This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - How To Land Your TED Talk and Skyrocket Your Personal Brand with Ashley Stahl | 250

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

For many of us, delivering a TED Talk sits firmly on our bucket lists. But how do you move from dreaming to standing on that iconic red circle? In this episode, Nicole reconnects with Ashley Stahl to break down exactly how to make that dream a reality. You may remember Ashley from Episode 92—her career began at the Pentagon in counterterrorism, but she has since transformed into a career expert, international speaker, and author. Ashley’s book, YOU Turn, became an international bestseller, and she is now recognized as a top 100 TEDx speaker. She believes TEDx talks are the super highway to launching your personal brand, and with over 100 successful clients, her coaching boasts a 90% success rate in landing speakers on stage. If giving a TEDx talk has ever crossed your mind, you have an idea worth spreading. This episode will inspire you to gather your courage, find the right support, and take action toward your TED dream. So what do you say? Shall we see each other on the big red circle? Connect With Our Guest: Ashley Stahl  Website: www.wisewhisperagency.com   Special Offer: Mention this podcast to get $1,000 off Ashley's TEDx coaching package Related Podcast Episodes: Holler At Your Dreams with Judi Holler Let’s Get Unapologetically Bold with Vaneese Johnson Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

I'm Nicole Kalil, your host of the This Is Woman's Work podcast. I'm also an author, coach, keynote speaker, business owner, wife, mom, hotel snob, cheese enthusiast, and reluctant Peloton runner. But you know what isn't on my resume? I have not done a TED Talk yet, which I have to say has been on my mind for several years because it really does seem like everyone who's doing anything impactful, important, or big, anyone with an idea worth spreading has stood on that red dot, doesn't it? I mean, most of the guests I have on this podcast, most of the bestsellers, those who walk the biggest stages, the names we all know,

they all seem to have graced the TED Talk stage. So why haven't I done it? Well, frankly, because the whole process has seemed too daunting and figuring it out somehow has always fallen to the bottom of my to-do list. To be fair, this is not something where you can just wing it. An 18-minute TED Talk is not the same as a 60-minute keynote. The application process is pretty tricky. I mean, I personally know somebody who booked her TED Talk on her 101st time applying. And then there's the preparation, the nerves, and the actual presentation. And now my head is spinning and we've arrived at the point where I typically move on to doing something else

on my to-do list. And I'm guessing I'm not the only person who has a TED Talk on my bucket list. So for you or anyone you know who's looking to grace the TED stage, this episode is going to get us off of our asses and into action. I've invited Ashley Stahl back to the show to share how and why we should make this dream a reality. You may remember from episode 92 that Ashley started her career in counterterrorism at the Pentagon and has since become a career expert, author, podcaster, and speaker. She is the author of the international bestselling book, U-Turn, and a top 100 TEDx speaker. She calls TEDx the super highway to

launching your personal brand and has coached over 100 entrepreneurs to create and book their own TEDx talks with an over 90% success rate in getting clients on that stage in order to skyrocket their personal brands. Ashley, thank you so much for being our guest again. And I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say we need to have our pens at the ready to take notes. So let's start with the why. Why do you think TEDx is so important to building our brands? And what has it done for you and the clients that you coach? Yeah. Wow.

Okay. First of all, I need to up-level my podcast intros. I'm getting lazy. I just listened to that and I was like, what a reflective picture and story arc that just happened in your life with TEDx. I need to rethink my – and you know what's so funny is I'm telling stories all day and I feel like that's how it is sometimes. It's like you get so in your craft that you don't do it elsewhere. So that was just really beautiful. Thank you. As far as... Yeah. And as far as why everybody should do a TEDx talk, where else are 40 million subscribers waiting to listen to you talk for 10 minutes about a matter of your life, a matter of your story,

and the content that you provide. I literally don't know anywhere else. And if you think about TEDx, there's 40 million people following the TEDx handle, and there's 40 million people following the TED handle. So if you do well on TEDx, one thing a lot of people don't know is that you also get put onto the TED channel. So it's really a double dip and it's a second hit. It's a second wave. And once you do well on the TED channel, you have the opportunity to be seen by their network of translators who are all volunteers and you get your talk translated into multiple languages. So it's really the gift that keeps on giving. And I think it's one of the most powerful ways to make a career pivot. We have so many clients who are CEOs that want to do more speaking

and launch their speaking career. And TEDx has just become somehow as a brand, it's positioned itself to become a given for your speaking career. It kind of blows my mind. In my case, I'd never spoken in my life when I got my first TEDx talk. And back in that first episode we recorded about my book U-Turn, I talked a lot about my work in national security counterterrorism, and TEDx actually plays into that too. I got an award for my work in national security. I was working for Obama administration, and I went to this award ceremony and this beautiful woman walked in and I ended up chatting her up. And she told me that she'd just given a TED talk at the

