How to Leverage Public Speaking to Grow Your Business with Yvonne Armenta

Discover how to leverage public speaking to grow your business with these valuable tips. Learn how to connect with your audience, build credibility, and expand your reach as an entrepreneur.

Public speaking is a must as an entrepreneur, content creator or business owner. The Latino community is booming and learning crucial public speaking skills is a must to share out stories and expertise.

Yvonne, an accomplished public speaker and host of "Chats with Yvonne," joins us to unravel how she turned those very fears into a stepping stone for success. In this week's chisme, we dive into how to transform our personal stories into compelling topics for speaking engagements. ,She also shares how online entrepreneurs can harness this skill for growth. Yvonne's journey from high school speaking trials to owning the spotlight in tech and internal communications offers an empowering lens for Latinas and other underrepresented voices.

Ready to elevate your public speaking game but unsure where to begin? Yvonne and I tackle the art of crafting your signature topic, guiding you through brainstorming to story development. We highlight the importance of authenticity, advising speakers to identify their essence with key adjectives and to align with speaking styles that resonate most. For introverts, who may find the stage a daunting prospect, we share a trove of strategies to harness your quiet strengths and create connections that reverberate.

About the Guest:
Yvonne Armata is an introverted public speaker who is empowering Latina's to embrace public speaking with cultura. She is the host of the podcast Chats with Yvonne.

How to reach Yvonne:
IG ChatswithYvonne
www.chatswithyvonne.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

If you learn nothing, was that guy did my best. But you know, luckily it always Exactly exactly and I'm like you know it always ends up happening that things turn out well. But it's okay, we have to go through that process. We have to go through the process of feeling like oh my gosh, why I say yes to this, like I should say no.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Welcome to the money cheese man podcast, a fun and safe space for personal finance, investing in entrepreneurship tips, where we get the choose man on all things money, with sass and humor. I am your host, violeta, a first generation Mexican immigrant, a real estate investor, entrepreneur, and I am here to help you kick ass in the financial game. Each week, I not only bring you expert tips but also share the financial freedom and entrepreneurship journeys from our own community, because, you know, representation is important. So grab a coffee or, if you're an adult, beverage, and let's get into this week's money cheese man.

Speaker 2: 1:12

Well, welcome to another episode of the money cheese man podcast, and today I want to get a little bit into the topic of public speaking. Sometimes you might think that it doesn't really go, you know, with business ownership type, but you know, especially some type of businesses like myself and other online businesses, you're going to find yourself doing some form of public speaking, especially if you are creating content. So with me today is even. Host of the podcast. Chats with even and public speaker. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Speaker 1: 1:56

Hello, hello, hello everybody. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here and I nerd out about public speaking, so I'm excited to talk about it.

Speaker 2: 2:04

Yeah, I'm excited because, like, I've been really getting interested in public speaking and I've been trying to like challenge myself, so definitely been following you and like hearing all your tips on your podcast and on your reels. So, but before we get into that, I want to, like you know, learn a little bit more about you, especially to the listeners that may not be too familiar with you. Just a quick introduction and you know how. How did you get started?

Speaker 1: 2:36

Thank you. I, yes, I have been public speaking for 10 plus years, which sometimes, when I tell people, they're like 10 years, that's wild, and it's because I started in high school, really, and my high school had a, a curriculum, a project based curriculum that In order to pass on to the next grade, you had to give a presentation of all of the work that showcased that you were ready to move on to the next grade, and we did that every year leading up to college and my, my senior project, my senior presentation, was featured in the teaching channel California, based on, from California, and From there I was asked to be a keynote speaker at a couple different education based conferences, all with no, really, really, no, real well, I won't say real, but no like institution backed Education around public speaking. It was a lot of me trying to figure things out with the help of my teachers, those that were around me, google, youtube, trying to find someone that I could relate to, which was very hard because, you know, you see, public speakers even today, the industry is still not is lacking in representation. So that was a lot of how I began my journey with public speaking Back in the day and, as I developed myself as a speaker. It started to bleed into what I did as what I would call my career.

