Hi, everybody, Welcome to the Best Ever You Show. I'm Elizabeth here with doctor Katie Eastman, my co host, and our guest Bobby Carlton.
Bobby, Hi, how are you Hi? Thanks for having me.
Yeah, Katie, how are you?
Good to see you, Bobby, good to be here.
Good to be here. Yeah. Katie and I talk like every minute of the day. So good to see you again, Katie.
Yeah, good to talk to you.
You know, we are new to Riverside FM here and we're I'm having a little bit of a giggle before we go on here. Katie's like, oh my gosh, my lighting, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm I'm much shorter than you guys in the video, and Bobby's We're all talking about the really good video quality that we have here, showing every wrinkle and gray hair and every everything.
I miss. Zoom touch up my appearance.
Yes, that's what's missing. Okays, it don't look like this on Zoom.
I know. Zoom is our friend.
Is our frienduzzy fuzzy filter. Yeah. And my son for Christmas, He's like, Mom, I got you a new camera. It's like four K and blah blah blah. I'm like, oh great, thank you, thank you. Yeah the twist anyway, yeah, and we're all in our home offices. So yeah, so anyway, it's it's it's great to have you here, Bobby. What a treat it is. Bobby is the founder of Carlton PR and Marketing Innovation Innovation. I'm sorry, I want to say Innovation Women is what I want to say.
Katie.
You're a member and I'm a budding member.
And I don't want to know all.
I just want to give the Florida Bobby and have it tell us all about her.
So Innovation Women is actually my third company. I usually tell people The day job is I run Carlton PR Marketing. That's how I make an actual living. The night job for many years was something called Mass Innovation Nights, which was a monthly new product launch event driven by social media help promote local startups. And then Innovation Women is
the dream job. It's the dream of getting more women on stage at conferences and events because two thirds of all conference speakers are men, and it leaves women out of all kinds of business and career opportunities.
It sure does. I just met you at the main conference for women actually, and you gave such a fascinating talk. Why is it that women aren't part of the speaking circuit so much.
There's a lot of actual systemic reasons for that. One of them is speaking begets speaking. The more speaking you do, the more speaking you will do, and so older patterns kind of perpetuate. And if you're looking at this from an event manager perspective, they are asking for brand names, recognizable faces, people they know the heads of company is the c suite, and you know if you define who you want on your stage by the c suite from the Fortune five hundred, very small number of women there.
But there's actually a lot of reasons. Even at the smaller company size, more women work part time, women are more likely to work for smaller companies, and women are still more likely to be responsible for kids and home. So if you get asked to speak, you know, it's hard to be the morning keynote speaker. If you've got to put little Johnny on the bus at eight am. It's hard to get away for three days, which is what it would take to travel to a conference to
speak and then come back. If you only work three days a week, and if you work for a smaller company, that company probably can't afford to send you to a conference for three days. There's nobody to backfill for you, and they might not have the money for the travel and all the expenses.
Associated with it. So systemic reasons included what do you think, Katie?
I love it.
I think I've gotten lots of leads from being part of Innovation Women for speaking options that I never would have found. I think Innovation Women has a wonderful opportunity for authors as well. You've got a section where we can identify ourselves as with our books, and there's also a place where we can reach out and announce and say what's on our minds and what we're thinking about, and hey, is there anybody out there who wants to
talk about that? A lot of options Innovation Women offers, and I think just Bobby's brilliant and I think what she's done is huge, and I'm grateful, very grateful for somebody like me who was just how would I get out there?
Yeah, I mean Innovation Women has a profile for each speaker, a searchable database for event managers to come in and search for speed. We also have a database of opportunities that our speakers can apply to we have the what we call the green Room, which is where all of our education is. And we have the Innovation Women Network, which is an online community so our speakers can network with each other.
Tell me I'm going to go back. I'm taking you back to kindergarten like we do sometimes on this show. Were you you the kid who was always piping up and loved public speaking?
No, I'm an introvert. Seriously, I'm an introvert. I think that.
The skill set for somebody in my position, so longtime pr person. I'm really good at research, I'm really good at writing. Are these are my superpowers? And public speaking was something that I did with other people. I got them on stage. I continue to do that. I always tell people I'm one of the theater kids, you know, like always out there. But my job in the theater was I was the spotlight operator.
I was the.
Person who was hiding out in the rafters shining a spotlight on the star of the show. I was not the singing and dancing on the stage kind of person. And I discovered when I started my second company that I needed to be front and center in order to connect with customers and partners.
I needed to be.
