LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
I’m James Taylor, and you’re listening to the SpeakersU Podcast, a show for aspiring and professional speakers.
LinkedIn Strategies to find new Speaking Clients
Our guest this week is a LinkedIn Learning instructor as well as the author of two books and an award-winning international speaker on Communication, Inclusive Leadership, and Empathy at Work. She’s passionate about helping organizations create an atmosphere of belonging for their people and for those individuals, in turn, to be given the skills and opportunity to communicate with power and clarity. Please welcome Shola Kaye.
Questions:
- What do you speak about – did you have to pivot or make changes during the pandemic?
- Who are your typical clients?
- How did you deal with impostor syndrome and get started with your marketing when you began speaking?
- Which marketing strategy has been most useful to you, helping you grow your business, expanding to new markets despite the pandemic?
-LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
Artificial Intelligence Generated Transcript
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor 0:00
I’m James Taylor, and you’re listening to the SpeakersU podcast a show for aspiring and professional speakers. This episode is with my co-host, Maria Franzoni. Enjoy the episode. So today we have a special guest. And we’re going to be talking about a number of things. One is LinkedIn strategies to get you speaking clients. But we’re also going to talk about imposter syndrome a really important topic to talk about. So, our guest this week is a LinkedIn learning instructor, as well as the author of two books and an award-winning international speaker on communication, inclusive leadership, and empathy at work. She’s passionate about helping organizations create an atmosphere of belonging for their people, and for those individuals in turn, to be given the skills and opportunity to communicate with power and clarity. Please welcome to the show, Shola Kay. Hello. Hi, James. Hi, Maria. Great to be here. Hello, how -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
Maria Franzoni 1:01
lovely to see you. Thank you for joining us. So lots of exciting stuff to talk about today. But before we start, I think most of our listeners will be curious. And viewers will be curious to know. What do you actually talk about? Show that? And also, during this pandemic, I’m going to use a dreadful word beginning with P. Did you have to make any pivots? Well,
Topics and Pivots
Shola Kaye 1:24
yes, I certainly did have to make a pivot. And I’ll tell you about that in just a moment. But what I talk about right now, most of the topic that’s booked the most for me is empathy in the workplace. And obviously, with all that’s been going on over the last 18 months or so, there is a new level of understanding and listening that’s required in the workplace. And so I go along, give people some skills, awareness of how important empathy is listening, inclusive leadership meetings where everybody’s voice gets heard, especially now when was so much dissent in the workplace with some wanting to get back to work in the office, some wanting stay at home. So that’s a big topic and things like feedback, just anything to do with culture, bringing people in getting people more involved, making sure that everyone is being able to make a contribution. So that’s the main topic at the moment. And in terms of the pivot, yes. Because Initially, I was mainly speaking, all communication. And then, after the tragic death of George Floyd, one of my clients in the states who had hired me to do some work for them in London on communication, then passed me on to one of her colleagues in San Francisco and said, show the Can you do some work with them around the AI? I’ve actually said, Well, you know, I can share some things. But I mainly speak on communication. I even gave them the number of somebody I said, Look, here’s an email address, use this person. And they said, No, we really want you to do it, we had a great experience with you, we’d love you to be the one. So I ended up starting working with this company in San Francisco, which of course was enabled by the pandemic because otherwise we would have got someone local. And then from there, it just, it just blossomed, I guess. And I just did more and more work, sort of fusing communication with di, and then adding more around leadership to that also, -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
Maria Franzoni 3:22
just in case, there’s somebody out there who doesn’t know what D is, could you just expand that for us?
