January 18, 2025 • 28 mins
Bobbie Carlton is the founder of Carlton PR & Marketing, Innovation Nights and Innovation Women, or, as she calls them, the day job, the night job and the dream job. Carlton is an entertaining, tell-it-like-it-is speaker who speaks extensively (and passionately) about public speaking and how it can be the driving force behind career growth and business success. She's a TEDx speaker; an entertaining startup event host; she's spoken at the United Nations; she's shared the stage with storytelling legend (and NPR's Snap Judgment host) Glynn Washington; and she's been on the main stage for some of the world’s best-known conferences for technical and professional women. Carlton has been featured on CBS News, in the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, USA Today and other major media. She was previously the head of global PR at two different enterprise software companies and the head of marketing for a brand devoted to providing positive role models for preteen girls. She’s inspired thousands of technical, entrepreneurial and executive women to take control of their own speaking careers and has worked with event managers around the world to deliver diverse and inclusive events. More information about Innovation Women: https://innovationwomen.com/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, everybody, Welcome to the Best Ever You Show. I'm
Elizabeth here with doctor Katie Eastman, my co host, and
our guest Bobby Carlton.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Bobby, Hi, how are you Hi? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Yeah, Katie, how are you?
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Good to see you, Bobby, good to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Good to be here. Yeah. Katie and I talk like
every minute of the day. So good to see you again, Katie.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Yeah, good to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
You know, we are new to Riverside FM here and
we're I'm having a little bit of a giggle before
we go on here. Katie's like, oh my gosh, my lighting,
and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm I'm much shorter
than you guys in the video, and Bobby's We're all
talking about the really good video quality that we have here,
showing every wrinkle and gray hair and every everything.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I miss. Zoom touch up my appearance.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yes, that's what's missing. Okays, it don't look like this
on Zoom.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I know. Zoom is our friend.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Is our frienduzzy fuzzy filter. Yeah. And my son for Christmas,
He's like, Mom, I got you a new camera. It's
like four K and blah blah blah. I'm like, oh great,
thank you, thank you. Yeah the twist anyway, yeah, and
we're all in our home offices. So yeah, so anyway,
it's it's it's great to have you here, Bobby. What
(01:25):
a treat it is. Bobby is the founder of Carlton
PR and Marketing Innovation Innovation. I'm sorry, I want to
say Innovation Women is what I want to say.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Katie.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
You're a member and I'm a budding member.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
And I don't want to know all.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I just want to give the Florida Bobby and have
it tell us all about her.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
So Innovation Women is actually my third company. I usually
tell people The day job is I run Carlton PR Marketing.
That's how I make an actual living. The night job
for many years was something called Mass Innovation Nights, which
was a monthly new product launch event driven by social
media help promote local startups. And then Innovation Women is
(02:06):
the dream job. It's the dream of getting more women
on stage at conferences and events because two thirds of
all conference speakers are men, and it leaves women out
of all kinds of business and career opportunities.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
It sure does. I just met you at the main
conference for women actually, and you gave such a fascinating talk.
Why is it that women aren't part of the speaking
circuit so much.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
There's a lot of actual systemic reasons for that. One
of them is speaking begets speaking. The more speaking you do,
the more speaking you will do, and so older patterns
kind of perpetuate. And if you're looking at this from
an event manager perspective, they are asking for brand names,
(02:53):
recognizable faces, people they know the heads of company is
the c suite, and you know if you define who
you want on your stage by the c suite from
the Fortune five hundred, very small number of women there.
But there's actually a lot of reasons. Even at the
(03:15):
smaller company size, more women work part time, women are
more likely to work for smaller companies, and women are
still more likely to be responsible for kids and home.
So if you get asked to speak, you know, it's
hard to be the morning keynote speaker. If you've got
to put little Johnny on the bus at eight am.
(03:38):
It's hard to get away for three days, which is
what it would take to travel to a conference to
speak and then come back. If you only work three
days a week, and if you work for a smaller company,
that company probably can't afford to send you to a
conference for three days. There's nobody to backfill for you,
(03:59):
and they might not have the money for the travel
and all the expenses.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Associated with it. So systemic reasons included what do you think, Katie?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I think I've gotten lots of leads from being part
of Innovation Women for speaking options that I never would
have found. I think Innovation Women has a wonderful opportunity
for authors as well. You've got a section where we
can identify ourselves as with our books, and there's also
(04:30):
a place where we can reach out and announce and
say what's on our minds and what we're thinking about,
and hey, is there anybody out there who wants to
talk about that? A lot of options Innovation Women offers,
and I think just Bobby's brilliant and I think what
she's done is huge, and I'm grateful, very grateful for
somebody like me who was just how would I get
(04:50):
out there?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Yeah, I mean Innovation Women has a profile for each speaker,
a searchable database for event managers to come in and
search for speed. We also have a database of opportunities
that our speakers can apply to we have the what
we call the green Room, which is where all of
our education is. And we have the Innovation Women Network,
(05:14):
which is an online community so our speakers can network
with each other.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Tell me I'm going to go back. I'm taking you
back to kindergarten like we do sometimes on this show.
