April 11, 2024 • 42 mins
Have you considered a career in speaking? Or maybe you’re thinking about speaking as a side hustle or a way to promote your business expertise. If you’re interested in hopping on stage in front of a crowd, this episode is the ultimate guide to getting started.
We’ll tackle:
• How to determine the best topic
• How to stand out and find opportunities, not competition
• The #1 question: “Can I actually make money speaking?”
Innovation Women's mission is to help every woman become a speaker. By connecting speakers and subject matter experts to these opportunities, they help women with opportunities to build their brand, grow their businesses and advance their careers. Join Innovation Women today!
Guest: Bobbie Carlton is the founder of Carlton PR & Marketing, Innovation Nights and Innovation Women, or, as she calls them, the day job, the night job and the dream job. Carlton is an entertaining, tell-it-like-it-is speaker who speaks extensively (and passionately) about public speaking and how it can be the driving force behind career growth and business success. She's a TEDx speaker; an entertaining startup event host; she's spoken at the United Nations; she's shared the stage with storytelling legend (and NPR's Snap Judgment host) Glynn Washington; and she's been on the main stage for some of the world’s best-known conferences for technical and professional women. Carlton has been featured on CBS News, in the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, USA Today and other major media. She was previously the head of global PR at two different enterprise software companies and the head of marketing for a brand devoted to providing positive role models for preteen girls. She’s inspired thousands of technical, entrepreneurial and executive women to take control of their own speaking careers and has worked with event managers around the world to deliver diverse and inclusive events.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Have you ever considered acareer in public speaking? Or maybe
you're thinking about speakingas a side hustle or a way to promote
your business or expertise. Ifyou are interested in getting on
stage in front of a crowd,this episode is the ultimate guide
to getting started. We'lltackle how to pick the best topic,
how to stand out and findopportunities, not competition. And
(00:24):
the number one question I hearabout speaking, can I actually make
money at it? This is the GrownAss Woman's Guide. I'm your host,
Jackie McDougall. BobbiCarlton is the founder of Carlton
PR and Marketing, InnovationNights and Innovation Women. Or as
she calls them, the day job,the night job and the dream job.
(00:45):
She's spoken at The UnitedNations, TEDx and some of the world's
best known conferences fortechnical and professional women.
She's been featured on CBSNews, in the Wall Street Journal,
Boston Globe and USA Today.But what you might not expect is
that Bobby is a selfproclaimed introvert. And she says
that's actually an advantagewhen it comes to public speaking.
(01:11):
You yourself consider yourselfan introvert and here you are as
a leader in this whole world.So how does that work?
I, I think that people thinkabout introverts. As somebody who
is shy and retiring, I'mtotally not. But I do tend to expend
energy being around otherpeople, which is actually probably
(01:36):
a better definition forintroverts. We don't gain energy
by being around other people,we expend it. And so when you're
finished with a big conferenceor an event, an extrovert is often
really energized. Like theycan't wait for the after party. I'm
(01:58):
done. Like stick a fork in me,I'm done. You know, I have to be
like, okay, back for roomservice. That's good, right? But
you know, introverts actuallyhave some really nice tendencies
that public speaking can takeadvantage of. Number one, introverts
(02:19):
tend to be more orientedtoward research. We're more oriented
toward practice andpreparation. An extrovert or somebody
who has been told they're anextrovert their entire life is probably
somebody who's a little bitmore inclined to wing it. Don't wing
(02:40):
it. When you're going to bedoing a presentation, number one,
there's an event manager inthe background somewhere who is dying
because you know thatextrovert is going to be going over
in terms of the time, right? Ithink that introverts, they're prepared,
they show up on time, theyhave researched everything, they
(03:02):
are just ready to answer anyQuestions and an extrovert. Again,
they're a little bit morelikely to be winging it.
Bobby didn't have dreams ofbecoming a speaker. In fact, it all
started sort of accidentallyback in 2008 when she lost her job
and decided to dabble in a newfad called social media. So take
(03:25):
me back. Paint a littlepicture for us. Where are you in
your life? What's going on?When you think, you know what I want
to do as an introvert, I wantto get on a stage.
All right, I'm going to takeyou back to 2008.
Okay.
In 2008, the startup that Iwas working with at the time ran
out of money. You know, it wasa lot of companies ran out of money
at that time. We were notalone and there were no jobs. So
(03:51):
I had really no choice inbecoming an entrepreneur. I started
consulting work. I started myfirst company, which is a public
relations and marketing firm.And at the time, social media was
young. There were a lot ofpeople saying, this is an interesting
(04:12):
tool. There were also a lot ofpeople saying, this is something
kids play with. This is not areal professional tool.
Right.
I was part of the first camp.I said, oh, this is interesting.
This is something that I, as apublic relations person should know
how to use and feelcomfortable with. And you know what's
(04:36):
not comfortable? Practicingsomething that you don't know very
much about on paying clients.They don't appreciate it.
Yeah.
So I created an event to allowmyself a sandbox to play in something
that I could use to practicesocial media, figure out how it could
(05:00):
be used on behalf of clients,and I started something called Innovation
Nights. Over the, oh, gosh, 11plus years that I ran a monthly,
Innovation Nights, eventuallywe launched over 1500 new products
that got more than $4 billionin funding. Wow. So not a toy, but
(05:22):
an important tool. And duringthat time, I was kind of forced out
onto stage. The first eventthat I did in April 2009, I literally
showed up, set up for thisevent and all of a sudden realized,
oh, dear God, this is going tobe me on stage, being the mc, you
(05:50):
know, I called it a socialmedia powered event. And the idea
is that we would all bring ouriPhones and cell phones and. And
take pictures and tweet andpost things online. Well, which meant
that every single person inthe room was taking video and pictures
of me. Oh, my God, they wereawful. Like literal hot mess. I look
(06:19):
so unhappy. I look souncomfortable and hot and sweaty.
I literally, like, sweatedthrough my shirt. Thank God. I was
wearing a blazer, and seeingall these pictures was just horrifying.
So, you know, you can go oneof two ways when that happens. You
(06:40):
can go, I am never doing thatagain. Yeah, or, oh, my God, I have
to do it again. I better getgood at this.
Right?
I went the latter.
That's quite a crossroadsright there.
Yeah. You know, you havephotographic and video evidence of
really how bad it gets. So Iwas basically doing the same thing
(07:04):
every single month for 11years. And, you know, I'd say after
the first dozen or so times,you stop looking like a hot mess
and you start looking like youknow what you're doing. Practice
doesn't necessarily makeperfect, but it makes better. All
right, so that was kind of mypath. And, you know, I was running
(07:29):
a massively successfulnetworking event and a lot of people
were seeing me be the emcee.So I started getting invitations
to do public speaking, andthat was how things kind of went
down that path.
And what kind of things wereyou speaking about when you first
started social media?
(07:50):
A lot of people asked me tocome in and talk about public relations.
I had a long career as thehead of global PR for a couple of
big enterprise softwarecompanies. I was working with a lot
of startups, and I was beingcalled upon to be the face of female
entrepreneurship on a regularbasis. I think at the time there
(08:14):
were like five or six femaleentrepreneurs in Boston. All of Boston.
That's not true. Okay. But it felt.
It felt like that, yeah, you would.
Get asked over and over andover again, and there was a very
small group of women who keptgetting the call, and I happened
to be one of them.
(08:35):
At what point were you like, Ishould help other women speakers?
