the bossbabe podcast - 70. Speak Up: How to Assert Your Worth + Communicate With Power With Ashley Kirkwood

Episode Date: January 2, 2020

We’re joined by attorney-turned-entrepreneur, Ashley Kirkwood. In true BossBabe style, Ashley took a leap of faith and left her position at a prestigious Chicago law firm along with the security of a 6-figure salary (say what?!). Ashley now runs her own successful law firm AND speaking business. In this episode, Ashley reveals how she made the transition from a corporate career to becoming an entrepreneur doing what she loves most: transforming lives through the art of storytelling and public speaking. It’s all about speaking your truth and asserting your worth in this episode of The BossBabe Podcast. Tune in for your actionable tips on how you can become a better speaker and build your brand equity. This episode is sponsored by the Insta Growth Accelerator. A 12-week accelerator designed to show you how to grow and monetize your Instagram account: instagrowthaccelerator.com

I need to do something for myself. I need to do something that I like, and I need to be honest with myself about what I want. So if you are nervous about something, you have to get confident, and that confidence isn't just about saying affirmations. It's really about being prepared and trusting the preparedness that you've done. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, the place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance

and learning how to balance it all. I'm Danielle Canty, co-founder and COO of Boss Babe and your host for this week's episode, where I actually had the pleasure of interviewing attorney turned entrepreneur Ashley Kirkwood. Now Ashley and I have quite a lot in common and I'm sure a lot of you will relate to this because neither of us were born entrepreneurs and we actually both started our careers out with doing vocational degrees. So mine was in chiropractic and Ashley's was obviously in law. But in this episode, we discussed how not only did we kind of find the courage, the mindset and the determination to make that transition from having a career into an entrepreneurial world. But we also kind of spoke about how we did that and the detail around it. And Ashley actually really shares with you guys how she leveraged speaking engagements to

grow her business which in my personal opinion is often a missed opportunity by so many. For this episode I want to open it up with a quote, it's not a bossy one but it's one by the most amazing woman Oprah Winfrey and the quote is this, speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have and I think so many of us actually shy away from speaking out, we shy away of speaking our truth, we shy away from speaking up in front of people and something I've really learned over the last couple of years is that speaking up, speaking your truth, speaking on a stage, it really doesn't have to be a scary thing and it's actually something that you can really learn to embrace. So I hope you love this episode and I know Ashley and I would love for you to tag us us and share us with your favorite takeaways, the bits that you've really kind of gone, oh yeah, that actually makes sense. And I'm going to do something and change something and maybe share any of the speaking events that you do because of a result of listening to this podcast. So tag us at danialkanti at bossbabe.inc and at the Ashley Nicole show. and we'd love to hear from you. Now before we hand in though, I know

you're so excited to listen to this episode, I do want to just hand over quickly to Natalie to intro the sponsors of this week's episode. This episode is brought to you by the Boss Babe Insta Growth Accelerator, a 12-week program designed to help you grow and monetize your Instagram account. If you are ready to grow your audience with your absolute ideal clients who are throwing their credit cards at you and sending you those famous can I buy from you dms that we help our clients get then listen up I've created a completely free training to help you do exactly that it's 90 minutes and I walk you through the exact step-by-step strategy you need to attract 10,000 of your ideal clients as followers over the next 30 days if you know that growing your audience with ideal clients as followers over the next 30 days. If you know that growing your

audience with ideal clients who can't wait to buy from you would completely change the game, then this free training is for you. Just visit bossbabe.com forward slash grow that Insta. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. So welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, Ashley. It is such a pleasure to have you on today.

Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited about diving in and talking to you a little bit more because I think your story is one a lot of our listeners will listen to. You have some women who are already entrepreneurs. They're ambitious and they're killing it. And also you've got those women who are kind of like, oh, I kind of like the idea of this entrepreneurial life, but I'm really not sure. I have a comfortable job.

I have a corporate salary. It pays well, but I'm wondering if there's a little bit more to it. And I know that you'll relate because you're actually an employed attorney and a very successful one at that. And you made the transition into becoming a business owner. So I'd really love to just kind of start by digging into how that came about, what it felt like at the time and what really made you take the leap? Definitely. So I was a corporate attorney at a large law firm in Chicago, and we had offices in various countries as well outside of the United States. And I was very happy there. And I was at one firm, really, really happy. I was recruited to go to another firm, and I had negotiated close to a six-figure raise for myself. And so I left to take advantage of that great financial opportunity.

And when I got there, I just realized I didn't like it at all. The money wasn't worth it. The environment was not good. I didn't have the same support staff that I had at the first firm. And it just made me feel like, okay, if I'm going to do this on my own with very little support in an environment that I don't like, I could do this on my own. I do not need to do. It was one of those like I could do that all by myself situation. I was like, I don't need this. Even the money wasn't even worth it. And so I left what that year would have brought in about a $300,000 salary to launch my own law firm where now it's called Mobile General Counsel and we do trademarks and contracts. And we also train companies on sexual harassment and diversity issues. And so I launched that on

my own just because it was just a really bad work environment. And for people listening, I think that's one of the things about being in corporate is when you're working for someone else, I feel like you are working for the money, or at least I was. It wasn't a purpose job and it wasn't a nonprofit. It was a for-profit corporation that I was working for the money, or at least I was. It wasn't a purpose job. It wasn't a nonprofit. It was a for-profit corporation that I was working for. And it was for the money. So if someone offered me more money, I was taking more money. But when you work for yourself, it's a lot more purpose entwined within it. So I wish I would not have followed the money and gone to that second firm, which was just a horrible decision. But at the same time,

it was so bad that it really pushed me to do something that I would like, because I felt like even though I was being paid well, there could not have been anything worse than working there at that moment. I love that though, how sometimes it kind of a path and a decision takes you on to really what your purpose is and kind of lets you find yourself sometimes. And I think that's one thing that's really important that a lot of people think oh that whole saying money doesn't buy happiness well I think it can buy happiness up to a certain point but after that I think it's like the average isn't it something like once you're earning over like $70,000 a year yeah then actually you're not any happier and actually it's around who you surround yourself so I think there's some really important

lessons there as well for all of us but I'm really just kind of like interested to just tap into that a little bit more because I know I listen so well and they're going to be like, hang on a minute, you negotiated a six figure raise, what? So I would love actually, I know that we're going to cover so many things on this podcast, but I would love to dive into that a little bit more because women sometimes feel a little bit comfortable in negotiating their worth. And I feel like you not only demonstrated owning your worth when you negotiate that raise, but you also owned your worth after that and said, actually, do you know what? I'm worth more than this and this money is not fulfilling me. I'd rather do it for myself. So can we just talk a little bit about what that negotiation looked like and how you found it

within yourself to say, hey, I want more? Yeah, for sure. So one, I do think that women need to do a better job of tooting our own horn. I also think that the things that we're exceptional at, we sometimes discount, especially if no one else is telling us that we're great at it. So one of the things that I did while working in my first law firm was I applied for awards. I just applied for local business awards. I applied for media opportunities. I wrote op-eds. I was building my own personal brand outside of the firm. And I did not ask the firm's permission to do it. I did it on my own. And I did that because it's very easy to get a really good job and think, okay, well,

I have this good job. I can just borrow the company's brand equity and attribute it to myself. But in fact, if you build your own brand outside of your current job, even if you're in corporate, what happens is other people start to recognize you. They start to realize you as a rising star. And it becomes very difficult for people internally to say, oh no, she's not great when you're winning all these awards around your city. So that was number one. And that allowed me to attract the attention of other law firms that started to recruit me, even though I had a job. And so they were coming after me like,

hey, we'd love for you to work for our firm. If you ever get tired of your firm, please let us know. And I had several job offers without even applying for another position. And so what I told them was, look, I'm not even considering the offer unless you can reach this number. And that was the six-figure raise, essentially. Because also, they didn't know what I was making at my first law firm. It's like the largest firm in Chicago. They make the most money in Chicago by way of their revenue for law firms.

So people assumed it was a lot. And they didn't really know. And quite frankly, my firm did pay a lot. But it also paid a lot in the benefits and things that that firm couldn't offer. So when you evaluate what your firm is paying you, don't just look at the salary or your company, look at all of the fringe benefits you get, look at the brand equity you get from the name. I mean, if you're going from Google to some small tech company, you're going to lose some brand equity. So you have to be compensated for that. And so often we think, oh, I'm making 75 grand. So I'll just tell them 75 grand.

No, are you getting benefits? Are you getting alumni benefits? Are you getting a budget to get clients? All of those things play into your base salary. And the new company needs to pay for that if they want you to come there. So that was kind of how I negotiated that. But if you're going to negotiate your salary, you need another offer. You need to be able to walk away. That is what gives anyone the strongest position when negotiating

is the ability to walk away. That is one thing I would say. But then two, I've never heard of anyone losing their job because they asked for more money. So I think that that fear is a little bit irrational. And we should be asking for more every single time we negotiate our salaries. I love that. And I love about really building your personal brand and you just saying, hey, I was going after these awards. Like I wanted to win them. I put myself forward outside of what I was doing and really building that personal brand, which is something that we're going to come back to. So like you said, you transitioned, you took this new role, you were quite unhappy there. What was the kind of like, okay, yeah,

I can do this on my own. Because I feel like there's a big mindset shift when you go from working for somebody else and that comfort of them paying the bills and knowing what's coming in every single month. Like what was it really, truly like to make that transition and make that jump? And was there kind of like a little final push or how did that come about? Yes. So after I left a second law firm, my first thought was, okay, well, maybe I can get in another firm that's a better fit. And so I had an offer to go to a third law firm and they seemed like they were a better fit. They had a lot more diversity because, you know, I've always been the only African-American woman in my department at

these prestigious law firms. So I was excited to work with a little more diversity and hopefully that would make it a better environment, but you never really know. But after going through the entire process with the third firm, they basically gave me the offer. And then they said that there was a complex check. So essentially a case that I worked on at my second law firm prevented me from working at the third law firm without a ton of approvals going through, which is very rare. It doesn't really happen that often. And I think that was when I was like, okay, this is a sign. It's not going to work out for me at these firms. Obviously, I can spend my experience there. I can promote it to other people. I can take advantage of it, but it probably isn't for me to work there. And I remember praying this

prayer to God. I was like, God, I want an opportunity that's custom made for me. And I just felt like I had this push that was like, okay, well, you're going to have to make it because no one knows what you want. And what I want changes, which is the great thing about being an entrepreneur. I will do an event series this year and I may not do it next year. You know what I mean? Like I have the ability to change and grow and develop at my speed. And in companies that just doesn't happen that way. Yeah. 100%. I relate to that. Esky, When you have your own company, it can be very agile. No day is the same. So definitely a lot of change. A lot of change. And you have great ideas that you can actually implement,

especially if you have a team, you're working with other people. You just grow so fast. And I love that aspect of it. And I was not going to get that in corporate, no matter how hard I tried. So after that didn't work out, I was just like, I'm not going to keep going because there aren't that many firms in Chicago that are of the same caliber of my first law firm. So you have about five big firms. You know what I mean? There's not that many that are on that same tier. At that point, I was just like, okay, well, I need to do something for myself. I need to do something that I like, and I need to be honest with myself about what I want. And it's more than money, which for a while, I didn't think I wanted more than,

like, I thought if I had the money, then nothing else really mattered. But I recognized with my second job that that wasn't the case. So at that point, I was like, okay, I'm going to do this. And my thing was six months to profitability and a year to sustainability. And I was like, whatever, if it doesn't work out after a year, I can always just go back to working for someone else. I think that's like a really big message as well, because I think so many people stop themselves doing everything, anything because they're like, oh, what if it doesn't work out? Like it might not work out. And I think that can paralyze people and you know Natty and I are always big advocates of going hey what's the worst case scenario like if it is can you afford to give it a shot for this long

I think everyone needs to recognize that when you start to become an entrepreneur there are going to be sacrifices like there is a risk and you are going to need to cut what you're spending and you are going to be going to be like tight in the rain slightly but as long as you can still pay your mortgage and you can still afford to like live maybe you can't go out for meals every weekend or go on that holiday that year but that short-term sacrifice for long-term gain can be so beneficial I think you have to have that skill of the game and just kind of know okay well look the worst that can happen is this but the best things that can happen are all these things and how amazing would that be and really kind of jump with that positivity and that kind of faith that yeah I'm gonna do this and one of my favorite quotes is you can't fail if you

don't quit and so definitely something I've always lived by well hang on a minute I'm gonna give it a go because I'm really determined to make this work and where I know there's a will there's normally a way and I think you've said that too. Yeah. And I love that saying, that's actually so true. So, okay. So you, you left and you started and just having like, were you used to getting clients at that point with your law firm? Was it something that you were like, okay, I know how easily to get this or was it like a completely new thing for you? So prior to law school, I was in sales. So I had some experience doing sales, cold calling, convincing people I did not know to give me money for things. So that's a great skill to have.

But at my law firm, because my clients were like BP, Blue Cross Blue Shield, mega corporations, we didn't get those clients. Those are typically by like partners would get the clients or they were institutional clients of the firm since the 1900s. So the clients were already there. All I had to do was do my job, like just do legal work. I didn't have to get any clients. So that was probably the biggest shift is figuring out, okay, I need a sales plan and I need to relax. Those are the two things that I think people need when they start a business is you need a way that you're going to get clients and you'll have to try out different things. And then after you get your first 20 or 25 clients, you can evaluate, okay, where did these clients come from? And then amp up the things that were working and amp down the things that aren't working. But I had to figure

that out. It was kind of a trial and error. And at first I was just trying any number of things, you know, getting in the press. I was on television in Chicago as a legal expert, getting the firm's name out there that way. I was doing Facebook lives three times a week. I hired a business consultant. So I was trying a number of things to get clients. Instagram turned out to be the one avenue that I use at work the best is using Instagram direct messaging to introduce myself, get clients, talk some about their needs. And eventually it became so overwhelming that I had to have an assistant help me to manage that part of the business just because it was taking too much time. And getting clients for me is not

the hardest part, but balancing that with also doing the work becomes difficult. So like on one hand, I like getting clients. I like going out and getting them. But on the other hand, I have to either hire additional attorneys, or I have to balance that between actually doing all the work that I've now acquired. Yeah, and I think that's a constant battle. I always speak to this about clients that we work with as well. It's like, you know, you need to put in that first bit of effort, but you also need to be playbooking and recording what you're doing so that you can quickly hire somebody when it starts taking you away from actually where your hourly rate is the most because I think a lot of entrepreneurs kind of get stuck in this loop and they really never grow their businesses or scale their businesses because they get stuck doing all the little jobs which really if you build

you wouldn't be billing that much and you can actually pay somebody to do it less so I really love that you recognize that and I also really recognize the power of DMs as well we teach a strategy around that in our Insta Growth Accelerator course because there is so powerful and really leading with value and really reaching out to people and showing what you have to offer is really really important when growing a business but another thing you spoke about actually and want to just touch on is you were getting clients you spoke about you know getting on TV and getting. I know that you've really built your business from doing a lot of speaking opportunities. And so I really want to kind of dive in a little bit more into, you know, what it looked like to get TV and press. And then let's go on to talk about how to get speaking opportunities. Because I think all of

these things are systems that people forget a lot. They don't tap into this as much. A lot of people go straight to the social media. And this is kind of like a forgotten sales route, in my opinion. I agree. I think press is so powerful because it shows that you're legitimate. And we think a lot about, at least in the online space, a lot of the business is B2C, so business to consumer. But what I've always been very aware of, one, I think I needed a break from corporate regimens. So I started my business really focused on B2C, business directly to consumers, working directly with solopreneurs and CEOs, solo CEOs that needed trademarking work. They wanted to own their business name. However, I always knew that eventually if I wanted to grow my business and start landing six-figure contracts and above, or even $50,000, $60,000 contracts, I would need to have the legitimacy to go into

corporations and use some of that press. So what I did originally is I wrote an article on LinkedIn about the reason that I left my job. I had a lot of LinkedIn followers and I just wrote an article that was called like, this lawyer leaves her six-figure job to start her own law firm. And the response was humongous. And so from there, I pitched that story to various press outlets. Because if you look at it, people love when people leave six-figure jobs. And six-figure jobs is one thing, a $300,000 job is a whole nother. And a lot of people weren't able to imagine leaving that type of money because for a lot of people, that is their goal. So in the United States, a study just

came out that says, if you make $96,000 in this country, you make more than 80% of all Americans per 2018 tax data. So imagine for most people, that's unfathomable to leave that type of money. So that was a really good story. And I knew that a lot of articles or outlets would pick that up. So I just pitched them directly. I would pitch the editor of the papers or the blogs. And I pitched them on that story also because I had been featured in news outlets while I was working at my first law firm. I reached back out to them and told them, hey, I'd love to write an opinion piece because when I was featured, I was working for someone else, but now I have my own business. So I would love to let your readers know what I'm up to now, considering I was one of the people

that you featured on your list of 30 under 30. And they were really open to it. They were super excited about it. And so I wrote an opinion piece about diversity in corporate America, which was great because directly from writing that opinion piece, there were law firms that were reaching out to me to do their diversity training and sexual harassment training, which was something I was sure to put in the article that I did. So a lot of times you just have to pitch yourself. And for TV, I pitched myself to get onto a local network to be their legal expert. And the first time I pitched, I didn't get on. So I pitched about 14 or 15 times and I've been on six or seven times this year. That's a great example, isn't it?

Like you can't fail if you don't quit. I'm going 14 times. Like they're like, yeah, we'll just get them on. So she doesn't have to keep messaging. I love that. And I just think that tenacity is really what like sets entrepreneurs apart. Actually also love a kind of a theme that's really coming through from you, Ashley, is that tooting your own horn and being like unapologetically ambitious and doing so and

just saying hey look I'm gonna sing my praises I'm gonna pitch myself forward for this I'm gonna put you know myself forward because I think a lot of people sit back and think okay well these opportunities need to come to me I need to be selected for that award or I need to be asked if I want to go and give an opinion. Whereas actually the truth of it is, no, you need to put yourself forward so that you know you exist right now. Yes. And a lot of people don't realize that's not even how it works. Most people who are winning awards and articles, they're applying for them. Sometimes people are even paying for them. Like it's just not the way, unless you're a celebrity, most people are not just reaching out to you

for major media awards. It's a whole industry of applying for awards and putting yourself out there. It's not as organic as people think. People are planning this. They're strategizing to get this. Completely. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you.

It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know? Get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet,

now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash Boss Babe. Great and I think like just lifting the lid on that is actually going to allow some of our listeners to go, oh right, really? I should apply. And yes, you should 100% apply and I think just showing that kind of credibility when you get nominated, when you win these awards really does give you that bit of credibility to really help your business. So you've done, like I say, that you kind of scouted out the press, you've kind of put yourself forwards, done a bit in the

TV. And now I know that you really leverage speaking opportunities a lot. So just tell me, like, when did you decide to do your first speaking opportunity in front of a, on a stage in front of an audience? Well, as a lawyer, I was a trial lawyer. So I would speak in front of juries across the country. And it takes a lot of different skill sets to do that. But one of them is oratory skills. And are you engaging? Are you entertaining?

Are you funny? Can you get them to feel what you're saying? And prior to that, I had done speaking engagements probably for the past five or 10 years. So I've been speaking for a while, but I didn't really monetize it effectively and consistently until I went out on my own. And a part of it was out of necessity. So when you are at a law firm, you can't really build a business while you're at a business. So law firms are unique in that there's all these, not only do we have to follow the law like everyone else, we also have to follow these ethical guidelines. And a part of it is you can't be at a law firm working for someone else and then start your own law firm within that. That doesn't work.

So on day one, I left all those zeros and had zero clients. But the thing that I knew I could do right away was speak because I had written a book called The Law School Hustle to teach people with poor grades how they could raise their GPA matter what, and land a really lucrative legal job. So that book had just come out right when I left my second company. And so I went on a speaking tour and I just called all of the law schools in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and basically bulk sold my book to them as a way of making immediate revenue. And as a part of me bulk selling my book, I would come and speak and do a book signing for the students if they bought a certain amount. I love that. So that was how I kind of started my speaking career. And a lot of

people were asking me, you know, how are you speaking at these colleges? How are you speaking at these corporations? And so we launched Speak Your Way to Cash, which is our Facebook group for speakers and podcast where we teach other speakers how to get their start in the speaking industry, because it's a business of its own and it's a ton of sales, but it's really, really a great opportunity. Let's like dive into that a little bit more. So I know that lots of people like, first of all, they're going, okay, speaking. Some people are going, I can do that. I just need the gigs. And other people be going, I don't like speaking. There is no way that I'm getting up on stage and speaking in front of people. Like how do people overcome some of this fear that they have? Because obviously for you, that might not be like,

you know, maybe you didn't have to overcome that. But for, I know a lot of listeners will be going, I have a public fear of standing up on stage. Yeah. I think there are two types of speakers. And sometimes this person is the same person, but one type of speaker is someone who just loves to speak. They don't really care about the topic. They can speak about any topic and they will be, they will feel competent to do so because they've studied the art of speaking like their whole lives. And I'm kind of that person. I like different topics, but I really love the art of speaking and I've studied it a lot. But then there's another type of person who has a phenomenal message or they're an expert in a particular area. And so they don't like speaking, but they believe so much in their message

that they will speak because they feel like the world needs their message. And a lot of these folks become TEDx speakers, TED speakers, they speak at conferences to really help boost their business, but also to boost the message and get the message out. So for those individuals that are kind of scared of it, one, I would say practice. These organizations called Toastmasters all over the world that

allow you to get better at speaking and to just get your feet wet in a smaller group of people. And two, if you have a message or a level of expertise that you really believe in, then letting speaking be the medium to get your message out is just your service to the world. So I wouldn't even focus so much on speaking as I would focus on the message and the impact that message can have. I really relate to that because I remember speaking quite a bit at school and like not having any problems being a narrator or being on stage, but it's never like a full extrovert. And when I started speaking on behalf of Boss Babe, I remember the first event that we're doing

and I was terrified. I was like, I have not spoken in front of a room in like five years since I was at university. Actually, I think it was like nine years. And I remember shaking, but I did some really good practices. So I would really visualize it going well. I did a lot of like meditative states before, like, okay, really visualizing it. I was not visualizing me tripping up or anything like that. I was like, no, I'm definitely going to have a positive outlook on this and then I got taught box breathing and I actually utilize this a lot just generally if I'm ever getting stressed where you kind of breathe in to the count of five and then hold your breath for five and then breathe out to the count of five and hold out for the count of five and it really slows down your heart rate and for anyone who is listening who does suffer a little

bit from public speaking but really wants to I would definitely recommend getting in control of your breathing and start learning skill sets around that because I do think it's such a shame when people do have that message yeah you know they stand in their own way and actually do you know what it's really not that scary I love speaking now and I think as particularly when I show up to audiences who you know everyone is just so kind and caring and really what is there to listen to you in a positive light, you know, they're not that there to like tear you down or to see you do badly. And I think just remembering that is super, super important. Do you have any, any other tips for people who are nervous around speaking? Yeah. So the other thing I would say is confidence comes from preparation and arrogance

