055 - Speaking To Gain Insta-Clients

Joining me is Caterina Rando.

She is a best-selling author, podcaster and women’s business mentor who passionately serves women on a mission.

She shows women how to be loud and proud about the value they bring in order to serve more people and make their businesses thrive.

Her books include: 

• Learn to Think Differently released in over thirteen countries and several languages.
• A Women’s Guide To Starting a Giving Circle. 
• ABCs of Public Speaking which quickly hit #1 in four Amazon best-seller categories.

Caterina is also, the founder of The Thriving Women in Business Center in San Francisco, CA.

To learn more visit https://caterinarando.com

In this episode we will cover:

• Fear Of Speaking
• Audience Centric
• Your Virtual "Thing"
• What You Should Be Doing
• Put Your Attention On The Right Things
• Get Uncomfortable
• The Bliss Of Speaking
• What If Nobody Comes?
• The Power Of Personal Invitations
• Three Types Of People To Invite
• Learning & Tweaking
• Applied Knowledge

Thanks so much for tuning in again this week. I appreciate you :)

Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the Feedback section.

Special thanks to Caterina Rando for being on the show.

Would you like to belong to a community of partners that helps impact 15,000 children in the state of Colorado this December?

Kenzi’s Causes is an organization dedicated to putting smiles on the faces of low-income children in Colorado.

Their mission is to support underprivileged children and their families in Colorado by providing toys, food, and more during the holidays; school supplies and clothing during the school year; and assisting families through community outreach, financial planning and professional support.

To learn more about this amazing organization and how you can make a difference, please visit www.kenziscauses.org

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

If you have a question or comment for a future episode, visit https://www.speakpipe.com/lbovm.

Also, don’t forget to Subscribe for FREE: Apple Podcasts | Android | Support the show (https://liveblissedout.com/resources/)

So long for now and remember to keep moving forward!

Kenzi's Causes
Kenzi’s Causes works to provide equality for low-income children in Colorado through our programs.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

• www.liveblissedout.com
• www.secondspindle.com

Transcript

Marisa Huston : 0:00

Welcome to Episode 55 on the Live Blissed out podcast. Did you know that over 70% of people suffer from a fear of public speaking? Hello action takers! Welcome to Live Blissed Out. A podcast where I have inspirational and informational conversations with business owners and subject matter experts to help us get the scoop and the lowdown on a variety of topics. Tired of hesitating or making decisions without having the big picture? Wanna be in the know? Then this is the place to go. I'm your host Marisa Huston. Helping achieve bliss through awareness and action. Thanks for joining me. The information opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. This podcast should not be considered professional advice. Joining me is Caterina Rando. She is a best selling author, podcaster and women's business mentor who passionately serves women on a mission. She shows women how to be loud and proud about the value they bring in order to serve more people and make their businesses thrive. Her books include Learn To Think Differently released in over 13 countries in several languages, A Women's Guide To Starting A Giving Circle and her latest book The ABCs of Public Speaking, which quickly hit number one in four Amazon bestseller categories. Caterina is also the founder of The Thriving Women in Business Center in San Francisco, California. To learn more visit www.caterinarando.com. Would you like to belong to a community of partners that helps impact 15,000 children in the state of Colorado? Kenzi's Causes is an organization dedicated to putting smiles on the faces of low income children in Colorado. Their mission is to support underprivileged children and their families by providing toys, food and more during the holidays, school supplies and clothing during the school year, and assisting families through community outreach, financial planning, and professional support. To learn more about this amazing organization and how you can make a difference, click the link in the show notes or visit www.kenziscauses.org. Hi, Caterina. Thanks for joining me.

Caterina Rando : 2:25

I'm so happy to be with you.

Marisa Huston : 2:26

We are going to be discussing how to use speaking to gain instant clients. And you and I both know that fear is a major factor that prevents a lot of us from doing this speaking thing. For some reason, people want to avoid it all together, because they're afraid of many things. It could be that they're afraid of making a mistake, or looking bad in front of an audience and it's not one of those things that you can just erase. It's there. And it's very real for a lot of people. I would like to start by defining what we mean when we say speaking and also breaking down the difference between live speaking or doing things online. Because in today's world with the pandemic, we're also doing a lot of this online using the tools that are available. Could we start with that? Because I think our listeners need to understand exactly what we mean when we say speaking and perhaps talk about the differences between setting up engagements that are live versus online.

