The Year of Transformation: Are You Ready for the Climb?

You have big goals for your speaking business… 

But do you have a clear pathway to get there?

This week, we’re going to check in with our two speakers who are part of our Year of Transformation experiment, Michelle and Dan.

If you recall, our goal is to see if I can help each of them – one a developing speaker and the other a plateaued veteran – to level up their speaking businesses.  

Michelle wants to go from $10K to $150K in annual revenue with her first speech.  Dan wants to break into the $600K bracket with more gigs earned from stageside leads and referrals.

Will they do it?

It all depends on how closely they can stick to the pathway for success.

Feeling the Yo-Yo… While Climbing the Mountain

Let’s start by imagining that possible pathway… 

You’ll inevitably have some serious ups and downs in your speaking business. Sometimes you’ll feel like you’re on top of the world and nothing could go wrong.

You killed it on stage for your last performance…
You received an awesome testimonial from a respected client…
You finally landed your first $15K+ gig…

These wins make you feel like you’re walking on air with the world at your feet. Then, something happens to pull the carpet out from under you – and suddenly you’re lying on the floor, clutching your revenue projections like a Hallmark breakup letter.

You realized you have zero gigs scheduled for the next month…
Your stats sheet says you’re going to fall short of your annual revenue goal… 
You mess up on stage and feel like the whole performance was ruined…

Ups and downs… ups and downs… just like a yo-yo.

Yes, your business is going to go through peaks and valleys, but that close-up view isn’t always an accurate indicator of your progress.

I want you to zoom out from the person playing with the yo-yo… 

… up and down… 

… up and down… 

… and imagine that they are also walking up the side of the mountain.

That’s what I envisioned for both of our speakers this year.  I want them (and you!) to make steady progress through constant iteration of the speech.  

Small steps, every day.

So, what did I recently tell Dan? Did I prescribe an expensive mastermind? A custom speechwriting retreat in the Alps? 

Nope…

Here’s what I told him during our call last week:

“The goal is that everyday there is improvement.  I don’t care if it’s one slide… or one sentence.  If there is improvement everyday, you’ll get something so much better in five days than if you just focus on one big change.  

If you dedicate the time to hearing it, performing it, and seeing it start to come together, you’ll start to find the enthusiasm for it and you’ll start to see what changes are needed on your own.”

Some speakers have a hard time forcing themselves to make small, ongoing changes.  Rather than embracing the yo-yo concept, they sling that metaphorical yo-yo string over a rock above them and attempt to climb the sheer side of the cliff.

The danger?  They will make slower progress…

And possibly fall towards failure.

So, ask yourself… 

With that, let’s look at our two speakers and see how their month has been.

Michelle Hits a Down Moment — But Keeps Climbing

Each month, Rachael does a monthly check-in with our speakers to see how they are feeling about their progress.

And it just so happened that she caught our developing speaker, Michelle Hutchings-Medina, on a day when she was experiencing a “down” on her yo-yo journey.  Michelle shared,

“Little things just get in my way.  I wish I had somebody that could just sit with me and just go through a lot of the techy stuff that I’m having difficulty with…. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, I think.”

Coming off a big week at the NSA Influence conference, Michelle is experiencing distractions right now in terms of running her business.  Tasks like developing her PowerPoint slides, setting up her iCloud accounts, and managing her communications are taking her focus away from her speech.  

While the conference provided inspiration, it also provided pressure for “all the things” that she feels like need to be done right away.

It’s a tough place to be in for sure.  Newer speakers need to manage all of these issues on their own – without the help of knowledgeable team members who can take over smaller tasks.

That said, Michelle is still making steady progress on her speech.  If you recall, she's talking to business leaders about how they can turn stress into a productive form of growth.  Last month, she developed a full speech from scratch and gave it to a live audience in mid-July.

Now, it wasn’t perfect…

In fact, I gave Michelle some blunt criticism after reviewing her recording.  Tomorrow, I’ll dive into what she did and didn’t do that would have helped her performance.  They are mistakes that a LOT of newer speakers make on stage early in their careers.

We’ll also look into some brag-worthy wins Michelle has recently had… 

(Hint: If you were at the NSA Influence Conference, you may have seen her on stage collecting an award!!)

Dan’s Month of Distractions (and One Big Revelation)

Our veteran speaker, Dan Gingiss, also had a great time at the NSA Influence conference. (Although he and Michelle never did manage to meet up… bummer!)  

He had a bit of a revelation from one speaker who was on stage: