera. I've been doing this work ever since a major pandemic started happening in the world. That's when I pivoted away from health coaching because I have my own personal health story, and today I would love to share my favorite strategies for solopreneurs, because when I started my speaking business, I had no idea how to get paid to speak, what that looked like, or even how to find speaking opportunities. I'm happy to say there's quite a few out there right now.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful. Looking forward to hearing more from you. Barbara will be next. Barbara, hello, why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself?

Speaker 3:

Thanks, brenda. Sorry to cause you a moment of panic. I couldn't find the right link. I've already seen lots of people I know in the chat. Hello to everyone who knows me A lot of you I'm sure do not. I am an executive communication skills coach. I specialize in helping introverted speakers or professionals acquire the leadership communication skills they need to advance their careers. In my view, about probably 80 to 90% of leadership communication is persuasion, so I teach people who might be very good at presenting information and data how to create persuasive messages, and a lot of what I know I learned in the 20 years that I lived in Europe, lived and taught in Europe. I've known Brenda for quite a while now. She's one of my favorite people on the planet and I think we're going to have a great time for the next half hour.

Speaker 1:

Oh, thank you, and the feeling is mutual.

Speaker 4:

I think we're all in a mutual admiration society for each other. And, speaking of another person, I admire Bobbi Carlton. Hey Bobbi, how are you today? Go ahead and introduce yourself. I have many jobs. Day job is running a PR and marketing firm. The night job for many years was a startup event called Innovation Nights. And the dream job is Innovation Women. It's an online speaker platform designed to bring more women to the stage, help educate women about speaking engagements and the benefits and value that public speaking can bring for your career, your business and for yourself. It drives confidence and it also drives credibility, something that helps us get connected to all kinds of great opportunities. During the pandemic, I also engaged in some retail therapy and bought two additional companies a speaker research service called my Speaker Leads and a digital magazine for women entrepreneurs called Lioness.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful. I was thinking of retail therapy. She got me started right now. So cleverness of it, right, very cool. All right, we're going to move right into our Q&A. We're going to do as we did with the other panels we're going to go around the room, I'm going to ask each of our panelists one question, then we'll roll through it one more time, second question, and then we'll open it up for audience questions as well. So, ifreneurs right now that are looking for speaking engagement, but they're looking for paid. So how do what would you recommend? How do you find paid speaking opportunities? And then, maybe related to that, once I get on stage, how do I get people to buy my service? What would you say?

Speaker 2:

I love talking about how to monetize your speaking, because we know you can speak for free at the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club, local networking groups. Those opportunities are in vast supply. But how do you bridge the gap from those free opportunities, those visibility building opportunities, to getting paid? First of all, you have to negotiate your speaking fee. So do you have a speaking fee? Right now, people who are just starting out, even if you don't have any experience on major stages, can start at $1,000. You do have to be willing to bridge that conversation and say is there a speaking budget? Do you pay your speakers If you're filling out a call for speakers or a call for applications online for an annual event? Do they have an opportunity for you to share what your speaking fee is or what that speaking fee includes, which often will include travel expenses, any sort of expenses that are associated with printing of materials and things that you're providing to the audience? So that's it. You have to start charging a fee and you get to start wherever you want to with that fee. But there are people earning upwards of $10,000 per speaking engagement for 60 minutes. So that gives you an idea that there is payout there available, and then you have to be willing to ask for it. Now the best part is, if you are uncomfortable navigating that conversation which it takes a few times, of navigating that and being told no, there's not a speaking fee, which is okay Then you have to figure out how to monetize on the back end.

Speaker 2:

So how can you sell or promote your products or services from stage without annoying people? Because that is the number one sin of speakers out there who are the me show and are giving you a big, boring, long sales pitch? The number one technique that I've worked with clients on is called seeding your program, and I've had clients who don't even mention their program, their book, whatever it is they offer by name, until the last five minutes of their presentation. This is a big no. Folks. Make sure if you have a product, a program, a book or something that you're referring to it by name, that you're referring to it by results, that you're mentioning it within the first five minutes of your presentation so that people are aware of how you help them and what that program looks like and is called. So you're not saying, hey, buy my program for this much amount of money, buy this.