Shola Kaye 3:27
Thank you, the voice of reason never knows, accurate information. So yes, the DI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. And yeah, that’s what those mean. Thank you for that. And before I hand over to James, cuz I know he’s got a question for you. I
Maria Franzoni 3:43
wanted just to point out something you said, which I thought was so valuable, lovely tip there, because it’s all about strategies to find clients. But actually, when you have a good client, as you did in the US, who really trusts you, and you’ve built a great relationship, they’re going to come back to you and say, Can you help us with this as well, even if it’s not something that you might necessarily do? And you have to be very, you were very good to say, Well, actually, this isn’t my area. And that was very noble to say that because it’s tempting, especially in a pandemic, to take whatever you can get to that was really good. You did that. But the fact that they were prepared to say, Well, you know, we understand, I think that’s great that it is so important not to just look for new clients, but to really work with your existing relationships. So thank you for sharing that. I digressed a little bit there. I think James over to you
James Taylor 4:31
know, I was in Germany, you mentioned that that client, you previously worked for them in the UK, then you can able to start working with them in the US offices with a San Francisco office. Can you tell us about that, you know, who is your typical client is such thing that you have as a typical client in terms of industries or kind of sizes of the client just because obviously this is going out just now there might be someone from one of those companies watching just now and thinking actually this we need to come in and help us with this?
Typical Client
Shola Kaye 4:58
You know what Fair is about a year and a half ago, I was mainly looking at working with tech companies, who had perhaps up to about 8000 employees distributed over various countries. And the first company fell into that bracket. But then the second company was very local to California. And that sort of opened me up a bit. And so now the sort of clients I’m working with are anything from small companies with perhaps 30 people all the way up to companies with 80,000 people. And I try to be a little bit flexible with the offering and with the pricing so that I can work with a range. But I personally like the different challenges of working with different size organizations, and also different industries to some extent, although mainly there is sort of a tech healthcare, sort of theme, maybe some media companies as well, our clients, but I just enjoy that, that sort of mixing it up a little bit and being quite broad in that sense. -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
James Taylor 6:03
Often in the media, when we see like being spoken about, it’s almost looking at what the CEO did, look at the absolute clanger, the CEO has lots of stories we see all the time in the newspapers of a CEO just not having empathy. You mentioned empathy, not really having empathy for the other members of the team as well. How do you address the topics you speak on, how do you get the client to move from thinking of this as almost a tick box exercise that they have to do to actually use that word culture? to actually make it a culture within the organization something as part of the organism that lives and breathes?
Culture – Changing Thinking
Shola Kaye 6:40
Yeah, that’s a really good question. Because I’ve had clients that come in and said, Oh, we’ve got this training on the bias. And then you’ll see this little half an hour thing with, you know, watching little vignettes, and then just a little multiple choice at the end to say, Yes, I’ve done the training and, and now I’m done. So it’s definitely about moving people beyond that, and getting them to be aware that the impact will be so much greater. If you’ve got somebody there who’s telling personal stories, who is actually soliciting the audience for feedback and for stories of their own, about what’s working for them in that culture, and what’s not working for them. So it becomes much more of a discussion than just, you know, these little CBT, computer-based training things that people do in 10 minutes. So that’s happening, on the one hand, so this interactivity, storytelling, and then also making sure that these organizations do get their senior management teams involved. So sometimes it’s great because they’ll say, can you come in and do two sessions, one for our senior leadership team, and then one for the entire company. And then other times you’ll go in, and it’s more what the sort of fun sort of the team level. And they’ll say, all-around leadership, Dean is training everything really leave it in here. So then it’s a case of going back to the client and saying, Well, do you realize that there’s a pressing need for your senior leadership to do this? So it’s, I definitely agree that there are many companies that are just trying to, for a broke sort of performative reasons, say, yes, we’ve done the training, we’re good to go. But then I think there are many others who, despite the difficulty, and all this sort of gnarly mess of the subjects are really trying to embed diversity, equity, and inclusion into the culture. And it’s not a quick fix by any means. But they really are taking those steps and committing to looking at hiring, development of staff, and so on their work in the community. And they realize that it will take time, it will take money, and it will take energy, and it will irritate some staff, but they are actually committed to making things really happen. -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
James Taylor 8:46
So on that, I mean, Maria, when you were primary focused on the bureau side of your business, you can work with clients all the time, when they came to you asking you about this kind of topics and finding a speaker like Sharla, for example, to come in. How are you having what was that conversation? Like? I’m always interested, like, I have a conversation as a speaker, Sheila and I have a conversation speaking to the client, but what’s the conversation like with the Bureau and the client around that topic? -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
Maria Franzoni 9:14
I don’t think it would be any different in your life, because clients or contributors are quite open about what they want to achieve and possibly talk to us even more openly, because we’re a little bit detached in a way. So as long as you’ve got a good trusting relationship with them, they’ll tell you, you know what’s going on, and what I like about what she was talking about, and it’s moved on. I like the fact that we’re talking about equity as opposed to equality and there is a big difference with regards to equity and quality. Okay. -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
James Taylor 9:42
I’m gonna have to have your show that explains the differences for this. I’m gonna put myself in a handout with you to tell me the difference between equity and equality.
