SciComm Summer #23: Alison Fragale on Giving Keynote Talks

Alison Fragale is an organizational psychologist who gives keynote talks and leads workshops outside academia. She talks frankly about what it takes to book speaking engagements, design powerful talks that make a difference, and juggle a speaking schedule with other commitments. She also just released a book -- Likable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve.

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Episode Transcript

Andy Luttrell (00:09):
Oh man, I forgot what a weekly release schedule
was like.
Hi, hello, welcome back againto Hot SciComm Summer, a special
informal podcast series helpingpeople explore ways to help get
good science into the hands ofthe people.
This one is a long time coming.
We've dabbled in many media inthis series, YouTube videos,
podcasts, radio, books, writtenjournalism, TikTok, consulting,

(00:33):
but I realized that we neverreally featured anything on
giving talks outside of academicsettings.
It's something that I've becomeinterested in, but it can be a
really opaque industry, so Iwanted to see if I could find
someone who would be up forintroducing us to the
particulars of sciencecommunication in this sort of
setting, giving public talks.
And I think we've got theperfect person.

(00:54):
Alison Fregale is anorganizational psychologist
who's been at the businessschool at the University of
North Carolina, but in additionto her academic work, she's also
been an in-demand keynotespeaker, giving talks on
negotiation and influence basedin behavioral science.
She also just came out with abook, Likeable Badass, How Women
Get the Success They Deserve.

(01:14):
She was down to talk openlyabout building keynote talks and
navigating the logistics ofbooking them.
So let's get into it.
What is the academic backgroundthat brings you to the kinds of
topics that you're sharing onstage and with groups and

(01:34):
through the book?

Alison Fragale (01:36):
My PhD is in organizational behavior, so
psychology applied to business.
And for over 21 years, I'vebeen a professor at the
University of North Carolina,teaching to a variety of
audiences, which we can talkabout.
And I've taught everything.
You know, when you teach longenough, you have to teach
everything.
But in my degree teaching, I'vetaught everything from

(01:56):
leadership survey courses thatinclude motivation,
decision-making.
I've always taught anegotiation elective, which is a
lot of how I came into doingspeaking to non-academic
audiences because negotiation isa topic that a lot of
practitioners are interested in.
And now with the release of mybook that's oriented toward
women, I do a lot of workrelated to power, status,
influence for women.

(02:17):
And anything that falls underhuman behavior, people that is
relevant to how we work can fallin the area of things that I
will speak about.

Andy Luttrell (02:27):
Did it always seem...
I guess, was there ever a pointat which you were thinking
like, I will be very contentjust to like while away my time
looking at data and formingresearch questions and sort of
just going like a 100% I'm ascientist just doing science and
getting it out in the world?
Or was it always like, yeah,but this is only ever useful to

(02:48):
the extent that I can share itwith people?
Sort of where does the publicengagement side of what you do,
when did that come into thestory?

Alison Fragale (02:57):
Yeah, it was not an explicit goal that I had
when I entered academia, but Ithink there were a couple of
things that influenced me.
One was being an academic wasnot my childhood dream.
I came to it once I was alreadya management consultant working
for McKinsey and finding thatAlthough I like the idea of
answering questions, I didn'thave enough autonomy in what
questions I was answering andhow thoroughly I was answering

(03:18):
them.
And that's what caused me tolook for and then find this
academic path in the firstplace.
So I'd had an industrybackground as a professional
speaking to people in industry.
That's one thing.
Second thing is when I go toStanford, which is where I got
my PhD, and I start to work withmy advisor, who's amazing, she
herself also had a very robustspeaking career for working with

(03:44):
external audiences.
And so, you know, just like youkind of do the things your
parents did because that's allyou know, there's no doubt that
having her as my advisor ofsomebody who was both a very,
very, very rigorous academic andalso had a very booming
business speaking and bringingresearch to practitioners, that
that was something I started tosee and model.

(04:04):
Now, that said, I didn't, frommy very first days in graduate
school, think, oh, I'm totallydoing that.
I was, like you said, justtrying to survive doing my own
research and figuring out how toteach my degree classes.
That was more than I couldhandle.
Then the third thing thathappened, I think, put me on
this path, was my first and onlyfaculty appointment is at the
University of North Carolina.

(04:25):
The University of NorthCarolina, like many schools, has
a developed executive educationprogram.
And as it was growing, thedemand is often from my academic
area that people come back forthese experiences as
professionals to learn moreabout the leadership component,
not as much about the accountingor the finance.
So there was an incredibleamount of demand in my

(04:46):
department.
And while young academics areoften protected from those
things, in our case, we didn'thave enough people to staff
them.
So if not my first year,definitely my second, I did one
or two days of executiveeducation, professional
development work.
And then I did three or fourdays after that.

(05:07):
And then maybe the next year itwas eight days.
So it was a slow build, but itdid start from the moment I was
an academic, but it was a verysmall piece of my life.
So it didn't derail me from thethings I was normally doing.
So it was a third thing thathappened was I got exposure to
doing that because myuniversity, my school needed
people to do it.
And then you start to realize,oh, I like doing this.

(05:28):
To me, what I enjoy about it, Ialways joke, is it's all the
cool things about being aprofessor without any of the
annoying stuff.
You don't have to write asyllabus.
You don't have to grade.
You don't have an awkwardconversation where someone
disputes their grade.
You just get to go into a roomand talk about the science that
gets you excited about the fieldto begin with and how people
could use that.

(05:48):
So that's what I really likedabout it.
So I liked it.
I was good at it.
So then I started to do more.
And then the fourth thing thathappened that escalated it for
me it was a pure lifecircumstance which is although
i've been at the university ofnorth carolina for my entire 20
plus years for the past 10 yearsi have resided in chicago for

(06:08):
family reasons my husband had awork opportunity here and it's
also his hometown so we decidedthat we were going to relocate
our lives here with our threekids and i started to commute
and What that meant for me wasthat it put me in a unique
professional situation where Istarted to think more about

(06:31):
doing external facing work,recognizing that this dual
career thing that we weremanaging might make my academic
career challenging.
So I started to do a little bitmore of that when I was faced
with that move.
So put all those thingstogether, and it was a ramp up
of that type of work added to myportfolio.

