160: Taylor Croonquist - On the Nuts and Bolts of Presenting Online

Hey everybody, and welcome to This Moved Me, a podcast about creating talks that move the world.

With me, your host, Sally Koering Zimney.

Together with some fabulous guests, we will have a casual conversation about the art of public speaking, because a good talk can move the world and it'll be fun. Yeah, I would think making alien cows meaningful. That's not a small task. I love your giggle.

Wow.

Oh my gosh, just waiting for everybody to figure out the alphabet.

Hey Movers, it's Sally Koering Zimney Zimney back for another week with an awesome conversation here today with Taylor Kroonquist from Nuts and Bolts Speed Training. If you listened to the show last week with Amina, then you heard me talking about how Taylor and I met at the Presentation Summit, and I was just kind of wowed, wowed by the world of PowerPoint shortcuts. But as I got to know Taylor, what I learned was he's also a pro at bringing your ideas out into the digital space and connecting with people online because he lives in Bali. And you'll hear him talk a little bit about that, but he lives in Bali, and so he has made it his life's work to connect with people across many, many time zones. So when we were talking, it was late at night for him and early in the morning for me, and that is how it worked. Had an amazing conversation, really dug in deeply on all kinds of things with how we can bring our voices to the world in that way. And bonus, you get to hear some of his hack trickery that he brings to the world of PowerPoint. So if you are a PowerPoint person, you do not want to miss this. And even if you're not a PowerPoint person but you're an online person and you are trying to bring your voice to the world, this conversation is for you. I'm really excited for you to hear and get to know Taylor Kroonquist from Nuts and Bolts Speaking. Training. Here he is.

Oh my gosh, I'm sorry, this has been so hard.

Why has this been so hard?

But it's working now.

So what's new back in the States? We've got a volcano erupting over here.

Oh really?

Yeah, Mount Batur is erupting, spitting up smoke and all that jazz.

I was gonna say, what does that mean for you?

Ah, we have our dust. So it hasn't fully erupted, it's just basically emitting clouds of ash.

Okay.

But if it blows, then we basically need to, you know, secure our houses. A lot of our houses, you know, just they're kind of like breeze goes through it. We've got our masks, um, stuff like that.

Whoa, that sounds intense.

I've never been with a volcano eruption before, so—

Oh my gosh, scary.

A little bit. People, people here are a little bit wigged out.

Yeah, how often does this happen?

People got moved, uh, last time it happened was 1964, I think.

Whoa.

So it's one of the most 8 active volcanoes in the world. So I mean, they do know that. And then of course everyone here in Bali who's like on the spiritual yoga side is like, well, that's why there's this energy because we've got this active— I'm like, yeah, I guess you could say that.

That's a positive way of looking at it. Sure, that's—

yeah, because you guys It's all this energy.

People are like, there's all this energy. Anyway, there's a lot of very, very—

Are you feeling the energy, Taylor? Are you feeling it? That's amazing. I'm like, Bali. My only connection to Bali is Eat, Pray, Love. Like, that came through here, right? She came through there.

She was here for a couple of years or something like that.

I don't know if they were there that long. I don't actually know. I just, from the book, I know that that was her love portion of her trip.

The love section. Which is only appropriate since Bali is full of love.

Is Bali full of love? What brought you to Bali? Why Bali?

We were, we spent 3 years speed dating cities around the world. So every 2 months we would switch cities. We were trying to find the next place we wanted to live. And we were having fun, but we got tired of moving around all the time. So we started asking other nomadic people like us, of all the places you've been, where would you go back to? Yeah, for 6 months. And by the 4th time someone said Ubud, Bali, which I had no idea where that was. We're like, we're going to Ubud, Bali. I don't even know where that is on the map. We'll just buy tickets and we'll go and we'll commit to— we'll commit to 12 months. So we'll go find a place and then if we hate it, we'll leave in 3.

Right.

So we just got here and rented a house for a year and absolutely loved it. Meeting the people, doing the yoga, the meditation. There's like a bunch of like, you know, healthy eating, vegetarian, vegan restaurants that are super cool and fun. And we're going to extend out a whole nother year. So we'll be here through February 2019 now. Wow.

Oh my God.

We just, I mean, we, People are like, oh, where do you want to go next? Like, I can't really think of a better place to go at the moment. So we're just hanging out here and just loving it. Meeting all the people.

And it's beautiful weather, I'm guessing.

Yeah, it's always, it's always 80 degrees. But all the people you meet, which I think is part of the fun of it, is they're coming here to learn about themselves, make a transition, be adventurous, whatever. So you're basically catching people in their most adventurous, excited part of their life. Like, they want to meet you, they want to hang out, they want to go explore a waterfall, they want to go try paddleboarding. They're just like, they want to do stuff, they want to try new things, they want to break out of their old self and kind of redefine themselves. So it's, you know, even if you meet someone who you'd be like, oh, they're just, you know, someone from Ohio, it can't be that exciting out here. They're like, oh, let's try this. And oh, have you heard about this restaurant? We should go do that. Like, Hey, what are you guys doing next weekend? And you're just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, like energy or the volcano energy, whatever it is.

