Becoming a Winning Speaker with Speaker Slam Co-Founder Rina Rovinelli

Foreign. Hello. Happy Saturday. I already see Stella and Kevin have said hello and are in the house waiting. So I want to say welcome to everyone else to our November Deep Dive training. We have a special guest for you today. I'm really excited. If you haven't seen what this is about and you're just showing up because you do for the November trainings, you're in for a treat. We're talking about basically speaking all things speaking as it relates to you as an author. But specifically we have Rena Rovinelli here who's going to talk about creating a bookable brand. So this is all about building your brand as an expert so that you are getting booked to speak, to get on media, all of those fun things that so many authors want to do. And if you are not familiar with Reena, she's the co founder of this really, really cool event called Speaker Slam. And and Sarah Bean, our book marketing manager, was just in Toronto to be one of the judges for their Grand Slam. So all year they host these events where people get up on stage and they speak and it's a contest and they have winners and then the best of all of those events come together and compete for their Grand Slam Championship. Hopefully I'm explaining that right. If not, you can correct me after. But she also has a speaker development agency or actually I think that's part of the of Speaker Slam and she's also a. Well, I guess you've done a TED. You've done a big TEDx speaker with over 5 million views. So I am so excited to have you here, Reena. And she's a little under the weather so you know, if she, I told her if she needs to disappear, we'll fill in the gaps with some Q A. So if you guys have questions as you go along, go ahead and post it. And we've already got Renee's here and I don't know if it's Sugg or Suge, but welcome. I think that's the first time I've seen you here. So it's great to have you here. And Hoshea speaks. So there we go. God's love Power connection. It's Jack is in the house. So we've already got some fabulous folks ready to hear from you, Reena. So I'm going to turn it over to you, but if you need anything, you just go ahead and let us know.

Okay, perfect. Thank you so much and I do apologize for being sick here, but I really want to start by sharing a little video about us and then we will jump into things.

Speaker Slam is a one of a.

Kind speaker development agency.

Over the past decade, we've dedicated ourselves to elevating and amplifying mission driven speakers, authors, experts and thriving entrepreneurs, helping them to create and build a unique personal brand through speaking and video. We run North America's largest inspirational speaking competition and have the privilege of crowning the Inspirational speaker of the Year annually at our Grand Slam event. We run our ongoing Momentum membership dedicated to helping speakers create a powerful foundation and build massive momentum so they can attract awards, press and paid speaking opportunities. We specialize in helping speakers get booked and paid through a variety of services including keynote creation, brand strategy and speaker marketing, including our professional speaker reels designed.

To get them booked.

And we create events and conferences that provide a platform for speakers to make an impact with their voice. Including our Amplifying Voices events and Momentum conference. We've had thousands of speakers on our stages and watched incredible transformations as they went on to build their brand. With speaking, landing book deals, press and documentaries, getting paid to speak, launching movements and finding themselves on coveted TEDx stages. Every speaker is on their own unique journey. We are here to meet you where you are at so that you can be seen and heard, leave a legacy and inspire the world.

Speaker. Speaker, Speaker. It's just going now. Let's go.

Okay, so thank you so much for having me. I'm going to do my best to show up with my A game right now and I want to start with a quick backstory. I don't usually show this because I'm looking quite chunky, but here I am. This is 2009 and I had the opportunity to be on the Dragon's Den. Now if you're in the States, that is, you would consider maybe the Shark Tank is very similar. And I had two clothing stores in Toronto for ample women and we had a really successful business. We started with nothing. We had done through quarters of a million dollars in sales and we were creating our own clothing line overseas. And we had this opportunity to go on the Dragons and we were on the wait list. We got called in last minute and we're sitting backstage and as we're sitting there, everybody is nervous and pacing and we are calm, calm, cool, collected. I know my business inside and out. I love to speak speak. It was really an exciting time. Finally it is my turn and as I go up on stage, I walk up, there's a platform, there's some stairs, I come out, I'm in front of the Dragons. There's just four of them. There's one producer, there's one cameraman. And I take a deep breath and I say, my name is Rena and I'm here to share my. Oh my God. My body betrays me and I can't believe I can't even get the words out. I'm like, my heart's racing. I'm. I'm panicked. And after a few minutes, I realized I have just messed this up and it's over for me. And then I just share from my heart. I talk about my business. I talk about women that are driving from all over the country, mothers of the bride, prom girls, wedding parties. I talk about how we work 247 and this is our whole passion. And when the event ends, three of the dragons offer us $250,000. And they say, we hate retail, but we love you. Now, I turned down that deal. I regret that every day of my life because the recession came right after that, but I turned it down. They were hugging us. They said, you made the right decision. And when I left there that day, I realized something really powerful. I realized that the person with the most inspirational voice was the most powerful person in any room. And I went on to join the speaking group. I met my now business partner at that speaking group. We ended up attending a ton of different speaking events. We decided to create Speaker Slam, which was a competition where people would come and share inspiring stories on our stage. Over the years, we've had 500 million views on our speakers videos. We've seen people's lives completely transformed, all based on that premise. So today I really want to talk about building a bookable brand and show you how one speech can change your life. So you may love the stage. You know, TEDx might be your dream. Maybe a book is on your bucket list or you've written a book. But the question is, who's paying you? Okay, so today I want to share our three step formula so that you can attract clients and paid speaking and life changing opportunities. You know, one quick thing I do want to say about this is that I understand that people want to create a book or a TEDx or talk because they have something powerful to say, a message to share. And there's often this burning desire to release that to the world. And I also believe that at the end of the day, beyond that impact is the desire to be able to use your message and your voice to also make money, to also make a living by sharing that message. So my bookable brand formula is really, we're going to talk about the power of laying your Foundation. We're going to talk about launching and we're going to talk about leveraging. Okay? Three step formula. Now, your launch is really your opportunity to put your brand out into the world. It's your opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and build your credibility. Now, that could be speaking at Speaker Slam, it could be a TEDx, it could be writing a book, it could be launching your course, it could be running your own event. And for a lot of people, this is the place that we're most comfortable. Like, our launch is that place where we've been working on something creatively for a long time because it means so much to us and we're getting ready to just put it out there. And if you're here, I'm assuming that you've either written a book or you're in the process of writing a book. So you understand this is so important to you. It's a huge project and you're putting your heart and soul into it. And you're going to get to a point where you're going to put that out into the world. And the exciting thing about doing it is that all of the hard work seems like it's about to pay off. But this launch process of putting this out is really amplified if you lay your foundation properly beforehand and if you know how to leverage after. Okay, so I'm not going to talk too much about the launch because I know that that's probably where you put a lot of your focus already. Most people are looking for two important things in this world. And you can write in the chat if this is you, if you identify with this. Most people are looking to make income and they are looking to make impact. So if you just take a minute and put that in the chat, I would love to see that. Really, what is the motivation? What is the driving force for you? If you're working on a book right now, why, you know, is it that you want to make a lot of money off of it? Are you trying to build your credibility? Do you have a message that's burning inside of you to share? Or are you really just trying to make an impact? And I think so much for us, for our speakers, I see the desire to create a legacy, you know, the desire to make an impact with what they're doing so that for the rest of their lives, what they've done has meaning. And I'd love to just know if that's. If that's where you're at right now. Okay. We are going to talk about laying your foundation. This is one of the single most important things you can do, a strong foundation, it's not just about getting started. It's about setting yourself up to amplify your success over, over time so that every step you take becomes an opportunity to build momentum and create long lasting impact. Now I've seen people launch and then go back and quickly put the foundation into place. And it's never too late. Okay, it's not like, okay, I've already put my book out, I've already done a talk. It's too late. No, because throughout your, throughout your life, throughout your business life, people will be going back to look at the foundation that you have. If they're considering you for a speaking opportunity, if they are considering putting you on TV or giving you press opportunities, if they're considering bringing you into an event, they will look back. It's never too late. Okay, so I want to share some important tips. One of the most important things that we do in our community with our own, we have a momentum membership that we have our speakers go into. This is the number one thing I work on is the positioning statement. This is defining your position in the market with such singularity and clarity that you become the go to person in your niche. Now it is never too late to work on this. And all that this looks like is a graphic. And I, and when I create this of my students, it's never about this being necessarily a front facing graphic. This isn't something that you need to put on your website or that you need to go and put on LinkedIn. This is for you to have this clarity. And it starts with very simple, your title, mental health expert. And I say that because so many people are like, I am a mindset coach and a personal trainer and I do Reiki and I'm a dog groomer on the weekend. And they don't really want to be any one thing because they have so many skills. But if you are a jack of all trades, you're a master of none. And it's really important to just be known in your industry as the number one person. So mental health expert. And then this statement, what do you do and how do you do it? Okay, so she empowers professionals to do what? To have an oxygen mask mindset and embrace self care and personal boundaries. Okay, this is Angie. She's a retired registered nurse. She's a calming calligraphy expert.