Caterina Rando : 3:26

Yes, I call the ones where you're in the same room with your audience, I call that live and in person speaking. And then when you're virtual, I would usually say via Zoom, because Zoom is the platform that most people are using to conduct their virtual programs, or speeches or what I like to call your thing. And both work. And even before the pandemic lifestyle, I would do what I called hybrid workshops, where I would have ladies in the room with me and I would also have ladies Zooming in coming in from all over the country, on the computer as well. And when we go back to a non pandemic lifestyle, we absolutely can embrace the hybrid workshop or the hybrid speaking so that you can serve a lot more people at once.

Marisa Huston : 4:13

Do you think that this fear that we're talking about that's very real, and we know this, we know statistically, people are a bit horrified to speak in front of a crowd...Does that apply equally to live versus online? Do you feel like that fear that they go through is equal? Or does it get enhanced more when it's live versus online?

Caterina Rando : 4:33

It depends on the person because the thing about live is that you can chat with the people ahead of time, you can make sure that you're in the right place and you have your notes in front of you and everybody is more likely to be much more engaged. The challenge that we have in a virtual format is that people could be getting distracted by their emails or their phones or their kids or their dogs and as a result, it can be be more stressful to feel like nobody's listening to you. But the truth is public speaking is a vulnerable act. You are putting yourself in front of a group of people. And most of us had uncomfortable, if not even traumatic, public speaking experiences when we were very young. We probably don't even remember them, but the teacher told us to get up in front of the class, and it was super scary. The thing to recognize, though, is that the more you do it, the less scary it gets. And pretty soon it starts to feel okay. In fact, Marisa, I had a client say to me, just last week/ She said, Caterina, I'm starting to love speaking. That warmed my heart. When we met two years ago, she said to me, I hate speaking. But she knew the value of it for her business, which is why she continued to work through the fear, and now she's starting to really enjoy it. And pretty soon she's going to be amazing in front of a room.

Marisa Huston : 5:56

I think that for me, for example, the one thing that helps when I talk is I remind myself that it's not about me, it's about them. I'm there to help them with something that I can provide. Something that I know about that is going to be useful for them. So instead of thinking of it as I need to look good, or I need them to be impressed with me, it's about how can I make their lives better? Flipping it on its head, and changing your perspective on your purpose helps a lot, don't you think?

Caterina Rando : 6:26

Absolutely. I like to call it an audience centric presentation. And what that means is that you as the speaker have all of your attention on the audience. And the truth is, this comes after you've done it many, many times where you don't worry about what you say, or how you say it, or how you look or you don't worry, if you have a couple speech fillers like the um, um. All your attention is on the people in front of you. For example, I did two speeches yesterday, virtually in two different states before noon, it was very fun. The first group was beginners just getting started, the second group was very experienced business women 20 years, at least in business. The presentation to best serve, the first group is going to be very different than the presentation to serve the second group. And that's what I'm saying by audience centric speaking. Where you're there, exactly what you said, to deliver value to these people on this day. And that means it has to be what's right for them, not what you prepared, not what's best for you and your business.

Marisa Huston : 7:32

That is so true. And very well said. Knowing your audience and knowing what they value as well is very important. Because really, it's about maximizing their time as well. You don't want to be up there for yourself. You're really up there to provide value for the people that have come to see you. And really being cognizant of that and setting things up for that is going to help you become much more successful. We're all dealing with this pandemic and when people think about speaking engagements they're thinking about, oh I'm going to get invited to a networking event and perhaps I'm going to be the speaker of the group for that day or whatnot. Nowadays, that's very difficult. What are some things we can do in today's current climate?

