Step Up to the Mic! #38 - "The Presenter Whisperer!" Debbie Fay!!!

Debbie Fay is the founder of bespeak presentation solutions, llc. She is a presentations coach, consultant and trainer who helps people of all ages and vocations present themselves, their ideas, products and services with confidence, conviction and clarity, delivering messages that get heard and get results. Debbie is the author of, "NAIL IT. Create and deliver presentations that connect, compel and convince." She has been a contributing writer for the Huffington Post and Forbes.com

Her Website:  https://bespeakpresentations.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Step Up to the Mike. Folks, this is the place for aspiring and established speakers to take the stage, deliver their talks, and bring them directly to you. Today's featured speaker is not going to be doing a speaking gig with us today, folks. Today's featured speaker is actually going to be a speaking coach who uh I tell you what, when I started researching this lady, I was blown away. So, I mean, uh, if you are thinking of becoming a speaker, if you are a speaker, if you're looking for any kind of help at all, you really need to pay attention to this episode. So dial in deep. Uh, we have with us today the presentation whisperer. Uh, she's a presentation coach, a consultant, and a trainer. She's the founder of uh her business, Be Speak, Presentation Solutions LLC. She also is an author on top of everything else, because she apparently had a little extra time. So she went ahead and wrote a book called Nail It Create and Deliver Presentations That Connect, Compel, and Convince. Folks, please welcome to our show, Debbie Faye. Debbie, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Great. Thank you for having me, Rory. I'm super excited about getting to talk with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Thank you. So am I. Uh, my goodness. Speaker coach, you've been doing this for 20 years. Um, and you know, out of all the stuff that I I read and heard and everything else, there was a line somewhere in uh, I think a bio or something that I read about you that said that this is what you've always wanted to do. It's what what you dreamed of.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

True. It's a weird dream, but it was my dream. Uh, I've been in first of all, I was involved in theater from the time I could walk and talk. We moved a lot when I was a kid, and my mother, I would beg her to put me in theater schools, which she did. But I also really love to get other people on stage. When I was like seven or eight, and we would go to visit my cousins in Ohio on that was our vacation, we'd walk in the door and I would deputize my cousins and my sister and brother to be in a performance of the sound of music. Yeah. And then my poor aunt and uncle and my mom and dad would have to sit through this. So this has been a thread in my life, if you will. And then as an adult, I uh taught before I started my business, I taught at a business school and I taught the all the English courses and all the communications courses. The one I was dying to teach was the public speaking course. And I also would help my first husband's team uh get ready with their presentations for his company's biennial international conference. So this has been something that's been a thread in my life forever. And as it turned out, in 2006 there were sort of two roads that I was going to go down. And to be honest, the first road, which was the safer road that I attempted, was to be a high school history teacher. That's what I had gone to college for. And I went through the whole thing, and there were no teaching jobs in my town or the towns adjacent to me, and I had very, very small children that I had to get on the bus every morning. And so then I thought to myself, okay, that was the that was the safe job. What is the impossible seeming job? And it was this that had been my dream for almost a decade. And I knew, Rory, when I started this business, I knew zero people in business. And I I had somebody build me a website, the same woman created my logo. Um, and I built myself what I call a road show. I built myself a subject matter expert presentation. And then the minute my website went live, I went, joined uh networking groups and offered to speak anywhere anyone would have me. And that's how I built my business.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Nice. So you were a speaker out there, I mean, on the stage yourself, learning all of the ropes. Uh, you've you've come through, you've come through the business to get to where you are and coach it. You're not someone who just said, Hey, I'm gonna coach this.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Yeah, no. And I had coached, as I said, you know, I had taught it, and then I had also coached uh, you know, adults, and I also did a bunch of beta training and coaching in 2006 before my website went live. So I was doing all that in preparation, and then I just jumped. And uh, and I'm telling you, it has been the greatest thrill and honor of my life to do this work. And whenever I get a text or an email from a client or somebody that's been through my training, that they've just had this incredible experience, won the pitch, won the board approval, gotten out there and talked about their new book, whatever it is, it's just it's it's a thrill.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

You know, it's a shame you're not passionate about what you do. Uh really. I mean, this would be a much better interview if you had a little emotion.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

If I cared about it at all.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Right, if you cared. I love it. I absolutely love it. I mean, uh, if you're not watching this, folks, you you really want to go over and check out the YouTube video of this one. Uh, because this lady is just absolutely um uh taken over. I mean, impassioned almost isn't even the word. I love that you love this so much. Um, you know, what's going on in my head, if maybe it's my age because I'm kind of an old guy, but I don't think people quite realize, you know, 20 years ago, how different this business and all of this internet stuff that we all do was as opposed to today. What were some of the things you had to kind of overcome back then that maybe people don't have to today?