Volcano energy. There it is.

The volcano energy gets them and then just like, wow, this is so much fun. And, you know, people are trying new things and want to explore and traveling and maybe they're trying to make an online business or maybe they're trying to, I don't know, tons of different stuff.

Who knows? But it's a place where you just go for it.

It sounds like just, yeah, you just go for it and meet other people who are going for it. I mean, like, who ends up in Bali, right? I mean, other people who are trying to do something different. So it's a fun, you know, it kind of feeds on itself, obviously, because we're all here and we're like, oh, it's so beautiful. We all tell you, so beautiful, that's why I'm here too. And so, I mean, it is a self-selecting, self-reinforcing group. But yeah, same time, it's pretty cool.

Yeah, no, it sounds amazing. Uh, it sounds like complete opposite of my life. Okay, so Taylor, um, Uh, I'm— first of all, it took us a while to like find the stars aligned, and here we are finally, months after the Presentation Summit, which is the first time I got to meet you and put a face to this name that I had heard over and over again. Like, you know, Taylor and Camille and Nuts and Bolts Speed Training. That's about speed training. Do you know Nuts and Bolts speed training, nuts and bolts. And I was like, what is nuts and bolts speed training? Because I'm not a PowerPoint person. Like, I'm such a— I'm a, you know, content and delivery person. And so I tend to— I have strong opinions about slides and what they look like and how they work, but I do not know the ins and outs of PowerPoint. And so people who do are like, sing your praises. And then I got to see one of the breakout sessions you did, and I was like, mind blown. Like, what is happening? The way you moved in that— I didn't know PowerPoint could do any of those things, and how quickly things happened. And what I loved— I just have to tell you this— sitting there in the audience with people who obviously do know PowerPoint and do have an appreciation for its power, and sitting there with them as they would— you would do something and they'd all go, oh, whoa, cool. Like, that's amazing. Well, so like, okay, just how does someone become a PowerPoint, like, crazy mind-blowing expert on how it works? Like, when did you start zooming in on that?

Yeah, so I mean, so we were living, both Camille and I were living abroad in China and we, you know, like a lot of busy professionals kind of lived and died in PowerPoint. And we were both kind of in like, I was specifically kind of in the consulting investment banking world. So we were doing inbound outbound transactions, raising capital, doing mergers and acquisitions. So probably, you know, everyone's like, oh, that's not how PowerPoint's supposed to be used. And it's like, okay, well, you're maybe not supposed to use it that way, but this is, not only the expectation, but if someone says, you know, we're gonna raise $10 million for this company, send me a pitch book for the company so I can review it with my investors. You know, you've gotta send them something. And oftentimes, you know, that's not even gonna be presented. It is gonna be some format of a document or you're gonna walk through it on a webinar style, walking someone through the deck. As a result, many of the slides we built were content heavy, lots of boxes, charts, lines, all that kind of stuff. And I, it was actually in an Excel financial modeling course that I took, which is like a week-long $5,000 course where I learned that, and I thought I was already really good at Excel because I've been using it for 8 years.

Yeah.

So like everything, everything could be shortcutted. Absolutely everything could be driven from your keyboard. And that just a few simple tweaks and strategies about how you built your Excel spreadsheets completely scaled through your document. And I was like, I need to take this back to PowerPoint because I'm killing it in Excel. And I started, you know, looking for that type of content on the PowerPoint side, which is really mostly just kind of a basic, you know, how do you do this, how do you do that, how do you add a slide or whatever. So a lot of it was really just digging deep and trying to figure out like, well, how do I break something? How can I use something backwards? How can I rip my information out of a chart? So a lot of it was just kind of self-developed, and then it was kind of Knowing that there should be a way to shortcut everything is how we got to the QAT and found the hidden shortcuts. And then we, you know, figured out we could set up our own tech shortcuts to throw this in and we can do that. And it's just all kind of started to scale on itself. And Camille, who was also using a lot, was able to test all the stuff out. So we kind of started to have, you know, what later became our website, this, this first level of strategies, techniques, shortcuts, hack trickery. To move in and out of these different things. And again, it wasn't a content. So people always ask, "Oh, is it, you know, do you teach how to present your slides better? Do you teach it?" And it's like, yeah, I mean, we can talk about that stuff, but it really is more of that hardcore analyst who's sitting there 60 hours a week working through the nights, you know, crunching big hairy decks. And more importantly, like, how do you build your slides the first time through so that The next time the client's like, oh, I want all this to be changed and I want all that to be changed and change this and change that. And it's your Friday night evening. You can basically just like, just sweep through and do it. So that's where it came from. The advanced, advanced, we don't even like to say the word advanced. We're like, it's not advanced once you know it, it's pretty simple. But to most people's perspective would be, you know, advanced applications of PowerPoint for very content-heavy slides.

Right. And so your like value proposition is you save people time, right? It's just like, we can do this so much faster. You do not have to be, you know, detailing, nitpicking every single slide. There's all these like swaths that you can apply.

Yeah.