Caterina Rando : 8:12

Let me say this, when the pandemic started, all my clients started to freak out, because what are they going to do? Not only can they not go network, but their clients are freaking out, right? So as a result, first thing I did was I said, let's have community meetings. So we've been having community meetings every month to support the ladies and make sure they know about the resources, etc. But here's the other thing I did, I told all of them to start immediately with having what I call it your virtual thing. And your virtual thing is a one hour virtual event every week or every two weeks where you are only talking for one hour, and you're inviting people to come and learn from you for one hour. And what this does is not only does it build insta influence, it allows you to get insta clients. And the other thing is it gives you something to always have to invite people to. For example, a lady messaged me on facebook a couple of weeks ago. She sent me this picture of the page in a book that I had inscribed for her many years ago. Dear Joan, expect success, love Catarina. She said thank you for all the inspiration. Now I haven't seen her in 20 years. After I said thank you, I said come to my thing. And I'm sharing that with you because a lot of people don't have a thing to invite people to and as a result, they're trying to meet with all these people one on one, they're getting frustrated because it's taking a ton of time. But also here's the guiding principle. Nobody buys from us until we have influence with them. And when you have a thing, you now can invite people to that thing. You build influence with them there and then they're much more open to speaking with you. This is a missing link, Marisa, for many business owners.

Marisa Huston : 10:03

I totally agree with you, Caterina. As you said, if you were to have one of these things that you're going to do, and you're not only providing value to your audience, but it's a group of people, there's social proof, there's a gift, essentially, that you're giving them, because you're giving them information that they wouldn't otherwise have access to. It's also much more efficient, because rather than talking to one individual person for an hour, you're talking to 100, that hour, or however many show up. And that really just makes it much more effective. But I think that one of the barriers that I hear a lot from the people that I know is they're afraid of technology, we've changed into this pandemic mode now. And now we're having to use technology where in the past, I couldn't even get people to Zoom with me because they thought it was difficult and scary. Given that, do you have any tips for our listeners about where do they start with that? There's so much confusion. Like there's Facebook Live, and there's live software applications that you can use, and then some people don't like live so they want to record but they don't know how to put it up there. What resources or what things can they start to do to get more comfortable with technology?

Caterina Rando : 11:10

Well, the first thing I'll say is that the pandemic has really been awesome for getting more people to use technology who were very resistant to it before. You know, now, if you want to hang out with anybody, you better be able to figure out how to get on Zoom. The other thing is that unless your business is a techno business, it's not your job to be a techno expert. And it's okay to get some techno support. Now, I know how to post a video here, there and in other places, but I don't know how to do everything techno, because that's not my job in my business. I have a team. And you might say, well, Catarina, yeah, because your business is bigger. Let's be very clear. There are only certain things that everyone should be doing in their business. Speaking, selling, serving strategy, and self care. Those are what we need to be doing in our business. We should not be the bookkeeper and the web designer, and the graphic designer and the podcast editor, because then that is taking away from our speaking and our selling and our serving.

Marisa Huston : 12:12

Again, being very, very focused on that. All of us have to deal with a certain amount of time every day and if we're taking time to do the things that don't provide us the maximum effect for what we're trying to achieve, then we're obviously not focusing on the right things.

Caterina Rando : 12:26

And here's why we're not focusing on the right things. Because unless your business is bookkeeping, you don't need to be a master bookkeeper. You need to know what's up with the books and that's what a trusted bookkeeper partner is for. You don't need to be a master at web upgrading or web updating, if that's not your business. And all of those activities are taking away from you getting more masterful at the thing that people pay you for, which is your serving. Or you need to get more masterful at the getting clients, which is the selling and the speaking. And one thing I'm going to say is marketing is nobody's job, unless they are a marketer. This is very important, because so many business owners are putting their attention on the wrong things, because they're saying, well, yeah, but I don't have anybody to do that because I don't have the resources. Well, you don't have the resources, because you're not taking any time for selling because you're doing all the admin and all the marketing and all those things that are not the highest and best use of your time.

Marisa Huston : 13:31

Many people are going to agree with us, others will decide not to do it. At the end of the day, that is really what needs to happen in order to achieve the success that we need in our businesses. The next thing that I hear a lot from people about speaking is they say, but I'm not a good speaker. I sound terrible. You know, I'll be honest, when I decided to start the podcast, it was one of those things where I talked myself out of it. Nobody's gonna like my voice, they don't like my accent, you know whatever your excuse is. And people feel that way about themselves when it comes to speaking. So what can we say to our listeners about that?