Equality vs Equity
Shola Kaye 9:51
Okay, so equality is making sure that everybody has the same stuff. But if you’re if you’re starting a race and there are some people who are 10 minutes behind And then there are some people that are at the starting line, some people start the race, you know, in the middle of the field, then it’s not fair for everybody. So some people will need different things than others. So if you’ve got a workplace where there are lots of parents who need perhaps flexible working, then it’s about giving those people flexible working if you have a workplace where there are people who perhaps have a disability like they’re hard of hearing, it’s about giving them the tools so that they can hear properly and be able to participate in what’s going on. So equity is really about meeting people where they are and giving them what they need to get things done, as opposed to saying, Well, everybody now should have flexible working, because not everybody needs it, basically. -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
James Taylor 10:43
Thanks. Modify that for me as well. So I’m sure anyone else watching maybe leaves in the comments. Well, I, that’s great. One of the reasons I love having guests like yourself on a show is because I just feel like I learned so much every time I have a guest on it’s like, I would watch this show, even if I wasn’t involved in doing this show. So thank you.
Maria Franzoni 11:02
That’s good. And remember that when you’re not available, or you’re sick, that you’re going to watch it right Good, good. helped me understand equity really well. It was a beautiful cartoon. And I don’t know who the cartoonist was. But it was 333 men actually, a man, a middle child, and a small child wanting to watch football and had to watch it over the fence and football being topical at the moment, obviously. And the talk, the tall man could just look over the fence, no problem, the middle child could just about reach it and the tiny one couldn’t. And they have given boxes all the same height. And of course, the tall man really super tall. Now, the middle child could now see but the good ones still couldn’t. So it was like you they needed different heights in order to all be able to be at the same level to watch the football. So they go football story. And I come back, I want to come back you made the point James made the point about SEO is needing to be empathetic. I think you also need to work with some politicians, please show it we’ve got I think government and politicians need to be empathetic. But let’s move on to a bit more about you personally. Because I was surprised to hear because you come across to me as very grounded, very confident, very knowledgeable. But you told us before the show that you’ve actually had to deal with imposter syndrome and grow your speaking and do your marketing and put yourself out there feeling like an imposter. How do you deal with that? Yeah, it’s
Imposter Syndrome
Shola Kaye 12:30
it’s an interesting one, isn’t it? Because I think a lot of people, and I won’t, I won’t say women in particular. But a lot of times women do say that they have impostor syndrome, more so than I hear from men, especially when I was doing a lot of work on communication. And I think especially as a speaker, you come in and you watch some speaker demo videos, especially some of the American speakers, and it’s like Bruce Springsteen’s like that’s like a massive stadium is in a slow-mo and roaring crowds. And you think, Well, here I am, I’ve barely got a demo video. I’m just about to scratch together a keynote speech. How on earth can I even sort of seeing myself in that arena? And so I think it can be harmful, especially with something like speaking where there’s no defined pathway. Like, if you wanted to be a top doctor, you know, you got to go to medical school to do it. Whereas with something like speaking, there are so many different routes into it. And so I certainly, in the beginning, knew I wanted to speak, but I couldn’t see myself. You know, I couldn’t really visualize the pathway. And so what I had to do is very early on, especially when you don’t have much so you’ve got this sort of really shaky looking very, you know, you got 10 speeches because you’re saying, You’re still saying can talk on anything. And then you think well how on earth do I approach an organization, they will never hire me. So what I started out by doing was I found somebody who was very affordable, who offered to do a little bit of PR for me, she literally I’d think I’d spent like 60 pounds a week on her or something wasn’t a lot of money. But for that, she was the one that was going out and taking all the locks and the blows and the rejections and she says, oh, I’ll try all these places for you. And then she’d never told me she wouldn’t say oh, you got rejected, but there was just no next step. So clearly I did, right. But she did enough that I when I’d written my first book, she approached places like Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, somebody who wrote for Forbes, and I would never have even dared to go to Marie Claire until can show to appear in your room. But she did. And so I say to people, if you don’t just because you’re an introvert, you’re a quiet person. You don’t feel like you’ve got enough. Don’t let that stop you. Find a way if it’s about delegation, doing skill swaps, whatever it might be, find a way to get yourself out there, you don’t have to be the one that takes the rejection personally, someone could do it on your behalf. And so that kind of enabled me to kind of get a foot in the door and get myself on the ladder. And then the more I’ve been able to achieve, of course, you build more confidence over time. But I say to don’t, to everyone, don’t let it stop you that you don’t have a lot at the beginning. Because most people don’t start with March. It’s that’s just the name of the game, really. -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
