An orthopedic trauma surgeon explains how he built his speaking brand by ditching the suit for polo shirts and tiger-eye earrings, then learning exactly who he wanted to reach. He says authentic style plus research on your audience's actual needs beats copying what everyone else does.
Chapters
The key is how do you become different? You have to learn what works for you, your style. When I first started out, Jim, in the industry of speaking, I wore the suit and tie. I tried to be like everyone. I tried to talk like everyone, and it did not work until I got rid of the suit and tie and said, you know what, I'm gonna wear a nice polo shirt and jeans. I'm gonna wear my tiger earrings, tiger eye earrings. I'm gonna do a little facial. I'm gonna be me. And when that happened down the road, I became more aware of what I wanted to do, my target audience. So for the people listening, you got to find out who is your audience? Who do you want to serve? What do they need? You got to go and do your research. Research the industries. Who are the speakers speaking on this topic? Where are they? What are the trends? And you got to be just a student of speaking and also free talks. I talk with a lot of speakers and they don't understand this. You have to give