307: 3 Essential Tools for Your Speaking Business

The speaking business can feel a little like logistically complicated. There is a lot for us to be doing. We're showing up on social, we've got content to write, we've got contracts to share, we've got a whole onboarding system. We gotta show up live and like look like professionals. We've gotta show up in person, then we gotta show up virtually. I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot happening. So I wanna share with you 3 essential tools that have helped me in my business that might help you as well. Hey movers, it's Sally Z 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 so that 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, your speaker coach, and This Moved Me is all about the art of moving your audience. And you're here probably because you are a speaker or want to be a speaker or want to leverage speaking, and that's perfect because I empower big-hearted entrepreneurs and changemakers like you to do exactly that, to leverage the power of speaking so that you can grow your impact, your authority, and your revenue without sacrificing your authentic voice, what makes you, you, because that's really the magic sauce. And that's what makes this fun. The truth is we can't show up and really serve and love up our audience without some important tools. That allow us to do that. So I wanna share with you just 3. I was in this entrepreneurial group on Facebook and everyone was sharing all the tools that they use. And I was like, oh my gosh, my list is really long. I use a lot of tools and apps and, you know, I'm using Asana for project management and I use Slack to communicate with my team. And I was really shocked when I laid it all out there. I was like, oh man, you know, like I've got an email management system. I use ConvertKit, I use LeadPages for landing pages and opt-ins, and I use ThriveCart as my checkout. Like, there's, there's a lot, there's a lot to make this whole ecosystem of speaking and coaching fly. It's a lot and it can feel really overwhelming. So I wanted to share with you just 3, 3 that I use the most and that I see as really truly essential for me in my business, in the way that I show up. The first one is this tool that I'm using right here, Ecamm Live. Now, if you've been here for a while, if you're listening to this right now, just audio just on the podcast. You can't necessarily tell this, but, but I record video at the same time that I record audio, and I use this tool called Ecamm Live, and it lets me not just record these kinds of videos in a way that where I can add cool things like my little name down here, and I can add screenshots of things, I can add links for things. I can take my name away, put my name back on there. I can add my logo. I can play a video. I can screen share into a PowerPoint. So when I'm doing virtual speaking, I use Ecamm Live to share my slides and my screen. Now you are seeing my slide, but guess what? You know what else you can see? We're gonna put me in a circle because we, you know how much I love the circles. There's a lot that you can do with this. So as I'm clicking through this, my face can still be here. Awesome stuff! Too much awesome stuff. It's amazing. Basically, you can produce a live stream from your computer. And I have seen some really awesome, fun speakers who have gone all in on this tool. And there's other tools like it. This is my favorite. If you use Mac, this is just for Macs. So I gotta say that if you're not on Mac, you're not— Ecamm's not gonna work for you. If you are on Macs, this is the tool that can really help you show up. You can change which microphone, you can do sound effects, you can do music. There is so much that we can do if you take some time to set yourself up. That's usually my problem. If you go live at all for your audience, if you go live into a Facebook group, if you go live into YouTube, if you go live into LinkedIn, if you record a podcast like this or record a show or do videos, you can, instead of like hiring somebody to come back later and edit stuff in, like you can do a lot of that for yourself right here. So you can record just for yourself. You can livestream into groups. I don't have a guest right now, but you can bring in a guest to be side by side with you. Let me see if I can show you split screen. Let's look at this. This is what it looks like. Oh, look it. I had this set up for when Latoya Bell came on. Hi, Latoya Bell. She's not here right now, but you can really do all kinds of things. You can set up all kinds of templates that are there for you to use as you are diving in and doing your thing. Voilà! Boom! I would highly recommend that you go grab this tool. Let me give you a link that you can use. If you go to bemoved.com ecamm.me right here, you can get a free trial of Ecamm. Check it out, download it. And I should note, this is an affiliate link. The second tool I want to share with you is called Canva. Now, I hope that you've heard of this. I hope that you are using it. All I can tell you is I could not do what I do without Canva. Now I hire people to help me like make the stuff and get the stuff out there because I'm just one human and I