22. Nail Your Topic: 5 Tips for Choosing Your Signature Talk Concept

When it comes to delivering a talk to your ideal audience - your topic matters. It’s how you stand out in a sea of pitches and jump out from a lineup of a bunch of other talks. Sure, your content and delivery will make you shine, but it all begins with the topic you choose. 

Here’s what we’ll cover:

1. Clarifying the type of stage
2. Choosing the right type of talk
3. Solving your audience’s pain point
4. Staying on brand
5. Embrace immediate feedback

Whether you have people seeking you out to speak or are just dipping a toe in the water - let 2020 be the year that you clarify a topic you (and your audience) are passionate about!

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Transcript

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Speaker 1 0:00

You're listening to Finding Your It Factor - Episode 22. When it comes to delivering a talk to your ideal audience, your topic matters. It's how you'll stand out in a sea of pitches and jump out from a lineup of a bunch of other talks and although, really, it's your content and your delivery that'll make you shine and turn those audience members into raving fans, it all begins with the topic that you choose. So today with a very, very raspy voice, I'm bringing it all for you and I'm sharing with you how to nail your topic. Specifically, I'll be sharing with you five tips for choosing your signature talk theme. So we might have a good laugh today out over how ridiculous I sound, but this topic, pun intended, it just can't wait. We're going to talk about topics. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to push through this crazy voice. Here we go, guys, let's make it happen.

Speaker 2 1:03

Have you ever wondered how some people just seem to have a way with words, they have this spark that lights you up when you're near them? They have the It factor and while most people think it's something that only a few are born with, I believe that you can find it so it can become your super power to grow your business. It's about you bringing your brand to life by becoming a magnetic communicator in person and on camera, showing up with confidence, authenticity, and inspiration. So, are you ready to become magnetic? I thought so. I'm Heather Sager and I'd like to welcome you to Finding Your It Factor. Well, welcome back to another week

Speaker 1 1:54

friends. Yes, we first just have to go into it and call out the elephant in the room. My voice sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? I , I lost my voice earlier this week and I put off recording as absolutely long as I could and I just couldn't. I couldn't wait any longer, so we're going to have to do this today. I've been sick all week with no voice and so many crazy things going on. I have to tell you, first, you'll get a good laugh at this. We're going to get to the topic today. It's a really good one, but you're going to have to laugh. I am sitting on the floor of my master closet right now. It is just after nine o'clock on Saturday night, the Saturday before this airs and I have had a crazy day getting ready for leaving to LA tomorrow to go to Tyler McCall's online business accelerator event. And uh , I just have a lot of things to do. I just put the kids to bed and I know that they're going to wake up in wa- water and make all the excuses in the world. So I put my husband on his own dad duty and he's the buffer right now and there's three doors between me and the children and I had to get this podcast cranked out. So I'm sitting on the floor of my closet cause it's a quiet room and it's as far away as I can get from my kids so that I could actually show up for you and talk about this really important topic today. And it's all comes back to this idea around so many of us procrastinate when it comes to speaking. I'm just going to dive into it today because I don't want to talk a long time. I want you to like jam pack as much as I can in the shortest amount of time so I could rest my voice. But people procrastinate. I've done it. You've done it. You might even be doing it right now and here's what you might be procrastinating with right now. You have this big dream in your head that you would love to one day someday speak on a big stage. Maybe you've seen another inspiring a woman who's a motivational or inspirational speaker or just someone who's really made you go, wow, I wish that I could do that. And it started this little spark inside of you where you thought maybe one day you could also speak and that that little flicker of a flame sort of growing brighter and brighter and brighter, and you started getting more and more excited about this idea of speaking on a stage and maybe it's not even a stage that draws you in this idea that you have this message and you want to bring it to a bigger audience and you want to make a big impact. You know that the desire is burning in you so freaking bright. Here's where you get stuck. You keep trying to figure out, but what would my message be? What would my topic be? What would I even talk about? And you have a business you are , or you're starting a business and you have an idea of what you're doing there, but you can't quite grasp what the heck would you talk about on a stage that would compel someone to hire you or, or choose you to come talk to their audience, let alone an audience being enthralled in what you had to say. It just feels so pressuresome that it's just much easier to step back into daydreaming about someday . So if that happens to be where you are, today's episode is absolutely for you. Now, maybe you're not in procrastination mode where you're sitting here on the sidelines and you're like, man, Heather put me in the game. I am ready to go. I have some ideas of where I want to speak. I just need, I just need that little something extra to get myself moving. I want to make sure I nail my topic. This is for you today to. This, this episode's also perfect for you if you have been speaking, but you've been speaking on a variety of different things and you really want to