270: How to go from Topic Expert to Thought Leader (and get on bigger stages)

Do you want to be recognized as the leader in your industry like you are? Well, if you do, you've got to be doing this. Hey movers, it's Sally Koering Zimney with Be Moved. Let's go create some talks that will move this world. We're going to talk with amazing speakers, share tips, tricks, resources, and we are going to be moved. Then our audience can be moved. This moved me. What is moving you? Hey everybody, welcome back to This Moved Me. My name is Sally Koering Zimney. I am your virtual speaker coach. If I am new to you, I'm so glad that you are here and I empower purpose-driven entrepreneurs and coaches and changemakers like you to leverage the power of speaking so that you can grow your impact and your influence and finally leave self-doubt and obscurity in the dust. It's a little long, but I like it. And today what is moving me is the difference between being a topic expert and what we really wanna be, where we really wanna be going, which is thought leadership. So what's the difference between a topic expert and a thought leader? Well, there is nothing wrong with being a topic expert. Like many of us identify as topic experts, right? And that's an important place for us to start because we build our businesses on knowing something, experiencing something. So topic expertise is often where we start. But topic expertise alone, just knowing something really doesn't help you build towards where we wanna be going, which is recognition, authority, and most importantly, a bigger impact. And if you are leveraging speaking in the right way, well, thought leadership, in other words, recognition, authority, impact, it's really a natural result. So if you haven't already started making the shift from information giver and here's all the things that I know into a more influential role, well, we are going to lay the path out for you today to do that. Before we dive in, I have some super exciting news that I really hope you are going to take advantage of over the next weeks. I'm going to be launching a new miniseries. That's what I'm calling it. I think I've decided. It's a video miniseries all about how to double your business with speaking. That's right. How to leverage speaking to double your business. That's what I'm calling it. How to— I'm working on the title. How to leverage speaking to double your business. There it is. Uh, subtitle, because I love subtitles, and make more money, grow your audience, have the impact that you've always wanted to have, without all the overwhelm and the stress that typically comes with it. There's so much to say. Titles are hard. Now, this mini-series is 3 short videos, and then together we come together for a live experience on day 4. I'm so excited. These 4 videos are like power-packed, full of insider information about how you can leverage speaking as a powerful tool in your business, and ease the time crunch of speaking while maximizing the benefits. We're gonna ease the pains and we're gonna maximize the benefits. Speaking is hard enough. Let's not overcomplicate things here. I'm gonna show you the path to simplify your approach to speaking so that you can use it in the best way. So if you want to leverage speaking in your business and treat it less like a distraction and more like the powerful catalyst that it is, is this 4-part miniseries will show you how you can use speaking to save you time, make you more money, and grow your business. But you've gotta sign up. So come join us at Be Moved, bemoved.com/leverage. That's L-E-V-E-R-A-G-E. Gosh, I hope I spelled that right. Leverage. Okay, so many people come to me already with total expertise, like they are experts in their fields. Maybe the world doesn't know it yet, but they know their stuff, otherwise they wouldn't really wanna be sharing it with other people. If that's you, you've probably been sharing that expertise already, maybe one-on-one coaching, maybe you have been teaching internally within a company or an organization, or maybe just your own career path has taught you a lot and you wanna turn around now and share it with others. But maybe you're also listening to this conversation knowing that you've hit some kind of ceiling. Being a topic expert only gets you so far. Maybe you've been feeling some of this, like if you're feeling stuck at a particular level of speaking. In other words, you're doing all the workshops, but you would really like that keynote spot or that headliner spot or in the summit. You're ready for that next stage. Maybe you are really dreaming of giving more of that TED-style talk, that leadership talk like Brené Brown, Simon Sinek. We've got all of our regulars that we think about, like, that could be you. I want that. Or maybe you're just not able to break through and create that level of engagement and recognition that you'd like with your audience. And you're watching your competitor make headway and you're like, how come they are and I'm not? Well, I would connect at least part of the reason you're facing these challenges could be because you are more of a topic expert than you are a thought leader. And to be a keynoter, to get on the TED or even the TEDx stage, to be seen and recognized within your industry, well, you have to shift your approach. Now, when