Speaker 1: 3:59

So I always thought public speaking is like my little side thing. It's what I do on the side. It just happened. It's an opportunity that I stumbled upon. It's not my career, because Growing up you think I'm a first-gen Latina, first of my family to graduate, oldest in my family, single mom, low-income, and my idea of success was I need to go to college to get the degree, to get the good-paying job, and I'm from San Francisco. So my Entire childhood I would go to downtown San Francisco If you're familiar with the area and look at the tall buildings, and my only aspiration was to work At one of those buildings one day I was like one day I'm gonna work there.

Speaker 1: 4:39

One day I'm gonna work there. So after college, that's really all I knew to do, and so I got a job in the tech industry and that's where I landed, for up until recently, I've been in the tech industry doing internal communications, and If you know anything about internal comms and community management, that kind of work within tech, it is very front-facing. So I was essentially almost like the, I would say, internal PR person. So whenever something was going down, yvonne would send communications, I would lead our company wide meetings and all of this while still doing public speaking on the side, more so as a speaker and getting booked to speak, and I would say, I think around 2020, which I think is when a lot of people were like, okay, what do I want?

Speaker 2: 5:26

to do with my life again. Yeah, that definitely was like turning point for a lot of people, especially me. That's what I made my decision to like. I want to do this as well.

Speaker 1: 5:36

See, yeah, I 2020. Everything went virtual right and I still had my job and, during that time period, my current job, where I was asked me if I wanted to host a talk show, a virtual talk show and it was really out of nowhere as an opportunity that they were like hey, vonn, you seem like you'd be good for it, would you like to do it? We're trying to get more people to do and I was like, okay, sure, so I was interviewing celebrities and I was coming up with these questions and being the face of this talk show, and I remember just how much I loved doing it. And I thought to myself I think around this time to Social media. I mean, social media has always been around, but I started to see more things pop up around, like Latinas with masters, for example, things like that and I was like I don't see a lot of Latinas that are doing public speaking.

Speaker 1: 6:29

And, from my perspectives as an introvert, I lead with the fact that I am an introvert because a lot of people think that my introversion Doesn't allow me to be social and doesn't allow me to be a public speaker, and I thought, you know, what would be so cool is if I could share my journey as a public speaker and share the tips that I've learned and also share with people that I still get really nervous and I still get a Little bit of anxiety around public speaking, but every single time that I do it, I love it and I want to do it over and over again. Yeah, and it's an incredible way to get paid. Like the first couple times that I got paid to speak, I was like there is no way. I remember telling my English teacher, who was front stage when I, when I spoke at my first keynote, I was like dude, abby, people can make a living out of this. She's like, yeah, they can.

Speaker 1: 7:20

And that never clicked again because I was like no, my journey is getting a real job and all that stuff. So, with that being said, I founded chats with Yvonne, which is the platform that I use to share tips, create spaces for people to practice public speaking, and I say public speaking Con cultura because it's really important for me that you bring the essence of who you already are into the art of public speaking and not feel intimidated by the art, because it can be a very intimidating thing to do, and I believe that public speaking is not only the tool for sharing our stories, sharing them far and wide, but also getting paid for the things that we're really good at. Public speaking, if you haven't considered it already, is an incredible source of income.

Speaker 2: 8:04

When I found you I think it was on TikTok first and then I followed you on Instagram and that was one of the things that like really resonated because, one, I'm an introvert as well and so, but also, like you know, a fellow first gen. It's true, I didn't really see a lot of representation with, like public speaking or speakers or whatever, and I think that's a really important thing or skill to like build on and learn, and, especially now that we're coming into these spaces, that's one of the reasons, like I'm really Put public speaking and kind of like the forefront, like one of my goals for this year, to really start working towards that and getting better at it, because it's important for us to share, like you were saying, our stories. Get that representation out there. For someone that is like like me, that is like trying to Figure out how to get good at public speaking or how to start like, what would your first few Tips that you would give to someone that's looking to get started?

