January 12, 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/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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? Good to see you, Bobby,
good to be here. 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. Okay, I 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, and I
don't want to know all. I just want to give
the Florida Bobby and have it tell us all about her.
Speaker 2 (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 trure, 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 2 (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 at 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 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.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
I never would have found.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
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 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?
Speaker 1 (04:38):
A lot of options.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
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 out there?
Speaker 2 (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 speA 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 the skill set for somebody in my position, so
longtime pr person. I'm really good at research, I'm really
good at writing. These are my superpowers. And public speaking
was something that I did with other people. I got
(05:50):
them on stage. I continue to do that. I always
tell people I'm one of the theater kids, you know,
like always out there. But my job in the theater
was I was the spotlight operator. I was the person
who was hiding out in the rafters shining a spotlight
on the star of the show. I was not the
(06:11):
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. I needed to be the theater
kid on the stage versus the one in the back
(06:32):
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 cameras out and
video lots of evidence of me being a hot mess.
(06:55):
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 stage.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
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
dured 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,
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. It's your turned 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
(09:09):
do I 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 2 (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
whole backgrounds in the news anchoring and and so forth industry,
(10:04):
So TV reporting and anchoring and stuff like that, but
not theater exactly. But yeah, now it's interesting, so different
backgrounds is there? 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 I
(10:25):
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, So maybe that happen.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
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.
(10:58):
The things that I 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 from the stage. So I think a
lot of people wait too long before they say I
(11:20):
am ready to be a speaker. I am ready to
present at an event. We have a lot of 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
(11:43):
are you not telling that story? Well, I want to
build my confidence first, Like you know what builds confidence
like nothing else, Getting up on stage and telling your
story like that is 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? Is everything we're saying
perfect because 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 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
It was.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
It's so powerful. I think about it all the time.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
That's awesome. 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
(14:26):
I'm like, all right, anybody who's left here who hasn't
yet been on stage, you want it, come on up.
And I think somebody is 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 and people are like, you know what,
(14:47):
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. I'm here with my friends. It was good.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
It was just fabulous. Yeah, Katie.
Speaker 4 (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.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
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 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
(15:35):
got to be in character, and you've got to know
your character. We have to know ourselves to know what
we're good at speaking about, and it's what we care about.
Speaker 2 (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. You have to love that topic, right.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah. 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. 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 of but
you know, I got this, I can do this kind
(16:33):
of thing, 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. And 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.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
I am. 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. Yeah, and she said
she really felt like she lost the muscle, the memory
of being on stage in front of real humans. And
(17:32):
we 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,
(17:54):
you know, five to ten different rooms over the course
of a day. 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 1 (18:10):
Yeah, 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 immediate didn't. I. 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 I don't
(18:32):
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. 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
(19:16):
in the day and 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,
like everybody's dying. It was so hot in that room,
and everybody's like, can we open a window?
Speaker 5 (19:37):
Is there ac I'm like, who's having a hot flash?
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
(19:58):
hundred seats and I've got about twenty people in the auditorium.
And I should 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,
like I'm not feeling it. I'm not feeling the usual feels.
(20:23):
And I said, you know what I'm going to have
to do.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
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 fields
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, OK, yeah, we great picture that vibe.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, it was really cool.
Speaker 2 (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. I don't want to keep you
too long here. But why do we need speaker buddies?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Oh, 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 stage looks around and goes, hey, I could
(22:03):
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. So I think the people who
(22:27):
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 same journey with you, you have
(22:48):
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 also how I present. I might
(23:12):
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 the coaching, I would learn. No,
(23:33):
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 2 (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 having.
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.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
You're an encourager.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
And I think good business leaders are encouragers and empowerer.
Speaker 1 (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. Those two words are 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.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
So I am really grateful for that. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (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, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
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 up the supply and
the demand at the same time. But if I have
(27:00):
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 (27:13):
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 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 6 (27:44):
Yeah, well said Katie. 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? Good to see you, Bobby,
good to be here. 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. Okay, I 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, and I
don't want to know all. I just want to give
the Florida Bobby and have it tell us all about her.
