Missions to Movements
This isn't just another nonprofit podcast - it's your weekly invitation to think bigger, take bold risks, and create lasting change in an ever-evolving social impact landscape. Meet Dana Snyder, your guide through the evolving landscape of nonprofit innovation. She's on a mission to help change-makers like you push the boundaries of what's possible in nonprofit marketing and fundraising. Each week, Missions to Movements serves as your personal mastermind session, delivering actionable insights and bold strategies that challenge traditional nonprofit thinking. Dive into revolutionary approaches to digital fundraising, discover how to build magnetic monthly giving programs that create lasting donor relationships, and learn to amplify your voice as a thought leader in the social good space. Whether you're reimagining your organization's impact or forging game-changing partnerships, you'll find the ideas, insights, and inspiration to take your mission further than you've ever imagined. Ready to turn your mission into a movement?
Missions to Movements
How To Craft A Signature Talk to Amplify Your Mission with Speaking Coach, Heather Sager
You deserve to be on stages of all shapes and sizes this year. And the only way that we're going to shake up this world for good is if we get your stories out there!
Speaking coach Heather Sager is behind the mic today to break down the wild world of public speaking and how to craft your signature talk.
Whether you’re pitching your nonprofit, leading a meeting, or commanding a stage, Heather shares how a simple mindset shift from fear to service can transform your confidence AND your effectiveness as a speaker.
You’ll also learn her 5 part framework for structuring a compelling talk, the power of a "sticky message" that makes your speech unforgettable, and how to master the art of making an ask that inspires action.
Plus, we get into how to perfect your pitch for speaking opportunities (and this can be for anything - virtual summits, lunch and learns, or even a podcast!) and the most common mistakes people make.
Resources & Links
Connect with Heather on her website, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Heather also offers a 6 month coaching program, The Speaker Society, and FREE Magnetic Ask Swipes.
This show is presented by LinkedIn for Nonprofits. We’re so grateful for their partnership. Explore their incredible suite of resources and discounts for nonprofit teams here.
Monthly Giving Awareness Week is May 12-16! Join me, RKD Group, and GivingTuesday for 5 days of FREE resources to help you launch and grow recurring gifts.
Are you still dreaming about building your monthly giving program or refreshing your current one? Applications are now open for my “done with you” Monthly Giving Mastermind. 4 spots are open and we start in July. Click here to apply.
My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.
Let's Connect!
If you're ever scared to pitch a stage, if you're ever scared to raise your hand and speak up in a meeting, if you're ever scared to I don't know even just give a presentation or make an ask in a big room. If you want to get over your fear and be more successful in speaking, you got to body check those thoughts and say hold on, I'm focused on the wrong thing here. What if I start asking better questions and redirect my thoughts in this moment and say how might they be showing up, what might they be worried about, what might be causing them a lot of stress and a lot of heartache?
Speaker 2:I'm Dana Snyder, your host of the Missions to Movements podcast, and my path to philanthropy has been anything but traditional. This show is your weekly mastermind, designed to give you the ideas, insights and support you need to push the boundaries of what's been done before in nonprofit marketing and fundraising. Whether you're looking to build a magnetic monthly giving program, elevate your personal brand or create partnerships that amplify your impact, this space is for you. I'll bring you solo episodes and conversations with industry leaders offering actionable strategies and fresh perspectives that will move you and your mission forward. Let's turn your mission into a movement.
Speaker 2:Woohoo, this is the year where I am just honestly feeling so fulfilled in the people that are coming across on the mic from me, and I am just really excited to share with you people that have made such an impact in my life and that I just felt could do the same for you. And one of the things that, listener, you know I'm very passionate about is it's one of my keynotes is your story is worthy, too, and you deserve to be on stages of all different shapes and sizes. And the highlight you are an expert. And the only way that we're going to shake up this world for goodness is if we get your stories out there, and so I've been doing some internal work myself on storytelling and making sure that I'm the best presenter and speaker, that I can be the best communicator to get these ideas across.
