A Unexpected Lesson from Q&A

So, are you ready to become magnetic? I thought so. I'm Heather Sager and, I'd like to welcome you to Finding Your It Factor. Well , welcome back to the podcast. Yes ,

Okay. Last night I was in bed by 10:30 but that's late for me and my flight was at 6:00 AM so it was a very, very early morning and I am exhausted and I am feeling this weird combination of so guilty because I'm recording this episode on such last minute terms. Uh, it's Sunday and full transparency. This release is on Wednesday and I was supposed to give this episode to my team four days ago and I didn't.

And you know how sometimes in life you have something that you have to get done, but just life keeps getting in the way. Things happen, something pops up and it just keeps putting pushed back and pushed back and pushed back and you get really, really frustrated about it. Maybe get frustrated with yourself and then you realize that there was a beautiful reason for why you pushed it back as far as you did. Maybe it's the universe kind of paving a path for you.

Well, I'm channeling that right now because I wanted to share. So I had a topic originally dedicated for this week that I was supposed to record on Wednesday and I realized that what I really need to share with you is some of the insights that I had at this event over the weekend because they're so fricking good and uh , not just the insights that I learned on stage.

I'll share a couple of those, but more importantly, there's a couple things that I noticed that worked really, really well in the flow of the event and how the speakers engaged with the audience. And it got me thinking about a few things that I think would be really relevant to you as you are working to become a more magnetic communicator in your business, especially if you're trying to do more speaking in front of groups, whether it's live in person or it's on a virtual platform.

So , uh , today's episode is totally, like I said, unscripted. I don't really have a game plan. I have a list of dirty notes here, not that kind of dirty like messy, like they are incoherent but notes on my phones. I'm just going to use those and we're going to riff here and see where this goes because I just, there's just a lot of fun things that happened that I thought you would be interested in.

So before we dive into it, I want to give a shout out , uh, this crazy episode this fun episode and I think insightful episode is brought to you today by my free masterclass, Speak with Style. It's a brand new, a free training that I have out. It's only open for a very, very short time period. So depending on when you listen to this episode, it might not be live, but I wanted to take a chance and tell you about it. Anyways, I have a free masterclass coming up on Thursday, October 24th.

There will be a second one the following week, so if you're listening to this, just past that, still head over to Heathersager . com/speakwithstyle. This masterclass is about helping you develop killer confidence when you step on stage and help you get a really fan obsessed email list when you get off stage. So this is really going to be a great one. We're going to dive into what you really need to know when it comes to speaking in your business as a strategy for growth.

Uh, and I hope you can join me. So shout out to my free masterclass. Also, shout out, isn't it awkward when you say a show is brought to you by your own thing? Whatever, doing it anyways, go check it out. Others, heathersager.com/speakwithstyle. All right , let's dive into some of my thoughts and takeaways from the entrepreneur experience . Now real quick to clarify, this is not going to be a download of what people talked about, what the themes were.

I'm not gonna get into all of those details though. I will share some of that on my Instagram , uh , over the next couple of weeks . This really is more of my, what I noticed at the event that worked really well. Uh , think about, okay, think about like a film director watching a movie that they didn't produce and them noticing really good cinematic things that happened and pointing it out to people who care about movies. That's what we're doing here.

So I'm going to talk to you about things that really, really worked for the live experience, specific strategies that worked for the speakers and uh , bring those to you so you can be mindful and say, Hey, how can I apply that strategy as a speaker but also in other facets of your business? So, okay, fair. You understand I'm not going to go through all of the content.

Okay. So the first one that I want to talk about today is around question and answer time, the old Q and A. And I have two different things that I want to talk about related to this , uh , one that is super tactical and the other one, which is really I think really profound in a lot of different ways. Um, build some anticipation up on that one. So I want to bring up this. Um, OK . So we had guest speakers at the event. So Amy , uh , specifically , um , she taught a lot.

Obviously it was her event and um, so she did a really good job engaging the audience throughout the program. And I'm going to talk about her with Q and A and open mic time in the second example. But first I wanna talk about the guest speakers, Rachel Hollis and Jasmine Star. Now both of them delivered keynotes. Rachel delivered hers on day one. Which side note super strategic on Amy and her team's part.

