Public Speaking – Getting TESTIMONIALS

This is an AI generated transcript so please forgive any errors and spelling mistakes. 

Are you exploiting each and every speaking opportunity that you get? We’ll look at this in a bit more detail in just a moment.

I’m Shola Kay, I’m based in London and I work with individuals and also with businesses to help people become better communicators. Whether you’re a business owner, an event organizer and you bring in keynote speakers, please do get in touch. I’ll let you know a bit more about that at the end of this video.

First, are you exploiting your speaking opportunities? Now, what do I mean by that? Well a couple of weeks ago I was working with a client of mine who’s in my Get Clients with Speaking group and she had created an amazing opportunity for her herself to get in front of an audience and to give her first talk as a business owner. She was very comfortable speaking to suppliers and people in her field of business but this was going to be her first talk where she’d be giving her signature speech about her business. Then she’d be inviting people to work with her at the end of that talk.

Public Speaking – plan ahead and get creative

Because this was her first talk and this was a big opportunity, we worked together to think about how she could exploit that talk to the max, get the most from it, and then be able to set herself up as a speaker. I won’t go into all the detail of it now, but one of the things that she did is, she made sure that from that one talk she got as many testimonials as she possibly could. She was particularly ingenious because she was able to get six video testimonials from one talk, six! What she was also very clever about doing is that it was a fantastic venue with lots of different services, lots of artwork so she was able to record each of those testimonials from the audience members on a different background, different wall. So what that meant was, it looked like she could have been at six different events. She really did exploit that opportunity to the max.

If you’re a beginner speaker and you’re trying to gather up those assets that prove that you’re out there you’re doing your thing, that you are a competent speaker and you should be getting more opportunities, I suggest that once you do have an opportunity to speak you do the same thing. Think about the assets that you might want to collect from that speaking opportunity and then make sure you plan carefully to get everything you need. You may even want to write out a separate list of all the opportunities that that speaking gig is bringing to you and everything you need to do, not just during the presentation but after as well. Because often it’s what we do afterwards that really counts regarding getting booked again to speak.

As someone whose rebooking rate has really climbed recently, and it’s because (I’m not saying it’s because I’m a fantastic speaker, I’m not saying that at all) I’m saying that it’s about ticking those boxes at the end of your presentation so that you maximize that opportunity whether it’s in terms of gathering assets or letting people know that you’re available to do more speaking.

Public Speaking – ideas to max out the use of client testimonials

There are a number of things that you can do, but today let’s just talk about the testimonials. Especially if you capture video testimonials as they have multiple functions. You can use the video testimonial as is and put it on your website or put it on YouTube. You could also take photos of the testimonial all of the person who’s speaking and just maybe superimpose some kind of highlight quotes like “fantastic talk” or “I learned so much that I can implement tonight”. Whatever it might be so you could create an image post from that.

You could just take the text itself, some of the key phrases, and create image posts from those with different backgrounds. You could extract some of the key, you know, “this was great I’ll never be the same again” or whatever it was. Preferably you want to take out text that shows a real benefit or transformation for that individual. You can extract those and you can use those on a web page and just call out to those having me call out boxes or have them in larger font or in quotes.

You could transcribe an entire testimonial and have that as a written testimonial on your web page, or wherever, on any social media. You could use it in Instagram. One video testimonial, even just one, could be probably used in 10 different ways and on different sites and different media. Imagine if you’ve got six of those you could just spread them out over time you wouldn’t even need to publish them all at once.

Public Speaking – be ready to grab them!

I’ve given you quite a few ideas there for how to use video testimonials but the very first thing you’ve got to do is remember to grab them in the first place. So make sure that before you go speak your phone has got enough space on it to record a few videos, make sure that your phone is accessible, if you’re gonna use it for these testimonials, so that as soon as you’ve finished speaking you don’t forget because people will flow to you “that was great, thank you…”.

You’ve got to stay focused and think: hold on a sec and say “what do I need from this? Okay, I need the testimonials”. So you might have to say to those people who come and congratulate you “brilliant, thank you for that, can I just grab you for a second and get you on camera?”. Or if those people don’t want to be filmed you might need to say “I’ll be with you in a moment but I need to go and just speak to a couple of people first to get testimonials”.

Then come back later because quite often once the moments gone it’s gone. It’s very hard to get people to come back and maybe create a testimonial on their phone they have different energy they haven’t just been in your presence so they’re not all bubbly so it might just be a bit more of a somber affair but if you’ve got the testimonial there and then at that moment. Hope that helps, make sure that you exploit your speaking opportunities because each opportunity should be leading to more. A lot of that is down to you making that happen.

If you’re somebody who’s interested in growing your business with speaking, why not check out my live online events and my online on-demand masterclass? You can just watch whenever you want to, wherever you are. It will help you be amazing on stage and win clients with public speaking. If you go to sholakaye.com/masterclass then you can sign up for the next master class or if I’ve got a little online event coming up then there’ll be a sign up there for the event instead. If you are interested in growing your business with speaking then that’s a nice handy call to action for you. You’ll get some really great tips and some of my favourite go-to tools during the master class or during the live events.

That’s it for now remember to work it work it work it in the words of RuPaul “you better work work it girl!”.

Work. Every. Speaking. Opportunity.

Take care.

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you improve your speaking or grow your business:

1 – Get my free guide – 27 places to find speaking opportunities.

Find out where your next speaking opportunity might come from – whether you’re a beginner, intermediate or experienced speaker.

2 – Join my Facebook Group – Public Speaking for Female Coaches and Entrepreneurs.

Join us for tips, discussions and community!

3 – Are you an ambitious coach, consultant or small business owner? If you’d like to wow your audiences and find more speaking opportunities, then watch the FREE on-demand training video here: https://sholakaye.com/masterclass

4 – Find out about my VIP Days and private coaching. Book me for a VIP half or full-day session if you want to make some serious progress!