I was in high school speech, any speech geeks out there? I love you, speech geeks. I was a speech geek. I really loved speech in high school. There were two pretty similar categories. So if you're already a speech geek like me, this is not news to you, but there were two categories that were pretty similar. There was informative speaking, right, which isn't going to make a lot of sense. It's like, it's called informative speaking. You share information about a topic that's interesting and, you know, informative. And then there was oratory or oratorical speaking, another word for persuasive speaking. Now, oratory was about finding an interesting topic and knowing about it and delivering it well, but it was also about sharing a point of view. It was about stories. It was about opinion. And it was about changing people's minds or persuading people. It wasn't just about the topic. It was about the speaker's take on that topic. They had to have a take on the topic. Now, one of those categories was seen as the elite category, the Cadillac category of speech. The big stage event at the tournaments. It was the one that had the huge crowds and the one that everybody was working towards. And that was oratory. Now I should probably point out that oratory is my category. And can I brag? Ugh, I feel uncomfortable with bragging, but I have to, 'cause it'd be weird if I didn't. I did win the national championship of original oratory. It was forever ago. Like, I can't even say the year 'cause it was so long ago. It sounds both fake and awesome. And it was. I mean, it was awesome. It's not fake. It's real. And fun fact, this is a title shared with Tom Brokaw and Shelley Long, and Oprah Winfrey was also in that category. She was a total player. But to be fair, if you're impressed by that, it was also shared by hundreds of other people that you've never heard of. So, and I'm one of them. But here is the thing that I want to admit to you. As an orator, I never really understood informative speaking. I was kind of like, "How do you not try and persuade people in this moment? I mean, isn't the point of sharing information to do something with it? Don't you want people to change their minds about something?" I mean, At the end of the day, and I say this with love, InfoSpeakers, I just kind of found it uninspiring. But you know what? The point was not to inspire. The point was to inform. And this I think of as the basic difference between a topic expert and a thought leader. Informative speaking versus persuasive speaking. Now, a topic expert knows things. They have experience in that topic. They're typically knowledgeable. They have probably experience that has led them to their knowledge. And a thought leader takes all of that expertise. You've gotta have all of that as well. And then a thought leader puts it into context and makes it meaningful. So let me put it this way, a topic expert is known for what they know, and a thought leader is known for what they know and for who they are. They inform and persuade. They educate and inspire. So does your audience know who you are? Have they heard your stories? Do they know what you believe? Which is really different than what you know. There are many people out there, and I see you, you are stuck in informative speaking. You're stuck in teacher mode, topic expertise. And I get why. It can feel like safe zone. It's like, this is the place where I wanna stay because I know things and people can't question me on it. And it just feels way less risky. And you're like, Can't I do a keynote on what I know? I mean, that's way less vulnerable, way less risky. But if you get stuck in topic expertise mode, and a lot of people are, you will never take your place out front as the authority that you are. So here is what we need to embrace if we are really gonna set foot on the next bigger stage, that we're gonna get that TED Talk and we are gonna get that keynote moment out front and we're gonna become the go-to recognized person in our niche and industry? Here's what we need to do. Number 1, you need to make sure that you are sharing your take on the topic. Now, this seems pretty obvious, but taking your knowledge and then drawing a line in the sand about what it means, well, that's what we do as speakers. And yet, how often are you pausing and thinking, "This is too risky." too vulnerable. This might not go over so well with people. This might ruffle some feathers. I always tell my speakers that we need to use risk not as this thing to be careful about. I mean, there's limits to everything. But what happens when we instead turn and use risk as our compass? We reorient our content towards risk. That's thought leadership. Staying safe as topic expertise is fine. It's fine, but it's also fine. And you are here because you have something to say. So as you step up front, what comes right alongside it are a few other things: discomfort, risk, and vulnerability. And if you really want to do all those things that you're telling me that you wanna do, then you have to embrace all of those pieces too. You wanna get out on that next bigger stage? Time to embrace vulnerability and risk and discomfort and declare your take on the topic. So the second thing that we need to do is to own our differentiation. I want you to own your differentiation. Like, have