Andy Luttrell (06:53):
So I'm curious if you think that being in a
business school has facilitatedthis so there's there's some of
me that thinks that like there'sthere's maybe the kind of a
unique conceptual fit betweenlike what you're expected to be
as a business school professorand these sorts of um external
activities and and i really thisis more of an opportunity to

(07:14):
talk about like how do youjuggle all these things which
you sort of have hinted at um Ithink even though a lot of
scientists really ought to spendmore time in these public
facing positions, right?
As people in positions of likeexpertise, we are so
overburdened with a millionother things.
And so I'm curious whether youhave found navigating this kind

(07:39):
of multidisciplinary way ofgoing about your job is sort of
facilitated by the kind of placethat you've happened to end up.

Alison Fragale (07:48):
Well, I would say yes to no.
I've only ever been in abusiness school, but in my
field, social psychology is avery dominant discipline.
So I talk to a lot of peoplewho are in psychology
departments.
I do think that yes, if you'rein a business school, the idea
that you are doing work that isspeaking directly to people in
practice is not foreign topeople, but also let's be clear,
it's not really rewarded.

(08:09):
It's definitely not rewarded atUNC.
So business academia is havinga really challenging time
between knowing they have tostay relevant to practitioners
and having no mechanism toreward that because they're
still operate just like anyother arts and science
department of research andteaching.
And so we have stood upcommittee after committee after

(08:31):
committee about having impact onpractice.
And at the end of the day,nothing you do on practice gets
you rewarded.
It just doesn't.
So when people who do it decidethat they have the luxury, and
I think this is where I got tobe in my career, I had the
luxury of deciding I'm going tojust do what I want.
And I don't necessarily need astar or a pat on the head from
my dean for every single thing Ido, this is the life I want to

(08:53):
build.
And I think it's challengingbecause they secretly need
people to be doing this.
They need someone to do it.
They don't have a mechanism toreward it.
So if you say, my goal is to beseen as the best possible
academic in my school, businessschools are no different than
any other arts and sciencedepartment.
You're probably strategicallybetter off publishing more
papers and doing more serviceand internal things than you are

(09:16):
doing external stuff.
I will also say that when Italk to a lot of people about
this, who do a lot of externalwork, is that you will get some
active hostility from internalpeople.
Normally not the people whomatter, but people in other
departments.
And as one of my femalecolleagues at a different
institution who does a lot ofexternal work said, that

(09:38):
people's anger is inverselyrelated to their ability to do
what you do.
And so when people don't havethat kind of commercial voice
and they can't talk to anon-academic audience in a way
that's compelling, they are thepeople who are the most angry
about it because they don't havethe opportunities to do it.
I don't know a world, I havenot yet to find a person in

(10:00):
academia who says doingsomething external like this has
really advanced my career interms of the internal rewards
that we offer.
No.
But it's not unheard of.
People aren't confused as towhat you're doing.
They get it, but we don't havea mechanism to reward it.

Andy Luttrell (10:18):
It seems surprising still that that is
the vibe.
I think you're right thatrecognition and familiarity with
this has clearly evolved.
Uh-huh.
but that there are still notangible mechanisms in place to
encourage academics to reachbeyond the tiny little office

(10:39):
that they occupy on a collegecampus.
Yeah, I don't know.
It sounds like you don't seethat changing very rapidly
either.
I

Alison Fragale (10:49):
mean, again, my sample size is limited, but
talking to people, no.
And honestly, anecdotally, Idon't think...
it helps if you do that andyou're a woman.
I think that my friends whohave written popular books like

(11:10):
I have who do a lot of externalwork and are women definitely
feel like they get a lot moresubtle criticism for it again
it's subtle but no i haven'tseen anything that suggests that
it's changing which is why ithink that business academia has
has lost its edge a lot interms of it's not growing like

(11:31):
it used to and it's shrinkingand i don't know that's that's
not solely because of this butit's not helping

Andy Luttrell (11:38):
So let's say someone says, internal politics
be damned, I'm going to do this.
What actually, I'm curiousabout like tangibly, concretely,
what are the kinds ofactivities that you're doing
that are beyond the institution?
So like, even just like whatsort of venues when you're doing
speaking engagements, where arethey tending to happen?

(11:58):
And who are the audiences thatyou are seeking to reach in this
domain?

Alison Fragale (12:04):
Yeah.
So I really like this work, butto be clear, because it's not
something that advances mycareer, I find it intrinsically
interesting.
But the vast majority of thingsI'm doing are speaking live.
Now I'll do some of thatvirtually post-COVID.
Thank you very much.
But pre-COVID, it was all inperson.

(12:24):
So now it's a blend, eitherin-person or virtual, live
sessions to either members of asingle organization.
So that could be like an ERG ora team, an intact team where
the leader wants training.
It could be a conference forthe organization where they
bring everyone together and theywant to have a thought

(12:44):
leadership component that's notjust about the financials of the
business, that kind of stuff.
So for an organization is one.
And the other one that I do is,uh, conferences that are
multi-industry.
There will be a healthcareconference or a food service
conference or an electricaldistribution conference where

(13:05):
they bring people together andpeople can be members and sign
up and do those largermulti-industry events.
Most of what I do is corporate.
I may do some non-profit.
I did for a long time do a lotof military and government.
I do a little bit less now.
I have done everything fromlonger facilitation, so single
day, multi-day things.
That's where I started my work.
Half day, where you are, again,facilitating, because it's a

(13:30):
lot of discussion, a lot ofactive learning.
Now, over time, I've shiftedmore of my work to what I call
keynoting, which is more theshorter lecture, anywhere from
30 to 60 minutes, where you'retalking at an event, maybe with
some Q&A.
I do a lot, lot more of that,and I have...
backed away from doing thelonger facilitation, mainly for

(13:52):
variety for me and just stamina.
As I get older, I find theshorter things easier to manage
than the longer things.
And I enjoy them a little bitmore.
They fit my style on a stage alittle bit more than the longer
facilitation.
So that's typically what I'mdoing.
And I was saying, I do it forpay.
That's my motivation to do it.
Not that I don't love thepeople I talk to, but I always

(14:14):
say if I'm not doing it for pay,then it's called volunteering,
which is a great thing to do.
And if I'm volunteering, thereare a lot more needy
beneficiaries than insert thename of your Fortune 500
company.
So I don't volunteer for you.
I've got better sources ofthat, uses for that of my time.
So I do it for pay.
And that's my motivation.
That said, I like it a lot,which is why I am willing to do

(14:38):
it.