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Oh my gosh, when I this is hilarious. When I started my business, I had a steel flip chart holder that I had to bring in my car to presentations with the flip chart. And by the way, for people that are just listening to this podcast, I'm five foot two and a change and I weigh like 115 pounds. So I'm carrying this thing into these presentations. I had created this flip chart, I had to flip the pages. It was nuts because back then not everybody had a projector, and so you didn't know when you were going to give a presentation if you could use PowerPoint for starters. After I think my second year in business, I when I was making money, I went out and bought a projector, which I still have. And then I was just bringing my projector to places that didn't have it. I mean, that was way easier, but that's how it started. I mean, it was, and obviously, Rory, you know this, just even the silver lining of the pandemic has been that I can reach people so much more easily now via the internet. You can meet clients on the internet, you can share screens on the internet so that you can see other people's slides and they can share it with you. And all of that has gone miles towards helping, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Right. You know, I used to carry those around too, those big metal, you know, set up tripods with the with the pull down. And I mean, I think those might have been five, two, 150 pounds. So I mean, you're carrying stuff that's like as big as you are.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

It was ridiculous. It was completely ridiculous, but I was not gonna let something like that stop me. You know, with no, I'm bringing it. I've got my own visual aid and I'm bringing it with me.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

I love it. Yeah, that's hilarious. The uh well, and I mean, so you kind of you started back then. Now I know that you have um you've helped a myriad of folks. Is there a particular type of client that you work with, or are you really open to pretty much everybody?

SPEAKER_00 8:12

I'm industry agnostic for starters. And in fact, over 20 years, I've worked in companies that I did not even know existed. I'll give you an example. One of the companies that I worked with um is oh shoot, I'm trying to think of the name of them. I will in a second, it'll come to me, but they're a company that produces lubricants for machines. So your thermostat has, they taught me this. I didn't know anything about that, has has parts that rub together. Anything NASA, they built, they created custom lubricants for NASA for instruments on the spaceships and the modules and all that stuff. Anytime there's something that's rubbing together, you want that not to be causing undue friction or um wear and tear, all that kind of stuff. So, and by the way, this company is so old. They're a New England company up in Massachusetts, or yeah, it's Massachusetts, New Bedford, I think. They are so old, Rory, that when they started, they were using whale oil.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

I don't think people quite get quite get that. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

It's it's amazing. I got to work with I got to work with uh the COO and then management at Sabra that makes hummus. Sabra hummus, they were a client of mine that was fantastic for you know lots of reasons, delicious and everything else. Um, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF was a longtime client of mine, and obviously that was really heartwarming because they help the world's children, as everybody knows. So it's it's any industry. I also work with a lot of authors who need to have a presentation that they're gonna give to promote their books, because as I'm sure your many of your listeners know, most of us, I self-published my book. The majority of us are self-publishing. And when you're self-publishing, you also have to be self-promoting. So I'll help them build that. Um it's it's oh, I worked with one of my I worked with a doctor years ago who I'm not gonna tell you this person's name, but this was someone who was terrified of public speaking. And this doctor was promoting a bio-identical hormone replacement therapy for women. And that's a very important thing. It's as important now as it was, oh my gosh, probably 16 years ago when I worked with her. And so we worked together to create her presentation, rehearse it so that she could go on and deliver it. So it's industry agnostic, size of company agnostic.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Nice. Nice. All right. Um, the uh no, your company, Bespeak Presentations Solutions LLC. Um, if somebody comes to you and they say, Hey, you know, I want to be a public speaker, you know, is there a certain point in which you start working with people or do you take them at any stage? And what does Bespeak actually kind of do for folks who want to get into this industry?

