The 7 Figure Playbook: Leveraging Public Speaking to Unlock New Opportunities w/ Bobbie Carlton

Have you ever wondered how public speaking can bolster your career, personal brand, or even your wallet? Join us as we delve into these questions with the award-winning entrepreneur and speaking professional, Bobbie Carlton. Bobbie, with her extensive experience as a public speaker, generously shares her journey, reminding us how starting small paves the path to confidence and expertise. She helps us understand the various forms public speaking can assume, from guest podcast appearances to webinars and panel discussions.

Our discussion with Bobbie puts a spotlight on the true worth of public speaking. We discuss a story about Warren Buffett and how much he valued the skill of public speaking along with ways to turn your fear of public speaking into fuel for success. As Bobbie points out, public speaking isn't just about standing on a stage; it can help you gain recognition, carve out your personal brand, and set you apart from the crowd. 

We also explore the opportunities and responsibilities that come with being a public speaker. We discuss the impact of the pandemic on the events industry and share tips on finding speaking engagements. For those aiming to establish authority, Bobby discusses the power of writing a book and how it can lay the groundwork for your independent career. Tune in to discover how to leverage public speaking to unlock new opportunities, boost your personal brand, and revolutionize your career.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:51

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Modern Independent. As always, I am your host, jan Almasey, the head of community here at Indie Collective. This is your first time listening. I'd like to welcome you to the Modern Independent. We have a couple of different types of podcast episodes on this show.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Today, we're going to be talking to Bobby Carlton, who is a speaker inside of our curriculum, and this type of show segment is called the Seven Figure Playbook. All of these individuals that we bring on for episodes like the Seven Figure Playbook are experts inside of their arena and will be giving us key aspects and parts of their story, pieces of advice, along your journey. Today's specialty is going to be public speaking. If you are somebody that has felt awkward about public speaking, or maybe has a passion for it and is not quite sure how to do it at scale, this is going to be the episode for you. So Bobby is the founder of Carlton PR and Marketing, innovation Knights and Innovation Women, along with a couple of other businesses, which we'll get to here in a second.

Speaker 1: 1:57

She is a speaker as well as an award-winning marketing, pr and social media professional. In 2008, she started her own company, the first one, carlton PR and Marketing. The second company, innovation Knights, is a social media-powered new product showcase that has launched more than 1500 new products. These companies have received a combined four billion plus in funding. Company number three is Innovation Women, an online visibility bureau for entrepreneurial, technical and professional women. In 2020, she purchased two additional companies my Speaker Leads and Lioness Magazine. She is a mass tech all-star, a Boston Innovation 50 on Fire recipient twice and is the Boston Business Journal woman to watch. She has also had been named a PR news game changer and is one of our speakers here at Indie Collective. Bobby, welcome to the Modern Independent.

Speaker 2: 2:51

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1: 2:54

I mean, bobby, we're just talking before we turned on the mic that public speaking, podcasting, all of these types of things are things that we're really passionate about. We were kind of chuckling because at this point I've recorded 200, plus probably creeping close to 300 different podcast episodes between my own shows and other shows that I've guested on. Because of that nature, bobby has spoken at a lot of different places, different audiences, different levels, size, places and everything. I was curious have you always felt comfortable public speaking? Because I know personally, when I first started out podcasting it was definitely not like hands clammy, a little bit sweaty before I got onto the show. Was that kind of a similar experience for you, or have you always known that you were going to be destined for a stage?

Speaker 2: 3:45

Oh gosh, yeah, God. No, I usually point to the broadcast news. You know he's going to need a bigger towel as indicative of my first time on stage when I started Innovation Nights in 2009, it never really kind of dawned on me that I was going to be the host and I was going to be the person on stage, and when that time came, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was a literal hot mess and, of course, a social media powered event. Everybody's got their cameras and their video and tons of evidence of the hot mess, which made me look at those pictures and look at those videos ago. I will never look like that ever again.

Speaker 2: 4:38

OK, maybe I did a few times, but yeah, I want to be the queen of the Instagram. Really awkward speaker photos account.

Speaker 1: 4:52

The queen of the really awkward speaker photos.

Speaker 2: 4:55

I'm going to, I'm going to start that account awkward speaker photos and that will be my land. I will rule that land.