Maria Franzoni 15:29
And the more you do, the more confident you get, of course, because you get great feedback and you get clients like the client, you had said, come back and do this for us, even though we know it’s not your topic. That’s it sort of its momentum, isn’t it, you need to get that momentum. Love that. Thank you.
James Taylor 15:45
On that is the imposter syndrome. It’s an interesting one. As you know, my background was working with a lot of music artists, before I get into the world of puppies, professional speaking. And I was always really amazing meeting really quite well-known performers and artists, meet them in person before they went on stage, having a conversation with them. And seeing like just how nervous and how they’re asking, do you think this looks okay, just think this is just all the things and it actually, I find it quite a freeing experience to spend time with other creatives here more broadly because it felt we’re all in this together. You know, you know you on stage, sometimes you project certain thing. At the side of the stage, maybe there’s something else going and it was there was someone I think it was a performer or a speaker, I think it’s possibly a speaker that told me this early on. He said, Don’t try to compare your back shop, to their front shop. And I remember hearing that at the time and that you mentioned like promotional videos where everything looks amazing I’ve ever seen like Mel Robbins promotional video, and they go, oh, I’ve just got to give up. Now. There’s no point in doing this anymore. She’s so amazing. And but someone said to me, don’t compare your back shop, to someone else’s friendship and that for me, I don’t know. They just couldn’t give me a little bit of confidence. Because it can be challenging, because you put yourself out there, aren’t you? Sure you when you’re, you’re kind of going, you’re putting those videos, you’re going up on that stage? That is you. There’s nowhere to hide there.
Shola Kaye 17:12
Absolutely, yeah, it’s so true. And this idea of not, not necessary, stay in your own lane. Because of it. You can go to different lanes if that’s where you want to go, but just recognizing that you’re on your journey. And so as long as you look behind, and you say well, I’m a bit further than I was yesterday. That’s, that’s, that’s all you can do. And I think for me to compare myself to Yeah, Mel Robbins, or to you James or to anyone, we’re on our own journeys, and our audiences will each take something different from what we have to offer. And so James, you will give something to your audience that perhaps my audience at that where they are may not need that, that time or, you know, maybe my message or my style is suited to them because of where and who they are. And I think as long as you can come away from your tools, knowing that you genuinely want the best for your audience and you did whatever you needed to do to kind of create that awareness and help them move forward. Then whether you’re speaking to, you know, 10 people at a tiny Association event, where you’re not getting paid, or whether you’re speaking to, you know, 10,000 you’re still on the journey and you’re still doing good stuff. -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
James Taylor 18:21
I’m James Taylor, keynote speaker, and speaker business coach, and this is the SpeakersU podcast. If you enjoy listening to conversations that will help you launch and grow your speaking business fast new thought possible, then you’ve come to the right place. Each week we discussed marketing strategies, sales techniques, as well as ideas to increase the profitability of your speaking business and develop your craft. You’ll find show notes for today’s episode as well as free speaker business training at speakers u.com this week’s episode is sponsored by SpeakersU the online community for international speakers, SpeakersU helped you launch grow, and monetize your speaking business faster than you thought possible. If you want to share your message as a highly paid speaker, then SpeakersU will teach you how just go to SpeakersU.com to access their free speaker business training. Now, you mentioned that one marketing strategy which is around things like PR kind of and that almost had like two functions for you one was it had the function kind of getting you to know and getting you in the market, but also it was a little bit of a protective shield between you just as things were just starting, what other marketing strategies have you been finding most useful? Especially because you’re you’re also now expanding? You’re based in the UK, but you have clients in America and all over the world? What’s working for you at the mall when it comes to marketing? -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
Maria Franzoni 19:36
Yeah,