nail down a talk that aligns with driving the right leads into your business and actually start creating some revenue, whether it's a paid talk or those leads become buying customers. So I want you to think about choosing your topic is a very strategic thing when it comes to speaking, regardless of whether or not you're collecting a fee. I've told you this many times before. I do different kinds of speaking. I do free speaking as a way to get my name out there. Also a way to practice new material. I do speaking for lead generation or specifically I'm going after audiences where I want people to be on my email list and I want to nurture them and I hope that one day they become my students or customers. I also do speaking for fees, so direct revenue into my business and I have a strategy for the types of topics I pick for each and today what I'm going to share with you are some of the tips and strategies that I would recommend that you follow when it comes to identifying what specifically you're going to talk to an audience about. Before I dive into those tips, two quick things. So number one, since this is a topic that I think trips up so many people, to be honest, this trip me up for a very, very long time when it came to building a talk for my business. I wanted to make this as easy as possible for you. So for today's episode, I made you a cheat sheet to help you out break through some of those sticky points where you might find yourself moving into analysis paralysis or moving into brainstorm mode or just wanting to sit back and chew on it. I want you to get out of that space and into action. I want you to head over and grab that cheat sheet cause it's going to do two things for you. Number one, I'm going to give you some very tactical, tangible places where you could go and find ideas for your niche. So number one, that's going to be in there. Number two, it's also going to give you ideas. I've actually pulled talk names , uh , across all different conferences that I've seen where I want to give you some ideas for topics that you could model your talk after. So I feel like sometimes when you have examples, it's like, or swipe files, if you will, it gets your mind moving where you can start thinking about how to make this work for you. So that's available for you. You can go download it right now, heathersager.com/topicideas, heathersager.com/topicideas You can head on over, grab that cheat sheet to pair with the tips that I'm going to give you today and I think that will help be that kick in the butt to move you from dreaming, brainstorm mode into action. It's really easy to keep focusing on someday . It's more difficult to actually put something on paper and get yourself booked for just a free local talk and build the talk and get out there. That's scary. We talked about it last week that when you first start doing this, it's , it's not going to be great, and I say that not because in the grand scheme of things, it's not going to be great. You're going to do an awesome job. Don't forget about that. You're going to do an awesome job, but here's where you're going to think it's not great because I know that you're like me in this way. Where the the bar that you have set for yourself in the quality of work that you know is possible. The quality of work that you expect from yourself when you haven't done something before. When you shoot out of the gate, you are not going to reach that bar. You're going to, you're going to swing and miss so hard and you're going to be frustrated. You're going to be really frustrated and you're going to do a talk and you're going to feel that high for a moment. And then the doubts gonna question or come in and you're gonna question yourself and you're gonna be like, ah, dang it, I missed this and I missed that and I, I should have done this. I should have done that. And we all do it. I know. You know exactly what I mean. We all do it for so many different things and, and sometimes we push through it. Sometimes we shy away from it and go back to the things that we know we can rock. I want to challenge you when it comes to speaking. You're going to have this devil-angel advocacy relationship situation, whatever you want to call it, on your shoulder, or you're always going to have to be the one sharing yourself on. You're also going to be your own biggest critique and just know and that doesn't always go away, but you get more confident and be able to show up and you get more confident because you can actually see that it's making a difference. So even for me, I've given a lot talks over the last 15 years. I still leave almost every presen-, nope, every presentation I leave every presentation with some kind of crap. I miss this, or, Oh, did I talk too much here? Or, Oh man, I missed this big thing. I wanted to tell them every single time. You know? Let me give you another example here because even one of the most highest paid speakers in the world, Rachel Hollis, I saw her post on Instagram a couple of weeks ago . She finished one of her largest women's conferences in Florida and she was talk-, she came on Instagram the next morning and she was talking about how she went to bed that night, kicking herself because there was this message that she felt she didn't land on that stage. Guys , I have seen that woman on stage and she is fire. She does not miss a message, but she's got that same thing, that inner voice telling or after that the quality of work that she wants to bring and what she actually brings sometimes or might doesn't quite match up and it's okay . You know, I went on this tangent because where I want you to not get stuck in is this idea of being paralyzed because you don't feel ready yet. Don't worry about that right now. What I want you to be thinking about right now is just what's the next step? What's the next step? Last week, we talked about just understanding all of the steps. What's the roadmap to getting on a stage and then being on a stage and connecting the dots back to your business. That was the roadmap, the strategy of speaking. Remember, go back and listen to episode 21 