Stop Wingin’ It: Crafting a Signature Talk That Grows Your Business

Jennie Wright [00:00:05]:
Hey everybody. Welcome to the Acquire podcast. I’m your host Jenny Wright, and this is the podcast where we talk about list building and lead generation, sales and marketing and all the fun stuff in between all around and up and down. Don’t ask me why I said that, but it sounded fun. And before we get into today’s episode, I just want to share that if you’re trying to figure out what your next list build will be or the way that you’re going to attract new potential clients, I want you to think about how you’re going to do this and plan it out. And one of the ways that you can do this is get my guide with the five steps on planning your next really successful event, which you can grab from the link in the show notes. So go and do that. And now let’s talk to our amazing guest, a good friend of mine who had just had a lovely, like, fifteen minute conversation before hitting record, which I love to do, is Jen Espinosa Goswami.

Jennie Wright [00:00:55]:
Thank you so much for being here.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:00:57]:
Hey, Jenny. I gotta go download that thing. Oh, my gosh. I haven’t done that quite yet. You got me on it.

Jennie Wright [00:01:03]:
Absolutely. Go and grab it. So, Jen, I love talking to you because you have so many skills. You’ve been doing so many things, but one thing that you’re really, really amazing at, which I love to talk about, is that you help entrepreneurs speak more clearly, consistently and confidently, both on stage and on camera and get paid for their expertise. You’ve been doing this for what, about a decade now?

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:01:26]:
Well, I’ve been speaking for about a decade, but I’ve been coaching other speakers for about three years.

Jennie Wright [00:01:30]:
Amazing. Amazing. And actually, I I have to say that, that last year back in, well, actually at the time that we’re recording this. So back in 2023, I had been asked to be speaking on a stage and I was a little bit nervous because it was like the first time on stage since the pandemic and I was I was a little bit reticent. You and I jumped on a call. We sort of planned out what I was going to talk about, which was great. I’m glad we did that. Even though when I actually did speak, my PowerPoint actually wasn’t functioning because of the battery issue, and I still had to riff.

Jennie Wright [00:02:01]:
But your help was immensely supportive, and I really appreciated it.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:02:05]:
I love success stories, so thank you for sharing that. And I believed in you the whole time, Jenny. I’m so glad you took me up on the opportunity to chat a little bit because we don’t know what we don’t know. And if you’ve been out of the game for a minute, you probably could learn a thing or two. So I appreciate that you were willing to have that conversation.

Jennie Wright [00:02:21]:
%. I’m one of those people that if I need help, I’m just gonna ask for it. I have no shame. I just have no shame on that. I don’t think anybody should. So let’s dive in and talk about list building and lead gen using the methods that you talk about. One of the things that I think you’re really, really great at is the clarity piece, making sure that people have that confidence to speak about the thing that they’re really great at without worrying necessarily about all that ancillary stuff that kind of gets us bungled up. So talk to me about what hangs people up when they’re trying to speak confidently either from camera or from stage and what you’d suggest to kind of get around it.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:03:02]:
I think the biggest thing that people get stuck on, if you will, is, first, what will I say? But second, what will people think of what I will say? And the problem with that is we don’t know what people will think. We’re not asking them if we’re not asking them, then we probably should change our pre event, processes a little bit so that we do understand what they might say before we show up. But if we don’t have that in place, it’s okay. And most people are cheering for you. If you’re on stage in front of them, you’re sharing content that they want to learn more about. They want you to succeed, and they want you to share the best of what you got. Now you’ve got a lot of really good stuff. So, again, we go back to that original question, what do I say? And I see one of the biggest mistakes a lot of people do when it comes to speaking is they kind of custom create a bajillion different topics, a bajillion different ways to talk about these topics.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:03:58]:
Unfortunately, that means that your message is unclear because you’re talking about so many different things that nobody knows at the end of the day what that one thing you talk about is. And that means you’re not gonna be invited to as many stages.

Jennie Wright [00:04:13]:
I don’t think I really looked at it like that before. That’s fantastic. And how many people actually get stuck the way that you just described? A lot?

