February 26, 2025 • 38 mins
Curious about the key to unlocking the potential of digital accessibility and effective public speaking? Join us as we sit down with Cam Beaudoin, a digital accessibility guru who has transformed his career from a web developer to an influential thought leader. Cam shares his intriguing journey from IT to becoming a "Rainmaker," someone who naturally attracts attention and business by showcasing company strengths. Listen in to learn about Cam's experiences at IBM, where he discovered his passion for engaging audiences and the art of public speaking.
Dive into the lessons Cam learned on his entrepreneurial path, where public speaking became a pivotal tool for career advancement and personal branding. His transition from corporate roles to full-time entrepreneurship revealed the necessity of a steady lead flow for success, and how initial credibility often stemmed from associations with reputable firms. Cam's candid insights into the reality of building a brand through speaking engagements provide invaluable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs and public speakers.
With an emphasis on the power of personal branding, this episode offers practical strategies for those looking to raise their professional visibility. We explore the importance of maintaining an authentic digital presence and creating quality content to capture an audience's attention in the age of AI. Join our discussion on how to harness the unique human elements of communication to stand out in an increasingly automated world, and discover opportunities to connect with a community dedicated to elevating your speaking skills.
Check out Cam's Free Speaker Lead Gen Masterclass!
This podcast is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. An online master’s designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Mediascape insights from digital
changemakers, a speaker seriesand podcast brought to you by
USC Annenberg's Digital MediaManagement Program.
Join us as we unlock thesecrets to success in an
increasingly digital world.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Our next guest on Mediascape is Cam Beaudoin.
And Cam, you have such a variedbackstory, going from web
development, full-stackdevelopment, business analyzing,
to becoming an accessibilityexpert, starting to speak on
accessibility in the world ofdigital, which is something that
(00:42):
, in our digital mediamanagement program, is so vital
and so important, something wereally try to impress upon our
students and ourselves to nowhelping people understand what
others are looking for forspeakers, for subject matter
experts, for people who canbring something new and fresh to
their companies, whether it's abig conference or a team.
(01:04):
So thank you for being here.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Oh, thanks so much for having me.
We've spoken before and I justlove speaking with you.
It's so great to chat.
I think it's really easy.
You're a great host.
You make it easy for guests tocome on and open up, so can't
wait to dive in this is a topicI'm passionate about.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yes, and you're also very.
You know, you're a polishedpublic speaker, so that doesn't
help or that doesn't hurt either.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So, Cam, tell us a little bit about that transition
going from this world of that'smore.
You know, we think engineering,we think really scientific
brained people who are maybewanting to sit in a cubicle, to
really showing this whole otherside, being an extrovert or
being able to show yourextrovertedness.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, so in the world of software development and I
do believe that softwaredevelopment is a creative,
problem-solving type of role.
So I was the type of person tothink like I'm never going to be
a developer because, man, Idon't want to sit behind and
just like a cubicle and getpeople to tell me they take
tickets and stuff like that, andthat was my job in IT.
But as soon as I went intodevelopment it was like, oh, I
get to problem solve in the mostcreative way possible.
(02:10):
So when I joined IBM they said,well, cam, we've got this thing
around digital accessibility.
You know you can go figure thatout and you go take, get
further in our careers.
You know, you realize that.
You know we're all trying to bevery risk averse and managers
(02:32):
and executives they want to be,they're very risk averse, they
don't want to take the risk of,like, taking on a project and
stuff like that.
So let's give it to the juniorand see what he can do with it.
Anyway, I excelled it, I lovedit.
I thought it was reallyinteresting to give back to the
world in terms of soaccessibility really is helping
people with disabilities usetechnology.
That's kind of what it standsfor.
So if you can imagine, you know, sometimes phones are set up in
a way so that it reads text andwords back to you.
(02:54):
That's accessibility Zooming inon your phone.
You know, usually as people getolder or like you know, they'll
just increase the font size intheir phones.
That's accessibility.
Like these are all littlethings.
And so how do I make technologyadaptable for people of any
ability to use it?
So that's what I did, and I wasalways that weird guy, you know
, even though I did lots ofdevelopment, I was like oh, demo
day, sign me up, I'll be theone to present to the customer.
(03:15):
And so I think, for anyonewho's listening, if you're in
the position of being that, youknow you're the tech guy and and
yet you want to maybe do more,maybe you are a little bit more
extroverted, maybe you aresomebody who likes to talk to
people and that was always me,even though I was very
comfortable with technology.
You know there's a place foryou in business and I love it.
I love that so much.
And if you're not, that'stotally cool.
There's a place for you inbusiness too.
So that transition happened Imean, I guess it was within the
(03:38):
first and then they start tosend me out to go and speak at
different conferences.
Like I was really lucky as aspeaker, as a junior speaker In
fact, like I just startedworking in accessibility and I
was already being sent out toconferences because for IBM it
was a thought leadership thing,they wanted to send people out
to conferences.
So, if you're lucky, you'regoing to be able to bring your
(03:59):
company forward in industry bygoing and speaking, and that's
great.
You know, I'm sure you've heardthe term Rainmaker before and I
didn't really actualize thatuntil much, much later.
Like you know, within the pasttwo years, I realized oh, the
role of Rainmaker is huge, right?
Anyone who can bring business in, anyone who can go and brag
about, shout about, you know,talk about their company in a
(04:21):
way that's meaningful andlogical.
And you know, talk about theircompany in a way that's
meaningful and logical and, youknow, just like I said, bragging
about their company and sayinglike, look, this is what we've
done, this is how great it is,and let's show you how we can
help you solve problems as well.
That's hugely valuable, hugelyvaluable to the world these days
, because the currency thatwe're never going to get more of
really is attention right?
We only have 24 hours in a dayand even though most of us have
(04:42):
sacrificed three hours of sleepon a regular basis to only sleep
five hours a night, you knowthere's only so much time that
eyeballs are going to be onYouTube or Netflix or Instagram
or what have you, and so if youhave the ability to grab
attention, then that is a skillthat will take you, like, very
far in life, like that is prettymuch the only skill that is of
(05:15):
value, kind of, as time goes on,no matter what your core skill
is, to blind people over Zoomand had their reader up.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
There are so many different things that
accessibility means includingthe UI and UX right of websites
and of software and of tools, sowere those things that you were
already working in?
Is it something that you had tolearn more about, or is there a
little bit of a mix of both?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Oh, I learned on the job, and what's really neat is
you can always take thatlearner's mindset and teach
others.
You know, this is where I wasthree months ago and this is
where I am now right.
The benefit of an early learneris that you, you're just
soaking so much in at the verybeginning, and so I know we're
going to get into a little bitmore about, you know, social
media and video and stuff likethat.
But you know, at the verybeginning of your journey of
(05:58):
learning about like reallymastering a craft of any type,
there's just so much coming inthat you've got so much that you
can try to get out as well.
And what a perfect time to goout and speak about something or
try your hand at teachingsomebody else on how to do it or
things like that.
That's when it's really easy,because everything's just
flowing.
Everything's so new and we'reso.
We love things that are new, soit's easy.
(06:19):
You know it's only after a fewyears where you're like, well, I
haven't really grown in thepast year.
You know what I mean.
Like you're like well, Ihaven't really expanded my
skills.
I don't know where to go next,and all of a sudden it becomes
difficult to think back to whatit was like as a newbie.
So I was learning as I go and Iwas.
You know what I didn't know inskill, and oh, I was corrected
quite a few times.
Sidebar people withdisabilities, you know, to have
(06:41):
a able-bodied guy show up on thefront and try and tell people
how to use technology in theirway.
I had a lot of people come upto me and say, like, actually,
kim, if you just do it this way,it's a lot better.
This is actually how we like tointeract with technology and
you know you're soaking it allin.
As long as you're humble aboutit, then I don't think anyone is
going to attack you for it orshame you for not knowing stuff.
So it's such a great time toteach.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, that's such a good point, because when we
think about equity, right, andwe think about who's in the
front of the room, you're awhite male.
You don't have disabilities, atleast that we know of, so it
wouldn't seem like you'd be thenatural person necessarily, but
the fact that they embraced youwith such kindness and just
wanting to help teach you moreso that you could spread the
(07:24):
word more, that's reallybeautiful.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah, and you know, I think it's finding a story of
whatever it is.
I'll tell you the story of,like, what was the light bulb
moment of that really aha moment?
I was at IBM, okay.
So there was a traveling blindguy and I say that as in
colloquial because he's a friendof mine now.
He was the accessibility guyand he would come to all the
different offices and teacheverybody about accessibility
(07:46):
and here I was ready to learn.
He walked into the office, myboss called me over and if
you've ever worked with like ana-type personality type of
leader before, you know he wasan ex-sales guy and then he was
leading a sale, a tech team, andhe walked up to tom and he
stuck his hand in tom's face andsaid hey, tom, my name's j,
it's really great to meet you.
In that, like you know, and Tom, being blind, of course, had no
idea there was a handoutstretched in front of him and
(08:07):
just said it's really great tomeet you and my boss, like he
would like, he was trying tostare him down because what do
you do in these types of sales?
Like you know, my hands out andyour hands on out.
It's like he wilted away.
He didn't know what to do is,like you know, error messages on
his eyeballs, and so I actuallyran back to my desk at that
moment, typed in how to shake ablind person's hand, and I
(08:28):
learned that all you need to dois say, can I shake your hand?
Like, can I shake your hand?
Five words is all it took tocreate like equity, right, like
that's really all it took, and Itake that story with me
throughout many of my careers.
It's like there's these littlesmall actions that we can all
take, these little small steps,and probably the big problems
that you have in life is becauseyou haven't really focused on
these like really really tinysteps.