if you haven't already. That's a really great starting point. That was the step last week. Today's step is starting to identify a topic. That's all I want you thinking about right now. Keep your eyes down, focus on what's in front of you. Don't worry about the stage yet, don't worry about the delivery yet. Don't worry about the getting opt-ins or making sales like re-remove all of that from your mind right now and just focus on the topic. That's where we're at right here, right now. So to set the stage on that, I want to tell you just a quick story about of someone I talked to last fall at a conference I was at, I was speaking at a breakout. I was teaching around communication skills and getting more comfortable with their stage presence. And there was a gentleman in the audience, which was kind of fun. I work primarily with women, but I also do a lot of coaching for men too. And he , uh, he had a question during the Q&A portion where I opened it up to any question about speaking and he stumbled for a moment and he, he said something along the lines that he was struggling a bit in his career. He was, he was a leader in an organization and he was struggling because he was a thought leader when it came to marketing. And he was getting asked to speak a lot, but he found himself turning down these opportunities because people were asking him to talk on all these different marketing topics and it was taking him so much time to put together these presentations. And so it was taking away from his core work. And even though he really liked talking to groups, he became this person who dreaded getting the requests because it came with all this extra work. So this is what I asked him. I asked him, Hey dude, I don't remember what his name was, but I was like, Hey, so tell me what is your signature talk? And his response was something along the lines of, well, anything related to marketing, I can pretty much talk on anything. My response to him was, well, there lies your problem. Is he , the issue is that if you want to be an authority in your niche, you have to decide what you want to be known for and what you want to speak on. If you want to have like an established message and get other people excited about having you talk about that message, you have to clarify what, what does the message look like? So let me give you a quick analogy here for a moment, and this is going to sound a little bit weird, but let me, let me just throw it out here because I just want to get present with you for a moment. Let's say you are a marketing coach or let's say you're a business coach. There are so many topics under that umbrella. You could easily fall into this exact same scenario of this, of this dude where people could ask you, Hey, could you talk about leadership? Hey, could you talk about operations? Hey, could you talk about scaling your business? Yes, the answer is yes. You could talk about all these things. I could talk about all these things. I was a coach for entrepreneurs to 10 years. I can talk about leadership, I can talk about finance, I could talk about so many different things. And when you are passionate about those things and you know about those things, and there are opportunities that are in front of you, it's really easy to say yes. But I want you to think about this analogy. Are you ready for it? So let's pretend for a moment that you own an amazing food truck. That food trucks are on my mind because I live in Portland, Oregon. There's food trucks everywhere. They're delicious and wonderful. Shout out food truck nation here in Portland. But let's say that you own a food truck and you make the best food in town. Let's narrow it down a bit. Let's say your food truck specializes in soup. I know soup. I've never actually seen a food truck that specializes in soup . But I feel like with my throat right now, this is what I need. So this is the analogy we're going with. All right, so a customer walks up to your food truck and your menu says, I make soup. I love all soups. I am so good with soups. Order a soup. Yeah, this is the analogy again, we're going for. So let's say customer a, Sally walks up and she goes, Hey, I'd love to have some pasta . [inaudible] please. Olive garden, anyone? Yes. And you're like, yeah, no problem. You turn around and you start cooking. Then Susie walks over and she says, Hey, can I have a bullet clam chowder? That's like soup, right? So you're like, yeah, no problem. And then Eddie orders minestrone and um , Poly, I don't know where my name selections coming from today, but Poly, he orders white bean and Tuscan kale, spicy sausage soup and people are just ordering. They're all soup. And here you are in the kitchen trying to figure out how the heck to make all these soup . So granted , you know how to make them, but do you have the ingredients on hand? Do you, are you able to build the flavor profiles and figure out the timing on everything and meanwhile, these customers are standing here waiting for their soup and they're all soup. Okay. You see what the problem is happening right now, is this pretty much is what's happening in your business. If you're not predetermining what your talk offerings are. Your menu is so generic that other people are now dictating what's on the menu. It doesn't work for a food truck. Most certainly doesn't work for a restaurant. It doesn't work. If you're building a business where you'd like to do speaking strategically. Let me emphasize the strategically because if you're just doing, speaking as, let's say a colleague asks you and you're like, Oh yeah, favor, colleague asked me, I like them. I'd be more than happy to come talk to their classroom or another let's say friend in one of your masterminds asks you to come talk to their master class and you're like, Oh yeah, I can do that. No problem. If you're just talking because you're doing people favors, you can talk on whatever people ask you to. The issue is you're going to have to create that talk every single time because you're , you're going off of other people requests, not what you want to serve and have available on