Latest / Expertise Made Real / Proof You’re Real: Why Live Speaking Matters in the Age of AI With Bobbie Carlton

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Proof You’re Real: Why Live Speaking Matters in the Age of AI With Bobbie Carlton · Expertise Made Real

• 0:00
  How do you prove you're an expert when anyone can sound like one in just 30 seconds?
• 0:06
  In an earlier episode, I talked with Bobbi Carlton, founder of Innovation Women, about getting started with speaking and the back of the room deal.
• 0:14
  This time, we get specific about what happens after you leave the stage.
• 0:18
  Bobbi shares real numbers from speakers in her community, including a workshop that turned into a $5,000 video series a year later.
• 0:26
  We also talk about why a live audience may be the best proof of your expertise right now and what to do if answering questions in real time terrifies you.
• 0:36
  Let's get into it.
• 0:38
  Welcome to Expertise Made Real.
• 0:40
  I'm your host, Kristen N.
• 0:42
  Spencer, and you're listening to the launch series for this podcast where experts from different fields describe for us the exact moment where they tangibly noticed the expertise they had already been acting on for years because it took something
• 0:56
  or someone outside themselves to reveal how their experience could become expertise.
• 1:02
  Plus, each guest will give you tools and tips on how you can adjust your own expertise to reflect important lessons they've learned throughout the years.
• 1:12
  The value in each and every episode of this launch series runs deep, and I can't wait for you to dive in.
• 1:18
  So let's get started.
• 1:21
  All right, so in the last episode, I was talking to the amazing Bobbi Carlton and about getting going on speaking just.
• 1:29
  And she said, just start.
• 1:31
  But we also talked about what I would call the back of room deal, where the thing that you're offering to actually support your business because like she said, a small percentage of people are like, actually get paid for
• 1:43
  showing up and speaking.
• 1:45
  So, Bobbi, my question for you in this episode is, can you walk me through the last time that speaking led directly to business for you or for one of the speakers that you work with?
• 1:57
  And what did you do after that to turn it into more revenue?
• 2:01
  Absolutely.
• 2:02
  And funny you should ask.
• 2:04
  We just had a query, Insider Innovation Women community.
• 2:09
  And I was specifically asking our members to tell me about how speaking drove business for them.
• 2:18
  And I actually, like, did a little bit of a deep dive on some of the answers because I'm like, give me quantification.
• 2:26
  Give me the numbers.
• 2:29
  And we had some absolutely, like, absolutely unbelievable floor you numbers.
• 2:38
  We had one speaker who went to a conference and she was doing a series of workshops for them.
• 2:46
  They paid her hotel, they paid her trip out there.
• 2:50
  She was also given a stipend.
• 2:53
  Feel like, you know, not a big payday.
• 2:56
  But a year later, someone who sat in her workshop reached out to her and asked her to do a series of educational videos for which she was paid $5,000.
• 3:13
  Nice.
• 3:13
  And she was being shown.
• 3:15
  Her videos were being shown to an entire organization's membership.
• 3:22
  Oh, wow.
• 3:22
  For which she received more business.
• 3:27
  And I was like, that's awesome.
• 3:28
  Like, that's a very specific result.
• 3:32
  We had another speaker who regularly does sessions inside companies, inside the women's groups, inside companies.
• 3:42
  She does a quarterly workshop on basically planning your financial future.
• 3:50
  From years of doing those particular quarterly workshops inside a couple of very specific companies.
• 3:59
  She has received eight separate clients.
• 4:04
  Those clients are investing their money with her.
• 4:08
  She makes between, I think it was like 1.5 and 1.9% on the assets invested.
• 4:19
  And I'm not going to give you the millions of dollars, but let's just say that every year from those small number of clients and their investment, her salary is about $173,000 a year just from those clients.
• 4:39
  Like, you can see, you know, like what people are doing.
• 4:42
  They're sharing their expertise, they're getting clients out of it.
• 4:47
  And from those clients, that's how they're making a living.