(08:49):
If you just did that, then alot of other things would just
be fixed by nature because youdon't have that little roadblock
there, right?
So that was such a great momentand I could share that
throughout my journey and peoplewere like oh, he gets it right,
like Cam gets it.
And I always try to bring thoselittle moments in, sorry, bring
those little changes intowhatever I was doing.
Teach people that, look, youjust need to change these little
(09:10):
small things with your website,with your accountability
programs, with your likewhatever the little tiny changes
can make big differences.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, yeah, where did you go next?
You were on the speakingcircuit.
You're talking about disability.
You're at IBM, which is ahousehold name.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
So after that I actually continued my journey.
I said, okay, so I used that toleapfrog into different roles
and in fact, again, speaking issuch a great lever for everybody
because you become recognized.
Now, I wasn't a household name,okay, no one has to look me up,
I'm not famous but I was ableto use that in the industry and
say, like, okay, so Cam is thisguy and he does this like
(09:48):
speaking, and so peoplerecognized me in the industry.
So it's actually really easyfor me to change jobs as well,
because, you know, I was goingin meeting with directors and
senior directors and VPs ofproduct or marketing or legal
departments, things like that,because they would all go to
these conferences and because Iwas a speaker there, because I
spoke at different conferences,then it was really easy for me
(10:09):
to introduce myself, not like aweirdo, just be like hey, I'm
cam, like I just spoke, what doyou think?
And then we had conversations.
I met, you know, the uhdirector of accessibility at the
pokemon company and, like youknow, a vp of accessibility at
netflix, and it's like, oh cool,we're all here to talk about
the same thing and learn aboutthe same thing.
Now, I didn't go work at Netflixor the Pokemon company.
Unfortunately, you know,pikachu will have to be an
(10:29):
ex-career choice.
But I was able to go and workat different, like banks and
different just choose.
Like I really had to pick thelitter because I was known well
enough, like I had that personalbrand, right, that was an
option available to me.
So I went to go work as asenior manager and then after
that I decided I had a bank andI decided, okay, time to go and
try this speaking thing for real.
And I just like really grow myspeaking business.
(10:50):
And that was just after thepandemic and I started to set up
okay, let's try and be afull-time public speaker.
And I learned a couple ofreally hard lessons on a
business at that point.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Well, let's get into that side now, because you had
this complete pivot I mean,you've had a couple of them so
you decided to be a full-timepublic speaker.
It was in a time when thereweren't really a lot of speaking
opportunities, at least in thephysical world.
Everything was moving digital.
What were the things that youfound out about owning your own
(11:20):
business, achieving your goals,and how did you prepare for this
?
Owning your own business,achieving your goals and how did
you prepare for this?
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Well, the biggest realization I had or you know if
I knew then, what I know now isif you don't have lead flow,
you actually don't have abusiness.
Right, like plain and simply.
If you look at all the steps ofa customer journey, like no
matter who's coming through yourfunnel or your flywheel or
whatever you're calling it inyour business, you know if you
have, if you build an app yetyou have nobody signing up to
(11:45):
use the app, actually don't havea business.
Like, really, it comes down tothat.
And if you don't have asustainable and predictable way
to bring people through thatdoor, then you don't have a
business.
And that was a really hardlesson for me to learn, because
I had clout.
I thought I was going to beable to go out, but what I
realized later on, it was thecompanies that I was attached to
(12:06):
that gave me the proof to goout and get speaking gigs.
Because, wow, senior manager ata bank in Canada who wants to
come speak at our conferenceabout accessibility.
Well, we want that logo on our.
You know everyone's collectinglogos, right?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
no-transcript about.
You start a business, you doyour paperwork, you do all the
foundational stuff, and then youthink about where you're going
to find your customers.
You're actually saying we needto reverse that journey to make
sure that we're offering aproduct or service that people
actually want, that they need,that they're going to buy, and
(13:02):
that is when you know that youhave a business.
So kind of work backwards fromthat, make sure you have some of
that and then take care of therest perhaps?
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, exactly.
And you know, to anyone who'sworked in corporate for a long
time, we're conditioned to justhaving work given to us, right,
and that's very normal, right,like I was 38 by the time I quit
my full-time job and said, okay, I'm going to go off and do
this on my own people, just tocome to me, right, and I think
maybe, you know, maybe if I hadbuilt a product or if I had a
(13:29):
software piece of technology.
But I know a lot of people, youknow everyone thinks there's
overnight success, but reallypeople who end up building
technology.
It's rare that they just quittheir job and then, okay, I'm
going full-time on appdevelopment.
It happens, don't get me wrong,but usually what they're doing
is they're tinkering before andbuilding their app at night and
all of a sudden they launch itand do a bunch of trial and
error.
So you absolutely have to findthe customers in pain first and
(13:54):
then build the product to go andsolve that pain, right, solve
the problems.
And the nice thing is there'salways people in pain, always
going to people who haveproblems and lots of problems
out there to go and keep solving.
And just because there'salready a solution doesn't mean
it's the perfect solution foreverybody either.
So yeah, customer first andthen build the solution.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
So how did you reverse engineer this when you'd
already started your business,so that you actually had a
business that still exists?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Well, it was really funny.
I think what many entrepreneursdo is they start to say, well,
I've got, maybe I can justlaunch a new product line.
So that's what I did.
I said I was building this, Iwas doing the speaking business.
And then what I found throughfriends who were speakers, I
went through a cohort of speakertraining.
They all had a lot of problemaround their video and their
(14:39):
demo reels, the speaker demoreels and that's all to do with
personal branding.
I'm sure we'll get into that alittle bit later.
I had my feet in two camps andit was at a certain point where
I realized that the video demoreels and the video production,
the video agency, was growingfaster and larger than the
speaking business one.
I had to just decide for myself.
I was like, okay, I lovespeaking, but why don't I go
serve that audience?
Because they're the ones inpain.
And that's when I officiallydecided.
(15:01):
I'm like, okay, that wasSeptember of 2023.
I said, okay, make a decision,pick a lane and stick with it.
And so I did it, and that'sbeen the journey ever since.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, and that brings us to the frequent speaker.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
We do.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
So talk about personal branding in this.
The context of we hear a lot ofthat.
It's somewhat of a buzzword,but it's also the reality that
we live in is that if you dostart a business, people are
going to look at who you are,what kind of person you are
right, not just in the businessconstruct, but also in your
(15:35):
personal life.
They're going to look at yoursocial media, your website,
perhaps some podcasts or otherspeaking opportunities that
you've had.
What else have you done thatcan make them really know, like
and trust you?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Bingo.
I was just going to say know,like and trust.
Can we just stop talking aboutbusiness for a moment.
Let's talk about dating, okay?
So the reason I like to to sayis isn't that exactly what
happens in any interpersonalrelationship?
That you would meet withsomebody for the first time.
You're on a dating app, youswipe, right, and what she was?
She?
Well, my sister.
What does she do?
You know she's gonna be likewho is this guy?
Let me go look him up.
Like I'm gonna look at yourinstagram.
(16:02):
I'm gonna facebook maybe notfacebook anymore like what's on
your tiktok?
You know what have you got?
When you search up Cambo Duaneon Google, like what comes up
For me it's gonna be a wholebunch of LinkedIn.
Connect with LinkedIn, anyonewho wants.
But that's what everybody'sgoing to do these days.
If you're going to go get a job, then you're like somebody's
going to look you up.
Who is this person that iscoming in for the interview?
That's their responsibility.
(16:23):
Maybe not an entry level, butdefinitely, as time goes on,
that's going to get more andmore important.
Do you have something on yoursocial media?
Are you someone who is like areyou insulting people on your
social media?
Are you bragging about things.
You know TikTok is wide open.
It's really not hard to find.
You know the real Jason Brown,like you know what I mean.
Like it's not hard to find youand once you find, like oh, this
(16:45):
guy is kind of, you know, notsomebody that we'd want in the
company, something like that.
So we have to start thinkingabout what our digital persona
is in a lot of ways.
Now let's talk about businessagain.
Maybe you want to go and getinvestors, like maybe you
actually want to start abusiness.
Same thing they're going to golook at your social profiles as
well to figure out who you are.
So what I do now is, for publicspeakers who want to get out
(17:07):
there and go and book morespeaking gigs, I set them up in
the best way possible usingvideo to go and book those gigs
using something called a speakerdemo reel, a video reel that
showcases all their best work.
So I'm bringing in sales andpresentation skills.
I know the industry very, verywell.
I know it works in the industry.
I know what people are lookingfor and the amazing thing is
that you know a good speaker.
(17:28):
They've already been doing thisfor a long time in like 45
minutes.
They know how to build a story,they know how to share their
stories and all that kind ofstuff, and by weaving that in to
a two to three minute clip ithelps them book gigs, helps them
increase their speaking rate,helps them get more attention,
get noticed all that good stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah, what about if somebody's at the beginning of
their journey?
They have a personal brandestablished or somewhat
established.
They are trying to get intotheir dream company and they
know that one of the ways to dothat is by speaking about what
their subject matter expert on.
What can they do?
Because I know from well what Ithink of as speaker reels right
, you're taking actual talksthat people have done, where
(18:08):
there's maybe an audience,they're on a stage or where you
can see some interaction.
You can get a view into theirpassion and their energy.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
so I think the main goal here is what do you want
like?
What do you want speaking to dofor you?
What do you want all this to?
So if your goal isn't toacquire customers or get paid to
speak, then you probably don'tneed my services.
Be very upfront with that.
Like there's no sense in inpaying me to go and craft a like
, craft a story for you.