And, and so the time savings, the one we can describe to people, but I think the real, the real savings for people, it's like the, like eliminate your cognitive load. Like your mental fatigue every single time you have to format something. If you can cut out, if you could basically eliminate all formatting, which is like from my perspective what about 40% of all your time in PowerPoint is, just think of 40% of everything you've done is gone. PowerPoint's doing all of that for you because you've set up your default shapes, you set up your chart template, you don't even— it's just a pfft. It just goes through it. I mean, just think of all those other decisions you can now make. And you know, a lot of people say, oh, you shouldn't be teaching people how to be faster at PowerPoint. They're just building uglier slides faster. And I'm like, okay, that's fair if someone might do that. But once they can get what's in their head onto the slide, now they can sit there and I've seen people do it. They ask themselves, oh, like, what do I really do want to say here? Like, now I've got all of that down and it's all aligned perfectly and formatted and everything. It's all sound like, oh, do I need this? Do I want that? So it's a little bit of a different approach to, you know, getting people to simpler slides or more more clarity. But it's like, if you can help someone first get it on their, their slides, they at least feel like they could send it off if they needed to. Then they're like, wait a minute, I could, I could spend another hour. Like, it's already all done.

Absolutely, absolutely. I do feel like that does help time management. I mean, I know you're talking about mental fatigue, which I think is huge. That comes from time management. And, and, you know, when I'm helping people develop their presentations, I'm often just trying to focus their time on the right things because it takes time. Like you have to invest the time. And most people hide in their decks. They like hide in the tough stuff because it sucks up so much time. So if you can, if you can get through that a little bit faster, then guess what? Then you can get on your feet and then you can practice it out loud. And that is far more important than obsessing over all of those things, which are important, but in the end you're a human being talking to somebody. And so how do we help people?

I think that's way more important than, yeah, the lines, the colors, the formatting, whatever. Because yeah, you can, you know, if someone was to say, could you give a presentation without slides? I'd be like, absolutely.

Yeah.

Do you need slides? Like, you don't need slides.

Yeah. And you know, there are lots of times where it's like a slide would be helpful and essential here, and most people use them. And so to have a tool to help people get through that process faster and with—

gah—

so they can focus on what they're saying, why they're saying it, how they're saying it, that's— I think that's huge and amazing. So it was just really fun to even listening to you now as you talk about it and you use all these fun noises. You know, it's like, yes, that's how you train because you watch this thing happen and everyone's just, whoa, oh my gosh, it's so fun. And that's the kind of response when I've heard other people talk about Nuts and Bolts speed training. They're like, it's mind-blowing, so cool. So if there are any PowerPoint people listening, I'm sure there are, they probably already know about you, Nuts and Bolts Speed Training. Well, I thought it would be really fun to talk about, um, how you, how you deliver this information. And I know you said you do a ton of it online, so, you know, via webinars and do a lot of video. So that is, you know, I found myself kind of flat-footed. I was presenting a few weeks ago at a conference and during the Q&A, this woman said to me, help me, like, what are, what are some tips for doing webinars? And I've done some and I had some things to say to her, but I also thought, this is not my forte. This is not the bulk of my experience comes from standing in front of people live. And so, and this is different. So I'd love to hear from you. You know, what have you learned? What are some of the really key essential things that you've learned in terms of how you can deliver content-heavy, you know, technical things to people through a screen? Like, how do you get through that screen?

I mean, there's obviously tech, tech sides of it. I mean, I think a lot of a webinar is still, it's still more or less a live presentation. I mean, I know some technologies let you have your little video screen talking so people can look at your face and, you know, some of them don't. They're just looking at your slides and, you know, there's technology where you can ink on your slides, you can use your laser pointers. So I mean, there's ways to walk people through it, but I mean, I think from a webinar's perspective, which I think is just similar to kind of any presentation, which is similar to any way that you're going to find people online and engage them. It's like, well, what are you saying differently about your topic? Like, what's interesting about this in the first place? Right? Which I don't think is unique to a webinar or any kind of— it's like, why, why, you know, what am I saying differently? Why is this more interesting? Or how is this relevant to you? And then from there, I mean, a lot of what we do is, you know, come up with new techniques and we name the techniques and we, We try to come up with funny ways or interesting ways to kind of, you know, to work people through the content. So it's, you know, it's almost like you're creating and opening loops throughout this webinar that, you know, well, and then, you know, and then we'll get, you know, in just a second, we're going to get to the best shortcut you could ever set up. But first of all, to even know that, you gotta know this. So it's like you almost like you're creating and opening these loops because I think different than a webinar, in a live presentation, I mean, someone can obviously take out their phone and be distracted if they want to.

Yeah.