Andy Luttrell (14:38):
So I think it's the keynoting that both versions
are interesting to me, but it'sthe keynoting that I kind of
had in mind when I reached outto you.
And so- In terms of the before,during, and after, what does
that day look like?
You're engaged to speak for,let's say, an hour.
This is sort of like the kindof nuts and bolts that no one

(15:02):
would think to talk about, butI'm just very curious about.
When are you showing up?
How are you sort of preparingahead of time?
What are you doing in the midstof it?
And then do you

Alison Fragale (15:17):
just jump in the car and head home?
Or like, what does theaftermath look like?
I have a contact form on mywebsite where you can say I'm

(15:43):
interested in reaching you.
And that comes to my email.
So I get an inbound inquiry.
I have now, based on my volume,only recently started to engage
a speakers bureau.
But for 20 years, I did allthis myself.
So I'm going to answer it as ifI did it myself.
That inbound inquiry comes, Isend the person an email back to
say, tell me a little bit moreabout what you're interested in.

(16:05):
So there's maybe one round ofemail exchange about what
they're interested in.
At some point early on, I letthem know what my rates are.
I used to, in my earlier days,want to meet with them first so
that they would fall in lovewith me.
And once they fell in love withme, I would then tell them my
rates.
However, as my circle hasopened, particularly with

(16:28):
writing my book, and when I nowserve organizations that are
more oriented toward women.
And there's a huge variance inthose organizations as to
whether or not they can pay.
I have now started shifting theprice conversation earlier
before I actually start gettingon the phone live so that I'm
not having live conversationswith people who at the end of

(16:50):
the day are like, oh my God, welove you, but we have no money.
And I'm like, I should havefigured that out earlier.
So now I'm shifting thatearlier.
But the idea is at some point Iwould get on a live Zoom with
them and say, tell me about whatyou're trying to achieve in
your event.
Tell me about the whole thing.
Let me see how I can plug in.
And if I feel like I'm a goodfit, then I present, here's what
I could do for you.
Here's what's typical.
And I essentially, it's like asales conversation.

(17:12):
If they say, yeah, we want togo forward, then it would be, I
would generate a contract.
I now have an assistant whohelps me with that.
I had a I, for the longesttime, I just used a contract I
found off the internet, which isprobably not, you know, I
modified it, probably not worthvery much.
Wasn't going to stand up.
I wasn't going to sue them.
They weren't going to sue me,but it made it all sound, you

(17:32):
know, kind of formal.
Then I had an employmentattorney who was actually a
friend of a friend actually lookat it and give me some editing.
So now I have what I think is alegally binding standard
contract.
We fill in the specificdetails.
My assistant does, it would gooff via email.
They would, you know, sign it.
I would, and then We have towork out payment.
So I have QuickBooks account.

(17:53):
I send them a QuickBooksinvoice for them to pay.
I will tell you, I've shifted alot of this to having people
pay me before events.
I used to not do it that way.
There's a lot of time spentchasing people down for payment,
not because they intend todefraud you, but because the
person who hires you knowsnothing about the accounts

(18:13):
payable process in theorganization in which they work.
So they're like, yeah, yeah,it's no problem.
Like I have the money.
I'm the boss.
I have the the budget.
But then when you go to pay,they're like, how do I do that?
And they go to accountspayable, and there's 733 forms
that need to be filled out.
So there's a process of thatthat is definitely frustrating.
So I ship that.
There's normally a pre Oncethey know we're going to, the

(18:36):
early conversation, contract,money, et cetera, then there'll
be some time.
We'll set the date.
We'll book it.
But some time will pass.
These things are normallybooking for me months out,
sometimes a year.
But anywhere I would say fromtwo to six months is where
people are talking to you aboutthese things.
So I have events that I wastalking about that are on the
calendar for September.
Um, so then some time passesand then you get closer to the

(18:59):
event.
Normally a touch base of allkinds of stuff.
We need your headshot to marketit.
We need your bio.
I have all that stuff on mywebsite now, so it can just be a
link.
Um, we need your slides.
We need to talk about the AVstuff.
All AV stuff is different.
What do you want?
What do you need?
What's going on, et cetera.
Uh, normally send them myslides.
Um, And then the events are allover the place.

(19:22):
So I currently am based inChicago.
I speak in Chicago at mostthree or four times a year.
I probably do 50 to 80 events ayear.
Again, some are virtual now.
So then it's just like we aretalking where I'm running around
my house doing whatever.
And then I just slide in to mycomputer five minutes

(19:43):
beforehand.
And then as soon as I'm done,headphones off and back to what
I was doing.
And a I'm on a plane a lot.
I have, I, I'm an, I'm a loyalAmerican airlines flyer and I
have achieved like the alter thesuper secret high status on
American airlines that you canget, um, just from how much I

(20:03):
travel for this stuff.
So, uh, and then the eventitself is normally like go to a
place, get in an Uber, look onmy phone, figure out what hotel
they've put me up in, um, getthere.
It's normally the place thereclose to where I'm presenting.
Go over to the event site inthe morning, generally a few

(20:26):
hours before I have to talk,depends on what it is, just to
make sure that I know where I'msupposed to be.
I can connect with the eventorganizers.
They're not freaked out thatI'm not there.
And then once I'm there, Ieither am listening to something
if it's a conference andthere's interesting other
speakers beforehand, or I'm justsomewhere in a corner on my
laptop, just clearing out emailstill It's time to talk.

