How an I.D.E.A., Not a Topic, Makes You Easier to Refer, Pitch, and Book
episode
Speaking Your Brand: Public Speaking Tips and Strategies
20 min
1 speaker
3 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why does listing many speaking topics make you harder to refer and book?
I've been looking back at my recent consultation calls and I've noticed the same challenge coming up again and again. The woman I'm talking with has years of experience. She has the credentials, she has stories, lessons learned, and several different subjects she could speak about. When I ask her what she wants to speak about, she'll say something like leadership or resilience or communication or confidence or women in the workplace. Sometimes she'll give me several of these. And then she'll say with a sigh, I just don't know how to bring everything together or I'm having a hard time explaining what I do because I feel like there's so many different pieces. And I totally get it. I am the same way.
When you've had a long career, you've done a lot of things. You've worked with different people and organizations, you may have changed industries or roles, and you don't want to leave out something important. And you also are afraid to narrow yourself so that you miss an opportunity. But that's where the problem comes in. Because if the person you're talking to can't explain what you speak about after your conversation is over, she can't refer you, which means you can't get booked. She may think you're impressive. She may like you.
But later, when she's talking with a colleague who needs a speaker, what is she going to say? Something like, I met this really smart woman who speaks about leadership and communication and resilience and women in the workplace? Because there are thousands of speakers who could fit that description.
Your name isn't going to be the one she remembers when the opportunity comes up. This is why your speaking topic isn't only a content decision. It's a positioning decision. It affects whether people can refer you, whether you can write a strong speaker proposal, and whether an event organizer can picture you in front of a specific audience versus another speaker that they're considering. And this is especially true for paid opportunities. Hi there, and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I'm your host, Carol Cox. Today, we're going to look at the difference between a subject, a topic, and an idea. And I'll give you what I call the referral test. And then we'll use my idea framework to help you turn your expertise into something another person can understand, remember, and repeat.
Let's start with these three words because we tend to use them interchangeably. Subject, topic, and idea. A subject is the broad area you know something about. I kind of liken it to an umbrella. Your umbrella subject is leadership or healthcare or communication or organizational culture or organizational change or resilience. a topic is a bit more defined part of that subject. So maybe your subject is leadership and your topic is leading teams through change. Or your subject is employee well-being and your topic is preventing burnout among high performers. So again, think of your subject as that umbrella, so leadership, and your topic is a little bit more defined, such as leading teams through change.
And that's narrower, which is helpful. But an idea goes one step further. An idea makes a claim. It tells us what you have come to believe about that topic because of what you've seen, studied, and experienced. Let's take burnout as an example. How to prevent burnout among high performing employees is a topic. A possible idea could be burnout isn't only a resilience problem. It can be a sign that high performers have been given responsibility without enough authority to change the conditions creating the overload. Now, I'm using this as an illustration. If this were your area of expertise, we'd work together to find the language that reflects what you actually have seen and what you can support. But do you hear the difference?
The topic tells us what the presentation is about. The idea tells us what the speaker believes. The topic can hold useful information and tips and best practices. The idea gives those things a through line. It gives the audience a narrative journey of where they are to where they want to go.
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Chapters
3 chaptersSpeakers
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