UN. It was TEDx, which by the way, there's a difference between TED and TEDx and we can get into that. I think people get curious about that. But she told me that it would be really, really important that I would do one one day. And I remember telling her, maybe one day I'll do it, maybe someday over the rainbow. And she ended up looking at me like a cartoon and she said, well, I'm sure you will. And it was almost like her tooth sparkled when she said it like, ding. And I walked away and thought, okay, that's going to happen in 10, 20, 30 years. And she texted me the next week.

I was in Istanbul. It was 2012. There were protests in the city and I was still working in national security. And I got this text in the middle of this tear gas that got let off. And it was in my eyes and I felt this buzz in my pocket, grabbed it, looked down and there it was. It was her unknown number. Hey, I recommended you for a TEDx talk. I would absolutely love if you were willing to take my referral. They're going

to be reaching out asking you for a, what does she say? Like a speaking reel. And I remember thinking, what is a speaking reel? So I Googled that on my iPhone, whatever iPhone was in 2012, probably like an iPhone three. And I saw right then and there that, you know, I definitely didn't have one of those. It was like a three minute for those of you who don't know, it's a two, you know, 90 second or so real showing your speaking abilities, showing B roll of different media you've been on speaking engagements you've done with one audio that carries the whole thing through of you speaking. So all these people had TEDx audios of like 90 second soundbites of them speaking. And I just thought, okay, well, I don't have that. So I

grabbed the curtain in the bathroom behind me and I propped my phone against the mirror of the bathroom. And I just said something, I have no idea what I said. And I emailed it to them and some sort of miracle, I got the job. And well, I got the talk. I don't know, got the job. And I, for the three months that followed leading up to the TEDx event, it was at TEDx Berkeley. I was shaking in my boots. Like I, every single night I would picture that red dot. I had so much anxiety. And I went over and found a speechwriter in the administration. And I said, hey, can you give me some tips? I have never spoken in my life on a stage.

How do I structure this? And he really helped me figure out kind of like how to chunk out the speech. I got on stage after Guy Kawasaki, who, by the way, acted like he was just at the mall at 2 p.m. with his kids. Like his energy was not phased by this talk. Everybody else was shaking. And I got up there and I gave the best I could. And the talk ended up going viral. And it ended up providing me about a million dollars of coaching revenue to my career coaching business that I would go on to have for 12 years. And it wasn't until

2019 that I gave another TEDx talk because I remember feeling so weird that my first try speaking of my life was so viral, like grateful, but weird that like my first try was, you just don't want people to see your first try. So I gave another one in 2019 and I knew that one would take off because I gave it my absolute all. And that one went so viral. And by the way, it didn't move for about nine months. So it sat there on the internet and nobody watched it. And that just speaks to what a brand asset TED or TEDx is, is it could take off at any time. The algorithm on YouTube is so powerful. And that ended up getting about 10 million views, and it's in the top 100 TEDx of all time, got translated. Because of that talk, I got six book deals offered to me,

of which I took one, a speaking agent. I went on tour to 40 different speeches. I took my keynote fees from 5K a talk to 30K a talk. I got an international licensing deal in Asia on my online programs because they saw it translated into Chinese. I mean, the list could not go on more. I got a half million dollar spokesperson deal. It totally changed my career. And what it taught me was that when you do big things in your personal brand, you put yourself out of the position of having to push and create things all the time. And you bring yourself into a position of attracting things and having things come find you. And the TEDx talks that I did, they both have caused this sort of mysticism in my career where I'm kind of living in this world now where people are watching me every day and they're coming to me for things that I