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:04:21]:
Everyone. I even have clients who are working with me, Jenny, and they’re like, oh, someone asked me to present this topic for their group. And I’ll ask them. I’ll be like, is that your signature speech? And they’ll say, oh, no. That’s not my signature speech. That’s not what we’ve been working on together. That’s not what will help me grow my business, either through building my list or through inviting people to take that next step with me. So if you are looking at a potential stage opportunity, that is a great question to determine whether it’s a yes or no, opportunity, that is a great question Mhmm.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:04:51]:
To determine whether it’s a yes or no for you. Will this topic or delivering this topic to that audience help me grow in the way that I wish to grow?

Jennie Wright [00:05:01]:
Okay, that makes sense. And I think everybody knows that the benefit of speaking is fantastic. And I don’t know what you say, but I’m a little bit of the whole suck it up buttercup with the speaking thing. And I’ll tell you why. And I think you might know this story. I think that if you have nervousness or you don’t think what you talk about is any good or you’re worried that nobody will listen I mean, in my case, when I speak from a stage, I’m like, Oh, my gosh, everybody’s gonna be looking at their phone. They’re not gonna be listening to me. I always think that you don’t know until you try it.

Jennie Wright [00:05:38]:
Secondly, you you can always improve it to make it better. But the big thing that I always think about is if you don’t do it, you’re robbing people of the thing that they actually need. So many people speak about the things that you talk about, but nobody talks about it from the angle that you do. And if you come at it from, hey, you know what, if I don’t do this, I’m absolutely robbing people of the gift that I provide, then it becomes the non negotiable. Then it’s just I gotta do what it takes to make it happen instead of I don’t know, I’m not sure and having that feeling. At least that’s what works for me and I don’t think it works for everybody. But if I make it a non negotiable and just go, screw it, f it, whatever, I just gotta do it because, like, my ideal audience needs the message, then it’s no longer about me.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:06:31]:
And that’s the best way to approach it actually. And and we hear this all the time. Right? The question comes up on social media or wherever you’re hanging out. What could you speak about for forty five minutes with no preparation and complete passion? It’s not about passion. I’m sure you have passion about a lot of things, and some of them are things that you might be delivering on stages, and other things you might just be having a one to one conversation with one of your besties. You know? So it’s important to understand that, yes, your message should have a purpose, and you are not the hero of your message. And this is a difficult one because I built my business with my personal story of losing a hundred pounds. So that’s why my company is called Waitlist.

Jennie Wright [00:07:11]:
Mhmm. And I

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:07:12]:
don’t know if I shared this with you, Jenny, but when I first started my company, I was sharing how I lost a hundred pounds, and I had no intention of coaching anyone at that point. I just wanted to get on more stages. So for me, it was a little unclear what the next step of that conversation looked like as a speaker. And so I wasted a lot of time, unfortunately, and I wasted some of those stage opportunities because I was focused on me. And that was not their way to do it. Nobody cares that I lost a hundred pounds. I mean, maybe they did. They cared on some level.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:07:42]:
But what what they really cared about was if I were to try to do something like what Jen just described, how would I be able to do that? And so I did have people in my audience come up to me. Sometimes they were very emotional about it and would say, Jen, I really want to do something differently in my life. I really want to change something. How do I work with you? Now if you start having people coming up to you and saying that after you’re on a podcast, after you’re on a panel discussion, after you share a livestream or a master class, then you know you’re delivering the right message.

Jennie Wright [00:08:15]:
Mhmm. Yes. I think I think that that’s sort of the proof. And if you like you said, if you kinda take yourself out of it a little bit, although I do and then you might agree with me. I do like using a little bit of story from the person to validate the topic. And I’m sure you’ve heard this too, like how about those webinars where the first twenty minutes is the story of the person’s life and how they sit on a beach drinking Mai Tais and they make money in their sleep, right? Like, come on. We don’t need to validate like that. I can give you validation in five minutes, the fact that I’m qualified to speak about the thing.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:08:53]:
Interesting. So this concept of validation is something that I tell my clients to not worry about, and here’s why. Yeah. Cool. When it comes to validation, you should never introduce yourself when you’re going on stage. You should have a a prepared biography. If you don’t have one or if it’s not too long, we can certainly have a conversation about what that could look like for you. But always make sure that someone else introduces you when you get up on stage.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:09:19]:
If you need to prove anything else beyond that point, the proof should be in the results of the stories, the case studies, the examples Yes. Of how you help people. But you’re not validating your right to be on stage. Everyone has a right to be on stage. Yes.