Speaker 2:

And this is how you do it. You're simply mentioning the name and creating the awareness around that and then make sure you have an easy, stupid, easy, that commercial where you press the easy button stupid, easy action step for people to take that is free. So this is for the people who may not know whether they want to work with you, but they know that the information you shared is so powerful that they must take action. How are you allowing your people to take one simple, stupid, easy action step as a result of your speaking so that, even if they decide not to work with you because not everyone's there to work with you, then they can at least take action and make something change within their life? Given the information you've shared, those are the best ways to get started with speaking from stage and how to sell without annoying your audience.

Speaker 1:

Love it, and all of our speakers, if you're noticing, they did that in their introductions. They did the exact same thing that Jen is recommending, which is like early on, make sure that you're dropping in the name of your product or your service or your business as well, and y'all did a really great job with that. Okay, barbara, next question is for you. I actually have two questions for you, but let me ask you this one first. How do I sell myself to a meeting planner If I want them to book me for an event? How do I get them to book me and you are muted? So make sure that you unmute before you start speaking. If you don't mind, that would be good. I noticed her microphone was. I'm helping her out.

Speaker 3:

There we go. What we want to help a meeting under a planner understand is the problem that we solve for the audience. So what are? We're not just talking, we're actually solving a problem for that audience and the solution that we offer, which could be directly for that meeting planner Like we're going to this, is how our talk is going to make you a hero. I think all meeting planners want to be heroes and they definitely want to put somebody on stage who is not just going to ramble or tell a story, but is also going to be solving a problem for that audience.

Speaker 3:

And then the third thing I really believe you would want to communicate is how will that audience? And then the third thing I really believe you would want to communicate is how will that audience be transformed by your speech? What is going to be different for them on the other side? Possibly, what is going to motivate them to do what Jen said sign up for something or take a next step? So I teach a formula for persuasive communication and it's always problem solution transformation. So I would recommend having all three part together, put together and this is also something you can just do to promote yourself. Those three things, what's the problem you solve, what's the solution you offer, what's the transformation that people experience? And another key thing is like who you do it for. In that context, does that answer the?

Speaker 1:

question. That's beautiful, great, and I want someone to go into comments right now and type that out and put that into comments so other people can, if they didn't get a chance to write it down as we do. Our next question, which is for Bobby Carlton, and I know the answer to this, but I want to have Bobby talk about this as well how do I find speaking opportunities?

Speaker 4:

Bobby, what would you say? I have actually a whole methodology where I talk people through finding what we call calls for speakers. So calls for speakers are put out by almost every big conference and events. They are literally inviting you to come and pitch them. And so if you go to Google your friend is Google and you search for the words call for speakers, you put in your topic, maybe, if you only want to speak locally, you add in your location and the date this year or next year you can actually find literally dozens of calls for speakers really easily. We collect them all on the Innovation Women platform, I think. Right now there are probably about 800 different calls for speakers open and I will tell you, each one is an individual event and an individual event can represent dozens, if not hundreds, of different opportunities. One of the biggest events we worked with was looking for something like 700 speakers for their conference. So lots of opportunities out there.

Speaker 1:

That's wonderful, and I see Jen has put this. I'm going to put this on the screen. Well, I think that's a brilliant tip, related and just piggybacking off of what Bobby said for us. So thank you for sharing that, jen. All right, jen, next question. You're a speaker. You're trying to look for some speaking opportunities. What resources do I need before I even start looking? What do I need to have as I start to pitch myself out for speaking opportunities? And you are muted, so you'll need to unmute. There you go.

Speaker 2:

We're all set. I'll tell you one thing you don't need, brenda which may be surprising for some of you, and let me know in the chat if this surprises you. You don't need to have your speech finished or complete or perfect or ready to go. So if that surprises, you say what in the chat. You don't need to have that done yet, because here's the thing when it comes to speaking opportunities, depending on what stage you're looking for or how quickly they want to put you on that stage, you have anywhere from three to six months, and sometimes up to a year, before you will deliver that speech. So that's the good news. What do you need to do in order to submit a call for speakers? And yes, I did share. I set up a Google alert so it goes directly to my email. I know exactly what's out there and I don't have to join a directory, which is fine. I love Innovation Women. I've been part of their directory before and I've also participated in other directories but you can send it directly to your email and not have to go out and search for that information.