They put Rachel Hollis up right after lunch on the first day, which usually lunchtime, like right after is a big lull in a conference where people feel super tired and food hungover where they want to be sleepy and just all energy is terrible there. So it's really strategic to put a high energy speaker right in that time because it makes people push through that normal slump they get after eating food and just being in a conference all day sitting.

So one that was just really, really, really strategic, really genius actually. And if you haven't seen any videos of Rachel Hollis, first of all, just go check that out. She is like a little spit fire of energy and she really gets the audience moving.

And the thing about her and also Jasmine is um , both of them design their talks in a format where they delivered their core content and then they did the second half of their talk designed to be Q and A. And so what that looked like is they each created , um, Jasmine used slides where she customized her content for the audience. So she actually had a custom keynote where she brought in, she teaches , um, business strategy through social, specifically on Instagram.

And so she brought in examples of people's social media questions and actually audited profiles. And her slides were about based around core themes that a business owner should be thinking about to use social as a strategy. So that was the first half of her talk. Rachel has a core keynote, she's the highest female paid speaker in the world. She's really good at what she does and she's got a core talk that she gives and I'm sure it varies depending on the group.

She has a couple different core things she typically covers. And uh , so they both delivered their, let's call it their core content. And the second half of their presentations were a Q and A where essentially the audience ran up to the microphones at , Oh my goodness, there was, a long line for those mikes and they got the opportunity to ask the speaker a question.

And here's the beautiful thing about that is you see, a lot of people get really nervous as speakers around Q and A, because they get fearful that they're not sure what people are going to ask. So that speaking in front of a group is hard and scary in general for the average person and a , but add the element of not knowing what's coming at you and it could really drive you bonkers. Like it can be really a nerving.

So in order to get over that , um, you think about Q and A as an extension of your talk. And that's really the first point that I want to make here is the beautiful thing about both Jasmine and Rachel's talks were they delivered a lengthy keynote, like their full presentations. I think Jasmine's was an hour Rachel , I think almost two hours. There are so many questions.

Yes, it was designed as a Q and A, but really it was just questions prompting her to deliver core content she just hadn't delivered yet. So with Rachel you can tell she's got a lot of different things that she can talk about. And , uh , what she did was she chose one specific topic to use in her core content and then she waited for audience to ask questions and then she tied that question to a piece of core content she just hadn't covered with us.

So it was like , um, Oh, what would be a good analogy for this? So think about, okay, so think about this is , um , let's say that I have a box of blocks , uh , sitting on my lap and across from me is a wall with holes, square holes, triangle holes, star like, you know, little kids blocks. I have two little kids at home, so I have plenty of these blocks. And um, essentially I want you to think about your content is that box of blocks.

So you have all of those shapes here and these are all the things that you talk about all the time. So the, the core things in your business, the questions that people ask, the objections that you get, all the things that have to do with your core programs, coaching, you're teaching all of that.

And what happens is in a Q and A or when somebody has a question via email or an objection during a sales call, people essentially they are that board that's on the other side of the table that has the holes in it and your job is not to go every time you see a hole in the wall, i.e. Get a question go like, Oh my God, I have to go and gather for a block that's going to fit that size and you go have to go rummage and build it and all those things.

No, like you just have to walk over to your box of blocks and say, Oh, this block fits that hole and then walk it over and deliver it to that hole . This is a super weird analogy, but I hope you're following me here. So what where I'm going is 99% of the time when people ask you questions, it's going to be a question that's correlated to a block you already have in your box. They're not asking you these weird off the wall questions.

People aren't trying to stump you or to try to quiz your knowledge. They're asking you questions because you're an authority on a topic and they want to hear from you. So Q and A is a strategy for you to deliver your core content, but beyond the time that you were allowed to deliver your talk. Does that make sense? So let's say a , let's take Jasmine for example. She had a one hour talk. She delivered, let's say her core content was 40 minutes.

She technically only had 40 minutes to deliver her core content. But then she also had an additional 20 minutes for Q and A. And in that 20 minutes, Oh my goodness, that girl fire delivered so much more magic. And I guarantee it was all things she talks about all the time, all blocks in her box, like all core foundational staff .

But what happened was if let's say, let's say Jasmine took the exact same content she covered in the full hour, so the content should covered in the Q and A and the content she covered in her core. If she would have not done Q and A and just covered all of those topics as her keynote, it would have been good but it wouldn't have felt so custom. And the beautiful part about Q and A is you give the audience the opportunity to pick which content they get. Do you follow me? Does that make sense?

The questions that they ask you prompt what additional content to give them. You see the mistake a lot of people make with speaking is they try to take their, their box of blocks, all the things that they know related to their topic, they take that whole box on stage with them and then they just dump it on their audience. They don't hold back and cause they want to show up great. They want to deliver their best work, their best knowledge and the intentions are really, really great.

But what happens is your audience can't sift through it to make sense and they become overwhelmed. So what you do instead is you pick your best sexy blocks, you pick the best ones that are going to get people excited to believe in what you're doing. To feel like, Oh my God, I like that. I can do that. You use those blocks to lead and then you hold back the other ones. And if you do a Q and A, you can pull out those other blocks if they're relevant to the question.

If they're not well, you just leave those blocks in your box. God, I'm really committed to this analogy, but you leave them there and that's great content you can offer to them down the road. Should they , um , join your list? Should they start following you on social? Should they directly buy your programs? Whatever your strategy is. And remember, I teach you that in my programs around how do you actually tie your business strategy back to your keynote?

Um, but remember, you don't have to give them everything and you most certainly should not try to give them everything in your talk. So woo . Okay. That was quite a ramble on one little thought here, but it really got me thinking that I think most people miss that connection, that a Q and A is this perception of customization. Where Susie or Johnny stand , I don't know why I came up with those names, but I did.

But they stand up to the mic and they feel like they have a really, really specific unique question that only pertains to them. Well usually 99.9% of the time, somebody else has a very same question, but just the context around it is different. But the actual challenge or the question is totally the same. So you just have to start uncovering what's the connection between the the square hole and the square block so you know which block to pick up and bring it over.

So thinking about Q and A as a strategy, Oh that is such a powerful thing as a speaker because it allows you to really focus on which few meaningful things are you going to deliver to your audience in a deep way where you can create a significant value to them. Value where they understand the why behind it, the what of it, and start getting excited to learn more from you. So don't give away all your blocks.

But Rachel and Jasmine did a phenomenal job leveraging Q and A to deliver more on their core content. Okay, so more with Q and A. This next thing that I want to talk about, I'm going to take a little bit of a pivot here, but I'm going to use Q and A to start. I want to talk about what Amy did at the event is she created these moments of open mikes .

Now she didn't really do Q and A. She invited the audience to give her feedback, which side note is a brilliant thing as a presenter, anytime you can get your audience to contribute and tell you the learning that they're experiencing as they move through your session, they're validating that they're getting value, they're validated it to themselves, they're validating it to the other audience, which validates to each person the audience, that they're also getting value.

When you pause and you ask your audience to tell you what they're learning so far to take ownership for the decision they're making or the action item they just wrote down or the aha that they just had.

When you pause and call that out and put it in open air and have people actually speak at that head nodding action happens where people are in agreement with you, they're validating that they're moving forward and therefore as you move down , uh , your presentation and get to a call to action at the end, whether that call to action is to go do something , um , related to them taking action in their business or that CTA call to action is them following you online or joining your list or buying

your programs. When you already have their buy in and they are openly sharing that what you're teaching them is adding immediate value. You were well on your way to higher conversion. So side note, Amy did a brilliant job at that this weekend by asking for that buy-in. It's a really effective strategy and one I teach inside one of my programs Speak Up to Level Up, teach you how to get that engagement all throughout your presentation, even if you're delivering a keynote.

Um, especially for delivering your keynote. So, and you don't have to do a big open mic thing. So side note for that. But what Amy, what I want to call out for that isn't necessarily that strategy that was a little bonus for you, but what I want to call out, okay. You know what, let me do another little side analogy here for your moment.

