Using Stories and Humor to Engage (& Convert!) Your Audience: Live Signature Talks from Our Thought Leader Academy Clients: Podcast Ep. 451

We all know that facts tell, but stories sell. And when you add a touch of humor, your audience doesn’t just listen… they lean in.

In this Back Stage with Speaking Your Brand LinkedIn Live, we’re joined by two recent clients of our Thought Leader Academy, Angela Gillis and Crystal Daye.

They each present a 10-minute version of their signature talk that they developed with us during their VIP Day and refined throughout the program.

You get to see how they weave together story, humor, and heart to connect with their audiences and how that connection builds trust and relatability, the key ingredients for turning a talk into leads (and leads into clients!).

You’ll learn:

• How to choose and tell stories that make your audience feel seen and understood
• Ways to naturally infuse humor without forcing it or losing credibility
• The secret to transitioning from inspiration to invitation (a.k.a. your call to action)
• Behind-the-scenes insights from our speakers on what they learned while crafting their talks
  

If you’ve ever wondered how to make your lead generation talks less “salesy” and more human, this is your chance to see exactly how it’s done.

About Us: The Speaking Your Brand podcast is hosted by Carol Cox. At Speaking Your Brand, we help women entrepreneurs and professionals clarify their brand message and story, create their signature talks, and develop their thought leadership platforms. Our mission is to get more women in positions of influence and power because it’s through women’s stories, voices, and visibility that we challenge the status quo and change existing systems. Check out our coaching programs at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com. 

Links:

Show notes at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/451/ 

Watch the video at https://youtube.com/live/GcZsw9UEWAA 

Angela’s website: https://www.sorticulturesystems.com/ 

Crystal’s website: https://crystaldaye.com/ 

Discover your Speaker Archetype by taking our free quiz at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/quiz/

Enroll in our Thought Leader Academy: https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/academy/ 

Connect on LinkedIn:

• Carol Cox = https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolcox
• Diane Diaz = https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianediaz/ 
• Angela Gillis = https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-gillis/ 
• Crystal Gaye = https://www.linkedin.com/in/crystalsdaye/ 

Related Podcast Episodes:

• Episode 426: Every Talk Needs Humor: Here are 5 Ways to Make Your Audience Laugh
• Episode 355: What a S

  451-SYB-TLA-Clients.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

  451-SYB-TLA-Clients.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

  Carol Cox:
  Want to increase engagement and conversions at your presentations here. How to use stories, humor, and sales seeds by listening to these talks from our Thought Leader Academy clients on this episode of the Speaking Your Brand podcast. More and more women are making an impact by starting businesses, running for office, and speaking up for what matters. With my background as a TV political analyst, entrepreneur, and speaker, I interview and coach purpose driven women to shape their brands, grow their companies, and become recognized as influencers in their field. This is speaking your brand, your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience. Hi there and welcome to backstage with Speaking Your Brand. I’m your host, Carol Cox. Joining me today is our lead speaking coach, Diane Diaz. Hi, Diane. Hello, everyone. And we also have two of our current thought Leader Academy clients, and you all are in for a treat today, because they are each going to present a ten minute version of the signature talk they developed with us during their VIP day, and they’ve been refining throughout our group calls. And you’re going to hear how they have integrated story, humor, and planting some key sale seeds so that they can connect with their audiences to build trust and relatability, but also turn their talk into leads and leads into clients.

  Carol Cox:
  So we’re going to have each of them deliver the ten minute version of their talk, and then we’re going to have a round table discussion about what they learned about creating these compelling, engaging talks by working with us, strategies and suggestions they have for you as speakers and then what their experience has been like in the Thought Leader Academy. First, we’re going to have Angela Gillis start us off. She is the founder of Sorta Culture Your systems that works with companies on cyber security and HIPAA compliance. So yay. But but here’s the thing. It’s because that when you’re especially when you’re delivering a topic that’s, you know, a regulatory or that thing, you really need to make sure that you’re using humor and story to keep your audience engaged and to make sure then that they want to hire Angela’s company for the work that she does. Angela, welcome to the stage.

  Angela Gillis:
  Thank you. Carol.

  Carol Cox:
  All right. Let me bring up your slides and you are ready to go.