SPEAKER_00 11:28

That's such a good question because I do not work in the abstract. I work with people who either want to go out and present or have a presentation coming up. I don't work with people that come to me and say, I want to better be a better speaker. Can you give me tips and tools? I have training that does that, and that's to date been done via a corporation will hire me and I'll go in and give presentations training to their employees. I've been asked over the years if I would do a sort of an independent training, which I really should do, and I just haven't gotten around to it. So individuals could come and participate in this training. That would actually work. So people, in the meantime, people come to me who either have a high-stakes presentation coming up. They may already have built it, by the way. They may have created something, and I will look at what they have created, and we will either edit it, or often we have to break it down to the studs because there are a lot of problems with it. Or it could be a woman I just finished working with. Her name is uh Linda Hunt. She has 30 years in business as a bookkeeper, and she wrote a book called The Money Conversation. And it's this thin, fabulous book for service providers, giving them really great tools for things like being able to state their fees with confidence, being able to explain to a customer when mission creep has happened, right? So they're doing 20% more for that person, but not getting paid 20% more, all those kinds of things. It's a great little book. And she needed a presentation so that she could go out and publicize the book. And so we built that presentation from the ground up based on the book.

unknown 13:31

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Okay, nice.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

So I'm I'm really somebody who I call it consulting and coaching. It's two sides of the same coin. Inevitably, we're either editing a presentation or building a presentation, and at the same time, I am coaching them on their delivery. Got it, got it. Some people, honestly, Rory, I cannot tell you how many people have come to me over the years and said, I want to be a better speaker. I'm a terrible speaker. And it turns out it is not their delivery. People always think it's a delivery issue. They need to be more something, they need to be funnier. I can't make anybody funny. Like, I don't have a magic wand. I I can't make you funny. It hilariously, there are people who come to me and say, make me funny. And they are funny, they just don't realize it. Anyway, I can't make anybody more of anything. What I do is turn up the volume on what that person is and what they already have going for them from a presentation standpoint. And what I have found is it is not the delivery, it is the presentation itself. It hasn't been constructed with the audience in mind, it is not structured at all often, or it's structured poorly, or it could be structured better. Uh what's another thing I say? Oh my God, the PowerPoint slides are a disaster, and they are actually impeding the speaker's ability to get the message across to the audience. When we clean all that up and we practice it together, and it's where it needs to be, that person goes out and gives that presentation and they are killing it. So it's just fixing all that, and then they're good to go. They're good to go. Including, by the way, people who are nervous presenters, I kid you not. I can think of two people. I mean, I've worked with hundreds that have this issue to some degree, but there are two I can think of who were really afraid. And they went out, we worked together, they went out. Not only did they love and nail the presentation that they gave, one of these people who had a really, really high-level position in a big company. He called me after he had given this huge presentation and an internal conference to thousands of people. And he was convinced when we started working together, literally, his attitude was, okay, I mean, you're telling me you're gonna help me, but really I don't think this is gonna work. No kidding. And he, after the presentation, called me up and said, Swear to God, okay, so in two years' time, when I give this presentation again, I need to do be better than the woman that went right before me. I want to beat her. Like this is where this guy came.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

So, yeah, I was like, wait, I was like, you know, hello? Am I talking to the same person?

SPEAKER_02 16:56

I mean, you have to love that kind of transformation. You know, that's what makes all this work worth it, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

Yeah, I can tell. The uh, you know, part of the uh the conversation always is, you know, what works, what doesn't, what's needed, what isn't, um, you know, what makes a good presentation. I mean, it are is there a secret sauce to that type of thing of well, if you have this, this, and this, then it's gonna be good, or is it just really and truly completely different for every single person?

SPEAKER_00 17:23

No, it's not. There are a couple things that are must-dos. And they truly are these very few things are on the same level. The first thing, Rory, is your presentation must be audience focused, even if it's just nuanced. So I know that um I listened to a few of your podcasts, and and they were the subject matter was was compelling. And so it doesn't mean that that the that the that the presentations have to be uh torn down and rebuilt. What it does mean is if you're giving a motivational presentation, for example, it can it can have the same framework, absolutely, and the same key points. But as you deliver it, you want to insert nuances that are directed at that audience. If you're talking to young mothers, young mothers are in a specific kind of boat. I'm the mother of three children, my children are grown, but ask any mother, they remember very clearly when they were new mothers. It's you know, it's traumatic and wonderful, but mostly traumatic. So anyway, you you you would speak to that as opposed to if you were speaking to moms who were about to be empty nesters, or let's take dads, dads who are new dads. There's all kinds of struggle with that. That's a life transition, as is empty nesting for fathers, as is if you're speaking to couples who are entering a new phase of their lives because they're retiring. But you could have the same presentation. It needs to be directed to who you're speaking to. From a business standpoint, it becomes exponentially more important. You cannot have a pitch that is a generic pitch that is the same for anybody you're in front of.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