Speaker 2:

But you do need some minimum things. I call it a speaker kit and if you check out my 90-day speaker plan. It'll tell you everything you need to know and put it into manageable chunks of how you come up with your speaker kit Some of the things you may already know about and if you're already doing podcast interviews or LinkedIn audio events, which was some of the topics today, then you probably have these things ready at hand and you are ready to get yourself off the ground running. So this would be a headshot something professional, not something your partner or friend took a picture of you in a good location a professional headshot. You need a short and a long bio. Most people only have a long biography, which is what they might have on their website, but they don't have a short one, which is 150 words or less. You also need to have some sort of speaking footage of you. If you are brand new to speaking, it's okay.

Speaker 2:

If you don't have this, but there are ways you can get that before you actually get on a stage. Connect with me if you want to learn ways to do that, because I'd love to be creative with that. And then, of course, you need to know what your signature speech topic is, which is why I shared a free download for you. If you're like, I have some ideas, but I'm not sure between this topic or that topic.

Speaker 2:

Download my free signature speech template and it will help you get started, not just with how to choose the topic, but also how to organize the information within that, because a lot of people forget to seed their program, they forget to mention things that are really important, because they're going in an organization that is first this, then this. That's not the way to deliver a great experience when you're delivering a keynote presentation. So those are the basics of what you need to get started and, yes, you don't need to finish your speech quite yet. Don't need to finish your speech quite yet, but if you have a speech on the books already and it's within the next 90 days, you can still receive support to make sure that speech lands the way you want it to land with your audience.

Speaker 1:

I love it. I have to completely agree with you on all those points of not having the speech fully done, but do we get the professional headshot, the bio stuff like that? By the way, I've got a web page I'll drop it in the comments in a second where I have my short, mid and long bio as an example. If anyone wants to check that out. It's public and I'll drop it in there a second. Now I heard you say the word book, which made me think of books, and I think of Barbara, who's published several books, and I know that as speakers, we are often asked about do you have a book yet? So, barbara, should you publish a book before you speak, or should you speak first and then publish a book later? Talk to us about that.

Speaker 3:

I honestly think you can probably do it either way. I'm the crazy person, so I'm doing both at the same time. Right now, I'm editing my book that's coming out later this year and developing my keynote speech that will go along with the book to promote it. What's been interesting about that? And I am actually glad I have done it that way? Writing this speech has forced me to think about my story very differently than I was thinking about it when I was just working on the book. It's forced me to think about that problem I solve for an audience and what are the takeaways, and I honestly believe that doing the two things contemporaneously is going to make the book stronger.

Speaker 3:

I think if I had published the book first and then enrolled in the speaker course, I would have hated the book at some point. There would have been something about it that I would have felt oh shoot, I really missed a point or I didn't include something I really should have. A lot of people start speaking. They have a book, or they're working on a book and they want to get on stages in order to promote it. In that case, the book might come first, and I do believe that, and Bobby and Jen probably know this better than I do, but I do think meeting planners really love it when you have that book or that takeaway for people. But I would say some people may be more inclined to speak and some people may be more inclined to write. I would just go for what your strength is, start there and then bring the other kind of along with it as you go.

Speaker 1:

That's great. And related to that, if you're asked do you have a book, do you have a book? Do you have a book? Don't wait, get a book started so that you can have something additional to sell from the stage as well. I think that's a really relevant point. All right, bobby, next question is for you, and then, after we do this, we're going to open this up for Q&A. There's people on here who maybe are looking for speaking opportunities, but what kind of speaking opportunities should they be looking for?

Speaker 4:

What do you think? I think there are a lot of different opportunities. I tend to say that people think about public speaking too narrowly. They tend to think about themselves on stage by themselves. It gets a little scary if you're by yourself and you don't have as much experience. So we tell people think about public speaking in all the different permutations. You could be the keynote, you could be the featured speaker, you could be doing a panel puts you in the comfy chairs on stage. You're having a conversation. It's not nearly as bit that I was going to have to be the emcee running the whole show on stage most of the time.