Speaker 2:And Heather Sager is a speaking coach. She is also an entrepreneur herself. She is also the host of the Entrepreneur Unscripted podcast and creator of the Speaker Society, and I love it when I have a fellow mom on the show. So she's a mom of three boys and lives in beautiful Oregon. Heather, welcome to Missions, to Movements.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here.
Speaker 2:I'm very excited that you are here because I just think this is the year listener. You're just going to step into this new wild world of speaking, and so I wanted to bring somebody along that was an expert to be able to help us. And so Heather set like the stage for everybody and can you give people a little bit of a background introduction into your and your journey and how, in the world, speaking became like your jam.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. Well, this is one of those stories, right, that can go on forever, so I'll make it as entertaining and applicable as possible, but the whole speaking thing, that was never on my radar.
Speaker 1:So you're looking at someone who is an extremely shy kid. I would imagine if you would ask any of my elementary or actually any school teachers, they would probably be shocked to hear what I do now. It's not that I never was comfortable speaking, it was just I didn't really see a point in it. I never really spoke up as a kid unless I saw a reason to Like if somebody was being picked on or if I saw some kind of injustice on the playground I would definitely step up. But for the most part I was pretty shy and reserved outside of my inner circle of friends and family. So that's kind of the context going into here.
Speaker 1:But when I was in high school my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer my sophomore year and she battled breast cancer all throughout essentially high school. She was in remission and the summer before my senior year my sisters and my mom and I were all doing the. At the time it was called the Avon Breast Cancer Three-Day Walk in Seattle where you'd walk 60 miles over three days. It's now different, but I wasn't old enough to actually do it, so I was a volunteer and my volunteer job was in the garbage truck. I got to like be in the garbage pickup but while we were there my mom never made it to the finish line and it was like this big freak out of what happened. Well, my mom collapsed while we were at that fundraiser and it turns out she was in the hospital. She had gone in for a doctor's appointment right before the event and had run some blood work. They hadn't had the results come back yet but we found out in Seattle that her breast cancer had metastasized to her liver and it was like this big old to-do. And we got home from that event that weekend and we found out my mom had terminal cancer cancer. So I share this because, like I, I was going into my senior year in high school. I have five older siblings. We were all like rallying around. What do we do? So we actually put together a nonprofit organization and gifted it to my mom as her very last Christmas present. No way, yeah. So the whole reason for it was and I accredit most of this to my siblings who were older than me but when she started fighting this last fight with cancer, when she had first started, everything was making her sick. But she found this really incredible naturopathic physician that was so helpful and back. This is like the early, early 2000s. So it was very frowned upon and taboo to do alternative medicine. But she had started finding these therapies that were really complementing and helping her traditional cancer treatment. But we couldn't find any information anywhere on this. It was so taboo, it was like unavailable for information. So the whole nonprofit was around. How do we actually help more families who are in this horrible position get access to information so they are more empowered to choose what their options are? So we called it after her. It was called the Clara Jean Foundation and the whole point was like helping other families and so we launched that and we had our very first fundraiser that was scheduled on her 50th birthday. Sadly, she didn't make it that far. She passed away a few weeks before.
Speaker 1:That was my start into this whole idea of using my voice because I did my senior project. I don't know if you had one of those at your school where you had to like research something and give a big presentation. No, I don't think so. Maybe this was like I'm also. I'm 40. So I've maybe experienced a different world than some, but we had to do this big research project as our senior project and give a huge presentation, and that was how we graduated. So my whole thing was around my mom and the foundation we created, which my teacher was like you shouldn't do this, because he saw the writing on the wall and he knew this high school girl is going to be having to talk about her dead mother at the end of this year. So like this is a terrible idea, and I remember thinking at the end of this year.