That's, that's not what I do,what a speaker reel is for.
(18:39):
If you are somebody who ispassionate, say about I don't
know, give me a topic, what doyou think is someone in your
audience would would really wantto do Trees.
Trees, okay so.
Okay, let's just say, forestry.
Okay, so they want to open up.
They want to open up greenhouse, they want to open up a nursery
, something like that.
Okay, great entrepreneur, goodentrepreneur, business right
there.
Okay, so you want to go andmaybe work at, like, a large
(18:59):
greenhouse or something likethat.
So if you go out and speak onyour specialty, horticulture,
you want to go speak on how doyou build raised garden beds.
You want to go speak on how doyou build raised garden beds.
You want to go speak on stufflike that.
There are tons, tons, tons ofconferences that you can go
speak at and look, usually forfree as well.
You're just bringing outthought leadership to the world.
So let's use that idea of guard, of raised garden beds, because
(19:19):
that's a hot topic always forpeople who are doing gardening
in their back, in their backyard.
So you create a talk on raisedgarden beds, how you build one,
how you'd, uh, where you'dinstall it, and you know how
watering works, maybe.
Okay, so you go and speak atyour local home and garden show.
Every city has its home andgarden show.
It's going to be there, youknow, maybe your local Rona or
Home Depot, you know, usually onSaturday mornings.
(19:40):
Do you know that they actuallyhave speakers?
They actually have, like localspeakers come in and talk about
this kind of stuff.
Local gardeners like ask theexpert, kind of sessions like
that.
What would it be if you went togo create an opportunity like
that?
And hey, what a great day tolearn how to.
What a great way to learn howto speak just to random people
and pitch yourself as wellDoesn't mean you're going to get
it, that's okay.
Do you know how many?
Do you know how many HomeDepots there are in the average
(20:01):
American city?
There's so many.
There's like seven.
And then plus all the plus, allthe lows that are there as well,
and all that kind of stuff.
So there you are.
So there's some smallopportunities that you could
just go and start to create foryourself that would help you
talk about thought leadership.
So you get that recorded,whether it's from your phone,
something at the back of theroom.
Now you can start using that asleverage.
You can start leveraging thatthought leadership and say, hey,
(20:23):
I'm able to go and do this, I'mable to go and speak in front
of an audience and people havenobody knows whether you've been
paid or not, but people arewilling to listen to me in front
of an audience and that isalways really, really powerful.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah, Chase was probably not the best example.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah, you gave me a good one.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I was just thinking about.
I just got an email from acompany that plants trees for
every customer, so that's whythat came top of mind.
But I do like the idea of theconstruct that you're giving us.
So you find opportunities inyour local community where you
can practice, you can hone yourskills, you're learning how to
speak to an audience, what'sgoing to engage them, and you
also can shoot some video,whether, like you said, it's
(21:05):
with your phone or professionalequipment or what have you.
And really, if a speaker reelis two to three minutes long,
you're not going to use theworst parts of that speech or of
each speech.
You're going to pick out thevery best moments from each one
to show you at your best.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Yeah, exactly so.
The way that whole processworks is you want to find those
best clips, and so the hero'sjourney.
Right?
For anyone who doesn't know thehero's journey, let's give you
a very brief overview.
So life is as it is.
All of a sudden, there'ssomething happens, a calamity
that happens, so the hero iscalled to adventure.
All of a sudden, there'ssomething that happens and the
hero, which is you who are inthis story, is called to
(21:42):
adventure and you meet a guide.
The guide has a plan and theplan is used to go and defeat
the big bad guy, is to throw thering into Kazadoom.
See, I know, I'm a nerd.
Right Is to go and, like youknow, is to go and fight the big
bag.
Okay, like, this is the typicalhero's journey and you're going
to compose, you're going tocreate everything in life.
Anytime you have a presentation, anytime you have a meeting,
(22:04):
anytime you have anything inlife.
If you just work on all storieslike that, if you work on all
presentations like that, you'regoing to find that people are
going to want to gravitate toyou and listen to your stories
more, and that's exactly what wedo for demo reels as well.
So we present you here.
People are normally and all ofa sudden there's a hook.
There's a hook that hooksaudiences in, that makes people
want to watch us and be like andthese are big stats, this is
(22:26):
the punchline to a story, theseare, you know, something that
would really get people to leaninto like, oh my gosh, what is
that all about?
In fact, tomorrow I'm I'm doinga post on Tony Robbins and the
hook for me is would you walkthrough fire to change your life
?
And we're like, you're like, oh, what is this walk through fire
?
What's this all about?
If anyone knows Tony Robbins,there's this thing he makes you
walk through fire as part ofsome of his, some of his talks
(22:48):
or stuff like that, and so youcan imagine thousands of people
walking over this bed of coalsand that's his, that's his
shtick, one of the shticks.
Tony's got a whole bunch ofthem, but like so that's the
hook that you start off with.
And I'm telling you, the moreyou can master storytelling, the
more you can master how tocraft a tale, whether it's a
long one at 45 minutes, whetherit it's a short one, whether
it's just a conversation,whether it's your TikTok video.
(23:10):
It doesn't matter what it is.
The stronger you're going to beas a leader, the more
persuasive you're going to be asan employee, as someone who
wants to create a company, allthis kind of stuff.
There's just so many benefitsto that long term.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah, fantastic.
We spoke a little bit aboutsocial media as part of your
brand, so I'd like to hear alittle bit more on and you also
just mentioned TikTok and beingable to use video on your TikTok
.
Will you talk a little bit moreabout how that plays into the
video reel, but also just intoyour brand in general?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
So had you asked that question three, two, three
months ago, when?
we met, I would have answeredyou completely differently.
Okay, so my views havecompletely changed, have
completely flipped over.
So I recently joined a fewmasterminds on social media in
general.
I know that sounds like likeI'm a I don't know what social
media is, but I'm a.
When you can approach somethingstrategically, you're much
(24:01):
better equipped to not burn out.
I think that's that's something, that that's just like a lesson
that I've learned throughoutlife the more you can do
planning ahead of time, notsitting in analysis, paralysis,
but really understanding anddoing things with like, walking,
with intent.
I think that's the whole goalhere.
So my book's on social mediastrategy, and not that I want to
become a social media manager.
But I joined this mastermind andwhen I got on the phone with
(24:24):
this, with the leader, he says,well, how long are you spending
currently on writing a socialpost?
And I've grown my following onLinkedIn up to 15,000 people and
oh, I'm so good.
And I would say, oh, you know,I just like slap some stuff
together, put a photo on there,spend about 15 minutes and I'm
so burned out from it.
And he says, okay, wow, like Ispent three hours on my video
posts and it was like when yourealize that the A players in
(24:45):
the game are playing at like anorder of magnitude higher.
Like you know, I'm not amillionaire, like I'm not like.
But even in business, the realbusiness, like do you think that
Jeff Bezos, do you think he'splaying?
Like the way he thinks abouthis day is just different than
than what you and I would talkabout, like mere mortals would
plan their day because they haveto think at such an order of
(25:06):
magnitude higher.
And so that really helped mereset my perspective of what
social media really is, becauseit's all about the quality of
the content.
Anyone can go viral randomly,but can you go viral
consistently?
And I think that's the game.
That's the game is that a brandthat can go viral or semi-viral
, like whatever you want yourgoals and social media to be,
(25:28):
not to get too much into that.
But if you can go, if you canchoose when you want to acquire
customers back to the idea ofacquiring customers through
organic media, then that is avery, very powerful lever to be
able to pull whenever you want.
Like imagine just being able tocontrol the flow of business
into your app, into yourbusiness, into whatever, just by
doing a social post All of asudden, you know there's going
(25:48):
to be 30, 40, 50 people cominginto your lead gen taking a
discovery call with you.
What have you like?
That?
That's leverage.
That's really powerful.
And even if you want to go dothat for a company later on,
right?
They're speaking now about thewhole idea of the creator role
is going to be changing and asmore companies big companies
realize that, wow, you know, itdoesn't matter if he's a
(26:10):
director of marketing.
We need to get that person onsocial media talking about our
company in a way that puts us inthe best light, because we all
know companies who've put outactually, I can give you a good
example of that.
So why do brands pay forindividual contributors to
create content for them?
Like, why They've got all themoney?
Why can't they just hire abunch of people and do it?
(26:33):
Oh, it's because a creator hasan audience already with them,
right?
So it's all again about thoseeyeballs.
So if a creator already hasthat audience and a brand will
pay them $10,000, here's a bunchof sneakers, so cool, wear them
and create some good stuff forthat Like, they're paying for
eyeballs through that creator.
There's no way that somebodywho doesn't have that flair is
going to be able to compete withthat, and so we're talking
(26:53):
about a middle manager somewhereat Adidas.
So the creator economy and thatwhole idea of attention is
worth so so much these days.
So quality over quantity atfirst, but you got to learn to
do both.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah, interesting.
This is such a unique take,particularly in the age of AI
and generative AI, particularlyEspecially because a lot of
people are now saying this cutsdown your work, the amount of
time that you have to spendworking.
You can have Gen AI create allyour captions.
It can help you with yourvideos cutting your videos down.
It can also help you creategraphics and images.
(27:27):
It can even schedule all yourposts for you.
So I'd love to hear you know alittle bit more about your
counter argument to this insocial media, but then also in
the way that you approachcreating video reels.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Sure, so wouldn't it be nice to just press a button
and make money?
Like, wouldn't that bewonderful?
Like that's the dream, right?
