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Joanne Tombrakos: The Bold Truth Behind a Great Pitch · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Leigh Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today we have Joanne Tombracos.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Joanne is a longtime storyteller with a 25-year career in media sales and marketing and including roles at CBS and Time Warner Cable.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Known for closing business through compelling storytelling, not selling, she now works as a marketing and business strategist assistant professor of marketing at NYU and the host of the Marketing Mindfulness and Martinings podcast.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Joanne is the author of four books, including Crafting your Pitch, a Storytelling Framework.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: She is a recognized expert in personal branding, pitch development and social media, and she believes human connection is at the heart of it all.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge, joanne.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited to have you.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I'm excited to be here, Leigh.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: It's really a pleasure to meet you.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: I love all your Be Bold, nice and bold right behind you.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, so it's definitely standing out A lot of the things that you do.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I think, in really reaching out to you, I really was seeing a trend of boldness, in the sense of even how you have gone through the journey of your career and taking things that are you know, I would say, within your zone of genius and expertise, and started to share them with men and women around, particularly telling your story, and I think for me, that's the one I'm honed in on.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: But before we jump into all that good stuff, I'd love to learn what your definition of bold is.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: What does bold look like in your world?
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: I think for me, and I really think that in actuality, it winds up being different for everybody depending on where they're coming from, but I think it's just stepping out of your comfort zone.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: The thing is is that every time I've done it, I don't think I've realized how bold I was at the time.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: In fact, sometimes in retrospect I'm like I'll tell someone my story and I'll be like, oh, I guess that was really bold, but at the time I wasn't thinking about it, you know.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: So I think it's really just, and doing what others don't expect you to do, you know something that is just a little bit out of the norm, because all my big bold moves have been a little bit out of the norm, I suppose, or what people expected of me.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so really sometimes not being understood while you're doing it, or people thinking, wow, I can't believe she did that, or she's crazy, or you know, I don't understand.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think and this is your whole thing, I mean, you've got a whole business going on around this is that when you're doing something bold and it is outside of what the people around you, whether it's your friends, your family might want you to do, is that they don't always want you to do it.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: You know it's because it's your friends, your family might want you to do, is that they don't always want you to do it.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: You know it's because it's more comfortable.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: It's like wait a second, or she's doing that and I'm not.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Why is she doing that?
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: They want to pull you.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: You know it's more comfortable where you are.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, it may be more scary for them sometimes than it is for you.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: I think that was true for me in a number of instances.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I think what I've learned writing my second book, which I go into the neuroscience of being bold and how our brain reacts because it was for me, it was one of the things that you know working with individuals and organizations is that first bold step is really the hardest, but we're the only ones that can take it.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: So I wanted to understand what was happening in there and why I say it's biological when it comes to being bold, is that you know, our brains are trained to keep us safe and, just like our family and friends, sometimes their, their intentions are meant to, like you know, protect us, keep us safe.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: But we know we need to move out of that zone of comfort and I read that it takes five positive things to actually take out one of the negative things we think may happen, right?
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, that list of what ifs that's a hundred plus long that we can create sometimes.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: So when you think about your life where you got out of your comfort zone and did something maybe that wasn't expected, what comes to mind for you?
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: You know just one example of that.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: I think the first big time.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: And again, at the time I didn't think about it as being bold.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: I thought about it as I have to do this, I have no choice and my all of my education is in education.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: I went to undergraduate school to become a teacher and then I got a graduate degree in educational administration and there I was about 25 years old and I'm like I don't really like what I'm doing over here.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: I liked it, I liked the teaching part, because obviously now I do teach again, it's different.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: It's because it's university students.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: But I just said I can't do this, this is not where I want to be right now.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: So I left all of that and I decided I wanted to sell and at that time, in all honesty, I was totally driven by money.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: It was the 80s and that was the thing.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: And I knew I could sell and I love being with people.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: And I took a job selling country music radio ads on a station in Philadelphia at a time when it had just launched and everybody in Philadelphia and the whole Northeast said country music's not going to work here because in the 80s there was nothing cool about country.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: It's way cooler now than it was then.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Very, very cool now.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Then it was all.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: It was Loretta, you know.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Know, I mean, people may love Loretta, lynn and Hank Williams, but that was it.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: It was all much more twangy yeah and I took a job against commission and who?