(20:46):
They, you know, 10 minutesbefore, mic you up.
I go up on a stage.
Some of them are set up reallywell.
Some of them are horrific, likelights in your eyes.
You can't see a thing.
The stage is super tiny.
There's random furniture on it.
Some of them are beautiful,like you're winning an Academy
Award.
So you just get used to workingin all kinds of environments.

(21:07):
And up there in front of agroup speaking, Q&A, a lot of
them will ask to have thesethings videoed for people who
can't attend, things like that.
So there's some of that.
There are some hybrid eventswhere they have people piped in
from other locations.
They have people askingquestions.

(21:28):
So there's those kinds ofdifferences.
Up for an hour, generally atmost.
And then thank you very much.
Clap, clap, clap.
Here's how you can stay intouch with me.
You know, mic off, et cetera.
And then now that I have abook, I'm often hanging around
for some book signing.
Didn't have that until fairlyrecently.
Hang around for some booksigning and then I'm out of

(21:50):
there.
It's normally I head off and myat the end of my commitment and
I'm back to the airport for thesoonest flight home or to my
next destination.
And on the backside, normallyjust some thank you emails
either way.
Sometimes there's payment stuffto chase down.
And that's it.
And I would say one thing Ishould do a better job of that I
don't do is actively followingup with people that I've worked

(22:13):
for.
in terms of what's next.
But I don't, that's like agrowth area for me in my work.

Andy Luttrell (22:20):
That was great.
That was the level of detailthat I was looking for, too.
And it's super helpful for justkind of fleshing out what that
could be.
It also seems very helpful thatyou're in Chicago because
O'Hare is like probably anincredible resource for you.

Alison Fragale (22:35):
Yeah, I mean, Chicago has its downsides from
travel, but the good news is ifyou could survive the snow and
get to the airport and yourflight's actually taking off,
you can go anywhere.
So that does make it easierrelative to coming out of
Raleigh-Durham.

Andy Luttrell (22:46):
So you sort of teased this idea of like, where
are these coming from?
I have to imagine like youmentioned there a lot of it is
coming inbound so people justlike know that they are looking
for someone and they find youthey've heard of you they've
heard from someone else who'vehad you was there something else
in mind you had in terms oflike where they're coming from
these engagements

Alison Fragale (23:06):
yeah so it's Inbound from people who have a
prior point of contact with youis the most.
And I was talking to anotherfellow academic and speaker who
I consider to be a lot moresuccessful in this space than I
am, judged by number of eventsand price per event, and years

(23:27):
that she's been doing this.
She's a good decade ahead ofme.
She basically says, evenstill...
the vast, vast majority of whatshe has is someone who knows
her.
And they know her in a coupledifferent ways.
Same for me.
This is where business academiadoes help you.
Your students are often greatfuture clients because those
students all go into business.

(23:48):
Those students eventually allrun things.
When they run things, they havea problem and they think, who
could help me?
I remember my professor talkingabout this.
So I do a lot of work forformer students.
And now when you have 20 years,I have thousands of them
everywhere.
So that is one resource.
They know me, they like me, andthey run stuff.
So it's weird a little bit tothen come serve them in this
capacity, but it is useful inthat regard that there's just a

(24:11):
constant new surplus of peoplewho run stuff.
Then there's people who haveseen me at a prior event.
And that's where the eventsthat cover more than one
organization are particularlyuseful.
So when you do a conference, asopposed to a meeting for a
particular organization, aconference could have two or 300
organizations representedthere.
So when I think aboutnegotiating, I come from the

(24:33):
world of negotiation.
When I think about negotiatingrates, for example, I think
about what's the potentialfuture benefit beyond this
event.
And if I have a conferencewhere two or 300 different
organizations could see me and Ithink, okay, not all of them
will hire me, but out of everysingle one of those events I do,
I get a handful of people whogo back to their company and
say, we should bring Allisonhere.

(24:53):
I think about that in terms ofit's essentially free
advertising.
But so those are people,they've seen me and now they're
a representative back to theirorganization.
Then there's some word ofmouth.
of nobody knows me, but theirnext door neighbor says, who do
you know that does this?
And they recommend me.
And then social media is onewhere it's inbound, but it's

(25:17):
inbound from people who don'treally have a relationship with
me.
And I would say, so if you wantto build this kind of business,
I would advise people to be onsocial.
It's a long game.
So you can't just be on socialand think you're going to
generate client after client,but it's mere exposure to
letting people know you exist,what you do, you're a speaker.
And if they like you and likeyour content, I do now get more

(25:38):
people reaching out throughsocial.
So those are going to be mycoldest inbound in that they've
never maybe seen me speak orhave a relationship with me, but
they know I exist.
And I think there are peoplewho do more active outbound in
terms of, you uh, you know,reaching out to people through

(26:00):
social, through, throughnetworks, et cetera.
I haven't done a lot of that.
I do have a speakers bureaunow, just as of the past four or
five months.
Um, there is a little bit ofoutbound that comes from having
a speakers bureau, but I wouldsay in my experience with a lot
of friends who have a lot ofpeople who use speakers bureaus,
it's still mostly managing yourinbound.
So speakers bureau is not, inmy opinion, a, a thing that is

(26:24):
going to magically get youevents.
Uh, I think it is a goodpartner to manage the events
that you have, to negotiate thembetter, to get you more money
for the events that are alreadyinterested in you, to take a lot
of the logistical work off yourplate so you don't have to
think about it until the eventis sold, and a little bit of
outbound, but it's not primarilya source for outbound.

Andy Luttrell (26:46):
You mentioned rates a couple times, and you're
welcome to speak ingeneralities about this, but I
find that that's like aparticularly opaque part of this
process.
In the few times that I've hadopportunities like this come up,
it's like I couldn't even guessat the number I should quote to
a person.
And so I wonder, sort of havingdone this for a long time and

(27:06):
sort of seeing how trends havechanged, what the current
landscape is, what the sort ofdiversity of rates might be out
in the field, Could you sort ofballpark kind of like at stage
of experience, what kinds ofrates in the domains you're
talking about, what those looklike?

