Integrating Both Thought Leadership and Lead Generation Into One Talk – Mastering Excellence with Guest Expert, Carol Cox.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
Integrating Both Thought Leadership and Lead Generation Into One Talk – Mastering Excellence with Guest Expert, Carol Cox.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Carol Cox:
Your job as the speaker is to lead your audience. Your job is not there to give them a whole bunch of information that you expect them to remember and absorb in 30 minutes or 45 minutes or an hour. It’s actually about you understanding where your audience is at, what they need to get to that next transformation that they’re looking for, whether it’s in their business, their health, their life, their relationships, their finance, whatever your umbrella topic happens to be.
Nikki Rausch:
Welcome and thank you for listening to the Sales Maven show. I’m your host, Nikki Rausch, your own personal sales maven, here to offer you tips and strategies and techniques to truly master your sales conversation. Today is one of our Mastering Excellence series, and I am bringing back a guest that I am super excited to dive into this conversation around. It is the brilliant, the amazing Carol Cox. Now, if you haven’t been listening to Carol, if you don’t already listen to speaking your brand, or if you haven’t taken one of Carol’s courses, gone through trainings with her, heard her speak, you’re in for a treat today, first and foremost. But let me tell you a little bit about her. Carol Cox is the founder of Speaking Your Brand, a coaching and training company that works with mission driven organizations, executives, and entrepreneurs to elevate their communication, public speaking and thought leadership. With a background in software development and two decades as an on air political analyst, Carol brings a rare blend of technical fluency, media savvy, and storytelling expertise to everything she does. Carol is also the host of the long running Speaking Your Brand podcast. With over 450 episodes on storytelling, public speaking and brand building all rooted in her mission to amplify women’s voices in leadership, business and the media, Carol has been featured in Forbes, named one of Orlando’s Women of the year, and has served as a speaking coach for TEDx Orlando since 2017, she has also been on the Sales Maven podcast before it was episode 71. The topic was bringing your worldview into business without polarizing your audience. Episode 75 Carol Cox. Welcome to the show, friend Nikki.
Carol Cox:
It is so great to be back. So good to see you. I know we are fortunate enough to kind of cross paths and connect every so often. And I was thinking back, I think we’ve known each other for 8 or 9 years. Pretty soon it’s going to be a decade. And I’m so inspired by everything that you do, and you are my go to person when it comes to anything related to sales.
Nikki Rausch:
Well, thank you for that. And I will kind of pour some love back on you because I still teach to this day this concept of a strive five and it’s like coming up with this list of people, these five people, if you’re going to attend a conference, if you’re going to go somewhere where you do things to put yourself in like that person’s orbit, not with the intention of selling them something, but with the intention of building relationship and building connection. And when I attended the first Biz Chicks Live event back in, I think it was 2017, I had heard you on a podcast. You blew my mind. Then I started like following you a little bit. And I remember getting to meet you at this chicks and being like, oh my gosh, like, I’ve met one of my inspirations in business and I’m just so blessed to, for us to all these years later still have a connection. I will also share with the listener. Carol is the only person that I have brought into the Sales Maven Society, and she’s done training, I think in that group like three different times, and that is a rarity. I rarely bring in trainers. I don’t know if I’ve ever brought anybody back for a second time, and not because they’re not great speakers or it’s just you are such a wealth of knowledge and there’s so much depth to this. You know, so many things that you teach, but I’m always fascinated by the way you really bring thought leadership and encouraging people to really embrace this idea of thought leadership in their business and in the content that they’re putting out into the world. And so I will say to this day, I still think I’m one of your biggest fans. So thank you for coming back and being here.
Carol Cox:
Oh, Nikki, that warms my heart so much. And I remember meeting you at the biz Chicks Live. And when you told me about the strive five, I think after I had hired you, after I met you. Right. And so not that it’s not not that it worked in the sense that you had a transactional motivation. That wasn’t it at all. But I feel like, like attracts like, and because of your integrity and, and, you know, excellence and the work that you put out into the world and naturally attracts women like me who want to work with you.
Nikki Rausch:
I have to say like such a boon to somebody that I admire at such a great level to want to have me be their sales coach and to have gotten to work with you over the years, you know, multiple times, but just to learn from you as well. Anyway, so I’m so honored that you’re here. And I want to say that what we’re going to talk about today, I think, again, is just another really kind of tapping into your, your incredible depth around this idea of integrating both thought leadership and lead generation into one talk. So Carol, so on topic. So I’m excited to dig in. But before we do that, will you talk a little bit about the way that you work with your different types of clients so that people have an understanding as we start into this talk? Because I think that’s going to be important.