I think on a webinar, especially if they're not looking at your mugshot, if you don't have a little video running, you have that many more distractions. So how do I get someone there with an interesting idea, concept that would be relevant to them? And then how am I going to present that information in a way that's going to pull them through the content? And especially if it's a sales webinar, then you obviously need them to get to the end of the content. So you're obviously having to deliver a value and, you know, kind of bring them to the end to offer them a bigger solution than what you're teaching them. Those are the big things that I've done. It's just, I think, yeah, in the whole world of online marketing, it's like, why is what am I saying interesting and relevant? So that if someone saw that, they would be like, you know what, I should join. I'm going to take my lunch break today and I'm going to sit through this webinar, or I'm going to take my, you know, some people are like, oh, on Saturdays I could just go through your YouTube channel. I just learn new stuff. And it's like, yeah, how am I going to get someone to spend their Saturday afternoon to go watch a bunch of short, chirpy PowerPoint videos, uh, you know, to learn new shortcuts and learn new tricks and learn new hacks and think of different ways to do this kind of stuff? I mean, you're not going to do that if it's just, you know, not interesting. Yeah, it's like, meh, right?

What you're talking about is like the ultimate respect for your audience and, and really understanding that time is so precious and people are offering it when they come to you and say, I'm giving up something else to be here and investing in that as a presenter. Well, you're right, whether you're online or you're, you know, doing a video or you're up in front of them live, it's like, that is a gift. That is a gift. And so, you know, people can look at it that way and with that kind of intention and like raise the bar a little bit on what I'm doing and push the boundaries and the format. So I'm curious, like, for you, what are the things that you guys have done that, that have pushed this? I'm going to say art form for lack of a better phrase on that. But, you know, it's, I feel like it's kind of saturated right now. Everybody's doing webinars or trying it and a bad one is a bad one. You're just like, ugh. So, you know, what do you and Camille do to like help push the structure of it and push the formatting of it?

Yeah, I mean, see, we don't, we, I mean, so we typically live overseas most of the time now. So doing webinars is almost tough just because, you know, it's 2 AM our time. So I mean, a lot of, a lot of the content, I mean, so yeah, from a content strategy, we're trying to come up with new and interesting ways to talk about Stuff you might have even already heard of before, maybe you thought about it before, but you never thought about in that way. Like the other day we did a video, a lot of keyboard shortcuts have what I now call a Shift Sister shortcut. So some shortcuts you use the Control key plus whatever, you throw in a Shift key, you can do something completely different. So it's a new concept I put into a video the other day and be like, oh, that's so cool, Shift Sister shortcut. That's just a clever name around a, you know, shortcut concept to help people double the amount of shortcuts they know. But I mean, that in and of itself is not going to grip everybody, but it's like, oh, now I have something to work with. That's interesting. That's new. That's a new idea for a very old concept.

Right.

So I'm constantly trying to think of like, how do I help someone learn this faster by talking about it in a different way or bringing a different element into it or Calling them Humdinger shortcuts or talking about the ruler test or the rule of twos. I mean, just creating these kind of, and it sounds stupid at some level because yeah, at the end of the day, I'm making up a name, but I'm making up the name to help you learn this thing faster so that you can be like, oh, hey guys, there's my pie chart rule of twos. I can only have two things. Boom, boom, contrast. It's easy. It actually does help people actually apply it and remember it.

For sure, it gives them a handful— handhold, you know, and something that they can use that is like an easy pickup and take with them. And that's kind of how I talk about it with my speakers, is like, you need— they need to be able to lift it up and out and take it with them. So like, whatever it is, if you don't give them something, you know, a name— I love when you can find a good new name for something. People love that. Otherwise, how else are they gonna remember?

It empowers them. Yeah. And empowers them too, because they can go tell someone else. They'd be like, oh, have you heard of the hand lotion technique? And they're like, what's the hand lotion technique? It's like already like the fact that you say it like creates the like, what's the hand lotion technique for people?

What is this hand lotion technique?

Let me tell you about it. You know, like, yeah. I mean, it kind of sounds hokey, but yeah, I mean, a lot of the marketing people I've studied, you know, encourage this kind of development of— and again, you're not just making up things to make up things. You're making it up, as you just said, to give the person who you're trying to teach, trying to help, trying to do something, You know, something to grasp onto.

Yeah, totally.

I think it's really important. We do that all the time and I have no problem coming up with names for stuff.

So I know, just listening to you talk right now, I'm like, well, okay. So you did say this out loud and I was like, I gotta, this is kind of amazing. You said, right, people are crunching the big hairy deck. Mm-hmm. Like that.

Yeah, it's a big hairy deck.

It's got a lot of slides on it. I'm like, I don't know if that's a phrase that you've used before, but that's a memorable one. You should use that one.

I should write that down and tell more people, see if they like it.

Write that down. But careful on the spelling on that one, you guys. That's true. Oh my gosh. Okay, so Taylor, if you could pinpoint sort of the top tools or that are go-to for you in terms of how you are communicating with your online audience. You know, whether that's through YouTube or videos or, you know, webinars or you do your online trainings, like what are, what are some of the go-to tools that you use?

