Transcript Ep #185: 4 Strategies That Will Power Up Your Results from Stages in 2023

[00:01:51] Well, hey, friend!. Welcome back to another episode. I have been waiting to do this episode for a couple months now, and I am so excited because today we’re talking about how you can get more from speaking on stages in 2023. I believe hands down that stages are the best way for you to accelerate your authority so you can get paid more for your services and generate more leads of people who actually wanna pay you to work with them versus people who just download freebies that sit in their inbox untouched. So I think speaking on stages is the best way to do that. That is no surprise if you’re listening to the show. Obviously I’m a speaking coach, working with business owners, so I’m very passionate about this topic. But what I do hear is a lot of business owners wondering like, can I really get on a stage?

[00:02:39] We think of a stage, we think it as this big conference. I don’t know about you, but I’m envisioning Brennan Bouchard or Mel Robbins, like jumping up and down high fiving. That’s great too. If you have that ambition one day. I would love to speak on a stage like that, but for most business owners, speaking on a stage looks a little bit different, and I would imagine if you’re listening to this episode, you have some goals to get out there in front of more people this year.

[00:03:05] You might have some questions around, how do I find stages? Where would I even look? Do I have a topic that’s good enough to get paid to speak? Do I have to speak for free? I’m sure you have all of these questions, maybe then some. Over the next six weeks, I’m gonna be deep diving into what it really takes to become a paid speaker.

[00:03:23] What it really takes to leverage speaking as a marketing tool, to sell out your programs and sell high ticket services. There is a ying and yang between stages and selling, and we’re gonna dive into it over the next six weeks starting with this episode today. Now I mentioned paid speaking. Now most of the people who come to me aren’t really interested in becoming a professional speaker, going from event to event, event making the majority of their revenue coming from their time on stage.

[00:03:52] Most of my clients are looking at leveraging speaking as a marketing tool. Now, what do I mean by that? The stage opportunities while you can get paid, and I do handsomely, when you are on stage, that could be the, the product, if you will, that could be what you get paid for. But most of my clients who come to me look at stages as exposure.

[00:04:12] Now, when I say the word exposure, a lot of people freak out by this, going like, oh man, I’m not just gonna show up for free, expose me. That sounds so terrible. But y’all exposure is essentially PR. It’s getting more eyeballs on your business, so it is a good thing. Where exposure totally sucks is if it’s bad exposure, meaning that you’re being put in a bad light or meaning you are putting all this time and energy on being on a stage and it’s not actually paying off. And that my friend is a real problem because most people who gripe about having to speak for free are typically the people, so sorry, are the people who are broke and don’t know how to convert those opportunities into leads. But that is not you, friend, because you have me in your corner and I’m gonna teach you how to get more out of your stage opportunities in 2023 and [00:05:00] help you start thinking about it in a little bit of a new way so let’s dive into today’s episode.

[00:05:15] This is the podcast for the entrepreneur who wants to make a big impact, who doesn’t shy away from hard work, but also wants to. Okay. First of all, we have to talk about defining what is a stage, because as I mentioned before, many people have this big idea of what stages are, and I just want to level set and redefine it for you.

[00:05:37] If you’re not new around here, you already know my definition, so if you remember it, say it with me as I recite it. A stage is simply a platform to share your message. A stage is simply a platform to share your message. So when we think about stages in that light, yes, it could be conference stages, it could be association meetings, it could be virtual summits, it could be speaking on podcasts, having your own podcast, going live. Let’s see what else here. 

[00:06:05] It could be speaking inside organizations and companies, teaching workshops. A stage technically is your digital course videos. It could be you guest speaking and masterminds inside group programs, speaking on panels, group coaching, any of these things where you share your message and have a metaphorical mic is a stage.

[00:06:28] Can you see why maybe I’m so passionate about stages because it is your moment where you have the mic to be able to share a message to connect potentially with your ideal clients who you know you can help. And when we start treating these more as a, as a, as a magnetic moment, meaning as a moment where we are intentional with our message and how we show up, how we communicate, how we present ourselves, how we carry our, how we carry ourselves, how we use our words, all these things that I talk about all the time. They all come out in this moment when you have the mic, metaphorically speaking or not.. When you have that moment, it’s the question is what do you do with it? 

[00:07:10] So let’s dive in and talk about how we can approach these onstage moments. I’m gonna give you four strategies that can help you maybe reimagine your mic moments in 2023.

[00:07:20] So let’s go ahead and dive in. So number one, when it comes to finding stages in 2023, the first place I really want you to audit and ask yourself is, do you have your own stage? My number one strategy for 2023 is to encourage all of my clients to commit to their own stage. Now, what do I mean by this?

[00:07:42] Okay. I mean, like what I’m doing right now? I have my own stage, I have the microphone. I’m talking to you. I’m on my own podcast now. I have a video podcast and an audio podcast wherever you are watching or listening to this but it is my stage. I’m a hundred, and this is episode 185. I’ve been showing up for three and a half years every single freaking week on my stage.