Marketing Strategies
Shola Kaye 19:37
for me, I’ve tried a lot of different things, you know, some in some depth and some just in a very superficial way. And LinkedIn really helped me especially during the pandemic because I’ve been trying to years ago I lived in the states and I wanted to do some more work with American clients for a number of reasons, but Obviously, there’s the problem with if you wanting to travel over there, there’s the expense for airfare, there’s, of course, the visa issue. There’s also the fact they don’t know you because you’re from a different country. So what I found was, unfortunately, the pandemic brought a lot of unfortunate things with it. But what it has forced many of us to do is to kind of look beyond where we, were, and seek out new ideas, new business, and so on. So I thought, Well, okay, if everything’s virtual, this is a wonderful time for me to expand to new markets because it doesn’t, obviously, they all the airfare and the visa thing disappears. So I decided to use LinkedIn a lot more strategically, probably this time last year, I guess. And there are a few different strategies, which I’m happy to share. But the first one was just being very single-minded about connecting with potential people that had the potential to be clients on a regular basis, and then having a strategy for the sort of emails that I would send them or the messages I would send them. So we all know, we’ve all seen people that sort of connecting and pitch right, so they connect with you. And then the next second, you’re getting this sort of long, lengthy message telling you. Yes. And so I, you know, to be honest, I tried it, I tried it a couple of times realize it icky, right. So what I was doing was, was made sure that I had a strapline that made it very clear what I did. So I think for me, I just literally put empathy at work, communication, and inclusive leadership, that was my strapline. So every single time I messaged somebody, even if it was just the connection message, that strapline would be at the bottom. And that’s, that’s doing the selling for you. Because you don’t need to say, well, I’ve got, you know, I’ve got 10 speeches. And we’re, you don’t need to do any of that. As long as the lines there. If there’s any curiosity that’s piqued that person will, of course, look at your profile. So having a really, really well filled out profile with your lead magnets, speech, title, all those sorts of things, actually, in the LinkedIn profile, no one needs to go beyond their plus every message having this little strapline at the end, I found that that sometimes there’d be people who would immediately see the strapline and say, Oh, I’m looking for that right now. Can we have a meeting, there’d be others who weren’t looking, but I’d have a series of messages. So I’d have the initial connection, then I’d have a thank you for connecting again, with the strapline. Then a few days after that, I would send them an article. And it typically wasn’t an article written by me, because again, that sounds a bit too promotional. So I’d send them something that was at that time, it was about the pandemic empathy, something to do with working from home. Along those lines, it was actually genuinely useful and written by somebody else. And I’d send that again with the strapline. And some people would say thank you, some people, you know, just carry on. And then I’d send another message, probably a week or so later, then saying, hey, a lot of us are working from home right now. Hope you don’t mind, I’ve contacted you be great to you know, if you ever fancy a chat, let me know, if not, I’ve got some PDFs that might be. So I just kind of made it very casual, again, with the strapline. And some people again would say yeah, let’s have a call, and others would ignore you. But then what would happen is the combination of the personal reach out, plus, on top of that you’re regularly posting on LinkedIn, whether it’s, you know, just an update or some curated articles, whatever it might be, just keeps you top of mind. So I had literally somebody came got contacted me about a speaking gig yesterday, who I’d been in touch with a year ago. And sometimes people they’ll write down, they’ll keep a file of everyone that’s approached them, and then when they’re ready, they’ll get in touch. So sometimes it’s a bit dispiriting when you don’t get a lot of immediate responses to these messages. But just keep in mind that there are many people who are waiting for their moments -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
James Taylor 24:09
that you might be able to hear just now in the background in the field is a tractor just going outside of where I’m filming today. And they’re planting. They did they’re planting seeds just now they’re this time of year that they’re doing a lot of planting. And it’s gonna be like six months before they start seeing anything, but they don’t get I’ve never seen a particularly stressed farmer because they just know that they just keep focused on the planting, and you’re kind of planting those seeds, you’re your client, I there’s two things I just want to unpack from you. First of all, how do you find the right people to connect with on LinkedIn? And secondly, and this is maybe a more tactical question is are you doing all of this manually? How do you know to follow a week’s time afterward or using some art or some tool to do that?