I mean, so we obviously teach PowerPoint, so we use PowerPoint a lot. We make videos, we use Camtasia. So I just do screen capture with the Camtasia screen recorder. We're typically traveling overseas, so we actually don't add a video face. So we just from the very get-go said we're just going to record screens. It might not be as great as other YouTube videos, but that's just what's going to work for us just to get us videos going. So I think the big thing for people online or people who want to start stuff online is like, you just got to start getting stuff up. You're going to not like it. You're going to hate it. The tech's not going to work. But it's like whatever shortcuts the process for you just to start shooting or start recording, Maybe you had a similar experience with your podcast, even just getting started, getting those first episodes up, doing the first piece, like whatever it takes to get you just putting stuff up is a huge first step. And then from there, I mean, you know, the bulk of our traffic that comes to our site is still just coming from YouTube and Google. So we, you know, from the get-go, and we made lots of videos that didn't get any traffic because we learned very quickly that you can't You can't put up— you basically have to meet people at the Google search box, which is a huge mistake a lot of people make online, including ourselves when we got started, is you can go share the coolest, most mind-bending trick, idea, concepts, but if nobody knows to search for it, how are they going to find it? Right? So I mean, you basically need to go where people are, what are they searching for, and then based on what they're searching for that you can get traction for, how do you then lead them to something else that maybe is more important than the thing they actually searched for? It's like, okay, here's the shortcut you're looking for, here's how to do it, but it actually is not as great as this shortcut, or something like that. So it's almost like meeting someone where they are, but then taking them to where they want to go. So we would create YouTube videos, we would then create a long-form blog post based on that video, we'd combine them together, and I mean, that's kind of how we started getting our traffic.

Hmm. Say that again. So you, I mean, because I think that combination is really important. So you went to, you started creating content based on what you knew people were looking for answers to. And then so you did a video and then a long-form blog post.

Yeah. So, and then the blog post would just be based on the video. So you're creating a video, you're creating content. It doesn't have to be the same exact content. Maybe one, the videos, the shortcut of it and the blog form does. The mouse click by click version with the shortcuts. But, you know, you're trying to short— again, shortcutting our process. Okay. We've just spent time to make a video. Well, let's make that into a blog post and combine it together. And then you use keyword research and all that stuff. But, you know, that was basically what we did. We just video, video plus blog post, video, video plus blog post, or make a blog post. Okay. Now we should make a video for it. And that's kind of how we started to build traction and we'd have to share them on LinkedIn. You know, all sorts of stuff that goes into it behind that. But that was basically our content strategy was pretty actually simple.

So when we first started talking about having you in the show, you were like, I'm not a presenter, you know? I'm like, no, you are, you are, you're a presenter. But what I'm just curious for you, like, what, you know, gave you some hesitation in, in owning that label? Because you're up in front of people all the time.

I mean, online we are, but I just like, you know, a lot of the people at the Presentation Summit are professional presentation coaches, or they, you know, travel around and, you know, present all the time. And, you know, we're not traveling around. I actually don't want to go on a roadshow and do a bunch of presentations. I'd rather meet you at the Google search box or on YouTube, deliver videos and content, in a fun and engaging way that would bring you back to our website. And then for the right people, those people join our email list and those people can then, you know, come into our advanced training courses. So I'm actually all— I don't feel— I just, in comparison to all the other very professional presenters at the Presentation Summit, I feel much more like, almost like an online marketer, even though I'm creating videos, content, holding webinars, doing all this stuff, you know, I'm not calling up companies trying to come talk to them. I'm like, I'll just find them, you know, I want your employees to find me when they have a problem with PowerPoint on the web. Yeah. So that's why, yeah.

No, I just think that's interesting because so many people hesitate to own that title. I mean, I meet people all the time who just— I was doing a training last week and this woman was like, I'm, I'm a, you know, she's she's an accountant, first of all, but she is a leader at her company. And so they want her, you know, sort of owning her presence and her confidence up in front of her group more. And she said to me, I, you know, I'm, I'm not a speaker. You love this. I can tell you love this. I don't love this. I don't do this. You know, she was kind of saying, you're an extrovert. Extroverts are speakers. I'm an introvert. I don't do that. I was like, you know, would it help to think about this as like you're a teacher, you're teaching, you know? And she was like, maybe, let me think about that, you know? And it just helped her step into that space a little bit more because, you know, in my mind, the spectrum of speaker is so wide. It's whether you're doing this in front of a video or, you you're, you know, leading a meeting or you're doing a TED Talk. Like, there's so many different ways for this to happen. I just think I wish more people could really own that title and that space confidently and comfortably because it's important. And if we think of it as just this one thing, like it's, oh, it's presenters who want to go out and be hired to speak live in front of people. I don't think we invest in the art form of it the way everybody could be doing more and really taking it seriously as a powerful exchange that's happening, right? Because as long as there's an exchange between speaker and listener, in my mind, that's, that's speaking.

So, yeah, I think that's a fair point. Maybe we— maybe everyone just thinks that they're not Tony Robbins, so they're like, hey, I'm not a person, he's a speaker, right?

That's exactly—

probably. So you're probably right, it's probably something— it's a label that's probably we're all misusing at some level.

Well, and I just have to— I've got to throw this in because I did a TEDx talk in October about this very thing.

Congratulations!

Oh, thanks.

Not everybody gets to give a TEDx talk.

No. It was fun. It was really fun and also really nerve-wracking because—

Yeah.