Right.

Helping nurses overcome burnout using the art of calming calligraphy. Here is Jen Corporate. She's more of a professional corporate speaker. Small teams, big impact, creating a culture of celebration to maximize productivity. And what is her title? A performance, brand and culture strategist. So what I would encourage everyone here to do is really to take a minute or two and write this down. Right? What is your title? Who do you help? How do you help them, and in what way? And really getting clarity around that. Now, the other thing, when we do these kinds of positioning statements, I ask people to think about what is your colors, what are your fonts, you know, what is the energy of your position in the marketplace. And you can see Jen has a very corporate look. She's in her suit jacket, very professional. You can see Angie is an artist. Like, this picture just sums up who she is. So I would encourage everybody to sort of work on that.

And what. I'm sorry, it was. Who do you help? What were you suggesting they do?

Who do you help? Who do you help to do what and how to do what?

Okay, I'm putting that in. I'll give everybody a second to answer that. And while. While that's. I don't know if you saw the comments because I know you're. It's hard to multitask, but there was. There was lots, you know, income and impact. Stella Fake Impact. There was impact and income. Impact, impact, impact, Income for sure, mostly impact. But income doesn't hurt. I'm kind of. I'm with you on that check. I like the income but impacts first burning message, cover my cost, income and freedom. And then Tom says, only impact. I'm retired, so writing for him. Writing is not the income source for him. Emily says, I'm writing to make sure my readers have a path to a place where I found heaven. How to found a haven. Sorry, not a heaven. Haven. And then Efren showed up late, but we're going to forgive him. And the Hart's Way said impact to continue to help people with mental health issues beyond my retirement from clinical practice. And so I'm just waiting to see if anybody wants to share their positioning statement, because I think that would be a fun thing to hear. So if you just joined in, you're working on who do you help to do what and how. And if somebody wants to share, I would love to hear it. And. And if not, we'll just carry on. We'll turn it back over to Rena. I'm also giving her voice a break.

No, I love that. And one of the interesting things is that people come into this class. We've actually done brand building competitions. Calissa won this year and Angie won last year. And I will say that people will try. And it's a work in progress. Like, they're constantly refining, they're constantly working, working on it. And it is such a skill. So, like, if it doesn't come naturally, easily, and one of the mistakes that people make is they become too general. Like, I'm a mindset coach that helps people get over their limitations. You and a million other people. Right. If you were to say, I'm a mindset coach that works with recently divorced women to give them a second lease on life right now, it's like, okay, wow, I see that's very specific audience that you're working with. Or I can see your very unique. Like, Kalissa uses the oxygen mask mindset, which I love.

Right.

Help yourself first before you help others. So. And she empowers professionals. So she has a specific target market, she has a specific proprietary method. And. And what does she do? Help them embrace self care and personal boundaries. So it's not like all mental health issues or all burnout is something very specific. So the more specific you are, the more powerful you are.

And that's what I tell them always about their readers with their books too. Because book marketing is so much easier when you have a very clearly defined audience. And usually people come in and they're like, I might be too niche. We're like, no, let's go deeper.

Oh, I just love the niche. And I, I've dealt with this for years. People not wanting to eliminate anyone, you know, especially in, in my speaker world. Yeah. I have people that come in and maybe they, they speak to, they want to speak to corporations about company culture, for example, but they really, their heart goes out to women entrepreneurs and they really want to speak to you. And I always tell people, you can do other things for the purpose of marketing, have such singularity that you are the person that people think of.

Right.

When people think about, oh, I want to write a book, you want them to think of Julie.

Right.

If you're thinking about speaker, I want people to think speaker slam. We do a million things, but I want people to really just think of us as the platform that launches their speaking business. So it's just having that powerful singularity.

Yeah, I love it. Here's a couple for you. And then we can move. We can move on. So Jack says, I'm a Bible teacher. My book teaches principles in the Bible. It is to help church understand and do what is in the Bible, which is not always easy or seriously attempted.

Yeah, I like the specificity of that. Yep.

And then Efren has Oops, wrong one. That's. That's part two. So part one, who. Helping the good guys recognize, avoid, and when necessary, confront the bad guys with micro indicators of criminality and oppression before you become a victim. Wow.

Okay.

That's a serious. That's serious stuff. Serious. So the only thing I would say with that one is that, I mean, good guys and bad guys is very general. And so I would put it into some sort of a scenario or, or define it even further because, you know, and I think, you know, this is one of the things with your effort has a very, very large and yet fascinating book. It's called the Opposite is True. And we were just at a book, this five day book event that we were at here in Vegas and it was fun to watch because one, one of our author's wives picked up his book and she was just engrossed in it. She just read and read. She sat there for two hours just reading his book. So it's really, really fascinating.

But I think one of the challenges.

You have when you have such a big book that has so many fascinating stories and ideas in it is how do you narrow that down? So I think that you got to go for the branding. I think we got to go a little bit further in there.

And one of the things I want to point out with these statements, like helping nurses overcome burnout using the art of calming calligraphy. It's very succinct and short. And so what the work that you're doing right now is good because you have to keep distilling it down to get to this very simple phrase that it is an art form. So it seems simple at first, but it takes a while to, to not be general, you know, to be very specific, to be unique, to really encapsulate exactly what you're speaking about. So at least this is a starting point.

Yeah, no, it's great. And he's, he's given the thumbs up for specificity. All right, we got one more. And then I'll, I'll, I'll turn it back over to you, Reena. Okay, so this is expert principle based deliverer to bring people out of bondage using the principles of the Torah.

Wow, what was the first part of that sentence?

Expert principal based deliverer. So, I mean, I'm obviously not your target because I don't actually know. I don't really have a clear sense of what this is. But that doesn't mean it's not saying what it needs to say. I might not just might not be the target at all well.