That's the dream that we'rebeing sold, that AI is going to
be this thing, that we're goingto be able to chain a bunch of
AIs together and create workersfor us and then, like one worker
, when it's done, it'll pass iton to the next AI and then
that'll write the script andthen, when that script is done,
it'll pass it to another AI andthat AI will create all the
(28:04):
visuals for it.
And it's going to be thisamazing thing that's going to
make us millions.
And what happens is that we areso attuned now to AI.
Have you ever opened uplistening?
(28:25):
Go to google image search andlook up a famous actor, scroll
down and you will see like agood like 60 70 percent of
images are now like ai generatedimages of those actors, and
it's, it's wild.
We are so like.
It's gotten to the point nowwhere I think a lot of us are
saying, oh, I don't want to lookat this anymore, because I've
heard this ai voice before.
I've seen this AI picturebefore.
Maybe not exactly it, but I getit Like.
I know where this is going andit's not going to give me any
depth of value.
And that's the differentiator,right there.
(28:46):
How deep can you go?
So we used to use AI to createdemo rails.
We've now completely moved awayfrom it, and I'll tell you why.
For that single reason thedepth.
So when a good speaker steps onstage, they're not just rattling
things off at 90 words perminute.
They don't sound like a machinegun.
They're using intonation,they're using their voice,
they're using their arms andgestures, they're talking
(29:07):
quietly and going small.
They're filling the stage withtheir arms wide.
Ai can't figure that out Like.
It just doesn't understand thatwhen somebody pauses, they may
be pausing with intent.
Instead, it puts a period there, right, or it'll figure like
that's not a hook becausethere's a pause there.
It doesn't make any sense.
And yet what we found is thegravitas that a good speaker has
(29:29):
.
You need to watch that likemanually.
You know, easy thing to test.
Go on any of those AI cut uptools.
You know there's lots of thesedays that will just cut up video
for you.
And you know what, if you lookat yourself and say I don't have
the time to do social media andyou want to cut up podcasts
like use what you have, but youknow it'll only get you 80%
there.
You can't just throw stuff likethat out anymore because, yeah,
(29:50):
that depth of knowledge justwon't be there.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yeah, I had several talks with people even people
who create AI tools that say thesame exact thing, actually, the
same exact percentage.
Ai might get you 80% of the way, but it can't replace that
other 20%.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Yeah, totally.
And so let me let me shed somelight a little bit on my process
now to create social media andlike it's now taking me about
three hours to script contentand plus the editing time, so
the person who's running themastermind, like he takes
everything in about three hoursbecause he's really good at
doing it and, by the way, hepops off to over a million views
every four posts.
It's insane, like when you talkabout somebody who has
mathematically figured out hisperfect audience, what they want
(30:31):
to hear, like, and the proof isthere.
It's not like he's lying.
I go to his instagram and youcan see it.
So that's why you pay for thepeople who are going to get you
where you want to go.
So I still use it because I willseed ai some ideas that I have
for a social media post andwe're using I'm using it as
brainstorming.
Ah, now I know what to goresearch, I go and do a bunch of
research now on my own andstuff like that, and then I
(30:53):
bring it back and I write like avery shoddy first draft and I'm
saying, hey, ai, use some ofyour templates that I've given
you, polish this up and I'mthrowing it over again, and so
it's just like back and forthand I don't think I could do it
fully manually.
Yet I don't know if I'm evergoing to get there, because this
process is working really wellfor me now to be able to bounce
stuff back and forth and justthe time saving there.
But I didn't just say that, Igave it all to AI, because it
(31:17):
just doesn't work like that yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, that's a great example.
Thank you for sharing that, andit means that if you are in
social media, that you don'tneed to worry about your job as
much as you might think you do.
If you are in content creation.
If you are a creator, ai is notjust going to come replace you.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Yeah.
So I've done a lot of thinkingabout that because I see it a
lot these days.
I've seen copywriters losetheir jobs and I think the
people most at risk are the lowskilled copywriters, low skilled
video editors, because if youdon't have enough depth of skill
yourself to be able to get outthere and speak to pain points
or understand the problem reallywell, then it's very easy for
(31:58):
you to get replaced by AI.
Because if I can just you knowin 20 seconds, if I can get
someone to write an equivalentblog post, as I could hire
someone in the Philippines to do, then you know that to me is a
big sign.
I talk to my team all the time.
I say, look, you've got to domore than what I can do, because
if I can just do that here,you've got to do more.
That's your job.
And so, yeah, I see copywritersand social media managers as
(32:20):
probably two of the risks whereyou need to start learning how
to speak with authority aboutyour skill.
And that is only going to paydividends long-term when you can
go to a business owner if youwant to freelance this kind of
thing and you tell them.
You say, look, these are thepains in the industry.
These are the problems in theindustry.
This is where you're going tobe able to stand out.
People want to be led Like.
I don't want to give someonesomething and then tell them
(32:42):
every step of the way Becausethat is AI, right, like that's
the AI posting job.
But if you can come in and takeaway that thought, like the
thought process, now I don'thave to think about the problem
anymore yeah, upload an hour ofyou talking every day about
problems that your audienceexperiences.
I'll take care of the rest.
What You'll take care of therest and it'll be better than AI
, I'll pay for that.
(33:06):
That's the problem solving part.
But if I have to go and educateyou every step of the way and
tell you I don't like this, tellyou I don't like that, then
those are the people I'd beworried about.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah, yeah, that's a very good distinction.
Thank you for that.
So, cam, what if somebody isnew to the business world?
Maybe they went straight fromundergrad to grad school and
they haven't had to go out intothe workforce they are looking
to establish.
Maybe they don't have thethought leadership right, but
they do have a knowledge base.
They've gone and gotten moreeducation so that they're not
(33:32):
just a low-level copywriter orsocial media person, but they do
have those skills.
They know a little bit morethan the average person.
What else can they do to standout on social media?
Should they be creating somevideo, even introductions to
potential employers?
What advice do you have forthem?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
So yes to video, but by and large, become an expert
at something.
Darn it.
I say this so often even tolike junior speakers.
They say, oh, I don't have aniche.
It's like stop everything, picka lane.
Like, pick us something thatyou can focus in on.
And I'll give you an example.
So I was working with thespeaker recently and she was.
She works in the manufacturingindustry, specifically around
(34:10):
musical instruments Super cool,right.
Like you're like oh cool, butshe worked in HR.
So she wanted to bring thoughtleadership around HR.
And it was like that's it, Iwant to bring thought leadership
around hr.
And I'm like, okay, there's somany people out there who talk
about hr like it's very, verysaturated, and like what do you?
What do you do?
What would you work on?
She's like I've got these tool.
Like you know, I know whatmanufacturing in general, things
(34:30):
are being sent to mexico andnow they're being brought back.
And like we send this stuff tochina and now it's being brought
back and subsidies and tariffsand all these kinds of things
are being talked about right now.
I'm like, stop right there.
Cool, you've got some ideasthere.
What if you just became thespeaker on HR for musical
instruments.
Like, doesn't that sound cool?
Like, wouldn't you want tolearn something about an HR
expert?
(34:51):
No, an HR person who has anexpertise in the, in the musical
instrument manufacturingindustry.
And you know, maybe in thatindustry, like, maybe that side,
maybe there's only like sevenplayers who want to be in.
That is not like, maybe maybethere's not much business in
that space.
But all of a sudden, maybethere are lessons that the
musical industry, musicalinstrument industry, has solved
(35:12):
that maybe I don't know the umgeez, I don't know any other
manufacturer I'm looking aroundmy desk now.
Like, like I don't know, like amug manufacturing or like
headphone manufacturing.
Like, maybe they've got similarpain points that they would
love to have somebody who's anexpert in that similar parallel
sister domain and they want tohave them come speak at this
(35:33):
event.
Okay.
So I'd say the exact same thingto somebody who is either just
starting in the industry orsomething like that Just event,
okay.
So I'd say the exact same thingto somebody who is either just
starting in the industry orsomething like that Just get
known for a, something orsomething.
And like, maybe you're the onewho understands puncture I don't
know Copywriters, right, Idon't know.
Like, maybe you're the one whocan tell stories about I don't
know home building more thananybody else, and so if you are
(35:53):
an expert copywriter on likehome building, who could
possibly be your target marketfor that?
Well, I know, probably likeconstruction workers or
contractors all across Canada,united States, would probably
love to have someone copyrightblogs for them.
And if you became known as theperson who could write about
shower installation in centuryhomes in Nebraska holy crap,
(36:14):
that's a market right there,isn't that a market?
Like I'm sure that's a market.
So become known in a, somethinglike get very well, yeah, you
become an expert in that andthat'll help you grow and it
could be anything that you lovedoing yeah, fantastic, that's
some great advice again.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
So thank you, cam.
I've really appreciated havingyou on talk about your very
interesting journey from fullstack developer into the world
of accessibility, becoming anexpert advocate and speaker, and
turning that into not justbeing a full-time speaker but
then turn you know, deciding toput that aside and turning it
(36:48):
into a full business, helpingother people really realize
their potential and beshowcasing the best of
themselves when they're lookingfor speaking opportunities.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Yeah, thanks for having me on and you know, as
you were listening to that, it'sfunny I was just thinking that
you know, all we do in life isgive advice to our old selves,
right?
So here I was speaking as if Iwas listening to myself and you
know, would you just pick a lanecam and would you just get on
video?
And that was you know.
These are two things that Iwish I had done much, much, much
sooner, because, going back totrees, the best time to plant a
tree is 10 years ago.
(37:18):
Second best time is right now.
So just do it.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Fantastic, and we'll be able to go to
thefrequencespeakercom to learnmore about you and everything
you do.