Speaker 1:So like this is a terrible idea and I remember thinking I have to do this, like I absolutely have to do this. So everything went down. We lost my mom in March of that year and then at the end of it, I had to give a graduation speech. Just a couple months later, I'll tell you, that was when I had like probably the biggest aha of my life, which I would say is probably the first domino that led me to what I do today, and that's when I realized that some people are drawn to the spotlight. They love teaching, they love speaking, they love performing, they love being in front of other people. That lights them up. I am not one of those people. There's this other segment of people who are called to the spotlight and those are the people who something either falls into their lap or happens in their life where they have a mission so big it requires them to step up to the spotlight and share it.
Speaker 2:So beautiful.
Speaker 1:So it's so important and I think it's really empowering for many of us to hear that that we can leverage this idea of a spotlight to help us like further a cause, which is obviously what you do and what you teach. But that's the thing that drew me to the spotlight was all around the story of my mom.
Speaker 2:I had no idea that's so beautiful, heather, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like a sad part of the story, but I feel like all of us have some element of how we got into doing what we do. And sometimes those stories are. I mean we wish we didn't live them, but because we've lived them, we're able to do what we do now.
Speaker 2:That's right. And what is your focus on now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so now I specifically work with entrepreneurs, with public speaking. So the in between that moment with the foundation right and now I. I've done many things, but before I started my business on speaking, I worked with entrepreneurs in the audiology space. So hearing doctors we'll talk probably a little bit about storytelling. But my job for 12 years I was creating training programs and running events for doctors all over North America, teaching them how to better engage with patients and grow their practices. So I got a lot of stage experience teaching.
Speaker 1:Side note, I wear hearing aids so I have a hearing loss myself, so that kind of comes into it. But telling my story on stage, the doctors got me a lot of experience on stage. That really got my start in around. Okay, now I can apply business principles to being in a spotlight. There's something here. So now that's what I do. I help business owners specifically like coaches, course creators, thought leaders, people who have really great experience and teach and share from their stories. I help them do it better and do it in a way that actually helps them grow their brand and their business.
Speaker 2:And party of one right here is one of those people, and so that's why when I started working with Heather and have listened to so much of your content and I have friends that have worked with you I was like, okay, she's coming on the show and we're doing this. If I am a listener right now and I might have a fear of public speaking or maybe it's kind of what you're saying, maybe I'm called to it, but I'm like maybe not for me. How do you work with people or suggest that they kind of own that and use that when going for speaking opportunities?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the fear thing, I don't know. There's this, I think myth that somehow the fear goes away If you're scared of speaking. I now just have different fears I always think about. Okay, let's break it down this way. Have you ever heard that expression? Nerves are the same as excitement. Just channel your excitement. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, I have always frustrated by that because I'm like Right. I have always frustrated by that because I'm like right, I'm still terrified, like that, like pretending that I'm excited is not actually working for me. So let's actually talk about how I reframe fear and how I teach my clients to. That, I think, is a lot more practical and, I think, very applicable to this specific audience, and it's all around changing our perspective. If you think about it, if you're ever scared to pitch a stage, if you're ever scared to raise your hand and speak up in a meeting, if you're ever scared to I don't know even just give a presentation or make an ask in a big room, if you think about that fear, think for a moment what's going through your head that's paired with the sphere and chances are. The thoughts going through your head are what if I mess up? What if I sound like an idiot? What?
Speaker 2:if they reject me.
Speaker 1:What if I stumble on my words? All these like thoughts that we have, essentially thinking that we're gonna win on our face or people are gonna judge us. If you think about the through line in all of those thoughts, it's all about you.
Speaker 1:You put yourself in the center, and I mean I understand why we all do this. We all put ourselves in the center of all of our thoughts. But if you want to get over your fear and be more successful in speaking, you got to body check those thoughts and say hold on, I'm focused on the wrong thing here.
Speaker 2:What if?
Speaker 1:I start asking better questions and redirect my thoughts in this moment and say how might they be showing up, what might they be worried about, what might be causing them a lot of stress and a lot of heartache?