Carol Cox:
Yes. So when we work with our clients and so our most comprehensive program, online program is called the Thought Leader Academy. It’s an eight week program, and it combines one on one coaching with a small group cohort. So every client that we work with gets one on one. We call it a VIP day, which is a a half day focused session where we map out their signature message and signature talk. Using the framework that I developed years ago and have used with hundreds of clients since then, I’m actually working on a keynote right now, and I have my board mapped out with all the Post-it notes using the framework because it works and it’s really effective. So that is the focus and the deliverable. The main deliverable is that signature message and signature talk. So taking all of the ideas that float around in our heads and we’re like, oh, maybe that one is the direction I should go in. Or what about how do I fit this thread in? And how do I put this story in? Where does this client go? Where does this piece of content go? Right. It’s all sitting there in a mess. So how do we lay it out in a way that is cohesive for the audience, but also is compelling and unique to you as a speaker? That’s the thought leadership piece. And so we’ll get to there. And then the other half of the Thought Leader Academy program is the small group cohort of women, which I really love because the women cheer each other on. They hold each other accountable. They support each other. They’re from all different industries. So they learn from each other. They get different perspectives and feedback. So then it’s a structured curriculum that we go over during those eight weeks. So not only their talk, but also the packaging and positioning themselves as a speaker, especially as a paid speaker, so they can get those bigger opportunities.
Nikki Rausch:
Yeah, I love that. Okay, so let’s talk about, you know, usually how I start these conversations is if I got to step in to your shoes for a day and think like you and really behave like you take action the way that you would, and I guess you are right now putting together this idea of a talk, how would you approach this idea of integrating both your thought leadership and lead generation into one talk? Because, you know, you can be the best speaker in the world and not generate any business from it. Right. And you can also be a lead generator, but not really be clear about, I think, your thought leadership as well. So bringing these two together feels unique and also really important.
Carol Cox:
It is important, especially nowadays where there’s so much competing for our attention, so much online, there’s so much information. I mean, 5 or 10 years ago we had Google that could answer anything we want. But of course, now we have AI. Chatbots can not only answer our questions, but put them together in a way that sounds very polished and comprehensive. So your audience does not need more information from you. And I firmly believe as a speaker for my entire career, after working with so many speakers and seeing so many speakers, that your job as the speaker is to lead your audience, your job is not there to give them a whole bunch of information that you expect them to remember and absorb in 30 minutes or 45 minutes or an hour. It’s actually about you understanding where your audience is at, what they need to get to that next transformation that they’re looking for, whether it’s in their business, their health, their life, their relationships, their finance, whatever your umbrella topic happens to be. So it’s about you in the sense of you have to put together that unique combination of content and material that’s going to persuade your audience. But it’s also not really about you either.
Carol Cox:
And I call this the expert trap that especially as high achieving women, we cling so much to our expertise because it’s been well earned. We got the degrees, we got the credentials, we got the coaching certifications. We’ve done years in our business. We’ve worked with lots of clients. So of course we should have that expertise and it is the foundation of everything we do. But so many of us stop there and then we forget to layer on top of that. Well, what is that core idea? What is that interesting thing that we’re going to share with the audience that thought leadership? And where does my personal journey also fit into that? If you do all of that, those things now your audience is more curious about you personally. Your topic, what it is that you do and how you can help them. And thus you’re planting those all important sales seeds, which I learned from you, Nikki, along the way. So like there’s different layers to your talk. And a lot of times we just think, oh, I’m just going to give them my expertise. But that’s just the foundation of what it is that you’re that you should share.
Nikki Rausch:
I will say every time I hear you talk about this, I feel like, oh, guilty as charged because I definitely lean into the expertise and get in that expertise trap. So this resonates at such a deep level with me of like, okay, Nikki. Okay. So then what is that kind of next piece? What’s that thing that people should be aware of or thinking about so that we’re not just always going back to our expertise as being that, like the thing that we’re always just pushing forward with.
Carol Cox:
So I mentioned that the expertise is the foundation because obviously you’re going to talk about whatever your expertise happens to be in your presentation. You’re not. If you’re a nutritionist, you’re going to talk something related to that. You’re probably not going to talk about the stock market. Right, right, right, right. So and so that’s where you’re, you’re, you’re saying in your expert lane. But then the next thing is idea. And I have an acronym for idea because of course I do because we love, we love frameworks. Idea stands for your. It should be interesting. So it should spark your audience’s curiosity, something they haven’t heard a hundred times before. So it should be interesting. The idea stands for Debatable and defensible. And this is where most women get uncomfortable because debatable in the sense that not everyone’s going to agree with whatever your approach is or your perspective is in whatever your topic happens to be. And that’s okay. You don’t want necessarily everyone to agree. Not that you’re standing up there having a debate with someone in the audience, but you want people to be like, oh, well, I’ve heard the opposite, or I’ve heard other people have other takes, but it’s defensible. So you have the evidence either from yourself or from third party research to back up whatever that idea is. The E in idea is emotionally resonant. So we spend so much time in our heads again as high achieving women.
Carol Cox:
And this is definitely me. I spend 99% of my life in my head, but we forget we have bodies and we forget we have feelings. So the emotionally resonant part, that’s where your personal journey comes in, to build that connection with the audience. And then the a, an idea stands for actionable. Obviously, you should not just be a whole bunch of theory or case studies. What is the reasonable action that the audience can take based on what they’ve heard you say? So that is idea that I think the hardest part is the debatable and defensible and making it interesting. So I talk about this idea of the expert trap, that phrase. I’ve used that since 2020, and I have women come on consultation calls with me and they repeat back to me, oh, I heard you on your podcast talking about the expert trap and I don’t want to be in there. So that’s a part of my thought leadership. So you want to think about some people don’t agree with me. They’re like, no expertise is all there is. We should trust the experts. And I’m not saying don’t trust the experts or don’t use your expertise, but we shouldn’t stop there. But there are reasonable people, reasonable people who don’t agree with me. And that’s okay.