And also, like, I agree, as I'm hearing it, like, so maybe we're not the target market, but when I. If I don't fully grasp expert principle, deliver, like, it doesn't. Yeah, doesn't land easily. So I would keep refining that. I would just keep refining. And. And one of the things that we do in our community is have people share these statements with their clients, their demographic, to say, does this resonate? You know, does this connect to you over and over? So the more succinct you are, the better.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. All right, I'll turn it back over to you and everybody who's here. If you haven't already said hello, make sure you do, because in about 20 minutes, we'll take a short recess from the conversation on speaking and we'll do some prizes for those of you are here live. So if you're not. If you're not familiar with our format, that's what we do is we reward you for participating, asking questions. When Rena says, hey, I'd love to hear, you know, what you're doing this for or what your positioning statement is, you do get rewarded. So. Oh.

And then.

Oh, Efren's kind of taking. And kind of taking a stab at what this means. So saying, utilizing the principles of the Torah to communicate how to set yourself free. So if that's the case now, I'm starting to understand. So that's a really clear way of saying it, if that is what you're saying.

Yes. And. And I. I would also say I like utilizing the principles of Torah, but I would say, are you helping people utilize. You know, so what is your role in that? But yeah, okay, we're getting clearer, which is great.

Great. Love it. All right, back to you.

Okay, so the next thing we're going to talk about is your thought leadership. And your thought leadership is the collection of your unique insights, your framework, your experiences that position you as a trusted authority in your field. So I love Seth Godin. He's one of my favorites. And if you see he's got tons of quotes. Right. Good enough. Stopped being good enough a long time ago. Why not be great? Don't find customers for your products. Find products for your customers. You're either remarkable or invisible. Make a choice. So over time, these have become his thought leadership. If you think about Simon Sinek saying, start with why. That's his thought leadership. If you think about Brene Brown, the courage to be vulnerable so they become known for their thoughts. And I say the difference between a good speaker, and a great speaker is the uniqueness of their insights. Now, I'm going to give you an example. If I was a health and diet coach and you came to me and I said, okay, here is how I'm going to help you. You're going to eat less, you're going to drink water, and you're going to go for a walk at night. That's pretty generic, right? Everybody in the world knows that. But if I were to say you're going to intermittent fast between this time and this time, you're going to take turmeric, you're going to do 20 minutes of cardio and 30 minutes of strength training, all of a sudden, I have a unique framework. I have a unique system that sets me apart from somebody that has a generic or basic one. So when it comes to your thought leadership, you're trying to be as unique as possible.

And.

And now not everything needs to be unique. You might have a framework, and within that framework, the combination of things. So, for example, let's use the one I just gave you around health. I could say to you, eat 1500 calories a day and drink 5 liters of water, and maybe those are pretty generic, but then I could also say, mix turmeric and cayenne with lemon in the morning, and I could say, add this cinnamon to your diet. Okay, so now a couple of the things are unique, a couple of them are more generic, but it's the combination of things that have created a proprietary framework that becomes mine. So when you are thinking about your thought leadership, you're putting your insights and your frameworks together to make you the leader so that thought leadership can take the place, can take the form of a signature talk. So this is a talk that demonstrates your area of expertise and your unique thoughts within it, your signature story, and that is a story that demonstrates why you are the perfect person to share your expertise. So at the beginning today, I shared my story about going on Dragon's Dental. And what I did with that story is I shared how I've been successful in my business, how we had done almost a million dollars in sales. I was able to share how the Dragons wanted to invest in me. I was able to share that I was an entrepreneur. And at the same time, I was able to share that by being inspiring, I actually won over the Dragons. So I got to put a lot of credibility into my story. Story that just seemed like a fun story that I was using to start my talk. So your role when you're creating your signature talk is to have the perfect story that shows your audience why you are the person to be delivering that talk. And then your unique framework, okay, so your framework is a solution to a problem. So today, my keynote, I talked about my three step framework to building a bookable brand. Okay, so that becomes my thought leadership. I talked about laying the foundation, launching and leverage. That becomes my framework. I often speak to groups of entrepreneurs and my talk is called get to the front of the room. And this is my formula. Okay, this is my framework. I talk about mindset, creating a special sauce bio, establishing your brand, creating a talk, aligning your offer, designing your experience. This framework becomes my thought leadership. Now if I were to say master mindset, I speak about that. Thousands and thousands of people speak about that. That in its own is not my unique thought leadership. I could talk about creating a signature talk that isn't necessarily my unique thought leadership. Lots of people say create a talk, but it's this combination, this framework of things that I've put together that allows me to create, get to the front of the room and allows me to have my own unique thought leadership. So this is something that you would be working towards. I wanted to talk a little bit. Now I'm not sure here because I know that I'm speaking to people that have either written a book or they're in the process or maybe you really want to, but I wasn't sure how many people here, maybe you can let me know in the chat also want to get paid to speak. And let me, let me reframe that. It's not even getting paid. How many people want to be on stages speaking, making impact with their voice and then how many people actually want to get hired to speak? And if you have an area of expertise who would love to be paid to share that. So just let me know in the chat. I love to just include a slide for this because I think a lot of people are interested in that and I just want to share a few insights. So we're considering who are the people that hire speakers. We're going to start with corporations, associations, now associations. Everything in the world has a gut an association, whether it's healthcare, travel, carpenter, association, everything has an association. And associations have meetings. And originally associations used to bring in their own speakers. So if I was in the accounting association, they'd have to have an annual meeting and they'd bring in a fellow accountant. And then one day they thought, well, this is kind of boring. What would happen if we started bringing in unique and innovative speakers and the associations really created the speaker World. So there are times when you can be online, you can find directories of associations, and I guarantee every single one of those is bringing people in. Now, if you were the travel association, are you only bringing in people to speak about travel? No.

Right.

You might be bringing in people to speak about hobbies, lifestyle, self care, stress management. You know, if travel can be a result of people who are stressed. Company incentives. Right. So you have to think outside the box and think about how can I fit my talk for an association? Nonprofits, colleges and universities, the education sector in general, you know, kindergarten all the way up, churches, more so in the states than in Canada, and occasionally inspirational events and entrepreneurial conferences. And here's the reason everybody wants to speak at inspirational events. They're less likely to pay because they don't. Unlike a company that might have a budget. You know, if you are like at&t in the States, maybe you have an annual budget for diversity training, mental health training, you know, corporate communication training, but an actual inspirational event. Somebody is putting, putting that event on. They're booking the venue, they're booking the speakers. They're trying to make money off the event. If they're going to pay someone, it's going to be someone who has a huge, sorry following or someone who can fill the venue. Right. You're going to pay Gary Vee to come in because he's going to bring in 100,000 people. You're not going to usually pay the average person, so they're not as likely to pay. Although I have seen some that do. Secondly, the more clear you are about who you speak to, the easier it will be to find speaking engagements. And so my question is, always assuming you were put in front of your perfect audience to talk about any subject, what would you speak on? And I'd love to put that out there if you want to. Just take a minute and think about that. If you are going to be put in front of your perfect audience to talk on any subject, what would you speak on? Giving you one minute to think on this, Julie.

Yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say I put Cynthia's up there. I love Cynthia's. But yeah, go ahead.

I was gonna ask, do you love speaking in front of audiences?

Yeah.

And is this. Have you always spoken about book writing books and publishing books? No.