Were you you the kid who was always piping up
and loved public speaking?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
No, I'm an introvert. Seriously, I'm an introvert. I think that.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
The skill set for somebody in my position, so longtime
pr person. I'm really good at research, I'm really good
at writing. Are these are my superpowers? And public speaking
was something that I did with other people. I got
them on stage. I continue to do that. I always
tell people I'm one of the theater kids, you know,
(05:56):
like always out there. But my job in the theater
was I was the spotlight operator.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I was the.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Person who was hiding out in the rafters shining a
spotlight on the star of the show. I was not
the singing and dancing on the stage kind of person.
And I discovered when I started my second company that
I needed to be front and center in order to
connect with customers and partners.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I needed to be.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
The theater kid on the stage versus the one in
the back room in order to move my business forward.
And the first event that we did for Innovation Nights,
I was awful. I mean seriously hot mess. And it
was a social media powered event and everybody had their
(06:49):
cameras out and video lots of evidence of me being
a hot mess. So it was a situation where you
look at those pictures, you look at that video, and
you say, I get better at this or I die.
And I chose to get better. Practice really helps.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Here's a question. How do you get the practice though?
If nobody puts you on their.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
Stage, Sometimes you got to make your own stage, which
is really what I did with Innovation Nights. I ran
Innovation Nights actively for eleven years. We had a monthly event,
undured in thirty five events, and every single month I
was the MC, I was the host, and I was
literally doing the same thing every single month. And as
(07:35):
I did it again and again and again, I got
better at it, and pretty soon people were asking me, oh,
can you come and speak at my event? Really me,
And then you know, it kind of dawned on me,
Oh you've gotten better at what you were doing. People
do want you to speak? I think some of it
(07:56):
for many people. If you can't create your own stages, yes,
you can start smaller. One of the recommendations I usually
give to people is, if you need that dip your
toe in opportunity, ask a question from the audience that
the next conference that you're at. If you think about it,
(08:17):
you're probably talking to the exact same audience that the
people on stage were speaking to. And you've got a short,
little punctuation of a moment. You get to identify yourself,
this is my company, ask my question, and then you
can sit down and disappear into the audience. But you
(08:38):
just spoke to the exact same audience that the folks
on stage spoke to.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeh, it's your turnd way to start.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Well, I'm Bobby, I'm the theater kid who is on
stage and more power to have given. Yeah, And you have
given me a stage that I would not have otherwise had,
And I'm most grateful for that because I'm one of
those people who doesn't shy away from being a speaker,
loves it, eats it up. But just how do I
(09:09):
get there? So I really encourage people to become part
of innovation women because it gives you your stage. It
helps you find your stage where you fit.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
We also do a thing called speaker Friend Fridays, a
zoom call every week and for a lot of people
I know they've said that for them, that was their
first stage, introducing themselves, asking a question, answering someone else's question.
It's all virtual, it's online, but it's good practice.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, great practice. I'm not the theater kid. I'm probably
more the math and science and writing girl, behind the
scenes of like never on stage kind of thing. But
then I had a TV bug when I was about
eighteen and wanted to be a news anchor and so
my whole backgrounds in the news anchoring and and so
(10:03):
forth industry, So TV reporting and anchoring and stuff like that,
but not theater exactly. But yeah, now it's interesting, so
different backgrounds. Is there a Is there a certain something
that you look for in people to be on stage?
Do you have like if somebody's listening and they're like, Bobby,
I need you, I've got to track you down because
(10:24):
I want to be the keynote of blah blah blah,
or I want to give the commencement address. You know,
something big that they want to do. Do you have
a series of things that you're looking for?
Speaker 4 (10:36):
So that's happen and Women is a platform, It's a
membership group, and what we do is we provide the
services from Innovation Women's Platform to anybody if people are
looking for a way to get more visibility, if they're
looking for a way to build their business, or a
great opportunity for that. The things that I love, I
(11:00):
love to see kind of walking through the door are
people who may be very experienced in business, who may
not have yet utilized all of their vast knowledge.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
From the stage. So I think a lot.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Of people wait too long before they say I am
ready to be a speaker. I am ready to present
at an event.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
We have a lot of.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Women who talk to me about these amazing things that
they have done, and I'm like, why are you not
out there speaking about these It's like I have climbed
this mountain, I have done this amazing thing, and I'm like,
why are.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
You not telling that story? Well, I want to build
my confidence first.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
I'm like, you know what builds confidence like nothing else,
Getting up on stage and telling your story like that is.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
The way to get started.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
It's because we fear we're going to be judged how
how what's our weight, what's our hair? What do we
look like? How old are we?
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Is?
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Everything we're saying perfect is. It's a it's a probably
a processing of self confidence issues going on most of
the time. I think when I talk to people and
they're like, I don't want to do that. People are
gonna see.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Me, you know, I got to say that. You know,
if anybody had a reason to be nervous, it would
be me. But at the same time, I do think
that people we've been told all our lives that speaking
is something to be fearful of. Like there are all
these studies about how speaking is the number one fear.
(12:42):
I think death is like number seven. In other words,
we would rather die than be on stage. But I
think so many of us have heard these stories and
heard about the study that were like, this is something
we're supposed to be nervous about. This is something we're
supposed to be frightened of. And I think we've built
(13:03):
up this fear in our minds to an unreasonable level.
So I don't really like to talk about the fear
aspect of public speaking. I think if you do feel
flushed if you feel a little flutter in the tammy,
like that's excitement, that's not necessarily nervousness.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
I absolutely love what you did in Maine or anybody
that has ever not been on stage or had a
fear of being on stage. You gave everybody equal opportunity
to be up there and just see what it feels
like to be on the stage under the lights and
shine their light upon each other. It was such a
(13:48):
special moment in my life. It was just so I
don't know, there's just something about him, like it was
like one of those, as Katie will say, uplifting other
women moments. It was so powerful. I think about it
all the time.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
That's awesome.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
I've done that a couple of times before, and I
first did it out at the I Tripoli International Leadership
Conference in California several years ago, and it was one
of the last sessions. We didn't have the entire I
don't know, seven thousand people audience there, and I'm like,
(14:26):
all right, anybody who's left here who hasn't yet been
on stage, you want it, come on up. And I
think somebody's about ready to kill me because they were
nervous about the whole stage collapsing. But we got literally
hundreds of people on stage for a big group photo
(14:46):
and people are like, you know what, this is the
first time I've been on stage, and that I think
was like a really good way for some people to
go this is not this is not scary, this is fun.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I'm here with my friends. It was good.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
It was just fabulous. Yeah, Katie.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
And don't you think Bobby that one of the things
that helps people not be as anxious is if they
pick a topic that fits for them, because I think
that is hugely important. And one of the things I
love about when we get leads on Innovation Women is
we tell you what our loves are, our passions, what
(15:24):
we want to speak about, and the leads come to
us based on those themes. And I think it's so
much easier to get up on any stage. Just like
an actress, you know, you've got to be in character,
and you've got to know your character. Well, we have
to know ourselves to know what we're good at speaking about,
and it's what we care about.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
A lot of people to think about public speaking as
I'm going to share my area of expertise, but you
also have to be sharing the things that get you
excited that you're passionate about. It's very hard for the
audience to get excited about something if you're not excited
as this speaker, right, So you have to be excited
(16:06):
about your topic.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
You have to love that topic, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I have an opportunity to speak at the end of
the month in front of a really big group of
student athletes, which is a huge goal of mine forever.
You're one of the reasons why. Yeah, I know. One
of the reasons why I had you on the show
is because it just credits back to that moment of
like being on the stage and having that moment you know,
I got this, I can do this kind of thing.
(16:34):
And so I said yes, and I'm like, oh, what
did I say yes to? No kind of thing? I
had one of those moments of like a no, and
everybody knows it, and I'm cool with it. You know,
it's not my it's not exactly my thing. You know,
I'm more behind the TV kind of thing. I'm like, Okay,
I can do this. So I had the most wonderful
preparatory phone call yesterday to get everybody's ducks in a
(16:57):
row because I'm sharing the stage with Ed Garrity and
I'm like, oh my, you know kind of thing. So
it's a really big deal. And I just thank you, Bobby,
because that I think without that moment, I might have said, no,
I am.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
I worked with a speaker a while ago, who, like
many of us, spent several years, you know, in the
early days of the pandemic and stuff, being alone at
home and doing lots virtually yea, and she said she
really felt like she lost the muscle, the memory of
being on stage in front of real humans. And we
(17:32):
got her an opportunity to be on stage at a
pretty major event, and she got up during the dress
rehearsal and just froze. And I was like, yeah, come here,
we're going to go and find all the empty rooms
at this conference, and you're going to hop up on
that stage and you're going to give that presentation to me.
And we probably bopped in and out of, you know,
(17:55):
five to ten different rooms over the course.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Of a day.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
And at the end of the day, she got up
and she nailed that presentation. She was so good, and
it was literally just you know, the muscle memory of
being on stage it came back.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
But you know, also the love and support of you.
I think there's a when you meet Bobby in person,
which I hope you all have the moment too. There's
a warmth to you that I have trouble putting words to.
I immediately didn't. Katie immediately called you, and I'm like,
oh my god, I'm at the coolest person. Yeah. Yeah,
she's so warm because you could be like, eh, I
(18:32):
don't have time for you, you know, you know kind
of thing, and I was scared at first. I'm like, oh, please,
don't do that to me because I kind of love you, you know.
And so I got the love back and it was
so lovely. It just was just warm and friendly, and
I watched you operate and you did that with everybody
and it was refreshing.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
It was interesting because I did my presentation that day twice,
so I think I met you upstairs while we were
in giving the presentation in the smaller room in the morning.
You had a booth up like right outside our room,
and then they had me do the same presentation in
the big auditorium downstairs later on in the day and
(19:17):
the first room. Okay, let's put a whole bunch of
women in their fees pack them tight in a little
tiny room and make it super hot.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Like everybody's dying. It was so hot in that room,
and everybody's like, we open a window, is there ac
I'm like.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Who's having a hot flash? But but we had a
good time in that room, like it was. It was
you know, a lot of laughing and interaction and stuff.