Or they can also find you onLinkedIn and we'll have those in
the show notes for everyonewho's listening.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Yeah, thanks so much.
Thanks so much.
And if you're interested inspeaking, if who's listening is
interested in speaking onthefrequentspeakercom on the top
right, I've got the communitythere.
Come join a free community.
I talk about a lot of things Italked about here, like lead gen
and marketing a little bit.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
If you're a speaker, it's a little bit tilted towards
speaking but if you, toeverybody who's watching this
episode or listening to it onyour favorite platform, we'll be
back again next week withanother amazing guest.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
To learn more about the Master of Science in Digital
Media Management program, visitus on the web at dmmuscedu.
Thank you.
Welcome to Mediascape insights from digital
changemakers, a speaker seriesand podcast brought to you by
USC Annenberg's Digital MediaManagement Program.
Join us as we unlock thesecrets to success in an
increasingly digital world.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Our next guest on Mediascape is Cam Beaudoin.
And Cam, you have such a variedbackstory, going from web
development, full-stackdevelopment, business analyzing,
to becoming an accessibilityexpert, starting to speak on
accessibility in the world ofdigital, which is something that
(00:42):
, in our digital mediamanagement program, is so vital
and so important, something wereally try to impress upon our
students and ourselves to nowhelping people understand what
others are looking for forspeakers, for subject matter
experts, for people who canbring something new and fresh to
their companies, whether it's abig conference or a team.
(01:04):
So thank you for being here.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Oh, thanks so much for having me.
We've spoken before and I justlove speaking with you.
It's so great to chat.
I think it's really easy.
You're a great host.
You make it easy for guests tocome on and open up, so can't
wait to dive in this is a topicI'm passionate about.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yes, and you're also very.
You know, you're a polishedpublic speaker, so that doesn't
help or that doesn't hurt either.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So, Cam, tell us a little bit about that transition
going from this world of that'smore.
You know, we think engineering,we think really scientific
brained people who are maybewanting to sit in a cubicle, to
really showing this whole otherside, being an extrovert or
being able to show yourextrovertedness.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, so in the world of software development and I
do believe that softwaredevelopment is a creative,
problem-solving type of role.
So I was the type of person tothink like I'm never going to be
a developer because, man, Idon't want to sit behind and
just like a cubicle and getpeople to tell me they take
tickets and stuff like that, andthat was my job in IT.
But as soon as I went intodevelopment it was like, oh, I
get to problem solve in the mostcreative way possible.
(02:10):
So when I joined IBM they said,well, cam, we've got this thing
around digital accessibility.
You know you can go figure thatout and you go take, get
further in our careers.
You know, you realize that.
You know we're all trying to bevery risk averse and managers
(02:32):
and executives they want to be,they're very risk averse, they
don't want to take the risk of,like, taking on a project and
stuff like that.
So let's give it to the juniorand see what he can do with it.
Anyway, I excelled it, I lovedit.
I thought it was reallyinteresting to give back to the
world in terms of soaccessibility really is helping
people with disabilities usetechnology.
That's kind of what it standsfor.
So if you can imagine, you know, sometimes phones are set up in
a way so that it reads text andwords back to you.
(02:54):
That's accessibility Zooming inon your phone.
You know, usually as people getolder or like you know, they'll
just increase the font size intheir phones.
That's accessibility.
Like these are all littlethings.
And so how do I make technologyadaptable for people of any
ability to use it?
So that's what I did, and I wasalways that weird guy, you know
, even though I did lots ofdevelopment, I was like oh, demo
day, sign me up, I'll be theone to present to the customer.
(03:15):
And so I think, for anyonewho's listening, if you're in
the position of being that, youknow you're the tech guy and and
yet you want to maybe do more,maybe you are a little bit more
extroverted, maybe you aresomebody who likes to talk to
people and that was always me,even though I was very
comfortable with technology.
You know there's a place foryou in business and I love it.
I love that so much.
And if you're not, that'stotally cool.
There's a place for you inbusiness too.
So that transition happened Imean, I guess it was within the
(03:38):
first and then they start tosend me out to go and speak at
different conferences.
Like I was really lucky as aspeaker, as a junior speaker In
fact, like I just startedworking in accessibility and I
was already being sent out toconferences because for IBM it
was a thought leadership thing,they wanted to send people out
to conferences.
So, if you're lucky, you'regoing to be able to bring your
(03:59):
company forward in industry bygoing and speaking, and that's
great.
You know, I'm sure you've heardthe term Rainmaker before and I
didn't really actualize thatuntil much, much later.
Like you know, within the pasttwo years, I realized oh, the
role of Rainmaker is huge, right?
Anyone who can bring business in, anyone who can go and brag
about, shout about, you know,talk about their company in a
(04:21):
way that's meaningful andlogical.
And you know, talk about theircompany in a way that's
meaningful and logical and, youknow, just like I said, bragging
about their company and sayinglike, look, this is what we've
done, this is how great it is,and let's show you how we can
help you solve problems as well.
That's hugely valuable, hugelyvaluable to the world these days
, because the currency thatwe're never going to get more of
really is attention right?
We only have 24 hours in a dayand even though most of us have
(04:42):
sacrificed three hours of sleepon a regular basis to only sleep
five hours a night, you knowthere's only so much time that
eyeballs are going to be onYouTube or Netflix or Instagram
or what have you, and so if youhave the ability to grab
attention, then that is a skillthat will take you, like, very
far in life, like that is prettymuch the only skill that is of
(05:15):
value, kind of, as time goes on,no matter what your core skill
is, to blind people over Zoomand had their reader up.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
There are so many different things that
accessibility means includingthe UI and UX right of websites
and of software and of tools, sowere those things that you were
already working in?
Is it something that you had tolearn more about, or is there a
little bit of a mix of both?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Oh, I learned on the job, and what's really neat is
you can always take thatlearner's mindset and teach
others.
You know, this is where I wasthree months ago and this is
where I am now right.
The benefit of an early learneris that you, you're just
soaking so much in at the verybeginning, and so I know we're
going to get into a little bitmore about, you know, social
media and video and stuff likethat.
But you know, at the verybeginning of your journey of
(05:58):
learning about like reallymastering a craft of any type,
there's just so much coming inthat you've got so much that you
can try to get out as well.
And what a perfect time to goout and speak about something or
try your hand at teachingsomebody else on how to do it or
things like that.
That's when it's really easy,because everything's just
flowing.
Everything's so new and we'reso.
We love things that are new, soit's easy.
(06:19):
You know it's only after a fewyears where you're like, well, I
haven't really grown in thepast year.
You know what I mean.
Like you're like well, Ihaven't really expanded my
skills.
I don't know where to go next,and all of a sudden it becomes
difficult to think back to whatit was like as a newbie.
So I was learning as I go and Iwas.
You know what I didn't know inskill, and oh, I was corrected
quite a few times.
Sidebar people withdisabilities, you know, to have
(06:41):
a able-bodied guy show up on thefront and try and tell people
how to use technology in theirway.
I had a lot of people come upto me and say, like, actually,
kim, if you just do it this way,it's a lot better.
This is actually how we like tointeract with technology and
you know you're soaking it allin.
As long as you're humble aboutit, then I don't think anyone is
going to attack you for it orshame you for not knowing stuff.
So it's such a great time toteach.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, that's such a good point, because when we
think about equity, right, andwe think about who's in the
front of the room, you're awhite male.
You don't have disabilities, atleast that we know of, so it
wouldn't seem like you'd be thenatural person necessarily, but
the fact that they embraced youwith such kindness and just
wanting to help teach you moreso that you could spread the
(07:24):
word more, that's reallybeautiful.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah, and you know, I think it's finding a story of
whatever it is.
I'll tell you the story of,like, what was the light bulb
moment of that really aha moment?
I was at IBM, okay.
So there was a traveling blindguy and I say that as in
colloquial because he's a friendof mine now.
He was the accessibility guyand he would come to all the
different offices and teacheverybody about accessibility
(07:46):
and here I was ready to learn.
He walked into the office, myboss called me over and if
you've ever worked with like ana-type personality type of
leader before, you know he wasan ex-sales guy and then he was
leading a sale, a tech team, andhe walked up to tom and he
stuck his hand in tom's face andsaid hey, tom, my name's j,
it's really great to meet you.
In that, like you know, and Tom, being blind, of course, had no
idea there was a handoutstretched in front of him and
(08:07):
just said it's really great tomeet you and my boss, like he
would like, he was trying tostare him down because what do
you do in these types of sales?
Like you know, my hands out andyour hands on out.
It's like he wilted away.
He didn't know what to do is,like you know, error messages on
his eyeballs, and so I actuallyran back to my desk at that
moment, typed in how to shake ablind person's hand, and I
(08:28):
learned that all you need to dois say, can I shake your hand?
Like, can I shake your hand?
Five words is all it took tocreate like equity, right, like
that's really all it took, and Itake that story with me
throughout many of my careers.
It's like there's these littlesmall actions that we can all
take, these little small steps,and probably the big problems
that you have in life is becauseyou haven't really focused on
these like really really tinysteps.
(08:49):
If you just did that, then alot of other things would just
be fixed by nature because youdon't have that little roadblock
there, right?
So that was such a great momentand I could share that
throughout my journey and peoplewere like oh, he gets it right,
like Cam gets it.
And I always try to bring thoselittle moments in, sorry, bring
those little changes intowhatever I was doing.
Teach people that, look, youjust need to change these little
(09:10):
small things with your website,with your accountability
programs, with your likewhatever the little tiny changes
can make big differences.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, yeah, where did you go next?
You were on the speakingcircuit.
You're talking about disability.