Nikki Rausch:
Yeah, I want to not agree with you, but I know how smart you are because that expertise feels so much like that’s my core, right? Like the I show up from this place of being the expert on this particular topic. Yeah, I love this debatable and defensible. You are the queen of frameworks. Like I really understood the concept of framework from you learn that from you and the selling staircase, the five steps that became my framework because of you, because of hearing you talk about that hearing you, you know, teach about it and the importance of it. And I often tell people like, you need a framework, you should be following. Carol Cox like I have a training in the Sales Maven Society where she talks about this. And this is like your framework. It really does differentiate you. So I love that you bring the idea as like another one of your frameworks, but this idea of debatable and defensible, I don’t know if I’ve really heard you talk about this so much. So this feels like, okay, that’s interesting. I want to dig in maybe just a little bit more about this because you say this is where people often get really uncomfortable. And why do you think that is? Like what, what do you think is causing that for us? Because we know we’re the expert, but what’s that thing that’s getting in the way that’s making us uncomfortable?
Carol Cox:
Yeah. Nikki, I think there’s a few things going on. And I hear this from the women when we have our thought leader Academy calls is number one, that even though they’ve been in their career for a long time, or they’ve been running their business or have done whatever their expertise is for a long time, somehow they have it in their mind that when they’re going to a speaking engagement, someone is going to question them. Like someone’s going to get up in the Q amp A and grab the microphone and be like, you don’t know what you’re talking about. How could you say that? I don’t know if you’ve seen that in movies or like what, where that comes from, but that has never happened to me. I don’t know if I’ve, I mean, rarely it’s it is so rare. I would not even worry about it. I think that is part of it. Like we get that in our minds. I think another thing is people pleasing. We are socialized, especially as women, to not ruffle any feathers, to give everything, everyone comfortable and getting along. And again, you’re not there to debate the audience, but could you make them a little bit uncomfortable with some of their limiting beliefs or some things they may have thought? Sure.
Carol Cox:
I mean, I’m the type of person who likes to challenge the status quo. So this fits my personality very much. But also, I think imposter syndrome comes into play for some women where they’re like, well, I’ve been, you know, who am I to say these things? Or who am I to challenge the status quo or the so-called best practices in my industry? And then my point back to them is, well, number one, if not you, then who? But number two, sometimes as the people who don’t fit who the best practices were created for, we can often see it like the matrix. We can see it more so than other people because it hasn’t worked for us. And so then you are the person to help shed some light on this and say, okay, like maybe this has worked in the past or this has worked for some people, but what else could be possible? And Nicky, the language I learned from you is that frame it as an invitation to go along this journey, not as a lecture or a reprimand.
Nikki Rausch:
Yeah. I was having a conversation recently with a client, and she is in this place of really wanting to put her thought leadership out into the world, and she has really strong beliefs around it. But then she also has that like that fear, I think, of what you brought up. Like somebody is going to stand up and say, how dare you? Who do you think you are? Like all these things that people often, you know, freak out about. And I get this also when I’m teaching sales, right? People are always like, you know, I can’t ask somebody for their business. And I always say, you know, I’ve, I’ve asked a lot of people over the years, you know, I’ve invited a lot of people over the years to work with me. And I have been told no once. This is what I always say. And then people look at me like once and I’m like, okay, many times, but I’ve never had anybody clutch their pearls and be like, oh, how dare you ask me for my business, Nikki. And I feel like this is kind of that same thing of like, we think that we’re going to be up on stage and somebody’s going to stand up and like, start heckling us from the crowd, right? Like, this is not a comedy show. This is, you know, it’s a very different experience. But and I get that part of your brain that wants to keep you safe, right? Of like, I don’t want to risk having that happen.
Nikki Rausch:
And then I actually learned this from somebody else who actually was on my STRI five list. The the time that I met you and which is Jocelyn Sams. I remember her saying like, what do you think is the worst thing that’s going to happen? And then she said, you can do all the planning that you want around that somebody’s going to rob a bank, but they still build banks, right? Like they’re still banks out there. And I remember her saying this, I’m doing a terrible job of butchering her example, but this concept of, you know, and then she would say, just plan ahead, like plan what you’re going to say. And I say this to clients all the time. Okay, so let’s imagine somebody stands up, heckles you from the back of the room. What will you do or say in that moment? Because I think and you know, I get this with sales like, well, I can’t put this offer out because so and so is going to see it and they’re going to say this to me and it’s like, okay, let’s have a response for them and let’s put the offer out, right? Like just plan ahead for it. What do you think about that?
Carol Cox:
Well, no, I, I do think having a plan response can be helpful, especially in the beginning when you’re just first kind of getting your reps in, I think the more that you do it like Nike, you know, you and I have spoken so many times now over our career that if something happens like that, you know, usually the audience kind of is on your side as a speaker. They’re not on whoever that person. And again, this is so rare, it’s so rare that it happens. I mean, you can just say something like, oh, that’s an interesting question. I would be happy to chat with you about this once the session ends. Period. End of statement. Move on to the next next thing or next person.