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Anyone who's listening.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: If you don't know what that means is basically you know they give you a little bit of money each month but then you have to earn it back in commission and I had no idea what I was doing.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: I didn't know anything about it and I just it.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: I just knew that this is what I wanted to do.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: I knew I wanted to sell and at that point I thought that that would just be giving me the experience in selling, because no one else wanted to hire me, because I had all this education, but not in the right thing.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: And it turned out to be the beginning of a career that lasted for a long time.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: But at the time I didn't think it was bold.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: I just knew this is not where I want to be at this point in my life.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we usually don't know we're being bold when we're actually in the act of it, so to speak.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: It is something that we're doing just innately because we want to explore, we want to understand, we want to create a life or get curious about something like why not try sales?
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I had a conversation yesterday about just things we do when we're younger.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Having the, the idea of being curious particularly and I think sometimes as we get older we kind of squash it or dim that curiosity and I think that's what I'm trying to kind of amp up and be a catalyst for people is to see the power, possibility right Of what you can do and, again, taking a small step.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be this huge step.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: So it doesn't have to be, but it was in retrospect and like when I, when I tell the story, it's like, well, yeah, I guess I was really bold then, but I didn't think of myself as bold.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I bet you were.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Some people said what are you doing?
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Oh my God, are you kidding me?
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Everybody I knew was like why are you doing this?
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: You've got this, you've got a you know this teaching job and you can.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: This is perfect if you want to start a family, which I thought it was going to, but that never happened.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: But that's another another thing.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: You know, life just doesn't turn out the way it just you just things just happen.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: And especially my father at the time my father was still alive and I know he was trying to support me but he was like I've been in the corporate world, what are you doing?
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: But you know, I fell in love with radio and then that became, you know, the radio and the advertising.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: I got into television and I worked for CBS and Time Warner.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: So it was the beginning of, you know, a really great stint in my career, until that wasn't good and I had to be bold again.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: So now, like all you know, if you think about from going from the place and space of you know, graduating, having your degree, starting in sales, and then you know, now being a professor at NYU, multiple books about you know, even a nonfiction book in there.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: So, of all the things that you've done, would you have expected that you would be where you are?
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Because that's one thing as we were talking in the green room, I was like I've done things that never were on my list but became part of the list right as I evolved, shy and introverted.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: And I say this and I start laughing, because people who know me are like there's no way.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: My students are like there's no way, professor.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: I said, well, I really was, but I always wanted to write and I've always been curious.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: I'm a curious individual.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: I do remember when I left teaching, people said to me you're going to miss anything.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: And I said I'll miss the students.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: And they said would you ever want to do it again?
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I said, well, you know, I think someday I'd like to teach at the university level.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: And then it's just like it went out of my head.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, x number of years later, suddenly I'm teaching one class at NYU and then it becomes two, it becomes three.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: So you know, life is and everything's built on I was saying this to one of my students the other day is that all the stuff that you do winds up.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: You wind up taking it into the different parts of your life.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: That early teaching experience made me better in sales, you know, because you can't treat seventh graders as though they're seventh graders so they wouldn't listen to you.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: You have to treat them like adults.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: But then all those years in selling have made me a better teacher.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: I write this about this in my book is that I believe everything's a pitch.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: You know, right down to trying to decide what you're going to have for dinner with when you're going out with a friend.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Well, where do you want to go?
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Where do you want to go?
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: You know, like let's, how am I going to persuade you to go where I want to go?
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: So I think it's made little bit of feed off.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: And plus, of course, I was in advertising and marketing.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: So that helps too, because from the expertise level, you know, I think it's different layers of your experiences right All coming together.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I think one thing someone said to me yesterday well, I don't have a degree in this particular area so I probably can't apply for it.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, why not, I think, taking your skill sets that you have and applying them a different way?
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I know the middle of, I guess, the beginning of my academic career in college, like I had an MHSA, so I had a master's in health services administration, like my goal was to be a CEO of a children's hospital, but then I got rift, like my first job.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: I got rift because the person I reported to was RIFT, unfortunately, and then I had this space of like what am I going to do?