The theater kid on the stage versus the one in the back room in order to move my business forward. And the first event that we did for Innovation Nights, I was awful. I mean seriously hot mess. And it was a social media powered event and everybody had their cameras out and video lots of evidence of me being a hot mess. So it was a situation where you look at those pictures, you look at that video, and you say, I get better at this or I die. And I chose to get better. Practice really helps.
Here's a question. How do you get the practice though? If nobody puts you on their.
Stage, Sometimes you got to make your own stage, which is really what I did with Innovation Nights. I ran Innovation Nights actively for eleven years. We had a monthly event, undured in thirty five events, and every single month I was the MC, I was the host, and I was literally doing the same thing every single month. And as I did it again and again and again, I got better at it, and pretty soon people were asking me, oh,
can you come and speak at my event? Really me, And then you know, it kind of dawned on me, Oh you've gotten better at what you were doing. People do want you to speak? I think some of it for many people. If you can't create your own stages, yes, you can start smaller. One of the recommendations I usually give to people is, if you need that dip your toe in opportunity, ask a question from the audience that
the next conference that you're at. If you think about it, you're probably talking to the exact same audience that the people on stage were speaking to. And you've got a short, little punctuation of a moment. You get to identify yourself, this is my company, ask my question, and then you can sit down and disappear into the audience. But you just spoke to the exact same audience that the folks on stage spoke to.
Yeh, it's your turnd way to start.
Well, I'm Bobby, I'm the theater kid who is on stage and more power to have given. Yeah, And you have given me a stage that I would not have otherwise had, And I'm most grateful for that because I'm one of those people who doesn't shy away from being a speaker, loves it, eats it up. But just how do I get there? So I really encourage people to become part of innovation women because it gives you your stage. It helps you find your stage where you fit.
We also do a thing called speaker Friend Fridays, a zoom call every week and for a lot of people I know they've said that for them, that was their first stage, introducing themselves, asking a question, answering someone else's question. It's all virtual, it's online, but it's good practice.
Yeah, great practice. I'm not the theater kid. I'm probably more the math and science and writing girl, behind the scenes of like never on stage kind of thing. But then I had a TV bug when I was about eighteen and wanted to be a news anchor and so my whole backgrounds in the news anchoring and and so forth industry, So TV reporting and anchoring and stuff like that, but not theater exactly. But yeah, now it's interesting, so
different backgrounds. Is there a Is there a certain something that you look for in people to be on stage? Do you have like if somebody's listening and they're like, Bobby, I need you, I've got to track you down because I want to be the keynote of blah blah blah, or I want to give the commencement address. You know, something big that they want to do. Do you have a series of things that you're looking for?
So that's happen and Women is a platform, It's a membership group, and what we do is we provide the services from Innovation Women's Platform to anybody if people are looking for a way to get more visibility, if they're looking for a way to build their business, or a great opportunity for that. The things that I love, I love to see kind of walking through the door are people who may be very experienced in business, who may not have yet utilized all of their vast knowledge.
From the stage. So I think a lot.
Of people wait too long before they say I am ready to be a speaker. I am ready to present at an event.
We have a lot of.
Women who talk to me about these amazing things that they have done, and I'm like, why are you not out there speaking about these It's like I have climbed this mountain, I have done this amazing thing, and I'm like, why are.
You not telling that story? Well, I want to build my confidence first.
I'm like, you know what builds confidence like nothing else, Getting up on stage and telling your story like that is.
The way to get started.
It's because we fear we're going to be judged how how what's our weight, what's our hair? What do we look like? How old are we?
Is?
Everything we're saying perfect is. It's a it's a probably a processing of self confidence issues going on most of the time. I think when I talk to people and they're like, I don't want to do that. People are gonna see.
Me, you know, I got to say that. You know, if anybody had a reason to be nervous, it would be me. But at the same time, I do think that people we've been told all our lives that speaking is something to be fearful of. Like there are all these studies about how speaking is the number one fear. I think death is like number seven. In other words, we would rather die than be on stage. But I think so many of us have heard these stories and heard about the study that were like, this is something
we're supposed to be nervous about. This is something we're supposed to be frightened of. And I think we've built up this fear in our minds to an unreasonable level. So I don't really like to talk about the fear aspect of public speaking. I think if you do feel flushed if you feel a little flutter in the tammy, like that's excitement, that's not necessarily nervousness.
I absolutely love what you did in Maine or anybody that has ever not been on stage or had a fear of being on stage. You gave everybody equal opportunity to be up there and just see what it feels like to be on the stage under the lights and shine their light upon each other. It was such a special moment in my life. It was just so I don't know, there's just something about him, like it was like one of those, as Katie will say, uplifting other
women moments. It was so powerful. I think about it all the time.
That's awesome.