Speaker 1: 9:11

I'll tell you the. I'll start off with something that I think that most of us should not do, which is what I think I did at the very beginning of my speaking journey, because I didn't have anyone around me that was doing this or that had done it before. Don't go on YouTube or don't go on Google and look up public speakers that you want to be like. Don't look up top public speakers, because I think what that creates is it builds the foundation of your public speaking journey on comparison, right On being oh, I want to be more like that. I think that the best way to show up is your authentic speaker and figure out exactly how you want to show up and who you want to be within the space is to look inward first. You could do the rest of that stuff later on and be like ah okay, I know my style, let me remix it with a little bit of that and a little bit of that and I find who I'm meant to be right. But for someone that's just starting off, my framework is Reflect, connect, share and what that means. In that reflection phase, you have to think about, almost create a mind map. This is a visual representation of all the topics that you could potentially talk about and you could write it. You could use a Google Doc, whatever form you'd like, a vision board, whatever it is, but sit with yourself and reflect on okay, what do I have experience in? That could literally be anything like don't limit yourself when you're putting this, this down. What do I have experience in? What is fun for me? What? What do I actually have the qualifications to talk about? What would be fun to talk about? Right, because sometimes we limit ourselves because we think, oh, I don't necessarily really know too much about this topic, but you can learn it. Right, if it's something that you have some kind of experience in, you can elevate your story through it, right? So, what? What have I lived through? Create a mind map of all the potential topics that you in an ideal world, you'd be speaking about all these things, because obviously you're going to maybe reduce that list down eventually. But then think about the essence that you want to exude. So, once you have those topics in mind, what's your essence?

Speaker 1: 11:16

I usually say choose five adjectives. That's like okay, I want to show up as kind, passionate, knowledgeable, helpful, thoughtful. What are those words for you? Funny, humorous, right, like what does that? What does that mean to you? An expert, a thought leader?

Speaker 1: 11:33

Write down five adjectives of who you want to be when you're a public speaker and then think about what type of public speaking do you want to do. It based on the topics, is it? Do I want to be more of a motivational speaker? That usually means hey, let me share a story, let me share a lesson that I've learned. Go back to those topics, identify where that is. Hey, I want to be an educational speaker. I'm an expert, have the qualifications in this topic that I mind mapped in, that active in that first session part of it. Okay, I want to be the type of speaker that educates and gives people information. Hey, I kind of just want to be an entertainer, like I, just I'm funny, I'm a comedian, let me go and do this, right and so. Or I want to get people to act, to do something.

Speaker 1: 12:18

And it's not to say that you can't combine and beat all of those things in one. I just think that at the very beginning, it helps us to have some kind of structure as to who we want to be and how we want to show up, so that eventually you can take it, throw it away, put it in a bag, mix it all up and then you have your own style. And then after that, it's about pinpointing stories, right? So when I think about when you go from topic to essence, to type of public speaking, you think about a story that exemplifies that topic. The topic typically is a lesson that you learned. So tell me about, maybe jot down a couple of ideas around, what stories exemplify how I learned that lesson. And it's not to say you're going to use all those stories, but take me to a specific moment in time that outlines it and don't overthink it, because we have many, many stories that we could use for that one lesson.

Speaker 1: 13:13

Typically, when you learn a lesson, it's based off of repetition. So you're going to have many stories to how you ended up there in that situation, but think about one and then develop that story. So that's sort of the framework that I'd say you could follow as someone that's just starting off as a public speaker and it can seem like a lot of work to do because it's a little overwhelming to think about it. Okay, well, if I do this, I'm one step closer to actually making this happen and being on stage and speaking about it, and that makes me nervous. I'm just not going to do it. But think about the other day. I was thinking about this and I'm like think about if we just didn't care like we care so much that we care right, so if we didn't care, we just put ourselves out there how much more powerful could we be and show up as speakers? So that's the process that I typically have people walk through when they're thinking about what they would like their signature topic to be.

Speaker 2: 14:13

As we were mentioning earlier, how, like you're an introvert, I'm an introvert. You know like usually when you think about like public speaking, you think of like the extroverts. Like you see them, it's like natural for them, it seems like and it's easy for them to get in front of people or whatever. But other people like myself and possibly you, when you started, like it sounds so intimidating and like how did you like overcome that which I love, that real that you posted of like the background of you that you were preparing to go, I forgot what you were, what event you were speaking at, but you showed like how you were still get like nervous and pacing and I was like and that's like so true on how I feel every single time I had to do like even like with this interview, like I still get like the, the butterflies and the jitters, like what are like some things that you have done to help you probably not overcome it, because it's going to probably some of the least things still stick with you, but like get to a point where, like you could get over it and still push through and go with public speaking, the biggest thing that I've done and the biggest, I think, power move for me has been to begin leading with my introversion, because we're in a world, in every single system, that we're a part of every single community, that we're a part of, rewards extroversion, whether whether they realize it or not, it's in the ways.