the menu. You're picking up what I'm putting down there. So what we have to do as good news, you don't have to have a full giant menu of talks for this to work. You just need to have a couple of good ones. So, I recommend that if you're going to use speaking as a true marketing strategy to gain more visibility in your business and really start doing some list building in authority, accelerating, you should have two, maybe three go to talks and I'm g onna talk about that a little bit more today. But for right now, if you're just getting started or if you've never built a strategic talk before, I want you to focus on just getting one and delivering that talk over and over and over so you feel confident and you have it solid so you don't have to re-jig it. Re-gist it, redesign it every single time. Now let me give you a little point of precaution just in case or anything like me where you like to tinker and tweak. You know that you're gonna deliver it one time and want to make changes and then you're gonna wanna make changes the next time and then you're gonna, you have to understand that yes, your talk is going to be fluid, but you also want to design a talk where for the most part you can set it and forget it. Meaning - that you can have it pretty much baked where you can pick it up off the shelf, practice it a few times, rehearse it a bit, just recall a nything that you may have missed, but you're able to show up and deliver it without a ton of additional effort because you have it that well together. If you're constantly tinkering it, it's going to, it's going to be more work because your b rain's not going to remember how it all flows together and you're going to, you're not going to be as efficient. So think about that. So I want you to focus on one talk to start with, but you might have actually a couple talks and I'll talk about the differences between those here , but let's dive into the five tips that I want you to be thinking about as you start narrowing the focus for what your signature talk could be. Now, real quick, let me define what a signature talk is. Uh , a signature talk specifically is a talk that is a core topic that aligns really well to your business and really well to your core programs. So let's say you have a signature coaching program, or let's say that you have a core digital course that you promote often. Let's say you're a service provider and you have a core package and there's a process that you run your clients through, your signature talk needs to align with whatever that thing is. And by align I don't mean that you're going to be doing an infomercial for your program. Like let me just be super clear. This is not one of those infomercials or seminars where essentially you're just bait and switching people into a sale. No, it's just your topic has to align with that. Your signature talk includes a story about why you're so passionate about this topic. It includes your origin of how you came to be, not like from birth to now, but like what was the thing that that was the catalyst to drive you into doing the work that you're doing right now in this program. So your signature talk has quite a few things, but I want you to think about this. Your signature talk is a marketing talk. So the mistake that a lot of people make is they focus on their talks being solely inspirational or educational, which that's great, but remember, you have a business and your business is depending on you to be a good sales woman. So thinking about that, if you are going to use a platform like a stage to get out in front of people, it's your responsibility to treat it as a marketer and get out and talk to people and share your passion and your excitement and get them excited and passionate about wanting to continue the work together. So a signature talk, the secret of a signature talk is that your talk actually teaches and inspires and lays the foundation for a really easy sell. Now, let me be clear. A lot of people have a negative , uh , relationship with the word selling. I don't, I don't at all. And here's the thing I love. This is going to sound so weird. I love buying things. I love buying things that I'm excited about. I love buying things that I want. I am onboard with buying things that I need. I'm onboard buying things that I'm passionate about. I don't buy things that I have no interest in. I don't buy things from people that I don't trust, that I don't know, that I don't like. I don't buy products that I don't believe in. So for me, when somebody sells me or tries to sell me something that I don't want, that I don't need, and I don't like them, I don't care because I'm not going to buy it. So for me, I'm like, nah, that's whatever. They're like, I'm not interested, but if somebody offers me something that I'm like, yes, I want that. Yes, that's something I'm interested in. Yes, I'm excited for it. And they say, Hey, would you like this? I'm not mad about that at all. I'm like, yes, please. And thank you. So I think the negativity that people have associated selling, by the way, we're going to dive into the topic of selling a lot in, in March and April. Uh , this is a topic I'm very, very passionate about. I think we'll circle back around and talk about this quite a bit more, but when it comes to this idea of quote unquote selling from the stage, a lot of people are turned off by this, side note from me at this point in time, I am not a huge fan of selling things from a stage, but I am a big fan of talking about things from the stage to set up a sale. My perspective might change down the road, but for right now, my thought is you're selling yourself from the stage. You're getting other people to buy into. You buy into what you know, buy into what you're passionate about and getting them excited to want to work with you. Whether that's a booking an appointment to talk to you, whether that's opting into a free resource or whatever else from the stage or after you get off the stage. I want you to think about your talk has to create this. Let's look like laying down the red carpet for people to walk down at with you