I've done that a couple of times before, and I first did it out at the I Tripoli International Leadership Conference in California several years ago, and it was one of the last sessions. We didn't have the entire I don't know, seven thousand people audience there, and I'm like, all right, anybody who's left here who hasn't yet been on stage, you want it, come on up. And I think somebody's about ready to kill me because they were
nervous about the whole stage collapsing. But we got literally hundreds of people on stage for a big group photo and people are like, you know what, this is the first time I've been on stage, and that I think was like a really good way for some people to go this is not this is not scary, this is fun.
I'm here with my friends. It was good.
It was just fabulous. Yeah, Katie.
And don't you think Bobby that one of the things that helps people not be as anxious is if they pick a topic that fits for them, because I think that is hugely important. And one of the things I love about when we get leads on Innovation Women is we tell you what our loves are, our passions, what we want to speak about, and the leads come to us based on those themes. And I think it's so much easier to get up on any stage. Just like an actress, you know, you've got to be in character,
and you've got to know your character. Well, we have to know ourselves to know what we're good at speaking about, and it's what we care about.
A lot of people to think about public speaking as I'm going to share my area of expertise, but you also have to be sharing the things that get you excited that you're passionate about. It's very hard for the audience to get excited about something if you're not excited as this speaker, right, So you have to be excited about your topic.
You have to love that topic, right. Yeah.
I have an opportunity to speak at the end of the month in front of a really big group of student athletes, which is a huge goal of mine forever. You're one of the reasons why. Yeah, I know. One of the reasons why I had you on the show is because it just credits back to that moment of like being on the stage and having that moment you know, I got this, I can do this kind of thing. And so I said yes, and I'm like, oh, what
did I say yes to? No kind of thing? I had one of those moments of like a no, and everybody knows it, and I'm cool with it. You know, it's not my it's not exactly my thing. You know, I'm more behind the TV kind of thing. I'm like, Okay, I can do this. So I had the most wonderful preparatory phone call yesterday to get everybody's ducks in a row because I'm sharing the stage with Ed Garrity and I'm like, oh my, you know kind of thing. So
it's a really big deal. And I just thank you, Bobby, because that I think without that moment, I might have said, no, I am.
I worked with a speaker a while ago, who, like many of us, spent several years, you know, in the early days of the pandemic and stuff, being alone at home and doing lots virtually yea, and she said she really felt like she lost the muscle, the memory of being on stage in front of real humans. And we got her an opportunity to be on stage at a pretty major event, and she got up during the dress
rehearsal and just froze. And I was like, yeah, come here, we're going to go and find all the empty rooms at this conference, and you're going to hop up on that stage and you're going to give that presentation to me. And we probably bopped in and out of, you know, five to ten different rooms over the course.
Of a day.
And at the end of the day, she got up and she nailed that presentation. She was so good, and it was literally just you know, the muscle memory of being on stage it came back.
Yeah.
But you know, also the love and support of you. I think there's a when you meet Bobby in person, which I hope you all have the moment too. There's a warmth to you that I have trouble putting words to. I immediately didn't. Katie immediately called you, and I'm like, oh my god, I'm at the coolest person. Yeah. Yeah, she's so warm because you could be like, eh, I don't have time for you, you know, you know kind
of thing, and I was scared at first. I'm like, oh, please, don't do that to me because I kind of love you, you know. And so I got the love back and it was so lovely. It just was just warm and friendly, and I watched you operate and you did that with everybody and it was refreshing.
You know.
It was interesting because I did my presentation that day twice, so I think I met you upstairs while we were in giving the presentation in the smaller room in the morning. You had a booth up like right outside our room, and then they had me do the same presentation in the big auditorium downstairs later on in the day and the first room. Okay, let's put a whole bunch of women in their fees pack them tight in a little tiny room and make it super hot.
Like everybody's dying. It was so hot in that room, and everybody's like, we open a window, is there ac I'm like.
Who's having a hot flash? But but we had a good time in that room, like it was. It was you know, a lot of laughing and interaction and stuff. And then I got into the auditorium to do the same presentation in the afternoon, and everybody spread out in the auditorium and there's like three hundred seats and I've got about twenty people in the auditorium. And I should have like said, Okay, come closer, because otherwise you don't
get that the feels, you don't get that interaction. And the minute I started doing my presentation, I'm like, I'm not feeling it. I'm not feeling the usual feels. And I said, you know what I'm going to have to do. I'm going to have to get everybody up here with me, because otherwise the feels are not going to be the same and it's not going to be the same experience
for people who were in the little room this morning. Now, true, we were all dying to the heat, but the feels were there and the fields are so important to this.