need other people to do all the things that I'm doing at this point, which is amazing that I get to do that. All of us use Canva. So what's awesome about it is it has turned me into a little bit of a graphic designer. Maybe I, I definitely could still use some help and some refinement, But I am able to create social media images. I'm able to create workbooks for my webinars and my trainings and my speaking. I'm able to make speaker one-pagers. I'm able to do PowerPoint presentations. Let me tell you this quick story about how powerful Canva's new presentation approach is. So first of all, I love the design in it. It, I find it so much easier to design in than, let's say, in PowerPoint. So there are PowerPoint people out there, you're passionate about it. I like PowerPoint. I think sometimes it's a little too powerful and then things end up looking bad. But in Canva, I feel like because there's so many beautiful templates in there and it's so easy to swap stuff out and change colors and change fonts, and my brand guidelines are already in there. It, I was able to create a really beautiful deck in a short amount of time. Now, what I did is I, because I wasn't sure if I was going to show up and use PowerPoint, if I was going to show up and use Canva, I had it as both a PowerPoint and a Canva presentation. But ultimately, I was so glad that I had it in Canva. And here's why. When I showed up on site, You know, and I'm like trying to set up my computer. It was, it was on a college campus and there wasn't a tech person around. And the, the people who were there, like my event contact there, she didn't know how to make it work with my computer. I brought all the dongles I have and none of them worked with their setup. And I was like, oh no, what am I gonna do? Okay, it's a little reminder that speakers, you need to be able to speak without your slides. But this was a new kind of concept, a new topic I was playing around with a little bit, and I was really depending on my slides. Not a good idea, Sally. But it ended up being absolutely fine because I had built it in Canva first. And so I was able to hop onto the school's computer that was already hooked up, get into my Canva account and play it from their computer. Saved the day. It saved the day. I had one moment of panic and then I thought, all I need is an internet browser and I can access my Canva presentation. And that's exactly what I did. And it worked beautifully. It was so smooth. It was fine. The internal pan— the panic, it was just happened internally. Nobody else knew. And it worked great. So anyway, Canva has become— I'm in there every day for something. Uh, team members can use it. It's really amazing. I do have, if you are somebody who is ready to go to the next level on your Canva, there's a free option and then there's a pro option. I I say yes. All right, you guys, this is also an affiliate link. Just know that. But if you are using Canva a little bit and you're probably underutilizing it, there is so much you can do with Canva. So if you want to go up to the Pro where you have access to all of the design things, oh my gosh, it's awesome. You can get a yearly account that includes a team account. So it's basically $2 a person a month for this incredible thing. If you go to this link, you can get a free trial for this Canva Pro and see if it's worth it for you and for your team. But my guess is that it will be. And check out how they are doing their presentations and the way and how beautifully and easily you can build beautiful presentations. Now my third tool for you before we wrap up this episode is HoneyBook. You guys, can we talk about HoneyBook for a second? Do you even know what HoneyBook is? You probably have heard a little bit about it. It actually started out as a CRM, or a customer relationship management, I think is what that stands for, program for photographers. So, and you can kind of feel the roots of that once you get into the program. But I have been recommending it actually for my speakers. And here's why. It's very much like DubSado, right? Or I know SpeakerFlow, they're this amazing group. Their very, very high-level keynote speakers use a system on Zoho. All right. And Zoho can do the same thing. All of these can do the same thing. My personal preference is HoneyBook. Because they are— I like the look and feel of it. I like how I can design things. It has a very friendly feel to it. I will also say I know somebody who does trainings in HoneyBook, and I have seen what is coming with HoneyBook, and it is beautiful. I love the idea of being able to take my customers whether that is somebody who I'm trying to invite into a program or somebody I am trying to book a keynote engagement with and saying, hi, let me walk you through this beautiful customer journey. I can do all of the speaking business things inside this one program. I can show them a reel, show them a little bit about who I am and what I speak about. I can ask them some questions. I can get information about the event. I can send a, uh, proposal. I can automate responses. I can send them a contract and an invoice, reminders about that invoice. I can send them a post-event questionnaire. I can get