Speaker 1: 5:04

I am. I feel like what you said right there is so funny. I speak to so many people that go, you know, to start their independent journey, right, and I think at some point there is that exact inflection point that you just pointed out, which is like, oh, I have to be the one on stage, or I have to be the one that's my own advocate, I'm going to have to go on podcasts, or I'm going to have to go on IG live streams and all of these other things, which is also something that you bring up inside of your curriculum piece, inside of the Indie cohort, which I think is super crucial for people to understand that public speaking is not just the big keynote at the conference. Right, I think, actually, in your, in your, in your portion of the course, you use the example of somebody even asking a question at the conference counts as public speaking.

Speaker 2: 6:03

It's a great place to start.

Speaker 1: 6:07

Yeah, so, and that's something if you guys, if you're listening to this right now and you say, oh well, I'm not a public speaker, but you've been on somebody's Instagram live or you've posted a video of you speaking on your story or you, you know, asked a question at a conference, or something of that nature, you are on the path to being a perfect public speaker.

Speaker 2: 6:32

Absolutely, and I usually tell people that we all tend to think about public speaking very narrowly. It's the one person on stage by themselves, all alone. The audience is a cast of thousands and, oh my goodness, that does sound intimidating and scary. But if you think about some of the alternative, what we're doing right now is public speaking, podcast, guesting. If you do webinars, that's public speaking.

Speaker 2: 7:03

If you are doing live in person events and you do a panel usually those panels they're great. You've got comfy chairs, you're having a conversation. Sure, there happens to be an audience spread out in front of you, but it is not intimidating at all. You could be a co-presenter, you could be doing a demonstration, you could be a breakout speaker, you could be doing a workshop and be a workshop leader. So I think the thing that you mentioned right up front the asking a question from the audience people don't think about that as public speaking because they don't realize the thing that I realized several years ago, which is I am talking to the exact same audience that the people on stage just spoke to.

Speaker 1: 7:57

I didn't have to be vetted.

Speaker 2: 8:00

I didn't have to be doing a presentation and I did not even have to apply. I just stood up and raised my hand.

Speaker 1: 8:11

Right, right, yeah. And now, in the process of asking the question, a lot of times they ask you to state your name. Where are you from? Here's the question. So now you are speaking to that same audience. I thought that was a really interesting revelation when you first brought it up, because that's also something. I was pretty deep into my podcasting journey by the time I found Indie Collective, but I hadn't even thought of that that way, because, for whatever reason, I think, when you mentioned that to me, I finally clicked into like, oh, hosting a podcast means I'm a public speaker, whereas I refuse to kind of acknowledge myself as that prior to that point, because I, inside of my narrow scope of what public speaking is, was like, oh, I have to be the one person keynote, you know, and then everything else doesn't count. But now I feel like it's so much easier to give myself credit for the little pieces and steps along the way to maybe eventually being that keynote.

Speaker 2: 9:10

I think one of the things that made me realize that was and just for context, my background is in broadcasting. I have a broadcasting degree radio and television and worked in radio early on in my career, and I think it was maybe a year or two after I started Innovation Women that I called into a local radio show, and Innovation Women is a mission-driven speakers bureau. We are formed specifically to help women and other underrepresented groups get on stage. So there was a radio show probably NPR where they were talking about pay equity and gender disparities, and I called into the show and identified myself, talked about Innovation Women and what we were doing, because Innovation Women isn't really focused on public speaking. It's focused on all of the things that come from public speaking that visibility, the pay equity, the getting funded for your startup, getting on boards, new jobs, business success, career advancement and immediately the response was people going to my website. So I was like, oh yeah, that's right. You know, when I'm talking to an audience Anywhere, I am engaging in public speaking.

Speaker 1: 11:18

Yeah, I agreed. I think that's actually a perfect Segway into you know what is what is really the value of public speaking? Right, we've kind of talked about the different places or like you know what you can open your mind up to actually being public speaking, but one of the ways that you convey the value that I find super, super interesting, because I didn't realize that this was a story until I attended your class. But there's a Story I want to say it's about Warren Warren Buffett, yeah, and and so what? What is that story? So that people can kind of gather a little bit of his insights as well on on what the value is.