Speaker 1: 15:43

I remember one of the things that I would always get feedback on growing up in school was hey, yvonne, you have really great ideas, but it would be great if you spoke up, it'd be great if you rose your hand, raise your hand and and then I would get docked. You know, even in college, right, like I would get docked points because I didn't participate as much and it wasn't that I wasn't thinking or in taking the information, I just had a different way of internalizing it and communicating. And in those spaces I never felt that I could lead with that, because you're like, well, if I don't push myself to be a little bit more out there, then I'm not going to get the opportunities. Or if I don't raise my hand, even if my heart is pounding, I'm just no one's going to hear me, right, because they're not looking to hear me. And I remember a lot of it first of all was doing it hella scared, doing it like pues no quiero y tengo miedo, tengo mucho miedo. But whatever, I'm just going to do it right now, right?

Speaker 1: 16:39

Especially that first public speaking, real keynote presentation that I gave was to 1,500 people, and for someone that hadn't done it, you know, it was never. I didn't sleep the day before. I didn't eat leading up to it. I think before the presentation there was this mixer of all the people that, because it was a conference, so it was a multi-day conference, and they had got me a room, and I felt super fancied. I was like, oh my god, they got me a room, they got me this, they paid for this, all this stuff, and that alone made me feel like, okay, I gotta do good, right. And so I remember, even at the mixer, I didn't wanna talk to anybody, right? I was like, oh my gosh, but I felt like I had to.

Speaker 1: 17:19

And so one of the ways, like you said, you don't overcome it, you don't get over it because it's just nerve-wracking, like you're putting yourself out there in a way that can lead to judgment, like whether it's good judgment or bad judgment or whatever kind of judgment, someone's gonna have a good or bad opinion about you and what you have to say, and that is nerve-wracking in and of itself. But something that has been powerful for me most recently is leading with introversion, because it gives people one, it's rewiring people to understand that there are different kinds of people in the room and that you have to be able to include. Like the way that you do things needs to be able to include and create a safe space for those people. Like if I, for example, if I could go back to school and tell my teachers this, I'd be like, hey, I'm an introvert, but if you want, you could ask me after class or the day before. Can you let me know that you're gonna call on me, so that that way I can be prepared, not with the answer, but just like mentally prepared to speak up. Right, those kinds of things are really important to embed in your daily interactions. And even if you are creating community right now, or you have events thinking about what would an introvert need? Right, and not to solely highlight introverts, but it's just like we already do the extroverted part of it so much we're used to that we have to switch it and be like okay, what do introverts need? And so leading with it has made people around me a lot more aware of what I need and I'll give you a personal example.

Speaker 1: 18:57

This isn't necessarily with public speaking, but the other day I was hanging out with a friend and I met her maybe two years ago at this point, moved to a new city, was trying to make new friends. She was one of them. She came up to me, by the way, like every introvert needs an extrovert in their lives. She came up to me and befriended me and then we've hung out and stuff. But she's like we were hanging out and she was like hey, you, let me, let me know if, let me know when you want to leave. Like you know, I know you're an introvert, so if there's too much, like we could totally go, but I'm also cool with just chilling in the car.

Speaker 1: 19:31

Oh, okay, cool, yeah, like I think I'm ready to go, actually, you know and I didn't feel guilty about it, I didn't feel weird about it, because when you lead with it, people around you can can help you in that, right. They can understand your process. So, as much as possible, share it with people like, share how you're feeling with the people around you. Let them know what you actually need.

Speaker 1: 19:53

It's harder but it's been nicer to lead with that introversion because then when I'm public speaking, people even my closest friends and my partner just know, just don't talk to me right now. I don't. I need to be not stimulated because I'm about to go on stage and talk to a bunch of people. I need me time, right, and they know that and understand that about me. And then even afterwards don't talk to me. I'm very much like too many people, right, I talk to too many people. I need my me time right now where I can go, eat, drink water, do all the things that I didn't do beforehand, right. So I don't know that that answers necessarily the question around how to ease the nerves, but leading with that introversion for us, I think, is so important.

Speaker 2: 20:38

When I started like actually I guess, advocating for how I am being an introvert, like at first, it was like a little bit pushback, like with my husband's family, because they're so extroverted, is like it's exhausting, and so I would have to kind of like after a while I'd go hide in the room and then they thought I hated them and I was like I had to explain to them like no, I'm just like, yeah, they don't think I like I hate them.