Speaker 2:or whatever, and the fact that which I think about now that you're saying this, which I've never thought about before most of the time they have paid and decided to be there, like you're not forcing them to sit in that seat. Like they have walked into the room. They saw your name on the agenda, they're there. They saw your name on a podcast, they are clicking play, like that's such an interesting, like reframe, and even from the very beginning, it's like they have chosen to participate in some way.
Speaker 1:They have and they're sitting there with their own questions about things their own, stressors their own problems and what I love and this is what I like about who I work with, and your audience will love this too. If you're listening to this, chances are you have information and stories and compassion that helps other people, that's right. So the moment like think about this click, the moment that you start thinking who's in the room, what might they be struggling with, what might have happened to them recently?
Speaker 1:related to my topic or whatever else you can't help, but go well, crap, I can help them with that. And your confidence goes up like 10 floors because you start thinking about oh my gosh, my heart is to help others. And now you're pointing your thinking to where the people in the room need help. So this is how you make that shift from oh my gosh, I'm nervous to this is how you make that shift from oh my gosh, I'm nervous to oh my gosh, I'm excited. Because, yes, as we said before, those energies are the same in our bodies, but if we don't track and redirect our thinking, we're just faking it right. We're just faking it pretending we're excited, versus actually holding steady going. Oh, I know I have something to help them.
Speaker 2:I know I can help them navigate through this. I know I have something great to share. So good, yeah, You're coming in as an expert with that in your mind. So, okay, let's just say, cool, I'm excited now, Like I got some stuff I can share. But oh boy, like how do I package it? Like how do I put it into a story? That is going to be something. I have 45 minutes, I have 60 minutes. That's actually going to get a point across. That's going to be this like compelling narrative and actually transform somebody or help them in that time period. Like how do you craft a talk like that? I'm just going to like throw that to you. You know softball.
Speaker 1:This is where I think a lot of peers of my peers, speaker coaches in the space and those teaching public speaking they like to make it seem a lot more complex than it is. There's some secret formula or secret way to design a really effective talk. I think speaking can be very, very simple. We just have a tendency to way overcomplicate it, and your best talks are going to be the simplest. So let's boil it down to a couple of things. I think that if you're using speaking to grow a brand or business or, let's say, a nonprofit right you're trying to get people rallying around your cause you have a very specific purpose for speaking. And if you have a very specific purpose for speaking aka actions you have a very specific purpose for speaking, aka actions you want people to take after they hear you. You need to make sure that you design a talk or a speech that fulfills that purpose. So what that means is you shouldn't be designing a talk from scratch every single time for every certain group.
Speaker 1:right, it's a different group. So I need to come up with a different story or a different message and what's going to land for them. Here's the deal If you're always redesigning or trying to come up with things, you actually can't be really good at your delivery and really making sure that message lands. So number one just principle is you have to make sure that we design like one talk and then work on refining it. But let's talk about what really goes into a well-crafted talk. You mentioned story.
Speaker 1:I know we're going to go into that a little bit more here, but this is the part that I think a lot of people really miss is they think storytelling is one of those things that's just like let's just include it in there to like I don't know, add a connection point, but then I want to pack it with meat. The reality is people really don't listen to a lot of information. So the story is really the speech, is really the point that you're trying to make. So we'll dive into that a little bit more. But you have to really think about what's the story that you're going to include for your audience.
Speaker 1:The other thing that's really important is when you're designing a talk, you need to boil it down and say what is the singular point that I want to make. That's why the hardest part yeah, it is, it is. But I like to think about a really good signature speech should be like an accordion, you know, like an old school like accordion, with like a piano and a bag, whatever that is. You should be able to expand it out and deliver it in like a really long. Technically it could even be a full course, right, if you expand it upon over days, but you should be able to compress that accordion down into like a tiny tweet. I don't know what we call tweets anymore now that it's not I haven't been on any of yours.