is based on air. So a lot of people will say, I don't want to be arrogant or I don't want to come off arrogant. Okay, great. So be confident, be prepared. If you are nervous about something, you have to practice more than someone who does it naturally. And honestly, practice in front of the mirror, out loud, record yourself, watch the recording, critique yourself, but really know the material. Because what I find is that I am the most unsettled when I'm the least prepared. But even if I have those little butterflies before I go out and speak, which I still get just because I think it's and a lot of people say it's nerves.

I think it's excitement. Like you're really excited about sharing your message. I just did my second TEDx talk. And it was about race, which is like such a deep topic. And my first one was on confidence called the currency of confidence. And my first one was on confidence called the currency of confidence. And the first one was great. It was not a controversial topic at all. But the second one was going to be controversial. And it was on race. And what I my goal was, I want to do this talk about race, but I want to make it funny. So one of the methods that I used in speaking is humor. And I think it's a phenomenal method to use. But before I went on stage, five minutes before I decided to change my speech, which gave

me less of that preparedness that we're talking about. But at the end of the day, I knew I had so many hours on stage and I had spoken to so many audiences that no matter what, I would not allow myself to fail. And I could trust my past track record for that. So if you are nervous about something, you have to get confident. And that confidence isn't just about saying affirmations. It's really about being prepared and trusting the preparedness that you've done. I love that. It's so true and so powerful as well. Like you say, trust in yourself when you have got that experience, but if you haven't really

like seeking it out and getting super practiced doing things like Toastmasters or even like within the society, our membership, we have some girls who kind of form like little pods I'd say like you know little networks and they meet up and just saying hey guys can I just practice this in front of you or family and friends can I practice this in front of you can you remember as children I always used to be like if I had a dance show like mom can I do it in front of you before like you just don't do that as much as an adult I think there's a lot to be said for that as well so with regard to speaking gigs and getting them, you shared how you got your ones around your book. What is your advice to people generally to get paid speaking gigs? How do people

establish their credibility and how do they go about asking to be paid for it? There are three things I recommend you have as a speaker. One is a website, a speaking website. Two is a speaking demo video, and then three are reviews. So you need footage of you speaking, reviews from past clients, paid or unpaid, no one will know. And you need a website, someplace to send clients. But in terms of actually getting them, it's like an entire sales strategy. I teach them in like VIP days with the Speak Your Way to Cash community or members, and then also in our Facebook group and our live events. But essentially you need a sales strategy. Similar to how people get clients for their

business, it'll vary. The way that you'll get speaking clients will vary based on who you're targeting. So you have to figure out who's your target. Are you going to go after corporations, colleges, nonprofits, associations, and conferences? And then within that group that you want to go after, you have to see which one of those or which subcategory of that group will actually pay you. Because not all colleges have budgets. Not all high schools have budgets, very few. And not all corporations are going to be able to pay. So figuring out who you want to target is number one. And then two, typically I teach cold email, warm call, close. So I recommend

you email with the purpose of getting on the phone and then you close them over the phone. But typically it's about, for me, at least a 30 to 60 day sales process. So it takes about 60 days to close every new client that we get from college or corporate speaking. I love that. And some great tips in there as well. I think that's really, really key as well, that cold email, then getting them on the phone, that whole flow. And do you follow up if say, they don't reply to the cold email? Yeah, so we use HubSpot,

but any CRM that allows you to send email one should have the algorithm to say like, okay, they didn't respond after three days. So it automatically will send the second email. And if they don't respond to that, it'll automatically send the third email. And I do recommend the second and third emails that you send out are extremely short. They should be getting shorter each time because your goal is to get them to respond, not necessarily to get them

to say yes. You just need them to respond. So there's a lot of different emails you can send out based on your target, but you do need to follow up. I've only had one client close on the first call. So your follow up strategy has to be pretty tight. You have to be tracking who you're emailing, what their response is when they want you to follow up, send out those emails right away. And these are things that definitely a VA can help you out with. My VA is very good at this. So you have to follow up though. That's the only way. And I think for business owners who want to add speaking as a revenue stream, it's a little bit more difficult than they believe because you may be sending it.

Like we were emailing 300 colleges a week for the first six months of this year. And that resulted in us landing some clients. But you may let out of the 300 that you email every single week, maybe one or none of those people become clients. So you have to do a lot of emailing, a lot of following up. Christmas is coming up. So for those top clients, you really want to land, make sure you're sending really nice Christmas gifts. I think we're going to use BoxFox this year to send out our holiday gifts, but it is a ton of following up. That's the number one thing you have to have. And I think it's just so important to highlight that because again,

it takes a lot to build businesses and there really is so much in the follow-up. We always recommend that follow-up as well because you know, people are busy, people look over things once, but if you follow up again, there's a lot to be said for that and you get a lot more attention. So let's say people are getting the speaking gigs, they're talking, they're starting the circuit. Do you recommend that they upsell at the, do you teach any upsells at the speaking gig? Or is it more like, okay, look, you know, I'm utilizing and I'm leveraging the speaking as my credibility to show that to potential other clients, not speaking clients, but just generally other clients that I now have this increased credibility on the scene. Like how do you leverage it?

Yes. So it depends on your audience. So if you're speaking to a room full of college students, and for me, I sell trademarks through my law firm, I'm not selling them trademarks. You know what I mean? Because like, they don't need trademarks, unless they have businesses. But if I'm speaking at an entrepreneurship conference, I may say, hey, and if any of you need a trademark, and you book your first call today, you'll get X amount of dollars off, or we'll do a free consult, et cetera. There's definitely ways to sell, but you have to communicate with the event organizers to know what's appropriate and what's not. And if they're not paying you, then the only reason you should be speaking there would be to sell. So if you have a business on the back end, a lot of people I work with are

entrepreneurs. So we may develop a whole speaking sales strategy where the entire goal is not for them to necessarily get paid to speak, but the goal is for them to get into rooms with hundreds upon hundreds of their ideal clients, and they do sell from the stage. So that is very beneficial. And it could be highly lucrative, even more lucrative than getting a $5,000 check on the front end, depending on the value of what you're selling. But there are other people that just want to get paid to speak. And so they're typically speaking to colleges. And the upsell may be you sell books, you sell a hundred or 200 books at $25 a pop, but the school buys those books in advance. So you're not really selling anything once you get there, but you may want to have the students join your email list. I love that as well. It's like just so much

like power and like looking at this whole speaking network as a real, a different way to sell your product. And I think I started off by saying like so many people automatically go to the mainstream things. So they think about like the social media, but so many people actually forget that speaking the press side, the TV side is a really good way to get your brand out there to actually leverage that and build your credibility and ultimately build your business. So thank you so much, Ashley, for sharing so much insight on this topic today. I know even from the beginning, we started talking about negotiating. I know that so many people have been scribbling notes frantically on ways that they can get out there and spread the word on their business. So thank you so much. Definitely. Thank you. So if our listeners want to get in touch, Ashley, how can they find out a little bit more about you? Definitely. They can go to ashleynicolekirkwood.com and they can also join us in the Speak Your Way

to Cash community on Facebook, which is just a free resource for speakers. And in that Facebook group, we actually have some trainings on landing your first speaking engagements using the conference circuit and also getting yourself in the press. So those are there just filtered by videos, but I'm in the group every day. And that's typically the main way people reach out to me and ask questions and do things like that and learn more about how they can start speaking their way to cash. I love it. Thank you, Ashley. Thank you. If you loved this episode, please subscribe, download a few more, and please leave us a review. I really want to hear what you enjoyed, what your main takeaways were, and I also want to know what you want to hear us talk about next. To say thanks for leaving us a review, we'll send you a copy

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