Speaker 2: 11:58

Absolutely, and I usually bring in the Warren Buffett story when I'm talking about the benefits of public speaking, and one of them is cold hard cash. And obviously Warren Buffett was, you know, one of the most wealthy people in the US, and so he carries a certain weight when he is talking about anything related to money. A legend has it that he was famously Absolutely sick over public speaking, like it made him physically ill. He took a course from Dale Carnegie on public speaking, and the rest is history. Now he's rich. No, there wasn't that Connection, but he was talking to a class at Columbia University. Again, legend has it.

Speaker 2: 12:52

I wasn't there, and he made them an offer. He said I will invest in you personally. I will give you a hundred thousand dollars to Invest in your career and I'm going to take a percentage of your future earnings. Now I personally like get this major league kick out of imagining a whole bunch of MBA students going. Is this a good deal for Warren? Is this a good deal for me? I don't know, and so he wasn't done. He said I will give you a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for that same percentage of you future earnings If you take a class on communications and public speaking, because you will be worth more to me.

Speaker 2: 13:44

Dale Carnegie actually uses a quote from him where they say you can improve your value by 50% Just by learning communication skills.

Speaker 1: 13:54

I Love that. I 100% Agree with that, more so especially with how easy it is to Find a platform nowadays. I think it's even if it was a necessary skill, then now I believe it's even more so of a necessary skill and being able to we were mentioning some of the ones earlier right, like being able to even just download an app, turn on a camera, speak to the camera and post that video and get thousands of impressions or, you know, even hundreds, when you're first starting out. I always like to ground people when they're first starting on their journey, and I talked to mostly podcasters, but they're. You know, there's this imposter syndrome when you first start out, you're like, okay, I'm interviewing people or I'm speaking, and there's only 25 people viewing my video, right, and I'm looking at these other accounts and all these metrics and they've got hundreds of thousands of followers and Thousands here and like they could do this and yeah, but that's such a long way away.

Speaker 1: 15:05

And I always try to remind people and like, okay, let's, let's imagine that you have to put in the effort to plan an event, find a venue, talk. It's like send out invites to people, plan what you're going to speak about, and then 25 people showed up in a room To hear you talk about the thing that you were planning on talking about, how would you feel about having 25 people in the room? It's a week to. It's a win. It's a huge win and I think, whether it's, you know, the way that we look at social media metrics or whatever that looks like it we're like dissociating from the fact that that's actually 25 humans. Bring it back to. Okay, if those 25 people were in a room and then you get 50, you get 75. You know, at this point on our podcast here, I think we are averaging a hundred hundred fifty listeners a week.

Speaker 2: 15:56

You know, on the show and that's a hundred starts out with millions of followers and no.

Speaker 1: 16:02

No, no, no no grow to that.

Speaker 1: 16:06

Right, right, and I think it's you also.

Speaker 1: 16:09

It's important to allow yourself to grow into that because Sometimes, if you like, make those massive jumps, and this still happens every now and then.

Speaker 1: 16:18

I remember I was giving a talk earlier this year to a group of Businesses that had received Funding from the Department of Defense. It was where the Air Force Ventures Fund. It was my first time giving a speech to an audience in the triple digits, right, so I had gotten up close to a hundred, but this was my first audience of like 300 plus, and so I was like I don't inside of my head again. I hit that next level and I'm like, oh, there's hundreds of people in this room now versus dozens, sweaty all over again. I can't even imagine if I would have went straight from zero, not having any podcasting experience, nothing to a thousand people in the room, and I'm sure that there's people that have had to make that jump. But I think, kind of allowing yourself to have those experiences and ratchet up to the higher Audience size, it's also a valuable thing because you just get more and more comfortable with it as you do it.

Speaker 2: 17:12

Well, you don't want to start with that huge audience. You want to start small, where the stakes are lower.

Speaker 1: 17:20

Right, agreed, agreed. So I'm curious to. We kind of started touching on, like the, the values. The are the different types of value of public speaking, and the Warren Buffett story, yes, is very much associated with the, the cold hard cash portion, but there's a lot of other benefits to public speaking, I know, one of which is just straight visibility. But what are some? What are some of the other benefits outside of just cold hard cash that people can, you know, be thinking about? What if they're looking to try to step into public speaking more?

