With rent prices rising faster than her substitute teaching pay could grow, Cheryl needed to find a solution to her financial challenges…and fast. She turned to Path To Connections for help.
Turning Her Problems into Profits
Brandy worked with her to find a problem she already knew how to solve that she could leverage so she could start on a shoestring without having to invest a lot of money in equipment or take a lot of extra time to build her expertise. That problem? Overcoming the fear of public speaking.
Cheryl once struggled with the fear of public speaking and joined Toastmasters in 1988. She rose through the rank to Area Governor at one point before leaving Toastmasters. She returned to her old club, Denton Toastmasters, in 2018. Her award-winning performances and talent for infusing joy into every speech provided her a perfect platform for success as a speaker and coach.
Preparing to Do Business as Speak 2 Be Heard
We walked her through what she needed to do to set her business on solid financial footing:
- Registering with the City to get her business license
- Establishing her business bank account
- Setting up Stripe and Paypal accounts so she could accept payments on her site and at events
Getting Her M.A.P. (Marketing and PR) Ready
Stage one of getting her M.A.P. ready was to help her build her website. We spent time walking her through the process of choosing her brand colors and workshopping the initial offerings, pricing, and packages. We also worked with her to help her decide what she could offer that would help her stand out from other speaking coaches. She chose to focus on infusing every speech with joy so that audiences that listen to her clients walk away feeling uplifted as well as enlightened by the content.
Providing Guidance and Training
Connecting to the SBDC and SCORE for Mentorship
We knew from our own experiences that the SBDC and SCORE could offer her free ongoing mentorship and support beyond what we could provide, so we encouraged her to make those connections.
Attending the B.O.S.S. Workshop
To help turn her into the B.O.S.S. of her industry, we invited her to participate in the B.O.S.S. (Business of Strategic Storytelling) workshop in July of 2024. During the workshop, we helped her to put her brand story and personal narrative. It wasn’t until the workshop was nearly at an end that we discovered she’d written it all by hand instead of using the computer to take notes, making it hard for her to copy and paste the way other students did.
Taking the 5-Steps to Get Anyone to Lean In and Listen To You
As part of our gift to the students who participated in that first cohort, she received complementary access to our 5-Steps course.
Finding Success
Using what she learned, she attended a free business networking event where she received an invitation to give a speech to 40 members of a different business networking group. The speech went so well she was invited to give a paid speech before the roughly 40 men and women who are served by Denton Freedom House. That paid speech is scheduled for December 20th and represents the start of financial success for this 74-year-old expert speaker.
Get Help from Speak 2 Be Heard
Visit speak2beheard.com for basic or advanced coaching with Cheryl or to schedule her for a paid speaking engagement.