Alison Fragale (27:25):
So, yeah, I mean, I will.
I'm not sure that it matters asmuch about experience as you.
think in the sense that I'lltell you, I'm happy to talk
about what are rates that I'mquoting now, but when people

(27:45):
tell me no, it's not normallythe idea of oh no for that money
we could go get somebody betterthan you it's more we don't
have that money we're nowhereclose to having that money and
so if i'm going to recommendsomeone to them someone who
would be cheaper who wouldchoose to be cheaper and that
person might choose to becheaper because they're just
starting out and they don't havethen they're willing to do it

(28:08):
for less because they just wantto get enough people who have
seen them to tell their friends.
But what I always tell peopleis when people tell their
friends, they're also going totell them what they paid for
you.
So it's not as necessarily aseasy to then do it 10 times for
$5,000 and then say, I'm goingto up my rates.
This is how I think about it,and everybody is different.

(28:33):
You know, I now am the pointwhere this is, there's wear and
tear to this.
I mean, I just got back fromMarch.
I only slept in my bed inChicago two nights in March.
Now, two weeks of that, I tookmy family on my kids' spring
break.
But the first two weeks of thatwere city to city to city to
city because it was Women'sHistory Month, and I just packed

(28:53):
it all in.
And it's a lot, like, takingone suit and just, like, hauling
yourself all the way across thecountry.
It feels just like a Tom Hanksmovie.
And it's like a wear and tear.
It's hard on my family.
It's hard on me.
And so I feel like if I'm goingto do that, It has to be worth

(29:16):
my time.
And the way I think about it ishalf the people should tell me
now.
My goal is not to close everyperson who's interested in
having me speak.
If I were independently wealthyand retired and my kids were
gone, maybe that would be a funway to spend my time is just
going.
I mean, I get hundreds ofinquiries and most of them go
nowhere because they don't havethe budget.
So I think half the peopleshould turn me down.

(29:38):
So I kind of price myself atleast that way.
And I mean, the numbers thatI...
Like what I'm doing right nowis generally $30,000 for
in-person, about $15,000 forvirtual.
There are reasons I willdeviate from that, higher or
lower, based on what's going on.
But those are typical numbers.
I did up them since the book.

(30:00):
I was very cheap when I was inpre-sale for the book because I
was trying to get the word ofthe book out there.
So I was speaking almost forfree in exchange for advanced
purchases on the book.
And so I can change it based onwhat I want to do.
But my feeling of where I am inmy life with having three kids,
um, other responsibilities isif I'm going to get on a plane

(30:22):
and go somewhere.
And there are often, um, likeyou have to account that the
story I told you about how itworks is the best case scenario.
Like there's all kinds of otherstuff, right?
Your flight gets canceled andyou end up spending an extra two
days out of town.
You end up with a client whohas a a very difficult legal

(30:42):
department that wants to legalreview everything and have a
conversation with you aboutevery single word on every
single slide.
And now you've spent two daysreworking everything.
Things like different things.
So there's always theseheadaches that come in and the
headaches are essentially pricedinto thinking about the work.
So that's how I think about it.
And there's lots of people whocannot pay that.

(31:04):
But I generally don't get thefeedback of, oh, for that money,
I could go get, you I don'twant you, which they can't.
But it's more like my budgetwas $3,000.
And so in that case, if I knowanybody who would even do
something like it, I'll referthem out.

(31:24):
I think what I would do if Iwere starting out is I would
think about a couple things.
How much do you want the work?
This is just basic negotiation101, and I'm fortunate that I
teach this stuff.
If the idea of them walkingaway is really bad to you, well,
then I'd be more conservativein my pricing.
But if you think, hey, I'm onlywilling to do this if it's a

(31:47):
win for me, and price it suchthat I'll be disappointed if
they say no, but I'm okay ifthey say no, because I'd rather
have a bunch of no's and do oneevent for 30 than three events
for 10.
That's my philosophy.
I have other people I know whodo not think that way.

(32:07):
They think trying to close asmany events as they can is the
way to go.
I would talk to people who havedone it before you, and I would
think about it and ask themwhat they do.
And Everything's an experiment.
I mean, that's one thing Iremember talking to Annie Duke
about, who's a great academicand writer and speaker.

(32:28):
And she said, you know, if Iwant to raise my rates, I don't
have to raise my rates toeverybody into perpetuity.
I try it a couple of times andsee what kind of reaction I get.
And she said, that's how Ilearned to raise my rates
because I did it.
And I choked on the words acouple of times and people
didn't.
blink and I'm like, oh, clearlyI should be raising my rates.
So you don't have to doeverything all the time.
You try it once, see whathappens.
So I would call a friend whodoes something like this, ask

(32:49):
for a number and then say,that's my number.
And if people don't like it,then that deal is going to go
away and you can decide the nextone, what you want to do about
it.
Do you want to try to loweryour number?
Do you want to hang with yournumber?
So it's, it's a bunch ofexperimentation, but my
philosophy is half the peopleshould tell me that I'm too
expensive because I'd rather dohalf the events at twice the

(33:09):
price based on where I am in mypersonal life.

Andy Luttrell (33:12):
Are you baking travel and lodging into the
rates that you're quoting orthose are negotiated as a
separate

Alison Fragale (33:18):
thing?
So I do bake them in typicallybecause I hate tracking what
I've paid for everything andthen having the other problem of
reimbursing.
So if I need to get reimbursedfor my travel expenses, that
means I need to do one of twothings.
Either invoice them for thewhole thing afterward, event
plus travel, or invoice them forthe event and then come back

(33:40):
afterward and send them a $633invoice on a $30,000 bill, which
to me feels annoying to me andweird to them.
So I personally price it all inand I say, 30,000 gets me to
you.
Um, I sometimes price in booksif I know they want books and do
it as a flat rate rather thanask for a book buy on top.

(34:01):
And I just say like, you pay meonce, the price is this.
And I appreciate that.
clarity, and I thinkorganizations do too, but I do
think I'm unique in that regard.
Talking to my speakers bureau,most people invoice for their
travel separately.
I just don't want to deal withit.