Speaker 2: 21:06

I was like no, I'm just over stimulated, I'm like it's stressing me out. I need a breather to like gather my thoughts, and but now it's like easy, they already know, like that after a while I'm just going to go and then I'll come back out and socialize again.

Speaker 2: 21:23

And then it's funny because with you just mentioned, like with my husband, I did the same thing just before. Like, coming on here he was like blah blah, blah, blah, blah, like about to record a podcast. Like let me, I need some quiet to get into the mindset to.

Speaker 1: 21:41

That's why it's so important.

Speaker 1: 21:42

Yeah, it's like it's almost even like a good practice and boundaries.

Speaker 1: 21:46

Like I grew up in a Mexican household where it was rude if you were like yes, you know, it's Vecita, and then you go in the room and all this stuff, and so for a really long time I was at odds with my introversion, because the world expects me to be a little bit more extroverted, expects me to show up in a social way, and I'm a public speaker and even in my jobs and tech I've always been more of the outwardly facing person, the one that's organizing the events, that's hosting the events, and so it requires me to be in front of people. So people in their minds can't understand, like, how do you do public speaking? How do you do all of these face forward things? But you're an introvert and you need space and you need time after that. Like isn't that exhausting and it's like a little bit, but I also can't live without it. Like it's almost like I would say I'm a social introvert and that I need that people connection, but I still will need some time to recover.

Speaker 2: 22:45

Yeah, yeah, and it comes with like knowing yourself, because, like how you were talking about, is that because you know you're introverted and you've learned like to figure out what is it that you need, like before you went on the to speak. In that event, you were in a quiet space and you were just having that moment and then, like you said, you know not to interact like right before, and knowing how to kind of come down from it and like recover.

Speaker 1: 23:20

Yeah, it's a huge thing, the recovery part. And you know, even as an introvert, though, I think something that's super important to me as a public speaker is and this is good practice anyway to get to know your audience a little bit more. I will arrive to a location. Let's say that was the video that you're mentioning. That was at a conference, right?

Speaker 1: 23:39

And so there was a welcome, there was a keynote address, there was a panel before my workshop and then there was lunch before my workshop. So I got there early enough to see the keynote, see the welcome, get a vibe and a feeling for the room Like I went to my room. I'll walk you through exactly where. I got there, checked in, I was like, can you show me the room? I went to the room. I was there for a good 30 minutes because I got there early enough and the welcome started. I went to go take a seat with everybody else in the room. That's low pressure. You don't necessarily. It's not a networking session. People aren't introducing themselves because they're watching what's happening on the stage in the moment. Right, the welcome, the keynote, the panel, all of that. So I sat there and I was just observing, looking around the room to get the vibe of the room and understand some of the language that the keynote speaker was using, that the welcome address was using, because that is really helpful in internalizing some of the language that people are using. The vibe but also my own comfort level, being like, okay, I have some familiarity with the people that are going to be in my workshops, because at that point no one had signed up, it was just people get to choose the day of. So I didn't know who was going to be in the room. And then after that I think there was still an hour and a half left I was like, all right, I need to go to my room. So I went back to the room and I just hung out there until my workshop started.

Speaker 1: 25:05

And I was really nervous and there were all these other things that were going on too, because everybody else that was presenting a workshop they had doctor in front of their name. I let that get to me. I was like I'm not a doctor. Oh my gosh, like everybody in this room is older. I had Latinas. You're always told I mean even not just Latinas, not exclusively for Latinas, maybe. But I was always told, oh, you learn from your elders, listen to your elders, they're always right, kind of thing. And now that I'm an adult and I'm in this room, I felt like I look so much younger. I am so much younger because I know this, because the keynote person had asked oh, raise your hand if you're between the ages of this, right. And so everyone was a lot older than me, with PhDs and all this stuff and I let that get to me. I was like, oh gosh, what am I going to teach them? But then you get to it and you're like, well, that's the key. Like we have an hour together If you learn nothing was. Yeah, I did my best. But you know, luckily it always ends up working out Exactly, exactly. And I'm like you know it always ends up happening that things turn out well.