Speaker 2: 17:56

And I'm gonna actually go take you back to that visibility statement. Oh yeah, every time you step on stage you're telling a story, you're getting business opportunities, you're getting career opportunities. You are not just talking to the people in the room. You are talking to anyone that they speak to, that they're potentially connected with and in today's social media world the connections can potentially be huge. But if you're doing public speaking and you're speaking at a conference, you could be speaking quote unquote to a much larger group than you ever will fit in that room Because they are marketing you.

Speaker 2: 18:48

When they're marketing the conference, you are their content. So the event organizers are using you in their email marketing and their social media marketing. Even people who never attend the conference may know your name, know your area of expertise and know the name of your company, potentially get linked to you, and they've never even seen you speak, they haven't been in the same room. So the possibilities are endless just through the marketing of the events that you commit to speaking at. So don't just look at the numbers in the room. Look at the broad reach of everybody who is connected to the organization, to the event and to kind of the community that this event is part of.

Speaker 1: 19:43

Yeah, I love that too, bringing that into awareness, that, because it's almost irresistible at this point. If you, if you, find something that you find interesting, I find myself almost sharing it, before my brain is even caught on to the fact that I'm like sharing that clip. And I'm seeing a lot, you know, just on the marketing side of the house I'm seeing a lot of reports and things of that nature that basically say, once somebody discovers who you are, it used to be they would discover who you are and then they would go to like a website or something to research you and then they would find something. A lot of times, if it's a personal brand at this point, or if it's an individual associated with the company, they're going to social first to see what types of content or is being posted about you or what types of content you have posted, and then they're backtracking to like a website of some sort.

Speaker 2: 20:39

And I think that's one of the things that is been going on recently with Twitter. We used to go to Twitter almost automatically every time you went to an event and you know there have been some issues lately with Twitter and now people are like, hmm, you know, maybe Twitter isn't such a great thing After all for conferences and events, so right, in Facebook, Instagram threads, you know there's all different kinds of places that people can get to know you, Right?

Speaker 1: 21:15

And I love that you just ended that right there with get to know you right, because that's the end goal is to allow people to really to get to to know who you are.

Speaker 2: 21:26

And you know, they're not just business with people, right they? Buy from people. They buy from you, so they need to get to know what you stand for and your area of expertise and you know, going back to what public speaking delivers it delivers credibility, it delivers expert status, thought leadership, and I think that you've been vetted. When you're on stage, they think you know more than they do because you are elevated both physically and mentally. You know a lot of the physical stages. They literally put you up high.

Speaker 2: 22:05

You know people have to look up to you and looking up to you means that they think highly of you, you know it's interesting how all of those those words kind of you know mean looking up, physically, looking up you know, like it's just such an interesting way of thinking about how public speaking helps you stand out from the crowd and usually tell people it's like you're never going to be seen as a leader sitting in the audience. You are seen as a leader when you're on stage.

Speaker 1: 22:43

So if somebody you know, let's say somebody, is sitting in the audience right now and they're listening to the show and they're they are that person says you know, I've been in the audience, I feel like I have a strong understanding of my niche or the area that I'm passionate about. I'd like to start. Maybe they don't want to speak right away. They want to start learning how to public speak more their programs out there or their places that they can go to to practice public speaking, or how would somebody start that journey off early on?

Speaker 2: 23:20

And you know I usually talk people through a process that includes creating a foundation for your expertise. So you know you don't get asked to speak about being an entrepreneur if you've never had a successful company.

Speaker 1: 23:35

You know that's just where it goes you need to demonstrate that expertise.

Speaker 2: 23:40

You need to write articles, you need to be a guest on podcasts, you need to be tweeting about things or posting stuff on your social media. Writing articles, being interviewed by journalists like these are all things that you can do to create that foundation of expertise. Then you need to think about what it is you want to be known for. What is your brand? I usually talk to people about my own experience. I was asked to participate in a TEDx several years ago and I got this phone call on a Thursday afternoon from somebody I knew who was like. You know, I'm one of the organizers of this local TEDx and we'd like to invite you to be one of our speakers and, of course, as a speaker. The TED and TEDx brands are phenomenal. Like, of course, I'd be thrilled to. And when is it Tuesday? Like, oh no, you know.

Speaker 1: 24:46

Like, sorry, You're like this week, Like yeah, like how many days?