Andy Luttrell (34:16):
This is all, I want to make sure that we have
some time to also talk aboutlike the content, like what
you're actually presenting.
This has all been super, superhelpful.
And one thing just to put a pinin is in terms of how you've
learned this stuff, my sensefrom talking to you so far is
that most of it has been throughexperience and through talking
to people who do it.
It's I mean, that seems to belargely where you're coming to,

(34:40):
how you navigate this world.
Yeah,

Alison Fragale (34:42):
I mean, I'm 20, like most of us, I'm 20 years
into being an academic.
I've never been taught anythingabout teaching, whether it's
degree teaching or professionalspeaking.
You just figure it out.
So yes, it is all self, youknow, hard knocks, as they would
say.

Andy Luttrell (34:55):
So yeah, so let's talk about developing a talk.
You're a very good speaker,having seen, I will say, I
mentioned this earlier, thatlike I started watching one of
the talks that you have online,and I was, I kind of felt this
moment of like oh I'm investedlike I didn't I didn't actually
expect to be invested in thistalk but you've constructed
things and presented them insuch a way that it was like it
was done very well right so Iwant to get a sense of like when

(35:19):
you're building this what areyou thinking about and in
particular and maybe we can holdoff on this for a moment but
but like how the science comesinto it because that's
ultimately kind of where theinterest of this podcast comes
in but even just like blankslate, you're going to have to
fill 60 minutes.
I'm guessing you're not doingthis fresh every time you go fly

(35:43):
somewhere.
But like when you're thinkingabout, okay, I'm like, I'm going
to develop a new 60 minutekeynote.
Where, what is step one?

Alison Fragale (35:54):
So I don't, my process, it might be more
systematic or might besystematic.
It doesn't feel very systematicto me, but here's the things.
There's three things I alwayscare about in anything I do.
that is like any any educationis it has to be evidence-based

(36:15):
it has to be very practical andit has to be fun and I think of
that it's true for my degreeclasses but I certainly think
that's true for professionaldevelopment no one has been
committed a crime to come toyour event right they should
leave thinking that was a reallygood time that was fun and I
learned some things that I coulduse tomorrow that's typically
what people want so when I thinkabout people who are kind of

(36:36):
so-so or they struggle, I thinkthey struggle on those two
things.
They don't struggle for thescience.
Everyone has a ton of knowledgein science, but it's, can I
turn that into something youcould really use?
And can I be practical enough?
Because as academics, we're notrewarded for practicality.
There's no place in ouracademic writing where we get to
talk about the practicalimplications of what we're doing
to the level that apractitioner would want it.

(36:56):
And then is it fun?
So I always think about, youknow, I'll have my topics.
If someone wants me to talkabout influence without
authority.
They want me to talk aboutnegotiation.
They want me to talk about mybook, whatever.
To me, having an opening hookor story or something that is
interesting is really, reallyimportant.

(37:16):
Getting into it, it's likewriting the first page of your
book is the hardest.
What's the entry point?
So for me, that'll either be areally entertaining study, an
anecdote of mine or someoneelse's that supports the point,
something like that that's goingto be generally humorous, make
people laugh, but it's thengoing to end with, here's a
lesson from that.

(37:36):
And then that is a transitionpoint to thinking about, okay,
so that's why we're here todayto talk about this topic.
And then I tend to be more,here's some science.
The A, B, and C are true.
If A, B, and C are true, thenhow could you use A, B, and C to
show up?
uh in a way that would behelpful to you and hear a

(38:00):
variety of examples of what thatmeans with it with stories
brought in so opening hookscience practical strategies um
and then some type of closing ium and like i've seen speakers
who i think have much moreinspirational closings than i do

(38:24):
i don't really have like a youknow remember the titans kind of
speech at the end of it um buti have a very professorly like
here's how you can practicethese things here's how you
could leave this room and if youwere inspired to do more about
this here's what you could dooutside this room in the next
week that that could help youand that's pretty typical format
for a talk of of mine but um tome the things that make the

(38:46):
talk work are the stories andthe practical advice.
And once you have some ofthose, that's why I'm very, very
reluctant to ever change themup.
I don't change them up all thatoften because once you know
they work, those are the onesthat make the talk feel fun.

Andy Luttrell (39:04):
And how are you cracking those?
You're right that those are thetwo pieces that we're not
handed, right?
I know how to use GoogleScholar.
I know how to find the science.
In terms of turning that intosomething practical, And in
particular, the stories whereit's just like, I mean, where
are those coming from exactly?

(39:24):
And I'm sure the answer is amillion places.
But as you think about it,tangibly, like, what are you
doing that helps those parts ofthe process happen?
A

Alison Fragale (39:36):
lot of the stories for the longest time
would be stories from my ownlife.
Once I had a book and I did...
book research that brought inother people's stories, I can
use them.
But I'll just give you veryspecific examples.
When I talk about talks onnegotiation for women, my
opening story is a story aboutgoing to one of my kid's

(39:59):
friend's birthday parties atDave and Buster's, the arcade,
and seeing my friend's childreally upset because he lost his
ticket with a card with all histickets on it, and how my
friend was just telling him,don't worry about it, and he was
upset.
And when I saw that he had losthis ticket, I went into the
manager and essentially arguedwith them until they would give

(40:21):
me a replacement card that hadthe same amount of tickets on
it.
And the moral of the story isthat My friend who was trying to
console her child, she is thehead of litigation for a
national law firm.
And so she's a very fiercenegotiator, and she's very, very
tough and very, very assertive,every bit as much as I am.
But in that moment, we had twovery different reactions to this

(40:44):
problem.
She was basically telling herkid, don't worry about it.
It's fine.
You can go without.
And I was saying, that'snonsense.
We're not doing that.
And we're going to replace thisticket.
I'm just going to go in thereand make it happen.
And that that wasn't apersonality difference.
The main difference was that itwasn't my kid.
And that licensed me to be alot more assertive.
So I tell a long version ofthis story.
Then that leads me to talkabout some science.