[00:08:05] Question is, do you have your stage?. What does that look like? Do you have a YouTube channel? Do you, are you on a blog on your website? Are you showing up on your podcast? Maybe your stage right now is your email newsletter. Maybe you’re showing up on Instagram stories or you’re consistently going live. I don’t know what that looks like, but my friend, I’m really gonna encourage you in 2023, I want you to double down and your own stage. Yes. I’m gonna talk about guest speaking, and I’m gonna talk about getting in front of more audiences here in a moment. That’s the other three strategies we’ll talk about today, but the idea of you creating your own stage is critical if you wanna position yourself as an authority and the go-to expert in your field.

[00:08:48] Okay. Let’s talk about why this is. When you have your own stage, ie, a place where people can continually listen to your ideas, your expertise whether it’s you interviewing other people or you sharing your own knowledge. Side note, even if you interview people, I highly recommend that you’re sharing your own knowledge too, because if you want to be seen as a leading authority, people have to experience you as an authority and the platform of what this looks like. And you might be freaking out like, oh my God, I need to go build something. You probably already have this. The question is, are you committed to your own stage? And that is the trigger word here. I really wanna lean to, I didn’t call this create your own stage. I said, commit to your own stage. 

[00:09:31] Back in 2019 when I made the decision that I was finally gonna start a podcast, I’d been thinking about that four years. I thought, you know, this is something that I really, really could do. I love speaking, but relying on other people to book me on their stages, like I have so much I want to share and so many things that I could help people with.

[00:09:49] And so I had this idea of doing a podcast. Now, up until that time, I had been going live consistently on Facebook. I had been teaching webinars and workshops. I had been doing paid speaking for quite some time, but I knew I wanted to have something different. But one thing that I did very, very well, I’m gonna encourage you to do this too, is before I launched my podcast, I got really present to say, okay, what is it going to take? what’s my goal here? And most importantly, am I willing to commit to this 100%? If I say yes to adding a podcast in my business, I’m committing to showing up on this platform every single freaking week. And I had to get really present with that, and I slept on it for a couple months and when I made the decision, I was all in and that was the decision made. Not negotiating with myself, whether or not I have time for an episode or whether or not it was gonna go out, it was. It was happening. That was it. The decision was already made. So each and every week I had to figure it out. Now, I’ve talked about this before, I’m not a huge fan of mass batching, especially at the beginning of your journey. If you wanna know why, we’ll link to the related episode on why I don’t believe you should batch when you’re started out on your own stage. Little teaser, go check that one out but I went through it. It doesn’t mean that I was 100% every single week for the last 185. No, in fact, this fall was the first time I actually missed the episode.

[00:11:17] I took the week of Thanksgiving off and we went dark for three weeks as we rebranded the show to Hint of Hustle, and that is totally fine. But the reason why I wanna bring this up for you is for you choosing, whether it’s a podcast or it’s you being consistent with your email newsletter, what happens is when someone sees you on a stage, let’s say you do the damn thing and you go out and you get on a bunch of podcasts, or you go live with other people, or you guest speak inside of programs, or you book some big speaking gigs that you’re enthusiastic about. You gotta understand that when people are in audiences, people have different buying styles and they’re also at different experience levels with your topic. I’m gonna take a left turn and put on my geeky marketing hat here for a moment. You’ve probably heard of this before. 

[00:12:05] When it comes to marketing, there are different stages of the buyer’s journey. There’s that top of funnel, there’s the middle of funnel, there’s the, all the other fancy terms. Let me just break this down. Okay. Let me give you a completely unrelated and very weird example, real quick. Two years ago, I was at my, one of my dear friend’s house in Central Oregon, and she had this, she had this contraption. Now I’ve talked about this on the show before, so you might all be like, Ooh, what is this? She had this contraption that looked a little bit like a, like a sexy toy. And I’m like, what is that thing? It was sitting on her kitchen island and I was like, what on earth is that? It’s, it was a long cream colored. Plastic, but glossy stick that had all of these claws on the side. It was like six claws, like when I say claw, it was like eight prongs shaped like a flower, but also a claw at the same time with rounded edges going all down the side of this contraption, and at the end were two, kind of soft grip handles.

[00:13:09] So you could hold this thing in, on the handles on one each hand and then it was connected with a giant long, skinny pole, for lack of a better term, with these claws stuck and all the claws were facing in the same direction. Now, okay, where the hell am I going with this? That’s what I thought when I saw this contraption. I’m like, why’d you leave your sexy toy on the counter? This is very weird. And she’s like, no, no, no, no. This is, have you heard of this? This is a fascia blaster, and I’m like, oh, I haven’t heard of that part of my lady regions . And she’s like, no, no, a fascia blaster. I’m like, fascia? Fascia. She explains to me fascia. I’d heard of it before. That’s why I do foam rolling. Fascia essentially is the connective kind of casing that goes over your muscles and all your inner organs and everything, and your whole body is essentially wrapped in fascia, and what happens is your, a lot of people think their muscles are tight, but it’s actually their fascia is bound up. So that what’s leads to them being very sore and all these other things, right? I won’t go on this long story to try to convince you, you need one of these blasters. 

[00:14:09] Anyways, back to the buyer’s journey. I had no idea what the frick fascia was or what this crazy sexy looking device was on her counter. That also looked terrifying, but she peaked my interest. I’m like, huh, interesting. So she showed me how to use it on my, on my hamstrings, which were super, super tight. You like rub up your hamstring with oil and then you, I don’t, I don’t even know how to describe this contraption verbally, so we’ll just move on.