By the way, the the slides can be the same, but it must be directed, ideally, based on discovery, based on the conversation that you've had with the prospect ahead of time, where you've asked questions and gotten information from them so that when you pitch, you're saying to them, you know, Tom, when we sat down together two weeks ago, the three things that you told me were top of mind for you were one, two, three. Let me share with you how what we're promoting is gonna help with each of those things.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Do you see what I'm saying? Absolutely. So it you can have the same presentation, absolutely, but the the narrative must be tailored to the audience.

unknown 20:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

So that's the first thing. In fact, a be speak ism of mine is turn your focus 180 degrees. Sit yourself and your audience a seat. So that's the first thing. The second thing is practice out loud. You must, you must practice your presentation out loud. Clicking through your slides and thinking about what it is you want to say is not practicing out loud. Believe me, we all sound like Oprah Winfrey and and and what's his name? Tony. What's his last name? Tony. Who wrote the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People? I can't remember.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

This is a big um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Is his name Steve? Tony.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I know who wrote that.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Same. I just can't remember. Anyway, anybody that you admire as a speaker, right? This is not the same. You're gonna think you're gonna sound like that in your head. Then you're gonna get into in front of real life people. So let me tell you, for fearful speakers, which none of your audience are, because they're dying to get out and give their presentation, I'm assuming. I'm assuming, if you do not talk it through out loud, the first time through out loud is not even a practice. I refer to it as a stumble through because you are going to give the introduction and then you're gonna stop because you have no idea how to transition from your introduction to your first big point. And then you're going to go, and then you're going to go on. And then you're going to say to yourself, uh-oh, this doesn't belong here. Why did I think this belonged here? This really belongs later in the presentation. Or you're going to think, you know what, particularly if you're using slides, you're going to think to yourself, you know what? I need another slide here because I'm resting on this slide too long. And it's not helping me get this second point across. Or you might think to yourself, you know what? This idea doesn't even belong in this presentation. I don't know what I was thinking. All of these things you don't know until you talk it through out loud. Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Once you get all those pieces in place, then you rehearse. That's a practice. And you do that a few times, and then you're good to go.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

Sure. Okay. So that's the second thing.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

That's the second thing. Um, I'm gonna give you three, and then we can talk about other things. But my if I had three, and I love the rule of threes, by the way, obsessed magic rule of three. Do you know about the rule of threes?

SPEAKER_02 23:04

I've heard that before.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

As humans, we naturally organize our thoughts in threes. So I'll give you some examples. Um stop, yield, and go here, there, and everywhere, past, present, and future, three strikes and you're out, three little pigs. Um uh the genie gives you three wishes. Uh I could go on and on. I won't. But because we organize ourselves in threes, I'm giving you three big points right now. It's great for people to think about organizing a presentation in threes. In the workplace, it's super easy when you're having a status presentation. You say, This is where we were the last time we met, this is where we are now, this is where we're going. Three. At any rate, so here's my big three. The third one is be yourself. Oscar Wilde is attributed to having said, be yourself, everyone else is already taken. I love that. Isn't that good?

SPEAKER_02 24:04

Sounds like Oscar Wilde, yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Here's the thing. Rory, I cannot tell you, I mean, not hundreds, but maybe dozens of people in high positions that I worked with that said to me, you know, Debbie, I want to be a speaker-like. Wow. I want to be a speaker. And I would say, first of all, you can't be a speaker-like because they're them. That works for them. It's it's what I learned, by the way, before I started my business, I read voraciously about presentations, public speaking, fear of public, everything I could get my hands on. Bert Decker had, and I think his son still has, a huge training, presentations training company on the West Coast. And I read probably two of Bert Decker's seniors' books. And one of the things he talks about is that as human beings, one of the first things we do when we meet someone for the first time is subconsciously we're trying to figure out how much we're gonna trust them. And we can only trust them if we believe that they are authentic, if we believe that they're the real deal. And it's the same thing with audiences. The first few minutes you are speaking, their attention is ramping up, especially in today's day and age, and they are trying to determine how much they are going to trust and believe what you are saying. And if you are not being authentic, man, they are going to know it.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

