Who do you speak to and what do you speak about?
I speak to professionals within the law community. But I also work with companies as well. What I do is help professionals who are struggling with their communication and conflict around the intergenerational workforce that we have in place today ’cause as you know, we’ve got five different generations in the workforce.
So how do we all work together? How do we get to better understand each other in terms of characteristics and communication styles, and how do we manage conflict along the way?
That’s a really interesting topic. I wanna hear your talk. We would love to kind of know what was happening or not happening in your business that made you say, “It’s time to do The Speaker Lab.
When I started my business – and interestingly enough, in January of this year, I hit four and a half years since I started my business – And I started off as a coach wanting to work with women who were struggling in their relationships. So healthy relationships has really been my mantra, if you will. How do we build healthy relationships professionally as well as personally.
So when I started over four years ago in my business, I wanted to start coaching and then I realized I really wanted to become a speaker. I really wanted to have a message that I could share and hopefully impact others.
So then I started my speaking business, which was a little less than four years ago, but when I started, I realized it takes a lot more than what I knew to start a business. Even though I felt really passionate about what I was talking about, and had a general understanding of how to market myself, I didn’t really have all of the tools that I needed in order to build the successful business that I wanted.
Even in coming up with our expert positioning statement that I know that is part of the SPEAK Framework, and really kinda honing in on that was really helpful to me, because even though I had an understanding or an idea of what I wanted to talk about, what I was passionate about, having that positioning statement helped me really align with what my topic really is, and who the people I wanna focus on are.
At the beginning, if you can remember, did you have any fears or any apprehensions?
I did actually. It’s funny – I always enjoyed speaking to big groups and for the most part I would consider myself not truly an introvert, but really along the border to introvert than extrovert, so the idea of getting up in front of people, groups of people and speaking about a topic at first felt overwhelming and daunting. Even though once I get up there I enjoy it. It’s just getting over that fear.
Also I think a lot of it has to do with imposter syndrome too. “Am I truly an expert?” or “Do I know enough about a topic to get up there and talk about it and really help people with it?”
Those are some of the things, and then also – How do I get the gigs? Who do I reach out to? How do I reach out to them so that they are interested in having me come to do a talk? Those were the things that I was struggling with when trying to build that foundation and build the business – that was really tough.
Even though I knew I wanted to do it, I had the passion around it. I wondered, “How do I go about building a business where people will actually pay me to talk?”
How did the SPEAK Framework help you answer some of those questions you just mentioned?
It helped me with, as I mentioned, the expert positioning statement, really getting clear as to what that is. Then also finding who my audience is.
And that really, to be honest, took me the longest is to really understand – who are those people ’cause I think as speakers, even as coaches, when we come out, we go, “Oh, we can help everybody! We can talk to anybody.” And for the most part, my topic does resonate with different corporate entities for example, but who do I wanna focus it first? Who’s my target audience? And how do I message to them?
The SPEAK Framework helped me get clear as to what that messaging is.
Also what was really helpful, and something I loved about the SPEAK Framework and the program, was really understanding – what are those tools I need to be a visible professional speaker? What I mean by that is getting help building my website and speaker reel, which are really important factors.
How do you show yourself or showcase yourself? Those two tools alone, getting help from The Speaker Lab to build those tools were really helpful to me.
It gives us a lot of confidence to say, “Here’s my awesome website, check it out! Well, we know that you’ve been getting booked and paid to speak, so we would love to hear about some of your results along the way. What have been highlights for you?
Thank you. For me, it’s been a slow grow and it’s been a grind. I think I’ve heard a lot of people use that term, but when there have been those accomplishments, as you say – like I did a talk in late 2023 and early 2024, I did a lot of free speaking gigs for bar associations ’cause I wanted to build visibility with members of those groups to then be able to do paid speaking gigs.
I did a lot of that, which I really enjoyed, but I think what helped was to focus on: how do I become that referable speaker?
In The Speaker Lab we talk about building content so people will refer you. So I got one of my first paid speaking gigs was a referral from one of the attorneys who had sat in on that bar meeting. And it was funny ’cause it was a Zoom meeting so I had no idea really who was there – you couldn’t see everybody. but she reached out to me a few months later and said, “Hey, I belong to this other group and we’d love to have you come in and speak ’cause I loved your talk.