Speaker 2: 24:54

No, and I'm like you know what? I have this speakers bureau and we've got thousands of speakers. I'm sure somebody is foolish. I mean ready to step on stage and do a TEDx? Okay, background TEDs and TEDx talks You're usually preparing for three to six months. You don't do this in five days. And I went and I did indeed find five speakers who were willing to jump on stage with precious little preparation Crazy. And the organizers, you know, when I went back to them on Saturday with here are five names. You know I'm done, I fulfilled my obligation. You're good, right, and they said none of these speakers is what we need. We need you.

Speaker 1: 25:50

Oh why?

Speaker 2: 25:52

You know why me. And they said well, our theme is innovation.

Speaker 1: 26:01

Yeah, it's all coming together.

Speaker 2: 26:03

We're in Boston. I started something called innovation nights that you know, launched practically every startup around for 11 years. I started innovation women. Ah, now I know why you came to me because my name is synonymous with innovation in this market. So you know, you want to become known for something you need to be thinking about. What is your brand? Now overlap. Think about this as a Venn diagram. You've got one circle. That is your area of expertise and your passions. The other circle is your brand. What is it you want to be known for? Where you overlapping? That is an area that you want to focus on. But I'm gonna add one more circle to the mix. That circle represents your audience's needs.

Speaker 2: 26:58

If you are a speaker and you are on stage without consideration of what your audience needs, you are not doing a good job. You are not acting in service to your audience. What pain can you solve? What problem can you solve? What does your audience want to take away? It's no coincidence that a lot of calls for speakers will literally ask anyone applying to call out and break out. What are the audience takeaways? They don't want to hear what you want to tell them. They want to hear things that they need. And if you are delivering what they need, yay, you are a good public speaker. Good job.

Speaker 1: 27:52

I love that. I think a little tip for anybody that is listening that might just be in the podcast space. I will relate this back to the podcast space. You've heard me do this a couple of different times throughout this podcast episode already. We've been talking about a topic and then I kind of pause and say if you were an audience member that did this, or you are hearing this and listening to this, that is one way that you can make sure that you are keeping the audience's needs or what their takeaways are inside of a podcast format. You can pause and ask your guest and say, hey, if an audience member is listening right now and this is what they are experiencing, how would you address that? That's a really easy way to draw them in on that piece. I think it was. I want to say it was Les Brown, but he's over quoted for a whole bunch of different things.

Speaker 1: 28:48

But the quote and I'm paraphrasing here, but the quote was something around never let what you want to say get in the way of what the audience needs to hear, and I think that that is a very profoundly impactful kind of in the same lines of what you were just saying. It's very impactful when you switch that headspace and you start to realize, oh, I'm here in service of this audience. You know, they found me. I have this branding or this expertise inside of this market. I was chosen to come up and give this speech on this stage, but the real reason why I'm up here is to have the audience walk away with something valuable. I think that that's such a great way to look at it.

Speaker 2: 29:32

When you are doing in-person speaking. I call this the grab the notebook moment, when you watch people just suddenly scramble in their seats to pull out a phone, a piece of paper, to write something down like oh, that's a moment. As a speaker, you touched a button there. If they're pulling out their phone to do their email, you've got another conversation going.

Speaker 1: 30:07

Right Right, that has to be such a cool. You know you say something and then you realize, oh, this is hitting. You know a bunch of people are writing this down. I want to rewind just a second before we move into this next section, because you said something that I want to make sure everybody understands, because this was also a term that I was super unfamiliar with when I first took your class. It was call for speakers. I had no idea what that actually meant. Could you just explain what that process is as far as how organizations put out those calls and things of that nature? Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 30:46

The call for speakers is just one term for it. You'll sometimes see call for presentations, call for proposals, but the most common is call for speakers and it is literally the request from a conference, an event or an organization for people to present at their events. And what they're doing is you are, you're applying. Maybe it's kind of a digital audition because you might be asked to include a video of yourself speaking. But most applications these calls for speakers are out there because people want a broad base of potential speakers. They want people they might not know otherwise to apply. So we have literally thousands of these things. People put them out way in advance of their event. We actually collect them on innovation, women for our members, and we're adding anywhere between 50 and 100 every week. There is a vast array, so vast I actually have a name for it. I call it the speakers paradise, and the speakers paradise reflects all of these amazing opportunities for people who want to do public speaking. Thank you. So the numbers that I usually throw around if you look at things like Eventbrite 4.6 million events sold tickets on Eventbrite last year. 50,000 individual TEDx calls, 300,000 meetups every month, 92,000 professional organizations in the US alone, before the pandemic, there was a $37 billion events industry.