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: And I was 28, young mom at that time, and so you know my mom was really pushing me to apply for this K through 12 director role and I was like I have the wrong degree for that mom.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: And what ended up is I did apply, I did get the interview and I ended up getting the job and they said the reason that they hired me was because they wanted a new lens on problems or challenges they were having.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: And then I went back and got my MED and so I think it was interesting, just because I didn't think it was something that they would even consider, and that was a long time ago.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: But I think even the world's more open to that, as long as you know how to pitch right.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: So let's jump into that, because I think your experience kind of layered into that.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: So your most recent book is Crafting your Pitch, a Storytelling Framework.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I would love for you to give us an overview of the book and then we'll jump into certain pieces and parts of it, because there's certain things that I think people do repeatedly that I think don't help them with their pitches, or maybe they don't prepare, or maybe they're not even thinking.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: So you know why this book, why now you know over the last two years and give us an overview?
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: So the book came to be.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: I guess it was around 2017, 2018.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: I was asked to teach in a program we have at NYU called the Real World Strategic Partnership Program, and what we do there NYU called the Real World Strategic Partnership Program and what we do there is that we work with an actual company.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: It's that students have to apply to be into the course there's only 16 students and the client gives us a brief and the students have to solve the brief over the course of the semester and we divide them into four teams and they compete against each other and the client gets to pick who delivered the winning pitch.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: So I was very excited about it, because this was kind of what I did in my corporate life and for me at that point to pitch something comes very naturally.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: It's.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: You know, when you do something like that, it's, it's, it's you probably have the all the neuroscience on it, but it's definitely it's it's your memory, your memory falls right into it.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: And then I realized I have to teach these students how to do this.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Now I've got to break it down in parts, so I started to figure out how I was going to do that and I initially I had a checklist that I had created because I wanted to.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Everyone talks about how to use story, but nobody actually tells you what to do.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: In a simplistic way, and I'm all about simplicity, that's one of my things.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: So, in a simplistic way, and I'm all about simplicity, that's one of my things.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: So I had a checklist and I remember one of my students coming to me and saying this is like gold, and she was almost at the end of her degree.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: I said you know, I keep thinking I should write a book and elaborate on it, and she said I think you should.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: So it was one of my students who actually encouraged me to do it.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: And then I realized this will be great, it'll help me with my course and really take down it's.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: So it's a lot of what I do in my course and I speak about, but that's really how it came to be.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: So it was one of those very organic things.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: I didn't think, oh, I need to do this.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: But and it shouldn't have surprised me that my students, even as graduate students, didn't know how to pitch, because, as you I'm sure have seen, is that there are many experienced people out there who don't know how to hold a room or think they can or think they do right.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: They think they can, but they're really not.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: And I think it's even more important now because we're so inundated with all this data that people think throwing a bunch of bullet points and data up on a wall is going to convince someone of anything.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: It's still about this.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: It's still about this human connection.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: I wrote it for pitching ideas to businesses, but really I to me.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Learning how to pitch is important, no matter what aspect of your work life is.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: You pitch to your clients.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: You know you're pitching internally, you're pitching externally.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: That whole idea of it is and people hate that word because it sounds so salesy, but that's what it is.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: So it's really what it comes down to.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: It gets a bad rap, right, you know, I know, when I first came out of corporate I was like, wow, I don't want to sell anything.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to be.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I thought, you know, salesy.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: You know I don't want to be a car salesman.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: All these people were my, you know, my network.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: And now here I am trying to come by, you know, have it's a budget or the staffing or not, having a riff or a new innovation that we needed to implement or a timeline.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I was literally doing that daily.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: So for me, once I kind of moved my mindset around it in the right way for me to be able to be successful, I got better at it too, as each time I did it.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: You know, I do think repetition and kind of practice is one of the things that really helps.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: What do you think we do that we don't realize that we do that hurts us when we're pitching or could hurt?