Caterina Rando : 14:08

Here's the thing about having your own business. When you have your own business, it is absolutely your earth school, in personal and professional development. There is no better course that will develop you than having your own business. Because you will absolutely have to address every fear and every limiting belief about yourself, you'll have to get over your inhibitions or you will never get clients. On the one hand being bing, bing, bing, it's awesome that having your own business will make you a more confident, amazing human being. The thing is that you have to recognize that your business is here to support you and teach you a few things and the more we are willing to be uncomfortable in our business, the more successful we will be. Marisa what you just said to me about your apprehension of starting your podcast. Now, I would have never known that. You're confident, you're articulate, you're professional. As a guest, you have everything dialed in that you sent ahead of time. I would never have known that. What I know now is that you were willing to be uncomfortable. And it's the same thing with speaking. The other thing to recognize is that your audience doesn't care that you're a perfect speaker or not. They care about what's in it for me. That's what they're there for. They're there to get value from you in whatever area you're talking about, so that they can uplift their life or their business. And that's important to recognize. It is all about service. With anyone listening, if you're not willing to be uncomfortable in your business, then entrepreneurship is not for you. Because it is uncomfortable. Every single day, there's a new level of uncomfortableness. Yesterday, I had a conversation with a lady that came to my workshop and she asked me to talk to her and her husband about whether or not she could join the course. Now, here's the thing, her husband wasn't at the workshop. I had no influence with him. We had a nice conversation, the whole thing. But then at the end, I recognized what I could have done better and I realized this is another skill for me to develop. Talking to the spouse. There's an endless amount of new things for us to learn and be uncomfortable with and get better at.

Marisa Huston : 16:22

And there's always twists and turns along the way, like you said. Things that you don't anticipate. And then you realize, oh, my goodness, I didn't know that this was a thing. And now I've got to figure out how to address that thing so I can be better at doing what I do. And I think that's part of what makes it fun, right? Those uncomfortable things that we have to go through also makes us stronger.

Caterina Rando : 16:43

And it's very rewarding. I've been in business many, many years, I have never been bored. You will never ever, ever hear me say I'm bored because you know what? There's always some new avenue to explore. Like this whole pandemic thing caused us to look at everything and do everything different, and pivot and change. And even though it was a little bit uncomfortable, and maybe even scary, it definitely was challenging and invigorating when we got something right. And that is the beauty of entrepreneurship. Your business will allow you to explore all kinds of things. I want to say a little bit Marisa about the bliss of speaking. I've spoken to ladies from 87 countries. I've spoken in Holland and New Zealand and met people from Papua New Guinea. I mean, your business can bring you so much adventure. When you're speaking, you can have so much amazing experiences and get to meet so many amazing people that you wouldn't get to if you weren't the speaker, and it will enrich your life significantly. And the other thing is that you will also gain insta clients because your speaking builds influence. And if people are not embracing it now is absolutely the time. All you need to do is have a thing!. Once a week, once every two weeks, have a one hour thing, invite people to it, and it will catapult your business.

Marisa Huston : 18:06

Oh, I couldn't agree with you more. Because everybody has had to shift during this pandemic, now we're dealing with a situation where everyone is doing this online. There isn't a moment where I don't turn on my computer and I'm getting somebody doing a live, doing a workshop, doing a webinar. I mean, it's just out there. And all these people now are starting to realize how powerful this is because like you said, it really does work. However, one of the fears that we all have is what if no one comes? Right? Like, I'll be talking to myself live and that's even scarier, don't you think?

