Have you ever been confronted by an opportunity that you weren’t sure if you should pursue?
Sometimes, it can be tempting to let opportunities control our actions without considering the implications.
This week, Tina Wells sat down with Grant Baldwin on The Speaker Lab Podcast to discuss her career and provide unique insight on how she took control of her journey. Here are the top 3 takeaways from their conversation:
Evaluate Your Opportunities Carefully
One tip Tina has for speakers, especially those who are entrepreneurs, is to evaluate opportunities carefully before pursuing them. She recounts how, in the early years of her career, she let others set the agenda for her by pursuing things just because she could. She suggests that instead of deciding what to do based solely on whether it’s possible (or even whether you’re good at it!), you should ask a series of questions to determine whether an opportunity is right for you.
Questions like “Is this fun?” “Does it challenge me?” and “Will this provide me with my desired work-life balance?” can help determine if the opportunity is something you want to pursue. These questions will look different depending on your goals, but it’s important to make sure potential opportunities align with your current aims.
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Know What You Bring to the Table
Tina says that the most important part of public speaking is knowing ahead of time what value you bring to your audience. Tina cautions against changing your message too much by trying to sound like someone else, but by understanding why your client would want to hire you in the first place, you can tailor that unique message to the specific audience.
Don’t Try to Be Everywhere
The biggest piece of advice Tina has for those who are trying to become entrepreneurs and build a personal brand is to know what you want to share and where you want to share it. Despite pressure to be on dozens of social media platforms, she recommends finding one platform that suits you.
Once you’ve picked that, focus on consistent content until you’ve built up a healthy following, and then you can consider expanding to other platforms. Focusing on one platform will help you perfect your message and the delivery of your content. Once you have that formula, bringing it to other platforms is much easier.
Want to dig in further? Check out Episode 451 of The Speaker Lab podcast with Tina Wells here.