• 4:51
  And though both examples that I gave you, yes, one had her expenses covered and a small stipend, but they are not necessarily the opportunities to get paid by the organizers to be on stage.
• 5:08
  They are connecting with potential customers.
• 5:11
  Right.
• 5:12
  Because you don't, you don't know who is going to be in the room.
• 5:15
  Like, you have an idea, right?
• 5:16
  You can say, okay, I know that these types of people will be in the room, but you don't know what kind of relationship you're going to build.
• 5:24
  And also, like, you talked about expertise, which is my favorite, which is why this podcast is called Expertise Made Real.
• 5:31
  But I feel like speaking is a unique way to showcase that expertise.
• 5:36
  Can you talk a little bit about that?
• 5:38
  Absolutely.
• 5:38
  When we talk about public speaking, I talk about the five Cs.
• 5:42
  The benefits of public speaking, number one, is demonstrating your competence.
• 5:49
  You are on stage in front of people, often live.
• 5:54
  It's not like you're sitting there in the background with your chat GPT, right?
• 5:58
  In the world of AI, it's very hard to know what's real and what's not.
• 6:05
  People are putting stuff up on LinkedIn, on social media, on their own websites.
• 6:11
  They didn't write.
• 6:13
  How do you know that that person has that specific expertise?
• 6:19
  You see them on stage, they're giving a presentation.
• 6:23
  And here's the kicker, they are answering questions from the audience.
• 6:29
  That is one of the best ways to demonstrate that you really know what you're talking about.
• 6:35
  You you're answering questions off the cuff.
• 6:39
  Mark Cuban actually has something that he put out, I think it was about a year ago.
• 6:44
  He called it the Millie Vanilli effect.
• 6:47
  Now, if you remember, Millie Vanilli, right, 1990.
• 6:50
  Yeah.
• 6:51
  Grammy winners who lip synced their music.
• 6:56
  Take away that Grammy, but really that's what AI is doing.
• 7:00
  We don't know if somebody's lip syncing or if they are really knowledgeable about their area expertise until we see them live.
• 7:11
  Until we can reach out and poke them, we don't know.
• 7:16
  Absolutely.
• 7:17
  And I'm thinking about, let's say there's someone listening right now that they're speaking and they're like, bobby, I'm terrified to let someone ask me questions live.
• 7:27
  What would you say to them?
• 7:28
  How would you encourage them out of that terrified.
• 7:30
  I call it terrified action.
• 7:31
  We want brave action, not terrified action.
• 7:34
  How would you encourage them into that brave action?
• 7:36
  Okay, number one, I always recommend people take an improv class.
• 7:41
  All right?
• 7:42
  Number one, it's fun.
• 7:44
  Number two, you get a whole strategy for handling anything that life throws at you.
• 7:51
  It's fantastic.
• 7:54
  I also want to address the speaking and nervousness and fear aspect.
• 8:02
  I am of the firm belief, and this is my own little theory, that we have created fear about public speaking.
• 8:11
  All right?
• 8:12
  There was a survey, a study that was done in the 70s that com that basically people completely misunderstood.
• 8:22
  It was asking people to share their fears, their anxieties, and public speaking was often on the list.
• 8:32
  Somehow that got extrapolated into that is the biggest terror.
• 8:37
  Like, you've probably heard the joke that at a funeral, more people would prefer to be in the casket than giving the eulogy.
• 8:47
  Yes, I have heard that.
• 8:48
  All right.
• 8:49
  And that's just that misunderstanding of that study because it came up so often, but no one said it was the top fear.
• 8:58
  No one said it ranked as a larger fear than dying.
• 9:03
  It just made the list a lot.
• 9:06
  And I feel like we all extrapolated out that study and said, giant fear.
• 9:11
  Everybody should be nervous.
• 9:12
  And the more we talk about it, the more we make people nervous.
• 9:17
  So you're not nervous, you're excited.
• 9:21
  Excited about the opportunity.
