Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies

I took an improv class a couple of years ago and it has been incredibly helpful to me as a speaker, so much so that I had the attendees at our recent in-person client retreat do some improv games (they appreciated it, I swear!). Improv is not only useful for getting into your body as a speaker on a stage; improv is also a philosophy of engagement, vulnerability, and co-creation. This is what I tal...

I’m going to start this podcast with a bit of a controversial question: Why do we (and, yes, I said we) often feel much more uncomfortable having a woman in a position of authority than we do men? My guest Mary Ann Sieghart is a London-based journalist and broadcaster and author of the new book “The Authority Gap: Why women are still taken less seriously than men, and what we can do about it.” The...

I talk a lot about storytelling and the importance of integrating stories into your presentations and talks. Well, money has a story too. Your money story may be driving behaviors in your business. My guest is Melissa Houston, a CPA and Financial Strategist for CEOs. I’ve gotten to know Melissa over the past few months as she’s gone through our Thought Leader Academy to develop her speaking skills...

If you plan on speaking in-person this year, you’ll want to listen to this entire episode.    I'm sharing with you the 3 key skills you need now to: Get selected as a speaker Stand out by delivering the exact content your audience wants Make money, whether it’s from paid engagements or by generating leads and sales from people in your audience   I recently returned from an in-person speaking engag...

Speaking opportunities are increasing as more events and conferences are returning to in-person and organizations are looking to bring in trainers. Now is the time to get prepared and take action. This is exactly what our guest, Sarah Lynn Wallace, has been doing as she’s been going through our Thought Leader Academy this year. Sarah has booked several speaking and training engagements, including...

We have a brand new FREE live training happening on Tuesday, April 26! Register today for free at   https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/training/ . After two years of virtual speaking on screens (and, let’s face it, virtual living), the old model of public speaking no longer works. Content dumps, information overload, and one-way communication don’t cut it anymore. Your audience expects more - and y...

If you’re a speaker who has in-person events coming up OR if you’re planning an in-person event, you won’t want to miss this conversation. We held our in-person client retreat speaking intensive a couple of weeks ago in Orlando, Florida, and it was incredible! We brought 12 women together to practice their speaking delivery skills (on a real stage!) and get professional videography they can use in...

As entrepreneurs, we have a lot on our plate and fitting in the time to build our thought leadership platforms, create presentations, and pitch ourselves can too often get relegated to the back burner. However, if you’re a service-based entrepreneur who is not a volume business (you’re not looking for thousands of clients at a time), you need speaking and thought leadership to grow your business....

Are you providing transformation or information in your presentations and talks? Whenever I work on a presentation or a keynote or even the agenda for the in-person client retreat we’re holding in April, my default is to think of all the information I want to convey to the audience. You may be the same way. We’re usually good at coming up with lots of things we can share and teach. But, I want to...

When you start putting your thought leadership out into the world, think of your overall message as the hub. You then have various spokes you can use to share the message and get others involved. These spokes can include your own podcast; a LinkedIn Live or Instagram Live show; a challenge; speaking (of course!); podcast guesting; and events you host. My guest Christie Rocha recently graduated fro...

As you’re working on your keynote speech (or aspiring to one), there are key elements to include that make it different from a regular business presentation or training. Along with stories and audience engagement (always!), you can also create what’s known as a “bit.” This is a section of your keynote, usually just a few minutes long, that stands out and becomes memorable for the audience. My gues...

What does it look like to create your signature talk and put it out there for the first time? Our guest, Kelley D. Carlstrom, PharmD, did just that a couple of months ago. Kelley recently graduated from our Thought Leader Academy and worked with our lead speaking coach Diane Diaz to create her signature talk for lead generation. Kelley took her new signature talk and presented it as a webinar to p...

Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day. This year’s theme is Break the Bias.  I appreciate that on the IWD website, they write, “Celebrating women's achievements and increasing visibility, while calling out inequality, is key.” In this episode, I share the premise of the book I’m working on around the importance of women being public speakers as a way to advance women in leadership and gende...