[00:14:34] Anyways, the first time I tried, I’m like, that was weird and then I never really thought of it again. Okay. Well, months later I was researching something as I was trying to get in better shape and I came across an article about fascia and I was like, interesting. I remember talking about this with my friend.

[00:14:53] Long story made long what’s cut to the chase here, it took me a while to understand, wait, what is this fascia thing? What is that? Fast forward a year later, that little contraption company that made that, that I saw at my friends, I was on their Black Friday sale and spent like $400 on different little contraption thingies to help work on my tight fascia.

[00:15:19] Okay. How does this connect back to you friend and you created in your own stage? Well, the reality is sometimes you’re gonna come across to people when you are guest speaking inside of programs who are like, yes, I’ve been searching for someone who does exactly what you do. That it’s a hot mother fricking lead and they’re gonna love you on stage and they’re gonna reach out to you after and be like, how do I work with you?

[00:15:40] That’s what happens when you have a magnetic message and know how to like knock it down on the stage, but there’s also gonna be a lot of audience members that are going, wow, that was really interesting. I’ve never even heard of this. I’ve never thought about this concept before, and they’re going to need a little bit more time to sit with it and explore the topic. [00:16:00] They are in marketing are much earlier in their journey of the stages of awareness. People talk about problem aware, solution aware, and et cetera. We have to keep this in mind when we’re guest speaking. 

[00:16:14] Now, if you have a banging talk, friend, you can accelerate people through this process, especially if your offer is really aligned to something that they’ve been looking for or something that’s really gonna help them get results in their business. But for many people, you are going to blow people’s mind and even still, they might not be ready to take action for a variety of reasons. 

[00:16:36] So circle it back my friend, having your own stage gives you a place to send people so that you can, what they call in marketing, nurture them along in their journey until they are ready to work with you or until they get to that point where something just clicks and they’re like, yeah, I totally need that. So speaking on other people’s stages goes hand in hand with you owning your own stage because it allows you to address more people in their buyer’s journey and more of their awareness journey so that when they’re ready, you’re still top of mind and they think of you and I mean, you can add so much value along the way. They’re gonna be raving and talking about you. I can’t say enough about this committing to having your own stage in 2023, I think is essential. 

[00:17:27] Now, little bit of the, but Heather, I know that there’s gonna be people going, I don’t have my own stage and I’m smashing success. Cool. That can work too. I’m not saying this is the only way, but when you are selling high ticket programs, when you have a business that you really want to establish great relationships, especially if you have a topic that doesn’t seem on the nose easy. Little side tangent here, sometimes the things that we sell, they feel very intangible. When you sell information, when you sell coaching like me, when you sell something that’s like, yeah, but it’s not like tangible, like, I’m not gonna teach you how to build your sales page, right? That is something, if you have a business and you don’t do a sales page, you’re gonna be like, problem, I need a sales page. I don’t know how to do it, right? 

[00:18:11] But something like what I teach, and maybe what you teach too, is it’s a, yeah, I get that, but I don’t really, I don’t know if that is something that I need. So for me, I have to do a lot of education to help people understand just how powerful their voice can be and just how much, maybe their current skillset of how they’re speaking and how they’ve learned through college and corporate and whatever Toastmasters experience, how that actually might be hindering them from getting real results in their business because speaking as a marketing tool requires a different skill. That’s why we talk about it all the time on the podcast. 

[00:18:46] Speaking on your own platform allows you to go deeper and wider when necessary, and it allows you to keep things fresh and exciting, so hard as an entrepreneur, we wanna continue to innovate. So strategy number one [00:19:00] for getting the most out of your stage opportunities in 2023. Friend, commit to your own stage. 

[00:19:08] Now don’t worry about like what’s the best way, choose one that works for you. Personally, my strategy, before I said yes to a podcast, I wanted to try out to make sure that I could commit to a schedule, which is why I did Facebook Lives each and every week. Now, it wasn’t just about the Facebook Lives, and quite frankly, no one ever really showed up but what that did for me is it gave me the live deadline to record a video every week, post it on YouTube and then put it on my blog. That might sound a little confusing, but don’t worry about the actual tactic.

[00:19:38] This is just something for you to consider, but most importantly, committing to the consistency, whatever that looks like for you. If you can’t commit to weekly, that’s cool. I mean, certainly don’t commit to twice a week if you’re not doing once a week, but just figure out where is that place where you’re going to nurture people.

[00:19:54] Now, if you’re totally freaked out by speaking or you’re like, I don’t have a pretty set or whatever else, find something that works, whether that is your weekly email newsletter where you’re at least popping in their inbox with valuable information that has both tangible and transformational content. You just need to make sure there is some way that you are consistently adding value to your audience, asterisk that word value is overused a lot so let’s just be clear. When I say value, I mean you’re being relevant and your message resonates. Relevance and resonance, that is the focus of adding value for your audience.