Jennie Wright [00:09:34]:
Yeah. Absolutely. I I completely agree with you and having somebody, like, be your hype person as you get on stage is awesome. Yes. But if you’re if you’re doing you know, if you’re on somebody’s summit or if you’re on a webinar, you may not have that person doing that necessarily or at least not in the right sort of format. A lot of people or hosts of summits kind of lead you in with a little bit of the bio. And if you’re on a webinar, you got to introduce yourself. So how do you overcome that? I think it’s quick validation or let the results speak for themselves, which I think is also a really great idea.

Jennie Wright [00:10:08]:
I gotta ask you, you’ve been doing this for a while now. What are some of the things that you see people doing that you’re just like, dear dear whatever, can you not do that? Like, what the crap? What do you see that just made because you’re giggling. Right? If you’re not list you know, if you’re not watching this, Jen’s having a good giggle. What are people doing that just you just wanna put up your hands and freak out about?

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:10:31]:
Yes. And okay. So don’t make these mistakes because I probably have made a million of these mistakes, and I probably had someone who was cringing listening to me make these mistakes. So I’m including myself within this company. But one of the top things, especially in the online space so I host a lot of, you know, webinars for other organizations, international associations, things like that. And, typically, they have a webinar format between sixty minutes and ninety minutes, and they usually include a specified amount of q and a time at the end. Please don’t use that q and a time at the end of your presentation because you’re missing the opportunity to make it easy for people to take the next step if you end on a q and a. Here’s what’s gonna happen on a q and a.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:11:14]:
You’re gonna have crickets because people are heading out and multitasking on their phones and and stopped paying attention, or maybe they have already left the webinar. That’s what’s gonna happen. If it’s a recording, it’s gonna be dry dead time. Nobody’s gonna keep listening for the q and a session because if their question is not being asked, they don’t need to know what the answers are for some of those things. Not everyone wants to listen for two hours long to a webinar. So please don’t end on a q and a, especially in the online space. It’s not interesting. It’s not engaging.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:11:44]:
There are ways you can take people’s questions from minute three of your presentation so that people who are there wanna stay there and wanna be there with you and are like, okay. But what about this piece of it? Because you may not be addressing that in your content. So make sure you’re addressing what they’re looking for in the first five or ten minutes of whatever you’re talking about. That is huge.

Jennie Wright [00:12:06]:
Yeah. Huge. Absolutely. I can

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:12:07]:
see your happiness there. Another thing because we talked about validation just now. A lot of online formats will, you know, let’s jump right into the content. I’m no fluff. I’m zero BS. All of these things. But you do have to somehow put something about your personal connection to the content. So I usually include a slide, if I’m using slides, a few minutes into the presentation.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:12:31]:
So after I tell them here’s what we’re gonna be going into, which of these do you really wanna learn more about? Here is the introduction to the topic by acknowledging why they’re in the audience, why they’re listening. And then after a few slides of getting into the content, I might be like, oh, yeah. This is me. This is why I’m here. This is why this is really important for me. Because it’s really important to me to establish trust. And by the way, I put my slides down for this part because they can see me face to face. You know, look into your camera.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:12:59]:
Make sure you’re making those connections. Even if you can’t see them on the other end, you are making connections. So, the more intimate you can make it feel while you’re on stage, no matter whether that stage is physical or virtual, it’s gonna make the trust factor that much higher.

Jennie Wright [00:13:15]:
Mhmm. Absolutely. And I mean, people People make that mistake of keeping the Q and A to the end a lot. So frustrating.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:13:25]:
I don’t even know why they asked to do that anymore. Honestly, that’s so dinosaur.