It actually was a little bitfarther on down the line when I kind
of kept getting requests fromevent managers. And because I had
this relatively good sizeddatabase of entrepreneurs and startups,
(08:57):
sometimes event managers wouldcall upon me and say, hey, do you
know somebody who can come toour event and talk about this? And
a few times I was specificallyrequested to provide female entrepreneurs
because, quote, unquote, well,we've got this mantle going and I
need to break it up. And thatwas some of the more aware event
(09:22):
managers. Some of the lessaware event managers kind of didn't
notice the lack, but I did. Iwas being asked to go to events as
well, because, hey, come andlive, tweet my event, have all of
these followers on socialmedia. And so I would show up at
(09:43):
the events and often sit inthe audience with my friends. Who
were other femaleentrepreneurs. And we would talk
about the lack of women onstage. And it wasn't until at one
point I broke my leg and waslaid up a bit and had a bit of a
(10:03):
slowdown where I said, okay,you know what? I can do something
about this. And I had aplatform where we were promoting
local startups. I said, well,what if I just cloned this platform
and turned it into a platformfor female entrepreneurs and technical
(10:24):
women and started just usingthis as a way to get out of being
the introducer for speakers? Iliterally thought I was going to
take myself out of theequation by offering up a platform.
Oh, God, so wrong. Do you seea pattern here, Bobbi? You keep thinking
(10:45):
I'm going to present thisthing and then I can like, fade into
the background and theuniverse is like, knock, knock. No,
thank you.
Yeah, that's not going tohappen, you fool.
In 2015, Innovation Women wasborn with a mission to provide equal
visibility opportunities forwomen supporting career development,
(11:06):
business success, thoughtleadership, and diversity. Innovation
Women is committed to helpmanagers avoid the quote all male,
all pale and all stale. Panelswe see so often at industry conferences
and events. Your opportunitiesthat you provide for your members
could be in tech, could be infinance. You know, you could be an
(11:29):
accountant, you could be an ITexpert. And there are opportunities
for all different types ofpeople to get up and speak. That's
something that really neveroccurred to me, that I could be someone
who works in a field thatmaybe is typically filled with introverted
people, and that there are somany different opportunities for
you to speak about yourexpertise and your experience.
(11:51):
We have 188 differentindustries represented in Innovation
Women, and that's not evengetting into the different functions.
If you think about it. I'm amarketing person. I have a long expertise
in public relations. I can goand speak at events like the Public
(12:14):
Relations Society of America'sannual conference, or I could be
going to speak at a startupevent. Or I could speak about marketing
at an IT conference. Becauseof my passion, my focus on getting
women on stage. I could bespeaking at a diversity, equity and
(12:35):
inclusion event. I could bespeaking at an event about speaking.
There are so many differentindustry conferences and events.
Like some of the more unusualconferences that I talk about. There's
one in particular I'm like, Ihave to figure out a way to get to
this conference. It's aconference focused on water park
(12:58):
operators. I mean, don't youwant to go? I want to go. I so want
to go. There's a greatConference every year about people
who deal with trees. Like,let's go. Like, I like trees. Your
expertise could be relevant.
(13:20):
Yes.
What if the tree people,they've got names, they're called
arborists. What if they putinto their big annual conference
a career track?
Right.
And in that track, they havepeople who come in and talk about
leadership and career growthopportunities and maybe things like
(13:42):
salary negotiation or what youwant to do to get yourself to the
next level, get a promotion.There are so many different ways
to get yourself out there andbe known for something.
Right.
Because that's really the key.What do you want to be known for?
Yes. Let's dive into this alittle bit more. So let's just say
(14:04):
we have Betty. Betty islistening to this podcast right now.
She works in a field. She'sbeen doing her job. She's not feeling
fulfilled. She feels maybelike she's aging out a little bit.
And the idea of speaking ispretty exciting. Probably a little
scary, but pretty exciting.How does she know what to talk about
and where to pitch herself?
(14:25):
So I usually start people downthis path by saying, how comfortable
are you personally with publicspeaking? Let's just start there.
Because for some people,public speaking is a terrifying thought,
and for other people, they'reokay with it. They've done things
inside their companies, ormaybe they have a side hustle where
(14:48):
they're getting out there. Butfor some people, it's a scary thing.
And I usually start them bysaying, okay, what conferences and
events are relevant to yourindustry that you already go to think
about those conferences andevents and go look at their agenda.
Where would you fit in?There's a lot of different events
(15:11):
out there and they all usepretty much the same device. It's
called a call for speakers.
Okay.
And so what you'll want to dois you'll want to search online and
you'll look for call forspeakers and you'll put in your topic
or your area of interest.
Okay.
And you'll see what comes up.Because a lot of times you're going
(15:34):
to find just things that yougo, oh, my gosh, I've never heard
of the show, but it's actuallysomething that's relevant to me and
my career. They're asking forspeakers, they're begging for you.
Right.
You can go and apply.
So what should you talk about?How do you know the best topic to
speak on if you're a little.
(15:56):
Stuck figuring what you cantalk about? This is my method. I
call it the three sided Venndiagram. So you've Got one circle.
That is your area of expertiseand things you are passionate about.
That's in one circle. Okay,now picture a second circle. And
that second circle is what doyou want to be known for? You know,
(16:21):
if your area of expertise ismedieval armory, that might not be
something that's helpful toyou in your career. Unless you work
in museums.
Right.
So think about what you wantto be known for. Think about what
your area of expertise is andwhat your passion is. And then you
need to come to the thirdcircle. And this is the circle that
(16:43):
a lot of people forget about.What does the audience need to know?
What are they searching for?What problem of theirs can you solve?
And when you have an overlapof all three circles, that's where
you should be focusing whatyou talk about on.
(17:06):
And just like podcasts, thereis an event for everything. Yes,
I'm looking right now at theInnovation Women website and here
are just a few examples ofspeaking gigs available at the moment
of recording InternationalConference on Sport and Exercise
Science, Cybersecurity forHealthcare Summit, association for
(17:27):
Information Science andTechnology, International Political
Science Association, BrainInjury association of Michigan Annual
fall Conference, and 2024International Fastener Expo. I mean,
there's something foreveryone. If there's an industry
that exists, there's likely anopportunity to speak.
These are the things that arebooking right now. They've got calls
(17:52):
for speakers that are openright now with a deadline that's
coming up, like literally today.
So if somebody wanted tospeak, they do your Venn diagram,
they figure out what they'regoing to talk about, and then do
you suggest having multipletalks that you put out there? Do
you have one signature talk?What does that look like?
I think that when people aregetting started, a lot of times they.
(18:15):
They have a bunch of talks andsometimes they'll have two or three
kind of in their hip pocketand they'll start looking for opportunities.
And here's one, then here'sone, then here's 1. They're a little
bit scattered, but I find thatover time, people tend to zero in
on one topic and that becomestheir signature talk or their signature
(18:42):
topic. You're really winningwhen somebody contacts you and says,
we'd like you to do yoursignature talk because you're the
first person we thought ofwhen it came to that topic. You want
to become known for a topic,and becoming known requires focus.
(19:03):
If you're doing 16 differenttopics, you're not becoming known
for anything interesting.
I think many times we feellike, oh, I have to diversify so
that I Can apply for a bunchof different places. But that's not
necessarily the case.
It's not necessarily the case.If you're thinking about this long
term, you know, it may takeyou a little while to kind of zero
(19:24):
in on. This is the place whereI feel comfortable. This is the place
where I have an idea thatdifferentiates me. That's one thing
that I really would love topoint point out to people. Do not
be the presentation that isone Google search Deep. Don't be
(19:47):
the person that'sregurgitating what anybody could
find online if they did aquick Google search. This is one
reason that I feel likespeaking is kind of AI proof, because
as speakers, it's our job toget give people an idea that they
can't find anywhere online. Iwant to go and give a presentation
(20:12):
that just blows people'sminds, that gets them thinking about
something new. That also getsthem running out of the room going,
I can do that, too. That'ssuccess as a speaker.