Speaker 1: 26:10

But it's okay, we have to go through that process. We have to go through the process of feeling like, oh my gosh, why did I say yes to this? Like I should say no. Should I say that I'm sick? Like should I say that my stomach hurts? And then I just we had to cancel the session last minute. Those are things that go through my mind still to this day.

Speaker 1: 26:29

Right, even though it's it's and a lot of people will take that and translate it as a it's an indicator of lack of confidence in the art of public. But I actually don't think that it is. I actually think it's just one. It's part of the process, part of what we all have to go through to get those, you know, nerves out and whatever, but it's actually a sign to me of complete, total control and confidence of the craft, like the fact that you're super nervous about it just means like you know what you have to say. It's just sometimes the rest of the world or things that are going on in the environment make it so that you feel a little doubtful.

Speaker 2: 27:08

I was mentioning earlier is that, like we had like this big boom of like people going online and stuff, I was like how can they use, you know, public speaking to kind of better their business or grow their business? Like how is public speaking beneficial to for a business?

Speaker 1: 27:28

I've always said that public speaking is the one skill set that, no matter what industry you're in, no matter what role you're in, you're always that much better for knowing it right and for crap for really mastering the art of it, especially as business owners, as entrepreneurs, you're constantly talking about your business. You have to right, if you don't talk about it, no one's going to know about it. And at the same time, it's also, I think, public speaking, mastering your craft within the art of public speaking not only helps your business and helps it grow because you're spreading the word about it, but it also opens you up to being a thought leader in the space of not just for the purposes of your own business, but just the industry itself of your business. If you're able to talk about your business in a really compelling way, you're then able to bring it out at a high level and talk about the industry in a very compelling way, and again, that's an additional stream of income right there. So public speaking is huge and I actually and it's more than just your pitch right, it's more than that. It's about how you're showing up for your business every day and talking about it and talking about the story behind the business.

Speaker 1: 28:42

It's not just hey, I make this much in my business like, let me show you how it's. Hey, this is my story. This is where I started. This is why it's so important to me, and mastering the art of public speaking is all around mastering communicating effectively, right and knowing meeting people where they are, like you've already arrived.

Speaker 1: 29:04

Wherever you're at. It's bringing those people to also be at that same starting point or at that same point where you are today. And that's what's so powerful about public speaking that it when we step out of it and we're like I'm so nervous about it, oh my God. Oh my God, it's like, hmm, it's helpful to me to sometimes say it's not even about me, like it's really not about me. When I, when I step back, and every time I'm done with a workshop or every time I'm done with a speaking engagement, I'm like, okay, that wasn't about me and it's a good reminder to bring with you in your business journey. But then also, even just as a public speaker yourself, is okay, it's not about me, it's about the people that just heard this.

Speaker 2: 29:48

How does one, you know, like, start, you know finding ways to go out there in public speaking because, like, yeah, here we do it like online and stuff. But now, like to how I see you that you go to like events and conferences. It's like, oh my God, how do you get to that level? Like, how was your journey getting to that point and getting into these conferences?

Speaker 1: 30:14

and, you know, speaking in front of a thousand people, you know, I think my journey has been a little bit different, in that I had an opportunity to show up for me many, many, many years ago. That then, through word of mouth, led through to more opportunities, right, and because I had my nine to five job, my public speaking engagements were always like, oh, si puedo, si tengo tiempo, kind of thing, and they would come to me. Where is I didn't necessarily have to seek as many opportunities out. So this day, that's still how a lot of it works is, hey, I'm putting myself out there and putting my content on out there. I'm clearly stating that I do public speaking, that I teach public speaking, and so organizations more and more are reaching out to me to say, hey, can you lead a workshop here? Or hey, can you come and speak to our students. So there's a couple of different ways that I think I would go about it. But now that this is my full time job, I am doing a lot more pitching. But even then it's still most of the ones that I get are word of mouth right.

Speaker 1: 31:14

But for someone that's just starting off, I would say consider there's two different things. One, think about your audience. Who do you want to impact and who do you want to talk to? If you want to talk to college students, or you want to talk to high school students or you want to talk to women in business, that's a really good starting point, because then you can say, okay, where are these people? College students are at college campuses. Look at your local colleges, like reach out to the professor of something. Reach out to the organization like I know at Berkeley, right, like we have Hermana Sonidas. Reach out to different clubs and see, hey, would you all like to have me as a guest speaker? Hey, I do this. I do that departments that so often host events for extracurriculars for their college students, right, start local. Think about what organizations are already in your network. And even if they're not in your network, how could you get your foot in the door and reach out to them? Because you just never know, right. So that's the first step.