  Angela Gillis:
  Okay. Well, Carol, thank you so much for that introduction. Um, as Carol mentioned, my name is Angela Gillis, uh, owner and founder of Horticulture Systems. And I help actually specifically independent health practices with HIPAA compliance. So this is the cybersecurity and data privacy pieces of healthcare data. So this presentation is geared towards that audience. And it’s called how a little care protects a lot of data. But before we get into that regulatory component, I want everybody to take a minute and think, who is a fan of Costco? So I am a fan of Costco, and I actually used to work at Costco. I was the data governance manager in it, and that experience connects directly to how medical practices handle data and why culture matters. But we are going to talk about that in just a minute. But first of all, I want you to think about your goals as healthcare professionals. So just take a minute to reflect. What I usually hear is something a little more on the left. People got into healthcare to care for their patients. They want to for our independent healthcare practitioners. They want to grow their team, grow their business, and of course, they want to protect their patient data. What I hear actually happens is the gentleman on the right, they are buried up to their neck in paperwork, bureaucracy, red tape, and then they have to comply with things like HIPAA.

  Angela Gillis:
  So they have to figure out cybersecurity and privacy on top of that. Well, thankfully you are not alone with that. I am here and I am here to help. It’s my job to make this a little more easier and sustainable because as a healthcare professional, I know that those kinds of things are not the reasons you got into healthcare. So just a little bit about my background. I live in the Seattle area, although I work with clients all over the country, and before I founded my company, I worked for a lot of the big companies in the Seattle area. So I worked at Boeing, I worked at Microsoft, and then, as I mentioned before, I worked at Costco. And one of the reasons I was hired at Costco was to help them get in compliance with a data privacy law, and this seemed really simple. I had a team of engineers, and what we needed to do was go in and delete older member data and Costco calls their. Their customers members. So we were going to go in and protect their privacy by deleting that older data. And the business really um, they were very hesitant. And this wasn’t um, it wasn’t that they didn’t want to comply because they did. It’s because they were so worried about disrupting the member experience, um, because they worried if someone returned something that maybe they had bought, you know, several years ago, they wouldn’t have the receipt that would go along with it and it would disrupt that experience.

  Angela Gillis:
  So we did figure out a solution. The business did get together a method to calculate how they can, um, how members could return something if it was more than a few years old. And, um, we deleted the data, we stayed compliant. But that experience really stuck with me because the same thing happens in healthcare protecting, uh, data. It’s not just about compliance. It’s about like how you care for people. So first let’s talk a little bit about why health data is so valuable. Um, it’s very different. It’s much more valuable than a lot of the other data that’s out there. Um, and there’s a lot of different research and statistics. Excuse me? Statistics about, um, like, just how much it’s worth, but it can be anywhere from 60 to $1000 for a medical record. And when you compare that to something like a credit card, um, number, that’s going to be like 2 to $5. And when these criminals get these medical records, the things they’re using them for, things like identity theft, fake fake prescriptions is really high. False insurance claims. Um, and the reason is because you can cancel that credit card number. You can’t cancel your medical history. So it’s really just this goldmine of data. And that’s why we need to really have this strong culture around healthcare data about protecting it.

  Angela Gillis:
  And oh, it looks like this is sharing a little goofy, but you will get the point. And so that’s why I developed this care framework for through my work with healthcare practitioners. It is really simple. It’s really practical. It works. And it actually works in um, really around any kind of company with any kind of compliance data. But this is specific for healthcare. Uh, the first thing I do is I complete an assessment. So for healthcare, you know, I’m looking at all the places that have protected health information. So all that health data, where is that? Everywhere in the company. Um, you know, I had a client recently where, you know, when I’m doing the mapping this out and one of their employees was actually downloading word documents from their electronic health record system. And when I asked, well, what are you doing? Because I was worried this document is going to be sitting on her laptop and could be a data breach risk. She said, oh, well, we can’t edit the document, so I’m going to download it and then, you know, edit it or, you know, I’m going to download it, edit it and then re-upload it. So sometimes just being aware that that risk is there is what’s really important. We did reach out to the vendor and asked them to put in a feature request that they could make an edit.

  Angela Gillis:
  So, you know, once you see those risks, it’s really easy to actually address them. So I would ask you to ask yourself, do you know where all the protected health information is in your organization? Because then, like I said, once you see these risks, you can start addressing these gaps, which is the next step. Um, and actually a, the next step is that I would like to talk about is actually multi factor authentication. This is something that I see time and time again. And I know it’s a pain and no one likes to have to do multi factor authentication. But it prevents so many data breaches. And usually what I find is that I go into a clinic and they have it turned on in like almost every system, but there is always one where it’s missing. So this is a really small step that can really help protect your patient data. And so I want you to ask yourself, is there maybe one system in your practice where you’re not 100% sure that MFA is enabled? Next, you want to recommend I recommend improvements because you want to create improvements that last um, I’m right now writing an incident response plan for a client of mine, and this is really like a grab and go playbook. Um, if you wait for something to happen like it’s too late because when you’re in crisis mode, no one thinks clearly.

  Angela Gillis:
  And so this could be for something like a data breach. It could be for a natural disaster. You know, you have something that you can grab and you know exactly what to do. So I want you to ask yourself, like, if one of your employees came to you and said, I think we accidentally sent protected health information to the wrong person. Would you know what to do in the first ten minutes? Would you know what to do in that first day? And then finally, education keeps everything working. This is actually my favorite piece. Um, threats evolve constantly, so we used to have a lot of email phishing. We still get a lot of it, but we’re a lot better at recognizing it now. So now what I’m seeing a lot of is text based phishing, a lot of AI generated phishing attempts, and they look so believable. So, um, you know, a recent client, they had great onboarding training, but then nothing after that. So if a team member had been with them for many years, they were not getting the most up to date training. So, you know, quick win for them was to get them started on annual training that addressed the most recent cybersecurity issues. Um, once your your staff knows what’s to look for, they’ll be on the front line spotting all the risks. So I want you to ask yourself, when was your last staff training on cybersecurity and did it include all the recent threats? So I want you to imagine if you could reach your goals in your in your practice, your personal goals by creating a care culture.

  Angela Gillis:
  What would that feel like? And imagine if you took just one step this week. So it might be reviewing where all your, um, personal health information is, or it might be checking to make sure. Multi-factor authentication is enabled. And then if you have even more bandwidth, you could start shifting your mindset and applying the care framework. And that’s really a move from reactive to proactive. So if you think back to that story from Costco, it wasn’t a technical issue. It was a cultural one. And I really learned there that the data habits come from culture, not from tools. And the tools absolutely matter. But if we don’t have the right culture, the tools don’t stick. And then in healthcare, the same principle applies because if you build care into how you lead, you protect your patients, you protect your reputation, and you protect the quality of the care you deliver. So thank you so much for joining today. Um, if you would like a security assessment or need help enabling multifactor authentication, please book a short call. I would be happy to talk with you and how I might be able to help you.

  Carol Cox:
  All right.

  Carol Cox:
  Fantastic. Angela. I’ll leave this slide up here for just a moment so everyone can connect with you. So connect with Angela on LinkedIn. Also, check out her website which is at Culture Systems. Com and the links for this will be on the page so that you can access them there as well. All right. Let me take the slides off and let’s bring you back up Angela. So how how did that feel? You did a fantastic job.

  Angela Gillis:
  It was. Yeah. Thanks.

  Carol Cox:
  How was that?

  Angela Gillis:
  You know, it was hard. Like I think I’d mentioned before. It was hard to get it in in such a compressed time frame. Um, and it feels really good, but it is, it’s it’s very different than the kind of the kind of presentation that I’ve done in the past, which would be very technical driven and would have a lot of technical content. So I’m definitely still, you know, still getting that ease with presenting that more humorous content. Um, but I will say, I noticed this weekend when I was doing something completely different on my laptop. Now, when I’m starting to see like memes and gifs and things like that and think, oh, I’m going to save that because I know, I know a story, I can use that for down the road. So it’s definitely. Yep.

  Diane Diaz:
  That’s awesome. Yes. Yeah.

  Carol Cox:
  Yeah, I love you really got into the memes. And we’ll talk about.

  Carol Cox:
  That here in just a moment. So that’s.

  Carol Cox:
  Great. I want to say hi to Carolyn Kolstad who’s.

  Carol Cox:
  In the chat.

  Carol Cox:
  Thank you for joining us live. I think you can’t thank Angela. You know Carolyn.

  Angela Gillis:
  Yes.

  Angela Gillis:
  Carolyn is, uh, is one of my very good business friends. Yes.

  Diane Diaz:
  Oh, well, great.

  Carol Cox:
  Well, so, so nice that she came here to support you. All right, so hang tight, Angela, we’re going to come back to you in the roundtable. But next, let me bring up Cristal. De Cristal is a book coach. She’s also has a publishing company that has published over 400. Yes, 400 authors. Amazing. She herself has written 11 books. I’m still on my first. I don’t know how she has written 11 and she’s an incredible speaker and inspiring speaker. We work together on her keynote address, and she’s going to share with us now a ten minute version of that crystal. Take it away.

  Crystal Daye:
  Hi everyone. So only 3% finish. What separates dreamers from doers? Did you know that 80% of people say they want to write a book? Only 7% actually start. But here’s even more shocking. Only 3% of those who start actually finish and publish. So let me ask you something. Have you ever thought I want to write a book? Maybe people around you have said your story is so powerful you should write a book. You’re not alone. But here’s the real question what separates that 3% from everyone else? And it’s not what you think. As mentioned, I’m Crystal Lee named a top book coach according to Yahoo Finance, and I’ve helped over 400 authors to write and publish their books in the last eight years. I run the number one faith based publishing company in the Caribbean, and I am a 11 times author, international speaker, and I’ve helped hundreds of authors land on the Amazon bestseller list. So I’m telling you this not to impress you at all, but to impress upon you that I know what it takes to finish. And I know why most people don’t. So let me ask you, which one of these can you relate to? I do have time. I do have money, I keep procrastinating, I feel like I lack discipline. Am I good enough to write a book? Am I the right person who will buy my book? Here’s the truth. Yes, all of those may be legitimate Checkmate obstacles, and they will always be there until your desire and your why becomes big enough.

  Crystal Daye:
  But here’s something else. And this is what most people miss. We think it’s about desire and discipline, but that’s incomplete because there’s a gap, a missing piece that separates 3% who finish from the 90% who don’t. Here’s the truth it’s desire, discomfort, and discipline. That middle element discomfort is what changes everything. It’s easy to want something, and sometimes it’s easier to have the discipline when some when things are comfortable. But it’s hard to make yourself uncomfortable. And that’s exactly where your breakthroughs lies. So what separates those who do from those who only dream? Let me show you one. Clarify your message because clarity creates momentum. You can finish what you haven’t defined. So you hear most people say, I want to write a book someday or I just want to impact people. But clarity gives direction, and direction fuels discipline. So I want you to ask yourself these three questions. Who specifically needs to hear my message? What problem am I solving and what solution am I providing from my story? When I wrote my first book, Living a Royal Reality, I loved writing in journals and diaries, but I wouldn’t say I’m a strong writer. Actually, I did better in accounting and math than language based subjects, but I had a burning desire. God wanted me to share my story of growing up in poverty, being molested, having an abortion, and how I turn my pain into purpose.

  Crystal Daye:
  I wrote this book out of obedience. I knew I was writing to help women see their worth in Christ and walk in their identity. Once I got clear on why I was writing, the whole came naturally. Trolley because when you get clear on your message, you create momentum. Clarity turns ideas into assignments and assignments into impact. So I want you to take 60s right now to answer this question. Who specifically needs to hear your message? What transformation will they experience after reading your book? Um, let’s do a countdown. Yes, I want you to answer that question because when you get that clear, you are moving closer to the 3%. Let’s jump into number two. Embrace discomfort because growth begins where comfort ends. Everyone wants the blessing. Few are willing to face the becoming. But your next level will always come with discomfort. And here’s what something critical. Your message message lives in your mess. What I’ve learned from hundreds of authors the chapters they don’t want to write all the chapters the readers need most the parts you want to skip, such as your failures, the embarrassing moment, your dark seasons, the uncomfortable truth. Those are exactly what will make your book a bestseller. Why? Because readers don’t connect with perfection. They connect with the progress and perfect process. So let me tell you about my client, Beverly. I met Beverly at a book launch. She heard my story and told me she wanted to write a book about being molested in her.

  Crystal Daye:
  In our coaching session, I realized a lot of what she was writing was surface level and actually from an unhealed place. I had to coach her through forgiveness and teach her how to write from an empowered place. And guess what? Her book, destined for purpose, became a bestseller in three categories, and she also launched her speaking career, helping women to find courage after hardships. The story you are most reluctant to tell is probably the most important message you need to write, so I want you to think about it. Don’t overthink it. The first thing that came to mind when you felt afraid that is your your goal. Remember, your breakthrough doesn’t live in comfort. It’s buried in the part of the story you are afraid to tell. Then number three get accountability because purpose cannot thrive in isolation. Dreamers wait for motivation, but doers create structure. And the the truth is, you can’t do purpose alone. Accountability is what turns intention into impact. In my publishing company, I’ve seen it over and over again. The authors who finish are the ones who don’t try to do it alone. They join coaching programs, writing sprint communities. They invite people into their process. So let me tell you about another client, Miss Laverne. At age 19, I started working at a government organization where I met Miss Laverne, our trading card training coordinator. She was such a lovely woman. Fast forward 16 years later when I started my publishing company, miss Laverne, at age 62, enrolled in my coaching program.