Absolutely. Speaking ofsuccess as a speaker, I've been to
many conferences. I've spokenat conferences and other events,
(20:33):
and there's a lot of speakingfor, quote, unquote, exposure and
not pay. And I wonder ifthat's actually if women face that
more than men. If you careenough, you'll do it for free. What
does it look like as far asgetting paid? Do we do things for
free?
I'm going to tell you,absolutely yes. All right, so this
is deep talk.
(20:53):
Okay.
When I started InnovationWomen, I knew that as a public relations
person, part of my job hadalways been to get executives on
stage at conferences andevents, and those were not paid speaking
engagements. Actually, some ofthe companies I worked for had policies
(21:16):
how you could not be paid.They paid your salary. You were speaking
as part of your role. So a lotof conferences, particularly professional
conferences, pay absolutelynobody. So I did a survey. Just as
I was starting Innovationwomen, I surveyed 360 event managers.
(21:42):
Who pays? Who doesn't pay?What roles do you pay? How much?
Like, I asked all kinds ofquestions. How? Half of all event
managers have no budgetwhatsoever for speakers. All right?
Half of all of them, 42% pay.Some people, they have money for
(22:03):
the keynote speaker. Like,they're bringing in somebody to help
them sell tickets. When yousee Michelle Obama on stage at a
conference or an event, she'sa paid speaker. You know, she's not
doing it out of the goodnessof her heart.
She doesn't want exposure.
She doesn't want exposure. Ithink she's got plenty but if you
see Michelle Obama on the theroster for an event, you're like,
(22:27):
oh, I'm going to that. I ambuying that ticket.
High quality.
It's high quality. So eventmanagers will spend money on a high
profile, sometimes celebrityspeaker. Sometimes they will spend
money on what I call shoulderworkshops. A shoulder workshop is
(22:47):
when your event is onWednesday and Thursday, but there
are special bonus workshopsthat you can pay extra for on say,
Tuesday and Friday. And theconference organizers are getting
paid extra so they have extrabudget to give you the person who
is running the workshop for them.
(23:10):
Right.
Event managers also frequentlyhave discretionary funds. They've
got a little bit of money toput toward a speaker that they really
want to get there that they'renot going to get any other way. So
doing the math with me, that's8% of event managers who pay all
(23:32):
or most of their speakers.
Wow.
And by the way, there's verylittle kind of big signals that you
can use to determine which ofthe opportunities those companies
represent. Because some verytiny little events that are not for
rich organizations will payevery single speaker. They'll put
(23:56):
you up for free, they'll feedyou, they will treat you like gold.
Some absolutely massive, verywealthy organizations pay absolutely
nobody. Okay. I'm talkingabout things like CES or the national
association of Broadcasters.These are very wealthy organizations,
(24:17):
but their policy is we paynobody. South by Southwest is another
one that is a massivevolunteer run organization for the
most part. But they pay no speakers.
None.
None.
Wow.
Absolutely not.
That's surprising. I mean, Iunderstand as a speaker, to be invited
(24:37):
to south by Southwest ispretty epic. And it's great to say
that these are some of theplaces I've spoken, but there's some
big names there that you'dthink that they'd get something for
it.
Yep. And they are coming forthe exposure.
But let's be honest, exposuredoesn't pay the bills, but it can.
It's about how you look at itand where you look for it.
(24:57):
I think one of the things thathappens a lot of time with speakers
who maybe don't have a I'mgetting paid business model is they
look at their own experience.So again, I'm a public relations
person, many years of pr, soI'm going to look for all of the
(25:19):
public relations events andI'm going to pitch myself there.
Bad idea. Here's why. If I ampitching a story or a speaking engagement
to the prsa, I'm speaking toother people in my industry, not
(25:40):
necessarily my customers, butmy Competitors. Oh, you need to think
about if your business modelis, I'm going to speak, I'm going
to get visibility, I'm goingto get clients out of this. You need
to think about where yourclients are, not necessarily your
(26:00):
competitors.
I love that. So if you're agraphic designer and you do branding
and marketing and you like towork with, let's say, your local
realtors go to a realtorconference to talk about the importance
of branding and marketing, andthen they're hiring you to do the
actual work.
Exactly.
I love it.
Exactly. And one of the thingsthat you need to be very aware of
(26:22):
is that you can't go in anddeliver a sales pitch. You have to
be very circumspect. You haveto be subtle. You know, this isn't
run to the back of the roomand buy my book now. This is, oh,
yes, I have a book. And youhave to be doing some very specific
(26:44):
things. I call it droppingbreadcrumbs. So when I'm giving a
presentation, usually theperson who has introduced me will
say, this is Bobby. She's thefounder of Innovation Women. It's
a speaker bureau for women.Like, just a short introduction.
(27:04):
Yep.
If somebody in the audience isgoing, oh, I'm a woman. I would like
to speak, they'll go and lookme up. Maybe they'll give me their
card at the end of thepresentation if I've intrigued them
enough. But if I stand onstage and I'm like, run to Innovation
Women. Buy a profile now.People are going to clear out, they're
(27:27):
going to run away, and I willnever get an invitation to speak
at that event ever again.
Right. And that goes forpodcasts as well. I've had people
come on and, you know, I. I'vebeen editing for a long time. I know
what I'm doing. But peoplewill come in and be like, when my
clients and my clients and myclients and my work and my website
and blah, blah, blah, blah,and I'm like, that's not why you're
here. Show the world thatyou're amazing. Show the world your
(27:49):
expertise and your experience.Experience. And the ones who need
to find you. I promise you, Iwill promote your freebie. But when
you just sound like you'reselling. And I made the mistake even
earlier as a podcaster toallow a lot more of that and not
wanting to hurt anybody'sfeelings by editing it out. But if
my audience isn't listeningand going, all right, I got a lot
(28:12):
out of this, then I'm notdoing my job. And so I love that.
It's the same thing from stage.
Absolutely. And if you do getup on stage and deliver a sales pitch,
you're not going to be askedback. Yeah, that's the key there.
And you want to come back, youwant to establish relationships with
(28:32):
event managers, with events,with groups and communities that
go to that event. Every year Ihave a couple of events that I get
asked back to time and timeagain because I do a good job for
them and I'm not on stageselling anything. Yeah, there are
a couple of them that I go, ohmy gosh, they all heard my presentation
(28:56):
last year. I need to come upwith something new and I need to
come up with something newevery year.
One of my favorite thingsabout the work that I do is the collaboration
and support I've experiencedwith other grown ass women. Something
that I didn't realize is alittle more difficult to find in
the speaking industry.
The speaking world is, I hateto say it, kind of highly secretive.
(29:22):
And a lot of times people arevery successful with public speaking,
especially paid publicspeaking. They don't share. That's
one of the big things thatI've been working on with the innovation
women community. We have aFriday morning drop in zoom call
called Speaker Friends.
Yes.
(29:42):
And I talk about this from thepoint of view of somebody who has
seen other speakers being veryclosed mouth, being very cut off
from their peers. I wantpeople to connect with their peers.
If you're a speaker, the bestthing you can do is make other speaker
friends, share your knowledge,pick their brains in return, cheer
(30:06):
each other on, become thatcommunity. I don't care if you join
innovation Women, find acommunity of other speaker friends.
They will help you.
If you're looking to show up,talk for a bit and get a giant payday
that might not be realistic,at least for now, but like anything,
it takes a clear strategy, abit of creativity and a whole lot
(30:30):
of consistency. How likely isit that someone's going to become
a speaker and then be able tomake a living just off speaking?
I think right off the bat it'sgoing to be hard. Very, very hard.
I talk to a lot of people whohave done public speaking and they
get paid couple hundred buckshere, a couple hundred bucks there.
(30:55):
They're very happy when theyget a thousand dollars. And yet we
all hear the stories about theMichelle Obamas of the world who
make a quarter million dollarsfor showing up, right. We hear those
big dollars being thrownaround when it comes to celebrities.