• 9:23
  Reframe it in your head.
• 9:25
  Yeah, for sure.
• 9:26
  I mean, I never heard that I should be scared of public speaking.
• 9:30
  So even though I'm super introverted, I love it.
• 9:33
  Like, I could be on a stage in front of 2,000 people.
• 9:35
  And that's easier than, like, a group of three people that I'm talking to if I haven't met them.
• 9:40
  But I think it's one of those things where if someone tells you to be afraid of it, you're going to be afraid of it.
• 9:47
  But also, I had someone tell me one time, well, if you're not nervous, because, you know, I write a lot of books, and every time a book comes out, I feel like I'm gonna throw up.
• 9:55
  I felt like that this morning as I was watching the Countdown.
• 9:58
  And this is like my, I don't know, 45th book that I've written.
• 10:02
  It's like my 15th book that I've published in my own name.
• 10:06
  And I still felt like that.
• 10:07
  And my friend was like, you know, that just means you care.
• 10:12
  We do care.
• 10:13
  And you don't want that to go away.
• 10:15
  You don't want caring to go away because that's going to affect how you show up to serve other people.
• 10:22
  Yeah.
• 10:22
  And I think, I do think that especially introverts.
• 10:27
  Like we've been told, oh, the extroverts.
• 10:30
  Let the extroverts do it.
• 10:32
  Right?
• 10:33
  Introverts make fantastic speakers.
• 10:36
  They practice.
• 10:38
  They generally have, like, those good research and, and reading and writing skills.
• 10:45
  They, they, they figure out how long that presentation will take.
• 10:50
  Somebody told the extroverts at one point, you're going to be a great public speaker.
• 10:55
  And if I see a speaker who's going way over in their time, I'm like, extrovert, extrovert.
• 11:01
  Because they haven't practiced often enough to figure out exactly what time they have and how long their presentation should be.
• 11:11
  That makes so much sense.
• 11:12
  Right.
• 11:12
  Because they're like, well, I'm a natural at this, so I don't need to practice.
• 11:15
  Right?
• 11:17
  Well, we all need to practice everything we want to do.
• 11:19
  Well, especially if you want to do it on time.
• 11:22
  Yes.
• 11:23
  That's my mom voice coming in.
• 11:24
  I, you know, I'm famously the mother of three teenagers until March when my oldest turns 20.
• 11:28
  But so they're always like, oh, there goes that mom advice.
• 11:31
  Oh, the moms know.
• 11:35
  Yeah.
• 11:36
  Well, thank you so much for this amazing look behind the scenes of kind of the thinking of, what are we doing to make money as a speaker?
• 11:45
  What's our motivation?
• 11:46
  Such good stuff.
• 11:48
  Thank you, Bobby.
• 11:49
  And just for people listening, how can they reach out to you?
• 11:53
  How can they talk to you and get your expertise?
• 11:56
  Well, I would invite everyone here to come to Speaker Friend Fridays.
• 12:00
  If you go to innovationwomen.com, click on the events button, check out Speaker Friend Fridays.
• 12:06
  Everyone's welcome.
• 12:07
  Come and join us and talk about everything related to public speaking.
• 12:12
  Amazing.
• 12:12
  Thank you so much.
• 12:14
  And now, if you liked the episode, I'm going to make an ask because I wouldn't be a sales expert if I didn't.
• 12:21
  Would you please leave a rating and review and hit subscribe?
• 12:25
  In exchange, I'm going to give you my Find your Wonder Work system.
• 12:30
  It's five prompts, five minutes, and names the thing that you're already excellent at but don't know to call a skill.
• 12:37
  This is basically a what do you do on autopilot?
• 12:40
  Except I've created it as a tool.
• 12:43
  So leave your review and then go claim your reward at bit.
• 12:48
  Ly expertisemr.
• 12:52
  That's bitly expertisemr.
• 12:57
  And I hope to hear you or my guest, I guess, in the next episode.
• 13:03
  Thanks.