Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies

We’re wrapping up our Booked Without Burnout series, and this one might surprise you: should you ever pay to speak?

I know - it sounds backward. After all, you want to get paid for your expertise, not the other way around.

But there are times when paying for a speaking slot makes strategic sense, especially if it’s tied to a sponsorship or marketing opportunity that gets you in front of your ideal clients.

This is Par...

Visibility is valuable. But visibility plus revenue? That’s power.

Speaking isn’t only about sharing what you know. It’s about owning your expertise, modeling equity, and showing what women leaders are worth on stage.

So how do you go from free talks at local events… to $2,500, $5,000, even $10,000 keynotes and workshops?

This is Part 3 of my 4-part series on how to land more speaking engagements. In Part 1, I shared ...

Wouldn’t it be amazing if speaking invitations just landed in your inbox - and with a speaker fee attached?

The truth is, they can. In fact, many of my own paid speaking gigs (and our clients’ too) have come through inbound strategies - because we’ve intentionally set ourselves up so event organizers find us.

This is Part 2 of my 4-part series on how to land more speaking engagements.

In Part 1, I shared outbound strategi...

Hey there, it's Carol, popping in for a minute! I want to make sure you know about our 1-Day Speaking Accelerator Workshop coming up on October 30th in Downtown Orlando, Florida.

You’ll go from having a rough idea to building your talk using our proven Signature Talk Canvas® framework - and then practice delivering it with real-time feedback from us.

And here’s the thing = you’ll create a talk that goes beyond tips and f...

You know speaking is one of the best ways to grow your business and your visibility.

But between running your business, serving your clients, and managing everything else on your plate, finding time to pitch yourself for speaking engagements feels impossible.

If you’ve ever thought:

• “I know I should be speaking, but I’m too busy to figure out where to start.”
• “Pitching myself feels overwhelming. I don’t even know what to s...

One of the biggest benefits of creating your signature talk and framework is that you don’t just use it once; you can repurpose it over and over again.

In this episode, I talk with Thought Leader Academy graduate Eloisa Marquez-Gonzalez, who shares how she’s taken the signature talk and framework she developed with us and adapted it for different audiences, topics, and speaking engagements.

Eloisa has spoken on everything fr...

How do you go from giving short, tip-focused talks to inspiring audiences with a full keynote? 

That’s exactly the journey our guest has taken and it’s one so many of us can learn from.

Our lead speaking coach Diane Diaz talks with Elaine Schomburg-LaFleur, a senior project engineer who has spent over 20 years in the theme park industry, including at Disney.

Elaine thought of herself as “the tip girl” - packing her presentati...

Whether you've had one day that changed your life forever - or a series of events that shifted your understanding of yourself and the world - or a culmination of hard-won lessons from work and life, you have a story worth sharing.

This is something I emphasize often, because so many women tell me, “I don’t really have a story. Nothing big has happened to me.”

What matters isn’t the size of your story, but how you tell it and...

Ever wish you could walk on stage and instantly connect with your audience, whether it’s a room of five people or a stadium of 50,000?

In this episode, Diane Diaz and I are trying something new: a reaction video to a famous speech. And who better to kick things off than Taylor Swift’s 2022 NYU Commencement Address?

You might think being a global superstar makes Taylor impossible to relate to. But what she does in this speech...

Do you ever feel like you're stuck in the "expert trap" - sharing lots of great information, but not quite connecting with your audience the way you want to?

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Teri DeLucca, founder of Impact Early Education and a graduate of our Thought Leader Academy, about how she made the bold leap from academic researcher and fact-based presenter to transformational speaker and sought-after thought leade...

If you're using speaking for lead generation, you won’t want to miss this episode.

I’m joined by Danielle Hayden, CEO of Kickstart Accounting, Inc., who came to me for a VIP Day to create a new signature talk. Like many entrepreneurs, Danielle had been speaking often, but she knew she was overloading her audience with too much information and not enough transformation.

In this conversation, we pull back the curtain on the ...

We believe that every presentation, whether internal or external, at a conference or at a board meeting, has the power to shift how your audience views a topic and the positive changes that can come as a result.

It’s not just about delivering information – it’s about shifting perspectives, sparking new ideas, and inspiring action.

This episode is the audio from a live show we did with two of our recent Thought Leader Acade...

The key to a powerful presentation isn’t just telling stories – it’s uncovering the lessons within them.

When you share a personal experience or an impactful moment, you’re not just recounting events; you’re inviting your audience to see the world through your eyes, to feel what you felt, and to learn from what you lived. 

Your stories become more than just a narrative – they can spark change in the hearts and minds of you...

What if you could go from a completely blank page - or in this case, a blank poster board - to mapping out and practicing your signature talk… all in just one day?

That’s exactly what happened at our recent in-person Speaking Accelerator Workshop in Orlando, and in this episode, you’ll hear directly from three of the incredible women who participated: Lesline Pittman, Monica Mitchell, and Dr. Emma Jones.

You’ll get the beh...

I vividly remember the day after Christmas 2022. Not because I was relaxing, but because I was at my laptop, updating my university courses and diving headfirst into AI tools for my business and podcast. ChatGPT had just launched, and I knew instantly: this was different. This wasn’t just another tech trend; this was a transformation.

In this episode, I share the talk I recently delivered at the ElleX Summit, where I wove ...

Ever wish you had an extra set of hands - or better yet, an AI assistant - to take care of all those repetitive tasks in your business?

In this episode, I’m taking you behind the scenes to share the exact AI-powered workflows I’ve built and now rely on every week at Speaking Your Brand.

From automating my podcast production (yes, even these show notes!) to cloning my voice for a brand-new companion podcast, you’ll get a se...

AI isn’t just on the horizon - it’s already here, reshaping how we work, connect, and show up in our businesses, no matter what industry you’re in.

In this episode, I share how AI has fundamentally changed how I run Speaking Your Brand, well beyond using tools like ChatGPT (though I use that too!). 

I walk you through 4 powerful questions, originally posed by Wharton professor Ethan Mollick, that I’ve been reflecting on de...

You’ve packed your presentation with data, insights, and value — but your audience isn’t responding the way you hoped.

If you’ve ever looked out and seen glazed-over eyes… or walked off stage and didn’t get the results you wanted, this episode is for you.

As a former software developer and technology strategist who has presented at countless conferences and meetups, I’ve learned what works — and what doesn’t — when it come...

Have you ever wondered what it really takes to create, practice for, and deliver a powerful TED-style talk - especially one that’s only 8 minutes long?

In this episode, I’m joined by Diane Diaz, our lead speaking coach at Speaking Your Brand, as we take you behind the scenes of our recent TED-style speaking experience.

We were invited to be part of a live event called ElleX, hosted by a women’s entrepreneurship group at a ...