Connecting on LinkedIn
Shola Kaye 24:51
Yeah, so good questions. So the first one is finding people and again, big I ended up outside And some of this work to the VA. And also I used an agency for some kind of LinkedIn lead sourcing as well. And the good thing there was the fact that they were approaching people, but again, I wouldn’t have dared to, you know, so heads of HR, CEOs for big companies either thought, oh, there’s no way they’ll be texting me that. And then some of them will come back and say, Oh, yeah, this looks good. Let’s have a chat. So, although a lot of people say the personal approach is important, I think sometimes if you’re the sort of person who would not step up for the big opportunities, somebody who’s a bit more impartial can be helpful in those situations. So in terms of actually the execution of all this, I tried different things. So initially, I tried. And people will say, oh, you’re not supposed to use agencies on LinkedIn, because it’s all supposed to be done directly. But I did get some help with, initially with, with doing some of the campaign campaigns, and then I would follow up either personally, or with a VA helping me out. And then also, I tried another strategy where I used the VA to do some of this, and then I did some of the personal contacts. So it was, you know, the communication was genuine. But she helped me with some of the targeting and sort of reaching out initially, and then I would follow up because that’s the thing with lead gen. It’s obvious it’s not, it’s, it’s kind of broad, right. And it can generate a lot of noise, sometimes with people that aren’t the right ones for you, and so on. But I think it’s like digging for gold, right? Where there’s quite a bit of mud. But then there’s the old nugget herein -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
James Taylor 26:49
the agricultural metaphors. I know, because you and I have spoken before your SpeakersU remember, and I know some of the clients you work with, and you have clients that most speakers would die to have on their roster to be able to work with so something is working for you. So congratulations to us for that because I know it’s a lot of work, but you’re definitely starting to see the results from it. Maria, I know you’re a massive LinkedIn, LinkedIn,
Maria Franzoni 27:16
I love LinkedIn. And I think you can actually target quite well on LinkedIn, you can decide this is the industry I want to work in, or these are the type of people that job role. This is the area you can even do by location by area. So I level that I have a question for you. Because I’m curious to know, your VA that you had helped you did your VA use your profile and approach as you or approach as themselves?
VA Approach to LinkedId
Shola Kaye 27:40
Yeah, great question. We tried both. And then it because there was an awkwardness as well, because sometimes we the VA, they’re used to using language, which is or hope you don’t mind, as opposed to Yeah, we equal here. So I had to pick her up a few times on Hey, look, I’m equal this person, and we’re contacting people in the States. So we need to use language, it’s more casual than Oh, excuse me. Would you mind if I so so? Yeah, I mean, there were teething problems around that. And we tried both. Sometimes we said, Oh, this is Angela’s VA shoulder. And sometimes we did it like me. But I think she felt more comfortable doing it at her as herself course, and also when an error is made. But you don’t owe that. So it’s easier if there’s a mistake that they own up to them. -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
Maria Franzoni 28:37
Absolutely, absolutely. That’s interesting. And actually, certainly, if you’ve got somebody working for you doing anything on social media, you’ve got to almost give them directions into your tone of voice, your language. I mean, because I don’t like terms like tricks or secrets or, or hacks. I don’t like any of those. So I don’t want anybody to use that in my social media. And I want people to use me and you correctly because I want my grammar to be correct. So I’m a bit pedantic or something. So I tend to be a bit of a control freak when it comes to it. But I think part of it though the shoulder isn’t it when you get into a rhythm. And I know James creates a lot of content, I’m always admiring how much content creates. I think once you get rid of it, and you can batch it and do things in