Who do you speak to, and what do you speak about?
It’s wonderful to be here. Thank you for inviting me. I help business professionals become better at communicating so they can be better leaders. I mainly speak to groups of community association managers and insurance professionals.
What was happening—or maybe what wasn’t happening—in your business that made you decide to seek out The Speaker Lab when you did?
The timing was perfect because I was wrapping up another job and looking for a new challenge. I knew I wanted to do more in the realm of speaking, training, and helping others become better communicators. I had been searching for training programs to help me with that but never found the right fit—until I came across The Speaker Lab. It was an “aha” moment for me.
I realized this is what I want to do for the next, at least 10 years of my career. I’ve learned a lot in the last several decades and I want to be able to help people with their communication skills so the timing was absolutely perfect.
I’ve jumped with both feet into this course and I graduated last December; now I’m full force trying to get speaking engagements and team trainings using what The Speaker Lab taught me.
Did you have any apprehensions or fears starting out?
I think like anyone, when you sign up for something, you wonder if you’re going to get all that you were promised. That was the only trepidation I had, and it turns out I didn’t have to worry about it at all because I got so much benefit from the program, and everything I’ve learned has helped me along this journey.
Upon doing the SPEAK Framework, what were some of your key takeaways or aha moments?
I think the thing that helped me the most were the provided frameworks for reaching out to potential clients and the resources on what to say when decision makers ask you certain questions.
For instance, they always ask, “What do you charge for a three hour training?” I learned to say, “What budget do you have for this?” rather than just spitting out a number.
Also, the email swipe file was extremely helpful for me as were the trainings where the coaches were going over specific situations that you might encounter. I have been through sales training before, so some of it was reiteration, but the actual wording to use was really quite helpful to help me develop a system.
The other thing I found really helpful was the Pipedrive training. First of all, there are so many softwares out there that you could pick as your CRM. I just didn’t want to go through all that research. So knowing that y’all recommended Pipedrive and had a training on it made it simple to make the yearly commitment and jump with both feet into that as well. The CRMs have a general setup, but it might not be what you need as a speaker so it was nice to follow exactly what The Speaker Lab said to do. I’ve made some tweaks, but not very many; it’s been helpful to have somewhere to start on all of this.
Really all of the stuff that I learned I could have maybe learned on my own, but it would’ve taken me three years versus six months so the condensed format was great. I would’ve made a lot more mistakes and I wouldn’t have booked gigs yet. It would’ve been a bit of a challenge to get it right the first time.
What have been your results?
I have booked a couple of opening keynote speeches for a couple of major conferences. I’m very excited and I am not nervous about it because I have been teaching this at the college level for several years. I know I can do it, but it’s exciting to have that proof of concept that I have the ability to do this, and now people are going to pay me on my own and not through someone else to do this.
I have also booked a couple of workshops and have developed my website to expand beyond just my keynote speech to offer more than one training because people are asking me for it. My one keynote speech is top and center, but I also offer things branching off from that as a response to what people in the field are saying that they want.
What really works is you’ve got to start talking to people before you think you’re ready. If you wait until you think you have your speech done, you will likely need to go back and redo a lot of it.
Plus, once you spend a lot of time figuring something out, you get wed to that idea and you don’t want to give it up, so I think it’s important to get a general idea of what you speak on and start reaching out to people as soon as you can.
People I worked with in the past–warm leads–have proven to be the best people to reach out to. I had a couple of previous bosses—Bob Gusella and Marc Ray—reach out to organizations for me, and that’s quite frankly what led to my bookings–getting their recommendations. So they didn’t really have to search for much proof of concept; they believed my previous bosses who said I could do the job, so that was really helpful. But also having a professional website with a demo video gives people peace of mind to actually book you for an event.
Have you done these engagements yet or are they coming up?
Most are coming up! I did one training on my own that I had booked right as I started this program at the YMCA here in Coastal Georgia. I did use a lot of what I had learned to book it, so I’m considering that part of the success of this program. I have taught at the university level for the past several years, so I have experience with the teaching but the booking on my own is new!
What’s your new normal looking like these days?
I am on my own and not beholden to another paycheck, so that’s good news and bad news. I do have a consulting client, so I have some money coming in, which is nice. But I am at the point in my career and in my life where I have the ability to do this because I have worked for 30 years and my husband and I have saved; we have almost put all three of our children through college. We’ve got two graduating, one with her Masters and one with his Bachelors in May, so then we’ll be done with that.
We’re at the point where I have a little bit of flexibility money-wise, so I am taking this year to really build my business and see what I can do with this on my own. It’s not something I might have been comfortable doing when we had three kids in college, but I’m more comfortable doing it now.
Who would you recommend to The Speaker Lab and why?
I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in exploring whether they think they could do a good job as a keynote speaker or a team trainer. This is a good program to take you through what it takes to do this kind of work. I think it would bring clarity for people who are interested in maybe writing a book or getting a better leadership position within their organization by helping them frame their expertise because what I learned to do is take everything I’ve learned over the past 30 years and develop it into a framework that I can then sell as a marketable skill.
I think it’s helpful for people who want to advance their career, and for those who want to help others and serve others, knowing that they have learned so much throughout the years that they can share with other people.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Something I say all the time, that I teach undergraduates at Georgia Southern as well as professionals through their continuing education program, is that everybody was created for a unique purpose. You will not be able to fulfill that unique purpose until you learn how to speak clearly, concisely, and with confidence. What I do through my trainings is teach people how to speak with confidence to help them become better leaders.
Everyone has the ability to do that; everybody was created for something special. We just have to spend some time figuring out what that is. If you think you need a little bit of help doing that, turn to The Speaker Lab and see what they can do for you.
I hope the people who listen will join the program and get to experience similar success to you, Shannon.
I hope so too!
Thank you for sharing your story with us. I’m happy for you and I can’t wait to see how everything unfolds in this coming year.
I’m excited too because I think the future is unlimited. I pick a word every year to be my Word of the Year, and this year my word is faith; I picked it because I have a strong faith in God as a Catholic, and I have faith that this speaking business will unfold in God’s time; everything will happen when it’s meant to happen, and I’ll be able to serve the people I’m meant to serve when I’m ready for it. Everything will work out in the end. I have faith that it will be a good year and start a new career for me.