And then I got into the auditorium to do the
same presentation in the afternoon, and everybody spread out in
the auditorium and there's like three hundred seats and I've
got about twenty people in the auditorium. And I should
(20:02):
have like said, Okay, come closer, because otherwise you don't
get that the feels, you don't get that interaction. And
the minute I started doing my presentation, I'm like, I'm
not feeling it. I'm not feeling the usual feels. And
(20:23):
I said, you know what I'm going to have to do.
I'm going to have to get everybody up here with me,
because otherwise the feels are not going to be the
same and it's not going to be the same experience
for people who were in the little room this morning. Now, true,
we were all dying to the heat, but the feels
were there and the fields are so important to this.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, they are. I was sitting it with a lot
of I was actually sitting around a lot of people
and they were taking intense notes while you were speaking.
I think you had a really studious want to be
crowd and it was I could see people, you know, like,
how do I become this? That was the group that
you had there. It was a last and the second
(21:07):
one that they were younger and they were taking notes,
and I felt like I was the old person in
the room. I'm like, oh, my kind of thing, and
it was. It was pretty cute. And when you brought
up everybody on stage, everybody was tickled so and talked
about it the rest of the day and everything.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
So it was, yeah, we great picture.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, it was really cool.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
We got a fantastic picture of that. We got a
great video of that, and we shared it out when
people are.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Like, yeah, so much fun. All right, So we're gonna
run short on time, but I don't want to keep
you too long here. But why do we need speaker.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Buddies speaker friends. I'm a big advocate of speaker friends,
all right. The reason we need speaker friends is very Weirdly,
speaking as an industry, I swear to God, is so secretive.
I feel like everybody who has ever stepped foot on
(22:00):
stage looks around and goes, hey, I could do this.
I could make money training other people to do this.
So I'm gonna keep my little secrets to myself and
I'm not going to share. And that doesn't help anybody else.
And I don't know that that's how everybody operates, but
I do feel like speaking as an industry is overly secretive.
(22:23):
So I think the people who are most successful as
speakers have access to speaker friends, people they can get
feedback from, real feedback people, they can ask questions of
Like if you're friends with people who are on that
(22:45):
same journey with you, you have access to just so
much information and knowledge. So that's one of the reasons
we have these weekly zoom calls Speaker friend Fridays, and
I say to people, there's no gatekeeping here, no pay
me money, and learn the secrets. Anybody's welcome. That is
(23:08):
also how I present. I might go a little too
deep for some people when it comes to my presentations,
but I want everybody in the room to walk away
with those notes you were mentioning like I know how
to do a thing. Not I saw a presentation where
somebody promised if I bought the book or I bought
(23:31):
the coaching, I would learn. No, I want them to
walk out the room knowing what to do next, and
speaker friends treat each other that same one.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Bravo, no email loops of endless loops.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Have you ever seen those websites that just endlessly scroll
and you're gonna learn this and you're gonna learn that,
And I'm like, stop, stop it just tell me what
I want to know.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, that's one of the reasons, like why Best every
Year doesn't have ads on it either. It's like, no,
it's just just straightforward, all right, Katie, Is there anything
else you want to ask before we go and to treat?
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Just want to say again, I think one of the
things I love about working with Bobby and innovation women
is you're an encourager. And I think good business leaders
are encouragers and empowerer.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
They empower and encourage and you do both.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
And I think that that's a really important lesson for
anyone listening who's a business leader.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Those two words are.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Key, and you embody them. And I think it's a
real gift when you can do that, when people don't
meet you in person, but you but your energy exudes
those two words. So I am really grateful for that.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
I think there are super big stakes when it comes
to getting more women on stage. We cannot be what
we can't see. We have to have more women on
stages so that people can see women as leaders, as experts,
and it cannot be that the only leaders we have
(25:09):
are a bunch of the same old white guys. We
need to see different people on stages so that in
our mind's eye we understand that anybody can be a leader,
anybody can be an expert. And right now we're all
brainwashed to look at a certain person and go, that's
a leader. So I think that what we do is
(25:32):
incredibly important, and every single woman who gets on stage
is embodying a new world and a new world of possibilities.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Can I add to that and just I also see
that the people making the decisions of who goes on
stage being women as powerful as well, and such as
you saying okay, these are the speakers for this summat
or this event or whatever, and having that be a
woman making those decisions is so refreshing also because usually
(26:05):
it's not the case. And you know, I was on
a panel the other day and I'm in I've been
in the financial services industry for a very long time. Also,
half of me is financial services prior to self help.
And it's always men. It's five men in me or
three men in me, or whatever it is. And it's
men making the decisions of whether I'm going to speak
or not speak and so forth. And so it's pretty
(26:27):
cool to see you in your role with I have
no other word for it, but the power.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
You know. Yeah, we still work with event managers. It's
still up to them. We can give them a database
full of women. And I'm still looking for more women
for our database. I'm still looking for more event managers
to use our database, and we have to keep building
(26:54):
up the supply and the demand at the same time.