You're at IBM, which is ahousehold name.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
So after that I actually continued my journey.
I said, okay, so I used that toleapfrog into different roles
and in fact, again, speaking issuch a great lever for everybody
because you become recognized.
Now, I wasn't a household name,okay, no one has to look me up,
I'm not famous but I was ableto use that in the industry and
say, like, okay, so Cam is thisguy and he does this like
(09:48):
speaking, and so peoplerecognized me in the industry.
So it's actually really easyfor me to change jobs as well,
because, you know, I was goingin meeting with directors and
senior directors and VPs ofproduct or marketing or legal
departments, things like that,because they would all go to
these conferences and because Iwas a speaker there, because I
spoke at different conferences,then it was really easy for me
(10:09):
to introduce myself, not like aweirdo, just be like hey, I'm
cam, like I just spoke, what doyou think?
And then we had conversations.
I met, you know, the uhdirector of accessibility at the
pokemon company and, like youknow, a vp of accessibility at
netflix, and it's like, oh cool,we're all here to talk about
the same thing and learn aboutthe same thing.
Now, I didn't go work at Netflixor the Pokemon company.
Unfortunately, you know,pikachu will have to be an
(10:29):
ex-career choice.
But I was able to go and workat different, like banks and
different just choose.
Like I really had to pick thelitter because I was known well
enough, like I had that personalbrand, right, that was an
option available to me.
So I went to go work as asenior manager and then after
that I decided I had a bank andI decided, okay, time to go and
try this speaking thing for real.
And I just like really grow myspeaking business.
(10:50):
And that was just after thepandemic and I started to set up
okay, let's try and be afull-time public speaker.
And I learned a couple ofreally hard lessons on a
business at that point.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Well, let's get into that side now, because you had
this complete pivot I mean,you've had a couple of them so
you decided to be a full-timepublic speaker.
It was in a time when thereweren't really a lot of speaking
opportunities, at least in thephysical world.
Everything was moving digital.
What were the things that youfound out about owning your own
(11:20):
business, achieving your goals,and how did you prepare for this
?
Owning your own business,achieving your goals and how did
you prepare for this?
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Well, the biggest realization I had or you know if
I knew then, what I know now isif you don't have lead flow,
you actually don't have abusiness.
Right, like plain and simply.
If you look at all the steps ofa customer journey, like no
matter who's coming through yourfunnel or your flywheel or
whatever you're calling it inyour business, you know if you
have, if you build an app yetyou have nobody signing up to
(11:45):
use the app, actually don't havea business.
Like, really, it comes down tothat.
And if you don't have asustainable and predictable way
to bring people through thatdoor, then you don't have a
business.
And that was a really hardlesson for me to learn, because
I had clout.
I thought I was going to beable to go out, but what I
realized later on, it was thecompanies that I was attached to
(12:06):
that gave me the proof to goout and get speaking gigs.
Because, wow, senior manager ata bank in Canada who wants to
come speak at our conferenceabout accessibility.
Well, we want that logo on our.
You know everyone's collectinglogos, right?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
no-transcript about.
You start a business, you doyour paperwork, you do all the
foundational stuff, and then youthink about where you're going
to find your customers.
You're actually saying we needto reverse that journey to make
sure that we're offering aproduct or service that people
actually want, that they need,that they're going to buy, and
(13:02):
that is when you know that youhave a business.
So kind of work backwards fromthat, make sure you have some of
that and then take care of therest perhaps?
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, exactly.
And you know, to anyone who'sworked in corporate for a long
time, we're conditioned to justhaving work given to us, right,
and that's very normal, right,like I was 38 by the time I quit
my full-time job and said, okay, I'm going to go off and do
this on my own people, just tocome to me, right, and I think
maybe, you know, maybe if I hadbuilt a product or if I had a
(13:29):
software piece of technology.
But I know a lot of people, youknow everyone thinks there's
overnight success, but reallypeople who end up building
technology.
It's rare that they just quittheir job and then, okay, I'm
going full-time on appdevelopment.
It happens, don't get me wrong,but usually what they're doing
is they're tinkering before andbuilding their app at night and
all of a sudden they launch itand do a bunch of trial and
error.
So you absolutely have to findthe customers in pain first and
(13:54):
then build the product to go andsolve that pain, right, solve
the problems.
And the nice thing is there'salways people in pain, always
going to people who haveproblems and lots of problems
out there to go and keep solving.
And just because there'salready a solution doesn't mean
it's the perfect solution foreverybody either.
So yeah, customer first andthen build the solution.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
So how did you reverse engineer this when you'd
already started your business,so that you actually had a
business that still exists?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Well, it was really funny.
I think what many entrepreneursdo is they start to say, well,
I've got, maybe I can justlaunch a new product line.
So that's what I did.
I said I was building this, Iwas doing the speaking business.
And then what I found throughfriends who were speakers, I
went through a cohort of speakertraining.
They all had a lot of problemaround their video and their
(14:39):
demo reels, the speaker demoreels and that's all to do with
personal branding.
I'm sure we'll get into that alittle bit later.
I had my feet in two camps andit was at a certain point where
I realized that the video demoreels and the video production,
the video agency, was growingfaster and larger than the
speaking business one.
I had to just decide for myself.
I was like, okay, I lovespeaking, but why don't I go
serve that audience?
Because they're the ones inpain.
And that's when I officiallydecided.
(15:01):
I'm like, okay, that wasSeptember of 2023.
I said, okay, make a decision,pick a lane and stick with it.
And so I did it, and that'sbeen the journey ever since.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, and that brings us to the frequent speaker.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
We do.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
So talk about personal branding in this.
The context of we hear a lot ofthat.
It's somewhat of a buzzword,but it's also the reality that
we live in is that if you dostart a business, people are
going to look at who you are,what kind of person you are
right, not just in the businessconstruct, but also in your
(15:35):
personal life.
They're going to look at yoursocial media, your website,
perhaps some podcasts or otherspeaking opportunities that
you've had.
What else have you done thatcan make them really know, like
and trust you?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Bingo.
I was just going to say know,like and trust.
Can we just stop talking aboutbusiness for a moment.
Let's talk about dating, okay?
So the reason I like to to sayis isn't that exactly what
happens in any interpersonalrelationship?
That you would meet withsomebody for the first time.
You're on a dating app, youswipe, right, and what she was?
She?
Well, my sister.
What does she do?
You know she's gonna be likewho is this guy?
Let me go look him up.
Like I'm gonna look at yourinstagram.
(16:02):
I'm gonna facebook maybe notfacebook anymore like what's on
your tiktok?
You know what have you got?
When you search up Cambo Duaneon Google, like what comes up
For me it's gonna be a wholebunch of LinkedIn.
Connect with LinkedIn, anyonewho wants.
But that's what everybody'sgoing to do these days.
If you're going to go get a job, then you're like somebody's
going to look you up.
Who is this person that iscoming in for the interview?
That's their responsibility.
(16:23):
Maybe not an entry level, butdefinitely, as time goes on,
that's going to get more andmore important.
Do you have something on yoursocial media?
Are you someone who is like areyou insulting people on your
social media?
Are you bragging about things.
You know TikTok is wide open.
It's really not hard to find.
You know the real Jason Brown,like you know what I mean.
Like it's not hard to find youand once you find, like oh, this
(16:45):
guy is kind of, you know, notsomebody that we'd want in the
company, something like that.
So we have to start thinkingabout what our digital persona
is in a lot of ways.
Now let's talk about businessagain.
Maybe you want to go and getinvestors, like maybe you
actually want to start abusiness.
Same thing they're going to golook at your social profiles as
well to figure out who you are.
So what I do now is, for publicspeakers who want to get out
(17:07):
there and go and book morespeaking gigs, I set them up in
the best way possible usingvideo to go and book those gigs
using something called a speakerdemo reel, a video reel that
showcases all their best work.
So I'm bringing in sales andpresentation skills.
I know the industry very, verywell.
I know it works in the industry.
I know what people are lookingfor and the amazing thing is
that you know a good speaker.
(17:28):
They've already been doing thisfor a long time in like 45
minutes.
They know how to build a story,they know how to share their
stories and all that kind ofstuff, and by weaving that in to
a two to three minute clip ithelps them book gigs, helps them
increase their speaking rate,helps them get more attention,
get noticed all that good stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah, what about if somebody's at the beginning of
their journey?
They have a personal brandestablished or somewhat
established.
They are trying to get intotheir dream company and they
know that one of the ways to dothat is by speaking about what
their subject matter expert on.
What can they do?
Because I know from well what Ithink of as speaker reels right
, you're taking actual talksthat people have done, where
(18:08):
there's maybe an audience,they're on a stage or where you
can see some interaction.
You can get a view into theirpassion and their energy.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
so I think the main goal here is what do you want
like?
What do you want speaking to dofor you?
What do you want all this to?
So if your goal isn't toacquire customers or get paid to
speak, then you probably don'tneed my services.
Be very upfront with that.
Like there's no sense in inpaying me to go and craft a like
, craft a story for you.
That's, that's not what I do,what a speaker reel is for.
(18:39):
If you are somebody who ispassionate, say about I don't
know, give me a topic, what doyou think is someone in your
audience would would really wantto do Trees.
Trees, okay so.
Okay, let's just say, forestry.
Okay, so they want to open up.
They want to open up greenhouse, they want to open up a nursery
, something like that.
Okay, great entrepreneur, goodentrepreneur, business right
there.
Okay, so you want to go andmaybe work at, like, a large
(18:59):
greenhouse or something likethat.
So if you go out and speak onyour specialty, horticulture,
you want to go speak on how doyou build raised garden beds.