Speaker 1: 32:17

And then the other thing is something that I like to do is I'll go on Google sometimes and I'll do speaker call out for insert your niche right, or, in general, speaker call outs or conferences 2024. And I go through pages and pages and pages to find speaking engagements, like, if there's anybody accepting applications, I'll do that. Then it's also around understanding what, depending on your topics and what you already talk about, you probably know more about what events are happening around that than I would, and so look up those conferences. I always suggest that if you're going to pitch a conference, you probably wanna do that at least six months before the conference is actually happening, because more likely than not, they already have their speakers lined up. If anything, they might look for workshop people like workshop hosts. So do that.

Speaker 1: 33:13

And then something that I looked up the other day was the just randomly honestly, I don't even know how I stumbled upon it. This is how it just happens sometimes. But your chamber of commerce look up like your local chamber of commerce speaking opportunity, because they have submissions on there. I looked one up for San Diego, there's one for LA as well, back in the Bay, like you just submit yourself to be a guest speaker, put in your stuff in there, and that one isn't necessarily, I'd imagine, not paid, but if you're just starting off it's kind of a good way because it's the chamber of commerce.

Speaker 1: 33:48

So it's a good network and then once you do outreach to these folks or they reach out to you, it's important to know what your rate is, know exactly how much you're gonna wanna charge them for a keynote, a panel, and your keynote could be 15 minutes, but you charge them 15K and your workshop could be one hour and maybe you charge them a little bit less or a little bit more. So think about when you start outreaching to people. Think about also oh shoot, what if I get an email back? I should probably tell them what my rate is if they don't tell you right away. So think about audience segmentation and then just do research on Google, find those opportunities, go to networking events Word of mouth again is how I've gotten a lot of the speaking engagements that I have and it continues to be that way and also just repeat people right. Like events happen once a year, maybe, or like the same events happen every year, kind of.

Speaker 2: 34:48

Thing.

Speaker 1: 34:48

So if you go to an event and you know that you would like to be a speaker there the next time, get in contact with the event organizers, figure out who organized it and how you can get your foot in the door that way. What's?

Speaker 2: 34:59

some other, like resources or like things or books or whatever that somebody that is trying to get better at public speaking that they can use.

Speaker 1: 35:14

Yeah so once you've done the first thing that we talked about, which is establish your topic and your essence as a speaker, then I think you can start looking at a couple like watch TED Talks. Right, and something that I like to do is cause a lot of us are used to public speaking being communication through the spoken word, so go on TEDTalkcom, watch a couple of those and watch them, and then watch them on mute. Notice if you sense any kind of difference between what they're communicating, like what their body is saying, versus what they're actually saying. That's always really fun for me to do. May not be fun for everybody else, but go watch the TED Talks.

Speaker 1: 35:51

I think one of the easier reads I think, around public speaking is the Harvard Business Review collection of public speaking and presentation articles, because they go into a lot like from your visuals to the backs, which what you should do backstage, that kind of stuff. There's also, if you, depending on your style and what you like, you could go to a Toastmasters, which is a public speaking club, those for me. I've gone to a couple of them and they're okay, and the reason I say they're okay is because they're good as far as structure and some of you know they're really welcoming, kind of just depends where you are locally, but they haven't. Again, I talk about public speaking con cultura, right.

Speaker 1: 36:42

Like ah like atintense knowledge. The framework that they have for Toastmasters is very traditional, very just. This is how you do it, this is how we're going to do it, like everybody shakes their hands, they're on a time limit, like all these things that are helpful in public speaking, but they just weren't my vibe. So figure out if Toastmasters is your vibe. If it is friggin amazing, it may change depending on where it's actually located. So those are three kind of things. And then, of course, if you have any additional questions, you can always reach out to me, and I'm happy, like I. One of my favorite things to do is, if you have a speech, I'm happy to take a look at it and give you high level feedback and comments on it, because I always think that that's really helpful to have a second set of eyes on it. Especially when you're writing something or you're giving a speech for the very first time, it can be feel really intimidating to share it with anybody else, but you also want to know if it's any good.