[00:20:32] Okay. Whew. That was quite the, that was quite the journey there on number one. But we’re fired up, right? If you have been either lacking with that area in your business or maybe you have been committed to your stage, but you really kind of forgot that your stage was helping nurture and educate people around your content. it doesn’t mean that you always need to be selling your stuff on your stage. You can have fun, have different interviews, but hopefully that got you fired up and really recommitted to what that looks like for you in 2023.

[00:21:00] Okay. Let’s move on to strategy number two for getting more out of your speaking opportunities on stages in 2023. This one is my favorite in 2023. I want you to be choosier with your yeses. Choosier with your yeses. Now, this one’s controversial and somebody’s probably gonna come for me on this one, but here we go. 

[00:21:23] Not all opportunities are created equally, and I’ve talked about this publicly before, but friend y’all, if you okay, I’m sorry, but if y’all sign it up for bundles to be part of a bundle left and right, or to be part of a virtual summit left and right, or the new thing is audio summits left and right. I think all of these are incredible opportunities for more exposure. But I’m gonna raise my hand and say a big fat pause and say, but what’s your goal? What is your goal? Now here’s the thing. If participating in bundles and audio summits and these big quote unquote mass exposure moments, they’re probably taking you a lot of time. If there is a payoff for you, ie, you are actually generating quality leads and business from them. If that is you, friend, I’m gonna give you a high five and say, if that strategy is working for you, held to the, yeah, double down and do more of it. I will always say that hands down, if you find a strategy that works, keep freaking going.

[00:22:26] However, if you are one of the business owners that keeps saying yes to virtual summits, keep saying yes to bundles, and you’re putting all of this time and energy for a trickling of leads who never buy, what do they say about the definition of insanity? Stop doing the same damn thing over and over again expecting that one of these is gonna be your big break because a big name is on stage with you at that virtual summit. Think about how you participate in these things, y’all like. I just got an email for a bundle this morning. This is not to blast for doing bundles and summits. I’ve participated and I think they can be a great tool for your business, but I saw a bundle this morning and it had like 80 fricking names on it, and I thought if I buy a bundle, I am buying it for one or two specific things. If I spent my time going through and downloading all those things, I would not be profitable because I wouldn’t be spending any time actually making money in my business, and friend, I think a similar thing for your buyer. So I’m just, okay, I’m gonna say it cuz probably people are very much going to disagree with me on this, but I am a huge fan of taking action in your business that aligns to your strategic outcomes. 

[00:23:35] So here’s food for thought to equip you with the ability to say yes full ass in 2023 or say no gracefully, but with confidence because what’s gonna happen is a FOMO moment. You get asked to participate in a summit, you’re gonna be like, Ooh, I feel popular. Oh my gosh. They asked me to participate and oh my gosh, that big name is on it, like, I have to do this. I want you to pause [00:24:00] and before you say hell yes, I want you to really ensure that you are clear around why you’re doing it.

[00:24:07] Now, when you say yes to opportunities, I have an entire podcast episode where I help you how to determine whether or not you say yes so we’re gonna link to that episode in the show notes. There’s some specific questions you can ask yourself, and sometimes just a spoiler. Sometimes you just wanna say yes because you’re rubbing elbows and getting credibility currency from the other people on stage so that is a very valid thing. But in 2023, if you want to get bigger results from your speaking opportunities, I want you to get really clear on one thing, and that is what is the primary offer that you are trying to sell. 

[00:24:40] For those of you selling high ticket coaching or services like me, y’all, I’m high ticket. I am not cheap by any means, neither our coaching or services, and that’s on purpose. We work with deeper people, deeper on their business so they can show up and speak. I’m not a slap a template on your messaging and give you a Madlib style, fill in the blank to go and speak on a stage. It’s just not what I do.

[00:25:03] I teach people how to actually communicate in a super powerful way so they can think on their feet and innovate when they’re in that moment and in flow with an audience, but also know that flow has taken them somewhere, right? So I am a different kind of speaking coach and that is not cheap because it requires us to go a little deeper with people and teach them how to approach things differently.

[00:25:24] So if you’re a high ticket coach, consultant, or doing one-on-one, hear me when I say this. The types of stages that you are going to wanna be thinking about are not those mass reach place. If you sell high ticket, in my opinion, the best place for you to go is fine aligned audiences who have already been sold high tickets, ie, Masterminds and high ticket group coaching programs, and you have to find ones that compliment with the specific thing that you teach and step up as a guest teacher or guest contributor inside that program. That is the easiest way for you to put yourself in a room with your perfect audience who’s already spending money in their business or in that area of their life.

[00:26:07] High ticket, you wanna have super high curated high ticket rooms. Participating in a bundle or a summit, that could be a good street cred just to have your name up with other people. Again, that credibility currency I mentioned before, but expecting virtual summits or bundles or some of those far like big reach, quote unquote reach plays, that’s not necessarily an alignment because when it comes to high ticket, you’re not going for reach, you’re going for quality on leads. 

[00:26:35] Just a few months ago, I was working with one of our private clients inside of our program and we actually, this was last summer, and she was talking about guest speaking and trying to figure out how do we get on more podcasts, how do we get on more of this? And we clarify what’s your offer? Well, she was getting started in her copywriting business and was selling full services in sales page copy. And it was like, hold on. How many of these can you even take a month? And then it came back to the question of why are we trying to go for a mass reach play when we only need a handful of clients every single month to hit your 10K goal of monthly income? 