Speaker 2:Yes, totally, I'm putting down, I get it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So we have to like boil it down into like a singular I call it a sticky message what's the thing that people are going to remember, what's going to stick with them? And that's like we said, it's the hardest thing to get down. It's also one of those things that you don't really have to overthink it, but like okay, for example, one of my sticky messages, very simply put, can be this idea that your voice is your best asset. You have to use it as a business owner like something as simple as that. It's like your voice is your best brand asset. That simple, like what's the simple thing that you want people to take away. And then what happens is it becomes our filter. For are we adding in too much? Are we like adding to the sticky message? Are we proving the sticky message or are we confusing it by adding in more?
Speaker 2:Oh, I feel like I am the queen of wanting to like over deliver. Like, but here's this, and then here's this, and then what about this? And it's like but here's this, and then here's this, and then what about this? And it's like could be information overload Totally.
Speaker 1:The thing is is like people do that because they want to be helpful, they want to be relevant, they want to be tangible. That's something that I hear all the time.
Speaker 1:Nobody wants to deliver this fluffy thing and be like, wow, that was a waste of my time or could have been a PDF, Like we don't want to be grouped in that, so we pile in more. But that sticky message or that core message it really allows you to say, okay, this is what I'm trying to say here. And then it becomes a filter, kind of like a referee for yourself to help edit and boil things down.
Speaker 2:So good the actual designing.
Speaker 2:it's hot Cause you asked like, how do we actually structure it? One thing, one thing. And then, yes, I want you to dive into this. But for the sticky message, what's like resonating with me and like maybe listener for you, is when, let's just say, you go to an event and you come home like I'm just picturing a day for me, like my husband will ask me so what was it about? Yeah, and if I can't succinctly share what something was about, then it's just too complicated and it's a loss. So that really resonates like the sticky message, like something that's very succinct and clear that you could tell to somebody else after the fact.
Speaker 1:Yes, what I always tell people is you have to give your audience the script on how to describe you. This is so, so, so important. Oftentimes people will be like I don't know how to describe myself, or I don't know like what did you think or what do you want me to talk about? Or we're so used to rambling or word vomiting and we have, like lots of different ideas and what happens is you're causing your audience to filter through it for them to decide what's important. And a lot of people think, well, yeah, I want my audience, I want them to take away what's important. But no, really good speakers and really compelling speakers. They do that hard work for their audience. They tell their audience this is what's important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they. You should know what your sticky message is and you should be unapologetic in repeating it over and over, and over and over again. The repetition is required if you really want your message to stick and you want it to be memorable.
Speaker 2:Oh, you were. Like. There's somebody who I admire so much as a speaker and I'm thinking back to his presentation. I'm like he did all of these things that she's saying so good, he knows what he's doing. He knows what he's doing. He knows what he's doing. Sorry, and were you mid?
Speaker 1:thought on something that you were going to go into after that. Yeah, you asked for a formula of, like how do you actually craft a talk? So I, like, I don't like hold things back, so I'll just tell you all. This is the exact formula that I teach my clients and that we do inside of my program. It's not rocket science. I told you before, like, I keep it really really simple. All really good speeches have five parts, in my opinion. I'll make it very simple. Part one is an opening. Part five is a close. Right. We close Boom. Those two things are handled Now in between. We make it really really simple.
Speaker 1:We start with the why, we then cover the what and then we teeter on the how, if necessary, depending on the type of speaking opportunity. So let me just give a little brief around what this looks like. We always start presentations with an opening and I love opening with a great story. But the whole purpose of the opening is to make the case for your sticky message. Like you get to your sticky message. You do it through a story, you do it through connecting with the audience. There's a couple different ways that we can open, but just know you're going to open it in some way and you're going to make your sticky message point. Then we're going to go into the why.
Speaker 1:This is probably the biggest miss for anyone listening, because they want to jump straight into. Here's what I want to tell you. What I want you to remember is you got to slow it down and pause and remember your audience does not live in the same world that you do, and what I mean by that is they're not living the day-to-day thinking, the work that you do. They're not thinking about those things all the time. So the biggest gift you can give your audience is to teach them how to think about your topic. Said differently, create context for that. Whatever that looks like, right, we won't get into all the details of that, but you need to make sure that they're thinking about the topic in the context.