after you're done. So your signature talk isn't just about what you know, it's, it's teaching your audience what you can do with them and for them and get them excited about a pathway to the future. So let's dive into some of those tips now that we've talked about signature talk. So tip number one, clarify the type of stage you want to be on. So this is doing some, a little bit of due diligence groundwork because in order for you to pick the right topic, I also want you to think about how you're going to be engaging with an audience. Now, it might vary from event to event, but if you're just getting started, you're most likely not going to be doing what's called a key note presentation. From a large stage. A keynote presentation is more of a one way conversation where you are essentially delivering the message from a large stage. It's more of a presentation, a little bit more of a performance. You don't have as much flexibility to get input from the audience. People are a little less engaged. They're , uh , the most interaction that you have, maybe as a Q&A, maybe some hand raises if you feel comfortable doing that, but it's not a facilitated session where you're getting people chiming in, so that's the most formal. Some people love keynotes, some people hate them. I love them. I also love the next kind of talk that I'm going to tell you about in just a second, but I want you to think about if you're designing a keynote, you want to make sure you have a little bit of a, this is a weird phrase that I've never used, but a little bit of like a razzle dazzle situation to your topic because if people are going to see you on a big stage, you want your topic to really shine so that you can shine in and your audience can get excited with you. So you want to think about are you going to be on a big stage or let's talk about another type of stage. Are you going to be doing more of a workshop, more of a smaller, intimate group. Hint. This is most likely what you'll be doing the most of if you're just getting started or earlier in your speaking journey. So this might be to a group of four, six, 12, maybe 20, 30 people, civically smaller groups, and I'm calling it a workshop because most likely you'll have far more interaction with your audience or you can actually ask a question and you're standing right in front of them and can get answers in real time and build off of that. Oftentimes I hear from my clients and students that they feel really comfortable in these types of situations because they love being more off the cuff and actually having conversations and feeding off of what people tell them. So if that jives with you, you can choose a topic that's more open to discussion, something where people can contribute a little bit more to. Now in addition to the type of talk, so again, whether it's a keynote presentation or more of a workshop style , uh, and remember that the spectrum on that is a keynote is you doing most of the talking down to the other end of the spectrum with a workshop is where you're actually getting your audience chime in a bit more. You're still giving a talk for sure. Let me be clear about that. It's just a little less one way. You can get a little bit more than interaction there. But in addition to that, there's also different types in between. And there's an episode that I did based around the different types of talks, so you can head back and listen to that. But I also want you to think about will you be presenting live on a stage or in a room or will you be presenting virtually? So that's a total possibility to, where you can be a guest on a webinar or in a masterclass where you can be doing things virtually. So first tip I have for you is think about the environment that you're going to be and the type of talk that you're giving. I even want you to close your eyes and picture it because I think it's really important to imagine yourself giving a talk, to start thinking about, okay, now what would I talk about? But if you step into the just the imagery of what it might look like, what it might feel like, I feel like being in that space, that always helps me get in more of the right mindset for brainstorming. So that's my first tip. Tip number two, I want you to choose the right type of talk. So we're still talking a little bit high level right now to narrow things down to help you get more focused on what your specific topic is. But I want to talk to you about the different kinds of talks. A lot of people generally talk about your signature talk as I defined here just a few minutes ago, I'm going to get even more laser focused, introduced two terms that I totally made up. But this is how I talk about choosing a topic with my students. So I talk about, there's two types of talks. Again, this is not scientific. If you Google this, I don't know what you'll find. I haven't done it, but this is how I describe it. So there is what I would call a pillar talk and a sexy talk. We'll talk about that one in just a minute. But a pillar talk for me is when I think pillars, I think core fundamentals, core elements, cornerstones, flagships, all the buzz words that you can think of. When I think of a pillar talk, I think that is the most classic version of a signature talk, meaning that there's that really beautiful symmetry between what you talk about in your message for your delivery, paired with what your business is, what you teach on, what your programs are, your offers, et cetera . So that would be a pillar talking. I'm going to give you some examples here in just a second. A sexy talk. Woo , boop . It's hard to say sexy talk right now with my voice, but guys, bear with me. So a sexy talk, okay, what's that? For me , a sexy talk is a laser focused, very specific thing that you're going to talk about. And the reason why I call it sexy talk is because it's usually something like one little tasty nugget that people are really excited to talk about. So let me give you some examples of these kinds of talks. So I'll start with myself. My pillar talk is around speaking for visibility in your business. So I talk about uh , some