But if I have ten thousand women on this platform,
I feel confident that an event manager will be able
to find what they need through us, and we'll make
it easy for them.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
I love it all right. Where would you like people
to go to find you?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Innovationwomen dot Com.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Love it all right, Bobby, Thank you so much for
being here with us. I really appreciate your time and
your energy and your expertise. And is there anything that
we forgot to mention that we should mention before we go?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
I think.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
I think we just need to kind of all take
a deep breath these days and kind of look to
the left, look to the right, make sure we're all
looking out for each other.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, well said Katie.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Is there anything that you want to add before we go? No,
I think Bobby just ended it on a really good note.
Collective compassion, absolutely yes, lift each other up.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
All right, everybody, thank you for being here. I'm going
to try and figure out how to stop the recording.
I can edit this, don't worry. I think that
Hi, everybody, Welcome to the Best Ever You Show. I'm
Elizabeth here with doctor Katie Eastman, my co host, and
our guest Bobby Carlton.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Bobby, Hi, how are you Hi? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Yeah, Katie, how are you?
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Good to see you, Bobby, good to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Good to be here. Yeah. Katie and I talk like
every minute of the day. So good to see you again, Katie.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Yeah, good to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
You know, we are new to Riverside FM here and
we're I'm having a little bit of a giggle before
we go on here. Katie's like, oh my gosh, my lighting,
and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm I'm much shorter
than you guys in the video, and Bobby's We're all
talking about the really good video quality that we have here,
showing every wrinkle and gray hair and every everything.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I miss. Zoom touch up my appearance.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yes, that's what's missing. Okays, it don't look like this
on Zoom.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I know. Zoom is our friend.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Is our frienduzzy fuzzy filter. Yeah. And my son for Christmas,
He's like, Mom, I got you a new camera. It's
like four K and blah blah blah. I'm like, oh great,
thank you, thank you. Yeah the twist anyway, yeah, and
we're all in our home offices. So yeah, so anyway,
it's it's it's great to have you here, Bobby. What
(01:25):
a treat it is. Bobby is the founder of Carlton
PR and Marketing Innovation Innovation. I'm sorry, I want to
say Innovation Women is what I want to say.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Katie.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
You're a member and I'm a budding member.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
And I don't want to know all.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I just want to give the Florida Bobby and have
it tell us all about her.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
So Innovation Women is actually my third company. I usually
tell people The day job is I run Carlton PR Marketing.
That's how I make an actual living. The night job
for many years was something called Mass Innovation Nights, which
was a monthly new product launch event driven by social
media help promote local startups. And then Innovation Women is
(02:06):
the dream job. It's the dream of getting more women
on stage at conferences and events because two thirds of
all conference speakers are men, and it leaves women out
of all kinds of business and career opportunities.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
It sure does. I just met you at the main
conference for women actually, and you gave such a fascinating talk.
Why is it that women aren't part of the speaking
circuit so much.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
There's a lot of actual systemic reasons for that. One
of them is speaking begets speaking. The more speaking you do,
the more speaking you will do, and so older patterns
kind of perpetuate. And if you're looking at this from
an event manager perspective, they are asking for brand names,
(02:53):
recognizable faces, people they know the heads of company is
the c suite, and you know if you define who
you want on your stage by the c suite from
the Fortune five hundred, very small number of women there.
But there's actually a lot of reasons. Even at the
(03:15):
smaller company size, more women work part time, women are
more likely to work for smaller companies, and women are
still more likely to be responsible for kids and home.
So if you get asked to speak, you know, it's
hard to be the morning keynote speaker. If you've got
to put little Johnny on the bus at eight am.
(03:38):
It's hard to get away for three days, which is
what it would take to travel to a conference to
speak and then come back. If you only work three
days a week, and if you work for a smaller company,
that company probably can't afford to send you to a
conference for three days. There's nobody to backfill for you,
(03:59):
and they might not have the money for the travel
and all the expenses.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Associated with it. So systemic reasons included what do you think, Katie?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I think I've gotten lots of leads from being part
of Innovation Women for speaking options that I never would
have found. I think Innovation Women has a wonderful opportunity
for authors as well. You've got a section where we
can identify ourselves as with our books, and there's also
(04:30):
a place where we can reach out and announce and
say what's on our minds and what we're thinking about,
and hey, is there anybody out there who wants to
talk about that? A lot of options Innovation Women offers,
and I think just Bobby's brilliant and I think what
she's done is huge, and I'm grateful, very grateful for
somebody like me who was just how would I get
(04:50):
out there?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Yeah, I mean Innovation Women has a profile for each speaker,
a searchable database for event managers to come in and
search for speed. We also have a database of opportunities
that our speakers can apply to we have the what
we call the green Room, which is where all of
our education is. And we have the Innovation Women Network,
(05:14):
which is an online community so our speakers can network
with each other.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Tell me I'm going to go back. I'm taking you
back to kindergarten like we do sometimes on this show.
Were you you the kid who was always piping up
and loved public speaking?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
No, I'm an introvert. Seriously, I'm an introvert. I think that.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
The skill set for somebody in my position, so longtime
pr person. I'm really good at research, I'm really good
at writing. Are these are my superpowers? And public speaking
was something that I did with other people. I got
them on stage. I continue to do that. I always
tell people I'm one of the theater kids, you know,
(05:56):
like always out there. But my job in the theater
was I was the spotlight operator.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I was the.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Person who was hiding out in the rafters shining a
spotlight on the star of the show. I was not
the singing and dancing on the stage kind of person.