never would have thought of for myself. And that has been one of the most underrated things that I could say about the platform. And I also just look at all the other things I've done in my personal brand. I wrote 600 and something blog posts for Forbes over 10 years as a contributor. And I have not gotten one opportunity nearly that would compare to what some of the things TEDx has brought me. And so when I think of all the time I spent writing 600 blog posts, and I think of one nine-minute talk that I spent two to three months preparing for in 2012, and how it's still paying me back today, it feels like one of the most important things anyone could really do for their career. And that's why I started Wise Whisper Agency,

which is my company now. We write and we book TEDx talks. So we've written more than 100 TEDx talks for clients and we've booked more than 100 of them on stage. So we pretty much guarantee booking for TEDx. And it's been a really powerful experience to see people's careers change through what this platform can do. So obviously, that is all pretty compelling. I'm sure a lot of people like me are like, all right, Ashley Lynn, let's just do it, right? So I have a few tactical questions that I want to start with. You mentioned TED versus TEDx. Talk to us about the difference of that. It's pretty much invite only, very rare to pitch yourself and get on the TED stage. TEDx is licensed out by TED. There's around 13,000 TEDx events around the world. And at any given time, I would say maybe one or 2,000 TEDx events happening

active. And I'm proudly not affiliated with TED or TEDx, by the way, as I give this insight. And I say proudly because it's a platform that does not love the idea of entrepreneurs coming on and monetizing the opportunity, right? Like TED and TEDx don't really want people to, they really want it to be about ideas worth spreading and not about entrepreneurs sharing ideas worth spreading and promoting themselves and making money because of it, which I stand for. I believe that any platform that wants people's best, that I feel like we are getting out of an era where it should be about speak for free, give us your best. And because we have people following us, there should

be no other gain for you. And I feel like there's so many big shark platforms that are still working under that ethos. And I feel like in so many ways, that's so outdated. So I stand for the entrepreneur over at Wise Whisper. TEDx has so many guidelines about self-promotion, about what kind of science you can share. There's so many ways you could get your TEDx taken down if you don't abide by those guidelines. We've never had an issue with that. We've had people reach out and it's happened to them that we don't know. And we've told them there's not much we can do, but there's many reasons why I don't like how they're running. And I just see myself as an agency that understands what they're doing and wants to leverage it for entrepreneurs. Number one, people see it as a Ted talk. So,

or a TEDx talk. So people think, what is my one idea worth spreading since that's what the platform is about? I think that's a really cool question, but a really awful question for an entrepreneur trying to figure out what they want to talk about because you're taking a very vibrant brain and you're bringing it down to one question. And the better question I would say for anybody that wants to do it, there's a few. Number one, what do you want this talk to do for you, for your business, for your career? How do you want it to position you? What kind of clients do you want to find you? What kind of opportunities do you want to find you? Okay. What topics are going to attract those opportunities or those ideal clients? And of those topics, which one do you have the most original thinking? That's my way of going about it. So I have a team of eight writers,

three creative directors, and we're pretty much done for you. So it's four Zoom calls. And on these calls, the creative director, mine, she comes from Apple. She was doing Steve Jobs decks and my chief creative director and writing speeches for his executive team. So she's incredibly visionary. And that's been the way that we start with working with people is figuring out where do you think originally, and we try to obviously prevent ourselves from taking on clients that don't have, you know, they haven't thought too far about what they really have to say. So that's been really, really telling. And then from there, people have to remember, you know, TED Talks are anything from like six minutes to 18 minutes. 18 minutes is about six pages typed. I recommend people memorize their talks. And so I tell them, well, why would you

do an 18 minute talk? If you don't want to memorize six pages, do a 10 minute talk. That's three, three and a half pages. So we kind of have it down to a science. And over two months, over four Zoom calls, we write the whole TEDx talk. We hand it off to the booking team and our client doesn't even hear anything until they get a second round interview. And we set that up for them and then they get their TEDx talk. So we pretty much don't stop pitching them until they win. Half of the pitches are people we know, half of them people we don't. And we just really commit to that because we know that it's life-changing. And another logistical question, does location matter? No, that's a really great question.