of the mistakes that people make when it comes to speaking by being more educational versus uh, versus them being more , um, as a marketer , uh , you can be an educational marketer but actually lead towards a decision. So I talk about speaking as a strategy, the mistakes that people make and then teach people some really core elements that they need to be able to show up as an authority and start shifting to a strategic speaker versus just an educational speaker. That's a pillar talk for me because it perfectly aligns with what I do. I'm a speaking coach. I help people create and deliver their signature talk. I also have a program called Speak Up to Level Up, which is a group coaching program that helps people do the same. I also will be having a digital course coming out later this year. So for me, my pillar talk perfectly aligns to my offers. It goes to my core audience where they are. It gives them tremendous value, helps them take the next step, and then it gets them excited to want to continue on their learning journey with me. That's a pillar talk. An example of a sexy talk that I get. I can't even say that with a straight face right now with my boys, but a example of a sexy talk I give. Let me give you two. One, I'm doing here in a couple of weeks . I'm giving a sexy talk, a very specific talk around pitching to get on stages . That's a sexy talk because it's something that everybody wants to learn about. It's a very like hot topic. Um, but number two, it's very, very specific. One specific aspect of my entire business plan , entire framework. One thing, another sexy talk I love to give is talking about body language and vocal delivery. This is a really big one specifically for people who do videos and podcasting, teaching them how to use their tone and their cadence and just their , uh, their vocal, vocalities, around how to come across more excited and passionate and dynamics so they can be better engaging with their audience. So that's a very specific one or body language, teaching leaders how to foster more collaborative and open environments, that's my corporate one. My corporate talks, I'm teaching them how to be , um, to be better leaders through having better body language. Uh , very, very specific. It's a really hot talk that I do , uh, sounded inappropriate, but you know what I mean. Right. It's, it's a , it's a popular one that I do, I call it a sexy talk because it's very, very specific and focused, but it's not a , it doesn't have all the elements of what I do. It's just one specific facet. Let me give you a couple other industries samples that you might be familiar with. So Amy Porterfield, let me give you an example of what she might do for a signature talk versus a sexy talk. So a signature talk for Amy Porterfield would be definitely related to digital course creation and list building, so she might talk about why a digital core space business is for you, making a case for why moving from one on one work to scaling your business so that you can her quoting, you can only say yes to the things that light you up. That's a signature phrase that Amy uses a lot in her programs and in her webinars so she might do a signature talk specifically around that leading the pathway down to people being more interested in digital courses. Now a sexy talk for her. It could be something more around becoming more confident delivering Facebook lives or a knocking out your prelaunch runway in a more effective way. In fact, she actually did a specific sexy talk on pre-launch runway. She did add Stu McLaren's tribe live this last spring and she actually aired that talk on her podcast here recently, so that would be an example there of her signature talk versus sexy talk. Now, just to be clear, these are not Amy's terms and I haven't actually vetted that those are her actual talks, it's just ones that I've seen and heard her do before. All right , let's jump into tip number three. You want to solve a problem or pain point for your audience. Guys, this one is a really, really important one and this one is the big shift in thinking about just educating and providing value to your audience in terms of, Hey, what can I teach them? What do I know? What am I best things? Don't think about that. I want you to think about what does your audience actually need and want and focus a little bit more on want because the want is going to get them more interested and then you can teach them what they need a little bit later. But when you focus on a pain point or a problem your audience is having, you're going to resonate far more where they are right now. You want to go where your audience is right now. So, some things to start thinking about. What keeps your audience awake at night? What are they chatting about or complaining about or ranting about in Facebook groups? Like what's the biggest pressures, the biggest challenges your audience's having today related to your niche? I want you to think about that and this would be a really good time where we make the episode today actionable and you get out a piece of paper and just go quiet for a moment and just let your mind go. Brain dump, get it all out, get all the ideas out around what challenges and pain points is your audience having today. So, I also want to dive into this idea that I mentioned before around want versus need. So you've heard this phrase before , uh , sell them what they want and give them or teach them what they need. This is also really true when it comes to talks. And let me give you an example. Let's say you're a business coach and you know that what your ideal customer really needs is they need systems and processes so they can actually scale and they can stop being so hamster wheel like, like you know, systems and processes is the, is the thing they need . Well here's the thing, most business owners aren't going, yes, please sign me up for systems and processes. Like even theoretically we know we need them and we know there's value in them, but it's like that's not what's on fire today. So if you have a talk called three systems, you needed your business today. I