it, you can create the content to support because as you said, You’ve got to be top of mind, even if you’re messaging and that person is not ready for a year, they’ve got to remember you. They may not remember your name, but if they see you and they see videos and they see your posts, they’ll come back. When I started in the world of speaker bureaus, I worked at CSA celebrity speakers, and I was trained by Alex cry Walt, the founder, who for me was a phenomenal trainer and mentor. I mean one of the best in the business. And he always said to us, it’s like it’s a numbers game. And it’s a pipeline and you keep feeding the pipeline feeding the pipeline. Until it’s so full that Everything then comes out the other end and as long as you keep feeding it. So however busy you get when you’re successful, you still have to keep feeding that pipeline, or you’re going to have, you know, you’re not going to have any more seeds in any more harvest style, you got to keep doing it and keep repeating it. Yeah. So
James Taylor 30:17
now we’ll be talking a lot about empathy here as well, empathy at work, and you and that’s the kind of topic you’re going to learn for. So you’ve Kaylee, we’ve got a guide here that you’ve put together called preparing for empathy. We’re going to have a link if people go to speaking business. tv and just entered into the resource, you will find a link there. Sure. Tell us a little bit about that. That PDF guide, please.
Preparing For Empathy
Shola Kaye 30:42
Yes. Well, a lot of people, when I’m doing keynotes, people seem to think that empathy is a trade. So you’re either born with it or you’re not. And that can be a little bit of a get out of jail. Well, I don’t, I’m not very empathetic, don’t involve me in this sort of thing. And empathy is actually a skill. And of course, some people are better at it than others. But it’s something that we can all work on. So the idea of this PDF guide is to give people some simple steps that they can put in play so that they can actually start to flex that empathy muscle, and then be better listeners, better colleagues, better friends, and family as well. And that’s why I put it together as almost like a precursor to a lot of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work. But that is going on in so many organizations right now. -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
James Taylor 31:31
Great, well, we have that link, just go to speaking business.tv into the resources there. And we’re gonna have the link to show his LinkedIn profile, because you don’t want to see each other’s LinkedIn profile. Now, after we’ve spoken about it. Gonna have a link to the PDF. And also, you also have a book, which is specifically about public speaking. Can you tell us about that as well?
Public Speaking Book
Shola Kaye 31:51
Yes, yeah. So years ago, when I guess it’s sort of a little bit about my background. So I basically started out working in corporations. And again, we talked about some sort of quietness and being a bit timid. I didn’t really speak up enough. So I had a couple of I talked about this in my keynotes. It’s no secret. But there’s one job I had, well, I got put on probation because they said I didn’t speak up enough. Another job I got after six months, they said, are we letting you go, you don’t speak up enough. So I thought, well blow the corporate stuff. I’m just gonna do the thing that I dreamt of as a kid, which is to be a professional CEO. So in my 30s, I thought, okay, I can make this happen, since I took singing lessons, etc. And for about 10 years, worked as a professional singer. And so coming back to communication, and speaking, I thought, well, what’s the angle that I can put on speaking, and it’s drawing analogies between standing on stage as a singer and as an entertainer, writing songs, versus writing speeches, and, and speaking, for a living? So the book How To Be A D.I.V.A at Public Speaking comes from that experience, but it’s very much step by step how to be a better communicator, whether it’s, you know, just more meetings and things or whether it’s on bigger stages. -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
James Taylor 33:06
And I would imagine, you got very good at improvising with audiences as part of 10 years of singing in front of audiences, you know, you see all kinds of things that happen in that context. So it might be useful for you as a public speaker.