So entrepreneurs are such high achievers. And so I almost think we are like, well, how do we squeeze this lemon out and get the best lemonade? Think about the consumer. Think about the 40 million people following TEDx. They don't care if you're in TEDx San Francisco or TEDx Timbuktu. They just want to hear your content. And the brand credibility is totally there already, right?

So I think that's the thing to remember the most, is that the brand authority is there. The consumer doesn't understand the difference between TEDx and TEDx. The consumer doesn't understand the difference between TEDx San Francisco and TEDx in the middle of nowhere. It's the brand, and the brand is what carries that authority. But behind the brand, behind all these TEDx talks are volunteers. And so it's this very odd juxtaposition of these entrepreneurs who want to knock it out of the park and have poured themselves into like really memorizing something that could be life-changing for them. And then you've got people who are high, you know, these volunteers that are trying to figure out audio

for their event and their students at UCLA or God knows where. these volunteers that are trying to figure out audio for their event and their students at UCLA or God knows where. And they're just trying to get their thing together. So you get their shit together so that you can get on stage. And sometimes it's their first event, which we try not to book clients for first time events because we don't want them to feel like a guinea pig. I had somebody tell me once when she booked her TEDx talk was to remember that the people who are running the event are worried about the success of the event too. It's not just you. And so anytime you can position yourself as a partner in promotion and putting on a really great event, that can be to your benefit. What are your thoughts on that

from a pitching perspective? Does that matter? Yeah. You really make a good point and it's an important one, which is behind every TEDx event, there is a volunteer and they have a whole different slew of thoughts about the event. I'm not as much running the booking team. We have somebody in charge of that. There's six people on our booking team, but I am aware that they do care about you having some sort of tie to their event, whether it's that you grew up in Rhode Island and it's a Rhode Island-based TEDx talk, whether it's that you care a lot about this topic and your whole entire speech is about it. My team has a playbook that

we've been working with. You have to remember that these events, even if they're small, right, they have a lot of benefit for you going viral. So my second TEDx talk was at a small university in the Netherlands and they got a surge of enrollments because of my super viral talk. They got exposure. Nobody knew about that university before they saw my talk or not a lot of people. Right. So that's 10 million people that are like, what's, what's light in university, you know? And because of that, there is a benefit of you simply having a powerful speech. And that's why a lot of entrepreneurs pitch themselves for TEDx talks without having a speech written. And it's why a lot of entrepreneurs pitch themselves for TEDx talks

without having a speech written. And it's kind of a chicken or egg situation. Why would you write something that you don't have booked, but why would they book you if they don't really know what you're going to say or what you're capable of? So we try to show different pieces of the speech based on the theme of the event to really show them how powerful our writing is. And I think it's the powerful writing that has really gotten us so many, nearly a hundred percent success with booking. Yeah. Okay. So let me ask about timing because I know somebody listening and I know I do this too. We do this a lot as women. We think I'm not ready, right? Is there a right time to do a TEDx talk? And like how, and I put in air quotes, ready, do you think you actually need to be? I don't think, there's a lot of things. Number one,

the fastest we've ever booked somebody is six weeks after writing their talk. And then you still have three to four months runway before the event actually happens, right? The slowest has been 22 months, and that was during the pandemic. Really slow, a lot of pitches. We pitch people till we win, right? So from a timing perspective, whether somebody has a book coming out, we always advise people don't tie this to anything. It's a timeless brand asset. But do think about your bio that you submit beneath the TED Talk because your bio has however many words, but the first 90 words are what you'll see before it says read more. And most people don't click

that button. So that's where you can pretty much shamelessly self-promote. And that's where people catch you in their peripheral vision as they're watching your talk. So I would say if you're wanting to have a book out, but you don't have one yet, call yourself a forthcoming author so that eventually in five years when your talk picks up, people go look you up as an author on Amazon, right? Or wherever they go. So you want to think about your future self, but you don't want to be tied to any timing. I will say personally, I always want to do a second TEDx talk because I felt so cringe about the first one being, you know, I was like barely 25 or something and I'd never spoken before, but I did feel like I had a lot to say by the time it was time for me to get my second one. And that's a really important

feeling is like, you don't need to know what you're going to say. I think a lot of clients come into Wise Whisper Agency and they feel kind of like horses in the stable, like these workhorses. They want to run, but they don't really know what they have to say. It's almost like they have a lot of life force energy to share. And so that's what's been so powerful about our creative direction is on these calls. You've got a speechwriter, but you also got a creative director pulling everything out of you. We have a really intense intake form that helps people learn a lot about who they are, what their stories are.