We hear when it's people whohave worked in speaking and their
(31:18):
industry who have accomplishedsomething amazing. You need to have
a good foundation. And thatfoundation is going to be things
like you wrote a book or yousold your company for a big billion
dollars, or you were on theCOVID of People magazine. Those foundations
(31:40):
make it so that you are worthmore to an event manager. They want
to pay you more because youwill help them sell tickets.
Right.
You're not going to be thatperson right off the bat.
Yeah.
You need to grow into that.
And I think it's a lot likepodcasting, right? So people get
into podcasting, they think,well, I'm going to get sponsors and
(32:02):
I'm going to retire myhusband. You know, that's the whole
thing on the Internet is likethese women who are like, I retired
my husband. Like, okay, but toget into podcasting and to expect
that you're going to get as aregular person, not a celebrity,
expect that you're going toget all these ad dollars coming in,
which I could bore people byexplaining how the ad dollars actually
(32:23):
works in podcasting. You'renot going to make money. So my whole
thing is like, how can you useyour podcast? If your podcast is
a hobby, great. More power toyou. But if your podcast is to promote
your business, is to promoteyour expertise, your consulting,
you know, whatever it is thatunderstanding what the business model
is, understanding what thebenefit is of having this podcast,
(32:47):
it sounds like it's similar tospeaking. Is it to get more powerful
in my message and my mission?Is it to become a thought leader
in this particular industry?Is it for promotional assets? Is
it because you have a book andyou want to sell it? Am I on the
right path here?
Yes, any of those and all ofthose. I think that most speakers
(33:09):
who make a living at speakingare not always getting paid by the
organizer. I think that's thedream. Yes. You know, I step on stage
and somebody hands me a check.The reality is there are far more
speakers who make a livingbecause they step on stage, they
deliver value, they step offthe stage, and somebody wants to
(33:33):
hire them, somebody wants tobuy their book, Somebody wants to
get involved or donate withthe organization they're representing.
There's a lot of differentbusiness models. That's actually
one of the things that we talkan awful lot about at Speaker Friend
Fridays. It's one of thethings that I try to get people to
(33:54):
be realistic about it. Andsure, we'd all love to show up and
just talk and make money.
Right.
The reality is you need tohave a pretty diverse business Model
to make a living as a speaker.
Yeah. And a really strong strategy.
One of the things aboutrunning a speaking business is you
(34:17):
have to treat it like abusiness, which means that you have
to be selling yourself as aspeaker. And so a lot of people will
not think about things likehow they collect leads, who their
target market is, how they'regoing to connect with the audience
(34:40):
afterwards. So many differentthings go into running a business.
It's not something that youjust kind of leap into as a side
hustle.
Right. Through InnovationWomen, you teach the strategy, you
talk about the differentbusiness models, you have listings
and listings of opportunitiesto pitch yourself. I have been to
(35:01):
the speaker fund Fridays. Youlearn so much from you and so much
from the other women. I thinkit's so important as a creative to
be generous with what you'velearned. I mean, I produce other
people's podcasts. I consultpeople with podcasting, but I'm the
first to say, like, I triedthis, you know, and they're like,
oh, I didn't think of that.
(35:21):
Somebody once told me that asa podcast guest, you should create
a Spotify playlist.
Yes.
With all the podcasts thatyou've been in, because number one,
it's a place for podcasters tolisten to you, and number two, you're
(35:41):
promoting all of thosedifferent podcasts.
Exactly.
I love that idea.
Absolutely. And I have one onSpotify. I'll have to link to that
in the show notes. And do youhave one on Spotify that I can link
to yours as well?
I don't. It's on my manytiered list of things I have to do.
Oh, my God. Gosh. Seriously?Seriously. That list is never ending.
As of December 2023,Innovation Women has seen over 21,000
(36:05):
total calls for speakers, with600 plus currently on the platform
with new opportunities addeddaily and 9,200 total attendees at
their speaker friends weeklycalls. And Bobby is constantly promoting
her members in newsletters andon social media.
Every single profile onInnovation Women has this special
(36:28):
button. This platform wasdeveloped by a marketing person.
It's called the Promoteyourself button. And it opens up
a dialogue box. And we ask ourspeakers, tell us every time you
get on stage, tell us whenyou're a podcast guest, tell us when
you've got a new book. Andwe're going to promote those things
(36:49):
out to our list because it'sanother way of building on that foundation
of you as a leading expert ona particular topic.
Right.
And the more times people seeyou, the more often or more likely
they are to think of you whenthey are fulfilling that speaking
(37:12):
opportunity. My best exampleof this is I once got a call to do
a TEDx. And of course I was soexcited. You know, it was like, oh,
my goodness, of course I willabsolutely be there. When is it?
Tuesday.
Oh, geez.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no. TEDxis our things that you practice for
(37:34):
months, not like days. I endedup doing it in the end. You know,
kind of dawned on me. Theyasked me to do it because their theme
was innovation. Hello. Ifounded Innovation Nights. I founded
Innovation women. I speakabout innovation. Of course it's
(37:58):
my brand and of course I'm theperson they immediately thought of
for that last minute fill in.
If you don't let your ego getin the way, then it's really a great
opportunity.
Yeah, it was a littleterrifying. I actually turned it
down initially and I said, no,no, that is career suicide. I'll
(38:22):
be awful. Like, it'll just bebad. And in the end.
But it wasn't.
In the end, it was all right,you know, I mean, I look at it and
say, hey, I could have donethings better, but in the grand scheme
of things, it's not embarrassing.
I actually saw that TED Talk,if it's the one that's online, that
you're.
The only one I've ever done.
(38:43):
And. But that's. That's such agreat message though too, because
sometimes we're not ready.Sometimes opportunity shows up. And
that was the one. And that waslike going to get you on that TEDx
stage. And which does bring alot of credibility to a speaker too.
Right. You know, and so it'sreally a message to women. Sometimes
you're not ready and just showup and do it anyway. And I love that
(39:05):
your branding is innovationbecause I'm a big believer. People
talk about reinvention all thetime. Reinvention, reinvent yourself,
reinvent your life. That's allfine and good, but I feel like at
52 years old and my audiencebeing women over 40, we've already
established we've built thefoundation. We don't need to start
from scratch and reinvent.What we need to do is take all of
(39:25):
that experience and expertiseand innovate and shift and move into
the person that we want to betoday. And so for me, I think it's
innovation is exactly whatwe're all doing at this agent stage.
That is such a really goodpoint. And it sounds like I had a
lot more thought put into mycompany name than I did.
(39:46):
Let's just Go with it.
We're going with it. Sounds great.
I am a firm believer thatthere is something here for you and
that the world needs yourvoice. We would all benefit from
the message that can only comefrom you. If you are feeling the
itch to get started, do it.What do you have to lose?
I think the big takeaway is,yes, do it. You can do it. Don't
(40:11):
overthink this. Jump in withboth feet. And don't think about
public speaking as being onstage by yourself. There are so many
different kinds of publicspeaking. You could be on a panel,
you could be a co presenter,you could do a demonstration, you
(40:32):
could be doing a webinar, youcould be doing podcast guesting.
Like, that's speaking. All ofthese different opportunities, they
don't necessarily have to leadto you being on stage by yourself
in front of a cast ofthousands. You could be in a roundtable.
You could be doing all kindsof interesting things that are getting
(40:56):
you out there and visible as aspeaker without being alone. You're
never alone. We're here withyou. One of the ways that I talk
to people about gettingstarted a lot of times is just asking
a question from the audience.You go to a conference, the speaker
speaks. You stand up at theend when they ask for questions,
(41:19):
they're begging for questions.And you ask a question.
Yes.
You're talking to the sameaudience that the speakers on stage
just spoke to. Ta da. You're a speaker.
That's amazing. That isamazing. You know that's going on
social media, that littleclip. Thanks so much for listening.