mean it could be really good information but it's not really going to get people excited out of the gate. So instead think about what do they want, what are the systems and processes going to do for them? What's the thing they're after or what's the thing they're avoided or readied from right now? So instead, you could call it, three strategies to break from through the plateau to consistent growth. Full disclaimer right now. I've had to hit pause on the recording about 17 times in the last four minutes cause I can't stop coughing. So let me pick back up here on that example. And I don't know how much longer my throat's gonna last guys, but I'm gonna push through this cause we're getting to the good stuff right now. So that last example there, did you, did you hear the difference between talking into your language as the expert, knowing what they need to do versus the things that your audience actually thinking about and what they want and what they don't want? That's what I want you to think about in terms of your topic. So if you can hone in and focus on helping solve a problem, you'll get a lot more attention and interest from those wanting to bring you on their stage and excitement from your audience actually getting what you're talking about and wanting to learn more. So that's tip number three. Tip number four, stay in your lane. Be on-brand. Okay. What do I mean by this? So remember that example I used at the beginning of the gentlemen from that breakout who said he could talk about anything related to marketing. And then I shared with you, I used to be an entrepreneur business coach, so I could talk about a lot of different areas of business. Well for me, my, my business right now is I am a speaking coach for entrepreneurs. I need to make sure that my talks are in my lane because if I jump out, let's say, and I do a talk around operationalizing your business and hiring the right team member, well for me that would be a topic very naturally suited. I ran a recruiting team for a very long time. I know what it takes to hire the right team members. And I do hiring, I mean in my business too. And I did hiring for years. So it's something that is totally in my wheelhouse, but it's not right now in my lane on brand. So think about what that means for you. You could have a lot of different things that you're passionate about. Maybe you're a multi-passionate entrepreneur, maybe you have a hobby and you have a side hustle and you have a business. Like maybe there's a lot of different things going on and you're trying to figure out which one do I choose to hone it on my talk. Remember, if you're looking to use, speaking as a platform to accelerate your, your authority, you're looking to accelerate your business. So whether that's the business of your personal brand, whether you have a business with a different name that you're trying to get more exposure for, your speaking to grow your business. So think about what lane is your business in and ensure that your topic fits within that. And it's not totally out of left field or it's not even like four or five degrees. The like slightly aja-, like you don't want it to be adjacent to your brand, like you want it to be on brand. So you have to ask yourself this question when you're thinking about topic ideas, you have to ask the question, do I want to be known for this? If someone was in the audience and this was the first time they ever had heard of you, is this the first impression you want to make? Is this what you want to be known for? That's what you need to gut check it with. Now remember, remember, like not, don't worry about like the pressuresome, like don't try to make this a really big deal of like, Oh my God, now I have to make sure it's perfect. No, don't worry about that. We'll talk about that in a second, but you want to make sure it's a topic that fits within the lane of your business. So as you start brainstorming ideas, if you come up with a really fun topic, you're like, Oh gosh, this could be super cool to talk about. Remember, just because you could talk about it doesn't mean you should. One of my students in my Speak Up to Level Up program, Kristen , that we , you're talking about this specific theme with the talk she's building right now on this idea of just because you could doesn't mean that you should, and I think this message is so spot on, so perfect for you because you have to gut check and make sure that the topic that you're picking fits in the strategy that you laid out. Go back, remember the roadmap. Why are we speaking in the first place? Make sure your topic is on brand and in the lane of not only your business, but specifically around the types of offers you would like to make to this audience down the road. That won't be from the stage or it might be, but it most likely won't be with them stage. It will be down the road as you nurture and get to know that person as part of your list or about a part of your other Facebook groups or whatever else that looks like. So making sure it's on brand and in your lane. All right , last tip, tip number five. I want you to commit to this topic, but remember this is not the end all be all. I think a lot of people think that, Oh my gosh, I, I can't quite pick a topic or I'm still trying to think about it because it's going to be cemented on your forehead. Is that a thing? I don't know. I think we're afraid of it, but we get so wrapped up trying to make it perfect and remember what I said before, it's not going to be perfect. It's not going to be exceptional. It's, it's going to be fine. You just have to start doing it and it starts with just picking a topic and ripping off the bandaid and going for it. So remember also the beautiful thing about a live audience is you get immediate feedback. Like if you show up with a topic for your first, let's say your first talk and you only have 12 people in the room, that's a great size audience. That's actually a really good size audience. Let's say you have told people in the room, like you're going to get feedback right away by the questions they ask . Take note of the