I was thinking, “Oh, that’s great. I didn’t even know you were on the call!” But she was able to refer me to her group and that was one – my second paid gig was that meeting and that came from that free call.
So getting out there and speaking and has been a big factor because those first few speaking gigs were really kind of awkward. I felt awkward like, “Okay I know my topic, but no one’s laughing…I’m not sure if my jokes are coming across. Am I really resonating with the audience?”
All of those doubts came into my mind the first few times I did it. But then after that I started feeling much more comfortable. Even if the talk didn’t go as well as I wanted to, I knew, “Hey I got out there and did it and learned from each of those experiences and then took what I learned to improve upon my next speaking gig.
I’ve heard it said the more you speak, the more you speak. So as we get ourselves out there, the fruit of that is that we end up booking more gigs. So I’m glad you’re seeing those paid gigs come in. I know it is a lot of hard work, but you’re doing it, and that’s great! Well we would love to know how your life has changed since becoming a paid speaker. What’s your new normal looking like?
Well, it’s not where I want it to be yet, but my new normal has really been arranging for those speaking gigs. I have one coming up that I need to travel for in May so that’ll be my first time actually traveling somewhere. All of them have been local.
But my life has changed in that I’ve seen myself becoming much more confident. I found myself being able to go into a room of people confidently; before I used to be kind of shy, but now I can be in front of a big group and share my viewpoints. I was friendly, but not really sharing my viewpoints.
Being a speaker has helped me to say, “Okay, I feel comfortable now in getting in front of a group of people, whether personally or professionally, and I feel I can share my voice better. I feel much more confident sharing my voice.
The one thing I’ve found that has been awesome is the fact when I start to talk, now that I’ve done speaking and I feel confident being in front of groups, is that I find people really kind of leaning in and listening to what I’m saying regardless of what I’m talking about.
I thought, “Wow, that’s a really good skill.” And that comes from just speaking. Getting up on the stage and just feeling confident and conveying your message makes them lean in, because they can tell that, “Hey, you really are somebody worth learning more from.” So that’s been a big plus for me from doing this that I’ve gained.
I like that you’re describing the results of this as something that you’re seeing in your everyday life. It’s not just the business, but it’s how it’s impacted you as a person and all your dynamics. That’s really cool.
Yeah, it’s been great.
Personally I was kind of curious – I’d love to know what the community has been like for you. How has it felt being in a network of other speakers?
I followed many people out there speaking, and I love to hear from them. It’s funny how when I’m on LinkedIn, I see alumni from The Speaker Lab. Making those connections are a lot easier because you have speaking in common, you know? And one thing I found about this community is people are so willing to share their expertise, their time, their knowledge.
In other professions, people may not be that welcoming or supportive, but the speaker industry is not that way. Speakers in general are so willing to help other speakers. I found that the community in The Speaker Lab has been that way as well.
Whenever I’ve had a question about something or if I felt discouraged and needed some support, I post in the community, and there would be people responding and giving me support and encouragement. That has been really helpful as well!
As the Community Manager, that makes me happy. Thanks for sharing! My last question is who would you recommend to The Speaker Lab and why?
Anyone who is interested in building a speaking business – anyone. I know people come into the program at different parts of their speaking business. I came into the program as truly an emergent speaker – just starting out. Not knowing where to go first, so The Speaker Lab really helped me build that foundation and feel comfortable moving forward.
It’s really for anyone in their speaking journey ’cause there are people that are even much more established in their business, but they want to build better content or have wider outreach, whatever it is. I think this program just benefits everyone – not necessarily just emerging speakers, but also experienced speakers as well.
Is there anything else you’d like to say about your journey or about life as a speaker?
I would say that being a speaker is like a dream come true for me. Throughout my career, I didn’t really know where I fit in, what I really wanted to do ’cause even though I had a career, and did a good job at it for the most part, it really didn’t speak to me, it didn’t fulfill me, didn’t really use the skills that I knew I had.
Speaking has brought that to me. It’s given me the chance to use the skills that I was given in a great way. Again, at the same time, it’s a really difficult business; it’s not something that you start doing and you’re successful tomorrow. It takes a long time, but the journey has been awesome. I’ve loved it, and I think for anyone who is interested in becoming a speaker, or at least dipping their toe into it, I strongly suggest doing it because there’s so many benefits that you can get from it both personally and professionally.