(41:06):
So that's my entry point intosaying, okay, what do we know in
negotiations that when womenare negotiating on behalf of
other people, they outperformmale negotiators, but when
they're negotiating for the fora benefit that pertains to the
self, they underperform malenegotiators.
And so I link that story tothat I put up this chart from
the researchers, that is the barchart.

(41:27):
And then that's my entry pointinto thinking about, let's think
about how do we make women keepthe part where they're really
good advocates for other people,but how do we bring them up on
being good advocates forthemselves?
And so now I'm in to let's dothat.
So it's this story of my ownlife.
The talk that I'm giving a lotnow on the book, I start with a

(41:48):
post from LinkedIn that I didinclude in the book that's not
my post, but one that cracked meup, that is a woman, and she
wrote, women really only wantthree things, equal pay,
respect, and pockets.
And so I start with that, it'smy opening slide, people laugh,
and then I talk about pay andrespect as power and status
which are the two things I studyand the fact that power has

(42:09):
long been at the top and statushas been second and it's time to
flip the order so I always havesomething that's often from me
but not always exclusively aboutme that I've come into contact
with that can give me anentryway to saying what's the
thing I really want to tell themso if I have a talk and I want
to say power and status are twodifferent things and we've been

(42:30):
caring too much about power andtoo much about too little about
status that's the point that Iwant to make, how do I get
people on board with that interms of a story?
So I'll often have to thinkabout those kind of things.
But most of them come from me.
I'm not a Google searchingstory.
It's something that I've heardof.
But over time, you collectthose things.

(42:51):
And it's the same way you learnto teach.
So in this sense, if you'vebeen teaching for a while, you
have your stories, the ones thatbring the point home or the
thing about you that illustratesor whatever.
And that's often where I'llstart is how do I teach?
in the classroom, is theresomething I could bring in there
as a story?

Andy Luttrell (43:07):
Are you sitting down and writing out the talk?
Is it storyboarded or is itjust sort of like, I'm going to
jazz it for the first threetimes and then it'll lock in and
I just have it?

Alison Fragale (43:22):
I tend to storyboard through my slides.
So I have been over the yearsspoken without slides, but I
never do it if I have a choicebecause my slides are my...
you know, they are my roadmap.
And even when I'm in a talk, Idon't have to have the whole
thing.
I just need to know like thisslide, I say this, and then the
next slide, I say that, andvoila, 45 minutes go by.

(43:43):
So I use my slides and I blockit that way.
So as I'm building a talk, I amusing PowerPoint.
And even if I'm not designingit, I'm like a slide that makes
the point that blah blah blahgoes here and i put that and
that helps me think about theorder then i can slide them
around in powerpoint and be likeokay that's our sequence and
then i'll go back and make theslides actually pretty and ready

(44:05):
for you know, prime time, butI'll use the PowerPoint and the
shuffling of slides.
And I've done that in my degreeteaching since day one.
That was always how I thoughtabout a class was, okay, what
needs to be in here?
What's the order?
How much do we have room for?
And then yes, over time, onceI've done something again and
again and again, I will edit.
That took too long.

(44:26):
I was really rushed for time atthe end.
Something needs to come out.
That slide is too texty.
That story is too convoluted.
You know, that stuff getsedited.

Andy Luttrell (44:35):
Is the feedback for that like are you recording
yourself are you are you doingplay-by-plays with yourself
afterward waiting for people totell you or just you can just
kind of feel it in the momentthat like I'm gonna make a
mental note that like this istaking too long

Alison Fragale (44:51):
um now that I've been doing it this long I um
can just feel it and rememberit.
When I first started out 20years ago, I scripted
everything, literallyeverything.
I wrote a full on script as ifmy talk were a book and I would
memorize it page by page.
And so that I felt like I wasnever going to forget anything.
And it took me a couple ofyears of comfort.

(45:11):
And now I'm comfortable enoughwith it that especially if I'm
doing something more than once,I'm good without that.
But what I normally do when Igo give a talk is I take the
PowerPoint, I printed out sixslides to a I almost always take
that with me unless it's a talkI can give in my sleep and I'm
on the plane or going over I'mreviewing like is there anything

(45:32):
that I've put in here that'snew that's a transition that I
have to do etc and I'll havethat in my And so after a talk,
if there's something noteworthythat's happened that I want to
do, I'll make a note of it onthat slide handout that I have
to get to stick it back in mybag.
And when I'm back at my deskafter all of that, I'll either
note it in that PowerPointdocument or I'll like if I know

(45:54):
I want to make a change, I'llchange it.
And that way I'll have it fornext time.

Andy Luttrell (45:57):
I'm curious, too, when you have like a brand new
something that's like fairlybrand new.
Yeah.
in what way are you likepreparing in like a sort of
formal rehearsal way?
The spirit of this comes from,so in grad school, I did a lot
of standup comedy.
That was like a hobby that keptme sane through grad school.
And the whole likeinfrastructure of open mics as
step one, I like have come to soappreciate that as like part of

(46:23):
the process.
But it can be hard if you golike, well, I am booked to give
a 60 minute talk and it's alllike, I haven't done that
before.
you know, is there anythingthat you're doing to sort of
like get ready or like run itcold in front of someone?
Or is it just sort of like, Ifeel like I know what I'm about
to do.

(46:43):
So we're just going to do thatand see how it goes.

Alison Fragale (46:47):
So now I'm more of the latter.
When I was, before I got asense, you know, of how much
things go, I will definitely, ifthere's new content, i will
rehearse it a little bit my timenow i'm not normally having to
rehearse a whole talk start tofinish because there'll be
elements built in that i knowreally well and then maybe some
new elements so i just did atalk last month for a group that

(47:09):
was predominantly male, butthey wanted me to talk about the
book, and it was a little moresenior, so I had to talk about
the book, but in a different waythan I would if I was talking
to an audience of women.
So I knew the content, but Idid put in a couple of, each
slide I knew, but each slide wasa bit of a surprise of, wait,
what order are they in?
So I had to prep thosetransitions a little bit, but
I'm now practicing if I can dothat generally the morning of.