I mean, and then you're it's like ridiculous. They're they're they're thinking, well, she was funny, but something wasn't reading right. That's why I always tell people do not let any well-meaning presentations coach put gestures on you, suggest that you should do this or this, or anything. Anything that you would not be doing in animated conversation with friends or family, don't do it.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

Nice. Interesting. You know, that's uh my follow-up to this, because you gave me the rule of threes on this, of course, which is wonderful. Uh, and I appreciate you giving this advice out to everybody. Uh, what's maybe one of the bigger things that people like from what you do commonly kind of mess up or do wrong or have a you know a misconception about the biggest misconception, and I confess, Rory, that I do most of my work with business people. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

90% of my work, probably. There's another 10% that I do preparing people for TED talks, motivational presentations, keynotes, that kind of thing. For business presentations, everyone is going to have a PowerPoint deck. I they could build it in Canva or Keynote, whatever. The biggest mistake I see presenters make in that world is they create slides that require reading. And humans cannot read and listen at the same time. Wow. You can't. Now, the good news is when I work with these presenters, uh, over the years I've taken myself to school in creating PowerPoint slides in what makes an effective visual. And so I'll build their decks for them. Or I'll build for people in big companies where they have their own graphics department, the the speaker and I will do this together. I mean, I do it, and then we say, Oh, yeah, let's let's animate, you know, let's animate this, let's do this, and then like we send it to the graphics department and they make it beautiful. I'm I'm at what I refer to myself as being artsy craftsy. Like there's stuff I can do, but I'm not an artist. I mean, it looks great. Listen, compared to what they had coming in, it's fantastic. So that's the biggest mistake. And and then the speakers will say to me, but I need them to know it when I'm trying to get them to take the rows and rows of bullets and reading off the slide, but I need them to know it. No one will ever know it if it's on the slide. People don't remember what they're reading in that situation. You're actually causing cognitive overload when you require, try and require an audience to read at the same time they're trying to listen to you. They cannot do both.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Wow. I mean, it seems so simple, and yet I I see this all the time. Uh, and people are like, Well, I'm not gonna read my slide, uh, as if that's the progress they're making. But then the slide has six paragraphs on it. Yeah. So then not only are we reading it, but then we're writing it down, probably taking notes.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

There, or there so here's the thing: there's the people who will read the slide and then try and listen to the speaker. There are people like me. I'm a voracious reader, and when you put it on a screen, it takes me a minute. And so I will ignore if it's lots of reading, I just ignore the reading and listen to the speaker. I completely ignore the visual and just listen to the speaker. Then you have people like my sister who likes to read the slide and then listen to the speaker, but it's gonna take her a while to read the slide and then she's missed what the speaker was saying. So it's just it's a lose-lose and it's not effective. It doesn't work. I I what I always say to people is think about show and tell. When you were in kindergarten, you sat on the floor in a circle, and one of your classmates sat in front of you, and he showed you his newest toy, or his newest pet, or his newest sibling, and you were you were just uh wrapped. He had your complete attention because he was showing you something and explaining it to you. That's what we need to be doing. So it can be, so it can be it could be a a pie chart, a column chart, a line chart, it could be icons with labels, it can be photos. There are all kinds of things that are visual that you should be using if you need it to help you tell your story, to help you explain what it is you're getting across. Bullets are not gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Nice. I appreciate you sharing that too. You know, as I'm sitting here listening to you speak, the question that is rolling through my mind is um, where did you learn all this stuff from? You know, and did you have a mentor or did you have multiple, or did you just go out and self-teach? How did Debbie turn into this like expert plethora of knowledge, you know, uh resource for everybody?