(41:39):
To learn more about BobbyCarlton or to become a member of
innovation women, visitgrownasswoman guide episode 197 and
let's connect on social atgrownasswoman guide. And if you feel
inspired, please considerleaving a rating and review on Apple
Podcasts or Spotify. Untilnext time, you are a grown ass woman.
(42:01):
Act accordingly. The Grown AssWoman's Guide is produced by Grown
Ass Creative, a media andmarketing agency powered by grown
ass women over 40. Spring hassprung and with the change of seasons
sometimes comes an increase invitality. If you're feeling in the
mood for a little morepersonal time, may I suggest Coconu
(42:24):
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Have you ever considered acareer in public speaking? Or maybe
you're thinking about speakingas a side hustle or a way to promote
your business or expertise. Ifyou are interested in getting on
stage in front of a crowd,this episode is the ultimate guide
to getting started. We'lltackle how to pick the best topic,
how to stand out and findopportunities, not competition. And
(00:24):
the number one question I hearabout speaking, can I actually make
money at it? This is the GrownAss Woman's Guide. I'm your host,
Jackie McDougall. BobbiCarlton is the founder of Carlton
PR and Marketing, InnovationNights and Innovation Women. Or as
she calls them, the day job,the night job and the dream job.
(00:45):
She's spoken at The UnitedNations, TEDx and some of the world's
best known conferences fortechnical and professional women.
She's been featured on CBSNews, in the Wall Street Journal,
Boston Globe and USA Today.But what you might not expect is
that Bobby is a selfproclaimed introvert. And she says
that's actually an advantagewhen it comes to public speaking.
(01:11):
You yourself consider yourselfan introvert and here you are as
a leader in this whole world.So how does that work?
I, I think that people thinkabout introverts. As somebody who
is shy and retiring, I'mtotally not. But I do tend to expend
energy being around otherpeople, which is actually probably
(01:36):
a better definition forintroverts. We don't gain energy
by being around other people,we expend it. And so when you're
finished with a big conferenceor an event, an extrovert is often
really energized. Like theycan't wait for the after party. I'm
(01:58):
done. Like stick a fork in me,I'm done. You know, I have to be
like, okay, back for roomservice. That's good, right? But
you know, introverts actuallyhave some really nice tendencies
that public speaking can takeadvantage of. Number one, introverts
(02:19):
tend to be more orientedtoward research. We're more oriented
toward practice andpreparation. An extrovert or somebody
who has been told they're anextrovert their entire life is probably
somebody who's a little bitmore inclined to wing it. Don't wing
(02:40):
it. When you're going to bedoing a presentation, number one,
there's an event manager inthe background somewhere who is dying
because you know thatextrovert is going to be going over
in terms of the time, right? Ithink that introverts, they're prepared,
they show up on time, theyhave researched everything, they
(03:02):
are just ready to answer anyQuestions and an extrovert. Again,
they're a little bit morelikely to be winging it.
Bobby didn't have dreams ofbecoming a speaker. In fact, it all
started sort of accidentallyback in 2008 when she lost her job
and decided to dabble in a newfad called social media. So take
(03:25):
me back. Paint a littlepicture for us. Where are you in
your life? What's going on?When you think, you know what I want
to do as an introvert, I wantto get on a stage.
All right, I'm going to takeyou back to 2008.
Okay.
In 2008, the startup that Iwas working with at the time ran
out of money. You know, it wasa lot of companies ran out of money
at that time. We were notalone and there were no jobs. So
(03:51):
I had really no choice inbecoming an entrepreneur. I started
consulting work. I started myfirst company, which is a public
relations and marketing firm.And at the time, social media was
young. There were a lot ofpeople saying, this is an interesting
(04:12):
tool. There were also a lot ofpeople saying, this is something
kids play with. This is not areal professional tool.
Right.
I was part of the first camp.I said, oh, this is interesting.
This is something that I, as apublic relations person should know
how to use and feelcomfortable with. And you know what's
(04:36):
not comfortable? Practicingsomething that you don't know very
much about on paying clients.They don't appreciate it.
Yeah.
So I created an event to allowmyself a sandbox to play in something
that I could use to practicesocial media, figure out how it could
(05:00):
be used on behalf of clients,and I started something called Innovation
Nights. Over the, oh, gosh, 11plus years that I ran a monthly,
Innovation Nights, eventuallywe launched over 1500 new products
that got more than $4 billionin funding. Wow. So not a toy, but
(05:22):
an important tool. And duringthat time, I was kind of forced out
onto stage. The first eventthat I did in April 2009, I literally
showed up, set up for thisevent and all of a sudden realized,
oh, dear God, this is going tobe me on stage, being the mc, you
(05:50):
know, I called it a socialmedia powered event. And the idea
is that we would all bring ouriPhones and cell phones and. And
take pictures and tweet andpost things online. Well, which meant
that every single person inthe room was taking video and pictures
of me. Oh, my God, they wereawful. Like literal hot mess. I look
(06:19):
so unhappy. I look souncomfortable and hot and sweaty.
I literally, like, sweatedthrough my shirt. Thank God. I was
wearing a blazer, and seeingall these pictures was just horrifying.
So, you know, you can go oneof two ways when that happens. You
(06:40):
can go, I am never doing thatagain. Yeah, or, oh, my God, I have
to do it again. I better getgood at this.
Right?
I went the latter.
That's quite a crossroadsright there.
Yeah. You know, you havephotographic and video evidence of
really how bad it gets. So Iwas basically doing the same thing
(07:04):
every single month for 11years. And, you know, I'd say after
the first dozen or so times,you stop looking like a hot mess
and you start looking like youknow what you're doing. Practice
doesn't necessarily makeperfect, but it makes better. All
right, so that was kind of mypath. And, you know, I was running
(07:29):
a massively successfulnetworking event and a lot of people
were seeing me be the emcee.So I started getting invitations
to do public speaking, andthat was how things kind of went
down that path.
And what kind of things wereyou speaking about when you first
started social media?
(07:50):
A lot of people asked me tocome in and talk about public relations.
I had a long career as thehead of global PR for a couple of
big enterprise softwarecompanies. I was working with a lot
of startups, and I was beingcalled upon to be the face of female
entrepreneurship on a regularbasis. I think at the time there
(08:14):
were like five or six femaleentrepreneurs in Boston. All of Boston.
That's not true. Okay. But it felt.
It felt like that, yeah, you would.
Get asked over and over andover again, and there was a very
small group of women who keptgetting the call, and I happened
to be one of them.
(08:35):
At what point were you like, Ishould help other women speakers?
It actually was a little bitfarther on down the line when I kind
of kept getting requests fromevent managers. And because I had
this relatively good sizeddatabase of entrepreneurs and startups,
(08:57):
sometimes event managers wouldcall upon me and say, hey, do you
know somebody who can come toour event and talk about this? And
a few times I was specificallyrequested to provide female entrepreneurs
because, quote, unquote, well,we've got this mantle going and I
need to break it up. And thatwas some of the more aware event
(09:22):
managers. Some of the lessaware event managers kind of didn't
notice the lack, but I did. Iwas being asked to go to events as
well, because, hey, come andlive, tweet my event, have all of
these followers on socialmedia. And so I would show up at
(09:43):
the events and often sit inthe audience with my friends. Who
were other femaleentrepreneurs. And we would talk
about the lack of women onstage. And it wasn't until at one
point I broke my leg and waslaid up a bit and had a bit of a
(10:03):
slowdown where I said, okay,you know what? I can do something
about this. And I had aplatform where we were promoting
local startups. I said, well,what if I just cloned this platform
and turned it into a platformfor female entrepreneurs and technical
(10:24):
women and started just usingthis as a way to get out of being
the introducer for speakers? Iliterally thought I was going to
take myself out of theequation by offering up a platform.