Speaker 2: 32:49

Now, of course, you know, oh, bobby, the pandemic, you know, changed everything. Yeah, it opened up even more opportunities Suddenly. You know. I mean event managers only had a few options they could cancel their events, they could postpone them somewhat indefinitely, it felt like, or they could go virtual and people rushed to virtual and they made it so much more common. You know, we're now seeing so many fantastic hybrid events. Organizations that before the pandemic may have had a couple hundred people coming to their events regularly were suddenly opening up online and you'd have thousands of people from outside their vicinity. You know, if you're a local Chamber of Commerce and, yeah, you regularly host in-person events 40, 50, 60 people and suddenly you put those same speakers on a virtual stage and they're interesting and you're publicizing it. Well, and maybe your network is broader than you realize. You might see larger audiences live and with the recordings. So just so many more opportunities than there ever were.

Speaker 1: 34:13

I think that was. That's such a mind opener, because I know a lot of individuals that I've talked to over the last two years especially had this kind of feeling of, oh, all the opportunities dissipated. With COVID which you know, covid going into your portion, it kind of there was a period where a lot of things dipped or maybe reallocated. Everybody had to pivot. I mean that word I like. It makes me sad that I even had to say it right there because I tried to make that for my vocabulary. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:50

There was panic.

Speaker 1: 34:52

Yeah, yeah, the panic phase and then the okay, pivot phase and then the we're just used to chaos phase at this point. But I think that is a really, really good point, if you're listening, that there's, there's organizations out there that a bunch of speakers left. Speakers are coming into the market constantly. It's something that is always available. And another thing that you mentioned that was something super useful for me is being able to create Google search alerts for things like call to speakers. So there's this feature inside of Google that Bobby showed me. I have no idea existed prior to this course. I'm seriously I had no idea and I would.

Speaker 1: 35:35

The funny thing is working in marketing and tech and be like, oh, I should know that Google has a feature like this.

Speaker 1: 35:39

Definitely did not, but you can actually go into.

Speaker 1: 35:43

If you just Google Google, create a Google alert, it'll take you to an FAQ page and you can go through and actually set up and say, hey, if they, if there is a call for speakers in my region, it will automatically notify you that something like that came up and then send you the links with the people that had posted that item.

Speaker 1: 36:07

So I have it set up for me where it says call for presenters, call for presentations and call for speakers, and once a month I go through all of the Google alerts and see if there's any events that I'm interested in applying to. It's something that was a really, really cool automated thing that I could set up that now has given me the chance to. I haven't spoken at any of them yet, but I have networked with conference speakers and event managers and things of that nature. They know who I am now and you know in the future, I'm sure that, as I continue to build my personal brand and they continue to see me, you know being a forward facing advocate for the things that I chose to anchor on. It increases the probability because you're, you know, forming those deep relationships with people.

Speaker 2: 36:52

Yeah, you become known. It's one of the things that we do at innovation women. We talk to our speakers all the time about the the beauty of promotion. You know, every time you get a speaking engagement, you should be promoting it and, by the way, hey, you're helping to promote the event and maybe put butts in seats, something event managers love. So, you know, do that, promoting yourself as a speaker, help the event managers that you're working with and, you know, become somebody who is known for a particular topic or area of expertise.

Speaker 1: 37:34

I think that that's the, the being able to help out the event manager is probably a really underrated part of that process. So I feel and from somebody that hosts regular events or things of that nature I didn't even think about that. But the people that I know, if I send them something, they're automatically like hey, here's this canva design I threw together. I'm going to post it Like is there anybody else that I can tag? Like how can I help? I'm like oh, I love you.

Speaker 2: 38:06

Well you always want, as a speaker, to not be the high maintenance speaker.

