Beth Jones, International Speaker, Author, & Coach

This past weekend, I had the privilege of attending Caterina Rando‘s Sought After Speaker Summit in Los Angeles, CA. This is part 5 of my Sought After Speaker Summit blog series. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, and part 4 here.

Before I went to the Sought After Speaker Summit in Los Angeles, CA, this past weekend, I had a Skype call with my mastermind group partners, Tony Robinson and Shelley Valasek.

The idea of a mastermind is associated with author Napoleon Hill, from his study and his interviews of the U.S.’ most successful men over a course of 20 years. “A Mastermind is a unique concept that leverages the collective power of the group, creating a Third Mind.” ~ Napoleon Hill.

In our group, we are leaning on THE Master, Jesus Christ, to be our Mastermind – our business wisdom, our direction, our guide.

Jesus at well with woman

I started this little group a month ago, because I needed prayer, motivation, and most of all accountability to finish 2013 strong, completing goals I’d set in January. God gave me two scriptures for forming this group:

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” ~ Proverbs 27:17, NIV (I needed sharpening!)

“A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.” ~ Ecclesiastes 4:12, NLT

Tony and Shelley thought it was a great idea and said they needed this group just as much.

On the Skype call before I flew to Los Angeles this past weekend, Tony prayed for traveling mercies and God’s blessings on me as I attended this speakers’ training and she saw me writing copious notes from the training. Well, as usual, she was right on target and I filled a notebook chock full with notes!

There’s no way I can tell you everything I learned, and you really had to be there to benefit the most from this amazing training. Caterina overdelivers and you come back FULL, ready to take action!

But I’d like to share some of what I learned there about speaking and business with you.

Extract the precious from the worthless. Take just what you need from this list:

• Stand in the power position when you speak – the center of the room. Don’t have a projector or something in front of you. You want to have the audience’s direct attention.
• Don’t speak until you look at the audience; take a deep breath.
• Speak with the audience, not at them. You want to have empathy and feel with them. Have open body language, not crossed arms or standing sideways.
• No dashing. Caterina said this a lot and it was funny. For some reason, I kept hearing the Christmas song in my head, Jingle Bells, every time she said this: “Dashing through the snow, in a one horse open sleigh…”.  Well, whatever helps you to remember what not to do! This tip meant don’t dash from the stage to the audience. Stay on the stage until the applause stops. This is the good part! You’ve earned that applause; revel in it! Enjoy it.
• Always use all your time on stage. This is not a race. Acknowledge when you’re done, so the audience knows.
• Another good tips is to ask the event planner for more time than they’ve told you they allow for speaking. The longer time you are on stage, the more of a relationship you can build with the audience. The more they know, like, and trust you, the more likely they are to build a relationship with you and buy from you.
• Speaking is a vulnerable thing; it’s scary. Even when you speak a lot professionally, things happen. It’s not always utopia. Sometimes you get criticized or even ripped apart by someone in the audience. It’s part of the territory. If you are brave enough to ask for honest evaluations about your speaking from the audience, go ahead. You can learn from constructive criticism. But Caterina dislikes negative comments that aren’t helpful. Instead, she asks for positive feedback from event planners to use as testimonial.
• You want results after speaking; have an upsell! You don’t want this feedback: “The speaker was incredible! Loved it!” What you want is: “The speaker was incredible and impacted me so much! I can’t wait to work with her as a client!”
• Sometimes you will be criticized the most from people you love. One example is that a relative said to Caterina: “Making more money than you need is stupid.”  When you know your purpose and you’re all in it, it can still hurt, but it won’t derail you from your mission. When you demonstrate your purpose and your mission, you will eventually get less criticism.
• Be loud and proud that you are a speaker. What are you waiting for? Do you have value to offer others? That’s it! Keep serving your purpose.
• If you want to speak more and you’re not, there’s a reason. It’s because you haven’t set goals yet around your speaking. How often do you want to speak? One time is NOT a goal! Don’t say, “One speech a month.” That’s too close to nada. Maybe, do one a week!
• When you’ve done a speech, that presentation is over! If it was no good, say it was the audience. 🙂 Just kidding! We have so much desire to serve, that when it’s over and we didn’t do well, it hurts. Just go on. Don’t keep obsessing about it. Gain more skills. Speak more. You will improve with every speech that you do.
• Don’t speak everywhere, The audience may not be a match for you (your niche). There are 2 types of audiences – a voluntary audience, who chose to be there, and a mandatory audience, required to be there, such as at work. It is rare to have a bad speech when it’s your audience (your niche who wants to be there).
• Your environment impacts your speech. One time Caterina was speaking, when waiters came in from both directions of the room to change the water. It was very distracting for her and the audience. Movement will attract your audience, so if someone is moving, you move to get their eyes back on you! Environment does affect your speech. One time Caterina spoke somewhere and later found out that someone in that organization had committed suicide in that area. My own tip for you would be to pray over the building and/or the area where you’ll be speaking, before you speak there. You might have intercessors join you to pray.
• Our job is to hold a bigger vision for our audience and/or clients than they have for themselves! Caterina initially worked in a cafe’ business. She made great cappuccino, but food service wasn’t her calling. One time a woman came in with a big smile and thanked her for the business advice she’d given her. This touched Caterina’s heart and she realized this was her “bliss,” what she was to do with her life. She now serves women entrepreneurs who have a service based business, to help them make their businesses thrive. It’s not about what you do, but who you are that’s monetizable. Who you are attracts clients you’re called to serve. The more clear you are on this, the more you’ll thrive.

I have so much more to share with you, but don’t want this post to be too long! These are just a few of the things I learned. I will share more in my next blog post series, part  6.

Don’t you wish you’d been there? It was amazing!

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Do you need a dynamic keynote speaker for your women’s conference or event? I’d love to work with you to help make your event a great success! To book me as a speaker, email me at elizabethdjones@gmail.com or contact me here.

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