Speaker 2 (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 trure, 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 2 (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 at 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 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.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
I never would have found.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
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 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?
Speaker 1 (04:38):
A lot of options.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
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 out there?
Speaker 2 (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 speA 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 the skill set for somebody in my position, so
longtime pr person. I'm really good at research, I'm really
good at writing. These are my superpowers. And public speaking
was something that I did with other people. I got
(05:50):
them on stage. I continue to do that. I always
tell people I'm one of the theater kids, you know,
like always out there. But my job in the theater
was I was the spotlight operator. I was the person
who was hiding out in the rafters shining a spotlight
on the star of the show. I was not the
(06:11):
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. I needed to be the theater
kid on the stage versus the one in the back
(06:32):
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 cameras out and
video lots of evidence of me being a hot mess.
(06:55):
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 stage.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
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
dured 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,
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. It's your turned 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
(09:09):
do I 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 2 (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
whole backgrounds in the news anchoring and and so forth industry,
(10:04):
So TV reporting and anchoring and stuff like that, but
not theater exactly. But yeah, now it's interesting, so different
backgrounds is there? 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 I
(10:25):
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, So maybe that happen.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
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.
(10:58):
The things that I 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 from the stage. So I think a
lot of people wait too long before they say I
(11:20):
am ready to be a speaker. I am ready to
present at an event. We have a lot of 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
(11:43):
are you not telling that story? Well, I want to
build my confidence first, Like you know what builds confidence
like nothing else, Getting up on stage and telling your
story like that is 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? Is everything we're saying
perfect because 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 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
It was.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
It's so powerful. I think about it all the time.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
That's awesome. 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
(14:26):
I'm like, all right, anybody who's left here who hasn't
yet been on stage, you want it, come on up.
And I think somebody is 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 and people are like, you know what,
(14:47):
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. I'm here with my friends. It was good.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
It was just fabulous. Yeah, Katie.
Speaker 4 (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.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
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 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
(15:35):
got to be in character, and you've got to know
your character. We have to know ourselves to know what
we're good at speaking about, and it's what we care about.
Speaker 2 (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. You have to love that topic, right.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah. 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. 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 of but
you know, I got this, I can do this kind
(16:33):
of thing, 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. And 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.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
I am. 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. Yeah, and she said
she really felt like she lost the muscle, the memory
of being on stage in front of real humans. And
(17:32):
we 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,
(17:54):
you know, five to ten different rooms over the course
of a day. 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 1 (18:10):
Yeah, 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 immediate didn't. I. 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 I don't
(18:32):
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. 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
(19:16):
in the day and 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,
like everybody's dying. It was so hot in that room,
and everybody's like, can we open a window?
Speaker 5 (19:37):
Is there ac I'm like, who's having a hot flash?
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
(19:58):
hundred seats and I've got about twenty people in the auditorium.
And I should 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,
like I'm not feeling it. I'm not feeling the usual feels.
(20:23):
And I said, you know what I'm going to have
to do.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
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 fields
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, OK, yeah, we great picture that vibe.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, it was really cool.
Speaker 2 (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. I don't want to keep you
too long here. But why do we need speaker buddies?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Oh, 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 stage looks around and goes, hey, I could
(22:03):
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. So I think the people who
(22:27):
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 same journey with you, you have
(22:48):
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 also how I present. I might
(23:12):
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 the coaching, I would learn. No,
(23:33):
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 2 (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 having.
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.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
You're an encourager.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
And I think good business leaders are encouragers and empowerer.
Speaker 1 (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. Those two words are 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.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
So I am really grateful for that. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (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, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
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 up the supply and
the demand at the same time. But if I have
(27:00):
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 (27:13):
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 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 6 (27:44):
Yeah, well said Katie. 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
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.