you defined for yourself where you zig and other people zag, right? What's different about you? As entrepreneurs and coaches, you likely have already done some branding exercises and work really thinking about, okay, what makes me me? Defining what I like to call your superpower. It's authenticity. We love this word, we love this word, and people are also really tired of this word. It's elusive, it's sought after, it's sorely needed, still, but basically it's full self. You, a 3D version of you, a real person, not like fake you, not polished up you. I mean, sometimes we polish up a little bit because the context calls for it, but more often than not, we are not dialing up what makes us you, we're dialing it down. And we need to dial up what makes ourselves different and unique, our zig to their zag. Let's see it. Because nobody else in your industry does it like you do. I mean, let's just pause on that for a moment. Let's just give it a moment. No one else in your industry does it like you. That is a gift. That is a gift. Don't dial down the gift. Dial up the gift. Dial it up, people. That's what we wanna bring up front. Now, the third thing that we have to do to shift from topic expert to thought leader is we need to make people feel, not just think. We want to make them feel. For many of my students in the Signature Talk Studio, there comes a point when they feel this tug of war inside where they're like, oh, it's just so inspirational, and I feel like I'm not giving enough educational, and I just wanna make this tangible, like they're used to sharing. They're not wrong. We need the tangible. We need the educational. We want the value. We gotta make sure people are getting from this what they need. But this resistance to shift into the personal, the risky, the inspiration. They just wanna stay like, here's what I know. But if we wanna make people feel, then you have to feel It's true. Now here's the thing, we need both and we can do both. We've got to bring both. Okay? All inspiration, nobody's gonna take very seriously. All education, it's fine, but we're gonna do so much better than fine. We've got to make people feel if we want them to change their ways of being. We use the power of the educational approach because people like the actionable stuff. But if we don't ever shift into inspiration, people don't know why all that information matters. It never becomes more than a list written down in their notebook that never goes anywhere. And as somebody who spent a lot of time studying persuasion theory, what I can tell you is that logic alone does not get you there. It's highly unlikely that anyone will be persuaded unless you can get your audience to do this one thing, and that is to feel. That's what thought leaders do. They make us think and they make us feel. Otherwise, they're just a topic expert. We need to take what we know and then learn how to get people to care about what we know. When you think about those bigger stages, we're talking about actually moving people. When that is the goal, and that is our goal, it requires us to get people to both think and feel. That's what all the best speakers do. So you have likely been giving people really valuable information for a while. Awesome. Good on you. It's a powerful place to start. So we're gonna take all that experience, all that expertise and what you know, all that information. And now we're going to say, how do we get people to care about this? We're going to start getting our audiences to feel something. Without it, you're stuck in informative speaking. If we don't move people, we're leaving recognition, authority, and impact on the table. Here's how you do this, okay? Let me get right to it. Thought leaders Have a signature talk. Topic experts have lots of different workshops that they do, they're providing to people, but thought leaders have a signature talk. They have a message that is scalable, repeatable, and powerful because it is personal to them. It shares a take on a topic. It is authentic and it represents What makes you, you. It shares what you know and then helps your audience care about what it is that you know. It makes them feel and makes them think. Now in a few weeks, we are opening the door to the Signature Talk Studio so that you can bring thought leadership more out front. We can take you from topic expert into thought leadership so that you can get on the bigger stages. You can make that TED Talk dream a reality, and you can grow your recognition, your impact, and your influence. Signature talks are pretty powerful. And to show you how you can really leverage speaking in your business and step out front as a thought leader, not just a topic expert, let's start with this. Okay, come join us for this video mini series where I show you how to use this powerful tool in your business without all the overwhelm and the stress that typically comes with it. No thank you, we don't need that. So that you can double your business in 2021. All right, so join us over at bmove.com/leverage. That is bmove.com/leverage. L-E-V-E-R-A-G-E. Leverage. Leverage. Leverage. All right. That's it for me, my friends. This moved me this week. What is moving you? Next week, we've got a really fun episode all about how we can save time and avoid stress. Sounds like a dream. All right. I'll see you there.