  Crystal Daye:
  She shared that she has been writing a book since 1984. Yes, that is before I was born. But in 90 days of working together, she completed her manuscript From Failure to Flourishing. So when you get accountability, you get traction, because isolation breeds insecurity. But accountability fuels consistency, and consistency creates a legacy. So here’s the thing. Your legacy is waiting. Let me ask you something. What do you see your legacy looking like? Many of the people I coach and publish their books as a part of their legacy. They think about it in three ways. Financial legacy a book that generates income and opportunity. Spiritual legacy, a message that outlives you, and personal legacy a story that inspires lives for generation. So don’t allow insecurities to stop you. Your dream. They’ve certainly tried to stop me and of course, many of my clients. But where do you need to get uncomfortable? Who will you become on the other side of that discomfort? Are you ready to be a part of the 3%? Because that’s where dreamers become doers. That’s where aspiring authors become best sellers. So if you’re serious about writing a book, not someday, but today or this year at least, I want to give you something that will help you to get started now. I’ve created a free Best-seller cheat sheet specifically, specifically for people who are non dreaming and ready to do.

  Crystal Daye:
  This cheat sheet breaks down exact steps my best selling authors used to go from idea to published book, so you can download it now at. Bestseller sheet. Yes, it’s easy to remember bit.ly Bestseller Sheet because this is not just a theory. This is a proven process that has helped hundreds of authors land on Amazon bestseller list. I’ve worked with authors through book coaching and publishing. Because a book is more than words on a page, it’s a tool. A tool for impact, income, and legacy. So again, remember to go and grab your cheat sheet and let’s turn your dream into reality. Now I want to remind you, having desire is great. Discipline is our most. But paying the discomfort price to finish your book is what moves you from dreamer to duo, from aspiring author to bestseller. So let me repeat the formula. It’s desire, discomfort, discipline. Let’s get clear on your message. Push through the discomfort. Walk with accountability until your book, your business, your dream is done. Stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about the people waiting on your message. That’s the identity shift that changes everything. Because greatness isn’t about where you start. It’s about what you finish. The 3% who finish aren’t luckier or more talented. They are just willing to be uncomfortable long enough to become who they are called to be. So let me ask you, which one are you, a dreamer or a doer? Thank you.

  Carol Cox:
  All right. Crystal, that was amazing. I am inspired, I really am, like I. You always inspire me to write. Who’s ready to. Who’s ready to write a book? Right.

  Diane Diaz:
  I’m ready. I’m going to download that cheat sheet. Right. Yeah.

  Carol Cox:
  Exactly. How did that feel?

  Crystal Daye:
  Uh, it was good. Um, I mean, like you said, you know, I’ve been speaking for a while, but I’ve always struggled with the call to action part. Like, you know, should I just tell people about what I do? So I think especially being in thought leadership has showed me how to genuinely, uh, include how I serve people, uh, in a way that doesn’t feel salesy, but also feels like it’s providing a solution to the problem. And that has been my biggest, biggest takeaway. How to incorporate that? Um, how I serve people, um, in my business, in my brand, in my talk.

  Diane Diaz:
  That’s your discomfort, you might say?

  Carol Cox:
  That’s definitely mic drop on that. Yes. Totally. Yes. That is it. Well, you did that beautifully. You shared.

  Carol Cox:
  Examples.

  Carol Cox:
  Of your clients. And here’s the thing. Listening to that, I was like, yeah, I want to write a book. And if you had never said that this is what you helped people with, I would have been like, well, where do I do now? I’m excited, but I don’t know where to go. So obviously now, you know, people want to go to you.

  Diane Diaz:
  Yeah. It makes me feel like I could. Oh, I could do that. Oh, I could do that. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

  Crystal Daye:
  I was trying to find like in my mind I’m like, okay, how do I find humor? But I was hoping that the best part could come up with is, you know, Laverne and she, you know, she writing a book before I was born, but that was.

  Diane Diaz:
  That was great.

  Crystal Daye:
  I was like, okay, how do I find something numerous to include?

  Diane Diaz:
  It was very natural to when you did it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  Carol Cox:
  That was funny. That laugh, that also crystal, like, you are so expressive. And you smile when you speak, like you come across so warm and inviting. So I feel like that even though it’s not quote unquote humor, it’s still it’s like joy. It’s joy that comes through.

  Crystal Daye:
  Thank you.

  Carol Cox:
  Yeah. Yes. And I want to say hi to Kiana Walters who’s in the chat. So say hi to her. Thank you for joining us live. All right. Let’s have a roundtable discussion. Diane, since you worked directly with Angela and her VIP day, why don’t you, the two of you chat a little bit about what that was like to come up with her talk that she now has repurposed for a webinar recently, as well as for today’s, uh, ten minute version.