Jennie Wright [00:13:29]:
It is. And I was asked to come speak in somebody’s Facebook group group of like 60,000 people. And I was asked to give a presentation then do a Q and A at the end and I was like, Nope, not doing that. I was like, Hey, everybody, ask your questions while we’re doing this. And I think the right way because if people feel like their questions are being answered whilst you’re doing it, whilst you’re presenting, then the next question could come up, which could be the thing that reduces the barrier to entry to your program, product or service just by you answering it in the moment. And I think that’s probably the better way to go.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:14:11]:
Absolutely. Can I share one more little tidbit that I just learned? Oh, please

Jennie Wright [00:14:14]:
learn more. Yeah.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:14:15]:
Oh, yes. Okay. So I’m experimenting with this. So I’ll check check-in with me if you wanna learn about the results from this. But I was reading a book by Donald Miller who, is all about how to build your coaching business, and he brought up a good point because speaking is part of how he builds his business. And he said if you mention your lead generator, your opt in, your lead magnet, whatever you call the beautiful free gift that you’re offering as a speaker, you have to have a free gift, please. No one’s gonna say no to your free gift.

Jennie Wright [00:14:42]:
No.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:14:43]:
But when you offer that, make sure you offer it a minimum of twice during your presentation. So maybe once in the beginning part of it and once at the end. That is another big problem I see a lot of people do, not necessarily with their lead magnets, but with their offer or their invitation, is they stuff it in the last five minutes of the presentation. And we’ve already learned that people are not paying attention by the time you hit the end of the presentation. So, please, if you want to grow your community, if you wanna invite people to take that next step with you, you probably need to have further communication with them, and the best way to do that is through your lead magnet.

Jennie Wright [00:15:20]:
Completely agree. And yeah. I mean, I think just mentioning it once and doing it really quickly at the end, hoping that’s gonna be sufficient is definitely not the way to go. And I’ve got to ask you, the whole fear of people not listening to you if you’re speaking on stage, people not enjoying what you’re talking about, having I guess, the anxiety to be building while you’re doing your talk. How do you help people with that? Because it does happen. People naturally do look at their phones and that’s okay if they do that. But how do you help people overcome that fear?

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:16:00]:
So there should always be a little bit of fear. If you’re not feeling fear, perhaps you’re not as personally invested in it, you’re not as excited about it. Because we know that fear can easily turn into excitement and vice versa. Excitement can also turn the corner into fear. So you absolutely should care and that could be fear or excitement for you about what you’re presenting. In terms of how I help people, it’s all about being very clear on your signature speech. So your topic is probably already chosen. If you’re listening to Jenny, I know you’ve got a topic.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:16:31]:
I know you’ve delivered that topic to other people. And if you’re not getting the results you want from that particular topic that you’re delivering, it could be in the format and structure of how you’re offering that, that or how you’re delivering that. So we would work one to one together and kind of clarify what that looks like. So there’s a particular progression we follow when it comes to delivering our content, and it’s not the same as it is for content curation. So if you’re rocking it with social media and all those things, great. If you’re doing short form video, great. It’s not quite the same as a signature speech, which is why I have a signature speech template because I identify those key elements for you. Some of them are revisiting from, you know, English English class back in high school, but it’s a little different element of it.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:17:19]:
And I also encourage you to have regular touch points of engagement with your audience, which we often forget about if we’re in talking head mode. Come on. Social media has allowed us to be very much talking heads. If we’re in that mode, we’re gonna forget to engage our audience. So this signature speech template has the format, the structure, different ways to engage people, and also a critical look at what do you really want public speaking to do for you. Mhmm. I’ve had clients who say, I want to earn $5,000 per speaking engagement. Awesome.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:17:51]:
The way you approach that is very different than how you would approach it if you’re like, I want 500 new people to my email list. That’s a very different approach. So you have to know what you want to get to and how you want public speaking to help you grow before you can, develop the best experience for your audience.

Jennie Wright [00:18:11]:
Okay. So you said something that makes me going I’m now gonna pivot this conversation because you mentioned if you don’t know what your goal is to figure out your goal, do you want 5,000 per speaking event or people on your list? Let’s talk about how to get paid. Let’s let’s talk about that. I know that’s a topic that people want to talk about. We’ve talked about how to add leads to your list. Speaking does it. Go speak. But how do you get paid for it? How do you get that 5 ks speaker fee? What’s the process? What’s the best way that you’ve you’ve been able to do that?