referrals. I mean, it's all in there. You have to build this flow, but once you do that, It, uh, is gonna save you time and save you worries because let's, let's be honest, there's a lot in that process, right? So you just heard me talk about all these things. In my Movers Lab group, we look at that whole process and we use HoneyBook and say, okay, what are the things that we can do to build this customer journey? It's gonna be a game changer for my speakers and for me in my own speaking business. So I'm just really excited about what's coming down the pike with HoneyBook. Once again, I have an affiliate link for you to check out HoneyBook. If you are looking for a customer onboarding, a customer management system, a way to organize and more automate your contracts, your proposals, your invoices, I highly recommend that you check out HoneyBook. It's awesome. And it's getting better. Now, a little side bonus. If this is important to you, it's important to me. I know somebody who has, who works with people inside HoneyBook and talk about what great people they are, how responsive they are, how much they care about what is happening. And they're introducing a lot of new stuff. And it's not that it's going to be like all smooth sailing here while they Well, they reveal some of these new processes that are going to be huge for us in terms of how we can bring a customer into our business, how we can get more opportunities and gigs and, and not forget about that really important part, which is after the talk, after the keynote, after the workshop, after the training, because that's often where the engine comes for the next stuff. And I don't know about you, but I sometimes get done with the talk and I'm like, done, bye-bye. And I forget about the really important aspects of following up, getting feedback, saying thank you. Really? Like, these are simple things and we can, through HoneyBook, automate more of that. So if you want to know more about this, let me know. We can do some deep dives on it, but I really go in deeply and bring in that trainer into the Movers Lab experience. So check it out, check it out, check it out. And really all three of these tools are gonna be important for you as you grow your speaking business, whatever CRM you end up using, if it's HoneyBook or something else, that's totally fine. But you need some way to automate the experience that your customer is moving through. Sometimes it's important to know the difference between the customer is the person who hires you, right? And that's different than your audience. We know this, right? But sometimes I just have to remind people because they're like, well, my audience is this. I'm like, well, yes, your audience is that, but your customer, your client, or how, whatever word you want to use, who you're selling to might be somebody different. Sometimes it's the same, but it might be somebody different. And the more we can intentionally curate that approach and that process, the more success we are going to have. So Canva, Ecamm Live, and HoneyBook, these three are essential go-tos for me. And what I like about these three tools is they're, they're really different, but they are all essential to the business of speaking. Ecamm Live is gonna make sure that I show up looking like a professional and do things really excellently. So it has that elevated feel to it to have music and transitions and logos and to be able to outline ideas out and add in my links on screen. Like these are all really, it's not hard. It's not hard, but it does elevate the experience that you get as an audience member. Canva Pro helps me show up like a professional and be consistent in my voice. One of the things we talk a lot about in the Movers Lab is authority, how we establish ourselves as an authority. And it's really about an authentic, consistent presence. Are you being authentic and showing up consistently? Well, Canva can help you do that. It's really, really important. Okay, so it's not just the business of speaking like Here's your contract and your invoice, and those are really, really important. That's kind of what we think about, but it's really all of it. How we show up, how well we show up, when we show up, and then how we follow through and create that customer experience from beginning to end. Amazing. Oh my gosh. All right, team, I hope this was helpful for you. I think there's some good meaty stuff in here. My hope is that I will see you inside the Emerging Speaker Society. You can come join us right here. We're going to be doing a few more trainings before the end of the year. But then, truth be told, I'm taking a little break at the end of 2021. And I hope you are too. But we will be kicking off 2022 with a Be Visible Challenge January. We're all about it. I'm kind of relooking at how I'm doing it because The last few Januarys I've been doing this Be Visible Challenge and I've struggled to be visible. So it's like, well, maybe that's not the right time. Maybe January, there's too much going on. So I'd love your input on that if you guys are curious about it, but I'm excited. We'll see you over there. This moved me today. What is moving you? I'd love to hear. I'll see you next week. Bye.