[00:27:09] So friend, what we have to think about, this number number two, be choosier with what you say yes to means you becoming real present around what your specific business model requires, not what you think you need to do because somebody told you that podcasts are the best place to be on, or whatever else. We need to think about what kinds of stages, remember, a stage is just a platform, reimagine how you approach those stage opportunities. So smaller rooms that are more intimate might be a better strategy for you.

[00:27:40] Now, for those of you who have mid ticket or low ticket offers, so those are smaller offers under, I would say under a thousand dollars. Going for reach is going to be good for you. If you’re doing live launches and your goal is to get more people in your launch, getting more exposure by being in those kinds of things could be highly valuable.

[00:27:59] But whatever you do, what you wanna be thinking about is, is there a way for you to track your time and the outcome of your time. Is there a way for you to make those a little less custom and more rinse and repeat? ie, can you offer the same talk over and over again? Hello, signature talk, which is what we teach here at our company.

[00:28:21] If you could put together a go-to bundle or have whatever contribution that you put into a thing, something that’s already done, right? Things that don’t require a. Work, make it simple and easy on yourself so you’re not putting dozens of hours to something that potentially does not have a return. Now, I am not saying that every single opportunity that you say yes to, you have to calculate a return. Again, sometimes you just wanna do it for it to be fun, and sometimes you will not see the return right away. A great example of this is two years ago I had been pitching and finally got yes on a pretty big podcast, and I was thinking, yes, like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be the thing that gets me like [00:29:00] in front of more of my dream cleints.

[00:29:02] I put together a custom freebie and a custom landing page thinking like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be so good. And friend, that traffic to that page was absolute crap, like absolute crap and the numbers were so low. I remember feeling so disappointed, so disappointed. And then again within the last, I’m not gonna name names here, but in the last year I had a couple opportunities to speak on other people’s platforms that were pretty big names and again, nothing like very, very nothing. 

[00:29:35] And I, okay, here’s two things I want you to think about. One I had to remind myself, hold on, hold on, hold on. Did I say yes to these opportunities cuz I was thinking they were gonna be leads there or was this a credibility currency moment of having my name associated with other people? Was that really the goal? And the truth is that was the goal. But I was secretly hoping to also get leads, which is something that we do a lot as business owners, is we, we say the goal is, I just wanna become more confident or I just wanna get in the room but what we really wanna sales, right? So it comes to us owning our goal.

[00:30:05] I talk about that a lot on the podcast, but here’s the cool part, is those opportunities metric wise, on paper, the data would say, or I guess on Google Sheets, the data would say, oh crap, return, nothing there but here’s the cool part. This is where getting data in different places can be really powerful. We paid attention also to our social media data. So how did our stories, viewings, how did our social media following what happened in the weeks following of that episode and those went up. So even though people didn’t download the opt-in, they were noticing me online and follow me. 

[00:30:42] Furthermore, for the 18 months following that episode on our onboarding survey for our primary program, one of the questions we ask is, how and when did you first meet Heather? That’s a very powerful question. How did you first meet Heather? And that’s how I get data to find out which podcast or which stage did people find me on because circling back to strategy number one, because I’ve established a really great, my own stage, ie this podcast. People hear me on another podcast and let’s be honest, y’all who freaking downloads freebies very often from listening to someone on a podcast.

[00:31:21] I do it sometimes, but it has to be so damn good for me to stop and go to a website or click on the show notes and download it. But what we do do is we hear someone and we go follow them online, or we then go check out their podcast and it is a natural kind of flow that happens when we discover someone or something that they teach. We all, we all do it. 

[00:31:44] So the beautiful thing is that opportunity that on paper said, waste of time actually has led to multiple, multiple enrollments of my program which is highest ticket. I mean, it’s probably resulted to over $25,000 in sales collectively inside the program. Now that’s, I mean, I’m gonna call that a win, but back when I did it and for the weeks that followed, it’d be easy for me to say not win.

[00:32:08] So circling back to you friend, be choosier with your yeses. Make sure you listen to the episode where I talk you through how to like qualify that yes. But what I really want you thinking about is it’s not always a, like on the nose return. And if we, by the way, if we were to make all business decisions by going how much, I’m only focused on what I’m gonna get from this opportunity, that is like straight up transactional and I will not do business that way and I highly recommend that you don’t either. It’s not all about what you get, right? It’s about how you can serve. But trust me, friend, when you are showing up and serving well with a strategy so you know who you’re talking to and you know the kinds of stages that are gonna be optimal for you, getting in front of the people that you can best serve those things together, that is how you get a return on your time on stage.

[00:33:00] So I don’t want you to be focused on what I’m not getting from this opportunity, that’s very shortsighted and transactional. Relationships are gonna take you much further. But I do want you overall to be choosier, especially if you have been doing a lot of quote unquote visibility, and it’s not coming back to pay off. We need to be thinking about what’s not working. Is it the message? Is it the stage? Is it the offering on the backend and not having a selling system? It could be a variety of things, but permission for you to explore that objectively and be choosier with your yeses so you can go with them full ass. 