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:18:45]:
Yeah. And this is secrets from professional speaking. I’ve been doing this for a while. I’ve had many conversations with other professional speakers. So, you are competing with people who are used to getting paid to speak. It’s no longer the just posting a I’m looking for paid speaking. Who do you know who you can connect with me with? That’s not how you do it. Okay? Like people who have found leads that will pay them to speak care a lot about their people, and they’re not gonna just introduce any Tom, Dick, and Harry to this person who has trusted them with their content and trusted them with their platform.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:19:22]:
You have to build those relationships first. So, yes, you can certainly ask and ask away, but people who have put in the hard work are not necessarily gonna suddenly introduce you to the fold because they don’t know who you are as a speaker and what you deliver.

Jennie Wright [00:19:35]:
Sure.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:19:36]:
There is a process I walk folks through, and I offer this through master classes on Eventbrite. If you’re curious, you can follow me there. I want you to have a system of staying booked as a speaker because it’s great when you have the single invitation to a stage, and it’s an amazing experience. Applause. Applause. Everything goes well. But what if you did that every month? What if you did that every week? That’s what I want for the people that I work with. And the way to do that is to be consistently making the right industry with people who are already hosting events and who have a budget to work with, and there’s different things we look at in terms of how to determine whether they have a budget.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:20:18]:
Now here are a few things I’ll I’ll throw your way, some tidbits. If you’re looking at presenting in the back of a Devaney’s Pizza House or whatever in a restaurant, that’s probably not a paid speaking engagement. If you’re in Las Vegas at Aria, which is a higher end hotel out there, that’s probably there’s probably a budget for that. If there’s multiple sponsors for the event, there’s probably a budget because those sponsors paid money to sponsor the event. And there are other ways to determine. It’s not the size of the audience. A lot of people focus too heavily on the size of the audience. Like, I wanna speak to a stadium of 15,000 people.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:20:54]:
You might have to pay for that stage. Like, not all of those stages are ones that will pay you to show up. So it’s not the size of the audience. It’s the need for the event organizer. How badly do they need your topic? How relevant is your topic to what they want to deliver to their audience? And then the motivation in terms of why the audience is gathering. If they’re just gathering for a one time event, probably not as big a budget, probably not, you know, they won’t cover travel, they won’t cover some of the other costs of getting to the venue or staying at the venue. But there are smaller groups like masterminds, retreats that will pay you to show up and deliver a topic that they have not heard or has not been delivered in the way they need it to. So just some things to consider.

Jennie Wright [00:21:43]:
Okay. Well, I mean, so this makes me think about should people have Okay. Actually, this makes me think, should people be paying to be on some of those sites where it lists them as a quote unquote preferred speaker? Or is it really kind of guerilla marketing and trying to find and and reach out and connect with people? Do you recommend that people pay to be on those sites?

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:22:08]:
Yes or no. It just depends on your model. So for example, if you’re someone who is only looking for paid speaking engagements, it benefits you to be found everywhere online with other speakers who are getting paid. So that’s when being listed on a directory like e speakers or speaker flow or one speakertunity, one of the many options out there. There are quite a few opportunities for that where you can be listed as a speaker. There’s even virtual ones. I know of one called ecosystem. Connect with me if you’re curious, but I can connect you with different virtual speaking opportunities as well.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:22:42]:
I have a list of handouts that I’m happy to share with anyone who’s listening. No opt in. I’ll just send it to you. But, if you want to compete with other paid speakers, hang out where other paid speakers are hanging out, which is NSA, National Speakers Association, International Speakers Network, Global Speakers Talk. You know, these are all places where paid speakers are hanging out.

