Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies

How do you turn an overlooked pattern or experience into a thought leadership message that changes how your audience sees themselves and the world around them?

One of the most powerful things a speaker can do is make the invisible visible.

In this Back Stage with Speaking Your Brand live show, our lead speaking coach Diane Diaz hosts three of our recent Thought Leader Academy grads, Stephanie Warner, Noa Stisin, and Carolyn Clow, as ...

If you want more speaking invitations, it’s tempting to think the answer is more pitching, more social posts, and more cold outreach. 

But event organizers are receiving more speaker submissions than ever. Being one more qualified person in the pile isn’t enough. 

You need parts of your talk that people can remember, describe, and refer.

I call these Signature Stage Segments: intentionally crafted mom...

What stays with you after a speaking retreat - once the filming is over, the notes are back in your hands, and you're home again?

We could tell you what happens at one of our in-person speaking retreats and workshops. 

Instead, our lead speaking coach Diane Diaz sits down with three women who experienced it: scientist and registered dietitian Dr. Karen Corbin, physician and health equity consultant Dr. Nicole Rochester, and emot...

If you've been telling yourself you'll pitch the conference, keynote, or TEDx talk once you feel more confident, I want you to reconsider the order. 

Public speaking isn't something you do after you become confident. It's one of the ways confidence is created.

I’m sharing three practical ways to build real speaking confidence: say yes and get the reps, experiment with different formats and time constraints, and use...

If you’re exhausted by creating a brand-new presentation every time you’re invited to speak, I get it. You want the talk to fit the audience. But customizing your message is very different from reinventing it.

In this episode, I’m joined by our coaches Diane Diaz and Erin Mark to talk about how we each use one foundational signature talk across different audiences, industries, and formats.

Erin shares how she ad...

What if the most important sales moments connected to your speaking engagement happen before you step on stage and in the first few minutes after you step off?

My guest, sales strategist Nikki Rausch, has been my go-to coach for sales language, proposals, pricing, consultation calls, and follow-up for years. 

In this conversation, we walk through the entire speaking engagement from the first inquiry to the conversations that hap...

When you hear “executive presence,” do you picture someone walking into a boardroom looking polished, confident, and completely certain of what to say?

My guest, Mary E. Maloney, sees it differently. 

Executive presence matters most when you’re in the middle of a high-stakes identity shift, such as after a promotion, a career change, the sale of a business, a retirement, or an unexpected ending. 

Mary calls...

When someone asks what you speak about, do you give them one clear answer - or a list that includes a bunch of keywords like leadership, communication, resilience, confidence, and change?

I understand the temptation to include everything. 

When you’ve had a long career, narrowing your message can feel like leaving out valuable parts of your experience. 

But if the person you’re talking with can’...

AI can give you an answer. But it can’t be genuinely curious about you.

In this episode, I’m joined by our lead speaking coach, Diane Diaz, to explore why curiosity is essential for developing a compelling thought leadership message and signature talk, especially in an age when AI can quickly produce polished but often predictable content.

Diane shares a powerful analogy about browsing library stacks: You may begin by loo...

If people leave your talk thinking, “She really knows her stuff,” that feels good. But it doesn’t necessarily make you memorable, referable, or bookable.

In this fourth and final episode of my Expert Trap series, I’m looking at three things you may be saying yes to (more content, neutrality, and the wrong room) and the identity questions underneath each one. I’ve done all three, and I still have to watc...

If you love facilitating workshops and trainings, but you know there’s something more you want to say, this episode is for you.

My guest is Corrin McCloskey, a healthcare executive, speaker, writer, and facilitator who has made the leap from being a fabulous facilitator into a true thought leader. 

Corrin joined us in Thought Leader Academy in January 2025, and in the year and a half since then, she has spoken at m...

I love using AI, and I use it almost every day. But when it comes to thought leadership, talks, and presentations, I’ve also seen how easy it is for AI to pull us into a new version of the Expert Trap.

In this episode, I’m sharing three things to be careful about when using AI for your talks, from my own recent experiences with clients, including why it can miss the deeper signal in your message, strip away your natu...

Have you ever given a talk that people loved in the moment but nothing happened afterward?

The audience took notes. They told you how valuable your presentation was. But you didn't get the next speaking invitation, new clients, or bigger opportunities.

In this episode, I explain what I call the Expert Trap: the place where expertise becomes the very thing holding you back from becoming a thought leader.

I share the three s...

You can give a great presentation, get lots of compliments afterward, and still walk away with zero leads.

Why? Because most speakers approach their talks like teachers instead of marketers.

In this episode, Diane Diaz and I share how to create presentations that generate interest, build trust, and lead to clients, without feeling salesy or violating the dreaded "no selling from the stage" rule.

We talk about why audiences don't need ...

Your marketing may not be broken. It may just be missing a signature talk.

In this episode, Diane Diaz and I share why speaking is one of the most effective marketing tools available today and why a well-crafted signature talk can become the foundation for your visibility, lead generation, and thought leadership strategy.

We talk about how speaking accelerates the know-like-trust factor in ways that social media and other marketing c...

How do you name a book, a framework, or even a business in a way that captures the essence of what you do?

After struggling with the title of my book for years, I turned to brand strategist and naming expert Rebeca Arbona for help. What happened next surprised me: in less than an hour, she found the title that had been hiding in plain sight.

In this conversation, we pull back the curtain on the art and strategy of naming. Reb...

You may be closer to your next speaking opportunity than you think.

With so many people submitting speaker applications and using AI to generate proposals, standing out has become harder than ever. But there's one thing AI can't replicate: genuine relationships.

In this episode, Diane Diaz and I talk about why some of the best speaking opportunities, keynote invitations, media appearances, and client referrals come not from c...

What if the stories you’ve dismissed as “not important enough” are actually the ones your audience needs most?

Erin Mark and I explore why storytelling is the bridge between expertise and transformation and why audiences connect far more deeply with emotion, struggle, and humanity than with information alone. 

Erin shares how she took her deeply personal experience living with cystic fibrosis and transforme...

In this episode, I sit down with Teri DeLucca for a candid conversation about what really happens behind the scenes in the speaking industry, from getting your first speaking engagements to negotiating fees, navigating “pay-to-play” conferences, and building the confidence to take bigger stages.

Teri shares how she went from feeling intimidated and unsure if she belonged on stage to becoming an in-demand speaker trav...