[00:33:37] Now by the way, if you are doing speaking on stages or you are going live, or you have your own show or you are speaking inside other people’s groups and you are struggling, you identified that. One of the things I’m struggling with this. People actually going to take action on the thing whether it’s coming to download or follow you on your podcast or download your freebie, as I mentioned, don’t get all but heard if a bunch of people don’t go to your freebie. Think about buyer behavior and a more sophisticated buyer.

[00:34:03] They’re not always running to go grab, Phoebes, freebies . I have Friends on my mind, freebies. So what we wanna think about is we need to be compelling with how we talk about our freebie. So if you haven’t downloaded my free guide, it’s my 19 magnetic phrases that you can use to skyrocket the return on your visibility efforts. It’s specific things to say, to drive people to your landing page, to follow you online, to go check out your own podcast. These phrases are used over and over again. People are obsessed by them. By the way, if you downloaded this in the last year and you have forgotten about it, might I recommend that you blow off the cobwebs and pull this back up because this is the kind of magnetic language that you need if you want to be seen as an authority and help people take action. Go and grab it because that is the best one so you can grab that at. We’ll link in the show notes. We’ll, we’ll collect it there but go ahead and get that freebie because that one is going to help you. I know people who have actually taped that thing next to their damn camera to remind them how to frame their offers and frame the next step so that it is in the language their audience will actually care about. Too many people are talking about things in their own language around what the thing is, not why it matters, and those phrases will help you with that. 

[00:35:20] Okay. Let’s move on to strategy number three to get the most out of stages in 2023. Lot of threes in that sentence. I hinted at this, the last one, these last two are gonna go a little quicker than the first two. Those were the meaty ones. But number three is to connect and collaborate more with peers, connect and collaborate more with peers. Something that I see that’s really going to pop up more often in 2023, I believe, are going to be private joint venture launches. And what I mean by that is instead of people doing really huge, public launches, meaning that I’m gonna have a big launch and I’m gonna have all my people be affiliates and send people to it. That works really, really well for the big names. I mean, Amy Porterfield, James Wemi, we, Wemi, Wedmore. Hi, James.

[00:36:11] It works really well for those big established names. Also, it’s a really great way if you’re an affiliate like me. I promote to James Wedmore’s program because, I’m completely pivotable in my business when I was launching online programs, but for you, I want you thinking about the affiliate. If you’ve been thinking of an affiliate program, it’s like, Ooh, that can be how I can get more leads. It can work. However, a lot of business owners that are in that mid-range, they’re making six figures trying to scale to maybe a half a million a year. There’s a lot of people in that range. What I’ve noticed is a lot of those entrepreneurs are very protective, I’m included, very protective of their audience.

[00:36:50] So they are less likely to just be pushing other people’s offers, especially if they don’t actually know if the offer does what it says it’s going to do. So this is where connections and collaborations come in. So your existing customers or past customers are probably your best advocates for your program. They’re probably also the best people if they have similar audiences to bring you in to talk to their audiences so that’s number one. 

[00:37:16] But number two, what I want you thinking about is private joint venture launches inside other people’s communities could be a game changer for you, my friend. This is something that I did back in 2021 that worked, worked great. Now that ticket is, you have to make sure that you’re choosing the right audiences. Okay? What is the strategy that I’m talking about here? 

[00:37:35] It’s essentially doing a live webinar, but instead of you going to your audience saying, Hey, I’m hosting a live webinar, by the way, please don’t call it a webinar because nobody likes that. It’s essentially a webinar, but doing like a live training or a live workshop instead of you teaching it to your existing audience or trying to go out and publicly promote it. It’s the backdoor strategy, which means you find maybe somebody who’s a past client or a peer in your mastermind, somebody who has a similar audience than you, or as you and someone who has, like that has a complimentary like offer as you.

[00:38:12] So a great example of this for me is I do this as great for copywriters. Their audiences are entrepreneurs, course creators. That is a prime audience for me to tap into, to talk about, okay, you got your words down on the written front, but what do you say when you actually show up to the microphone? Do you feel as confident with your spoken word as you do with the copy on your sales page, right?

[00:38:33] So that would be a really great opportunity for me. Inside and when I say by inside, it could be me teaching inside someone’s group and at the end making a direct offer and giving a percentage of sales to that head, that head to that like the head of that company for allowing me to come in and pitch their group or it could be us doing a quote unquote exclusive live training for their audience. So me going in and having that copywriter send invitations to her audience of saying, Hey, I’m gonna have my personal speaking coach come in and she builds the case for, I’ve helped you with your written word but now it’s time for your spoken word.

[00:39:13] Heather’s gonna come in and teach you how to get better thinking on your feet so that you can slay those opportunities or when I do a lot is teaching people how to really slay their webinars and they don’t sound scripty or salesy or blah,, blah. So going in and teaching and doing the full freaking pitch at the end, you do that what’s called joint venture style, which is where it’s like an affiliate where you give them a percentage of sales but the opportunity is exclusive to their audience. 

[00:39:43] These are super fun because you can have the host who brings you on. You guys can banter on the topic very quickly at the beginning. They can cue you up to transfer credibility over to you with their audience. They already have that trust, so boom, trust transferred and at the end when you talk about [00:40:00] the pitch, they can come on and rave about what it is that you do and the results you get, accelerating that trust. So I see the style of private joint venture launches that really can bring a great ticket without burning out your existing audience. If you’ve been feeling like, oh man, I’m so like over the launching thing.