Speaker 4:

And that first event enormously frightening and I sweated through my clothes. Everybody's taking pictures of me. The hot mess, when I could have eased into it with things like podcasts and webinars where I'm not on a physical stage, or podcasts. And here's a thing that, as a speaker, I love doing blowing people's minds by saying, hey, you could start out being a public speaker by asking a question from the audience. So picture this if you go to a live in-person event or a virtual one, when the speaker finishes, they often will ask for questions and as a speaker, there's very little that cuts to your heart faster than silence or crickets when you ask for questions. So do the speaker a favor ask a question. You get to stand up, introduce yourself, ask a thoughtful question and, ta-da, you are now a public speaker yourself. You have broken the ice, you have dipped that toe in the water and you never had to go through the whole application, right. So that is a great way to get started.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I think that was such great advice there, by the way, our audience you said advice that Bobby just gave you right and ask questions right now. And when you ask questions or put comments in, I'll start to pull you up on screen, just like I'm going to do right now with Brian, who's those panels BNFC. This is a little bit of exposure. You don't have to speak today, but it's a way of getting some visibility and us being able to pull your name on screen. So don't be shy. This is your time. We've got some great speaking strategy experts on the panel here right now. Ask a question or maybe add to the conversation. By the way, in the back channel, which is, we have like our green room for our speakers, and then we've got like a private chat for our speakers. I saw some folks that were talking about Talkadot and I hear about that from Bobby all the time. Bobby, do you want to tell us a little bit about what Talkadot is and how speakers can use that to help support their speaking business?

Speaker 4:

Absolutely, and we're huge fans of Talkadot. It is a fantastic tool for getting feedback when you're a speaker, but it also allows you to collect information from your audience. Not every speaker gets paid by the organizers and you have a slightly different business model. Maybe you're looking to connect with that audience later on for coaching or selling them services, or selling them your book, or just building up your list for some other business model. Talkadot helps you connect with the audience, get feedback to improve your skill set and also keep that flow of speaking referrals going, because one of the questions that Talkadot allows you to ask is do you know someone who needs to hear my presentation? Can you introduce me? And so we find a lot of our successful speakers are using Talkadot or other tools like it, although I don't think there's anything as well designed as Talkadot. You can tell a speaker worked on this thing and I think that it's great for getting connected to your audience later on.

Speaker 1:

Thank, you, Bobbi. And, by the way, Bobbi, do you have an affiliate or a partner code for Talkadot? Thank you.

Speaker 4:

Bobby. And, by the way, bobby, do you have an affiliate or a partner code for Talkadot? We do. Let me go grab that. Actually, just use my name.

Speaker 1:

Just tell them. Bobby sent you. I'm starting to do more with affiliate links and things nowadays and always, if you're looking to sign up, ask around, say hey, does anyone have a code for Talkadot? Because that gives them credit. Sometimes you get a discount or you get an additional time period of free resources and it can be really a great thing to support your network, build up that social media karma, but also to give you some additional resources or freebies that go along with it. I saw this question earlier from Paulette and I'm going to put this up to the group Wave on the panel here, if you want to answer this question, but in order to be a speaker at an event, do you have to be a certification? Who would like to take this question? So, jen, I saw your hand raised first. So, jen, what do you think? Do you need to have a certification to be?

Speaker 2:

a speaker. I love this question and it's one that comes up a lot when it comes to credibility. I know several professional speakers who recently became certified speaking professionals, but they have been professional speakers for years. It's a very rigorous certification process. I know some people focus on being a virtual certified speaker, especially during the times when live events went away. That one is less rigorous of a process, but the short answer is no, you don't need to be certified as a speaker. I'm certified as a coach. So that's through International Coaching Federation, because part of the work I do after speaking is I coach people one-to-one to achieve the transformation they're looking to do. That's important and that also is a rigorous process. Anytime you're talking about certification, you need a certain number of hours to be completed, you need testimonials and referrals, you need to send an application and, of course, there's an application fee associated with it. So it's a great way to put a feather in your cap of being a professional, a long-term professional in your industry, but you don't need it to get started.