Yeah, they are. I was sitting it with a lot of I was actually sitting around a lot of people and they were taking intense notes while you were speaking. I think you had a really studious want to be crowd and it was I could see people, you know, like, how do I become this? That was the group that you had there. It was a last and the second one that they were younger and they were taking notes, and I felt like I was the old person in the room. I'm like, oh, my kind of thing, and
it was. It was pretty cute. And when you brought up everybody on stage, everybody was tickled so and talked about it the rest of the day and everything.
So it was, yeah, we great picture.
Yeah, it was really cool.
We got a fantastic picture of that. We got a great video of that, and we shared it out when people are.
Like, yeah, so much fun. All right, So we're gonna run short on time, but I don't want to keep you too long here. But why do we need speaker.
Buddies speaker friends. I'm a big advocate of speaker friends, all right. The reason we need speaker friends is very Weirdly, speaking as an industry, I swear to God, is so secretive. I feel like everybody who has ever stepped foot on stage looks around and goes, hey, I could do this. I could make money training other people to do this. So I'm gonna keep my little secrets to myself and I'm not going to share. And that doesn't help anybody else.
And I don't know that that's how everybody operates, but I do feel like speaking as an industry is overly secretive. So I think the people who are most successful as speakers have access to speaker friends, people they can get feedback from, real feedback people, they can ask questions of Like if you're friends with people who are on that same journey with you, you have access to just so
much information and knowledge. So that's one of the reasons we have these weekly zoom calls Speaker friend Fridays, and I say to people, there's no gatekeeping here, no pay me money, and learn the secrets. Anybody's welcome. That is also how I present. I might go a little too deep for some people when it comes to my presentations, but I want everybody in the room to walk away with those notes you were mentioning like I know how
to do a thing. Not I saw a presentation where somebody promised if I bought the book or I bought the coaching, I would learn. No, I want them to walk out the room knowing what to do next, and speaker friends treat each other that same one.
Bravo, no email loops of endless loops.
Have you ever seen those websites that just endlessly scroll and you're gonna learn this and you're gonna learn that, And I'm like, stop, stop it just tell me what I want to know.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's one of the reasons, like why Best every Year doesn't have ads on it either. It's like, no, it's just just straightforward, all right, Katie, Is there anything else you want to ask before we go and to treat?
Just want to say again, I think one of the things I love about working with Bobby and innovation women is you're an encourager. And I think good business leaders are encouragers and empowerer.
They empower and encourage and you do both.
And I think that that's a really important lesson for anyone listening who's a business leader.
Those two words are.
Key, and you embody them. And I think it's a real gift when you can do that, when people don't meet you in person, but you but your energy exudes those two words. So I am really grateful for that.
Thank you.
I think there are super big stakes when it comes to getting more women on stage. We cannot be what we can't see. We have to have more women on stages so that people can see women as leaders, as experts, and it cannot be that the only leaders we have are a bunch of the same old white guys. We need to see different people on stages so that in our mind's eye we understand that anybody can be a leader,
anybody can be an expert. And right now we're all brainwashed to look at a certain person and go, that's a leader. So I think that what we do is incredibly important, and every single woman who gets on stage is embodying a new world and a new world of possibilities.
Can I add to that and just I also see that the people making the decisions of who goes on stage being women as powerful as well, and such as you saying okay, these are the speakers for this summat or this event or whatever, and having that be a woman making those decisions is so refreshing also because usually it's not the case. And you know, I was on a panel the other day and I'm in I've been
in the financial services industry for a very long time. Also, half of me is financial services prior to self help. And it's always men. It's five men in me or three men in me, or whatever it is. And it's men making the decisions of whether I'm going to speak or not speak and so forth. And so it's pretty cool to see you in your role with I have no other word for it, but the power.
You know. Yeah, we still work with event managers. It's still up to them. We can give them a database full of women. And I'm still looking for more women for our database. I'm still looking for more event managers to use our database, and we have to keep building up the supply and the demand at the same time. But if I have ten thousand women on this platform, I feel confident that an event manager will be able to find what they need through us, and we'll make it easy for them.
I love it all right. Where would you like people to go to find you?
Innovationwomen dot Com.
Love it all right, Bobby, Thank you so much for being here with us. I really appreciate your time and your energy and your expertise. And is there anything that we forgot to mention that we should mention before we go?
I think.
I think we just need to kind of all take a deep breath these days and kind of look to the left, look to the right, make sure we're all looking out for each other.
Yeah, well said Katie.
Is there anything that you want to add before we go? No, I think Bobby just ended it on a really good note. Collective compassion, absolutely yes, lift each other up.
All right, everybody, thank you for being here. I'm going to try and figure out how to stop the recording. I can edit this, don't worry. I think that