Oh, God, so wrong. Do you seea pattern here, Bobbi? You keep thinking
(10:45):
I'm going to present thisthing and then I can like, fade into
the background and theuniverse is like, knock, knock. No,
thank you.
Yeah, that's not going tohappen, you fool.
In 2015, Innovation Women wasborn with a mission to provide equal
visibility opportunities forwomen supporting career development,
(11:06):
business success, thoughtleadership, and diversity. Innovation
Women is committed to helpmanagers avoid the quote all male,
all pale and all stale. Panelswe see so often at industry conferences
and events. Your opportunitiesthat you provide for your members
could be in tech, could be infinance. You know, you could be an
(11:29):
accountant, you could be an ITexpert. And there are opportunities
for all different types ofpeople to get up and speak. That's
something that really neveroccurred to me, that I could be someone
who works in a field thatmaybe is typically filled with introverted
people, and that there are somany different opportunities for
you to speak about yourexpertise and your experience.
(11:51):
We have 188 differentindustries represented in Innovation
Women, and that's not evengetting into the different functions.
If you think about it. I'm amarketing person. I have a long expertise
in public relations. I can goand speak at events like the Public
(12:14):
Relations Society of America'sannual conference, or I could be
going to speak at a startupevent. Or I could speak about marketing
at an IT conference. Becauseof my passion, my focus on getting
women on stage. I could bespeaking at a diversity, equity and
(12:35):
inclusion event. I could bespeaking at an event about speaking.
There are so many differentindustry conferences and events.
Like some of the more unusualconferences that I talk about. There's
one in particular I'm like, Ihave to figure out a way to get to
this conference. It's aconference focused on water park
(12:58):
operators. I mean, don't youwant to go? I want to go. I so want
to go. There's a greatConference every year about people
who deal with trees. Like,let's go. Like, I like trees. Your
expertise could be relevant.
(13:20):
Yes.
What if the tree people,they've got names, they're called
arborists. What if they putinto their big annual conference
a career track?
Right.
And in that track, they havepeople who come in and talk about
leadership and career growthopportunities and maybe things like
(13:42):
salary negotiation or what youwant to do to get yourself to the
next level, get a promotion.There are so many different ways
to get yourself out there andbe known for something.
Right.
Because that's really the key.What do you want to be known for?
Yes. Let's dive into this alittle bit more. So let's just say
(14:04):
we have Betty. Betty islistening to this podcast right now.
She works in a field. She'sbeen doing her job. She's not feeling
fulfilled. She feels maybelike she's aging out a little bit.
And the idea of speaking ispretty exciting. Probably a little
scary, but pretty exciting.How does she know what to talk about
and where to pitch herself?
(14:25):
So I usually start people downthis path by saying, how comfortable
are you personally with publicspeaking? Let's just start there.
Because for some people,public speaking is a terrifying thought,
and for other people, they'reokay with it. They've done things
inside their companies, ormaybe they have a side hustle where
(14:48):
they're getting out there. Butfor some people, it's a scary thing.
And I usually start them bysaying, okay, what conferences and
events are relevant to yourindustry that you already go to think
about those conferences andevents and go look at their agenda.
Where would you fit in?There's a lot of different events
(15:11):
out there and they all usepretty much the same device. It's
called a call for speakers.
Okay.
And so what you'll want to dois you'll want to search online and
you'll look for call forspeakers and you'll put in your topic
or your area of interest.
Okay.
And you'll see what comes up.Because a lot of times you're going
(15:34):
to find just things that yougo, oh, my gosh, I've never heard
of the show, but it's actuallysomething that's relevant to me and
my career. They're asking forspeakers, they're begging for you.
Right.
You can go and apply.
So what should you talk about?How do you know the best topic to
speak on if you're a little.
(15:56):
Stuck figuring what you cantalk about? This is my method. I
call it the three sided Venndiagram. So you've Got one circle.
That is your area of expertiseand things you are passionate about.
That's in one circle. Okay,now picture a second circle. And
that second circle is what doyou want to be known for? You know,
(16:21):
if your area of expertise ismedieval armory, that might not be
something that's helpful toyou in your career. Unless you work
in museums.
Right.
So think about what you wantto be known for. Think about what
your area of expertise is andwhat your passion is. And then you
need to come to the thirdcircle. And this is the circle that
(16:43):
a lot of people forget about.What does the audience need to know?
What are they searching for?What problem of theirs can you solve?
And when you have an overlapof all three circles, that's where
you should be focusing whatyou talk about on.
(17:06):
And just like podcasts, thereis an event for everything. Yes,
I'm looking right now at theInnovation Women website and here
are just a few examples ofspeaking gigs available at the moment
of recording InternationalConference on Sport and Exercise
Science, Cybersecurity forHealthcare Summit, association for
(17:27):
Information Science andTechnology, International Political
Science Association, BrainInjury association of Michigan Annual
fall Conference, and 2024International Fastener Expo. I mean,
there's something foreveryone. If there's an industry
that exists, there's likely anopportunity to speak.
These are the things that arebooking right now. They've got calls
(17:52):
for speakers that are openright now with a deadline that's
coming up, like literally today.
So if somebody wanted tospeak, they do your Venn diagram,
they figure out what they'regoing to talk about, and then do
you suggest having multipletalks that you put out there? Do
you have one signature talk?What does that look like?
I think that when people aregetting started, a lot of times they.
(18:15):
They have a bunch of talks andsometimes they'll have two or three
kind of in their hip pocketand they'll start looking for opportunities.
And here's one, then here'sone, then here's 1. They're a little
bit scattered, but I find thatover time, people tend to zero in
on one topic and that becomestheir signature talk or their signature
(18:42):
topic. You're really winningwhen somebody contacts you and says,
we'd like you to do yoursignature talk because you're the
first person we thought ofwhen it came to that topic. You want
to become known for a topic,and becoming known requires focus.
(19:03):
If you're doing 16 differenttopics, you're not becoming known
for anything interesting.
I think many times we feellike, oh, I have to diversify so
that I Can apply for a bunchof different places. But that's not
necessarily the case.
It's not necessarily the case.If you're thinking about this long
term, you know, it may takeyou a little while to kind of zero
(19:24):
in on. This is the place whereI feel comfortable. This is the place
where I have an idea thatdifferentiates me. That's one thing
that I really would love topoint point out to people. Do not
be the presentation that isone Google search Deep. Don't be
(19:47):
the person that'sregurgitating what anybody could
find online if they did aquick Google search. This is one
reason that I feel likespeaking is kind of AI proof, because
as speakers, it's our job toget give people an idea that they
can't find anywhere online. Iwant to go and give a presentation
(20:12):
that just blows people'sminds, that gets them thinking about
something new. That also getsthem running out of the room going,
I can do that, too. That'ssuccess as a speaker.
Absolutely. Speaking ofsuccess as a speaker, I've been to
many conferences. I've spokenat conferences and other events,
(20:33):
and there's a lot of speakingfor, quote, unquote, exposure and
not pay. And I wonder ifthat's actually if women face that
more than men. If you careenough, you'll do it for free. What
does it look like as far asgetting paid? Do we do things for
free?
I'm going to tell you,absolutely yes. All right, so this
is deep talk.
(20:53):
Okay.
When I started InnovationWomen, I knew that as a public relations
person, part of my job hadalways been to get executives on
stage at conferences andevents, and those were not paid speaking
engagements. Actually, some ofthe companies I worked for had policies
(21:16):
how you could not be paid.They paid your salary. You were speaking
as part of your role. So a lotof conferences, particularly professional
conferences, pay absolutelynobody. So I did a survey. Just as
I was starting Innovationwomen, I surveyed 360 event managers.
(21:42):
Who pays? Who doesn't pay?What roles do you pay? How much?