In this episode, I share 3 ways public speaking has helped me to find and use my voice and the lessons I’ve learned along the way that may help you too. I take a broad view of public speaking = stages, in front of audiences, on TV, in the media, also virtual presentations and podcasting, live streaming, video. Public speaking, in all of these ways, helps you to get your message out, to share your...

We’re wrapping up the month of February talking about how we as speakers can love our audiences. Why is this important?  Because the more connected the people in our audience feel to us and to each other, the more impactful and memorable our presentations and talks will be. And here’s the thing about loving our audiences: it’s about relationship, which is much different from the standard approach...

If you’re an analytical, left-brained thinker like me, this episode is going to give you a different perspective on your content, your speaking, and yourself. My guest Susan Moe is an MBA-trained former business executive who is now a clairvoyant reader who helps her clients understand themselves better through their own symbols and metaphors. Susan is a long-time and loyal podcast listener who di...

Since we’re in the month of February, I figured it was a good time to talk about finding the emotional heart of your message. As speakers, we can get so focused on the information we want to share that we neglect emotions and feelings and making a heart-to-heart connection with the people in our audiences. If you want your talk to be memorable and impactful and you want to become a keynote speaker...

I remember last year I was doing some research and I googled “famous thought leaders.” Guess what the results were? All men. Now, we know there are women thought leaders: Brene Brown, Mel Robbins, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Minda Harts all come to mind. But, Google hasn’t caught on yet. Why not? Because we need MORE women thought leaders to flood the zone.  This is where you come in and this is why I’ve...

You won't want to miss the story I share in this episode that made me so mad at the time. About 5 years ago, I was attending an event run by a very prominent women's organization and I couldn't believe who they had on stage. Here's a hint: It has to do with our topic today, which is the gender speaking gap. Similar to the gender pay gap, the gender speaking gap represents the disparity between the...

One of the side effects of going bigger with your message and putting yourself out there is self-doubt. Even when you’re excited about what you’re working on, self-doubt can creep in. Self-doubt can masquerade as procrastination, boredom, shiny object syndrome, distractions, filling up your to-do lists and calendar, even deciding to clean those areas of the house that never get cleaned. Self-doubt...

How is your thought leadership message connected to your business? Should it be related? I look at it this way: Thought leadership is the personal WHY to the WHAT (vision) and HOW (mission) that you have for your business. Think of your thought leadership as a parallel track to your business; it’s WHY you do what you do. I talk about thought leadership because it’s the way to get more of what you...

Happy New Year! This is the 4th year in a row I’ve done a trends episode for the start of the year. What I mean by trends are not fads or cliches or gimmicks.  Trends are like currents or waves of energy that move through our society and affect everything from business and politics and the economy to popular culture and media. How do these trends impact our public speaking and thought leadership? ...

This is the final episode in the series we’ve been doing called “The Medium is the Message” . In this series, we’ve covered the mediums of podcasting, public speaking, video, TV, email, and social media - what makes each one unique and how to make the most of them. This episode is all about the medium of the book and my guest is author and book coach Tiffany Hawk. Writing a book allows you to deve...

This is one of the best conversations I’ve had about how to use social media effectively as a thought leader. My guest is Tyrona (Ty) Heath, who is Director, Market Engagement, at The B2B Institute at LinkedIn. You’re getting the inside scoop of the big picture of how to make the most of LinkedIn. We get past the superficial tactics and really dig into what makes social media and LinkedIn in parti...

We’re taking you behind the scenes to share what worked, what didn’t, and what’s next for us in the areas of speaking, visibility, and the business in general. Diane Diaz and I talk about: 🎉  10 things we’re celebrating that went well this year ❌  3 things we tried that did not go as well as we had wanted 💡  5 larger lessons we’re taking from what worked and what didn’t 🎯  3 strategic prioriti...