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: us.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: I think we don't listen.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: I think we don't listen.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: I don't think I mean that's like an epidemic running through our society right now is that people don't listen.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Everyone's so busy talking that they forget to listen.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: And I remember early on in my career, one of my early bosses told me he said you go on a call and if you ask the right questions, you're going to get all the information that you need to convince someone of something.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: But it's about listening.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: If all you're doing is talking, you're not going to sell them anything, because you're really listening and you're looking for how you're going to connect this Cause.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: That's really what it's.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Everything is again.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: It's all about that emotional connection and how you're going to convince someone that they have that need for it.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: But it's, it's a lot of not listening.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, here's my thing.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Or now you asked a question and I have to go back to what the next slide was, as opposed to just saying, okay, let's go with this right now, because maybe this is the direction it's going to take.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely yeah, I think sometimes things get out of order and I think, when it comes to listening, I honestly think many of us aren't good at it.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Right, I may be quiet, but I think in my head sometimes I'm like thinking ahead.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Right, I may be quiet, but I think in my head sometimes I'm like thinking ahead.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Right, I try not to talk on top of people and those types of things, which I think is one of the next levels, but I think for me it's just like getting not prepared, but just my mind goes pretty fast, honestly, and I'm constantly thinking about ideas and things that we could do, or things that we could create, or oh, wow, that'd be great, I need to connect you with so.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: But I mean or things that we could create, or oh wow, that'd be great, I need to connect you with so.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: But I mean just the powerful flex of those two ears on your head is something that we can do to get ahead.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: No, and actually what you were saying about thinking of ideas is that I always say it's kind of like having multiple computer programs going in your head at the same time.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: It's that I'm listening to you, but I'm also thinking about where I can take this next, because now that you said that, I think I really need to point this part out to you.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: But that is having that multiple thing.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it helps at certain times, but other times it's like oh, did I listen enough?
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Did I listen?
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: to the level.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: I needed to yeah, for sure, I think.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: When it comes to a good pitch, what do you think are?
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: the ingredients of a pitch that you talk about in the book are the ingredients of a pitch that you talk about in the book.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I think you need to get people's attention right away.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think the hook is just really, really critical, and I think the other part is well I also.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: You know, at the end you have to repeat what you said, so that's important.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: But in between, while you're going through whatever, however, you're setting this up, you know why this is important.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: What this idea is, how this idea is going to work, is that you're constantly reinforcing your selling, but you're not pushing selling, if that makes any sense.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: You're reminding why this is solving whatever problem you're here to solve.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're taking him from X to.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Y, right, and then, instead of just spewing out, and now here's all the data that I found.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Well, that's great.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Well, this is why that data is important.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: This is why this goes back to solving your problem.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: This is how this thing works, and if we do this, it's going to achieve this objective that you had.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: So I think that's something that's really, really critical and people forget about it.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: My students do.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: They get a lot of tough love in that particular class.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: It's one of the reasons why I love it so much.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: I'm like I'm not going to tell you what you want to hear in this class.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: I said I'm going to tell you what you need to be to be better, because I think the further we get into all of this AI, those skills are just critical, and I think that's a critical soft skill to learn to be successful.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 100%.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: It's one I'm excited about, because I think there are meaning that there are things that we do that AI cannot do, and there's many things, honestly, and one of them is be human and have empathy and tell a story, and I think the combination of fact plus experience is just something that we own, and so, really, our storytelling, our process of storytelling, is really, really an important skill set, and if you haven't honed it, or you haven't honed it enough like, you need to keep practicing.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: So I think people think that storytelling is harder than it needs to be.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Do you agree with that?
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely, because I don't know how to tell a story.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: A real simple way to look at it is, if you're trying to get a point across to someone, giving them a bunch of bullet points is not going to be the answer.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: But if you can tell a personal story that relates back, it's that idea of showing me instead of telling me.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: It's like oh, I get it now.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, now I explain how this is going to be.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: And again it goes back to what you were saying and you obviously do.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: What I do is that you're always thinking about something else.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Let me explain it to you like this.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: And maybe it's also because we both teach, we're both educators, so you know you kind of have to do that, otherwise no one's going to listen to anything you say.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I substitute taught kindergarten oh God bless you.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: During my MHS.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I learned well.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: I started in middle school and I got eaten alive and I was like I got to go to little people, but I got eaten alive in a different way, in the sense of like in kindergarten, like I would get home and I would go to sleep like at seven.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: So it was just a different experience.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, so I think you know getting their attention but also helping them understand that I think sometimes people are looking for perfection and I think actually imperfection is what makes our stories so wonderful.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: I could not agree with you more.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: The looking for the perfection and being.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: you know that's another thing.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I think that comes with time too and experience.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: But when you are pitching, to joke that we could get a station on the air but we couldn't get the PowerPoint to run in the conference room, you know, and that stuff doesn't really shift and change.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: So I think being able to be relaxed with it and that takes practice, you know it takes practice and being comfortable and you know there's a lot of things now too, I see with younger people is that a lot of these skills, even things like just being able to make eye contact, is they don't all have it because of these crazy phones.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of stuff that's important in there.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: You know it's telling the story, but it's also connecting with who's in front of you.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually had this conversation.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I must have had a lot of conversations this week, but about writing and obviously when you're telling your story, you've taken some time to write, to prepare and do the things that are certainly outlined in the book of how we get ready for this.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: But I think it's one of the skill sets that I'm worried about future generations not actually being able to do.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Is that a legitimate fear?
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, yes and no I kind of like to go with.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: I think writing is more important than ever because so much of our conversation is happening through writing and it's a whole lot easier to find yourself in a bind if you don't use the right words than when you can actually see how someone's reacting to something.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: I can remember there was one situation a while ago where my brother and I were texting and he was just like we got to talk because this is not coming through right in the text.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly One of the courses I teach is social media and the brand, which I'm just finishing up one right now, and every time I teach it I'm like I have to talk about the good in this again.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: But the bad is outweighing it.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: But we are addicted to the bones and it is shifting the way we write and text and young people need to be told you know you have.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: If you're writing something formally, you can't just be putting little emoji cons in it.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Necessarily it's so.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's possible.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Well, there's just such a dependence on AI, like we were talking about what it must be like to be in high school right now, even, or you know, even college.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, the tools that they have now are so rapidly evolving, which are incredible, and I'm not dissing AI, but I'm just saying in the sense of like, how I grew up writing and you know expectations for writing, I do think it's actually, you know, come through now as I write my second book, like I'm a pretty good writer, like I really do, but I mean, I don't usually say good things about myself, so for me to say that that's like big Joanne, I think, in the sense of like I don't know if I would know how to do this if I had, you know, had something writing for me or helping me write right, yeah, no, but I think you're right.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: I think, from an education standpoint, they have to be forced to write.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: I also teach digital marketing and that course.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: I make them write a blog.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: That's their homework assignment.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: And at the beginning they that's their homework assignment and at the beginning they're like oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'm like and conversational you know, if you're putting this in AI and you're boring me to tears, I'll know that it's in AI if you're boring me to tears.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: But at the end of the semester they're all like thank you so much.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: This helped me get better with my writing, especially international students, and they have to be forced into that.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Until the data tells me that we are learning better by typing things in, it's not.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: We still learn better by writing by hand.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I do think I think it's a valid consideration, but I think I worry more about their social skills.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: I have to be honest with you.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: I think the writing will figure it out, but the social skills is what, that's what.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: And even with adults, even with adults, I mean, I see little ladies on the street in New York with, you know, the head in their phone and not paying attention to anything around them, and that's a whole other conversation, I suppose, but it fits into your neuroscience stuff.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, certainly I think it can be unhealthy, right, and you can create loneliness, comparison and a whole bunch of other things and, like you said, you also teach the positive things of, of the impact it can have and the things that people can be inspired by or even learn faster.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Well, no, it's like even you found me.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Would that have happened without all this stuff?
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Not necessarily.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: I don't think so.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I found her on LinkedIn, and so that's kind of where we connected first, and I think what you do is help people bring their story out into the surface and to really start one, for them to see it themselves, because I think when you go through crafting a pitch or creating your personal brand story which is another you know you have a workbook on that it is something that it's also reflective, and I think it's not only doing it for whatever your you know purpose is whether it's to launch something or get a role or do something different or speak but you're bringing some things back up to the surface and you're also working through how will I tell this story?
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: So it has meaning, it has impact and people can learn from it or be inspired by it.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Or I could, you know, potentially sell.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: You know my products or services so like it has so many ways that they can be used.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: I just don't think sometimes that we've been taught to talk about ourselves a lot too, especially as women.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: We're not as women, it's, it's too.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: We're talking.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: We're not talking a generation, we're talking like thousands of years here.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Just keep your mouth shut and sit in the corner and let the men talk, and that's, that's so.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: I think it's even harder for women.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: But one of the things that I talk about but from a personal branding standpoint, and when you're pitching an idea because you're pitching in both cases you're pitching is that you have to have your one sentence, and I don't mean it in the way of an elevator pitch, because my joke is who talks to anybody in an elevator anymore?
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: So what do you need a pitch for?