You want to go speak on how doyou build raised garden beds.
You want to go speak on stufflike that.
There are tons, tons, tons ofconferences that you can go
speak at and look, usually forfree as well.
You're just bringing outthought leadership to the world.
So let's use that idea of guard, of raised garden beds, because
(19:19):
that's a hot topic always forpeople who are doing gardening
in their back, in their backyard.
So you create a talk on raisedgarden beds, how you build one,
how you'd, uh, where you'dinstall it, and you know how
watering works, maybe.
Okay, so you go and speak atyour local home and garden show.
Every city has its home andgarden show.
It's going to be there, youknow, maybe your local Rona or
Home Depot, you know, usually onSaturday mornings.
(19:40):
Do you know that they actuallyhave speakers?
They actually have, like localspeakers come in and talk about
this kind of stuff.
Local gardeners like ask theexpert, kind of sessions like
that.
What would it be if you went togo create an opportunity like
that?
And hey, what a great day tolearn how to.
What a great way to learn howto speak just to random people
and pitch yourself as wellDoesn't mean you're going to get
it, that's okay.
Do you know how many?
Do you know how many HomeDepots there are in the average
(20:01):
American city?
There's so many.
There's like seven.
And then plus all the plus, allthe lows that are there as well,
and all that kind of stuff.
So there you are.
So there's some smallopportunities that you could
just go and start to create foryourself that would help you
talk about thought leadership.
So you get that recorded,whether it's from your phone,
something at the back of theroom.
Now you can start using that asleverage.
You can start leveraging thatthought leadership and say, hey,
(20:23):
I'm able to go and do this, I'mable to go and speak in front
of an audience and people havenobody knows whether you've been
paid or not, but people arewilling to listen to me in front
of an audience and that isalways really, really powerful.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah, Chase was probably not the best example.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah, you gave me a good one.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I was just thinking about.
I just got an email from acompany that plants trees for
every customer, so that's whythat came top of mind.
But I do like the idea of theconstruct that you're giving us.
So you find opportunities inyour local community where you
can practice, you can hone yourskills, you're learning how to
speak to an audience, what'sgoing to engage them, and you
also can shoot some video,whether, like you said, it's
(21:05):
with your phone or professionalequipment or what have you.
And really, if a speaker reelis two to three minutes long,
you're not going to use theworst parts of that speech or of
each speech.
You're going to pick out thevery best moments from each one
to show you at your best.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Yeah, exactly so.
The way that whole processworks is you want to find those
best clips, and so the hero'sjourney.
Right?
For anyone who doesn't know thehero's journey, let's give you
a very brief overview.
So life is as it is.
All of a sudden, there'ssomething happens, a calamity
that happens, so the hero iscalled to adventure.
All of a sudden, there'ssomething that happens and the
hero, which is you who are inthis story, is called to
(21:42):
adventure and you meet a guide.
The guide has a plan and theplan is used to go and defeat
the big bad guy, is to throw thering into Kazadoom.
See, I know, I'm a nerd.
Right Is to go and, like youknow, is to go and fight the big
bag.
Okay, like, this is the typicalhero's journey and you're going
to compose, you're going tocreate everything in life.
Anytime you have a presentation, anytime you have a meeting,
(22:04):
anytime you have anything inlife.
If you just work on all storieslike that, if you work on all
presentations like that, you'regoing to find that people are
going to want to gravitate toyou and listen to your stories
more, and that's exactly what wedo for demo reels as well.
So we present you here.
People are normally and all ofa sudden there's a hook.
There's a hook that hooksaudiences in, that makes people
want to watch us and be like andthese are big stats, this is
(22:26):
the punchline to a story, theseare, you know, something that
would really get people to leaninto like, oh my gosh, what is
that all about?
In fact, tomorrow I'm I'm doinga post on Tony Robbins and the
hook for me is would you walkthrough fire to change your life
?
And we're like, you're like, oh, what is this walk through fire
?
What's this all about?
If anyone knows Tony Robbins,there's this thing he makes you
walk through fire as part ofsome of his, some of his talks
(22:48):
or stuff like that, and so youcan imagine thousands of people
walking over this bed of coalsand that's his, that's his
shtick, one of the shticks.
Tony's got a whole bunch ofthem, but like so that's the
hook that you start off with.
And I'm telling you, the moreyou can master storytelling, the
more you can master how tocraft a tale, whether it's a
long one at 45 minutes, whetherit it's a short one, whether
it's just a conversation,whether it's your TikTok video.
(23:10):
It doesn't matter what it is.
The stronger you're going to beas a leader, the more
persuasive you're going to be asan employee, as someone who
wants to create a company, allthis kind of stuff.
There's just so many benefitsto that long term.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah, fantastic.
We spoke a little bit aboutsocial media as part of your
brand, so I'd like to hear alittle bit more on and you also
just mentioned TikTok and beingable to use video on your TikTok
.
Will you talk a little bit moreabout how that plays into the
video reel, but also just intoyour brand in general?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
So had you asked that question three, two, three
months ago, when?
we met, I would have answeredyou completely differently.
Okay, so my views havecompletely changed, have
completely flipped over.
So I recently joined a fewmasterminds on social media in
general.
I know that sounds like likeI'm a I don't know what social
media is, but I'm a.
When you can approach somethingstrategically, you're much
(24:01):
better equipped to not burn out.
I think that's that's something, that that's just like a lesson
that I've learned throughoutlife the more you can do
planning ahead of time, notsitting in analysis, paralysis,
but really understanding anddoing things with like, walking,
with intent.
I think that's the whole goalhere.
So my book's on social mediastrategy, and not that I want to
become a social media manager.
But I joined this mastermind andwhen I got on the phone with
(24:24):
this, with the leader, he says,well, how long are you spending
currently on writing a socialpost?
And I've grown my following onLinkedIn up to 15,000 people and
oh, I'm so good.
And I would say, oh, you know,I just like slap some stuff
together, put a photo on there,spend about 15 minutes and I'm
so burned out from it.
And he says, okay, wow, like Ispent three hours on my video
posts and it was like when yourealize that the A players in
(24:45):
the game are playing at like anorder of magnitude higher.
Like you know, I'm not amillionaire, like I'm not like.
But even in business, the realbusiness, like do you think that
Jeff Bezos, do you think he'splaying?
Like the way he thinks abouthis day is just different than
than what you and I would talkabout, like mere mortals would
plan their day because they haveto think at such an order of
(25:06):
magnitude higher.
And so that really helped mereset my perspective of what
social media really is, becauseit's all about the quality of
the content.
Anyone can go viral randomly,but can you go viral
consistently?
And I think that's the game.
That's the game is that a brandthat can go viral or semi-viral
, like whatever you want yourgoals and social media to be,
(25:28):
not to get too much into that.
But if you can go, if you canchoose when you want to acquire
customers back to the idea ofacquiring customers through
organic media, then that is avery, very powerful lever to be
able to pull whenever you want.
Like imagine just being able tocontrol the flow of business
into your app, into yourbusiness, into whatever, just by
doing a social post All of asudden, you know there's going
(25:48):
to be 30, 40, 50 people cominginto your lead gen taking a
discovery call with you.
What have you like?
That?
That's leverage.
That's really powerful.
And even if you want to go dothat for a company later on,
right?
They're speaking now about thewhole idea of the creator role
is going to be changing and asmore companies big companies
realize that, wow, you know, itdoesn't matter if he's a
(26:10):
director of marketing.
We need to get that person onsocial media talking about our
company in a way that puts us inthe best light, because we all
know companies who've put outactually, I can give you a good
example of that.
So why do brands pay forindividual contributors to
create content for them?
Like, why They've got all themoney?
Why can't they just hire abunch of people and do it?
(26:33):
Oh, it's because a creator hasan audience already with them,
right?
So it's all again about thoseeyeballs.
So if a creator already hasthat audience and a brand will
pay them $10,000, here's a bunchof sneakers, so cool, wear them
and create some good stuff forthat Like, they're paying for
eyeballs through that creator.
There's no way that somebodywho doesn't have that flair is
going to be able to compete withthat, and so we're talking
(26:53):
about a middle manager somewhereat Adidas.
So the creator economy and thatwhole idea of attention is
worth so so much these days.
So quality over quantity atfirst, but you got to learn to
do both.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah, interesting.
This is such a unique take,particularly in the age of AI
and generative AI, particularlyEspecially because a lot of
people are now saying this cutsdown your work, the amount of
time that you have to spendworking.
You can have Gen AI create allyour captions.
It can help you with yourvideos cutting your videos down.
It can also help you creategraphics and images.
(27:27):
It can even schedule all yourposts for you.
So I'd love to hear you know alittle bit more about your
counter argument to this insocial media, but then also in
the way that you approachcreating video reels.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Sure, so wouldn't it be nice to just press a button
and make money?
Like, wouldn't that bewonderful?
Like that's the dream, right?
That's the dream that we'rebeing sold, that AI is going to
be this thing, that we're goingto be able to chain a bunch of
AIs together and create workersfor us and then, like one worker
, when it's done, it'll pass iton to the next AI and then
that'll write the script andthen, when that script is done,
it'll pass it to another AI andthat AI will create all the
(28:04):
visuals for it.
And it's going to be thisamazing thing that's going to
make us millions.
And what happens is that we areso attuned now to AI.
Have you ever opened uplistening?
(28:25):
Go to google image search andlook up a famous actor, scroll
down and you will see like agood like 60 70 percent of
images are now like ai generatedimages of those actors, and
it's, it's wild.
We are so like.
It's gotten to the point nowwhere I think a lot of us are
saying, oh, I don't want to lookat this anymore, because I've
heard this ai voice before.
