Right around this time last year, I posted a LinkedIn article about How to Embrace Rejection Like a Pro. This is Part 2.
Up until 15 years ago, I had such bad public speaking phobia, there was no way you would have caught me volunteering willingly to speak in front of people.
But by 2019, I had gained enough experience through my academic and leadership roles that I had become quite adept at presenting our research outcomes, facilitating meetings of any size, and briefing stakeholders.
Despite having developed this high level of confidence speaking in my leadership and research roles, I found myself having to start all over again as a new business owner. It’s the typical (yet somehow always unexpected) experience of going from being a big fish in a little pond to being a little fish in a big pond again.
So, I turned the challenge into a business goal to increase my speaking engagements in 2020. You can read about my initial efforts in my previous article. This second part is what I accomplished and learned from it.... which still amazes me.
But before I share those outcomes, I would like to first share what it means to try - because this mindset is what actually makes all the difference.
Some people just try something once and when it doesn’t work out, they give up and tell themselves they can’t do it. That used to be me when I was a young perfectionist who thought if I wasn’t immediately amazing at everything, I was a failure or just didn’t possess the talent to ever be good at it.
Perfectionism is totally dysfunctional when it keeps you from persisting as a result of the dread of failing or being negatively judged by others.
However, perfectionism can become quite functional if you know how to channel it appropriately by:
using it as a way to persist toward the goal of getting better,
pairing it with the wisdom of knowing when it no longer serves a purpose and that it’s time to let go.
Here's how I applied it to my speaking goal:
I made my goal to “just try and learn something from it.” That's all. That was my entire main goal.
I did NOT trap myself into setting specific quantitative metrics like a total number of talks, audience size, specific length of time, etc. Why? Those types of metrics are useful only after you’ve moved past the trial-and-error learning phase, are ready for growth, and know most of the variables you are working with. When you are doing something new that has a lot of unknowns, setting specific quantitative metrics may set you up for unnecessary early perception of failure because you don’t know what you are actually working with (see Teaming by Amy Edmondson, Atomic Habits by James Clear, etc.).
I DID make some qualitative learning metrics, including tracking how I felt about each speaking engagement, what topics resonated for me, and what topics resonated for others. Qualitative metrics can help you uncover and reflect on the unknowns.
I started with small audiences, volunteering where my expertise was valued, and other low-risk low-stakes situations. (But I did also throw my hat in the ring for a few low-risk higher-stakes opportunities just to try.) Low risk includes things like when you are donating your time, there is a small audience, and the audience is not necessarily your ideal client.
Over time, my interests and what resonated best became more clear. I was then able to start tracking quantitative measures (but still without the pressure of trying to meet a benchmark). These include measures of impact and reach, such as whether the talk was a local, regional, or national; whether it was paid; number of audience members; number of hours it took to develop the talk; the estimated cost of my time; whether it was aligned with the main focus of my business; and whether it ultimately led to more opportunities (such as paid engagements).
You can see how this learning orientation can be iterative.
In fact, what I accomplished by having a learning mindset as my “goal” is beyond what I would have imagined or probably attained if I had set myself up to achieve something before I knew what I was trying to achieve.
Here are the quantitative numbers:
In February 2020, I sent out 17 pitches hoping for just a few bites of interest.
From those, I received 9 responsive with potential opportunities: a 53% positive response rate for just trying!
I later lost 2 of those opportunities when events were being canceled due to COVID. That left me with 7 opportunities. So, we can say that the return rate was more like 41% due to unforeseen factors. Still an awesome return rate for just trying.
From these 7, I got 13 NEW unexpected opportunities! And in 5 of those unexpected invitations, I was offered paid opportunities (not necessarily a goal for 2020, though of course it is for 2021 😊).
I delivered talks to a combined total of over 2,000 national and international audiences and over 300 local audiences.
When you put it all together, that means I achieved a 135% ROI.... with nearly 30% of the talks generating revenue that accounted for 51% of my business income this year.
Yup, you read that right.
So what did I learn?
In some ways, I could make a greater impact through this mechanism.
I learned what kinds of talks I enjoyed and which I didn’t. I also learned what kinds of talks other people enjoyed and what resonated less with which audiences.
I learned how to improve the design of a talk to improve what works for me and for the audience.
I learned that it takes a lot of time to create a really good talk and even more time to refine it. That means I’ll need to be thoughtful about how to best optimize the right portfolio in future investments of my time for speaking.
I learned I found speaking to be really fun and I sure hope I get to do more of it!
What does this mean for you? Where are you putting your efforts to grow in 2021 through new unknown methods? What are you hoping to learn?