Jennie Wright [00:23:03]:
Mhmm.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:23:04]:
I’m not saying that you have to be in the same room to get the same access to opportunities, but they know some things that maybe you don’t quite know yet. So it it benefits you to collaborate, to learn where they’re showing up. Plus, these directories have access to SEO resources that you as a solopreneur or entrepreneur may not have access to or have not taken time to delve into yourself. I know a little bit about SEO. I’ve been on some directories in the past. And, also, just to get back to it, Jenny, nothing will replace direct guerilla marketing. So it’s fine to be listed in all the places, but if you are not taking the action steps to get actively in front of people, it won’t matter. You can be on all the sites and nobody’s gonna find you anyway.

Jennie Wright [00:23:47]:
Yeah. I I completely agree with you. I’m still very much on the hands on side for getting speaking gigs. And I will do the gorilla I will do the the legwork to find it. And I have been using a bit of chat GPT actually to make this easier for me. How do you feel about people using AI to find potential speaking opportunities?

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:24:09]:
Yes. Use the tools at your disposal. I actually I attended a workshop, oh, gosh, almost a year ago now, so it was, like, in its infancy at that time or at least in this use of it. But they were saying how to use chat g p t to fill out a speaker application. So call for speakers is something you should be actively searching for if you know you want to get on more stages. But there’s usually a long application process where you have to complete an RFP, a request for proposal. These are for the bigger annual events and conferences and things like that. It can take a significant amount of time for you to fill out these proposals.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:24:46]:
Chat can reduce your time commitment from, what, like, two hours to, like, twenty minutes, something like that. It’s crazy. It is. That many applications for that are crazy. But what I will say is chat can’t tell you what your signature speech is. Chat can’t tell you how your topic addresses their needs. You still need to figure that out on your own before you use chat.

Jennie Wright [00:25:06]:
I completely agree. I always use it as a research tool, but I need to fine tune whatever it is. Now I have, because I talk about a few different things, I do have I’d say two perfectly signature talks that I can talk about that are just one’s list building and lead generation and one is sales and marketing. And those two I think go really, really well. And what I will do is when I go to apply, I will have ChatGPT support me in making sure that I fill out the application in the right way, shape, or form, but everything always goes through my final touch, I guess, just to make sure that it’s all great. What you don’t want is you don’t want the organizer reading your application going, Okay, that’s chat GPT. Unlock the blah blah blah. I mean, come on.

Jennie Wright [00:25:58]:
And you’re basically Please don’t let

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:25:59]:
that show. Don’t let your tan line show out there, folks. No.

Jennie Wright [00:26:03]:
God, no. Don’t let it no. Don’t look do anything like that. I am a huge proponent also, by the way, of making being a speaker stupid simple. Right? So I’m constantly, either being asked to speak or I’m asking to speak. Right? And it should be both. I love getting asked and I appreciate the ask. And then I always pursue.

Jennie Wright [00:26:25]:
Right. Because I’m not going to sit on my laurels and wait for people to ask me. I’m definitely going to chase the opportunities that I want to chase. And one of the best things that I do is I make things completely stupid simple. I have my speaker folder or my media folder. I have it in Google Drive. If somebody wants access to everything they need, my bio, my pictures, my link to free gift, all that stuff, it’s available to them. I personally decided not to do a one sheet or put it on my website because I update it regularly and I don’t want old information out there or accessible.

Jennie Wright [00:27:00]:
Yeah, so I used to have a one sheet and I used to have it on my website, really statically on my website. Now I do have my talks on my website, but my speaker kit is in a Google Drive because I constantly try and update things. I literally updated my bio on Sunday just to add a couple things to it. And I never want that old bio out there. So I’m constantly doing that. I think that’s, for me, I think that’s a really great way. Should people invest the time, money, effort in creating sizzle reels or not so much?