(47:31):
There are definitely times whenI get caught, I'm doing
something new, and I don'texactly know how much time it's
gonna take.
I always have afraid like manyacademics that you're going to
run out of things to say.
And I think like everybodyelse, it's never happened once.
If any, you know, you get to aclass and you're like, there's
still 63 slides and I've gotfour minutes left.
So one thing I've learned overtime is you always have enough.

(47:54):
So don't worry about stuffingit in.
And I, you know, keep an eye onmy watch as I'm going and I get
a sense of where I am.
And I definitely don't.
you know, I will learn, I'velearned how to speed up without
making it look like I'm speedingup.
So, you know, not to say like,we're going to skip these three
things because we're late ontime or we're running behind
here.
I hate when people do that.
I just think I need to make itlook flawless.

(48:15):
Like everything I did was theexact thing I got up and planned
to do.
Sometimes I'm just likeclicking through really fast and
then things I'm going to skipbecause I realized I've overdone
it.
I've got too much.
And then I think about, okay,what's, as I'm talking, I'm
like, what do I really need tosay here?
But all of that comes withexperience.
So at used to be a lot more, Iwould time it out, make sure it
was going to fit in the allottedtime.

(48:36):
But I do that less now.

Andy Luttrell (48:38):
And just by way of wrapping up, I'm thinking of
like lessons learned, havingdone plenty of these.
As you think back to thespeaker you once were, are there
sort of a couple things you canpoint to as like, oh, I
definitely thought this is howyou do it.
And that's not what people wantfrom a talk like this.

Alison Fragale (48:58):
Yeah, I think that, um, Personality,
confidence, a voice that peoplecan hear and sounds like it
knows what it's doing carriesyou most of the way.
I was a lot more tentative.
I was looking a lot forreassurance.
Audiences are impossible toread.
At any given time, there's likesomeone sleeping, someone on

(49:20):
their phone, someone noddingenthusiastically.
If you look too much into theireyes, it'll just drive you
insane in terms of wondering,are they enjoying this or not?
So I've learned to just likealmost look at them, but not
look at them.
But...
If you get up and you haveenergy and you are excited to be
there and you are smiling,people are excited and it

(49:40):
doesn't really matter whatyou're talking about.
And so that piece of it ofrealizing that if I get up and I
think you're a human being thatI'm super excited to be talking
to today, just like if I sawyou on the street, I can make
you interested in pretty mucheverything.
And so the idea of like thetalk doesn't win because the
science is the best science andthe strategy is the best

(50:01):
strategies and the tips are thebest tips.
It wins because you bring apresence that people connect
with.
And if you can do that, I seelots of people giving talks for
lots more dollars than I am.
And for the life of me, I don'tthink there's any content in
these things at all, personally.
Like as an academic who hasacademic standards, I'm like,

(50:21):
this is nonsense.
But people love it because why?
The person gets up there andthey're just like, ta-da! They
tell a great story and they saysomething inspirational.
So what I think about that isthat doesn't I don't have to
exactly be them but what arethey doing that is the people
are enjoying that I enjoy whenI'm in an audience they're

(50:42):
bringing energy they're bringingconfidence they're bringing you
know some fun and so if you dothat I think that's the big
transition of like we want to befun in our classrooms too but
you you can get away without notdoing that you can't really get
away with doing that in this inthis context so that I think is
the biggest thing if peoplework on their stage presence

(51:02):
like if you're a stand-upcomedian You're like, I know
what it means.
Like stage presence.
It's not that the joke.
it's not whether the joke isfunny, it's how you deliver it,
right?
So, and you can't make a badjoke good, but you could make a
good joke bad with bad delivery.
So that, I think that'ssomething that is now I realize
is much more and why I've beensuccessful is people are always

(51:24):
like, oh, you're so energetic.
You're so down to earth.
You're so easy to like interactwith.
None of the things they thinkthey're getting with an
academic.
And I think that that issomething that I under, focused
on when I was starting.
And now I think that's thething.
I know that I have the academicrigor.
I know that I have the adviceto offer to people.

(51:45):
Pairing it with the stagepresence is the big thing.

Andy Luttrell (51:49):
That's great.
I want to respect your time,but also just want to say this
was great.
I appreciate you getting intothe weeds with me on all of
this.
This is exactly what I waslooking for.
So thanks.

Alison Fragale (52:00):
My pleasure.

Andy Luttrell (52:03):
Thank you.
you Thank you to Alison Fregalefor taking the time to talk
about talking.
As always, check out theepisode webpage for a link to
her website and also her newbestselling book.
I'll also link to a recordingof one of her talks, which

(52:24):
highlights some of the pointsthat she made when we chatted.
This series on sciencecommunication is a special
presentation of my podcast,Opinion Science, a show about
the science of our opinions,where they come from, and how we
talk about them.
You can subscribe any old placewhere they have podcasts and be
sure to check outopinionsciencepodcast.com for
links to things that come up inthis episode and ways to support

(52:46):
the show.
And whoever you are, I hopeyou're enjoying the show.
And I'm hoping this summerseries will reach folks with a
keen interest in sciencecommunication.
So please tell people about it.
Post online, email a friend,make a poster and stick it to a
wall.
These are wild times, and Ithink it's more important than
ever to help the worldunderstand good science and

(53:06):
champion its value.
So let's all make an effort toget better at doing that.
Okie doke.
Thank you so much forlistening, and I'll see you next
week for more SciComm Summer.

Joe Palca (53:17):
I have a talk I give called Explaining the Universe
in Two Minutes or Less.
And what I try to point out isthat for the non-specialist, you
can explain a lot about stuffin two minutes.
You can.
There's a aren't aware of.

(53:38):
And if I just tell them, oh,did you know that galaxies are
moving away from us atincredible speeds?
And the further away they are,the more, the further, the
faster they're moving.
Hmm.
What does that mean?
What, you know, what does thattell us?
What's going on with that?
Well, a lot.

(53:59):
But I've just told you afactoid that's kind of
interesting.
It wasn't, didn't take me aminute to to relate that to you,
and yet it's fundamentallypowerful and thought-provoking.
I'm Joe Palca, formerly NPRradio correspondent.