So previously, my previous business, the one that I had in Canada, was a real estate training and education company and investment company. So I started speaking. I actually had a weird, A weird thing. I started. I did a local meetup. There was 12 people in the room. And then I was promptly invited to Speak week at the Toronto Real Estate forum, which had 600 people in the room. So I went from 12 as my first engagement to 600, which was a very, very dramatic increase. But then after that, I spoke, you know, rooms of all sizes and have now spoken all over North America, which has been an absolute blast.

Do you love that?

Yeah, I do. I love. So I'm an introvert. And so for me, I mean, getting on stage allows me to communicate and have an impact with a lot of people without me having to actively network in a room of people where I'm horribly uncomfortable among strangers. And so I love when you get off stage, people come up to you and they ask questions, and now I'm able to help people. So for me, it is a direct path to a lot more impact without me having to put myself in what I find uncomfortable situations, which is walking into rooms where I don't know anybody. When you're a speaker, everybody at least has somewhat recognition of who you are, so they'll approach you. So that's part of what I love about it. It's that, for me, it's just an easier path. And then you can connect with more people in an easier way because you can connect to any other speaker and go, I'm speaking at the same event as you, and now you can build a relationship. So that's what I like.

So in my previous slide, when I talked about my framework, get to the front of the room, I always talk about that. Like, I don't love networking either. I would much rather be on the stage speaking one time and connecting to everyone than having to go around and painfully have each conversation. So getting to the front of the room really gets you in front of everyone immediately. Yeah.

And then I want to touch on your. So there's a couple things with who hires speakers, because I think you hit on something that a lot of people really don't realize, and that is how many places actually will charge you to get on stage, not even not pay you to be on their stage, but they're going to charge you to be on their stage. And this was really, you know, something that was widespread 10 years ago when I was in the real estate space. But it's really spread out to a lot more conferences and events. And, you know, we work with a lot of authors who want to get on stages, and so we will actively seek opportunities for them. And this is something we were running into with a lot more. And even one of the writers conference, I won't name it, but there's a writers conference that wrote me and they asked me to speak and I said, great. And I sent them the proposal and they said, oh no, you have to sponsor first and then you get to speak. And I was like, that's a weird way to ask somebody to sponsor. But it's becoming more and more widespread. So I think looking not necessarily to some of those inspirational operational events to start with, but you hit on it, which is non profits. I mean, I book speakers. I'm the learning chair for eo, which is entrepreneur organization for Las Vegas. We pay. We don't pay tons of money, but we pay. And so other non profits and every EO chapter in every city that they're in, they have a monthly event where they're bringing in some sort of a speaker to create some sort of either a learning event or an experiential event. So if you can kind of start to find those nonprofits or those associations or those companies that are within your space, it starts to. You can start to find a lot of gigs and word of mouth goes a long way. So that, that can be a really powerful thing. Do you want to see some of these talk topics?

Yes, I do. But before you do that, I want to say one quick thing on that around the concept of should you pay to speak? I always tell people if there's a powerful advantage for you. So for example, if you're a great salesman and you're allowed to sell from the stage, why wouldn't you? If. If I was going into a room full of potential people who love to speak, and I knew that they might come and work with me, would I pay? Potentially, yes. Right. But if it's just a different kind of audience and you know, I have nothing to sell and nothing to gain, I would never want to do that. But I think if there's a good enough advantage. Yes.

And I think sometimes if you're new and you don't have a speaker reel, there can be an advantage to getting in front of a great audience. And paying to get be in front of that audience is okay, there's. And I don't want anybody to think that I'm saying that it's wrong to pay, because it's not. It's just a lot of people are surprised by that when they think they're going to be paid to be on stage and all of a sudden they're being asked to pay. But yes, I agree. There's completely. There's scenarios where it makes complete sense to pay to be on that stage.

Especially if you are new and you're looking for video, you're looking for photos, you're looking for testimonials, you're looking for. For experience. There's lots of wins. So I always just say, is there something in it for you that would make it worth it? Otherwise, of course, obviously, it's not worth it.

Agreed? Agreed. All right, we got a couple here. I'll grab a few that showed up. So resilience through faith and intentionality or navigating the publishing space with clarity. Okay, yeah, that was one. We have another one. Assertive communication, Codependency, Affirmations, Therapeutic relationships. There's a long list. Let's see. Oh, interesting and counterintuitive that introverts like to speak on stage. I guess. I guess that is kind of counterintuitive. And yet I meet a lot of introverts who are speakers. And I think. I don't know if everybody thinks the same way as I do. Is it's just an efficient way to make a lot of connections. But absolutely. All right, here's one more for you. The belief that we can communicate with the afterlife offers a comforting connection, reminding us that those we've lost are never truly gone and further inviting us to explore mysteries of existence. I love that.

I will go listen to that.

Me too. You've sold us, Kevin. Just let us know when and where.

Right. It's always interesting to see, like, what people actually want to listen to, what you really want to speak about. So that's a good sign.

Yeah. Awesome. All right. Oh, and then I'll just share this one. It's not a talk topic, but Cynthia said I discovered a whole end of life community death doulas, your morbid friends, here to honor contemporary funeral planning and education. So as she's looking for speaking opportunities, she's found all of these groups that are looking for content like hers. So I think that's fantastic. And congratulations, Cynthia, since you're here, she had an epic book launch this week, and I'm really excited to see where you take it from here.

