Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies

Are you ready to challenge yourself with your presentation content and delivery to make a memorable experience for your audience? In this episode, I share with you 3 main speaking styles, the overall goals of each, what each of them looks like including examples. You can take parts of each to create a style that’s your own - one that you enjoy, stretches you, and is memorable for the audience. Aft...

Have you attended presentations, whether in person or online, where you get frustrated or bored? Perhaps even the thought has crossed your mind to walk out of the session or to close the Zoom window? I know I’ve had those experiences as someone in the audience - and that’s definitely *not* something you want your audiences to experience when you’re the presenter. As speakers, we want to deliver a...

Get behind the scenes on what we do at Speaking Your Brand to get, pitch for, and prep for speaking engagements. When I'm at a live event, whether it's a conference with speakers or a play with actors, I'm just as curious to know what goes on *back* stage as what's going on *on* stage. As such, we’ve started a NEW LinkedIn Live show called "Back Stage with Speaking Your Brand"! This podcast episod...

Sydney Cummings is a YouTube sensation with over 1.1 million subscribers, which she built organically over the past 3 years by uploading a new workout every day (talk about consistency!) Recently, Sydney gave a TEDx talk called “Resilience: How to Emerge from your Tragedies Stronger”, which was her first (!) experience with public speaking. Sydney was invited to give the TEDx talk because the orga...

“The more you speak, the more you understand yourself and your audience.” I love this quote from my guest Dr. Zoe Shaw. Zoe is a psychotherapist, coach, podcaster, and speaker, whom I have known for the past few years as I’ve seen her speaking career grow. You’ll get a lot out of our conversation!    Zoe and I talk about: How her speaking career got started How she got her first paid speaking enga...

When you have a big goal or project you want to achieve, what do you do to keep yourself on track? For me, having external deadlines and public accountability is what gives me the motivation to complete the goal. This is what happened with our first Brave. Bold. Beyond. Live Virtual Summit. I set the date of October 15, 2020, announced it to our email list and on social media, and then worked back...

Hosting your own event can be incredibly valuable for you and your business. It can position you as an expert and authority in the topic of your event; it can expand your visibility to new audiences; and it can build your email list and bring in revenue. There are different types of events you can host: live vs. pre-recorded; one day vs. multiple days; online or in person.  Here at Speaking Your B...

I’ve always thought of “Speaking Your Brand” as not only how you communicate externally to audiences, whether it’s at conferences and events, on webinars, or on podcasts. It’s also how you communicate internally with your team members, your clients, and your vendors. How can you best share your vision and values with your team? I invited my friend Amber De La Garza onto the podcast to talk about h...

We talk quite a bit on this podcast about the value of creating frameworks. A framework is the repeatable process you use with your clients to help them achieve a particular outcome. We have our own Signature Talk Canvas® framework that we created and use when we work with our clients on their presentations. Your framework is your intellectual property (I.P.), which becomes an asset to your busine...

In this episode, we’re sharing the opening remarks from our recent Brave. Bold. Beyond. Live Virtual Summit. Listen in for not only the content but also the structure of our speeches. What elements do you notice? Our emcee Amber Hawley kicked off the event and then our lead speaking coach Diane Diaz opened with her speech on how as women we’ve studied our absence and how that has affected our conf...

As we get closer to resuming in-person conferences and events later this year (yay!) plus with many groups still doing virtual events, this is a great time to research, identify, and reach out to organizers to get on their roster. What are ways you can do this? How do you know which types of speaking engagements are best for you? This episode is made specifically for you to address these questions...

My guest Natalie Legrand recently graduated from our Thought Leader Academy and is one of our panelists at our Brave. Bold. Beyond. Live Virtual Summit. I invited Natalie on to talk about: Her thought leadership project What it looks like to implement DEI as a small business owner Why you want to be a force for change and not just a force for good Questions we can consider to be a force for change...

What steps can you take to start building your thought leadership platform? What are strategies you can use to build an audience and grow your business, speaking, and visibility? This episode is a panel discussion from our Brave. Bold. Beyond. Live Virtual Summit that we held last October 2020. (Our next event is coming up very soon on April 1, 2021! Register for free at https://www.speakingyourbr...