  Diane Diaz:
  Yes. Well, I one of the things I do remember is when we talked about and you touched on this when we talked about that, this is a different style of speaking for you. Right. Because you’re used to more of the what we could call maybe corporate style where it’s here’s information, information information. So maybe you can share a little bit about what what was your maybe your expectation of what it might be to shift the style. And then what was the reality of shifting the style?

  Angela Gillis:
  Um, you know, I don’t I don’t know if I knew what the expectation was. I knew I knew the way that I could do a presentation for a corporate client that I worked for was different, and I knew it wasn’t landing when I would do webinars or speak with clients. So I didn’t know what the expectation my expectation was. I knew it was going to be different. I knew there was something missing. And then, um, I did not expect it honestly to be things like, uh, using more humor and things like that. I thought, no, we’re talking about very serious regulatory topics. This isn’t a place, you know, I think if you had said that to me at the beginning, I would have thought like, this isn’t a place for humor. Um, so that’s really been a shift for me, uh, to realize, actually, that is a place for humor. And that does help keep everyone engaged.

  Diane Diaz:
  Yeah. No. It’s great. And you did an excellent job. As Carol pointed out, excellent job with the memes. And I like memes because they don’t force you to come up with something funny. They sort of do the heavy lifting for you, which.

  Angela Gillis:
  Yeah.

  Diane Diaz:
  Which is great. Whatever works. And they’re universally relatable. Yeah, people can see it. And then you’re speaking about what you’re speaking about. So and you touched on a little bit of how you now you see memes and you’re like, oh, I’m going to save that. How did you go about finding some of the memes that you used in your talk?

  Angela Gillis:
  Um, I did everything from, uh, you know, so usually I’m working on HIPAA compliance. So I did things like searching for HIPAA compliance, searching on Reddit. But then I also started to, you know, besides just using those kind of more technical terms, started trying to search for what is the emotion that I want to garner when someone looks at that slide? And it took a while. It took a while to like, well, what if I pop in this keyword? What is that going to bring me back? Because a lot of it was duds. It was not what I but I started to kind of hit upon, okay, if I search for these things, I’m going to find, you know, these certain kind of memes. And then one of them, I just had to make up myself because I couldn’t find one that matched. So yeah.

  Diane Diaz:
  Great. You did a great job. And I love that idea of just searching based on keywords. And then, like you said, some of them might be duds, but then you move on and you keep digging, digging, and then you find the one and then you’re like, oh, This type could work, right?

  Angela Gillis:
  Right, right.

  Diane Diaz:
  Yeah. And you had cultural references in there too, right? You had the Costco one, which was, I think South Park and. Yeah.

  Angela Gillis:
  Yes, yes yes I did. Yeah. Yeah yeah I had yeah I thought so in the longer one. Yeah. There’s even more cultural references which I actually had a lot of fun with.

  Diane Diaz:
  But yeah. And I think I love that Costco one, the South Park one, because it’s sort of universally relatable idea that you go to Costco for your 2500 count aspirin and you come back with a kayak, right. Or whatever you yes, you went there for you come back for a sofa or something.

  Angela Gillis:
  Yes, yes. No. I think that is very universal, that yes, you’re going to go there just to get your groceries and then you are going to come out with just some crazy stuff.

  Diane Diaz:
  Yeah. And I think that also it builds rapport between you and the audience right off the bat because they’re like, oh.

  Angela Gillis:
  Because it’s relatable.

  Diane Diaz:
  Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. Well done.

  Angela Gillis:
  Thank you.

  Carol Cox:
  Yeah. Angela, what I like about your care framework is that it’s accessible for the audience. You know, it’s an acronym. It’s something that they can understand. It’s not too technical, right? Because you’re not teaching them. Here’s how to go set up multi-factor authentication for all your different systems, like they need to hire you to make sure of that for the webinar or for a conference session. They really need to understand what the what is possible, what they need to do, and why you’re the person to help them. But with the framework, I like it because it shows the audience, the potential clients. Oh, this is what Angela’s company is going to help me to do. So like your framework is a sales seed in and of itself.

  Angela Gillis:
  Yes it is. And yeah, in what you mentioned before about yes, I would have, I think in the past tried to lean much more heavily on how you do these kinds of things and, and much less on probably not at all on, you know, let me show you examples of what that looks like when you work with me.

  Carol Cox:
  Yes, exactly. All right. Well, well done. So yeah. Hang tight, Angela, we’re going to come back to you. Diane, did you have one more thing?

  Diane Diaz:
  I just wanted to add that I think when you do that, you actually encourage. They’re more likely the audience is more likely to reach out to you, because now they’re inspired to want to do what you said versus if you tell them how to do it, they’re like, oh, I could never do that. And then maybe they’ll reach out to you, maybe they won’t. But now you’ve sort of inspired them to want to reach out to you.