Speaker 2: 38:13

You know it's like you can be a fantastic speaker, but if you're giving that event manager fits with demands, with not showing up on time, running out right after you're done, like there's so many things that you can do to make an event manager's life hell, don't do it. Be the speaker they want to work with. They have many other options. So you want to be low maintenance. You want to be together. You want to hit their deadlines. When you are chosen as a speaker, it's not you're going to drop out of sight until the event. You're going to have to pay attention to deadlines. Maybe they need your headshot, maybe they need your abstract, maybe they are choosing you for a keynote and they need to work with you to make sure that your presentation is supporting their overall theme. Like a lot of people don't.

Speaker 2: 39:20

Yes, think about the keynote and the importance of it for setting the tone for an event. You are kicking off that event and, as people file out after you're done, how are they feeling? What are they set up for? Are their brains buzzing with ideas or are they bored out of their skulls, like you're the person that is going to make a difference at that event. It is not just I'm first on stage and I get the biggest audience. I have a responsibility to that audience and to that event manager.

Speaker 1: 40:00

Yeah, yeah, I love that, and that comes full circle to what we were talking about earlier. Don't get what you want to say in the way of what the audience needs to hear. However we phrase that earlier on in the episode, I think that all comes full circle in that moment. It is about service. At that point, when you're up there, you are getting the visibility, you are getting the authority, you are elevated, people are looking up to you. But at the end of the day you're especially in that keynote slot you are responsible for really setting the tone and the energy for that group of people.

Speaker 2: 40:35

You could also be setting the tone and the direction for an industry.

Speaker 1: 40:41

Think about some of these events and, by the way, there is an event for every industry, every topic.

Speaker 2: 40:49

I get a view of them. We have literally hundreds at any given day in the innovation women database. Sometimes I'm doing a demo and it's like, oh look, let's all go and speak at the Water Parks Association annual event. That sounds like fun. Every industry has industry associations. They are always looking for speakers. They don't need to be, I'm going to say, an actual part of that industry to add value to that event.

Speaker 2: 41:27

We were doing a conference several years ago that was an industrial IOT event Internet of Things Okay, I'm like you know, I'm technical kind of but hello broadcasting degree, and you know we had, as part of our little schedule of speakers, we had our own room and we had our own schedule. That day, one of our speakers was incredibly popular, far and away above any other speaker at the event, and we had a great topic salary negotiation. People are like oh yeah, I want to see her. You know, and what did she have to do with IoT? Nothing. But you know there's a salary or career track going on. There might be a marketing track or an intellectual property or legal track. Look for the different tracks that are associated with your area of expertise. It might be that the industry you come from, the things that you're doing as a matter of course, maybe they haven't infiltrated this particular industry before. I love that.

Speaker 2: 42:46

Stuff that you're doing could be exotic and special and unusual, and you're like I do that every day.

Speaker 1: 42:56

Yeah, what's with them?

Speaker 2: 42:57

Wow, you're special.

Speaker 1: 43:00

Wow, I love that. I'm not even going to try to rephrase that. I mean, yeah, the things that you might find mundane, right, if you cross over industries and stuff, you could be that liaison, you could be known as that person, that crossover point between those industries. And this gives back to the area of expertise you know it's like what are you known for, what is your brand?

Speaker 2: 43:33

What are the things that people bring you in? Because you're the person that addresses that. Let's face it public speaking. I could speak almost anywhere, any industry. Public speaking is going to be a topic.

Speaker 2: 43:51

But I will also say that I have differentiated myself. You need to think about that. Everybody who does public speaking could raise their hand and go well, I can talk about public speaking. I'm a public speaker. So how do I differentiate myself from them? Number one I'm very focused on getting women on stage. I have a mission. Number two I don't tend to do as much work on the act of public speaking. I tend to do much more work on the act of public speaking. I tend to do much more on the business model of public speaking. I tend to do more on the act of finding opportunities. I'm there to get you on stage. Once you're on stage, you're on your own. As far as I'm concerned, that's actually not true. I do a lot of training on speaking as well, but what I'm talking about is really much more focused on the aspects of public speaking and the diversity and equity and inclusion of public speaking.

Speaker 1: 44:57

Right, right, yeah, I definitely think that that is an important piece to be able to find that area that you are the most excited about. For me recently, in the last probably year, it's really been diving in to neurodivergent people, people with ADHD and others that kind of struggled to find focus and I ironically took something that I struggled with, or thought that I struggled with, which was focus, but then I invited. I forget how it exactly panned out, but I had a friend of mine that was listening to me talk about how I structured my day and she was like that's insane. Actually, this seems really really like a really really efficient system. I was like, oh, I didn't know if it was like this is survival for me.