Nikki Rausch:
Yeah, exactly. Like yes. Having a plan for it, I think, to push through those things so that you’re not holding yourself back from putting your thought leadership out into the world. Because like you said, people don’t need more information, but your thought leadership is needed, right? And who you are and what you can bring and contribute to the world that’s needed.
Carol Cox:
Nikki, what do you think your debatable idea is and what you share?
Nikki Rausch:
Well, okay, so the first one that comes to mind, because this is one over the years that I have had to defend and debate many, many times, is not putting your pricing publicly, like not putting your pricing on your website, not putting your pricing on your email promotion offers. You know, I get this pushback all the time because they’re like, well, you know, this business coach told me one time, you know, it’s better to get on a call with somebody and then, you know, establish your value before you bring price into the conversation, which I understand, like, totally why somebody has that thought for you. And I always say, like, I think I’m starting to maybe, well, you can tell me because I feel like I’m kind of speaking like to you and to your expertise here. But one of the things I’m noticing and have really leaned into over the last couple of years around my own coaching is I don’t actually coach from my client’s perspective, I coach from their client’s perspective. And so I’m always thinking about how is your prospective client going to feel about this? Or how are they going to react to this? Or if you say it this way, how might it be taken? So I love my clients and I want what’s best for them. And I feel like my coaching has to come from the perspective of, I’m always thinking about the relationship, the way it’s going to be perceived by the buyer. And so, you know, not putting your pricing on your website might be in your best interest, but it is not in the best interest of your buyer. And therefore, you don’t get to have the conversations because people just move on because they make assumptions about your price. And if you just put it out there, then you would attract more of the right buyers. I don’t know, I analyze that.
Carol Cox:
No, that is very well explained Nikki. And I feel like I learned this from you because I started speaking your brand in 2015, 2016, and then we met in 2017, and I may have had pricing on my website before then, I don’t remember, but I definitely added it after learning from you and every single page, every single offer that I’ve ever had has full pricing on there. I think it is a service to the prospective client so they have the information that they need. I’m not hiding anything. I’m also not changing the price based on who I’m talking to, which I think is a lot of people maybe assume when there’s not pricing listed on the website, even when I’ve had consultation calls a couple of years ago where even though the pricing is on the website, it was, say, the middle part of the page. So a lot of people didn’t hadn’t scrolled that far before scheduling the Zoom call. So after hearing that a few times, I moved it up higher on the pricing table, higher on the page because I’m like, and then I also make sure I send them a link beforehand. You know, the details on pricing are on this page. If you have a chance to review before we talk, because I actually want them to see the pricing before we talk. And so I do agree that is debatable and defensible, but it has made me want to learn more from you and to hire you, Nikki, because you have such a clear and defensible point of view regarding this that it is of service to your clients clients. But frankly, I really think it is of service to the client too.
Nikki Rausch:
Yeah. For sure. Okay. Well, thank you for that. That was fun to hear. But also this idea of like putting me in the hot seat of like, what is defensible and, and debatable. That was really helpful. So thank you as always. Okay.
Carol Cox:
Yeah, keep going with it and keep thinking about, I think feel like there’s a lot that you do. Nikki. I’ve learned buying signals from you, the selling staircase about this idea that selling should be an invitation. I think maybe that’s maybe less debatable to a lot of people than the putting the pricing on your website. But I think that there is still a current out there of sales being very transactional and very, you know, here’s the price, take it or leave it or here’s the offer, take it or leave it versus taking that prospective client on a journey that’s going to reflect what it is that they need, not what you need when you want the sale. Like you, of course want the sale, but what is it that they truly need that’s going to help them?
Nikki Rausch:
Yeah. I also, you know, another kind of thing for me is I have these three things that you really shouldn’t be selling to somebody unless these three things are in place, which I do think again, goes back to is it debatable? Absolutely. Is it defensible? I think I can absolutely defend it, which is, number one, you shouldn’t be selling to somebody unless they understand that they have a need. That’s the first. The second thing is you shouldn’t be selling to them unless you understand that you have a solution to meet that need. And third and most important, you shouldn’t be selling to somebody unless you have permission to do so. And when those three things are in place, sales get so much easier for you. For the buyer, the conversation flows more smoothly and you don’t show up like the person that you know shows up in your DMs or in your, you know, your email saying like, hey, I looked at your YouTube channel and you really suck on YouTube and you should hire me. And I put together this, you know, presentation for you about all the things you’re doing wrong and you need to hire me. And it’s like, okay, you don’t understand if I have a need, like maybe you think I have a need, but do I think I have a need that’s not there yet? Do you have a solution? Yeah, probably you have a solution, but do you have my permission? No you don’t. Therefore delete. Right. Like it never gets past that. So anyway.
Carol Cox:
I love that. Oh, Nikki, you should totally roll with that. I’m sure you have on your podcast, but I especially this idea of the permission piece, I think that is very much overlooked.