[00:40:20] A lot of that is because of the fear of like, are we in our faces of our audience way too much, like selling, selling, selling. This allows you to sell like backstage, inside other groups. Selling is fun because you get to talk about how you can help people, you can meet them where they are with their problem and show them that it’s possible to solve it, and that you are the best person to help them solve it, and it’ll be fun and great and magical and all those things.

[00:40:45] Having that opportunity is wonderful, especially when somebody like taps your shoulder and says, Hey, come teach my people. They’re gonna love you. I see that happening a lot more. That might be a strategy for you to make the most out of stages because it has the direct pitch at the end. Now, if you’re thinking, oh my gosh, I struggle with webinars, like, oh, super mucky and like terrible.

[00:41:07] We have a three part webinar series on the podcast that was just, I mean so freaking popular and I think it was in late 2021 I did. So head over to the show notes again in the description of this episode and we will link to the first episode in that series. That one is phenomenal. So if you’re freaked out about the idea of selling from the stage or doing a quote unquote webinar, I’ll teach you some strategies around who, how to adjust your webinar so they actually convert and they feel an integrity with the style that you want to. 

[00:41:36] All right. This brings me to the fourth and final strategy I wanna share today to help you get the most out of speaking on stages in 2023. And this one here, y’all, this is gonna be the easiest and maybe the hardest depending on your style, but I want you to share any and all visibility you do very proudly on your social media channels and with your audience. Okay, let’s get more explicit ear. What do I mean? 

[00:42:03] Every time you have any kind of speaking opportunity, anytime you speak on a stage. Let’s go back, remember a stage simply platform to share your message. So if you’re showing up to a podcast, if you’re recording your own podcast, if you’re teaching inside of your mastermind or your coaching group, or recording a lesson for your course, if you’re guest speaking on somebody else’s stage. If you’re getting ready for a panel, if you’re practicing your signature story, any and all of these moments were are related to stages. I want you to get really good at sharing this with your audience and this is for a couple specific reasons. 

[00:42:39] So number one, it demonstrates to your existing audience that you are in demand, and it also accelerates that like, know and trust factor. So couple things here I mentioned. You can share actual opportunities of you speaking. So whether that’s snippets of you speaking, boom, authority building. If it’s you practicing for speaking, Ooh, like and know factor, right? And getting people to be like, oh, she practices too. She’s not just perfect and polished all the time. There’s work behind it and it starts opening them up, like, oh yeah, like relatable. Remember, value is to be relevant and to resonate. These are the things that help you. It also reinforces to people who just met you, it keeps you on their radar. 

[00:43:22] So remember earlier when I mentioned that people, they might not download your freebie, but they’re probably gonna creep you out online. In those few days, following them, following you, following the follow it’s going to the, the algorithms on social media. I know people are weird out by algorithms, but there’s like these secret whatever behind the scenes that are evaluating whether or not this person wants to see your content and the more that you’re showing that, Hey, I’m a person who’s out there speaking, I’m in action, the more interesting that is and it reinforces you as an authority. They’re probably gonna like it. They’re gonna see it, right? And the more likely they are going to, I mean, I’m, no, okay, just caveat here. I’m not a social media expert by any means, but I am an expert at creating hype for things and this is what I’m talking about here.

[00:44:06] What we wanna do is build more hype around the moment that they’ve met you. We keep you on their radar As somebody who’s in the spotlight, as somebody who is the go-to, and by posting this kind of content that helps with that. Now where do we post it? Instagram stories is a great place to do that, if that’s your platform. If you’re on other platforms, if you’re just using LinkedIn, even your newsletter, not doing this all the time, but showcasing every now and then a little behind the scenes of what you’re up to, that you’ve spoken on stages so that you’re practicing for a big get coming up. These are all things that are important and it reaffirms to people that follow you. I made a good choice following this person. Oh, see, this person is an expert. Yeah, this was a good choice to follow them. I should pay more attention. 

[00:44:48] Now, obviously they’re not literally thinking those words. It’s more of like a subtle cue but when we post this kind of information and we post this kind of behind the scenes, that’s the, that’s the reaffirming piece. People wanna be like, they wanna be told they made a good choice and you posting that kind of content of, look at me, I’m out speaking. People pay me to do this, or people ask me to do this. That is reaffirming of their decision to like or follow. . Okay. It also generates hype during your launches and outside of your launches. So the more that you post this type of stuff, especially around a launch, it just doubles down on the hype of how valuable you are as an expert. But outside of launch time, it also keeps you like working with you top of mind because it’s showcasing working with you in a different way. This is all really powerful. 

[00:45:37] That’s one of the big pain points that a lot of people have is I don’t wanna feel like I’m selling all the time. Well, you talking about speaking on stages or talking about you recording a lesson or you being on a podcast that is subtle selling. It means that what you teach and who you are is in high demand. So bring a little bit more hype to the party. 