Oh yeah. Because it, it, you know, it could be a big thing or it could just be another TEDx talk that, you know, 200 people watch on YouTube, you know. So, but that's, that's my topic is I sort of reframe what speaking is and invite more people into it. Interesting. I think you might— you're a speaker too, Taylor. Just let me know.

All right, I'm gonna own that word now.

I can tell you look a little uncomfortable with it.

Is that myself? Speaker? Oh no.

You know, I mean, it's a weird thing. It's sort of like being a writer. Some people are like, well, I write, but I'm not a writer. And I talk to people all the time, they're like, well, I speak, but I'm not a speaker, you know. Like, that's fine.

We were just having this conversation the other day because, um, you know, I meet a lot of people who own businesses or websites and stuff, and, and people will typically, who are not in their industry, will just label them. They're like, oh, well, you're a coach. Like, oh, I'm not really a coach because I do so much more than coaching. I was like, but at the end of the day, you're a coach. And so the whole point of the conversation is just like, just shut up and accept the word that people want to use. Just own the dang word, and it's just going to help everybody out. It's like You said, I'm just, I'm a presenter. I'm just like, that's, that's all they want to hear. It's like, oh, thank you. Now I know how to label you.

It's like, got it.

Yes, you might be more than a presenter and you might do this, you might not do this.

Just, just, well, but there's some negative connotations around especially speaking. I think that people are like, uh, I'm not a like cheesy motivational ever. Like I offer real value. You know, there's, I think. There's, there's some of that, which I totally get too. It's like, that's part of the reason why we have to reframe it and, and own the full spectrum of the space around it. It's like, oh, there's really moving, authentic, connected speakers out there who would never call themselves speakers.

Yeah, well, I think, yeah, I liked your definition too. If you're If you're sharing or connecting with people, you're presenting, you're speaking, you're instilling information, whether it's to one person that you're helping. I mean, you could, I guess, I mean, that's a presentation whether you have props or not, or if you are doing a TEDx talk or whether you are doing a, you know, some deal on a webinar with a deck because, you know, we were doing pitches all the time like that. And I would, yeah, if you would have asked me, was that a presentation? I was like, well, I'm walking them through the pitch book to invest in the company, but I'm not, I'm on a conference call, like, what are you talking about? You know, so you're— that's funny that you say that.

Yeah. Well, it's real. Honestly, it's a marketing challenge for me in terms of like who I work with and how people identify themselves. It's like, well, I work with speakers, but they're often— wouldn't call themselves speakers. Sometimes they would, but yeah, that's another— that's a whole nother thing. Oh my gosh. All right, so I can tell you're really thinking. It's fun. I don't normally do videos.

I'm thinking about your webinar to catch those people now.

Oh, see?

See, I'm already thinking about like, how do you stop someone in their tracks surfing around the internet that's like, oh, that's me. I'm a speaker, but I only, you know, I'm not a speaker, but I speak sometimes or something. You'd have to like come up with a catchy phrase like that.

I know.

Tips for people who speak sometimes. But when they do, it's really important.

Well, I started calling them "um speakers." Ah, "um speakers." That's my phrase. But I don't know, it's not working.

I'm thinking about it.

That's what my TEDx talk is called. "Not a speaker? That's okay.

Be an um speaker." I mean, that is interesting because I was talking to a guy yesterday who does Excel training online and He was doing something along the lines of like, learn Excel. He's like, it's not really working. I was like, well, of course it's not working. I mean, that's what everybody's saying. I was like, well, who's your target market? He's like, oh, it's 45 to 50-year-old women who are typically stay-at-home. I was like, just imagine your Facebook ad just said Excel for stay-at-home moms who want to balance their checkbooks. I mean, that's basically what you're teaching them. That's like a completely— someone sees that, that's a completely different Right. Conversation. If someone stops, it's totally different than just like learn Excel to do your finances. A stay-at-home mom might not, might look at that and say, oh, well, that's for business professionals doing XYZ, or that's for an accountant. But if it specifically calls them out or gets into something, it's just part of trying to find whether it's the unspeak or whatever it is to catch people and be like, hey, that is me. Hey, that is something I want to check out. And that's really tough.

It's really hard.

That's what everyone's trying to do online, so it's really tough to find the right thing.

Talk about mental fatigue.

Oh yeah, well, and then you've got to try a bunch of stuff, and then a bunch of stuff doesn't work, and then someone gets mad at you, and you like beat yourself up because like you said this and they didn't do that. And, uh, it's, it's, uh, it's not— yeah, it's the online world is a funny place.

It's— and it's constantly—

everybody wants everything for free.

Right.

Well, I have to pay money for this. Like, you don't have to. You can just not learn it.

It's up to you.

Keep doing it the way you've been doing it for years. Like, no skin off my back.

That's funny. Okay, so Taylor, we are at the time of the show where we're going to do a This Moved Me moment, something that has moved you recently so that we as presenters, speakers, people who speak occasionally but would never call themselves speakers, whatever, however people want to identify themselves, um, to keep us inspired so that we can really bring that to our audience, whoever that is. So what's something that's moved you recently?

One for me was, I guess, for the move me part of it, it just really caught my attention and really like sucked me into the presentation. Which I think is a good reminder to us as speakers or unspeakers. He was talking about something that I already believed in.