And I discovered when I started my second company that
I needed to be front and center in order to
connect with customers and partners.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I needed to be.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
The theater kid on the stage versus the one in
the back room in order to move my business forward.
And the first event that we did for Innovation Nights,
I was awful. I mean seriously hot mess. And it
was a social media powered event and everybody had their
(06:49):
cameras out and video lots of evidence of me being
a hot mess. So it was a situation where you
look at those pictures, you look at that video, and
you say, I get better at this or I die.
And I chose to get better. Practice really helps.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Here's a question. How do you get the practice though?
If nobody puts you on their.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
Stage, Sometimes you got to make your own stage, which
is really what I did with Innovation Nights. I ran
Innovation Nights actively for eleven years. We had a monthly event,
undured in thirty five events, and every single month I
was the MC, I was the host, and I was
literally doing the same thing every single month. And as
(07:35):
I did it again and again and again, I got
better at it, and pretty soon people were asking me, oh,
can you come and speak at my event? Really me,
And then you know, it kind of dawned on me,
Oh you've gotten better at what you were doing. People
do want you to speak? I think some of it
(07:56):
for many people. If you can't create your own stages, yes,
you can start smaller. One of the recommendations I usually
give to people is, if you need that dip your
toe in opportunity, ask a question from the audience that
the next conference that you're at. If you think about it,
(08:17):
you're probably talking to the exact same audience that the
people on stage were speaking to. And you've got a short,
little punctuation of a moment. You get to identify yourself,
this is my company, ask my question, and then you
can sit down and disappear into the audience. But you
(08:38):
just spoke to the exact same audience that the folks
on stage spoke to.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeh, it's your turnd way to start.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Well, I'm Bobby, I'm the theater kid who is on
stage and more power to have given. Yeah, And you have
given me a stage that I would not have otherwise had,
And I'm most grateful for that because I'm one of
those people who doesn't shy away from being a speaker,
loves it, eats it up. But just how do I
(09:09):
get there? So I really encourage people to become part
of innovation women because it gives you your stage. It
helps you find your stage where you fit.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
We also do a thing called speaker Friend Fridays, a
zoom call every week and for a lot of people
I know they've said that for them, that was their
first stage, introducing themselves, asking a question, answering someone else's question.
It's all virtual, it's online, but it's good practice.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, great practice. I'm not the theater kid. I'm probably
more the math and science and writing girl, behind the
scenes of like never on stage kind of thing. But
then I had a TV bug when I was about
eighteen and wanted to be a news anchor and so
my whole backgrounds in the news anchoring and and so
(10:03):
forth industry, So TV reporting and anchoring and stuff like that,
but not theater exactly. But yeah, now it's interesting, so
different backgrounds. Is there a Is there a certain something
that you look for in people to be on stage?
Do you have like if somebody's listening and they're like, Bobby,
I need you, I've got to track you down because
(10:24):
I want to be the keynote of blah blah blah,
or I want to give the commencement address. You know,
something big that they want to do. Do you have
a series of things that you're looking for?
Speaker 4 (10:36):
So that's happen and Women is a platform, It's a
membership group, and what we do is we provide the
services from Innovation Women's Platform to anybody if people are
looking for a way to get more visibility, if they're
looking for a way to build their business, or a
great opportunity for that. The things that I love, I
(11:00):
love to see kind of walking through the door are
people who may be very experienced in business, who may
not have yet utilized all of their vast knowledge.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
From the stage. So I think a lot.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Of people wait too long before they say I am
ready to be a speaker. I am ready to present
at an event.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
We have a lot of.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Women who talk to me about these amazing things that
they have done, and I'm like, why are you not
out there speaking about these It's like I have climbed
this mountain, I have done this amazing thing, and I'm like,
why are.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
You not telling that story? Well, I want to build
my confidence first.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
I'm like, you know what builds confidence like nothing else,
Getting up on stage and telling your story like that is.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
The way to get started.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
It's because we fear we're going to be judged how
how what's our weight, what's our hair? What do we
look like? How old are we?
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Is?
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Everything we're saying perfect is. It's a it's a probably
a processing of self confidence issues going on most of
the time. I think when I talk to people and
they're like, I don't want to do that. People are
gonna see.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Me, you know, I got to say that. You know,
if anybody had a reason to be nervous, it would
be me. But at the same time, I do think
that people we've been told all our lives that speaking
is something to be fearful of. Like there are all
these studies about how speaking is the number one fear.
(12:42):
I think death is like number seven. In other words,
we would rather die than be on stage. But I
think so many of us have heard these stories and
heard about the study that were like, this is something
we're supposed to be nervous about. This is something we're
supposed to be frightened of. And I think we've built
(13:03):
up this fear in our minds to an unreasonable level.
