Speaking Your Brand

To create a keynote that helps your audience think bigger, you need to understand what matters to the people in the room, build a story and experience around that, and stay flexible enough to respond to them when you deliver it. For a recent leadership retreat for the Space Coast Chamber of Commerce, that meant interviewing local leaders, getting out my poster board and Post-...

Imagine you’ve just delivered a keynote. People in the audience come up to you and say, “I learned a lot” or “I was taking so many notes that I don’t even know where to start.” That’s exactly the *wrong* kind of feedback you want to get after a keynote. As a keynote speaker, you’re there on the stage to provide an experience for the audience and to help them see something dif...

Have you ever worried that showing your nerves or admitting something went wrong would make an audience question your credibility? I’ve felt that, especially as a speaking coach who put a lot of pressure on herself to deliver the perfect talk. My guest, trial lawyer and communication educator Jennifer Gardner, has spent decades speaking in courtrooms – and she still gets nerv...

Thought leadership can help you make a stronger case for your speaking fee when you can explain how your perspective will help the audience understand something differently or work through a problem they care about. Your expertise gives you material to draw from. The value of the talk also depends on what you help people do with it. I’ve had to work on this in my own presenta...

When someone hires you to speak, what are they actually buying? Your expertise is part of it. But the person planning the event also needs your talk to accomplish something for the people in the room. How clearly can you explain what that something is? In this final episode of our Bookable Speaker series, I’m talking about what makes your talk worth the investment. I take you...