Speaker 1:

I notice we're getting towards the end of our panel discussion right now. Jen, since you're on stage, I'm going to keep you on stage and I'll ask you if people are interested in working with you. Can you remind us what those services are? And I know you talked about some resources earlier. Do you want to remind us about those as well?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. Just as a reminder, my name is Jen and I'm a certified speaker coach. I've been a professional speaker for over a decade and I specialize in helping you monetize your speaking. So it's fine if you want to get started with podcasts and other free opportunities to speak as a visibility thing, but if you really want to take it to the next level and say, in order to quit my corporate, I have to figure out how to monetize this, and quickly, then I'd be the right person to connect with in terms of that.

Speaker 2:

And I mentioned two resources. The Stupid, easy resource is the Signature Speech Template. It's a free download and you'll be invited to any of my masterclasses, which I run every other month, and they help you with a process of systematizing, finding speaking opportunities. So we've talked about the 101 level of it today. If you want to go deeper into that, you're invited to my next masterclass.

Speaker 2:

And then, for those of you who are like what do I need? What's part of my media kit, my speaker kit? Like, what does that look like? To get started, I also have a training for only $47 called the 90 day speaker plan. So it breaks it down the first 30 days. Here's what you need to do to get started. This next 30 days here's where you should be and the final 30 days within three months time. So what is that going to put us? Into August, you will be ready to submit call for speakers, you will know exactly what you need to do and you'll be well positioned to be a professional speaker, regardless of what that looks like for you and how much you want to charge. I'm excited to share these resources with you and if you have any questions, I'm happy to connect with you on LinkedIn, which is my favorite water cooler of all the social media platforms, so I'd love to connect with you as well.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much, jen, and we will be having those resources and links on the playback page. They will be emailing all of you and also will be on a landing page that you can visit it again later. So if you didn't grab the links we got you, we'll get you covered there. So, bobbi, let's go to you next. If people are interested in learning more about your services and any resources, can you tell us about that?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, and Innovation Women is a mission-based organization. Our goal is to really get conferences and events to be more inclusive, to include more women. Two-thirds of all conference speakers are men, but I will say we do welcome male allies. My dream is to have Innovation Women be one-stop shopping for event managers. I'm dropping into the chat one of our very cool resources Getting Compensated to Speak. Getting Compensated to Speak resource slash report. It actually gives you an enormous amount of information on getting compensated to speak and building up that business model as a speaker.

Speaker 4:

But Innovation Women has tons of free resources. If you go to innovationwomencom look for speaker resources, there are articles, there are tutorials. Our weekly newsletter always comes out with five different opportunities that you can check out for yourself. And on top of that, we have our Innovation Women bookstore. Because we know Innovation Women members lots of them are also authors. Authorship and speaking goes hand in hand. So innovationwomencom an amazing amount of resources If you are interested in public speaking, seeing what public speaking can hold and offer you. As a person interested in building your business, I always tell people the one thing that you can do for yourself is just get comfortable with public speaking. It will keep you so busy and help you get connected to so many different opportunities. Wonderful, thank you for that, bobby.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and last but certainly not least, barbara, can you remind us about services, anything you'd like to tell us about, and how can we get ahold of you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you can always find me on LinkedIn. My website is both globalcom. Most of my business is one-on-one coaching. I tend to do three to six month gigs with people to help them get more comfortable, change behavior. With introverts, I help them find a new comfort zone, push themselves a little bit out of their comfort zone to find a comfortable place where they can be speaking or be more visible in meetings. I did conduct a workshop last week for a group of ladies. That was six hours and everybody created their pitch. They created pitches in groups, I should say I think I made worksheets available, right, brenda, for my signature methodology for creating persuasive messages.

Speaker 3:

So, if anyone, it's five steps and you can walk through it. I have a little bit of a reverse engineering process in there that I think works really well to create messages that are extremely memorable and that create aha moments for your audience. So, yeah, come and find me. I love to learn new things when I work with people. I have to get into your world to be super effective and, man, I learn about a lot of different things. That's one of my favorite parts of my job.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful. Thank you ladies so much Barbara, jen and Bobby. This has been so many times. This will be one of my favorite panels to watch the playback on as a speaker. Not that the other speakers weren't all wonderful today, but I think there are some strategies that can even give those of us who are well-established a little.

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