At GWU’s women in business leadership class with Kathy Korman Frey and Kassie Rempel

What a great night of ideas.
The ever fun, sassy, successful entrepreneur and business professor Kathy Korman Frey – founder of The Hot Mommas Project – created a chance for a few business owners to speak with her Women in Business Leadership class at George Washington University here in DC…including myself!

Ragingly successful business owner Kassie Rempel of Simply Soles and I formed a mini-panel with Kathy’s class last night; all led to a fantastic conversation with app. 25 students (all from other countries – visiting and studying in the US for the first time).

• overcoming obstacles and disappointment in biz
• deciding on a business offering
• speaking in public
• owning business decisions
• exercising confidence
• pursuing parallel business paths

…and so much more was talked about. Thanks Kathy, Kassie, and the students (aren’t we all students in the end?!) for a dynamic and substantive conversation.

Kathy as ‘Professor Frey’, starting the class discussion

Introductions begin…

Fellow panelist Kassie Remple and her great business know-how

Smart, gutsy students from GWU’s Women in Business Leadership Class

Video Clip: presenting at the Women Grow Business Bootcamp

Group photo by Network Solutions’ Shashi Bellamkonda, Women Grow Business blogger team at Bootcamp

As someone who helped get the Women Grow Business community off the ground over a year ago (with the great team of social media swami Shashi Bellamkonda), this particular day made such an impact on my thinking.

It was irreplaceable.

Apart of the DC region’s Digital Capital Week events, it was beyond educational and motivating with over 100 women business owners arriving early on a recent Saturday morning to learn and engage. All this equated to fantastic introductions, new friends, great resources and potential partnerships – thus the first Women Grow Business Bootcamp that wonderful editor Shonali Burke organized. There’s more here on coverage with video excerpts by the great folks at Yayastream.

What would you like to see at the next Women Grow Business Bootcamp?

What an energizing day, with 5 minutes of my closing remarks here.

About to meet & speak to Kathy Frey’s GWU leadership class

Social Media Club’s Breakfast: Great Crowds, Ideas, Community

Thanks again to the Ruiz Mcpherson team for the chance to guest post this fun social media event and talk!

What a blast it was meeting recently with great folks and conversation at Social Media Club’s breakfast hosted in DC. It was great presenting there on an addictive topic: DC’s regional community. What area events bring together people offline and/or through social media? …when, why, and how? These questions were explored (and then some!) by the fun, interactive crowd and the other presenters: TECH Cocktail’s founder Frank Gruber and SMC’s Education Connection guru Yong Lee (and I shared on DC Media Makers and the blogger community Women Grow Business).

Social media love and diversity
It was early a.m. but despite that, a robust crowd was ready to engage! The breakfast attracted many parts of the social media lovin’ community — small business owners, freelancers, educators, content creators, marketers, and more. The diversity stood out and I learned a lot.

Community and social tech
The breakfast underscored a key point: DC provides so many ways to get involved with and learn from different parts of the area (in and beyond digital technology). A snapshot of those discussed:

• DC Media Makers or #DCMM on Twitter (next event/media mashup: April 28th) – a volunteer group of those who want to learn, create, and talk about digital technology. The goal is to just have fun while sharing digital projects — whether its videoblogging, filmmaking, podcasting, blogging, screencasting, or other ways to create stories and community through digital media.

• TECH Cocktail or @Techcocktail on Twitter (next event: May 5th) – a dynamic networking event series that features local startups. These events can really pack a room! It’s fantastic and gives selected startups the chance to introduce their business to many plus meet tons of tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, and potential funders.

• Digital Capital Week or @DCWeek on Twitter (next event: June 11th – June 20th) – a huge, inclusive festival celebrating “technology, innovation, and all things digital in Washington, DC.” A ton of events accessible to the public will take place those 10 days. No matter your experience with technology — if you’re curious, enthusiastic (or both) there’s a place for you to have fun. Folks can collaborate on digital projects, host happy hours or panelist events, donate computers to schools or organizations in need and more…

• Social Media Club’s Education Connection or #SMCedu on Twitter (next event: June 16th) – a dedicated, growing community sharing great resources about the field and asking strong questions, like: How are teachers and students improving education through social media? How can social tech change the future of education itself?

• Women Grow Business or @wgBiz on Twitter (next event to be posted on the blog) – a diverse, resourceful, and flat out fun troupe of volunteer bloggers dedicated to helping women entrepreneurs and those in small biz succeed (RMC’s Mayra is a steady fan and blogger there too!).

Want more on the breakfast and Social Media Club in general?
Thanks big time to Andi Narvaez and Rachel Rule for making the breakfast possible. There’s content galore about the event, including complete video coverage per the archived web stream with more fun video interviews by Ananda Leeke (and you’re welcome to follow SMC’s breakfast Twitter feed for ongoing chats aka #SMBdc). P.S. The Club’s blog regularly updates with social media news and events.

Pictured above are myself with Yong and Frank – image by Catherine S. Read.

Oh yeah – pic! DC improv #publicSpeaking at it’s finest

Jill Foster
Live Your Talk
liveyourtalk.com
@jillfoster

Posted via email from jillfoster’s posterous

3 Tips to Ensure Your Team Is Ready to Represent Offline

A small business owner and I recently discussed the growing relationship economy. And a favorite topic of ours came up: social media and the progress her team was making on that front.

She was thrilled at how her staff engaged through their Facebook fan page and a Youtube video series to engage prospect relationships and drive sales.

She then admitted something that really caught my attention.
Her savvy team was so skilled at engaging through social media. So she felt comfortable with them presenting as panelists for a small industry event.

…which didn’t turn out as she first hoped.

To her surprise, the team lacked confidence and basic skill in this public speech scenario.