Speaker 2:That's necessary for them to be successful, right.
Speaker 1:So context and then the what and the how. It just depends the type of talk. If you're doing a keynote, a workshop, an interview but that's essentially the substance and that's what most experts know how to talk about you just want to do it in a simple way. And then, of course, closing it right. Ensuring this is where most people go and run out of time, so they speed round at the end and then hide their ask or do the whole like just here, go here. But in this arena, especially in nonprofits and in fundraising, you have to make sure that you know your timing and you have to practice.
Speaker 1:What does your face look like and what does your voice sound like when you're making your ask? And that's probably a we could go in a whole thing around that, but that close it has to matter, and I would argue most people do the ask at the very, very end, but the ask should actually be tucked into your close. It should never be the last thing out of your mouth.
Speaker 2:Ooh, okay, juicy, this is so much good stuff. Okay, it means, since you brought it up, I have to ask you is there like a dialect, a tone? I would love to talk about it specifically. I know this audience is like oh, tell me what to do At that point of when you are making the ask. And my ask is going to be to please get more recurring donors to join your monthly giving program, but whatever it might be that you have, how do you set that up?
Speaker 1:Okay, this. Well, two things here. Just side note little plugin people always mess up how they talk about this, and what I mean by that is they're fumbling over their words around what they actually want people to do, so they over explain it, so people get confused and don't take action. So if you want a really good formula for exactly how to ask people to take the next step, it's these simple words If this and this, then that. Let's fill that in real quick. So if you are a blank who wants blank, and you really like blank or and you don't want blank, then grab this thing here, then enter your information here, then go do this. If and then. And side note, I actually have a script. People steal all the time. I call them my magnetic ask swipes, I'll give that to you on.
Speaker 1:Instagram. If you like that, we can include it in the show notes. But I have like 19 really simple phrases that you can use to make the ask even smoother. But you want to ensure that you know exactly how you're making the ask like very, very specific, so you don't over explain it. So that's number one. You got to have your words down. But number two, you have to get present to your pace and your pitch. And what I mean by that I don't like pitch is like a double meaning here. Like the pitch of what you're asking, right, I'm like vocal pitch. Double meaning here. Like the pitch of what you're asking, right, I'm like vocal pitch.
Speaker 1:What most people do is, when they get to that point of making me ask, they get nervous, so they stop breathing. And when you stop breathing, you have a tendency to raise your voice and strain your vocals. Now, I am not a vocal expert by any means. I just work with a lot of clients and I see people clench their necks through here a lot and they get really, really tight and their arrow gets really thin and their voice goes up. And then they wonder later like what happened? That didn't sound like me, why was I so uncomfortable, so take a freaking breath like literally so when you're getting ready to pitch. What we want to remember is I always think about. This is why I like to run talks in sections, so I gave you the sections before you you're opening you're why, you're what, you're how, and then you're close.
Speaker 1:I always like to physically like move my body. Yes, me too. Yeah, when you're on stage, right Probably between stories, you're making your point. What we don't want to do is be like those speakers that pace back and forth. Yes, no, don't do that. It's so hard for the camera to follow you and if they have one of those big projected videos behind you and as an attendee, you're distracted just by the movement.
Speaker 2:So you're like not even being able to pay attention to what they're saying.
Speaker 1:Yes. So the best thing that you can do as a speaker is anchor yourself on stage and have purposeful movement, and that purposeful movement is in your transitions. It's when you're making a really key point or you're trying to shift the energy in the room. But another time this happens is you can use purposeful movement right before you get to your ask. So oftentimes what I'll do when I'm speaking on a stage let's say I'll go from the left side of the stage to the center, to the right side, to the center, the left, all the way to the right, like there's a little bit of a triangle, if you will, that you make on stage. You want to do your ask in the center. You want to anchor that center.