So I don't really like to talk about the fear
aspect of public speaking. I think if you do feel
flushed if you feel a little flutter in the tammy,
like that's excitement, that's not necessarily nervousness.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
I absolutely love what you did in Maine or anybody
that has ever not been on stage or had a
fear of being on stage. You gave everybody equal opportunity
to be up there and just see what it feels
like to be on the stage under the lights and
shine their light upon each other. It was such a
(13:48):
special moment in my life. It was just so I
don't know, there's just something about him, like it was
like one of those, as Katie will say, uplifting other
women moments. It was so powerful. I think about it
all the time.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
That's awesome.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
I've done that a couple of times before, and I
first did it out at the I Tripoli International Leadership
Conference in California several years ago, and it was one
of the last sessions. We didn't have the entire I
don't know, seven thousand people audience there, and I'm like,
(14:26):
all right, anybody who's left here who hasn't yet been
on stage, you want it, come on up. And I
think somebody's about ready to kill me because they were
nervous about the whole stage collapsing. But we got literally
hundreds of people on stage for a big group photo
(14:46):
and people are like, you know what, this is the
first time I've been on stage, and that I think
was like a really good way for some people to
go this is not this is not scary, this is fun.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I'm here with my friends. It was good.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
It was just fabulous. Yeah, Katie.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
And don't you think Bobby that one of the things
that helps people not be as anxious is if they
pick a topic that fits for them, because I think
that is hugely important. And one of the things I
love about when we get leads on Innovation Women is
we tell you what our loves are, our passions, what
(15:24):
we want to speak about, and the leads come to
us based on those themes. And I think it's so
much easier to get up on any stage. Just like
an actress, you know, you've got to be in character,
and you've got to know your character. Well, we have
to know ourselves to know what we're good at speaking about,
and it's what we care about.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
A lot of people to think about public speaking as
I'm going to share my area of expertise, but you
also have to be sharing the things that get you
excited that you're passionate about. It's very hard for the
audience to get excited about something if you're not excited
as this speaker, right, So you have to be excited
(16:06):
about your topic.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
You have to love that topic, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I have an opportunity to speak at the end of
the month in front of a really big group of
student athletes, which is a huge goal of mine forever.
You're one of the reasons why. Yeah, I know. One
of the reasons why I had you on the show
is because it just credits back to that moment of
like being on the stage and having that moment you know,
I got this, I can do this kind of thing.
(16:34):
And so I said yes, and I'm like, oh, what
did I say yes to? No kind of thing? I
had one of those moments of like a no, and
everybody knows it, and I'm cool with it. You know,
it's not my it's not exactly my thing. You know,
I'm more behind the TV kind of thing. I'm like, Okay,
I can do this. So I had the most wonderful
preparatory phone call yesterday to get everybody's ducks in a
(16:57):
row because I'm sharing the stage with Ed Garrity and
I'm like, oh my, you know kind of thing. So
it's a really big deal. And I just thank you, Bobby,
because that I think without that moment, I might have said, no,
I am.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
I worked with a speaker a while ago, who, like
many of us, spent several years, you know, in the
early days of the pandemic and stuff, being alone at
home and doing lots virtually yea, and she said she
really felt like she lost the muscle, the memory of
being on stage in front of real humans. And we
(17:32):
got her an opportunity to be on stage at a
pretty major event, and she got up during the dress
rehearsal and just froze. And I was like, yeah, come here,
we're going to go and find all the empty rooms
at this conference, and you're going to hop up on
that stage and you're going to give that presentation to me.
And we probably bopped in and out of, you know,
(17:55):
five to ten different rooms over the course.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Of a day.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
And at the end of the day, she got up
and she nailed that presentation. She was so good, and
it was literally just you know, the muscle memory of
being on stage it came back.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
But you know, also the love and support of you.
I think there's a when you meet Bobby in person,
which I hope you all have the moment too. There's
a warmth to you that I have trouble putting words to.
I immediately didn't. Katie immediately called you, and I'm like,
oh my god, I'm at the coolest person. Yeah. Yeah,
she's so warm because you could be like, eh, I
(18:32):
don't have time for you, you know, you know kind
of thing, and I was scared at first. I'm like, oh, please,
don't do that to me because I kind of love you, you know.
And so I got the love back and it was
so lovely. It just was just warm and friendly, and
I watched you operate and you did that with everybody
and it was refreshing.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
It was interesting because I did my presentation that day twice,
so I think I met you upstairs while we were
in giving the presentation in the smaller room in the morning.
You had a booth up like right outside our room,
and then they had me do the same presentation in
the big auditorium downstairs later on in the day and
(19:17):
the first room. Okay, let's put a whole bunch of
women in their fees pack them tight in a little
tiny room and make it super hot.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Like everybody's dying. It was so hot in that room,
and everybody's like, we open a window, is there ac
I'm like.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Who's having a hot flash? But but we had a
good time in that room, like it was. It was
you know, a lot of laughing and interaction and stuff.
And then I got into the auditorium to do the
same presentation in the afternoon, and everybody spread out in
the auditorium and there's like three hundred seats and I've
got about twenty people in the auditorium. And I should
(20:02):
have like said, Okay, come closer, because otherwise you don't
get that the feels, you don't get that interaction. And
the minute I started doing my presentation, I'm like, I'm
not feeling it. I'm not feeling the usual feels. And
(20:23):
I said, you know what I'm going to have to do.