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: But you need to have it so you can build your story out.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: You know if it's posted on your computer or above your desk or wherever it is, and when you're crafting a pitch, you have to have that Like what is the crux of this?
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: But also for yourself, where do you want to go right now?
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Where do you want to be?
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: So that you have that grounding point and then you can build your story around it.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Because in today's world you know certainly whether you're a brand or whether you are an individual.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: It's showing up on multitude platforms, but it's not the whole story all the time.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: It's little snippets of it, right.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: One thing that I see when it comes to personal brand or you know whether it's a side hustle or whether you're doing a pivot or transition in your career is people say I want to be a speaker, I want to be an author, I want to be a writer here.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I want to be a speaker, I want to be an author, I want to be a writer here, I want to have my own business.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: But from afar and you know I just have five years experience but I think from afar, what I see, and sometimes up close, is that they don't take the time to actually connect the dots or create what I call, like your thought leadership ecosystem, which all those things could fit into.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: I want a podcast.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: That's another thing people say and so, like I think, thinking about it thoughtfully.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: And then also, you know, I love that the first you know word in the title is crafting.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: You know creating, really thinking through how you're going to create the pitch.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Or you know, think about your personal brand.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: It's really that system that you're working.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: It isn't just like I spoke on stage twice and I really love it.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be a speaker.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: I mean it's incredibly hard and go you.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I think you should, but how are you going to do that and what does that look like?
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: So when you think about, you know if you hear that, is that something that resonates with you or do you think like people can just do one offs and it doesn't really matter if it all connects back in?
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I, you know I can go back and forth with that.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: I think you're right.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: You need a strategy to really be effective.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: You're really driven to a certain degree.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: You know strategy to really be effective.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: You're really driven to a certain degree, but for so long.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: When this whole internet thing started, the whole thing was just do it, seth Godin, start before you're ready.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: So there's a validity to that too.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Certainly, when I left corporate in 2008, I really didn't know for sure what I was going to do next.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: All I knew was that I had had a great run and I was done that run.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: I couldn't do that one anymore.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: If I was to go back, would I want to be more strategic?
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, you know, but then certain things happen too.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: So I you know, the whole teaching thing fell into my lap.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, you made a move before that.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: I think for me, like even building what I've built over the last five years, like I didn't set out to do all those things, it is things that I've built right.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: So I didn't know when I left what I was going to do either.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: So I'm not saying like you have to have it all planned A through Z, because I didn't, I'd like to, but I did not.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: But I think what happens is maybe it's not so much the ingredients that I'm talking about, it's the timing.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I feel like people expect it overnight, or they expect not to put in the effort, or it's going to be, you know, six figure speaker and you know that's going to happen tomorrow.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: And again, go you like I want you to do that, but I want you to be successful and also have you know the right tools Right, and I think being able to tell your story is absolutely a tool that can be used in so many different ways, and so whether you're pitching, like you said, to your family or to your significant others, or to a business, or to your boss like those are all different you know flavors of pitch and selling.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: In my opinion, yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: But I think one of the things you were saying there about how people think it's going to happen overnight, that's where social media sells us a bill of goods, because you see, all these people who say that this is happening overnight and there have been some instances where things have, but for the most part it's.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: You know, yes, I was an overnight success and it took 20 years to happen.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Right exactly, but we see so much, you know, we're so influenced by what we see online and it's so much different than it was when it was just television.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: Or print, because it's immediate those phones are in our pockets all the time.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Or print, because it's immediate, those phones are in our pockets all the time.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: So we're constantly being reinforced and comparing ourselves and setting expectations that may or may not be realistic, but I do think that you do need to get feedback from other people too, as you're going through this, and that's hard what they see, because when you mentioned you liked the word crafting.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: I don't remember what the original name was, but that was not it.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Do you not like it?
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: No, I do like it, I do like it.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: But I was going to tell you how it happened, was that?
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: It was?