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Well, first of all, thank you very much for that compliment. This is the only thing I've been doing for the past 20 years. So think about that for a minute. But it in fairness, my presentation guru is a person by the name of Nikki Take. And she wrote a book. This is a wild story. So she wrote a book called Killer Presentations over about 20 years ago, right when I was starting my business. And she just happened to be doing a consulting gig for Bayer, B-A-Y-E-R, here in Connecticut in Orange County. They used to have, they've been, I believe they've been, they've been bought, they were bought by Siemens a million years ago. But at the time, they had this big uh facility in Orange. And my husband is an organizational psychologist, and he was coaching a client at that same facility, and the two of them happened to meet, and Nikki gave my husband Michael his her book. This gets a little confusing, but just bear with me. The book, and my husband, in fact, we weren't we weren't married at the at that time, but we were you know about to be married. We got married in 2011. My husband came and said to me, Hey Debbie, here's this book I got from this English person who's Nikki's company is M62. It's located in Liverpool. Here's this book. And meanwhile, I was reading everything I get my hands on. I read this book, and Rory, I was obsessed. I started writing Nikki, emailing every 30 days. We now lovingly refer to it as me stalking this person. Because subsequently, she said, Listen, we need to meet. We met in New York City in 2009. And at that point, my business had taken off because that day I was offered a job working for them. And I said, you know what? Now my business, I've got, you know, I've got momentum. I don't want to give it up. Anyway, this was one of for sure my PowerPoint mentor. So there was that. And once I read that book, do you know what I thought? I read that book about exactly what I was just telling you that you can't read and listen at the same time. And I thought, I knew this all along because I used to tell my first husband's team in the 1990s, you gotta get all this crap off the slide. Take all these bullets off. This is distracting. You don't need this, that's what you're there for as the presenter. So I knew it, but I didn't have the research to back me up.

SPEAKER_02 34:47

Wow. All right, so that's where it came from. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

The PowerPoint stuff, absolutely. And then I did the research, I read the research that that Nikki talked about. So there are there are scientists who have done this research. Uh gentleman by the name of Alan Battley, who did the this research in the 1980s, and I have read the research, and it is still the accepted research today about working memory and and the parts of working memory that take in information. I mean, I could go on and on. I'm not gonna bore you with it, but I've read it. So it it but that's where the nascence of it was, and then I kept exploring because I'm you know I'm obsessed with it.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

Right. That's just you. I got it. So that's that's the behind-the-scenes story of where of where Debbie got all of her talent from.

unknown 35:39

Right.

SPEAKER_02 35:39

Well, that's we're all for that.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

I mean, that's the the PowerPoint stuff for sure. And then honestly, Rory, I taught myself PowerPoint and kept, and it's easy, and and the later iterations of it are really easy than when I first started out. And then there's stuff like um, there are all these easy resources to get icons and and photos, and the more I've been doing it, the better I have become at it.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, in 20 years, yeah, you've learned quite a bit uh just in the time frame that you've been you know doing all this, of course.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

It's a long time, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

Yeah, absolutely. Um as you've been building this business and this sort of you know empire of yours, uh that you I would not call it that. That you've got uh well, I mean, I I like I said I looked into you a little bit past Bob Match, and you're an incredibly well-known, well-respected person in your field. So kudos to you for everything that you built uh because that that can't just go unsaid. Um the book comes along, okay? You're out here and you're doing this and and you're doing the speaking and you're working with people. And was the book sort of like the next evolutionary step for you in terms of the career? Or was it, hey, I want to be able to talk to authors, so I better write my own book? You know, where where'd that come from?

SPEAKER_00 36:57

So I started writing the book as the business was growing. As anybody knows who's ever started a business, or maybe it didn't happen to them this way. What happened to me was it was a slow build. And even today, their I have downtime. In fact, I'm working on a second book right now, and this book was published in 2014. So I am in no way prolific book-wise. However, soon after I started my business, I started um on constant contact. As the people I knew in networking grew, I started a monthly newsletter that would come out that I would write articles about different presentations topics. And I knew I wanted to write a book, and I'll tell you why. My mother, uh she's deceased, but she was a published author. She wrote a book about Emma Lazarus, the woman who wrote the poem on the Statue of Liberty. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. My mother was a um scholar in American studies, and she had written this book. And so I always wanted to be a published author. I wanted to have my own Dewey decimal number. Like Dewey decimal numbers don't even exist anymore, I guess. But that was the motivation. Um, and so as the, and I knew honestly also, Rory, that the book would give me another level of gravitas, and I could use the book not only as a marketing tool, so I would speak to a prospect and then I would send them the book. And when I do my presentations workshops, I bring the book, or the book is sent ahead of time, and that becomes the resource for the people that take the training. Nice. And for my coaches, for my clients. I send, I give them the book. So it's it's become a it's it does exactly what I wanted it to do. Um, and it took me, I didn't publish it till 2014, and then it took me another two years to get up the guts to have it reviewed by Kirkus Reviews. And it got a very nice review. And when they said when they emailed me the review, I was at a training gig in, I think it was Chicago, and so I had a colleague of mine who was there with me. I came downstairs, we're gonna go to dinner, and I said, Well, I just got the review of my book from Kirkus Reviews, and I'm afraid to read. And so she read it, and she's sitting there scrolling through it. She says to me, Debbie, this is really good. This is really good.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