Nikki Rausch:
Yeah, I agree. I think that’s the, that’s often the missing piece of why people don’t understand, like, why is this person, you know, blowing me off or why is this, you know, why is this not going as well as I want it? It’s like, but do you have permission? And if you don’t have permission, it is so hard to earn somebody’s business because they’re not even in that like mode yet to decide to hire you. So yeah. Anyway, okay, back to you, Carol, in this topic for the listener, because it’s so, so important, this idea of integrating both thought leadership and lead generation into one talk. What haven’t we talked about that? Where should we go next from this? Because it’s so important.
Carol Cox:
I have an example that I think would be helpful to the listeners. So this is a client that I worked with a couple of years ago, and she came to me to do that one on one VIP day. She had been presenting a lot primarily for lead generation for her business, and she owns a bookkeeping agency. So her clients are small business owners, primarily women entrepreneurs who use her bookkeepers for their books and, and sometimes her taxes and things like that. So she had been presenting was her top lead generation method, was going to conferences and events, both virtual and in-person and presenting. But she had a feeling that she could have a better conversion rate if she improved her presentation. So we did the VIP day together. So I’m, you know, chatting with her. And, and so when I’m doing the VIP day with the client, I’m asking them all types of questions and I’m listening for things that seem less obvious than what otherwise what they think because they already know the obvious stuff, they already putting the obvious stuff in their presentations. I’m listening for the less obvious things. What she had been doing in her presentations was she had been trying to teach the audience bookkeeping, and I said, well, I don’t think your audience needs to learn bookkeeping because they need to hire your company to do the bookkeeping. They need to have a bigger picture about what’s going on in their business, maybe what’s holding them back or what’s causing them not to grow or whatever their goals happen to be, what’s getting in the way. And so when she was talking, she said something kind of offhand. And this is always the clue to me when it’s kind of, you know, offhand, she’s like, oh, I feel like women business owners under-invest in their business.
Carol Cox:
They’re so worried about saving money for a rainy day that they don’t end up investing in their business, so they can’t grow. They get stuck. And then she said, there’s this sweet spot between saving and spending. And I was like, ding ding, ding ding ding. That’s literally what my brain I’m like, that’s your thought leadership, the sweet spot of spending and saving. So then we mapped out her whole talk where that was the through line wasn’t teaching them bookkeeping. It was more them getting the audience to reflect on themselves, where they’re at in that journey, what they want for themselves and their business. Is that what is potentially getting in their way and what could it look like? So she, of course had some client examples with the sales seeds in there. I also encouraged her, much to her reluctance to include some personal stories, which she had never done. And she’s like, why do they care to hear about me? Listening to my parents argue about money when I was ten years old, I was like, oh, trust me, they’re going to care. So then she goes and presents this at a conference a couple weeks later, and I get an email from her and she’s like, Carol, I got the most leads and clients I ever have from any presentation I’ve done. And I had a line of women after my talk crying, saying, thank you for sharing those stories. Oh my. Because I know I’m not alone. And I know you’re not going to judge me for my finances and how I feel about money, and how can I hire you?
Nikki Rausch:
Wow. That gives me the chills. It also gives me the like, oh, like that pit in my stomach. Because I remember early in my business, I had hired a coach, and one of the things she said to me, which was so spot on, she said, Nikki, you spend way too much time in your head when you’re teaching and you need to get into your heart. And so she had challenged me. I can’t remember now if it was once a week I was supposed to post a personal story On. This was back when it was like, you know, Facebook was the place, right? And so it was on Facebook. I was supposed to post a personal story and relate it back in some way to what I do, the teaching like sales. And I don’t think if you could go back and find those, if people read them, that they would understand that I bawled before I posted them. It felt so uncomfortable to share from that place like it was such a a vulnerable piece. And I don’t know if it’s, you know, again, like all my history, right? Like raised by a dad, three brothers, you know, misogynists, like women were, you know, be quiet and smile. Or if it was being in this very male dominated industry. And so like, that vulnerable side wasn’t accepted or encouraged or really even allowed. Right. Like, I don’t know if it was all those things that led up to where now and I still struggle with it to this day. This idea of sharing personal stories. I feel like I’ve embraced it more in my business. But sometimes I wonder because like someone on my team will be like, I don’t think I knew this about you. Or, you know, why won’t you post, you know, pictures about, you know, you in, you know, your husband growing your tomatoes. And I’m like, because nobody cares about that. And I’m not doing it. Like, I don’t care. I’m not doing it. Like, I don’t know, what do you say to that? Because that feels incredibly vulnerable again, gives that pit in my stomach.
Carol Cox:
Well, Nikki, I want to hear some of those stories if you’re willing to share them when you come on my podcast, which will happen in a few weeks, we can all turn the tables and we’ll talk about integrating personal storytelling into your oh so painful. No. And it is because I again, I’m the same way I thought of this idea of the expert trap because I very much in there or have been in there most of the time. And I have to constantly remind myself to put those personal stories and personal kind of feelings into it. And again, it’s but it’s always in service of the audience. How is this going to help the audience to understand themselves better? You are a mirror to them, to help them. And Nikki, I think that growing up, you know, around a dad and brothers and then being in sales of all places, I mean, such a male dominated industry, I think there’s definitely things in there that have shaped who you are and more importantly, how you think about sales, because that’s what it comes down to. How has this shaped how you your perspective, that idea that I’d e a thing that we talked about earlier, how has that shaped it? Not that you’re going to share with your audience and a speaking engagement, 30 minutes of, you know, a story of you growing up. It’s like, is there a nugget in there that you remember? Like, oh, this did shape how I think about sales. And maybe the audience will recognize themselves in something in here as well.