questions they ask because that is fuel for the next time you give the talk. You can actually embed some of the questions into your talk and have content that anticipates what they're going to ask, which, Oh my goodness, that's gold by the way. You're also going to be able to anticipate how they're feeling about what you're talking about based off their body language. So if your topic isn't quite resonating or if there's something that they're confused about or tripping upon, you're going to see it, especially in a smaller group, so it's not permanent. Your talk topic isn't permanent and honestly it's probably going to take some time for you to find a rhythm and perfect it and every time you deliver it, it's going to get a little better and a little better and a little better. So this is why this is the last tip I want to leave you with. It's because I want to remind you what I talked about the top of this episode around if you're procrastinating or if you're putting off because you're not quite sure what to do and you want to get it perfect. Commit to progress, not perfection. Just my favorite quote from Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo. It's so good. It's, it's this idea that you have to just keep taking imperfect action. That's what I want you to focus on right now is start by taking the first step and getting some ideas down on paper, vetting them through these tips we talked about today. And what I want you to do is take action. Here is your assignment this week to keep moving. I want you to do the topic brainstorm. I want you to go download that cheat sheet cause that's gonna help you get some reference points for stimulating your ideas. Give you some examples around where you could start looking for those topic ideas and then some ideas around how to format it. Head on over, heathersager.com/topicideas and you can get that cheat sheet for today. I want you to do the brainstorm and I want you to narrow it down to your favorite three topics and then you can sit with those for a few days. Start imagining what those could look like and then we can start talking a bit more about what , what to do next. But I just want you to get it narrowed down to your favorite three. Try them on for size, see how it feels. That is your assignment. And I think if you can get more excited about your topic, start having a clear picture, you can start visualizing yourself on a stage in front of an audience. Not only just nailing it, feeling it, being present with them. You can visualize yourself stepping off stage and connecting with people who turn into future customers. It is an incredible feeling when you are able to help someone with your free content. It's an incredible feeling when you're able to see them get so excited about taking the next step with you. And I want that for you so, so badly. I want that for you so badly that I just made it through this entire episode. Guys, this is one of the hardest things I've had to do in a very long time. I'm not gonna lie. I, I've had to hit pause so many times. My sweet, sweet husband James just ran in like a full supply of cough drops and water. He could hear me just hack it along in this closet. This was real hard guys. I had to show up for you because this is so important. Okay, so now that I showed up for you, your challenge is to start showing up for yourself so that you can show up for your audience. So first things for bearing through, I hope you had a good giggle over this voice today. And uh , if you enjoyed today's episode, would you please, please do me a favor. First of all, would you take a screenshot and give me a shout on Instagram to let me know that you were listening and that you fought through everything today or right alongside me to make it to the end? Give me a tag. It's @theheathersager. I'd love to connect over there and just know that you're , I just want to know that you're listening and how this connects with you. Also bonus points. If you tell me some of your ideas for topics, I would love to hear that. You also noticed today I skipped the review of the week cause I had to save my voice and just jump right through it. But I do read and I appreciate every single one of your reviews. So let me just ask, I pushed through today for you. Would you please pull through for be? Could you hit pause? Can you head over right where you're listening? Just scroll on down and will you leave a review and let me know what you think of the show? Those reviews, especially the ones with words in them, an actual message in there. That is life in the podcasting world. That is how other people determine whether or not they're going to listen to this show. So if you could please take an extra two minutes today, leave a review, subscribe, so that you get the bonus episodes I'll be doing up real soon. Get those and of course a share, a share a share. Thank you so much for tuning in. I am so excited for you on this next step in your speaking journey and be sure to head on over and grab your cheat sheet to help you accelerate your progress a step further, heathersager.com/topicideas. All right, I will see you back here hopefully with a full voice next week. Same time, same place. See you soon friend.

Speaker 2 52:28

[inaudible] Guys, thanks so much for listening to Finding your It Factor and Hey, if you have a talk coming up, you have to check out my free resource. It's called Nail Your Next Talk. 10 must ask questions before taking the stage so you can show up as an authority and turn that talk into future business. These are the questions that I use myself to prepare for my live talks, and they're going to help you ask the right questions of the person who booked you for the event so the meeting planner or the client, and it's going to help you serve your audience to the best way possible. It's going to help you anticipate potential tech or 80 snags. Turn the Q&A time into a strategic place for content and make this speaking opportunity, a lead generator for your business. So go get it now. What are you waiting for? It's over@heathersager. com/10 questions [inaudible] .