You know how, okay, if you've ever been to a wedding wedding and your sitting in the audience and the music starts and all the bridesmaids, the cute little flower girl and ring bear there , they're coming down the aisle and the music changes and here comes the bride, which that song doesn't ever get played anymore. It's usually some like hipster romantic song.

And so the bride starts coming down the aisle and everybody's looking at her and she's, her eyes are probably welling up with tears and it's just really beautiful, beautiful, iconic moment. And have you ever had that moment where you turn for just a second and you look at the groom and you see his face in probably the most significant moment of his life where he sees his future walking towards him. It's a really powerful thing.

But in wedding movies, the bride's the one that gets all the attention, all the glory, but it's the groom that, Oh my God, that raw moment, when you see the emotional, their face is so tender and vulnerable and there's nothing else like it. You know what I'm talking about, right? Well, there's something similar that happens in a Q and A that I saw this on stage this past weekend with every presenter that asks their audience to participate. But Amy specifically did this exceptionally well.

So in this analogy, I'm so sorry Amy, but I'm calling her the groom where everybody else's attention was on the person in the audience speaking, most notably very nervous. It's very scary to stand up in front of a thousand people and be bold enough, brave enough to ask the question or contribute to the conversation. And so many people did and it was so, it was so beautiful. And while they were standing up and had the giant camera on screen on them, again, very brave.

Amy was on stage and I was looking at her because I noticed that the composure that Amy had when she was listening was so incredibly powerful. You see, as a speaker, we typically focus on our facial expressions and our tone and our message and even our body language and how we move. We focus on all those things when we're speaking. But the question you have to be asking yourself is how do you show up when you think nobody's watching? And this goes, we're going to , we're going to go tactical.

This goes for when you're on stage and we're going to go real deep and say, this goes for in life. How do you show up? And you think no one's watching. So let's put a pin in that little bit more significant one here, which is a second. And talk about that . The onstage piece. So Amy was asking the audience to participate in some places, some very vulnerable and open shares. And her presence, her ability to be on stage across the room. I mean, 50 feet.

I'm bad with , um , I'm bad with measurements . So I don't know if that's right. It was a , it was a ways away from the audience, but her ability to make that person feel like she was only there with them holding their gaze, their eye contact, she was oozing with compassion, with patience for them.

Even in the moments where the person was talking a really long time, you know how happen some times you get the mic and you're really nervous and all of a sudden you're vomiting out your entire life story just to ask a question which you think the story's really, really relevant, but at the end of the day it's really not. Everybody does that and it happened a lot and Amy didn't have this look of like get to the question, hurry up. Although I think the audience wanted it to happen at times.

Amy was fully present with that person. She gave them the space to feel what they needed to feel, to say what they needed to say, even if they were word vomiting or dancing around the question or totally not even answering the question she asked or self-promoting at the microphone, which happened to , but Hey man, more power to you.

So she just did a phenomenal job being present and allowing that person to feel safe, which was so important for her, inviting people to experience the event as they needed to experience it. She wasn't putting these big guidelines or restrictions around how people had to show up. She was creating space for it , which was a really powerful and confident thing to do. You see a lot of people would want to control it. If somebody was getting off track, they would step in more.

They would cut people off. And even there, there were great scenarios where we said, Hey, make the questions much shorter so we can get through more. And that was really well received. Um , but there was something so beautiful and just the way that she allowed people to be present. And I bring this up because this is super, super specific and I have a photo and I'm going to post this photo in my show notes.

So on checkout , um, if you go to a Heathersager dot com forward slash podcast you'll see these episodes show notes and you can see the photo of it. I'll also post it to my Instagram this week, but I took a photo of Amy watching someone and um, it was a beautiful thing. I mean, this calm presence, she's a person that I would want to talk to and I say this because, and the reason I noticed it so much is it's really, really rare. Your listening face is usually not a great face and I know.

Oh my God, that sounds so bad to say out loud. But people do not work on their listening face, myself included. For a long time, I had no awareness for what I was saying when I wasn't saying anything at all. I mean, okay, I think I've said this before. If not here goes, let me share this with you. When it comes to communication, there are three different ways that we communicate and you , you know what they are? They're there .