Nikki Rausch:
Yeah. That’s so great. I also want to just comment to the audience, to the listener, that this is one of the benefits that I have always found in having a coach or a mentor. And this is why I think, you know, Carol is exceptional at the work that she does, is that you can make what to you feels like an offhand comment and she can go like, ding ding, ding. Let me just pull that piece right here and let’s build your talk around it. And then for, you know, the story that you shared of your client who had this incredible success as a result. And if like, she would not have been able to pull that piece by herself and not in the way that then it, you know, blossomed into this beautiful presentation like that to me is and, you know, she was saying like, women don’t invest in themselves. Like, this is why it’s so important to invest in yourself, because I think that’s an overused kind of frame work of people saying like, you can’t see the, you know, the bottle or you can’t see the label inside the bottle or however you know, that goes. But there is something about having a coach that can like go like, oh, you think this is a throwaway line? I think this is a gold nugget that we then like blow into something so much more that will resonate in such a deep level. So I love that you shared that story, and I just really want to comment on that to the listener of this is why you find and surround yourself with people who have the ability to do that. And I don’t think that that is necessarily a skill that’s in an abundance. I think you got to find the people who are able to do that, and you are one of those.
Carol Cox:
Oh, well, thank you, Nikki. And I feel the same about you. And can we talk for just a moment about AI?
Nikki Rausch:
Yes.
Carol Cox:
Regarding this. Okay. Because I’ve done some episodes on my podcast recently. As Nikki mentioned in my bio, I was a software developer. I founded and ran two technology businesses before I started speaking. Your brand. I have this technical bent. I use ChatGPT every day. I have since it launched. I have no problem with AI. I’m not anti AI.
Nikki Rausch:
However, you’re like a tech. I love how you are always on the leading edge of tech.
Carol Cox:
I use it for a lot of back end stuff. It’s great for certain things. As far as creating your talk or creating your sales strategy, it’s not because of what we just talked about. Chatgpt has never asked me, Carol, what would you like to do when you were a little girl growing up, and how did that shape how you see the world today? Or Carol, you mentioned this offhandedly back, you know, five conversations ago in one sentence. Can we come back to that? No. Ai is looking for the repetition. It’s looking for the thing you say over and over again. And then it’s going to average that all based on everything it has in its neural network. It’s not going to come up with anything that is truly uniquely yours and that is going to connect that I’d e a that we talked about like Nikki, I’m sure whatever you use ChatGPT or Claude has not asked you about your background and how you ended up in sales and how you have that perspective. No it can’t.
Nikki Rausch:
Right. I was actually working with it on something around the way that I process and think, right? Like trying to kind of, you know, really kind of enhance my, I call it Jerry, but like my Jerry, which is my, you know, strategic AI thinker that has been trained on my stuff and can come back with certain things. But what was interesting is that I would share, like what I did with you of like the three things that have to be in place, right? And like, here’s an example. I guess this is a better example. So I teach a concept around that. I believe you have a rapport bank account with everybody you come into contact with. You’re making a deposit, you’re making a withdrawal. You might have heard me talk about this. I talk about it a lot. It’s very like the way I show up and think in all relationships, it’s like, am I making deposit? Or when I make a misstep, am I making a withdrawal? Do I have a balance? All this thing. And it immediately said like, oh, you know, all the like, oh, Nikki, you’re so smart. It’s such a great story. But I don’t think you actually teach about rapport. I think what you’re really teaching is trust. And I was like, no, I get why. And that probably sounds better. And I think if you don’t have a real clear idea of your thought leadership, I could see where that would kind of take you off into a direction. But my thought leadership around this is around a rapport bank account, and I’m very clear about it. I’ve been teaching it for years. I feel like it’s, again, something that is very signature to me and it tries to like change it or in a way, water it down. And I’m like, but then you, you lose all the story behind it, right? You lose the concept of a, a rapport deposit in a bank account like that to me paints a picture, right? It’s there’s a story in there and that’s like a I can it just doesn’t get it.
Carol Cox:
That is such an excellent example, Nikki. And I’m so glad that, you know, your body of work so well that you could spot right away that, no, this is not the direction, because the AI makes it sound so seductive, like, oh, I really think you’re talking about trust. Why don’t you come over here on this direction? Right? And it’s so like I say, it is graded engagement. It knows how to engage us because that’s what the platforms want you to do. But it’s not fundamentally curious about you. And it can’t have that emotional resonance where I think rapport deposit, like, yeah, like I can see it in my mind, right? This idea of trust is too vague compared to rapport, which is weird because, you know, you think, oh, there were similar words in a way, but they act differently As metaphors.