Speaker 1:So, as you're getting ready to switch to your pitch, use that as a tone to start walking and know exactly what you're going to say as you anchor yourself. And when you do that, take a big deep breath and slow your pace. And now get into it. So we want to change up our pace of how we're speaking. We want to drop our voice down into a normal talking voice, not the like rushed right, that like high pitch. I was joking. My mom had a telephone voice growing up that she could be like mid scream to her six children of us, like climbing up on something and the phone would ring and she'd be like hello, this is Clara. A lot of people do that right when they're nervous. So the speed and that pitch and that breathiness, we need it to all drop down. So we're a lot more anchored. People are going to take action when they believe that you believe in what you're doing.
Speaker 2:That's right that you're convicted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have to have that strength in your voice when you do it, and that comes a lot from knowing what the heck you're going to say.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, it's so good. Okay, is this exciting? Anybody to get on stages? Anybody, because it is for me. I just want to go and redo everything and luckily I am doing that. I'm getting coached by you personally. Okay, this is all so good. We've put together our talk, we have the structure. I want to wrap with a question that people might be like who is going to book me to speak? How do I pitch to be on a stage? And I want to note, listener, that when I say stage, this can be an event, it can be a podcast, it can be a virtual summit, it can be at a meet and greet for something, it can be at a corporate luncheon. Learn I don't mean you have to be on a stage with 10,000 people and spotlight and all the things. I don't mean you have to be on a stage with 10,000 people and Spotlight and all the things. What do you think are some key elements when nonprofit leaders are looking to pitch, to get standout, to be heard, to be booked?
Speaker 1:I was thinking about this before our conversation today, and there's so many different places where we can take it right. I can give all these little like, include this in your pitch and don't say this, but I'm like that's not going to be the most helpful. So let's start with a shift around how we're thinking about the stage. A lot of times when we're pitching you remember earlier we talked about that nerves and the fear, and really it comes down to me, me, me, me, self-focused mentality. It's also the same secret when it comes to pitching so many times, like events.
Speaker 1:So okay, so, side note, back in my corporate job, right when I was the VP of learning and development in the audiology space, we had clients and members of our company all over the country and we would host these really big, large conferences in Las Vegas and I would bring in speakers like John Maxwell and Jim Collins and Julia Fund and we'd have some just incredible speakers on the stage. But as my role, I was constantly getting pitched by upcoming speakers who wanted to get on our stage, because we had a really great stage with a really good video production, and so the value to a lot of the speakers is they had really good footage and really good pictures, which is a huge asset, as you know, for speakers. So I would get pitches all the time and what was fascinating is, as I would get pitched all the time, most of the pitches I would say 98% of them were 100% focused about them, and what I mean by that. It was like their standard here of my speaking, my account, yeah.
Speaker 2:I received so many of these for the podcast.
Speaker 1:Now I have in a podcast yeah, the same thing. It's like all the time Right and it's. The strategy around pitching is like I just have to hit the numbers, meaning like I'm just going to have to deal with all the nose and somebody eventually will say yes, like I just have to keep sending out pitches. Which let me just tell you for a moment, if you would like to run that strategy of sending a lot of pitches, you could do that. I'm not a fan of pitching. Quite personally, I actually have more of an attraction speaking style, which means I get invited to speak a lot. I rarely ever pitch.
Speaker 1:Right and it just feels better. But there is a time and place where we have to pitch. But coming back to it, that through line is where are you placing your focus? People, when they're being pitched, they actually want to know that the person who's reaching out to them actually knows who their people are. Right, we also have egos, like stroke my ego a little bit and actually like don't give me like an empty compliment, but show that you've actually taken the time to listen to my show or that you understand my podcast or you see a connection point of how what you do fits into my world and the people that I serve. If I have an event stage, like I don't wanna feel like it's a one night stand. I don't wanna feel like this is not a Tinder like dating profile where it's just like we're hooking up here. Like if I have a stage, I have a responsibility for the people who trust me to sit their butts in those seats. So honor that when you pitch.