Caterina Rando : 18:44

Well, let me say this. When I was a little kid, I had a Halloween party, and nobody came. So I have had that experience in my real life and it probably traumatized me for life. Here's what I want to say. I have done all kinds of things Marisa, and I don't think I've ever had nobody show up. I've had a couple with one person showing up. Everybody. listen, This is the biggest, biggest tip of getting smiles in the squares on the screen. Getting people to show up for your virtual events. Okay? And I will tell you, all my clients are doing this and it is super working. When we talk about having an event, then a webinar, a thing, whatever it is, we say, Okay, I'm gonna put it on my website. I'm going to put it on Eventbrite. I'm going to do an event listing on Facebook, I'm going to do some posts, I'm going to send it out to my list. If I'm networking, I'm gonna say, hey everybody come to my thing. All of that is promotion. And all promotion does is inform potential audience members that you are having a thing.

Marisa Huston : 19:47

Yes, it's awareness. Right? It's the first step.

Caterina Rando : 19:49

What it does not do is it does not evoke a decision. Marisa if I send you a personal text or a personal Facebook message or a personal email or I personally call you or I personally send you a postcard with a handwritten note and it says, Hi, Marisa with the information. I would love to see you here. Let me know if you can join us handwritten. Now that is a personal invitation! Or the personal text, or the personal Facebook message, or the personal email. And because mwah you and I are now simpatico, you are going to respond. And that evokes a decision. You have to figure out if you're going to come or not before you respond. This is what I call invitation over promotion. A personal invitation will win out 10 times, if not 40 times over promotion. And this is where most people fall down. They do a ton of promotion, but they do no personal invitations. And I have had client after client after client complain to me, I did all these things, and nobody's coming. And then I say, Did you personally invite people? And they say, Oh, I forgot. And then they do it. And within 24 hours, they have eight, six, ten people coming to their thing.

Marisa Huston : 21:05

I cannot relate to this more. I know you do podcasting as well, Caterina. And you know, as well as I do people reach out to us to be on the show.

Caterina Rando : 21:13

Yes.

Marisa Huston : 21:14

And I can right away notice the people that stand out. And the way they stand out is...I have literally had people send me a private video holding a plaque with my name on it going Marisa, I have value to provide to your audience and I really want an opportunity to show you.

Caterina Rando : 21:31

I like that person. That's great!

Marisa Huston : 21:33

Yeah, I agree! And they stood out from all the rest. Whereas you get those requests, where they're like, Hey, I like your show. I wanna be on it. Let's see if we can talk. I mean, which one do you think is going to be more enticing?

Caterina Rando : 21:45

Right? Exactly.

Marisa Huston : 21:46

You feel on the other end that the person is really speaking to you. That they really took the time and that they value your time and your audience's time and that is really what makes the difference between promotion and you know, inviting somebody personally.

Caterina Rando : 22:01

Makes a huge difference. And so when you use this method, you will always forever know that you have people coming to your thing. Now, Marisa, I want to say one more thing about this, okay. There are actually three kinds of people that you want at your thing. Not only potential clients, which we think about, we also want clients or past clients. Past clients, because we're warming them up, again, current clients, because they're warming up the room for us. And the third category of people we want is we want influencers. Influencers are people that can book you for their podcast, that can book you for speaking, that have a big Facebook group that they could rave about you. They have a magazine, a blog that they could rave or feature you. They have a ton of Instagram followers. We want influencers also in our room. This is important, because we don't just want to invite potential clients. We want to invite potential clients, past clients, current clients, and influencers.

Marisa Huston : 23:00

What you're saying is be strategic. Really think things through. Don't just put something out there and they will come.

Caterina Rando : 23:08

Right!

Marisa Huston : 23:08

You really need to know who you're trying to get at and what your endgame is.

Caterina Rando : 23:12

Yes. And the other thing is that we're always upgrading. What I mean by that is if you do a thing, and maybe two people come and none of them are the right match for you don't get discouraged and say this doesn't work. You say okay, what could I have done better? Because there's always something that after the fact you realize you could have done better. For example, since we've been virtual, after I do a thing, the people that don't come to the thing that registered, I send them a note that says, hey, missed you at the thing, please come to the next thing. Now, we just realized the other day after we did a thing, and we didn't get a huge turnout, that why don't we send that note beforehand? Hey, reminder, here's the thing, because then hopefully we get a better turnout.