Oh, wow, Congrats. Okay, so we're moving along to step four, which is find a problem. This is very important for all the. For everybody that just put down topics. Find a problem that your audience legitimately cares about and is willing to pay for, you are actually interested in solving and that you are capable of solving. That's when you have a home run. So here is something really important. You do not need to be the leading authority or expert. However, you have to have the right positioning, which is what I shared earlier, plus you need to have a credibility driven bio, which we're about to get to in a second. Okay, my slide's a little off here. Biggest misconception. Professionals are not hired to inspire the audience. Okay? That's a big, big misconception. Everybody thinks that they just are going to go share their most inspirational story. They are hired to transform the audience. Okay, so how? With the unique framework that solves a problem. And this is known as your thought leadership. And this can be inspirational. This should be inspirational. But really you're there to transform the audience. That's what people are paying you to do. Three important questions. What is your area of expertise or passion? What is the purpose of your keynote? Who's your audience? And what is the desired end result? Okay, so that's something important for speakers to think about. And I always, everything I do is distilling down to clarity. Right? Just getting these things written down. Take a second and just even really write them down so you can think about them later. Because a lot of times people like, I really want to speak about this. This is really, I survived, I had an illness and I overcame it. And now, you know, I'm doing so much better in my life and I really want to inspire with my story. Well, what's the purpose? Well, inspiring. Well, who is the audience and who's going to pay for that? Now if you had an illness or an accident and you overcame it, and through it you learn these resilience strategies, or maybe you learned how to get community support and you went through outreach and you found that there was community support support. Or maybe you learned about government services that helped you in low times and you created a talk now that becomes valuable. So it's looking beyond just the inspirational story to think about what is the purpose of the keynote and what's the desired end result? Okay, so step two, you've chosen the area you want to focus on as a speaker based on what you're passionate about, what you're skilled at, what there's the big, biggest demand. And so, for example, I put storytelling for sales and influence in the middle. For myself, I'm a speaker. And as a speaker, I could speak about 10x. I could speak about delivery, performance, storytelling, I could speak about influence. But I think about all of these things that I can speak about. And in the middle, storytelling for sales and influence. Now I could go into a company and I could speak to them on a topic that's important because I couldn't go to a big company in Canada. And I couldn't walk over and say, I really want to just talk to your people about, you know, storytelling, because for what purpose? But if I could speak to your sales team and show you how you could use storytelling to improve your sales and influence clients, well, now I have something that they would be interested in paying for. So it's always positioning your talk for what, what the person who's paying for would want. The next thing you do now you have your, you know, you know what you're going to speak about, you know what, what's in demand. And the next step is making a list of your insights. And I say keep a notebook and just keep adding. This becomes the foundation of your keynote. Potentially it's a book or it's a course. So for example, I'm going to use my storytelling for sales and influence. And I start thinking to myself, well, every sale begins with likability, connection and resonance that can be developed through storytelling. Trust is essential for sales. Trust can be built through the vulnerability of storytelling. Great speaking and storytelling gives a professional edge and polish to, to salespeople and can help them seem more relatable and less like a fast talking car salesman. After a couple years of the pandemic, many people worked from home and lost their communication and connection opportunities. Storytelling and speaking skills can help. Okay, so now if I'm writing all these down on a weekly basis, as they come to me, I'm creating a talk. So once you've got your area, it's your job to kind of keep a notebook and, and just write these. Now within each one, each one of these can be a keynote. This is the whole framework. Or I could create a talk just on that. Right? When you talk about this last one about the pandemic, people losing their ability to connect and communicate, there's a whole talk on human connection as people reintegrate to the workforce. So your notes become the foundation for your thought leadership. Okay, just one slide to keep it clear. Your keynote foundation needs to be your problem and your solution and the framework to solve it. And I like calling it some kind of like five step framework or my six step system. Okay, just, or you know, or your journey, you know, just creating the concept of having a system. System. People pay for that. Okay, so six step framework to create your signature keynote. So here we go. Here's my six step framework to creating your signature keynote. Number one, your keynote intro story. The engaging story that demonstrates where you're the right person to solve the problem and includes your credentials and credibility. We're flashing back to my Dragon's Den story number two, framing the problem for your audience that you're there to speak about. Next, your solution to the problem, which is your framework, your thought leadership. Okay. Each part of the framework should be introduced with a personal story or antidote to keep it interesting. Your conclusion, you're recapping the main points on one slide, just like I've done right here. Now, if you're watching this, you could screenshot this. You could take a picture. If I was in the front of the room, someone could click a picture. People want to be able to have easy access to everything you're talking about. So I like to put everything on one slide at the end, the call to action that's appropriate for the event. So if you're being paid to speak, you're not allowed to sell anything at the end. So maybe it's like, I'd love to stay connected. Here's my QR code. Please find me on LinkedIn. Right. I'd love to share my PDF on how to create a powerful keynote. Please click here and sign up on my page to get my free PDF. If you're speaking in an event where you paid to speak, maybe you're making an offer. You know, today only. I'd love to sell Coaching with me for $97 for an hour to get clear on this. Right. You have to think about what that call to action is appropriate. Don't miss an opportunity. I've seen so many people do a keynote, and at the end they stand up and say thank you very much, and they walk off. No QR code, no way to get in touch with them. They haven't offered anything. It's just such a mess. Finally thanking the organization that hired you, thanking the audience, being gracious. This is it. Click it right here. This is it. If you want to get in front of audiences, this is as simple as it can be. One thing that it's not, a signature keynote, is your long, personal story. Some people just want to share. I've overcome adversity. I'm going to share for an hour on my journey. I'm going to inspire you. No, you can use that inspirational story as part of your intro story, but that should not be what. You're there. You're there to solve a problem. Okay, so we're moving on. We're still on laying the foundation. We're in the final part of that, which is I mentioned earlier, the credibility driven bio. So you are.

Oh, I was gonna say, are you okay? If We. If we pause and I do some prizes. Yes, yes. Perfect. Okay, wonderful. All right, so. And a few people just arrived, so welcome. You've made it just in time for the prizes. All right, so I'm gonna share my screen. And if you guys don't know how this works, we have a little giveaway tool. So everybody who is commented has been entered to win. And I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen. Maybe. Let's see, where did it go? Maybe that one. Nope, that's us. That's us. Hold on. It's gonna show us for a second there. Hold on. Isn't that trippy when it does that? All right, give me one second here. Go ahead. And if you want to. If you want to check out the comments while I am fumbling my way through this, There's a few. There's a few good comments in there. Oh, I see why I accidentally closed it. That's why it's not opening. Now. Let's remove that from stage and share this one. That should work.

The giveaway tool.

I. All right, you guys should be seeing it now. And I'm going to go ahead and choose today's live stream and click draw.

And.

Cynthia, congratulations. All right, so you know the drill, my friend. You have won either the journal, the mug, our hashtag, no boring books mug, which I still have stuff in, but you don't get the stuff. You just get the mug or our oh, so self journal or self publish and succeed and self promote and succeed, which I'm pretty sure you have both of those. So just email. What you're going to do is you're going to email Angela at Team T E a m book launchers.com and just let her know what you want and we know where to find you. So you don't have to include your address unless you want us to send it somewhere else. But I know you have won before and we know how to find you. All right, and our next winner.

Still need music.

You know, like suspenseful music. All right, Michelle, Hopefully I'm saying that right. So same thing. You have won a self published in 16 succeed or self promote and succeed. So my two books or our oh so soft journal, which is right here. Oh so soft.

And.

Or the mug.

And.

And you can only. You can't win the mug if you're not in the United States. I always have to tell people that we can't ship it outside of the US because the duty. The duty on it when it arrives to you is more than the mug is worth. So email Angela@teambooklaunchers.com I'll put it in the comments and let her know your mailing address and your prize choice. And we'll do one more prize near the end. And if you have questions as you're going along, I'll be saving them up and bringing them up at the end as well. But back to you.

Okay, so let me see if I get back here now.

I was gonna say your. Yeah. Your slides. We have to add them back in while you're doing that. I see. Let's see if there's any comments. Some people are talking about. Oh. Bell just launched her book on homeschool stress free Free. It's practical and humorous guide to help new and seasoned homeschoolers gain or regain peace in their homeschooling journey.

Cool.

All right, we've got you. There we go. Rena, back to you.

Okay, perfect. So this is the final step around laying your foundation, which is your credibility driven bio. And this is creating a bio that incorporates your credentials, your accomplishments, and your secret ingredients. So, for example, I coach my students to do this. A bio where you have your picture in the middle, you have your written bio on the left. This is the kind of thing that somebody might read when they introduces. They introduce you. It's your overall credibility. You know, I run a speaker development agency. I run a speaking competition. It's just essentially who I am. But I encourage people to create on the right what I call my credibility markers. Now, when I put these things down, what's important about this is this if somebody is trying to have look for a speaker or they're giving away an award or they want someone to come on their tv, on their press, on the news. You want to make it an easy yes for people. So you want to brag as much as you can. You know, you won things, I've done things. I've got all kinds of successes in there here. It makes it an easy yes. And I encourage people to be loud and proud about what they've accomplished. Now, some people say I haven't really done much yet, and I talk about reverse engineering it. There's lots of opportunities that people have to get on the board of directors of a nonprofit or to start your own charity initiative. So, for example, if you look down here, I produced amplifying black voices, Parents with disabilities, women's empowerment and mental health events. My business partner and I created these events. If you look in the middle, founder of platform empowering homeless youth to claim their voice. I created a program that worked with homeless youth. So not everything is somebody has to give you an award or you have to, you can create things. So when you're thinking about your bio, you're thinking, how do I give myself a leg up? What can I create? What can I do that makes me special? And do it. Just do it. Go out there and create something. Put it out. Now, let's imagine you started an initiative. You're creating a charity fundraiser that would support your area of expertise. You create it, you create the marketing, you launch it, seven people show up or it raises $50. Doesn't matter. You are now the creator of this incredible initiative that you get to put out there and that's what people are going to see. So I encourage everybody not to feel like, oh, I haven't done enough. Go out there and reverse engineer it and create your credibility driven bio. Now, I wanted to bring some of these things in because my business partner, he really focuses on publicity, getting press, winning awards, creating opportunities. And this is his area of expertise that I've seen him talk about a million of times. But it's so important. And we're talking about the game winning the game of first impressions. Okay? So your goal is to show your expertise, you know, to establish credibility in a space for people to go to verify who you are and what you stand for. So it's important to have consistent messaging on social media. That's if you have LinkedIn, if you have Instagram, if you're on YouTube, if your book comes out, everything should be consistent. So if Kevin is talking about the afterlife and I, I'm not sure if I even remember any of this correctly, but if somebody's talking about the afterlife and they have a book and then on LinkedIn, they're a spiritual medium or they're an expert in the afterlife world, and that is great. And then you go on Instagram and they're a cat groomer and you go to YouTube and they have a paintball channel, it doesn't give you consistent messaging. And I know that these are all parts of your personality, but it's super important that you make sure that it's consistent all the way across social media presence. Some people are like, I hate social media. You need to love social media or at least fake it. Because if you're trying to build a business, you need to get out there and get consistently active on social media. Now, you don't need to be messaging 10 times a day, but you need to have a presence. You need to have a LinkedIn beyond all. You need a LinkedIn because decision makers are on LinkedIn. People that give awards, people that give pride, press, people that are looking you up, they're looking for you on LinkedIn. So you need to have an, a, a respectable, presentable social media presence and that includes not you, you know, sitting beside your pile of laundry or not you out partying with the guys getting drunk, but you in your area of expertise, representing you as your personal brand, showing social proof. This is so important. If you win an award, show it. If you've launched your book, show pictures of you at your book launch. If you went to an event and you get a picture with Gary Vee or Anthony Robbins, put it up. If you're on a stage with a microphone, put it up. Some people have a hard time being loud and proud. Show every single win. If you get nominated for an award, forget about winning it. And this is one of my tips for people. You can self nominate, you can have somebody else nominate you. There's hundreds of awards if you start to show. Nominated for women of influence, nominated for top 40 under 40 nominated. People don't really differentiate between winning and being nominated. It's the perception of continual success and you can play that game. And finally, having a personal website. Dan speaks a lot about having a website in your name. So if your name is John Smith, it's johnsmith.com or johnsmith mediumship.com having your name, owning your name if you can, because you could be Kiara Smith and somebody else comes up and gets that website. And then when people are searching, you know, breakfast television, a big global news comes on, they want to get you on, they're start looking for your name and somebody else pops up 50 times. They own the name. So if you can grab your website, grab it. Okay, now we're moving on. We've laid your foundation. You've launched, you've launched your book, you've launched your speech, You've launched your TEDx. We're talking about leverage. Every win, whether it's a speaking engagement, media feature, an award, it becomes a stepping stone to something bigger. By strategically amplifying each achievement, you build momentum, you position yourself for even more opportunities. So we're going to talk a little bit about media right now. My business partner, every single day, I actually am overwhelmed by it because every day there's somebody else going on the news or winning an award, we're going to talk about securing media. His number one tip is media awareness days. So a lot of times when people are launching their book or their course of their program, they might write A press release. And I am launching my book today, and I'm putting out my press release, and the media does not care at all. What they care about is a couple things. Number one is media awareness days. So they might have a media awareness day for breast cancer or for mental health, divorced parents, eating disorder day. They have a lot of awareness days and they're looking to get human interest stories on those days. So if you go and look and see all the awareness days and find out where you intersect, that's what's important, okay? Finding unique, innovative ideas that your brand can fit into that you can become an expert, expert at, that you can weigh in on and be called to the media to speak on. That's the goal. Next is finding the decision makers. You know, a lot of times people just send out a blanket PR release, press release, and it doesn't go to the right person. If you're watching a TV show, you're watching something and you see a segment, you're trying to find the segment producers. You know, you could, you could actually send out something to the journalist that's doing it, but more likely it's the segment producer. How do you do it? You simply go to the, the paper, the magazine, the. The website of this media outlet and find out. Dan's tip is he adds them on Instagram. He's continually adding them on Instagram. So they're seeing his successes. And finally, and this is the most important thing, leading with a personal story, if you've had any kind of success or interesting thing happen to you or relevance that you could kind of lead with rather than just, I've just written my book. This is a really great book. It's going to be. It's a bestseller on Amazon. I'd love to launch it. No. You know, maybe you came from foster care and you came out of the system and you went on to create a business that gives back to you. Now you've got an amazing story, right? So look into your life and think, what are the personal stories I can lead with? Because the media likes to feature personal story. And this is one of our clients we joke about. She will joke that when she met us, she only had a Pinterest account. She's done. She had nothing. And Dan worked with her tirelessly to win awards, to get on tv, to, to be in blogs and magazines. And it all came down to the art of the pitch. And so that is being timely. So if there's something coming up, if Mental Health Month is coming up a month before your messaging, if Something is happening right now in the world and you have a story that aligns with it, it's coming in with it. So it's knowing when, if your book is launching tomorrow and you send a media release, it's not timely, right? But if you can somehow connect the concept of your book to something that is actually happening in the media now that's timely. Standing out with uniqueness, so important. And remember earlier when I talked about that credibility driven bio, you can reverse engineer that like Dan and I have created, you know, eight years now, this inspirational speaking competition that has had hundreds of people have life changing experiences. That success has allowed us to get paid speaking, to get press, to win awards. We just created it, right? So when you are working on whatever you're doing, creating a charity or creating an initiative or creating a project, you've created your uniqueness. So always think about that. Provide expertise solutions. If you are an expert in any area, you look at the problems that are going on in the world and you come up with a unique angle, your pitch is a possible solution for media to really highlight. Okay, so again now, now we're moving beyond just your story. You're giving tips. If right now, post pandemic, the world is dealing with burnout and you're a mental health expert, you are creating a pitch around three innovative and unique possibilities or strategies to overcome burnout. You're coming in with expertise solutions and you're making it easy. When you send in a pitch, everything is linked. We send, we put links to videos, links to other articles. We put a drive with pictures in it. If we send out a press release, there's, here's my pictures, here's some pictures, suggestions, here's some story suggestions, anything you would need about me. Here's B roll. Dan put some extra video footage if you will, make it easy. And then people are way more likely. People will sit down and write one page pitch and just click it through. Nothing comes of it. If you make their job easy, they will want to feature you. Which brings me really to my end and I wanted to share this. This is Dan's ultimate media calendar for speakers. And if you want to click on this, it just gives you all of the different media awareness days that you could potentially position yourself for. And as you're trying to build momentum, we put press and publicity and awards and opportunities is one of the biggest ways to create that momentum around you that propels you forward. So I'll leave this up here for just a quick second. If people want to grab it and I'M I'm sure Julie can send it out as well. And I'm going to stop sharing this in one quick second.