Like, I asked all kinds ofquestions. How? Half of all event
managers have no budgetwhatsoever for speakers. All right?
Half of all of them, 42% pay.Some people, they have money for
(22:03):
the keynote speaker. Like,they're bringing in somebody to help
them sell tickets. When yousee Michelle Obama on stage at a
conference or an event, she'sa paid speaker. You know, she's not
doing it out of the goodnessof her heart.
She doesn't want exposure.
She doesn't want exposure. Ithink she's got plenty but if you
see Michelle Obama on the theroster for an event, you're like,
(22:27):
oh, I'm going to that. I ambuying that ticket.
High quality.
It's high quality. So eventmanagers will spend money on a high
profile, sometimes celebrityspeaker. Sometimes they will spend
money on what I call shoulderworkshops. A shoulder workshop is
(22:47):
when your event is onWednesday and Thursday, but there
are special bonus workshopsthat you can pay extra for on say,
Tuesday and Friday. And theconference organizers are getting
paid extra so they have extrabudget to give you the person who
is running the workshop for them.
(23:10):
Right.
Event managers also frequentlyhave discretionary funds. They've
got a little bit of money toput toward a speaker that they really
want to get there that they'renot going to get any other way. So
doing the math with me, that's8% of event managers who pay all
(23:32):
or most of their speakers.
Wow.
And by the way, there's verylittle kind of big signals that you
can use to determine which ofthe opportunities those companies
represent. Because some verytiny little events that are not for
rich organizations will payevery single speaker. They'll put
(23:56):
you up for free, they'll feedyou, they will treat you like gold.
Some absolutely massive, verywealthy organizations pay absolutely
nobody. Okay. I'm talkingabout things like CES or the national
association of Broadcasters.These are very wealthy organizations,
(24:17):
but their policy is we paynobody. South by Southwest is another
one that is a massivevolunteer run organization for the
most part. But they pay no speakers.
None.
None.
Wow.
Absolutely not.
That's surprising. I mean, Iunderstand as a speaker, to be invited
(24:37):
to south by Southwest ispretty epic. And it's great to say
that these are some of theplaces I've spoken, but there's some
big names there that you'dthink that they'd get something for
it.
Yep. And they are coming forthe exposure.
But let's be honest, exposuredoesn't pay the bills, but it can.
It's about how you look at itand where you look for it.
(24:57):
I think one of the things thathappens a lot of time with speakers
who maybe don't have a I'mgetting paid business model is they
look at their own experience.So again, I'm a public relations
person, many years of pr, soI'm going to look for all of the
(25:19):
public relations events andI'm going to pitch myself there.
Bad idea. Here's why. If I ampitching a story or a speaking engagement
to the prsa, I'm speaking toother people in my industry, not
(25:40):
necessarily my customers, butmy Competitors. Oh, you need to think
about if your business modelis, I'm going to speak, I'm going
to get visibility, I'm goingto get clients out of this. You need
to think about where yourclients are, not necessarily your
(26:00):
competitors.
I love that. So if you're agraphic designer and you do branding
and marketing and you like towork with, let's say, your local
realtors go to a realtorconference to talk about the importance
of branding and marketing, andthen they're hiring you to do the
actual work.
Exactly.
I love it.
Exactly. And one of the thingsthat you need to be very aware of
(26:22):
is that you can't go in anddeliver a sales pitch. You have to
be very circumspect. You haveto be subtle. You know, this isn't
run to the back of the roomand buy my book now. This is, oh,
yes, I have a book. And youhave to be doing some very specific
(26:44):
things. I call it droppingbreadcrumbs. So when I'm giving a
presentation, usually theperson who has introduced me will
say, this is Bobby. She's thefounder of Innovation Women. It's
a speaker bureau for women.Like, just a short introduction.
(27:04):
Yep.
If somebody in the audience isgoing, oh, I'm a woman. I would like
to speak, they'll go and lookme up. Maybe they'll give me their
card at the end of thepresentation if I've intrigued them
enough. But if I stand onstage and I'm like, run to Innovation
Women. Buy a profile now.People are going to clear out, they're
(27:27):
going to run away, and I willnever get an invitation to speak
at that event ever again.
Right. And that goes forpodcasts as well. I've had people
come on and, you know, I. I'vebeen editing for a long time. I know
what I'm doing. But peoplewill come in and be like, when my
clients and my clients and myclients and my work and my website
and blah, blah, blah, blah,and I'm like, that's not why you're
here. Show the world thatyou're amazing. Show the world your
(27:49):
expertise and your experience.Experience. And the ones who need
to find you. I promise you, Iwill promote your freebie. But when
you just sound like you'reselling. And I made the mistake even
earlier as a podcaster toallow a lot more of that and not
wanting to hurt anybody'sfeelings by editing it out. But if
my audience isn't listeningand going, all right, I got a lot
(28:12):
out of this, then I'm notdoing my job. And so I love that.
It's the same thing from stage.
Absolutely. And if you do getup on stage and deliver a sales pitch,
you're not going to be askedback. Yeah, that's the key there.
And you want to come back, youwant to establish relationships with
(28:32):
event managers, with events,with groups and communities that
go to that event. Every year Ihave a couple of events that I get
asked back to time and timeagain because I do a good job for
them and I'm not on stageselling anything. Yeah, there are
a couple of them that I go, ohmy gosh, they all heard my presentation
(28:56):
last year. I need to come upwith something new and I need to
come up with something newevery year.
One of my favorite thingsabout the work that I do is the collaboration
and support I've experiencedwith other grown ass women. Something
that I didn't realize is alittle more difficult to find in
the speaking industry.
The speaking world is, I hateto say it, kind of highly secretive.
(29:22):
And a lot of times people arevery successful with public speaking,
especially paid publicspeaking. They don't share. That's
one of the big things thatI've been working on with the innovation
women community. We have aFriday morning drop in zoom call
called Speaker Friends.
Yes.
(29:42):
And I talk about this from thepoint of view of somebody who has
seen other speakers being veryclosed mouth, being very cut off
from their peers. I wantpeople to connect with their peers.
If you're a speaker, the bestthing you can do is make other speaker
friends, share your knowledge,pick their brains in return, cheer
(30:06):
each other on, become thatcommunity. I don't care if you join
innovation Women, find acommunity of other speaker friends.
They will help you.
If you're looking to show up,talk for a bit and get a giant payday
that might not be realistic,at least for now, but like anything,
it takes a clear strategy, abit of creativity and a whole lot
(30:30):
of consistency. How likely isit that someone's going to become
a speaker and then be able tomake a living just off speaking?
I think right off the bat it'sgoing to be hard. Very, very hard.
I talk to a lot of people whohave done public speaking and they
get paid couple hundred buckshere, a couple hundred bucks there.
(30:55):
They're very happy when theyget a thousand dollars. And yet we
all hear the stories about theMichelle Obamas of the world who
make a quarter million dollarsfor showing up, right. We hear those
big dollars being thrownaround when it comes to celebrities.
We hear when it's people whohave worked in speaking and their
(31:18):
industry who have accomplishedsomething amazing. You need to have
a good foundation. And thatfoundation is going to be things
like you wrote a book or yousold your company for a big billion
dollars, or you were on theCOVID of People magazine. Those foundations
(31:40):
make it so that you are worthmore to an event manager. They want
to pay you more because youwill help them sell tickets.
Right.
You're not going to be thatperson right off the bat.
Yeah.
You need to grow into that.