Marisa Huston : 23:55

Exactly. So you're tweaking things as you go. And it's like anything else. When you start a new venture, you're an amateur. You've never done this before. So you're more nervous than ever, and you definitely don't know what you're doing. You have a basic understanding of what needs to happen, but you're never going to perfect it until you get out there. Like you said, get a little uncomfortable, practice feel more confident and build on it.

Caterina Rando : 24:20

Yes. And Marisa, two things. One to say is that perfection is not required. And what I mean by that is that a lot of women get stuck because they don't do anything because they don't think they could do it perfect. That's the first thing. Second thing is that is it is in the doing that we figure it out. And this idea that Okay, I'm gonna get ready to get ready to maybe think about whether or not I can get going is super ineffective. It is a myth that we have to get ready first. It is absolutely in the doing that we figure things out, that we learn how to do it, especially in business. And as long as we know that it's Okay, if it's not incredible and amazing. As long as it brings value we can get going, and then know that every time you do it, the better you're going to be. I mean, that's what Malcolm Gladwell says in his book Outliers, right? That it takes, it takes 10,000 hours. That is a very depressing number, 10,000.

Marisa Huston : 25:18

It is!

Caterina Rando : 25:19

But the beautiful thing to know is that every hour is one hour closer to mastery.

Marisa Huston : 25:24

That's right.

Caterina Rando : 25:25

I've seen this! I've seen this in myself, I've seen this in my clients. They just get started and boy, I can see they have a long way to go. And all they do is they keep doing their thing. And even with just a barely a little instruction, they get better and better, because of the experience that they're gaining every time they're willing to do it. And this whole idea of having a weekly thing, or a bi-weekly thing is not only so you always have something to invite people to, but it's also so that you're consistently doing it so that you're consistently getting better.

Marisa Huston : 26:00

Yes! You're getting closer to the 10,000 hours. Books, workshops, all of these courses that we take, they're very helpful. Everybody loves them, because they teach us things and they make us aware. But none of that matters. All that information will just sit in your head if you don't actually act on it, you have got to apply it. And these are general rules of thumb, right Catarina? You're teaching somebody, this is what worked for me but their situation could be completely different and in that case, they'll have to make adjustments. And how will they know? They won't know until they actually apply it.

Caterina Rando : 26:32

Right.

Marisa Huston : 26:32

So applied knowledge is very, very powerful, and really is the only way that's going to get you to where you need to go.

Caterina Rando : 26:39

Yes, more than a few times over the years, I have had to say to clients, get out of the workshop and get to work, Because it is way easier to take another workshop than it is to do something you've never done before that you're scared to do. And this is important because it's the same thing for selling. Let me take a course on selling or let me work on developing my course or let me write 50 blogs rather than pick up the phone and talk to someone. It is very important that we realize that it is in the doing that we master what we've learned.

Marisa Huston : 27:12

Catarina, how do our listeners get a hold of you and learn more about you and what you offer.

Caterina Rando : 27:17

Thank you so much for asking. My website is www.caterinarando.com. And there you can see our events that we have listed. And I have a free thing, always I have a free thing, that everyone is invited to join me for if you look on the events page. I also have an awesome Facebook group called Thriving Women in Business Group and you can join me there on Facebook and we have an amazing community of many, many women. And of course, my podcast is Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rondo. And that's Fempire with an F. And I've got of course lots and lots of great value for the ladies because you know, this is not just my work. It is my mission and if someone is more faith based, my ministry. Because I am honored to serve women and uplift them through my work. It is my greatest gift of life.

Marisa Huston : 28:09

And that is why it is such a pleasure to talk to you. If there's anything we can do to move the needle forward and help somebody get inspired to take action, that is what fuels me. Thank you for being here. Caterina. I really appreciate it.

Caterina Rando : 28:23

Thank you. It's been my pleasure.

Marisa Huston : 28:25

That's all for this episode of Live Blissed Out. Thanks for listening and thanks to Caterina Rando for being my guest. If you have a question or comment for a future episode all you have to do is go to www.speakpipe.com/lbovm or click the link in the show notes to leave a brief audio message. If you find value in our show, please visit www.liveblissedout.com to reach out subscribe and share on social media. This show is made possible through listeners like you. Thank you. So long for now and remember to keep moving forward!