Him. All right. Yeah, I was gonna say, hopefully you got it, but if you didn't, I'll put the link in the replay afterwards so that you can download it from there. Because I think I got the link. Yes, I do. So I'll post it in the. In the description below.

Perfect. Perfect. And so I did want to thank you for letting me come and for giving me for my terrible voice. I am super passionate about all of this stuff. Right. Because especially you and I are in the same world. With people, whether they're wanting a book or a speech is the same. They just want to put their heart out there. So it's amplifying it so it doesn't just come out and then go nowhere. It's like bringing it to life. So thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to share this today.

Yeah. Thank you for being here. Are you up for some questions? There are a few here. Okay, wonderful. All right, so let me scroll back and find. Let's see. I think. Sorry, some questions were like, to people, to each other. So I'm trying to make sure. And so for everybody asking, it will be replayed later. So, you know, Susan already identified that. She's going to go back and take her notes afterwards. All right, so the first question I think, think is, cynthia's on social media. Can you ever overdo it and expose yourself or overexpose yourself or your book?

Absolutely not. And here's the interesting thing is that we think that I don't. Okay, I'm going to give you an example. I will sometimes post about a speaking event. I will post it. I'll post on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. I'll post it again. We'll post a video. I'll post again. I'll share about it. And then somebody will make message and say, I didn't even know you were having an event. I'm so sorry I missed it for what seems like overkill for us. People are so busy, they don't see things all the time. And I think it's just important to just. Now I will say this. There's like a point of, like, boring sharing where it's just like the poster over and over. Find ways to, like, be innovative, share a story, share another story, break, bring someone on, have a podcast. Like, find innovative ways to share. But I don't think you can ever share too much.

Yeah, I think. I think it's oversharing if you go, buy my book, buy my book, buy my book, buy my book. But if it's a picture of you at your book signing, if it's a picture of you even just unboxing your book, and then it's maybe somebody else has your book, if it's always like, you know, to your point, it's the same thing but different. Even people who are seeing all your posts, they're going to be fine. And by the way, I say that for a reason, because it's rare that anybody ever sees all your posts anyways. You're the only one that feels like you're repeating yourself. The algorithms are not so nice to us.

It is true. And there's something about that continual burst of posting. People perceive it as something big is happening with you, like you're moving and shaking, like there's. There's a lot of excitement around you. And I love to just keep, you know, putting that out there. People just have this air of success surrounding you and there's no harm in that. Ever.

Yeah, and I'm not totally sure what this question means, but what is your thought on having followers on social media such as LinkedIn? I'm not sure if you mean Kevin, like the thought on having followers as it pertains to getting booked for speaking or if you meet it in some other context. If you want to clarify. But I'll see if you have any comments on it. Rena, I have certainly a comment as far as, you know, all the extensional items that can happen with followers.

But yeah, I'm not sure if he meant the difference between following and connecting or if he just means like building followers. But I will say this. I. Okay, I have two thoughts. The first one is the important importance of having a strong inner circle versus the obsession to have thousands and thousands of followers. I'm never a fan of that. I'd rather have a strong, powerful community than to just numbers. Like, I would never buy followers for perception. I don't like that. And the second thing is finding the right people. You know, if you are in an area, a certain area, connect with people that can help you connect with your peers, connect with leaders in the industry, connect with people, people you want to see. You. And you have to do that in a way that. Okay, here's my tip with that. If I were to find someone above me that I really want in my world, go out of your way to build a relationship. So I might message someone and say, and actually do this. I just bought your book on Amazon. It was amazing. You know, you're such an inspiration. I would love to connect. Who's not going to add you then? Right. And like, legitimately make the effort to build relationships with the people that are powerful. I see you're having an event come up. I'd love to come out and bring some people. I'm willing to share it. Would you mind sending me a poster? Of course. They're going to connect with you, right? Find ways to connect with people where you are of service to them and you'll build your following.

Yeah, I completely agree. And, and I think, you know, to that point, whether it's LinkedIn or somewhere else, the other side of this applies too is just because somebody has a hundred thousand followers doesn't mean they haven't bought those followers.

That's right.

So a lot of people kind of fall for that, not realizing how, you know, prevalent it is for even, you know, influencers to have purchased their followers. There's a lot of agencies that charge people and put bots or, you know, fake followers on and it's pretty easy to tell if you look at the comments on the posts that somebody doesn't have a real fan base. But it's just the other side of it because I know a lot of people can feel like, oh, that person has so many more followers than me. Well, you know, if you have a thousand engaged people, that's worth way more than a hundred thousand bots. Just so you know.

I can't tell you how many people I know that have like thousands and thousands, like 20,000 followers and they'll create an event and nobody comes, not one person. It's not, it's fake. I'd rather have a small engaged community. Community of people that actually come out and buy your things or support you.

Exactly. All right. Another question from dawn of the new day. Is there too much achievement to include or a way that we should separate the achievements? So military service versus leadership and influence. Faith based author publishing. It's a good question.

Okay, so I would say this all success is, is great because it's, it shows, it shows this air of, of energy around you. But I think it's important to kind of really focus on your area of expertise. So if you were, if you're talking about leadership and influence and your book is on that, then every success or win or credential around leadership and influence, and I go back to the cat grooming. Like you may have just, you know, been cat groomer of the year, but it doesn't really help your position. So that Graphic we created in the beginning should be the foundation of everything. And all the success you should share should be around that. All the credibility should be around that. You know, all. Everything you do should be continually putting you as the leader so that you're the first person to get booked. And some of the other stuff maybe keep for your like personal Instagram or your family, but I wouldn't inundate with things that aren't going to help move you forward.

Yeah, the, the thing I'll add to that is, is I often talk about thinking about the spokes on your brand and so there's other elements that people will connect to beyond just the, you know, the professional aspect. So it doesn't mean you're sharing all the details of your life. But for example, you know, I play a lot of pickleball and so I will share a lot of times pickleball pictures from pickleball and like winning the tournament or, you know, this happened at pickleball and that's just an element. Or my hikes, my Sunday hikes. It's a big thing with my son that I do every Sunday. And so those are choice items of my brand that I share. You're not, you don't know everything about me. You don't know all the things that I'm doing. So I think as you kind of get to know what you want to share as part of your brand and you sprinkle that in amongst the other things because that's the human side of this. And I talk about this all the time because you can write a book with AI all day long now and put out a book every day, but the piece people connect to is the humanity. And so I think it so achievements. Yes. I think it actually would get boring if all you're doing is showing people how great you are in all the ways. But think about your brand and what those spokes are on your brand. Brand and sharing, you know, the good, the bad and you know, the successes of each of those spokes. I think that really helps people connect to you as a whole, as a human.

I, I want to echo that. That is absolutely 100 true. And I'm the same way. I share a lot about my daughter, my travels and when I'm out at events, when people come up to me, they always bring up my daughter or my tr. They, they rarely say, oh, I loved your branding, you know, award, or they'll come up and they'll talk about those personal things and then they want to work with you. So.

Yes, yeah, absolutely. All Right. So I saw something else. Lots of people saying, thank you, awesome information. They're very grateful that you took time to share with us today. Efrain says, unfortunately, I find videos of yourself, particularly lives, get a lot of attention. I assume the unfortunately is that you don't want to do those. All right, here's another question. The number. Oh, that was the clarification. So the number of them for connections versus followers is their importance for one over the other. I think you kind of addressed that, but yes.