She realized she had assumed their comfort and savvy in communicating online would automatically translate to offline environments.

Some ideas to audit and shape your team’s public speaking skill:

1. Assess team skill before game time.
Create chances with your team to discuss, audit, and practice public speaking skill, like in assessment and goal setting situations.

Discuss which scenarios where they’ve publicly presented – like what type of audiences, with or without co-presenters, or in vs outside your industry. Learn what topics and stories related to your business most draw out their interest. Build off that subject matter and collaborate on a plan to finesse their speaking ability.

2. Make the marketing value of public speaking a team mindset.
Are there small business events/conferences (great calendar of entrepreneurial events at Small Biz Trends), podcamps, or local meetups (in case you’re in the DC region) that would be ideal places for your business to be seen? …and be conversational forums for your team to present?

Fast Company blogger and presentation guru Ruth Sherman recently made a great point: always be ready to speak. That’s not to say folks on your staff should be ready for a 60 minute keynote at the drop of a hat.

It means that for business to succeed, the mindset ‘always be marketing’ rules the day. And the team’s ability to represent well even at the most relaxed speaking environment makes an impact.

3. Develop quick key messages for a range of speaking opportunities.
To bolster team readiness, it’s worth it to craft a mini, ongoing archive of key messages that reflect your business values, service, and industry relevance. These can be on-hand for future fleshing out for speeches or even networking events.

It’s the relationship economy.

Is your team ready to help build those relationships through authentic and skilled public speech ability?

Image Ready to Fly by Marcel Germain, Creative Commons

The One Criteria for Building Your Signature Speech

Two events recently made me reflect on an audience and the impact of public speaking.

One was hearing a keynote address by tech entrepreneur and champion of Twitter Laura Fitton. The other was reading a quote from Gel Conference creator Mark Hurst.

Laura gave the opening keynote address at last year’s Blogworld Expo. She offered plenty of knowledge on Twitter applications and entrepreneurship. But that didn’t drive her speech.

What did:
Her passion for how an online social network made her and many others more connected – and in the end, the world is becoming a less isolated place in her view.

It compelled me to look at social networks in a different way. Her story of authentic enthusiasm came across like a unique ’signature of attitude.’

And then in Seth Godin’s fantastic ebook of insights by thought leaders in business, digital tech, and more – Mark Hurst said:

“People at events are hungry for authenticity. [As a speaker] …you have to build the talk around your passion.”

Sure it’s critical to know the specific audience before you as a speaker – the time requirements, good speech mechanics, stage tech, etc. The goal is not to give generic presentations to every audience. But what Mark conveyed (and what Laura demonstrated) is this:

It’s worth recognizing clearly what exhilarates us as business owners and relate to the audience through that attitude.

Three questions that helped me articulate driving passion in speeches for greater audience impact:

What is your driving motivator?

How can that motivation be described in a story (and then become your signature story that conveys what you believe in most?)?

How can that story relate to what your specific audience requires?

An example comes to mind from a professional photographer who described her workshops recently.

She said: “There’s a lot of technical instruction involved in my workshops. But what I really help my audience understand is how to give the world an archive of beauty!”

That’s her driving passion and I couldn’t wait to help fill her workshop with attendees.

What do you think? What does the passion in your signature speech look like?

Image Do Your Own Thing Pie4Dan, Creative Commons

Public Speech Mistakes and Re-building Trust with an Audience

It’s almost Valentine’s Day and images are everywhere reminding us to care.

In that spirit, have you ever seen a public speaker who came across like they just didn’t care?

I did recently at a conference. And their indifference was like receiving toothpicks for Valentines — it was technically still a gift of function but without making the recipient (or audience) feel special in the process!

At that recent event, the speaker – a business owner in a room full of business owners – said when advancing their slides:

“Oh this set of slides is meant for a different talk. I guess I forgot to change these.” At that point, another conference’s logo (not the logo representing our event) glared on the overhead screen. Without apology, the speaker continued.

This experience was a lost opportunity for audience and speaker alike. Every public speech is a chance to give value, forge trust, and build brand credibility with the audience.

Steps to recover trust that this speaker could’ve taken:

1. Show ownership and a solution quickly
A simple apology gains tons of ground! In this case, the correct slides could’ve been made available later via email or Slideshare. Neither occurred.

2. Offer a gift
Extend a discount on services or sneak peek on upcoming product launches. That’s not to suggest giving ‘away the farm’ just because of a presentation error. But it’s a tangible way to show value for that particular audience.

3. Welcome honest feedback
Convey value for the audience’s opinion and insight even if it means eating humble pie, with this statement as example: “Thanks for your time today and hanging in there when I messed up. I’m committed to improving value so I hope you’ll relay feedback on the event evaluation.”

4. Invite ongoing conversation after the event
The speaker-audience experience is a relational dynamic with all sorts of potential for leads, partnerships, and even community. The speaker could’ve shown their interest by offering to engage post-event through LinkedIn, Twitter, or other networks.

What do you think? Have you been in a similar situation? How else could this presenter have shown they valued the audience after the slide mistake?

Image Healing by Wolf Soul, Creative Commons

We Become What We Practice Most

Welcome(!) and it’s good to see you here. We’ve got our metaphorical hard hats on now building the site. But we’ll be up soon.

In the meantime, here’s why we’re driven by women’s leadership and public speech in these digital times.

…with more:

There’s that old adage out there: “We become what we practice most.”

No matter what our professional missions, if we practice our confidence through words – if we articulate it in such an awesome way – what could happen? Could we further clarify, rally, heal, profit, engage, emerge, inspire, unite? As awesome speakers can we propel forward our highest ideals and crystalize our best selves?

That’s why we Live Your Talk.

Image Levitation Practice by Desiree Delgado, Creative Commons.