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: I was like, okay, you know what, my students know me, they know the work, and they were reading beta copies of a few semesters where it's like, okay, here, this is the PDF of this.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: And it was one of my students who's very, very creative.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: And he just looked at me.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: He says I don't like that.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: He goes I think it should be crafting your pitch.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, I think he's right, you know, cause kind of resonated.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: So you do need a little bit of outside influence too to help you to think.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: And I thought, yeah, that is right, cause that.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: And he again, they understood where it was what I was trying to do, because they had were experiencing it too.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: So people see things.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: You know, I think we don't always see ourselves the way the rest of the world does.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think, having the feedback and the different vantage point and being open to like, just to the feedback, but also standing your ground where you need to right you know.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: So, I think, just knowing that, do you think there's like a list of do's and don'ts when it comes to telling your story, and could you tell us one of?
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: each List of doing, of do's and don'ts.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: You know, I think the do, the biggest do, is is to be human.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: It's kind of what you were saying before is that you know, we have this idea that we have to be this perfect vision, and again I'm going back to that you know all this social media surrounding us, but that you know, do be human with reason.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: You know all this social media surrounding us, but that you know, do be human with reason.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: You know that doesn't mean I think that's been co-opt.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: You know it's like, oh yeah, well, I'm just he's just being him or she's just being her.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, you know, not everything, not all your laundry, has to be hung out on the line at the same time.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Personal brandy doesn't mean putting your personal life, every detail of it.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: No, no, and there are people who have entered.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: I don't think you know.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: I value my privacy.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: I miss my privacy.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: It seems to get less and less all the time and I kind of liked when you know you could actually go someplace and hide and no one knew where you were.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Now, if that phone rings or texts, he's like you have to answer because it's and do it right away.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Or someone's going to think something's wrong with you.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: And on the don'ts, I don't know what I would say for the don'ts on your person, I think you just have to.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: You have to be true to yourself.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: I guess it goes, but don't just you know, don't not be human.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: I guess that's don't not be you.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: I think you know and be open to that.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: You're not trying to create some.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: This is there's not perfection here.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Stuff is going to happen, good and bad, that you're not necessarily expecting, and that's going to help to build with that brand that we know what that brand becomes.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Did I go off track?
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: I have a habit of going off track, but I do come back to it.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: I've never.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: I had someone who worked for me years ago said I can't believe how you can go all the way over here and still manage to bring it back to the point, but that was because I was very good in sales, I suppose.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh yeah, okay, I'm over here, let me come back over here, but I gotta go back.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Where was I yeah?
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I can relate, like I always say, oh, that was a sharp turn left, let me get back on the road here, because I was not really talking about that before.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: So I can definitely relate as we close out.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: If someone's starting to really think about crafting their pitch and coming up with their story, what does your framework do, or how can they use and leverage your framework to get that going?
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Well, I think they first have to know what it is that they want to pitch.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Are they pitching themselves, are they pitching an idea?
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: And until you really know what that is, you can't do the rest of it.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Right, what is this?
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: And that's where that one sentence.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: If you have an idea, what does that mean?
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Can you say that to me in one sentence so that I understand exactly what it is?
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: It's almost like a tease, but I need to be able to grasp.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay, I'm going to keep listening, because that's really what it's about the whole time, whenever you're pitching anything, it's like what am I going to do for you to keep listening and how am I going to hold your attention?
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Because we're living in an attention economy.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Every 47 seconds, technology distracts us.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: How scary is that?
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: That is scary.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: It's a scary number.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: I thought you were going to say my dog, and it's a really frightening number, but that is what it is.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: But the other side of that is that give me something good on Netflix and I b I binge through all of Suits.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: I had never seen it before in the month of January because it was so good.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: So you give me something good and I'm going to hang with you.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: So you have to take those concepts to.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: You know, no one's going to spend that many hours with you on a pitch, but until you know what it is and you understand it and you have to believe in it too.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: I think it's another big part of it, yeah, so if you don't believe in it, you got to convince yourself.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's like, okay, why, and that's you know, to me I've always, if I have been given something that I need to pitch, that I'm not a hundred percent convinced of which certainly happened in my media sales career I would just have to convince myself and I'd research.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Of course, then I couldn't research online in the early days, but researching find the reasons so that I can be convincing to you.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: So the belief there is really, really important One.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: You can do it, you can learn it, you can figure it out and then owning it in the sense of like no one can do it for you, I think it's really important.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: So definitely pick up the book Crafting your Pitch a Storytelling Framework.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: All the information about Joanne, her work, having her come and work with your organization and her sub stack are down in the episode notes.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, joanne, for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank you, Leigh.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: This has been fantastic.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: You're a terrific interviewer.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.