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:27:31]:
I love that you asked this question because six months ago, my answer probably would have been a little bit different. I recently created my first ever speaker reel. Yay. It’s not available yet, but by the time you hear this podcast, it will be on my website. So, yes, all my assets will be on my speaking website. But, so here’s the thing about social reels. They are an investment. If you are working with a professional videographer, if you are renting a stage, if you are inviting an audience in there because here’s the thing.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:28:00]:
When you’re a professional speaker and you’re showing up on other people’s stages, they may or may not appreciate you wanting to bring a camera person in to record you on stage, and they may not provide you footage of your speaking. If they do, it’s probably very raw and very real and the audio quality might be pretty poor. So you’re not likely to come up with your own footage that’s worthy of a speaker reel without hiring someone to do it and creating that stage. So let’s be real about that because some people are like, oh, they’re they’re putting fake people in the audience. That’s not necessarily the case. You’re just creating the situation and the environment. You’re still delivering that content. You’re just delivering it privately, not publicly.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:28:41]:
So that’s something I want to get out of the way. Yeah. But, here’s why you might need a something I want to get out of the way. Yeah. But, here’s why you might need a speaker reel. If you’re getting if you want to get paid to speak, you absolutely should have a speaker reel. Now I’ve been paid for years to speak before I created speaker reel, and here’s why. I did mostly virtual speaking.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:28:59]:
So if you’re a person who does both virtual and in person speaking, it is not as important for you to have a speaker reel. What would make it really important is if you know you wanna eventually speak more than you do other things. And so you want to grow your thought leadership. You want to scale your business. You know that you would rather have your admin team handle the behind the scenes, and you just wanna be the face of your business. You absolutely need to have a speaker reel. You need that footage of you on stage. You lean into those signature speech.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:29:32]:
If you have TED Talks, if you have other talks that are recorded, don’t let that be the only footage of you being on a major stage. So that’s when you want to consider upgrading to a speaker reel or scissor reel. But if you’re doing mostly virtual and or it’s for entrepreneurial groups, it may not be as important for you to have a speaker reel because you’re probably not going to work with the bureau. By the way, you would start working with the bureau if you’re charging at least 5,000 per speaking engagement, if not more. And we’re talking bureaus represent celebrities, speakers like the Obamas. You know, once you reach the Obama level, definitely, you should have some speaker reel footage of yourself. For sure. Until you’re there, you know, it’s kind of, does it fit within your business needs? It may or may not.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:30:11]:
You can still get paid to speak without having one. It’s just that additional feather in your cap, if you will, of making you look like you command higher fees.

Jennie Wright [00:30:21]:
That’s really great advice. I love that. I hadn’t thought about some of that. And so just before we wrap, I have one last question and it has to do with perception. Is or do people still see these TEDx talks as really still the foundational, amazing, groundbreaking thing that they were at one point? Like if you did a TED talk, you had landed. Congratulations, you were somebody. And TEDx, now it seems like a lot of different opportunities are TEDx talks. Do they still have the same gravitas or not so much?

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:31:01]:
I love that word gravitas and how you can just insert it into a conversation, Jenny. That’s brilliant. Oh, I I love people who are just so good with their English. Anyway, so TED TEDx talks.

Jennie Wright [00:31:13]:
I have an English degree and I’m not gonna tout it, but I do.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:31:16]:
So I love it. I love my English people. Okay. So here’s the deal. TEDx. I don’t have one. I know people who have done TEDx before, and it was a bad experience for them. Here are some ways it may be a bad experience for you.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:31:31]:
They’re a dime a dozen. If you don’t get accepted into your local one, you can literally apply anywhere in the country or internationally, and I know people who have applied internationally and still been rejected. You can apply for a TEDx up to eight times average before you get accepted, and it’s a very limited style of talk. So you only have so many minutes to complete it. You have to use PowerPoint slides. Most professional speakers do not use PowerPoint slides. So you’re doing a very specific type of talk. It’s almost like your first book, right? If you’re an author and you’re listening, you’re like, okay, my first book was not my best work.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:32:13]:
You know, that’s kind of what a TEDx might be. It might be you just discovering what your talk would be. It might be you going through a process, getting some coaching, getting the raw footage or the real footage on YouTube before you’re available to afford a videographer for your speaker reel. There are benefits to TEDx, and you can post it on your social. You can get found for it. It’s probably gonna do better in search for you than anything else that you’ve got out there currently because video performs better. Here’s the bad news about TEDx, and I work with a lot of coaches. So if you’re a coach and a consultant, I hate to say this, but I’ve heard most recently in the past year from other people who’ve delivered TEDx talks and have a relationship with the organizer who brought them on.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:32:58]:
If you put coach on your 10 x application, they might automatically deny you because there’s been a backlash against coaches who, might have this appearance of being overly promotional, overly sales y, or at the very worst case scenario, not having an idea worth sharing, which I think is a disservice to the coaching community personally. But I have heard this from people who have connections with people in the TEDx industry, people who organize these TEDx. And lastly, I just want to say in my local city here in Edina, Minnesota, we have a youth version of TEDx. Now that’s not to say if we have a youth version of it that that means that you’re no better speaker than a 10 year old or whatever, but the fact that, you know, kids younger and younger are approaching this as an opportunity for them and they don’t have anything to sell, it just tells me something. It tells me that it has a very particular purpose. It’s a great way to share your message, but it may not be the best way for you to grow your business through your message.