I'm going to have to get everybody up here with me,
because otherwise the feels are not going to be the
same and it's not going to be the same experience
for people who were in the little room this morning. Now, true,
we were all dying to the heat, but the feels
were there and the fields are so important to this.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, they are. I was sitting it with a lot
of I was actually sitting around a lot of people
and they were taking intense notes while you were speaking.
I think you had a really studious want to be
crowd and it was I could see people, you know, like,
how do I become this? That was the group that
you had there. It was a last and the second
(21:07):
one that they were younger and they were taking notes,
and I felt like I was the old person in
the room. I'm like, oh, my kind of thing, and
it was. It was pretty cute. And when you brought
up everybody on stage, everybody was tickled so and talked
about it the rest of the day and everything.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
So it was, yeah, we great picture.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, it was really cool.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
We got a fantastic picture of that. We got a
great video of that, and we shared it out when
people are.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Like, yeah, so much fun. All right, So we're gonna
run short on time, but I don't want to keep
you too long here. But why do we need speaker.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Buddies speaker friends. I'm a big advocate of speaker friends,
all right. The reason we need speaker friends is very Weirdly,
speaking as an industry, I swear to God, is so secretive.
I feel like everybody who has ever stepped foot on
(22:00):
stage looks around and goes, hey, I could do this.
I could make money training other people to do this.
So I'm gonna keep my little secrets to myself and
I'm not going to share. And that doesn't help anybody else.
And I don't know that that's how everybody operates, but
I do feel like speaking as an industry is overly secretive.
(22:23):
So I think the people who are most successful as
speakers have access to speaker friends, people they can get
feedback from, real feedback people, they can ask questions of
Like if you're friends with people who are on that
(22:45):
same journey with you, you have access to just so
much information and knowledge. So that's one of the reasons
we have these weekly zoom calls Speaker friend Fridays, and
I say to people, there's no gatekeeping here, no pay
me money, and learn the secrets. Anybody's welcome. That is
(23:08):
also how I present. I might go a little too
deep for some people when it comes to my presentations,
but I want everybody in the room to walk away
with those notes you were mentioning like I know how
to do a thing. Not I saw a presentation where
somebody promised if I bought the book or I bought
(23:31):
the coaching, I would learn. No, I want them to
walk out the room knowing what to do next, and
speaker friends treat each other that same one.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Bravo, no email loops of endless loops.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Have you ever seen those websites that just endlessly scroll
and you're gonna learn this and you're gonna learn that,
And I'm like, stop, stop it just tell me what
I want to know.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, that's one of the reasons, like why Best every
Year doesn't have ads on it either. It's like, no,
it's just just straightforward, all right, Katie, Is there anything
else you want to ask before we go and to treat?
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Just want to say again, I think one of the
things I love about working with Bobby and innovation women
is you're an encourager. And I think good business leaders
are encouragers and empowerer.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
They empower and encourage and you do both.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
And I think that that's a really important lesson for
anyone listening who's a business leader.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Those two words are.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Key, and you embody them. And I think it's a
real gift when you can do that, when people don't
meet you in person, but you but your energy exudes
those two words. So I am really grateful for that.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
I think there are super big stakes when it comes
to getting more women on stage. We cannot be what
we can't see. We have to have more women on
stages so that people can see women as leaders, as experts,
and it cannot be that the only leaders we have
(25:09):
are a bunch of the same old white guys. We
need to see different people on stages so that in
our mind's eye we understand that anybody can be a leader,
anybody can be an expert. And right now we're all
brainwashed to look at a certain person and go, that's
a leader. So I think that what we do is
(25:32):
incredibly important, and every single woman who gets on stage
is embodying a new world and a new world of possibilities.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Can I add to that and just I also see
that the people making the decisions of who goes on
stage being women as powerful as well, and such as
you saying okay, these are the speakers for this summat
or this event or whatever, and having that be a
woman making those decisions is so refreshing also because usually
(26:05):
it's not the case. And you know, I was on
a panel the other day and I'm in I've been
in the financial services industry for a very long time. Also,
half of me is financial services prior to self help.
And it's always men. It's five men in me or
three men in me, or whatever it is. And it's
men making the decisions of whether I'm going to speak
or not speak and so forth. And so it's pretty
(26:27):
cool to see you in your role with I have
no other word for it, but the power.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
You know. Yeah, we still work with event managers. It's
still up to them. We can give them a database
full of women. And I'm still looking for more women
for our database. I'm still looking for more event managers
to use our database, and we have to keep building
(26:54):
up the supply and the demand at the same time.
But if I have ten thousand women on this platform,
I feel confident that an event manager will be able
to find what they need through us, and we'll make
it easy for them.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
I love it all right. Where would you like people
to go to find you?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Innovationwomen dot Com.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Love it all right, Bobby, Thank you so much for
being here with us. I really appreciate your time and
your energy and your expertise. And is there anything that
we forgot to mention that we should mention before we go?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
I think.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
I think we just need to kind of all take
a deep breath these days and kind of look to
the left, look to the right, make sure we're all
looking out for each other.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, well said Katie.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Is there anything that you want to add before we go? No,
I think Bobby just ended it on a really good note.
Collective compassion, absolutely yes, lift each other up.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
All right, everybody, thank you for being here. I'm going
to try and figure out how to stop the recording.
I can edit this, don't worry. I think that
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