  Angela Gillis:
  Yes. I have almost information. Uh, I’ve given them too much information. Almost, I think like. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

  Carol Cox:
  Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Great. All right. Well, well done Angela. Hang tight. We’re going to come back to you here in the roundtable. I want to give a shout out hello to Leslie Batson, who is also watching us live. Thank you for being here, Leslie. We’re going to see you in just a few days at our in-person workshop in Orlando. So excited to see you there. All right, Crystal, let’s bring you back in. So you just delivered a ten minute. It was a lead generation talk because clearly it was about your book coaching and the publishing business that you run. And I remember when we were together in our one on one VIP day that we kind of started the session thinking lead generation for your talk. And then we and then we decided to go the keynote route instead. And so we did that. And that’s where we came up with the desire and the discipline. But then that gap in the middle is the discomforts, right. Like that’s your thought leadership. Is that discomfort piece in the middle. But what I have really enjoyed seeing you develop over these past couple of months with us is taking what was very much a keynote, but turning, taking those concepts and turning it into a lead generation talk as well. So Crystal, tell us a little bit about what your experience was like in the VIP day and thinking about these two different talks you have now, both keynote and lead Gen. How do you see them as similar and as and as different going forward?

  Crystal Daye:
  Okay, I love the question. So I think so. One I felt like in the VIP, I was like, oh my God, I’m talking so much. I don’t know if she’s getting if this makes sense. So to be honest, I was like, nervous, like, can this make sense? Because I’m a talker and I’m just sharing many, many things. And like you said, we started as a legion, but I, I kind of I didn’t feel like I wanted to just focus on Legion. So I was glad that we we instead focus on creating the keynote, because now from the keynote, it allowed me to understand how to create a legion. And for me, what I think is, is it was kind of different between Legion. I know that there are speaking because, you know, I live in Jamaica. So I thought about, you know, if I want to get on the international stage, I don’t know how many like how easy it would be to just get on stage just to talk about, uh, just books and stuff. So how could I make it more general? So even if I don’t include books, it’s still impactful enough to help me to be remembered as a speaker.

  Crystal Daye:
  But then also, again, you know, part of why I speak is to get people to know more about the business. So I was able to know, you know, narrow down the same keynote to an extent, but use different stories and like client stories. So the difference for me is in the keynote, I share more examples around my story, more personal stories of, you know, going through different discomforts and choosing discomfort versus in the in the Legion, I talk more. So I did mention one of my stories, but the other two were about my clients, which show my my expertise in the area so that for me was the difference. I, I like, know, even know like any other talk that I’m now creating, I’m now looking at, okay, how can I think about this idea? Like, how can I show my thought leadership and not just teach points, but what do I want them to really take away as the thought leadership? And that is something I’ve definitely learned in the program.

  Carol Cox:
  Yeah, very well said, Crystal, about the thinking about for the keynote. You did want it to be able to appeal to a broader audience, not just people who were interested in writing books. And that’s what’s so great about this desire, discomfort, discipline, thought leadership message is that it really can apply to anything. Whether it’s books. It could be for sports, it could be for kids, you know, in high school who are thinking about what they want to do, you know, for college or for their careers. It can be for entrepreneurs like you. Just like you said, switch out the stories in the examples and you have it ready to go for a variety of audiences.

  Crystal Daye:
  Yeah, and I don’t think, to be honest, like, I don’t think I would have been able to just get that formula by myself, to be honest. Like it really came from your suggestion to say. Mm. I hear you saying something repeatedly. Let’s dig even deeper in that I was like, mm. I didn’t realize that all this time I was talking about, you know, the discomfort piece. Um, so I really thought that you brilliantly took out all the things that I was saying to just say, oh, this is it. Um, and it it was definitely very powerful for me.

  Carol Cox:
  Yeah, well, this is why I like to think of the work that we do. We are thought partners with you. So, yes, we’re going to take things you tell us and like we write it. I have your board here, Crystal, that we worked on together in the VIP day. So I take what you’re saying and I write it on the post-it notes because I want it to be your words. Right? So that you’re comfortable and familiar with what the content is. But at the same time, I am listening for that nugget like, oh, what is what is different about what Crystal does that I haven’t heard a lot about? So I’m only jotting down different words that you say, and then I’ll look at it all and I’ll start to think, okay, where where’s the thought leadership message in here? And that’s where this idea of the discomfort being what people are, don’t want to do to get their results came from. So yeah, it is a fun process. And I know, Diane, you do the same thing and your VIP days thinking about, like sitting in the seat of the audience. What is something that we haven’t heard all the time? You know, we’ve done now these talks. We’ve worked with hundreds of clients over the years. So we’ve heard a lot. So we’re sitting there thinking like, what is different, what is unique, what is something that the audiences are going to hear, even though it’s a topic, quote unquote topic they may have heard before, but what is going to stand out for them?

  Diane Diaz:
  Yes. And we’re looking at it from almost from the standpoint of a layperson, if you will, because we’ve worked with clients in industries that we don’t know that much about, for example, nuclear engineering, which I don’t know much about. But when you look at it, when you hear the topic and you hear the client speak about it and they’re sharing all these things and you’re you’re looking at it from, as I say, like not having the curse of knowledge. Right. You’re able. I think us as coaches are able to listen for things like, oh, I think their audience is going to key in on that because they need to hear that point. Now tell me a story around that. And that’s where we dig deeper once we pick those little pieces out.

  Carol Cox:
  Yeah. All right, Angela, let’s come back to you. So I know that you did a webinar recently. That was the first time that you were able to present kind of a version of this. So tell us about your approach to preparing. It was for a lead generation webinar, your approach for preparing that. And then tell us how it went.

  Angela Gillis:
  Uh, it went really well. Um, and um, I well, so outside of the presentation, actually, I think the way that we approached the content, I was able to, you know, utilize a piece of that in my marketing for it. I think, um, I think it was probably three times as many signups that I got versus other webinars I’ve done in the past, which, um, I was very impressed by. And so I think just having that kind of shift in the focus really, really helped. And, um, I really I got some great feedback on the content. I got feedback that people said like, oh, and actually someone left me a Google review that said that, um, you know, she understands how I care about my patients. Something along those lines. But I was like, oh my gosh, like, that message really landed, um, which was so impressive. And I was so I was so, um, glad that that really came through. Um, I think the biggest piece was, you know, I have spoken at conferences before in the past and I’ve, you know, spoken to large groups of employees. I’ve spoken to large company events. I think doing that webinar was probably the most nervous that I had ever been and all of those things, and it was because it was such a change for me and I wasn’t, you know, I wasn’t 100% confident yet like that. I can do this. And I still had my notes handy and all that. But I also know, like, I have to you just have to practice. And they just like, it’s not going to be perfect and I just need to do it. So I was really happy with it. Um, and I’ve been applying to speak at more conferences, so I’m excited to do it more.

  Carol Cox:
  All right.

  Carol Cox:
  Well, fantastic. So glad to hear that, Crystal. What is next for you? You’re going to be wrapping up our Thought Leader Academy program in December. And so what do you what do you have in mind? As far as I know? I think you’re working on another book, right. Besides that, what are your speaking goals for 2026?

  Crystal Daye:
  Uh, so one, I definitely would love to tap more into the international market, especially US based speaking engagement. So I’ve done a few, but I’m really looking forward to learning the business side and more about understanding how to pitch, how to find speaking engagements internationally. Because here in Jamaica, you know, I’m pretty known and I do get booked a lot. Um, also, I’m looking to kind of tap into like different markets. So I started a lot in faith based church space. So I want to look at, you know, more, Expound on what that could look like more outside of the faith based space. So I’m looking to do that. I think next for 2026, definitely my top goal is to become a TEDx speaker. So, um, that’s one of the things that we had worked on, um, on on how to even include, you know, this framework, this thought leadership, if um, in our on our Ted stage. So and then narrow that into like 15 minutes. So um, definitely looking at that and ideally I set goals very like direct and ideally, if I could get at least five paid speaking engagements, I would say at least $1,000, then I know that, okay, I’m I’m making it. I’m making it.

  Carol Cox:
  All right.

  Carol Cox:
  I know you can do it, Crystal. And I’m very excited for you and for everyone who’s listening, either live or on the replay. If you need a fantastic speaker and an inspirational speaker for your event, Definitely connect with Crystal and if you are a health care provider and you need help with the new HIPAA regulations and other type of cybersecurity compliance, definitely reach out to Angela. And so I want to thank both Crystal and Angela for coming on to backstage with Speaking your brand on our live show and presenting their signature talks in this environment for the first time. Give them a round of applause for doing so. Did a fantastic job.

  Diane Diaz:
  Well done.

  Carol Cox:
  Yeah, so so happy with that. And for the rest of you, if you would like to work with us and join us in our Thought Leader Academy, you can get all the details and apply at Speaking Your Brand Academy. Again, that’s speaking your brand. And let me cue up our ending video. So until next time, thanks for watching.

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