Jennie Wright [00:34:05]:
Thank you for being so honest about it. Because for a long time, TED Talks, TEDx Talks, they were like the thing. If you had more of that, you’d made it. And I just think there’s been like most things, there has been just a little bit too much of a dilution

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:34:22]:
on I agree.

Jennie Wright [00:34:23]:
On that sort of platform. And I think that speaks to me if we can have a platform that doesn’t dilute, that has that gravitas, that has the, what’s the right word? Now I can’t think of the word, but almost the, I don’t know, elevation, I guess, of what that event is and that it’s hard to get into and only the best speakers do and so on. If you don’t dilute it, then that becomes the bar, the thing that you want to achieve. And then, you know, I think that has to stay in the speaking world. I like it for the summit world too. I mean, most people don’t think it’s in summits, but it actually is. That’s a conversation for another day, but I really appreciate you sharing all that information. Now we’re gonna have everything in the show notes, but why don’t you tell us where people can connect with you and find you to get to know you and see what it is that you do?

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:35:21]:
Yeah. Well, I’m happy to connect with anyone. I mentioned a few resources during the course of this podcast. So if you’re still listening to us at the end, yes, you get a gold medal for listening through the end, but you also get access to how to connect with me and how to get those resources I talked about. So email me if you want that free handout of where to find speaking engagements that I mentioned. If you want my template, my signature speech template to get you started on the last speech you will ever write, that will be available in the show notes. And my website is waitlistchronicles.com. So if you wanna connect with me directly, you can do that.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:35:54]:
And you’ll also find me on the socials. I don’t spend as much time on places outside of LinkedIn and Instagram. So those are my two favorite ones. If you wanna connect me outside of there, it’s email.

Jennie Wright [00:36:05]:
Yep. You you and I are the same that way. It’s just that’s where I that’s where I play. I don’t really go to the other places. The book of faces is just, you know, for a little bit of scrolly time, but that’s about it.

Jenn Espinosa-Goswami [00:36:18]:
Yes. I’m on Facebook. If you really, really spend all your time on Facebook, I’m there. You may not see a lot of my content on there.

Jennie Wright [00:36:25]:
Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. I think there’s been this big shift on that side. But again, that’s a topic for another day. Jen, I’m so glad we got to do this. It’s been a long time coming. You and I have been chatting back and forth about having you on since ACQUIRE basically started. So glad we got the opportunity to make it happen.

Jennie Wright [00:36:42]:
Really grateful for all your support. And you’re always so incredible on my socials. You’re always liking my stuff and saying hi, and I really, really am grateful. So make sure that you’re checking out everything that Jen is doing. She’s fantastic at what she does, and she helped me. So I’m really happy about that. And for everybody listening to the podcast, thank you so much for listening to Acquire. If you like what you’re hearing, please do make sure to leave a comment, leave a review.

Jennie Wright [00:37:08]:
Let me know what it is that you’d like to hear. And as I mentioned earlier on in the podcast, if you want to make sure that your next upcoming upcoming online event is going to go exactly how you want it to go, then go and get my free guide. It is in the link is in the, the chat box. The link is in the show notes and it is the five steps to having a successful event. You can go and grab that. It’s a great guide. It has all sorts of detail in it and you can grab that now. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll talk to you all soon.

Jennie Wright [00:37:37]:
Take care.