Shola Kaye 33:20
Absolutely. Yeah. I think I’d said to you on another, when we were talking for James that I, sometimes I do big gigs with bands, and other times, it would just be me my little backing track and my PA, and it would be people dancing around with four glasses of Guinness, about to spill their drinks on my expensive PA. Also, you’d see all sorts of things happening, and you’ve got to be ready to respond to all of it. So it has certainly helped to move into the speaking world with things that might go wrong. Every now and again. Fantastic. book. -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
Maria Franzoni 33:53
I don’t know about you guys, but I did a double-take when Shola said, when I got into my 30s I decided to start singing I thought you don’t even look like you’re 30. So whatever you’re doing, absolutely. Go and check now see what else you’ve done. Think Wow. Fantastic. You’ve also so we like to share a tip or a tool on the show for anybody listening. And in fact, I think some people just tune in just to hear what the table tool is every week, you’re going to generously share one with us as well. -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
Tool of the week
Shola Kaye 34:20
Yes, you know what, I’ve just forgotten what my needs are. So why don’t you go first, and I’ll come back here.
Maria Franzoni 34:26
Like I can remind you like it was about finding somebody else to go. Would you share twice?
Shola Kaye 34:33
Yes. So as I said, Absolutely. And I’ll share it a third time because I really do feel every time I open it. There are people that come up and say oh, thank you so much. I didn’t realize that I didn’t have to do this myself. So if you’re out there and you’re you’ve got a dream to be a speaker, and you’re just a bit afraid of getting going delegate delegate Fiverr Upwork skill swaps. Just find somebody who can do that stuff for you. And then grow into your shoes later on.
Maria Franzoni 35:03
Fantastic, really good advice. I’ve got a tool that I’d like to share too. And I don’t know about you guys. But I have tried so many different ways of arranging my to-do’s to-do lists, I’ve tried, I’m not going to name all the ones that I’ve rejected because I think it’d be a bit unfair. But I finally found one based on I don’t if you’ve read this book, David Allen’s getting things done, which is a great book about being organized and being productive. And there’s an app called things, it’s called things, three cuts, the third version things to do, it’s not free, you have to pay for it, you have to buy it for your Mac, it’s iOS. So I apologies to anybody who’s PC out there. But it’s iOS, you pick up the Mac, you have to buy it for your iPhone, and it’s changed my life. And you’re going to be saying, but why? How can that do? do that? I enjoy using it, which I’ve never enjoyed with any other app at all. I can send my emails to my to dues and they appear and I can add, they could become an action that I need to take. I can tag things so I can pull things out all the same. So if I want to tag something, or this is a five-minute thing to do, I’ve got five minutes. Okay, what are my five-minute activities? I can pull them all up and do those? What else can I do? I’ve had to write it down because it does so many things. I can have areas, I can have an area for my finances or an area for you know, home stuff, or I can have different areas, I can have projects, I can have reminders, I can repeat things. It syncs with my calendar. So I can see that it links to my calendar, I can see my upcoming events with my calendar on my upcoming tasks. I love it. I can do checklists. And it’s just brilliant. Brilliant. So although I’ve had to pay for it, I would pay for it over again. And it’s one that I’ve stuck with. And I’m getting much more organized. Even my team is shocked by that stuff anymore. -LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
James Taylor 37:02
I’m really, really just reminded of the name of the app again, what was the name of the app?
Maria Franzoni 37:07
Yeah, this cool thing three, because I think it’s the third version of it, or you might have to put in things to do. But things three on the App Store. And I’m not on a commission. So genuinely just as brilliant. We go for it.
James Taylor 37:23
Maria, you’re such a geek. You know I You are the techie like for someone that describes as I was not particularly techie, you are always telling me about the latest apps and tools. So great. So I’m gonna go and check that out myself. I think just now so Shola, thank you so much for coming on the show today. We’re gonna have links to your LinkedIn if you want to check out that as well. It’s great seeing your career or your speaking career go from strength to strength. It’s just wonderful to see really kind of blossoming so thank you so much for taking time. Thank you. And a real pleasure. Thanks to both of you.
Maria Franzoni 37:56
Lovely, lovely to see you. Keep ongoing. Thank you so much. Goodbye to everybody watching. Thank dating.
James Taylor 38:03
Okay, everyone. You can subscribe to the SpeakersU podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts while you’re there. leave us a review. I really appreciate it. I’m James Taylor, and you’ve been listening to the SpeakersU podcast.
-LinkedIn Strategies To Get Speaking Engagements