Nikki Rausch:
Yeah, trust to me is a much bigger word. And there’s a lot that goes into it. Rapport doesn’t necessarily mean that there is trust. You can have rapport with somebody and not have trust, right? Like I think anyway, so I love that you brought anything else you want to share about AI and this concept of what this is doing to your thought leadership and how it whatever you want to say here, I’m trying to not put words in your mouth.
Carol Cox:
Well, I think that the example of, well, have you thought about this or what I have seen that happen in my own chat threads as well. I think it’s obviously what the AI models are putting in there where that it wants the large language model to do as it’s engaging with us. That’s the thing to keep us hooked in using it. But then I also find I have hundreds of chats, right pages of Google Docs, and I look at stuff from six months ago that I thought was amazing at the time, which I didn’t ever, ever went back to because it was too overwhelming. And I look at it now, it’s like, no, that was not it, which is probably why I never acted on it, because I knew that that was not quite it. The other thing I see with AI, with some of my clients, is that they will sheepishly admit to me, well, you know, I kind of had to write the script and then I tried to memorize it or to say it, and it just didn’t come off well. Or they’ll send me an audio recording and then their personality is completely gone. So the words may sound polished and the words may sound correct, but I know them well. And there’s like, there’s no humor, there’s no passion, there’s no energy. The words just are not the words they would use. Just because something sounds polished does not mean it’s the better version of what you should say. You should say what you should say, how you say it.
Nikki Rausch:
Yeah, that’s funny because I was again, like working on this very specific thing with AI, and I used a story that I use as one of my openers when I’m speaking on stage. Right? And so, and I have a very specific phrase that I use, and it then polished that phrase, right. And I was like, well, now it’s missing the thing that I think makes kind of people chuckle a little bit like that phrase. It’s like when you hear somebody say it, you kind of know there’s like, so I, I do the thing where I say, oh, bless your heart, darling. But again, it’s related to this idea of like, well, now it’s not going to make any sense the way I’m saying it. But bless your heart, darling is very much a part of the story. And it works in the story because when you hear someone say, bless your heart, darling, you know that they might not actually mean that in the most like, kind way that that it sounds like with their voice. But actually it’s more of like, and this is part of the story. Is this person actually cut you and now they’re trying to sell you a band aid, right? And it’s like, well, that, that doesn’t, but bless your heart, darling, you’re bleeding. And so on stage it works because people get the concept of it. You give it to AI and it totally refined the statement and polished it, which again, if you read it, it sounds polished, but it takes all of the like, I don’t know, it’s like the essence of what the intent behind it. It’s gone.
Carol Cox:
Yeah. And we don’t have time for this conversation right now. But I do have existential moments more often than not where I’m like, why do we feel like we need it? The AI, we did fine without it before we really did. I wrote tons of emails. I wrote all of my podcast show notes. You know, I wrote all my personal outreach. Did it take me longer? Yes. Maybe. Was it as effective as it could have been? I don’t know, you know, like there are some great copywriters out there. I’m not them, but I’m like, but it worked. It worked just fine. But now I know I too am relying on it more than I want to be relying on it. So yeah, I have a. Its attention that I feel for sure.
Nikki Rausch:
Yeah. I think it’s like everything right becomes the love hate of like, how much are you letting it like social media was really fun at first and now it feels like work or it feels depressing or. Right. It’s like, it’s the like the blessing and the curse. It’s kind of gone too far. We’ve, we’ve leaned in too much to it. And now I think we’re seeing the results of that leaning in. I think like with anything, AI will have its own reckoning where people go like, hmm, I don’t think so. I don’t think we need it, not in the way. And I see it too, with as much as I. And I love the way it will rewrite stuff. And I again, it’s been trained on my stuff. The way that I talk, the words I don’t use, the words I do use it still cannot do it. I mean, I just like how. And so even though it will speed up the process when I’m helping a client rewrite something, I still have to edit, edit, edit, edit, edit so that because it just, it cannot talk like me, no matter how much I think I’ve trained it to do that. It just misses those pieces. And those pieces, I think, are I don’t think I know these are my thought leadership. This is the thing of why I know how to phrase something that is going to encourage somebody to respond to it versus just sounding polished that people just ignore, right? Like, this is why my clients get responses to their emails when I’m helping rewrite them, versus if they just start with AI and it’s like, well, I know you think it sounds good, but nobody’s going to respond to that.
Carol Cox:
Because again, put yourself in the recipient’s shoes, you’re reading it and you maybe they don’t know it was written by AI, but it certainly doesn’t feel great. Maybe, or it just feels weird. And so I’ve been a coach with Ted Orlando for years, and we have our our big event coming up this October for 2026. Last fall, we put up, you know, the call for speakers and we had over 600 speaker submissions. Now, in years past, we probably would get 50 because of course, it’s so much easier for anyone to put together a Ted application and submit because they can have AI write it. So there were ten of us on the curation committee. All ten of us looked at all 600 plus submissions. They were all like in a database and we all knew which were written by AI. And even though the topics were very different, they all sounded the same. And at some point I was just like, well, I would rather have someone with clunky sentences, of course. I mean, you want proper grammar and spelling, like have, you know, spell check and do that for you, but have some clunky sentences. But like, tell me why this matters to them. Like, I want to know why this matters to you, not why AI thinks it matters. So I would say like, just be careful about what you’re putting out there because it is getting more obvious even in a way, because everything is starting to sound the same.