And I would say, I don't know why it happens, but people will follow you on LinkedIn. I always then send them a connection request. I'm not sure why they don't just outright connect. I think some people don't know how to use that feature on LinkedIn because you can drop down and do do it. So they just make the easy thing. But I, I definitely try and connect with people.

Yeah, it's. It is a weird thing. I've. I've accidentally just followed somebody because it's the fast. It's like the quick option.

More intuitive.

Yes. Yeah, it is. It's not set up super well.

I think this is probably.

Okay. So what does it mean to get a flag for number one new release on Amazon? I got it in two categories, so, I mean, I always, I always like to temper people's expectations. I mean, Cynthia, I happen to know your sales numbers, so what I'm about to say actually doesn't apply to you, but because you did have exceptional sales for your. For your launch, but a new release is just. You're up against other new releases in your category. It is not very hard to get a number one new release. So what it means is that you were number one of the new releases in that category. So it's a subsection of the category because books that have been out for two years, years, and are still selling lots of copies, you're not up against them for the new release. A bestseller flag means you're up against all the books in that category. And if you're number one bestseller, that usually means a little bit higher volume than a new release. So a lot of people are so excited, they're like, I got a number one new release. And then they check their sales and they're like, I sold 15 copies. So it can be a little bit of a bubble burst, but. And the higher up your category is, the more, More sales it took to be a new release and. Or a bestseller. It's still great. You know, it's. There's still books that didn't get the number one new release. So you're still launching ahead of a lot of other people when you get it. And yes, you can put. So I'll turn it to Reena in a second. But I want to put a caveat on this because Amazon does not give credit to their own bestseller statuses. So what I mean by that is you have to be very careful when you put it on anything that goes on Amazon. As far as your bio, if you try to say I'm the number one best selling book, they can punt that very quickly, disallow it, not allow the post, reject it. And as I've talked about a lot is when Amazon rejects something, they don't tell you. You can't put this phrase on there.

They just reject it.

And it's up to you to figure out what you put on there that they aren't allowing. So be very careful, you know, with anything you adjust Amazon related. But beyond that, I'll turn it over to Re to talk about, you know, these accolades and where you can use them.

So a hundred percent like. So what you just shared, Julie, is that insider knowledge, for example, for me, I know nothing about that. So if I were to see number one new release on Amazon, I would be impressed by that. So I say use that as much as you can on your credibility bio on LinkedIn. It's again, it's always just perception and why not use it if you can?

Yeah, absolutely. I removed myself by accident. I meant to remove the comment.

I was like, wow, okay, here we go. I'm out.

That's me. I'm mic drop. I'm out. Bye. Over to you, Rena. No, I meant to remove Cynthia's comment and I removed myself instead. But, but yes, I think, I think shouting all those achievements and that's a great thing to post on social media and all those things as well. I think those it's all points of.

Interest and credibility and a screenshot of it because it's really legit seeing it.

Exactly. All right, I don't see any other questions here. Let me see. I feel like I missed somebody's question. I'm gonna scroll back up here. Otherwise I'll pop in and do some prizes and if you guys don't have questions, we'll let Reena go and rest, have some tea, probably have a nap, all those things.

With me.

Yeah, no, of course. Thank you for being here. Despite being slightly under the weather still. All right, so I'm going to do the prize if you guys have one last Question. While I'm doing the final prize, you can post it. Otherwise, we will do an early wrap today, which I'm okay with too. After five days of Author Nation, I'm. I'm fine to take a breather from. From talking as well. Okay, let me share my screen and giveaway two. There we are. Okay, friends, let us draw two more fabulous winners. See who it is this time.

Belle.

See? You showed up late, but it paid off. Welcome. So congratulations. If you didn't hear the prizes from before, it is the oh so Soft journal, our hashtag. No boringbooks mug. Or a copy of Self Promote and Succeed or Self Publish and Succeed. And you just need to email angelaeamooklaunchers.com with your address and your choice. And I'll put that back in the comments for you in a second. I'm going to draw one last winner and let's see who our final winner is. Susan. All right, Congratulations. I know you know the drill. I know you've won a few things before. I think I saw you commenting earlier that you love your journal, so. Okay. Teamoklaunchers.com let Angela know your prize choice and where to send it. And we do have one more question for you. I think I missed this earlier, Jack. So thanks for posting this again. I knew it was somewhere. What's the best resource to learn story theory and storytelling skills?

Okay, can I brag and say that we. We have some of the best.

If you weren't, I was going to. So there you go.

We just had our grand Islam. We had 14 of the best. They were just mind blowing. And maybe Sarah told you, but that they were so good. We have a. Can I give a free class here? We have a momentum. We have our momentum group where we meet and we do storytelling and speaking. We give feedback on. On speaking. I'm not sure if I can put this. I'll put it in the private chat and then.

Okay. And then I'll post it. You should be able to because you're a co host, so you should. I'll post it. I see it in the chat.

So actually. Yes. And you're actually coming to speak at our. Our group next. Next week?

Next Saturday. Yeah, we're trading Saturdays. I forgot about that.

Yes. I put that in the private chat because I couldn't. But we meet twice a month and we. We focus on that. But I would say, honestly, if you are in a position where you're starting out and you want to go to Toastmasters, I think that's a good, affordable, easy option in any city where you can go and practice speaking in front of a group. So I think that I. I sometimes find some of their story, their speaking style contrived, but the concept around speaking in front of a room and sharing stories is really powerful. So Toastmasters, for sure. And I, I definitely encourage everyone to come out to one of our classes at Momentum and just learn from the best, because we have some incredible speakers in our group.

Yes, I love that. And Sarah loved the event. She was so pumped. And she's like, she's like, we're going to do lots more with them next year. Right? You know, she was just. I know.

I loved her. I really loved her.

That's fantastic. All right, well, thank you, everybody. Oh, I think this is just a comment. I think this is great. But Efren said, adversity is not only. Oh, you disappeared now, Rena. Here we go.

Hi.

Sorry.

No worries.

Sorry.

Sorry.

No, it's okay. We'll say goodbye to sec. Adversity is not only the catalyst for purpose, action and success. Success, but also illustrates vulnerability, which will help audiences and readers connect. So I love that. All right, thank you so much for being here. I hope you rest and feel so much better very, very soon. And thank you, everybody else for. For joining us today. I will post the link to the calendar as well as the Momentum training in the description below so that you all have easy access to that if you didn't catch it today. And we're back here. So December is our holiday extravaganza. If you have never been to one of our holiday extravaganzas, you'll definitely want to mark your calendar for December 14th at 10:00am it's myself and a handful of our team members, and we're going to answer questions and give away a ton of fun prizes. We always have our special holiday swag, so make sure you join us for that. Bring your questions from all aspects of books writing and publishing and marketing, because you'll have the true experts, which are the people on my team who are actually working on the books every single day, not just talking about it, which is what I do. So join us that day at 10:00am Pacific Standard Time, as always, and I'll be back here live on Tuesday talking about some of the tips and things I learned from Author Nation, as well as, you know, what to expect from the publishing landscape in 2025. All right, thanks, Reena. Everybody's saying thank you and it was fantastic, and I hope you feel better soon.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Bye.