Speaker 1: 45:50

I didn't realize that this was like something that could be super useful to people. So I put together a presentation called Finding Focus Accomplishing More While Stressing Less, and she invited me into her community it's like a community of marketers and brand strategists and other things of that nature and I gave the presentation thinking this is just my everyday life, right? There's no way this could be that special. This is like my mundane week by week. Here's a screenshot of my Google calendar and how I time box things and I got two offers from that one event to come and speak to other communities for something that was super mundane, and that's something that all speakers should aspire to.

Speaker 2: 46:33

When you do a presentation, there should be somebody in the audience going, ooh, I need that If you're not getting that. Number one maybe you're not hitting the presentation out of the park and you need some work. Or number two you're not speaking necessarily to the right audiences. So there are two little signals that you need to pay attention to. If you are not getting either references or new speaking engagements from the speaking engagements you do.

Speaker 1: 47:08

Yeah Well, we're getting close to having to wrap up our time here and I always like to end well. First, thanks again for coming and spending time today. This was. I know that this episode is going to do wonders because we constantly get questions from people around this topic, so I'm really excited to be able to push this episode out for people to hear, and I always like to end the episodes with something that kind of draws us out of just like the expertise and everything and kind of speaks to us as people. And so it's a question that I developed early on in the journey of the modern independent, and it goes something like this so do you consider yourself a reader, a watcher or a listener? And, depending on which one of those three you would pick, could you recommend a book, a podcast or a YouTube channel that you just find interesting? It doesn't have to have anything to do with public speaking, it can. But which one of those three do you find yourself doing the most? And, out of those three, what's something that you find interesting?

Speaker 2: 48:14

I'm definitely a reader, always been a reader, loved to read. I still have not gotten into many podcasts Like I will listen to the radio and listen to NPR and I guess most of the shows on NPR podcasts as well. But oh, I'm a reader. My mom always kids around as a little kid. One day I told her that I had a dream that I got locked in the library and she's trying to comfort me, thinking I was scared and alone in the dark and I'm like it was awesome. It was amazing.

Speaker 1: 48:55

I love that.

Speaker 2: 48:58

But I think, um, I think one of the things that you know and I'm going to tie this back to the stuff that we've been talking about, public speaking and being seen as a thought leader, being seen as an expert we do see a lot of overlap and public speaking with authorship. We say 2,500 currently active innovation women speakers. I think we have almost 500 books in our bookstore.

Speaker 2: 49:30

And we see a lot of corporations coming in and they all the grab a book for everybody. Remember I talked about the Dale Carnegie earlier. Like that Dale Carnegie book, you know that everybody gets like it was written in 1930s, like oh my gosh, we're talking almost 100 years ago at this point. That's crazy. Let's update what we're giving people to read. You know I just got finished myself reading Hold on here. It is Josh Bernofs new book, build a better business book, and I think a lot of people they are writing books, they are sharing their knowledge because it definitely helps your public speaking career. You know a really great book that becomes the industry standard for everything that you're talking about. That falls you up to the next level. I mean, you're literally the person who wrote the book. So you know, if you're thinking about public speaking, if you're thinking about how do I become the thought leader, the expert, the go to authority on my topic, you might have to be thinking about a book.

Speaker 2: 50:58

And if it's, not a book it could be a podcast series, it could be a YouTube channel, but you need to create that foundation and maybe it's a book.

Speaker 1: 51:13

So, if you are listening to this and you would like to get in touch with Bobby, where are some places that people can find you?

Speaker 2: 51:21

Oh, I'm very, very Googleable. Innovation, women, calm kind of brings it all together, roger that.

Speaker 1: 51:30

So we'll make sure that we link to that in the show notes for everybody. So if you're listening to this and you have been, you know, listening to a couple of episodes of the modern independent indy collective is kind of catching your eye. You're looking to start your independent career or start your business, Don't be shy to reach out. I include my Calimby link and a lot of different posts. You can find our LinkedIn at the bottom of every show notes. You can find it on the top of the list. You can find it on the top of the list and you can find it on the top of the list and you can find it on the top of the list.