And I think it's a lot likepodcasting, right? So people get
into podcasting, they think,well, I'm going to get sponsors and
(32:02):
I'm going to retire myhusband. You know, that's the whole
thing on the Internet is likethese women who are like, I retired
my husband. Like, okay, but toget into podcasting and to expect
that you're going to get as aregular person, not a celebrity,
expect that you're going toget all these ad dollars coming in,
which I could bore people byexplaining how the ad dollars actually
(32:23):
works in podcasting. You'renot going to make money. So my whole
thing is like, how can you useyour podcast? If your podcast is
a hobby, great. More power toyou. But if your podcast is to promote
your business, is to promoteyour expertise, your consulting,
you know, whatever it is thatunderstanding what the business model
is, understanding what thebenefit is of having this podcast,
(32:47):
it sounds like it's similar tospeaking. Is it to get more powerful
in my message and my mission?Is it to become a thought leader
in this particular industry?Is it for promotional assets? Is
it because you have a book andyou want to sell it? Am I on the
right path here?
Yes, any of those and all ofthose. I think that most speakers
(33:09):
who make a living at speakingare not always getting paid by the
organizer. I think that's thedream. Yes. You know, I step on stage
and somebody hands me a check.The reality is there are far more
speakers who make a livingbecause they step on stage, they
deliver value, they step offthe stage, and somebody wants to
(33:33):
hire them, somebody wants tobuy their book, Somebody wants to
get involved or donate withthe organization they're representing.
There's a lot of differentbusiness models. That's actually
one of the things that we talkan awful lot about at Speaker Friend
Fridays. It's one of thethings that I try to get people to
(33:54):
be realistic about it. Andsure, we'd all love to show up and
just talk and make money.
Right.
The reality is you need tohave a pretty diverse business Model
to make a living as a speaker.
Yeah. And a really strong strategy.
One of the things aboutrunning a speaking business is you
(34:17):
have to treat it like abusiness, which means that you have
to be selling yourself as aspeaker. And so a lot of people will
not think about things likehow they collect leads, who their
target market is, how they'regoing to connect with the audience
(34:40):
afterwards. So many differentthings go into running a business.
It's not something that youjust kind of leap into as a side
hustle.
Right. Through InnovationWomen, you teach the strategy, you
talk about the differentbusiness models, you have listings
and listings of opportunitiesto pitch yourself. I have been to
(35:01):
the speaker fund Fridays. Youlearn so much from you and so much
from the other women. I thinkit's so important as a creative to
be generous with what you'velearned. I mean, I produce other
people's podcasts. I consultpeople with podcasting, but I'm the
first to say, like, I triedthis, you know, and they're like,
oh, I didn't think of that.
(35:21):
Somebody once told me that asa podcast guest, you should create
a Spotify playlist.
Yes.
With all the podcasts thatyou've been in, because number one,
it's a place for podcasters tolisten to you, and number two, you're
(35:41):
promoting all of thosedifferent podcasts.
Exactly.
I love that idea.
Absolutely. And I have one onSpotify. I'll have to link to that
in the show notes. And do youhave one on Spotify that I can link
to yours as well?
I don't. It's on my manytiered list of things I have to do.
Oh, my God. Gosh. Seriously?Seriously. That list is never ending.
As of December 2023,Innovation Women has seen over 21,000
(36:05):
total calls for speakers, with600 plus currently on the platform
with new opportunities addeddaily and 9,200 total attendees at
their speaker friends weeklycalls. And Bobby is constantly promoting
her members in newsletters andon social media.
Every single profile onInnovation Women has this special
(36:28):
button. This platform wasdeveloped by a marketing person.
It's called the Promoteyourself button. And it opens up
a dialogue box. And we ask ourspeakers, tell us every time you
get on stage, tell us whenyou're a podcast guest, tell us when
you've got a new book. Andwe're going to promote those things
(36:49):
out to our list because it'sanother way of building on that foundation
of you as a leading expert ona particular topic.
Right.
And the more times people seeyou, the more often or more likely
they are to think of you whenthey are fulfilling that speaking
(37:12):
opportunity. My best exampleof this is I once got a call to do
a TEDx. And of course I was soexcited. You know, it was like, oh,
my goodness, of course I willabsolutely be there. When is it?
Tuesday.
Oh, geez.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no. TEDxis our things that you practice for
(37:34):
months, not like days. I endedup doing it in the end. You know,
kind of dawned on me. Theyasked me to do it because their theme
was innovation. Hello. Ifounded Innovation Nights. I founded
Innovation women. I speakabout innovation. Of course it's
(37:58):
my brand and of course I'm theperson they immediately thought of
for that last minute fill in.
If you don't let your ego getin the way, then it's really a great
opportunity.
Yeah, it was a littleterrifying. I actually turned it
down initially and I said, no,no, that is career suicide. I'll
(38:22):
be awful. Like, it'll just bebad. And in the end.
But it wasn't.
In the end, it was all right,you know, I mean, I look at it and
say, hey, I could have donethings better, but in the grand scheme
of things, it's not embarrassing.
I actually saw that TED Talk,if it's the one that's online, that
you're.
The only one I've ever done.
(38:43):
And. But that's. That's such agreat message though too, because
sometimes we're not ready.Sometimes opportunity shows up. And
that was the one. And that waslike going to get you on that TEDx
stage. And which does bring alot of credibility to a speaker too.
Right. You know, and so it'sreally a message to women. Sometimes
you're not ready and just showup and do it anyway. And I love that
(39:05):
your branding is innovationbecause I'm a big believer. People
talk about reinvention all thetime. Reinvention, reinvent yourself,
reinvent your life. That's allfine and good, but I feel like at
52 years old and my audiencebeing women over 40, we've already
established we've built thefoundation. We don't need to start
from scratch and reinvent.What we need to do is take all of
(39:25):
that experience and expertiseand innovate and shift and move into
the person that we want to betoday. And so for me, I think it's
innovation is exactly whatwe're all doing at this agent stage.
That is such a really goodpoint. And it sounds like I had a
lot more thought put into mycompany name than I did.
(39:46):
Let's just Go with it.
We're going with it. Sounds great.
I am a firm believer thatthere is something here for you and
that the world needs yourvoice. We would all benefit from
the message that can only comefrom you. If you are feeling the
itch to get started, do it.What do you have to lose?
I think the big takeaway is,yes, do it. You can do it. Don't
(40:11):
overthink this. Jump in withboth feet. And don't think about
public speaking as being onstage by yourself. There are so many
different kinds of publicspeaking. You could be on a panel,
you could be a co presenter,you could do a demonstration, you
(40:32):
could be doing a webinar, youcould be doing podcast guesting.
Like, that's speaking. All ofthese different opportunities, they
don't necessarily have to leadto you being on stage by yourself
in front of a cast ofthousands. You could be in a roundtable.
You could be doing all kindsof interesting things that are getting
(40:56):
you out there and visible as aspeaker without being alone. You're
never alone. We're here withyou. One of the ways that I talk
to people about gettingstarted a lot of times is just asking
a question from the audience.You go to a conference, the speaker
speaks. You stand up at theend when they ask for questions,
(41:19):
they're begging for questions.And you ask a question.
Yes.
You're talking to the sameaudience that the speakers on stage
just spoke to. Ta da. You're a speaker.
That's amazing. That isamazing. You know that's going on
social media, that littleclip. Thanks so much for listening.
(41:39):
To learn more about BobbyCarlton or to become a member of
innovation women, visitgrownasswoman guide episode 197 and
let's connect on social atgrownasswoman guide. And if you feel
inspired, please considerleaving a rating and review on Apple
Podcasts or Spotify. Untilnext time, you are a grown ass woman.
(42:01):
Act accordingly. The Grown AssWoman's Guide is produced by Grown
Ass Creative, a media andmarketing agency powered by grown
ass women over 40. Spring hassprung and with the change of seasons
sometimes comes an increase invitality. If you're feeling in the
mood for a little morepersonal time, may I suggest Coconu
(42:24):
Coca New is all aboutproviding clean and natural ingredients
when you're enjoying your mostintimate moments with or without
a partner. Naturally safeproducts developed by people who
are obsessed with withquality. Get 15 off with promo code
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