Hmm.

And he was saying it in a way that was like completely how I— he was talking about online marketing and doing something, how you would structure these different advertising campaigns, which was like, I was sitting there, I was like, I already kind of know this. I already believe it, but he's adding enough twist to it that I was like just completely engrossed. I was like, why am I so engrossed in something that I already kind of believe? And I was like, it's because I already believe it. So it made me sit there and realize, like, people want to be reaffirmed in their beliefs. People want to believe that what they are doing or saying is the right and correct way. And he was adding enough, you know, almost call it spice on top of the recipe. But like the core thing he was cooking, like, I already believed it. And I was like, just shocked. And I was like, oh yeah, that's right. I got that too. Yeah, it's exactly how I think. Oh, that's hot. I learned that too. Yeah, yeah. And it just reminded me that sometimes we feel that we need to like, you know, take someone left field, whereas if you can just reaffirm the beliefs and show someone the things that they already believe, why those are the correct way or why those is the way you should be doing it. I mean, that's a powerful tool to really make people nod their head and say, yeah, yeah, yeah. So here I was moved by something. I was like, God, 80% of this I already know. Like, why am I so psyched up? I was like, because it's like almost stoking my own little personal egos. Like, Oh, he's saying I already believe.

And anyway, and it's like a tribe building thing, right? You're like, I'm in the right place, I found my people.

Exactly. Like, I'm doing the right lingo.

Yeah, yeah. So it's all— that's like connection there, whatever.

Yeah.

Who was this?

A guy named Miles Davis, I think his name was.

Not the jazz singer?

No. Should be though. I'm sure he'd be flattered if you're like, oh, you're the jazz singer? He's like, no, no, I'm just the Facebook marketing guy.

Hey, but he got you jazzed. See, I love that.

He just got me so excited. And like, yeah, it was like even things that I, you know, wanted to do that I hadn't done yet. I was like, ah, yeah, see, I knew I needed to do that. I need to go sit down. I'm going to work on that. And I just again was just floored because it wasn't even revolutionary. It wasn't even something I'd never even heard about. But It was almost the fact that I had already heard it. It was so much more actionable, interesting, and exciting for me. I was almost reminding myself, like, I don't need to come up with brand new stuff all the time. I just need to show people how what they're doing is the correct way. Like, hey, this is the right way to do it. Congratulations. Pat yourself on the back kind of thing.

Right.

And it sounds, I don't know, it's not even a gimmick. It's just like, just showing you are doing it right. Pat yourself on the back. Feel good about yourself. You've moved beyond the curve.

Well, yeah, people need to hear that. I mean, if I'm just only bombarded with all of the things that I need to do differently, it's exhausting and it feels unending. And it's just really good to be reminded. Yeah, you're going the right way. Keep going. You're on the right path. I'm like, oh, that's a nice message.

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, so that reminded me to just do more of that remind.

Yeah.

Yeah. You don't have to like come out of left field. It's like you can just reaffirm what someone believes. I mean, they already believe it.

Yeah. Yeah.

So.

And it's motivating.

Very motivating.

All right, so my This Moved Me moment, I kind of brought two to the table and was going to sort of see. How the conversation goes, because one is much flimsier, like lighthearted than the other. Okay. So especially since you're overseas, I'll talk about this. Do you ever watch The Great British Baking Show?

No.

It's like it's on Netflix. It's a PBS show, actually. And it is like the nerdiest cooking show. With the sweetest little British people and the quirkiest hosts. I love these hosts so much. They are so funny because they're like these— I don't know, everything is so British about it. I lived in England for, I don't know, 6 months or something, and I don't know, I just love British people. I love it when they talk. I just want to hear I want to listen to them talk all the time. And these, all these British people are like kind of homely and sweet and funny and just like kneading their dough. And I don't know, it's so un-American. I love it so much. I don't know.

You're like, say it again. Say it again.

Keep talking. They do the same thing. Dumb thing. It's amazing. Right before they send them off to do their, like, baking challenge, the two hosts go, "Ready, set, bake!" It makes me so happy. I don't watch a ton of TV, but sometimes at the end of the night, I just want to veg, and it is bringing me so much joy every night that I get to like sit down and ready, set, bike.

Bike. Like, I think accents like that are so much fun. And then especially with British accents and all the different phrases they have that we have no idea. We have some British friends and they'll say something. I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about.

What?

Like, one, like, if you heard the phrase, is it called— I think it's higgledy-piggledy. No, they just came into the room and there's all the higgledy-piggledy. I'm like, What, what did you see? Piglet was in the room. I'm pretty sure that's what it is, and our British friends were using it, and then I could never remember what the word was. And so the next time I was like, oh yeah, it was so piglety higglety. I inverse it. They had no idea what I was talking about.

I was like, is this thing you said last week?

What? It's like, oh, that's not what we said. It's like, not piglety higglety. Come on, Taylor. I don't even remember which one it is now, but they were like, they're just like, what was that? I was like, it's the thing you said last time, you know, it's all messed up or something like that. Trying to be so cool cool and British. I was trying— I tried to slip it in, I failed.