We've had so many people come back to us and say, hey, the stories that I found out about in my intake form from myself are still stories that I'm using in my keynotes. We've also had a lot of clients. One client, we were on Zoom 3, which is when we look at our rough draft with him. And he had a keynote that week and he grabbed it and he used it for his keynote, even though it was like a 12-minute talk and he took Q&A. So instead of doing a 30-minute keynote, he's like, I've got a 10 to 15-minute keynote and I'm going to take Q&A from the audience. And he said he raised $2.6 million from investors in the audience for his concept. So it's like the ability to tell your story and the feeling of feeling like you have something

to say, I think is really important. I think that if the desire is there and you feel like if you're trying to decide between all the things you want to say, which one you want it, like that's probably a good sign that, you know, you should be moving forward on something like this. So can you break down the general steps that are involved? So obviously you got to write the talk, you got to book the talk, you got to prep, you got to speak, you got to promote, you got to. And I know your team does a lot of that for and with you, but if you could just sort of break it down for those people listening in who either want to attempt to do it themselves or want to get a sense of all the steps that you're helping

people through. Yeah. So our speech writers tell me it takes anywhere from 40 to 80 hours to write a TEDx talk. So if you are writing a talk and you don't identify as a writer, you need to hire a writer and it doesn't have to be us. We've had a lot of TED and TEDx speakers contact us for writing only, and we're happy to do it. But if you want somebody that's more affordable, because we're more of a high-end service, a lot of our writers have written New York Times bestselling books, movies. So if you want somebody that's a little more affordable, I would just do some sort of posting on Craigslist, LinkedIn jobs, find a writer. I would say somebody that's to me considered incredibly affordable as a writer is probably like $30 to $50 an hour if you think they're good. I will tell you some writers work faster

than others. I've seen affordable writers that take three times the amount of the time than the more expensive writers. You have to get a sense of them, but you want to, um, and I would say writers that know they're amazing. And this, you know, people charge prices all the time that they don't have the skill, but all of my writers are hundreds of dollars per hour. Like, and I see that. Um, and I, just because I have so much business coming in, we have them at a flatter rate with us. So that's just something to be mindful of at testing people out. Test your writers. Give them like a couple of life, maybe give them five life stories and tell them to write the opening of your TEDx talk and give

them like a hundred bucks to do that. See which opening you're the most inspired by. Because that's a few ideas on picking a writer. But yeah, I would say, you know, in a 10 to 12 minute talk, you don't have more space than two to three talking points. So you open up the talk on the topic you want to do. You really have two to three talking points. That's kind of that. So pick what those are. Don't what I learned the hard way. Do not count on a speech writer to help you with your vision. They don't have that. And unfortunately, some of them, oh man, I sound like such an egomaniac. Some of them think that they do, and I'm sure some of them do have that skill, but I have found over the board, across the board, over and over again, my best speech writers are simply excellent writers.

And that is so powerful. They know what they're best at. They execute. And that's why we write the speech over four Zoom calls. So in the first Zoom call, we're doing the brainstorm. What is the talk about? Where is it headed? What topic is best for your career? Okay. What's your most original thinking? The second call, we have the opener written. We have the first talking point written. So this is kind of mirroring how you could work with a speech writer, right? Then we kind of give feedback on that. And then we talk about what are the remaining talking points. They go write that. The third Zoom call, we show the client the rough draft. They rip into it. We give our clients up to five hours of content intake. Meaning, you know, if you've

written a book, if you've been on podcasts, send us five hours worth of that after the first call, because then we can absorb any of their thinking. Some clients have said, Hey, I haven't written any books, but the chapter three of this book really emulates the kind of thinking I want to have here. So whatever that is, we'll do. And then by the fourth Zoom call, we're polishing the final draft. And I really think it's the intake form that really gets people moving. I was just thinking the other day, I should tell my team to give it as a PDF to podcasts for show notes, because it seems like there's a lot of value in it that I didn't even realize. So if anybody wants our intake form just to start reflecting for themselves about their TEDx talk, you can just head on over to wisewhisperagency.com slash intake.