Nikki Rausch:
Yeah. Which really, you know, again, it waters down your thought leadership, right. Like where’s your thought leadership in that? Okay. I know we need to wrap up because.
Carol Cox:
I know so much, so much fun. We could talk for hours. I know the listeners are like, okay, my, my run is finishing. I’m done. Yeah.
Nikki Rausch:
Yeah, yeah. So we are going to wrap up. Is there any last thing, you know, if I say like, is there any last thing that we haven’t specifically addressed around this idea of, you know, integrating your thought leadership with like lead generation into one talk? Any last piece of advice or a nugget?
Carol Cox:
I would say that when you have your presentation, maybe you have an existing presentation you’ve been delivering, you have a slide deck or an outline for it, take a look at it and ask some questions of yourself. Number one, are you in it? Is your thought leadership in it? Do you have a framework? Do you have that perspective like we talked about with Nicki? It’s this idea of getting permission in order to start the selling process could be. So think about is your thought leadership in there instead of you just kind of putting out, you know, five here are five tips that you can do regarding related to X, Y, z. Do you have at least one compelling personal story or something related to your personal journey in there? Are you planting some sales seeds? A lot of times women are very, as you know, Nikki, better than anyone are very afraid of coming across as too salesy. So they won’t even mention whatever it is that they do in their business. Since I work with a lot of Ted speakers and obviously with Ted, you are not selling, right? There’s no promotional aspect to it whatsoever, but I always have them put in a line similar to this. You know, this is something that I’ve seen quite a bit with my clients as a money coach. That’s it.
Nikki Rausch:
That’s all you need. That’s it.
Carol Cox:
Because you can’t assume the audience knows what you do, whether you’re doing a Ted talk or you’re speaking at a conference, they think you’re just doing this as a public service. You’re just there out of the goodness of your heart, sharing information which you are, but you have to tell them what you do. So whether it’s client examples or like I’ve mentioned several times and our thought leader Academy calls, or when I do the one on one VIP day, of course, I learned that from you, Nikki. You just put those in, but you do them in a very authentic way. So I would say make sure your whatever your framework perspective is a personal story journey, plant some sales seeds in there as well. I would say just do those three things. And I think you’re going to add a lot to your existing presentations.
Nikki Rausch:
Yes. Totally agree. So good. Thank you so much. All right. I always like to wrap up with a little something extra section. It’s been a while. So I want to ask what is something that’s bringing you joy or pleasure right now?
Carol Cox:
Oh, that’s a good question. Uh, well no surprise. I do a lot of reading because that’s because I spend most of my life in my head, so I’m usually reading more than one book at a time, like one fiction and one nonfiction. So, you know, I’ve been enjoying, I just I’m in two book clubs, no surprise. And we I’ll just mention this because it’s on my mind. We just finished a book, actually a book that came out quite a while ago called Pope Joan. And it takes place in the eight hundreds in Europe. And it’s this idea that is not it’s a it’s a debatable and defensible idea whether or not there actually was a female pope at the time who no one knew was a woman until she died. But there is conflicting church records about this. And so it was actually it’s a it’s a novel, but it’s based on a lot of historical information as well. So that that was a good one.
Nikki Rausch:
I love that, I love that. Okay. And what’s something exciting going on in your business right now?
Carol Cox:
Well, right now we are planning our next three day speaking retreat, which will be in March 2027 in Orlando, Florida, which is where I live. It’s a lot of fun because we work on not only your your talk. So, you know, humor, audience engagement, storytelling, but then you also get to practice on our stage because it’s the reps that build the confidence. And then on day three, you get it filmed with our professional videography team, and then you get your speaker reel so that you have everything in place to start, you know, to continue to put yourself out there for bigger and better speaking opportunities. So you have the talk, the positioning, the practice on the delivery skills with our coaching and then the assets to go with it.
Nikki Rausch:
Love that. Wow. Okay. March 2027, everybody. Okay, one last question. How can people listening get in touch with you? What is the best way to connect with Carol?
Carol Cox:
Well, listen to the Speaking Your Brand podcast if you don’t already, and then go to speaking your brand.com. You can see there under the work with us, the Thought Leader Academy program I mentioned, as well as this retreat in March. And then the best thing to do is schedule a consultation call. You can do that right there from the website because I always love talking to new people and, you know, learning about your goals, what you’re working on, what you need the most help with, and to see if there’s a good fit for one of our programs.
Nikki Rausch:
Fantastic. Carol, as always, you’re brilliant. I’m so grateful to know you. I’m so grateful to get to learn from you. Thank you so much for being here.
Carol Cox:
Oh my pleasure, Nicky, thank you so much.
Nikki Rausch:
And for you, the listener, as always, thank you for listening. And would you share what was your biggest takeaway from today’s talk? Anything that sparked an idea for you, a concept that you’re going to implement as a result of something that Carol shared? Please reach out and and share. I’m always happy to hear from you and thank you for listening. Have a great rest of your day.
Speaker 3:
Thanks for listening to Sales Maven. Visit us online at your sales maven.com for more resources to boost your confidence and skills.
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