What we say, it's how we say it, meaning our , um, our intonation, our tone, our volume, our pace, our pitch, our , all of that, right? And then beyond our words and how we say them, it's our body language. It's our facial expressions. It's our hand gestures, it's our body movements, it's our posture, all of those things together. And that sums up our communication. But as you looked on the breakdown when it comes to delivering messages, 55% of what we say is nonverbal. It's our body language.

And then 38% is how we deliver those words. And only 7% is actually what we say. Now, that surprises a lot of people. And if you're like me and you're an online business owner, you probably focus a majority of your efforts on your words because so much of your content is delivered through scripts or written content. But what it does is it grossly under prepares you for 93% of what people hear and perceive in communication, which is how you deliver those words and how you show up.

And we're gonna get into some more on future episodes around this whole piece of full communication and all three of those facets. But the reason why I bring this up here is your body language is the only way that you're communicating when you're listening. And a , and this is a powerful thing on stage, but it's also powerful in your relationships with your clients, in your personal relationships.

Uh , because even when we're not speaking, we're communicating, we're communicating our brand, we're showing people that we're compassionate, that we're patient, that we're present. Who you are, your character as a person, as a brand shows up even when you're not speaking. So think about that. When you're participating on a zoom call with a client or you're showing up on your mastermind and you're not speaking, other people are, how are your facial expressions? How are you sitting?

How's your posture? Are you showing people that you're showing up and you care? Or are you distracted or are you stone faced? Are you, there's so many things you can consider. But the question is how are you showing up when you think no one else is watching? That is such a powerful question and I just saw that come through so clearly with Amy's professionalism this past weekend, but it got me thinking about that number one. And I really wanted to bring that to you today.

But beyond that, where I wanted to also ask you is how that question applies to you in life and how you're showing up in your business, but also for yourself. So how do you show up when you think no one's watching? Meaning how do you show up every day in your business when you're not around other people?

This is the reason why I think I stalled so much on this episode this week because it's so ringing true for me right now as I'm navigating into my business, working from home every day and not seeing live human people besides my kids or the people that are there at daycare, what I dropped them off in the morning.

I'm realizing that it's easy to hide , uh , not just from human interactions, but hide from the type of person, the type of professional, the type of business owner that you know you want to be and you need to be for your business. But you can hide and you can hide in terms of , um, when you're totally alone. Like, I mean, these are the moments where we're wearing the God , uh , for seconds , wet pants that are stretched out and paint stains.

I talked about this in episode number one, my weekend sweat pants and my top knot and just like a big hot mess. I mean I, there's this version of us that's like the true raw us that only we get for ourselves or maybe those very close to us. Um,

These little promises I've made to myself when it's just me and it's in the quietness that I don't have anybody else looking at my calendar or double-checking to do the things that I said I want to do. How am I showing up when I don't think anyone's watching? But the truth is I'm watching and I am

It's this idea of how do we show up for ourselves when no one else is around. And I think it's a really powerful thing that we need to consider to make sure that we're, we're showing up, we're bringing it , we're bringing humility and passion and compassion and presence. We're bringing acceptance and safety and all the things that Amy brought for her audience. I think about, I bring that for my customers, my clients, my students. But do I bring that for myself?

And we just talked on the episode last week, which I love that episode. I hope you did too. Please reach out and let me know if you liked it. Um, or what resonated with you. It would mean a lot to me, but I want, it's just this idea of on getting it on ourselves for the things that we haven't yet done. We don't have a lot of compassion or heart or understanding for ourselves. And we're the, we're the hardest on ourselves. Um, when no one else is watching. And that's, that's not right.

And , uh , that's really what I want. Um, I really wanted to share with you today is the, how do you, how do you focus on showing up for yourself in whether it's your habits or your attitude going to solutions versus always pointing out the problems, the roadblocks that are coming up , um, that self talk that you have for yourself. Um, it's just the, the things that you do when no one else is watching, just for yourself.