Speaker 2: 37:39

So always feel free to reach out to me with questions and do you do any like if somebody wanted to like get like coaching or something like that. Are you doing that at the moment or in the future?

Speaker 1: 37:50

Yeah, so I offer. It's very it's very few people that I do one-on-ones with, just because I do a lot of workshops throughout the year. So I have maybe around five people that I work with at a time. So I do one-on-one coaching and it varies. Some people will do our sessions and they'll say, hey, let's do five in the next month and then we'll do five more. But I also have a three month program where, if you're someone that's like, hey, I'm just starting out, this is, this is everything that I know about public speaking.

Speaker 1: 38:22

I work with you a little bit more closely, but every single one of my one-on-one coaching programs have an individualized curriculum, because I am a firm believer that, yes, there are basics and foundations of public speaking, but you need to know how to apply them for yourself as an individual and because otherwise it's just another thing that you're doing, like something that you could. You could go on YouTube and say, how do I stop getting nervous? And you'll get all of these things, but it's not made for you and so it doesn't work. All the time You're still left feeling like, well, that didn't work. So I work with people to create this individualized curriculum and then I offer monthly workshops through my Latina Presente workshop series. These are every third Wednesday of the month and go chat. You can go over to chatswithivancom and look at the upcoming workshops and I'm working on getting the recordings up on my website but it's taking me a little bit longer to do that. But for now it's the live sessions every third Wednesday.

Speaker 2: 39:22

So before I end this interview, is there any other last minute tips or like advice for someone that's getting started or wants to get into public speaking?

Speaker 1: 39:36

I would say that you have to know that it's going to be a process. It's not something that will become easier until you start actually doing it. Right, like I'm a runner, so I like to think about it as, like when I'm working on getting myself to go on the run. It's never fun, I never actually want to do it and I only ever remember how much I love it after I've already done it. But it's hard to get there.

Speaker 1: 40:05

It's the same thing with public speaking. It can feel scary, it can feel really intimidating, it can feel like, well, there's no pressure for me to do it, like there's no deadline for me, no one is needing it for me. But if you know that it's a personal calling or a personal goal of yours, you have to lean into it. Like, just go for it, do it once, record yourself on a video or something delivering and knowing that it's never going to go out into the world, but just for you, just so that you can see it and say, okay, was that hard, was that easy to do? How did that feel? And reflect on it every step of the way.

Speaker 1: 40:40

But also lean on your community. Tell them, hey, whoever your community is, hey, I really want to do this so that they can hold you accountable to actually doing it, but then also help you practice, if anything, right. I know it's hard, but I guess what I'll leave everybody with is that my hope is that you'll learn to love the art of public speaking, because it's centered in who you are as a person. Already you don't need you may not have all of the techniques yet, but you have everything already that you actually need to make a great story, to bring a story to life and bring people on your journey.

Speaker 2: 41:19

You got to get our stories out there and we got to get our voices heard and our experiences and definitely on the business side, but just like in just general Latino Latina. Whatever, our stories need to be out there and be heard.

Speaker 1: 41:36

Yeah, and your expertise right? No one has. Let's say, you all went to college or you took a certification and you have all the same knowledge, but the way that you've expressed it is very different and you touch people differently and people will listen to one person over the other because of just simply off of the way that they speak right. And so it is so important to continue to have our voices and our experiences and expertise out there so that there's other people that also hear it and they're like, oh okay, that could be me. Or oh okay, now I get it. I understand it. I didn't understand. Like when real estate right, like it's sometimes it's cool to just see it from someone in your own community, for you to not be as resistant to it. So that's what I hope to do with public speaking as well is seeing more of us take the stage, get paid to speak, so that it becomes easier for other people to also take the stage and get paid to speak Awesome.

Speaker 2: 42:32

Well, thank you so much for coming on here and encouraging more people to go into public speaking and, you know, giving us some tips and some pointers on how to get started. But other than that, that's pretty much it for this episode. I will see everyone in the next one. Bye, bye, y'all, thank you. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to like and share this episode so others can also find this podcast. Don't forget to follow me on all my social medias listed in the show notes below, where you can also find resources to help you in your financial journey. If you're interested in becoming a guest on the podcast, you can find that information in the show notes. Other than that, thank you so much for your support and I will see you in the next episode. Bye.