I should have said bake, bake. I bet if you just said that randomly to your British friends, they go, oh, Great British Baking Show.

I should do that. I'll see if they've seen it.

And I don't even like to bake, just to be clear. I don't bake. I don't bake, but I love this show. So that tells you just something about the force of personality and just the, like, real humans, how sweet these people are. And there's no, there's no forced drama. They don't try and, you know, Americanize it in the, you know what I mean by that? Just like in the worst way of taking real, something real and over-dramatizing it and and leaning into the ugliness. None of that happens. It is just these people who are passionate about baking and want to make something great, you know. So it's just— I don't know, I love the simplicity of it.

I'm gonna have to go watch one of these now.

There you go, I told you. That's what these moments do. They always send me off to like watch new things and I'm gonna go figure out who Miles Davis is aside from the jazz musician.

I'll double-check his name to make sure I got it right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, let me know and I'll put all this in the show notes and so people can find it.

Cool. Yeah.

So cool. Thanks for joining me, Taylor. This is really fun.

I'm glad it worked out. Thanks for having me. It's fun.

Me too.

Okay.

So tell people where they can find your stuff. Nuts and Bolts. Speedtraining and what else?

.com. Yeah, we're gonna have a brand new website up next week. Just launching a new website, which is a total pain to redo a website if you've never done it before.

Takes way longer than you expect. And I just decided I need to do it again because mine's a mess.

Oh no, man, I don't wanna. I don't envy your position, but we're excited. Oh, I almost want it just to be up so I can be like, it's up. Now I can fix all the other parts of it. Right?

It's unending. It's unending. Oh my gosh. Okay. I'll go check it out too. nutsandboltspeedtraining.com. And then you're on YouTube. Where else can people find you?

It's mostly just, yeah, just our website and YouTube is the core places that we keep. We have a Facebook page, but mostly everything's just our website and YouTube. That's already enough. That's already overwhelming just to do.

There's so many things. So many places. All right, well, I'm gonna let you go because I kept you over a little bit, but it was really so fun to connect with you. Thanks for everything that you're doing, and we'll stay in touch. I'll let you know when this goes live because it'll be— yeah, it'll probably go live.

Hey Movers, it's Sally. Thanks so much for joining me on the show. I hope you enjoyed that episode with Taylor. He has got so much insight and brilliance and shortcuts. If you are a PowerPoint person, I really hope you check out Nuts and Bolts Speed Training and check out everything that he has to offer, he and Camille. And because I've learned a lot, and like I said, I I'm not really a PowerPoint person, but whoa, that stuff is crazy. So if you haven't had the whoa experience, you've got to go check them out. And this is so funny, but you guys, if you want a little bonus conversation with me and Taylor, I hope you go over to the show notes page and you can sign up for downloading this bonus conversation conversation that he and I had. We spent 45 minutes talking about a really truly creative artistic experience that he and Camille had at Burning Man, and it only has a little bit to do with creating talks that move the world, but that— it sounds to me like that is an experience about really opening our minds and, and Experiencing the Now, and it was a really fun conversation. So if you're interested in downloading that, checking that out, go over to the website and find the Taylor Kroonquist episode over on the blog, and you can sign up for it there. And I hope you enjoy. I thought it was really fun. So as you know, right now we're in the midst of my content creation focus. We're really focusing on how we can create the content for a talk that moves the world. And over on the blog, talking a little bit about how we can start, right? How we get out of feeling stuck, how we cut out the fat and find the essential words, how to build audience-centered content. These are all the kinds of conversations I'm having over on the blog, and I'd love for you to join me there. And check those out. And I'm also gonna start shifting my focus into delivery, how we can live in our words, because we're not just writers, we are speakers. And so how does it live in our bodies, right? How can we face the fear and overcome any fears that we have so that we can be really truly present? How do we move with our slides? There's all kinds of really important stuff for us to talk about, and all of this has to do with the new online course that I'm developing, and I would love for you to check it out. So if you're interested in that, if you hop over on my website and you just want to be notified, you just want to be in the know when that stuff goes live, let me know. You can just sign up for that, and, and I will be in touch with you as that develops because it's on the horizon. It's soon. I'm not gonna put a date on it yet, which I know Seth Godin would tell me, put a deadline on that sucker, that'll get my butt in gear. But you, you know, I'm only one human. You can only do what you can do. You understand, right? Oh good. Okay, so yes, focusing on content and now delivery so that we can really truly create some talks that move the world. Alright, it's been real, it's been fun. Hope you enjoyed this episode with Taylor. And coming down the pipeline, you guys, is an amazing woman named Jillian Farabee. And I met her at the Story Conference, and she talks about a woman who has, like, knows how to live in your body and use your body as a speaker. And how fear lives in our body and how we deal with that. She spent many years as a talent scout for Cirque du Soleil, so she gets it, and she's brilliant, and I cannot wait to share that episode with you. So look for that one in the next few weeks. All right, thanks, movers. Hope you are out there doing what fuels you and what is going to help move this world.

Alright, that's a winner.