I was like, Oh, thank God.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

So, anyway, um for your for your for your listeners who are who maybe feel a little insecure or doubtful or you know, same. I I I don't have I have a lot of confidence about helping people, and yet I'm still waiting with bated breath for them to, and I'll hunt them down if they don't, for them to text me or write me and tell me how it went. Like I need to know how it went afterwards. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

Yeah. That was that was how the book came to be. It it um it it served exactly the purpose I wanted it to serve.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

That's wonderful. Good for you. I I love that you were able to do that on your terms and get it done the way you wanted it. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

That really well you know, listen, for your listeners who are authors or who are about to publish a book, in the beginning for a little while, I was hoping that I would get a publisher. Then I read um Guy Kawasaki's book, Ape, Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur. Highly recommend. And basically what he was saying is what everybody now knows, you don't need a publisher. You can self-publish, and that's great too. Uh so there was that. And then it wasn't easy. I mean, there were there were stumbling along the way, but eventually I got it done. So it's it's and it didn't have to be like that. You're anybody that's that's writing a book, I would say just make sure that you get it well edited and and get it well laid out, laid out the way you want it. So it looks professional and it doesn't have grammatical errors.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

Nice. All right, appreciate that advice too, on the author front for anybody who you know has that going on.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Just a little bit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:31

There you go. Um now when you do your coaching, is this uh small group? Is this all individual? Um, how does that work?

SPEAKER_00 41:38

The so I consider the coaching one-on-one.

unknown 41:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

The training is small group, larger group. Um, I have also, by the way, I should, there's a caveat to that, because I've also also coached teams that are going to be giving team presentations to a board of directors or to pitch for a piece of business that is that happens, and I will do that. And there's uh a dynamic around team presentations, you know, we can get into another time. So yeah, those are group, but other than that, it really is one-on-one. And then there's the training, which is group training.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

That's great, that's great. And in if they want to find out more about the training, you do have the link for a free 30-minute consult with you.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

Absolutely. Anybody that wants to, you can go on my website, go to the contact, what does it say? Contact us page or contact me, and just either send me an email or I have a calendarly that you can easily schedule a 30-minute consult. And this truly is no pressure, where you're gonna tell me what's going on with you, and I'm gonna listen and give suggestions. And then if you want to ask me what it would be like to work together, I'm happy to talk to you about that. Uh, at the same time, if you really truly want 30 minutes of free advice, I'm happy to give you that as well.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

That's great. I appreciate you putting that into the world like that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Oh, can I say one other thing I'm just thinking of, which is crazy that I haven't been thinking about this. Also, you know, I love speaking to groups of people. So if anybody in your audience is part of an organization or uh there's a conference where they have breakout speakers or keynote speakers, you can go to my uh website and at the bottom there's a YouTube link. And if you click on the link, then you can go to my YouTube page and see examples of me speaking at conferences. And I love that. I mean, as much as I love uh coaching and training, I I'm also a huge ham, and I love getting up in front of you know, the more people, the better. It's nuts. Like if I go to a conference, I'm a speaker, I'm pulling chairs in if there's not enough chairs in the room. So yeah, I I I would love that.

SPEAKER_02 44:07

Okay, that's perfect. Uh, I do have one more question for you while we kind of bring this to you know wrap it up. But uh before I get to that point, I want to make sure we get all your contact info out there. So you've mentioned these a few times, but give it to everybody straight. Best way to reach you, best way to find out about you and your products, go for it.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

So my email address is D fay, F-A-Y, no E at the end, at Bspeakpresentationsplural.com. Dfay at bspeakpresentations.com. My website is bbespeakpresentations.com. Uh they can connect with me on LinkedIn if they'd like. I think my LinkedIn sort of handle is BSpeak, uh, or they can they can look up Debbie Faye. I'm also on Google. They can search for me as Debbie Roth Faye. Roth is my maiden name, and that's how I published my book because I wanted to give a shout out to my parents. Um yeah, that's I think that would be the way, either on my website or on LinkedIn. I I have a I have a BSpeak page on Facebook. I confess I'm not as active on that as I should be, but they're welcome to connect with me there as well. It's I'm mostly on LinkedIn and my website.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