And when I say those things, if there was something that immediately popped up for you , um , okay , here's one. Maybe it's you're getting annoyed that you , uh , you can't put down your cell phone and get off Instagram and actually do the hard work, you know, needed to do in writing an email sequence or preparing for an upcoming webinar or um, preparing for an important client proposal or , uh, having a little bit more time with your kid, whatever that looks like.

But for some reason you can't break the habit of putting your phone down or maybe it's the health thing, right? You can't break the habit of, of showing up for your, or not showing up for yourself , um , by eating what you know, you, you should be eating or want to be eating. Um , maybe it's not breaking the habit of sticking, like being you , sticking to the schedule you put for yourself and allowing other work to, to put priorities down on the list. Whatever that looks like for you.

I'm sure something popped up. And if it did, I want to, I want to encourage you to explore that for just a moment and ask yourself, if you were having that conversation with someone else and they were challenged with that thing, what advice would you give them? And for a moment, could you give that advice to yourself and give yourself the compassion and grace that you would give to another person and see where that takes you.

Because the version of ourselves that we are, when we think no one else is watching, that's the true us. And if we can't be the best version of us for ourselves, well we can't be the best version of us to attract our ideal clients and inspire other people. And um, that's the whole point of what the show's about. Finding Your It Factor is about finding you. It's about you completely falling in love with you.

And then bringing that out into the world through how you show up in your brand and your brand voice and your communication skills and all that goodness so that others run to you with open arms and want to do business with you. And this week that really clicked for me and I hope it clicked for you too and this kind of stuff , um , sits with you. So I know this episode, so it is a little different.

Like I said, it was a little less scripted and I apologize if it was a little, maybe a little disjointed and um , off the cuff I would love to hear back from you. We're eight episodes in and I want to know what sticking with you, what type of content are you liking? What maybe is not quite up the alley for you. That's , that's not , wasn't the right phrase, but you know what I mean. What's , what's not landing, what is landing? I want to know what , um, what really your finding value in.

So I can do more of that. Um , because what I'm realizing is yes, I teach people communication skills, but to be a really good communication , um , a really good communicator. That was ironic. You have to, you really have to be confident and comfortable with yourself and you and I both know that there is a lot of work to be done on that inside piece , uh, for everyone.

And I think it's a continual thing and I think exploring more and more of the things that we talked about this week and last week , uh, and in a couple other episodes , um , those are the things that are gonna help you unlock that it factor that other people are going to fall in love with because it's in there. You've just got to open it up a bit. So I want to hear from you.

So will you hop on over to Instagram and shoot me a direct message and let me know , uh , how you're liking the show and what you're loving and what you want to hear more from. And if, if you are loving it, if you could be so kind, would you please rate the show and leave a review. Your reviews are so important. I read every single one, all five of them that are on iTunes.

I would love to see that number go up because I see the numbers of how many people are watching and I am blown away at just how many of you are showing your support on this show. And I just hope that it's resonating with you and it's, it's having some significance in your life. So if it is, please tell me.

Um, and if it wouldn't be too much to ask, I would love to see that review on iTunes so that others could find the show and hopefully have that same transformation in their life no matter how, how small or big it is for you. So thanks for letting me open my heart to you today and just share with you what I was thinking. And , um , next week we'll get a little bit more tactical and dive back into things more on the communication front.

But until then, I really do hope to see you on the free master class on the 24th remember, you can get all the details for that at heathersager .com forward slash speak with style. I hope to see you there and we'll talk soon. Friend, I hope you have a great week. See you soon.

guys, thanks so much for listening to Finding Your It Factor and Hey, if you have a talk coming up, you have to check out my free resource. It's called Nail Your Next Talk: 10 must ask questions before taking the stage so you can show up as an authority and turn that talk into future business.

These are the questions that I use myself to prepare for my live talks and they're going to help you ask the right questions of the person who booked you for the event, so the meeting planner or the client, and it's going to help you serve your audience to the best way possible. It's going to help you anticipate potential tech or AV snags. Turn the Q and A time into a strategic place for content and make this speaking opportunity, a lead generator for your business. So go get it now.

What are you waiting for? It's over at heathersager .com forward slash 10 questions.