Last March 2020, as part of Women’s History Month, I released this episode and our challenge called #ChoosingWomensVoices. This content and challenge is just as relevant today, so this is an excellent opportunity to listen again or to listen for the first time. I’m taking this opportunity myself to audit the podcasts I listen to, the books I read, and the people I follow to make sure there are a p...

Have you ever felt like you have a deeper story and message to share with your audience? Perhaps you’re uncertain what it is because it’s hidden under surface content. Or perhaps you know what the deeper story is but you have some fears and doubts about being vulnerable and sharing it. We all have a deeper story and message - and our audiences can benefit when we’re willing to open up. This is exa...

Get ready for a value-packed and heartfelt episode with key takeaways you can use as you think about your thought leadership message and signature talk and putting yourself out there. This is a round table discussion with our speaking coaches who work with our clients in our Thought Leader Academy and with the speakers for our upcoming Brave. Bold. Beyond. Live Virtual Summit. Joining me in this e...

How can you start developing your thought leadership message? In this episode, I walk you through: my V.O.I.C.E. model for thought leadership common fears that keep us as women from speaking up the rewards you get from speaking up 6 steps to position yourself as a thought leader   Download our free Thought Leadership workbook that has the V.O.I.C.E. framework, question prompts, and more: https://w...

Have you been asked to be an emcee for an event or thought about being one? An emcee (or MC, Master of Ceremonies) is the person who is the bridge and what I call the cohesive glue of the event. Being an emcee is harder than it looks! You’re a host, an entertainer, and a representative of the event’s brand. As the emcee, your goal is to make the participants, the event organizer, their brand, and...

We all love TED talks, right? The best ones tell us something we haven’t thought of before and inspire us to take action. TED talks became so popular because they showcased Big Ideas that oftentimes came from or were influenced by the speaker’s own personal story or experience (plus they’re under 20 minutes!). In this episode, I’m joined by Tanya Golash-Boza, who recently delivered her TEDx talk c...

What does it mean to have a Big Idea? Your Big Idea doesn’t need to be something that’s never been talked about before or something that new research you’ve done has uncovered for the first time (if yours does, that’s great!). I like to think of Big Ideas as ones that aren’t getting talked about in *your* circles, in your community or in your industry. Big Ideas can often be found at the intersect...

Many of us guest on podcasts and it’s an excellent way to increase your visibility and expand to new audiences. Have you considered pitching yourself for traditional media, like TV, radio, and publications? You should! Joining me in this episode is Marie Fiebach, who is one of our speaking coaches for our Thought Leader Academy and for our Brave. Bold. Beyond. Live Virtual Summit. Marie is the hos...

If you’re an introvert, the thought of visibility, and maybe even the thought of public speaking, is one that you may be a little bit more hesitant to pursue. However, did you know that there are so many speakers from professional speakers all the way down to entrepreneurs, who do public speaking and consider themselves introverts? You do not need to be an extrovert to be a really great public spe...

It’s no question that 2020 definitely threw us for a loop. With many of our speaking engagements and events forced to convert to online presentations and webinars, I know that a lot of us are excited to get back to in-person speaking (hopefully sometime in the later half of 2021). My guest today is Mary Beth Simon, who is the founder of Niche Partnership Consulting and also a current client in our...

Happy New Year! This is the 3rd year in a row I’ve done a trends episode for the start of the year. You’d think after what happened in 2020, I’d shy away from projecting trends, but the trends I talked about a year ago surprisingly held up pretty well. (I recap them in this episode.) What I mean by trends are not fads or cliches or gimmicks.  Trends are like currents or waves of energy that move t...

I talk quite a bit on this podcast about signature talks - why you should have one and what goes into one. Your signature talk is your foundation for your brand message and story. It showcases who you are, what you do, who you do it for, and why it matters. We’ve worked with our clients for the past 5 years to help them create their signature talk, which they’ve used for presentations (in-person a...