Makes sense. Okay. All right. Makes sense, especially with who you're dealing with. You know, rather that makes sense. I understand. All right. Um, last question. Um, normally I ask something kind of uh, you know, generic about um uh when I'm talking to folks about speaking or podcasting or writing, whatever it is about what's your best piece of advice, blah, blah, blah. But you know, with this, you've given a ton of advice already. So, I mean, folks, if you're listening to this and you don't have any advice yet, you need to like rewind and get a pad and a pen and get back to work. Um I'm curious um to maybe dig a little deeper on this one because a huge portion of our audience is um aspiring speakers. I mean, they're they're they want to speak, they're they're thrilled by the idea. And what I get more often than not is where do I begin?

SPEAKER_00 46:18

So I confess that I am not a speaker's bureau. And and I know you're not asking me to be. Sure, but often I will get calls from people or emails. Can you help me find places to speak? There are places in the Northeast that I know of that I will often recommend for some of my clients who are looking for speaking gigs. You know, you really should apply to so-and-so. If you're trying to get practice as a speaker, again, something I highly recommend if you're new to speaking and you want to get out there and try it out. I recommend Rotary clubs and koanis clubs. And I'll tell you why. They meet weekly and they have a speaker every week. So they're looking for speakers. And because when I started my business, that's a lot of who I was speaking to. Like I was getting, I have to confess, I was getting great traction because I would speak somewhere and people come up to me and say, Oh my God, can you come speak to my networking group? Can you come speak to my blah, blah, blah? Yeah. But also in between, oh my, if I could tell you how many rotary clubs I spoke to, I dozens. So I would highly recommend that. If they happen to be a member of their Chamber of Commerce, they can speak there. If they are part of a church or synagogue, you know, their religious community, I'm guessing that those kinds of communities have smaller groups where they might be able to speak. They could offer to speak. I know we have a women's group. Could I speak there? And these days, there is what is called, there's a woman in my networking group who does um, well, she did work for the insurance companies to help people navigate Medicare. And there's something that she calls the silver tsunami that's happening now because the boomers and whatever the generation is after the boomers, I can never remember those, that you know, it's coming. It's like they're coming. And so you depending on what your presentation is, you might even dial up some of the senior centers and the independent living facilities, which are popping up like weeds everywhere because there's so many people in that demographic, and they are looking for stimulation. These are still super sharp, engaged people who really are looking for information, motivation, etc. What do you have to lose? Like the worst thing they can do is say no, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 49:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

That's where I would absolutely recommend that they start. And I think they'll get good traction and good experience with that. And then everywhere they speak at the end of the presentation, they should be asking the audience to they should have like a QR code on their if they're using slides, a QR code that will send the audience to their website or wherever they want to send them. It could be to their Instagram page, to follow them or to send them an email letting them know if they have an organization where this speaker could speak.

SPEAKER_02 49:48

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

So an ask at the end, and that will help build their speaking opportunities.

SPEAKER_02 49:57

Beautiful. I knew you were gonna give me some kind of mic drop moment at the end there.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

So I'm not gonna be able to fit out of my office door after this podcast because like you've blown up my head so bad.

SPEAKER_02 50:10

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

My husband's gonna have to knock me back down to size.

SPEAKER_02 50:15

Well, I certainly appreciate everything that you have shared today. It's been absolutely wonderful. Uh folks, the presenter whisperer, presentation coach, consultant, trainer, uh, founder of Be Speak Presentation Solutions, LLC, uh, the author of Nail It, Create and Deliver Presentations That Connect, Compel, and Convince. Um, and uh the uh well also offering a free 30-minute consult, uh, which you know through me. I gotta make sure we get that out there too, everybody. Um Debbie Faye. Debbie, thank you so much for just coming on here and just being yourself the way you are. You're an absolute delight to have on the show. And I just I can't even begin to quantify the amount of information you gave to everybody today. Uh, incredibly generous. Thank you for sharing the way you did.

SPEAKER_00 51:01

Totally my pleasure, totally my pleasure. As I say at the end of my book, and whenever I sign anything to all of your speakers out there, go get them.

SPEAKER_02 51:11

I love it. I love it. All right, folks. That's been another absolutely spectacular episode of Step Up to the Mic. If you're an aspiring or current speaker and you want to bring your talk to the masses, message us today. Never stop talking, and let us help you to step up to the mic.