And we'll put that in show notes. Yeah. So, okay. The writing part, obviously wildly important, very complex and best to do with a professional. And then the booking part and then the prepping part, like what are we talking about there from what to be thinking about and invested time? You know, I wish that I was more involved in the booking part. I absorbed a company that does booking and had a track record into my company. But I will say that it starts with a spreadsheet and they figure out like, what are the events that really would align with this speech over the next 12 months? Or with the person, right? Because earlier, like if you're born and raised in a certain area, or if you went to college in a certain area,

they might apply to those locations. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then I would say from there, it's about being personalized. We personalize every single application. I ask all the time, you know, what they think they did when we book somebody, because we always do. And it's really been about being personalized. They said it takes about 100 to 300 hours to book a client. So that's what we're doing on that side. And then the preparation part, would you recommend hiring or working with a speaking coach? I would imagine yes. And I would imagine somebody who very specifically focuses on TEDx talks, because that's a different thing. It is a different thing. And I do think that if you're not working with an agency like us, you really do need to interview around with the

writers, pay for tests and trials. There are agencies that do booking, and we've gotten a lot of clients from those because people are upset. I think we just live in a world where people are paying pretty high fees and they're not getting what they bought. And I'm really cognizant of that because at the end of the day, if you really look at what we're doing, we're pretty much guaranteeing booking, but it's not in our control fully, right? We can't make somebody say yes to one of our clients. And the only way we've been able to take full control over that is committing to not stopping until we get it, even if it takes years. And that's what we've been able to commit to with the longest person being that almost two years, 22 months. Right. So I understand people feeling kind of let down. So I would just say, do your diligence. And obviously, we're here at wisewhisperagency.com if you want. And anybody that found me through your podcast, Nicole, I'm happy to give them $1,000 off within 90 days of the episode release, as long as they just mention you.

Okay. So if they reach out to you and wisewhisperagency.com is the website, would it be on their intake form where they would mention this podcast? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Wisewhisperagency.com. There's like an application there, a contact form. As long as you

say you came from Nicole and her show within 90 days, we'll, we'll honor it. Okay. Amazing. One last question, Ashley, if you're about to step on the red dot and nerves are raging and you know, all the thing, and you've done all the preparation, any one last piece of advice for having a successful experience and having something that you feel proud of on the other side of it? A lot of clients are like, how do I prepare for the influx? And I would say the answer is patience. Like these talks have a mind of their own. You know, my one talk that went the most viral, didn't move for nine months. You just have to respect the platform and give it your best. We also have an ads contact at our agency that guarantees a million views through ads and they're targeted ideal clients. These are not bots. So I think it's about remembering that. I hate to say that we still

live in a world that is pay to play, but most people who are doing big things have paid for the eyeballs because there are so many people competing for them. And I have made it my own commitment and my own personal brand to do my best so that I respect personal branding enough to say, this is an allocated piece of budget in the world that we are playing in to put towards the attention that I need to compete with. And I think that that's just the game. Obviously, if you're in corporate and you just want this to negotiate better salaries, be more competitive in the market, it's not about you getting millions of views.

It's about you just having that stamp of authority. And I think that's something worth looking at. A lot of people just having a TEDx talk makes them more credible for opportunities as long as they feel like they really respected the assignment. But we do have speaking coaches. And if you can't afford a speaking coach, I would say at the bare minimum, really make sure you memorize your talk because the best speakers on the circuit are memorizing their talks.

Thank you. Thank you for your nuggets of wisdom and for being here today. My pleasure. All right. As is true in so many public domains, women may be half of the population, but are only about a third of all of the TED Talks. And friends, it is not because we have less to say. I promise you, if this is something you want to do, then you do have an idea worth spreading. And like every human on the planet who wants something, you likely just need to muster up your courage, get some support and coaching from people who've done it before and step into action toward your goal. So what do you say? Shall we see each other on that big red circle? Are you ready to skyrocket your personal brand?

Excited to elevate your authority? Leave a legacy? Yeah, me too. And while doing a TED Talk isn't necessary to be doing woman's work, chasing after a dream certainly is. Being brave, using your voice, impacting others. That is woman's work.