[00:45:57] The other thing that posting around this kind of backstage stuff of channeling people that you are out there speaking, that you are speaking on stages, does something called the stage snowball. Something that I made up. Follow me here. Snow, what a snowballs do? They start really small and then you pack more snow on it and there’s the idea that you take a snowball and you push it down a mountain, more snow piles on a compacts and. Big ass boulder at the bottom of the mountain. That’s what we’re going for here. 

[00:46:23] So what we want to do is build momentum. So if you want 2023 to be your year of speaking on stages and getting more in front of people, more specifically people, who are the people that you can help the best. We need to start the snowball, which means that actively getting out there on your stages, in other people’s stages, bit by bit and continuing to share that the snowball happens. The momentum starts happening. The more stages and opportunities come your way. When you start telling people, I’m a speaker, I do speaking, I’m speaking on podcast. and you know anyone when you’re asking and you’re sharing, more people have you top of mind if the kind of person who goes and does guest speaking. 

[00:47:05] Circling back to strategy number two is it allows you to be even choosier with your yeses because you have more opportunities coming your way and quite frankly, you can stop chasing opportunities for stages. And that, I don’t know, I believe that’s the fun part, right? Is when opportunities come your way and you can be choosy with your yeses and then go all in on the ones you do say yes to. That is the life, my friend. I think it’s, I think it’s really fun. 

[00:47:29] Okay. These four strategies, let’s recap them one more time today. So best way for you to share your message and get more in front of your ideal clients and nurture them, whether they’re hot and ready to buy, or they need to be a little bit more nurtured there is getting on stages. 

[00:47:45] Now, remember, a stage is simply a platform to share your message. The question is, what are you doing with your on mic moments, let’s make the most of it. So number one, I’m gonna encourage you to commit to your own stage in 2023, whatever that looks like for you and do not try to make this a big, dramatic thing or fall into the planning trap where you then go, I gotta go build all these things out where somewhere you can show up now and start doing it consistently so that you can start building that snowball, right? 

[00:48:15] Number two, be choose ear with your yeses. Start thinking about opportunities more strategically. Remember, the goal is to show up and serve, but it has to be backed by a strategy. Otherwise, you’re just gonna be popular friend, not profitable and you’re in business, let’s focus on profit. 

[00:48:31] Strategy Number three, connect and collaborate with peers. Start thinking about the relationships that you already have in your life and how you can add more value, ie, be relevant and resonate with their audience by offering a free training. And if you freak out about, oh, I don’t wanna give someone a cut of my sales. Well, friend, you’re essentially paying for access to their audience, but only only when you make sales. So what a beautiful opportunity if you wanna grow, what a beautiful way to do it. Connect and collaborate. Now, if you don’t wanna do the joint venture launches, that’s totally cool too. Still doing guest speaking for other people’s groups puts you in front of more of your ideal clients. So get after it and stop looking for these big, giant opportunities and see what’s right in front of you. Those smaller rooms can be far more impactful than the big stages. 

[00:49:21] And lastly, strategy number four, start building your stage snowball by sharing what you’re doing constantly with your audience. It really reinforces that authority factor. It keeps you top of mind of for them, and it really shows that, hey, you know what you’re doing. You’re doing this all the time. So when they already, when they do hear that message, that clicks and go, Ooh, now is the time. They think of no one else but you. 

[00:49:46] Friend, 2023 is gonna be an incredible year. I know we’re already a month in, but we got 11 months to make it happen but do not do the thing where you’re like, I’m gonna go into plan mode and I’m gonna start doing this in Q3. You could be speaking on stages right now, and the chances are you probably already are. The question is, are you doing it with intention? Are you happy with the results you’re getting? Could some of these strategies I mentioned today help you milk a little more from those opportunities or help you reallocate your time and energy into stages that will actually get you outcomes? 

[00:50:18] Stay tuned for next week’s episode. We’re gonna dive into it even further and help you show up magnetically with your message and really get in front of those key people that you can help this year. You know you has such a beautiful message on your heart. I know that’s funny to say cuz I don’t exactly know who you are. I mean, we may or may not have met. You may or may not be inside of my program, but I do know if you’re listening to my podcast. You have the desire to make an impact on this world. You know you can help people. You know you have something that works. You’re just trying to figure out how do I get it in front of more people and how do I get them to listen. You were in the right. That is what we’re here to help you uncover, but just know you do not have to exchange who you are and how you communicate to try to take on this new identity and all of a sudden become this, I don’t know, Oprah level communicator. You can communicate exactly as who you are. You just need to have some tactical tools and strategies to help you do it. And that’s my intention for you on this series over the next six weeks to help you put a little more of you in your message, but do it in a way that will resonate and your audience will relate to.

[00:51:24] So I will see you next weekend. Hey, if you enjoyed this episode, can you do me two quick favors? Choose your own path here. I would love it if you share this with some of your business besties. So if you know others would really resonate with this, you know, other people who are hungry to share a big message, please, please, please personally share this message with them. Link to it in your Instagram stories. But also I wanna know which strategy from today really made the light bulb go off above your head or I guess light bulb go on above your head. Which strategy are you gonna try? Which one really resonated with you? That said, yeah, you know, I need to put a little bit more time and attention into this. Shoot me a direct message on Instagram. I would love to hear directly from you. I am @theheathersager. I cannot wait to hear from you, and I will see you again next week. Bye friend.