Speaker 1:So similar to that whole like shift the nerves thing. Shift your perspective when you're pitching and think for a moment who's in the room and you have two audiences, essentially that. You're pitching and think for a moment who's in the room and you have two audiences. Essentially that you're pitching to. Your value proposition is the pitch to how you like what you're going to do is going to be valuable to the people ultimately in the room. But your real pitch is to the person who's the gatekeeper of that stage. So you have to speak to them. They actually have different problems than the person who's in the seat. So back when I was running events, I had very specific objectives that I had to achieve for my event. I had stakeholders. I had to also get permission from my bosses' bosses for who's going to be on stage. In addition, I had to think about who was in the room.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:So, number one, just from a global thinking perspective, just making that shift, it'll elevate how you pitch or how you even approach things, because you're thinking about how can I be of service here, how can I establish myself as relevant to this audience?
Speaker 2:Some of my favorite I've been receiving. This is releasing in advance of the Monthly Giving Summit coming up on February 26th and 27th and I have an open speaker call if people want to apply, for the hope that some people will apply that aren't necessarily speakers, but they want to share case studies with other organizations. They have something to say about recurring giving, and I've received a couple that are from last year's, that were last year attendees, and it's just you can tell that they're like I loved it so much that I want to give back and share a story of what we've done, and it's just value, value, value. Like I understand what this is, I know exactly what I want to talk. It's just so well done.
Speaker 2:And then there's some that you can tell are copy and pasted, with no personalization to them and very much along the lines of like kind of me, me, me. And it makes a huge difference, especially when the people that you're going to be sending these to are getting probably inundated with requests, and so this would be something that I would bring it up to your board of directors, and sometimes it doesn't even have to be you listener, it could be somebody else on your team, it could be an ambassador or a key stakeholder of your organization that goes out and speaks on your behalf. You have shared so many gold nuggets in this conversation Heather, like where can people find you, where can they reach out, how can they work with you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you for that. The best place to always connect with me is on my website, heathersagercom. For that, the best place to always connect with me is on my website, heathersagercom. That's where you can get access to my blog, my podcast, all like the resources and stuff we talked about today. That's definitely the best place to connect, and I'm also on Instagram and LinkedIn and all the platforms too.
Speaker 2:Awesome, beautiful, and I hope this inspires some of you to like take that first step. Like work on what could be a signature talk for this year. Work it out with your team. Like work on what could be a signature talk for this year. Work it out with your team, throw it by Heather to get some coaching and then pitch yourself and see what happens. And then to Heather's point, which I'm happy to dive into further is also like in your contracts and what you ask for when it comes to the footage or photography, will it be there so that you can use those pieces of content for the next gigs that you will attract and call in, because you're putting it out there that you do it?
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. Can I just add that real quick? I think that's one thing that people really miss the boat on is they think, okay, speaking, I'm either speaking to either get a result from it whether it's getting donors or getting people to sign up for something, or I'm getting leads, or there's a really specific thing. But there are so many other benefits to speaking. There are so many other ways that speaking can help grow your brand or grow your visibility in your organization.
Speaker 1:So just knowing that, like having really high quality footage on your site or on your social, that's going to make your brand and your organization look even so much more credible. So just keep that top of mind that there are other ways that speaking can really help you, not just that direct ask that you think you have to make at the end.
Speaker 2:Always, and a good proof of this is earlier in January I had Chad. He's the CEO of the Surfrider Foundation and we talked specifically about his speaker journey as a CEO of a nonprofit and he was on TEDx and like how that has really amplified their mission and what they do to reach more people. So we're not just blowing smoke, it's real stuff, real stuff. Anyways, heather, thank you so much. I appreciate your time and listener, I hope you have a beautiful day and I will see everyone next week. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Missions to Movements. If you enjoyed our conversation and found it helpful, I would love for you to take a moment to leave a review. Wherever you're listening. Your feedback helps us reach more changemakers like you and continue bringing impactful stories and strategies to the show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button too, so you'll never miss an episode, and until next time, keep turning your mission into a movement.