I've seen this AI picturebefore.
Maybe not exactly it, but I getit Like.
I know where this is going andit's not going to give me any
depth of value.
And that's the differentiator,right there.
(28:46):
How deep can you go?
So we used to use AI to createdemo rails.
We've now completely moved awayfrom it, and I'll tell you why.
For that single reason thedepth.
So when a good speaker steps onstage, they're not just rattling
things off at 90 words perminute.
They don't sound like a machinegun.
They're using intonation,they're using their voice,
they're using their arms andgestures, they're talking
(29:07):
quietly and going small.
They're filling the stage withtheir arms wide.
Ai can't figure that out Like.
It just doesn't understand thatwhen somebody pauses, they may
be pausing with intent.
Instead, it puts a period there, right, or it'll figure like
that's not a hook becausethere's a pause there.
It doesn't make any sense.
And yet what we found is thegravitas that a good speaker has
(29:29):
.
You need to watch that likemanually.
You know, easy thing to test.
Go on any of those AI cut uptools.
You know there's lots of thesedays that will just cut up video
for you.
And you know what, if you lookat yourself and say I don't have
the time to do social media andyou want to cut up podcasts
like use what you have, but youknow it'll only get you 80%
there.
You can't just throw stuff likethat out anymore because, yeah,
(29:50):
that depth of knowledge justwon't be there.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yeah, I had several talks with people even people
who create AI tools that say thesame exact thing, actually, the
same exact percentage.
Ai might get you 80% of the way, but it can't replace that
other 20%.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Yeah, totally.
And so let me let me shed somelight a little bit on my process
now to create social media andlike it's now taking me about
three hours to script contentand plus the editing time, so
the person who's running themastermind, like he takes
everything in about three hoursbecause he's really good at
doing it and, by the way, hepops off to over a million views
every four posts.
It's insane, like when you talkabout somebody who has
mathematically figured out hisperfect audience, what they want
(30:31):
to hear, like, and the proof isthere.
It's not like he's lying.
I go to his instagram and youcan see it.
So that's why you pay for thepeople who are going to get you
where you want to go.
So I still use it because I willseed ai some ideas that I have
for a social media post andwe're using I'm using it as
brainstorming.
Ah, now I know what to goresearch, I go and do a bunch of
research now on my own andstuff like that, and then I
(30:53):
bring it back and I write like avery shoddy first draft and I'm
saying, hey, ai, use some ofyour templates that I've given
you, polish this up and I'mthrowing it over again, and so
it's just like back and forthand I don't think I could do it
fully manually.
Yet I don't know if I'm evergoing to get there, because this
process is working really wellfor me now to be able to bounce
stuff back and forth and justthe time saving there.
But I didn't just say that, Igave it all to AI, because it
(31:17):
just doesn't work like that yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, that's a great example.
Thank you for sharing that, andit means that if you are in
social media, that you don'tneed to worry about your job as
much as you might think you do.
If you are in content creation.
If you are a creator, ai is notjust going to come replace you.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Yeah.
So I've done a lot of thinkingabout that because I see it a
lot these days.
I've seen copywriters losetheir jobs and I think the
people most at risk are the lowskilled copywriters, low skilled
video editors, because if youdon't have enough depth of skill
yourself to be able to get outthere and speak to pain points
or understand the problem reallywell, then it's very easy for
(31:58):
you to get replaced by AI.
Because if I can just you knowin 20 seconds, if I can get
someone to write an equivalentblog post, as I could hire
someone in the Philippines to do, then you know that to me is a
big sign.
I talk to my team all the time.
I say, look, you've got to domore than what I can do, because
if I can just do that here,you've got to do more.
That's your job.
And so, yeah, I see copywritersand social media managers as
(32:20):
probably two of the risks whereyou need to start learning how
to speak with authority aboutyour skill.
And that is only going to paydividends long-term when you can
go to a business owner if youwant to freelance this kind of
thing and you tell them.
You say, look, these are thepains in the industry.
These are the problems in theindustry.
This is where you're going tobe able to stand out.
People want to be led Like.
I don't want to give someonesomething and then tell them
(32:42):
every step of the way Becausethat is AI, right, like that's
the AI posting job.
But if you can come in and takeaway that thought, like the
thought process, now I don'thave to think about the problem
anymore yeah, upload an hour ofyou talking every day about
problems that your audienceexperiences.
I'll take care of the rest.
What You'll take care of therest and it'll be better than AI
, I'll pay for that.
(33:06):
That's the problem solving part.
But if I have to go and educateyou every step of the way and
tell you I don't like this, tellyou I don't like that, then
those are the people I'd beworried about.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah, yeah, that's a very good distinction.
Thank you for that.
So, cam, what if somebody isnew to the business world?
Maybe they went straight fromundergrad to grad school and
they haven't had to go out intothe workforce they are looking
to establish.
Maybe they don't have thethought leadership right, but
they do have a knowledge base.
They've gone and gotten moreeducation so that they're not
(33:32):
just a low-level copywriter orsocial media person, but they do
have those skills.
They know a little bit morethan the average person.
What else can they do to standout on social media?
Should they be creating somevideo, even introductions to
potential employers?
What advice do you have forthem?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
So yes to video, but by and large, become an expert
at something.
Darn it.
I say this so often even tolike junior speakers.
They say, oh, I don't have aniche.
It's like stop everything, picka lane.
Like, pick us something thatyou can focus in on.
And I'll give you an example.
So I was working with thespeaker recently and she was.
She works in the manufacturingindustry, specifically around
(34:10):
musical instruments Super cool,right.
Like you're like oh cool, butshe worked in HR.
So she wanted to bring thoughtleadership around HR.
And it was like that's it, Iwant to bring thought leadership
around hr.
And I'm like, okay, there's somany people out there who talk
about hr like it's very, verysaturated, and like what do you?
What do you do?
What would you work on?
She's like I've got these tool.
Like you know, I know whatmanufacturing in general, things
(34:30):
are being sent to mexico andnow they're being brought back.
And like we send this stuff tochina and now it's being brought
back and subsidies and tariffsand all these kinds of things
are being talked about right now.
I'm like, stop right there.
Cool, you've got some ideasthere.
What if you just became thespeaker on HR for musical
instruments.
Like, doesn't that sound cool?
Like, wouldn't you want tolearn something about an HR
expert?
(34:51):
No, an HR person who has anexpertise in the, in the musical
instrument manufacturingindustry.
And you know, maybe in thatindustry, like, maybe that side,
maybe there's only like sevenplayers who want to be in.
That is not like, maybe maybethere's not much business in
that space.
But all of a sudden, maybethere are lessons that the
musical industry, musicalinstrument industry, has solved
(35:12):
that maybe I don't know the umgeez, I don't know any other
manufacturer I'm looking aroundmy desk now.
Like, like I don't know, like amug manufacturing or like
headphone manufacturing.
Like, maybe they've got similarpain points that they would
love to have somebody who's anexpert in that similar parallel
sister domain and they want tohave them come speak at this
(35:33):
event.
Okay.
So I'd say the exact same thingto somebody who is either just
starting in the industry orsomething like that Just event,
okay.
So I'd say the exact same thingto somebody who is either just
starting in the industry orsomething like that Just get
known for a, something orsomething.
And like, maybe you're the onewho understands puncture I don't
know Copywriters, right, Idon't know.
Like, maybe you're the one whocan tell stories about I don't
know home building more thananybody else, and so if you are
(35:53):
an expert copywriter on likehome building, who could
possibly be your target marketfor that?
Well, I know, probably likeconstruction workers or
contractors all across Canada,united States, would probably
love to have someone copyrightblogs for them.
And if you became known as theperson who could write about
shower installation in centuryhomes in Nebraska holy crap,
(36:14):
that's a market right there,isn't that a market?
Like I'm sure that's a market.
So become known in a, somethinglike get very well, yeah, you
become an expert in that andthat'll help you grow and it
could be anything that you lovedoing yeah, fantastic, that's
some great advice again.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
So thank you, cam.
I've really appreciated havingyou on talk about your very
interesting journey from fullstack developer into the world
of accessibility, becoming anexpert advocate and speaker, and
turning that into not justbeing a full-time speaker but
then turn you know, deciding toput that aside and turning it
(36:48):
into a full business, helpingother people really realize
their potential and beshowcasing the best of
themselves when they're lookingfor speaking opportunities.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Yeah, thanks for having me on and you know, as
you were listening to that, it'sfunny I was just thinking that
you know, all we do in life isgive advice to our old selves,
right?
So here I was speaking as if Iwas listening to myself and you
know, would you just pick a lanecam and would you just get on
video?
And that was you know.
These are two things that Iwish I had done much, much, much
sooner, because, going back totrees, the best time to plant a
tree is 10 years ago.
(37:18):
Second best time is right now.
So just do it.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Fantastic, and we'll be able to go to
thefrequencespeakercom to learnmore about you and everything
you do.
Or they can also find you onLinkedIn and we'll have those in
the show notes for everyonewho's listening.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Yeah, thanks so much.
Thanks so much.
And if you're interested inspeaking, if who's listening is
interested in speaking onthefrequentspeakercom on the top
right, I've got the communitythere.
Come join a free community.
I talk about a lot of things Italked about here, like lead gen
and marketing a little bit.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
If you're a speaker, it's a little bit tilted towards
speaking but if you, toeverybody who's watching this
episode or listening to it onyour favorite platform, we'll be
back again next week withanother amazing guest.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
To learn more about the Master of Science in Digital
Media Management program, visitus on the web at dmmuscedu.
Thank you.
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