Know When to Raise Your Hand

Other insights in this episode of The Business of Speaking:

• When you realize that many moderators suck, and ask yourself, “How could I do it better?” Merv Griffin was an inspiration. “How can I get people to talk and get out of their way?”
• The necessity of setting a foundation of work first. Create opportunities that let people see what you do, then have others come to you. But it’s a long term investment.
• Know when it’s time to raise your hand and say you’re the expert.
• Speakers bureaus are great for inbound marketing, but as a speaker, it’s all about outbound marketing. Blog posts, podcasts, being on panels, books and media appearances.
• Instead of racking your brain, document all your public speaking as you do it. Document all your body of work. Media appearances, podcast appearances, guest blog posts, etc.
• One failure is not determinative of your future.

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Who is J. Kelly Hoey?

Kelly Hoey is obsessed with changing the way we understand and approach networking. She’s the author of Build Your Dream Network: Forging Powerful Connections In A Hyper-Connected World (Tarcher Perigee/Penguin Random House), a modern, practical guide to the necessary (and frequently dreaded) task of networking.  Kelly spreads her networking gospel in her keynote talks and on the Build Your Dream Network podcast. 

Kelly has worked with top companies, brands and conferences. She’s appeared on CNBC’s Power Pitch, co-created and moderated the “Meet The Innovators” speaker series at Apple, and contributed to publications such as The New York Times, Forbes.com, Fast Company, and Inc. Kelly’s insights have been featured in Real Simple, Working Mother, Good Morning America, AARP, Vogue.com, Brit & Co, The Muse, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, CBC Radio, Monster.com, The Ladders, Parade, Business Insider and many more, as an authority on networking.

A former attorney and active participant in New York’s startup community, Kelly has been lauded from Forbes (“1 of 5 Women Changing the World of VC/Entrepreneurship”) to Fast Company (“1 of the 25 Smartest Women On Twitter”) to Business Insider (“1 of the 100 Most Influential Tech Women On Twitter”) and Inc. (“1 of the 10 Most Well-Connected People in New York City’s Startup Scene”). EBW 2020 included her on their list of the “100 Most Influential Global Leaders Empowering Women Worldwide”. 

You can connect with Kelly on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube, and of course on her website. 

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Below is the full transcript from the show. Please note that there may be some errors as it was auto transcribed. 

Tim McDonald
All right. Well welcome everybody. I am your host, Tim McDonald on the business of speaking show. And today I am joined by my guest Kelly, how are you? How are you doing, Kelly?

Kelly Hoey
I’m good. It’s good to see you. And thanks for having me on the show to know thank you.

Tim McDonald
I’m so glad that a mutual connection through the Irish Business Association actually in New York actually connected us so thank you for joining us today.

Kelly Hoey
Yeah, it’s all it’s great. Yeah, that is a great the the IBO is an awesome organization and shout out to Tammy for being such an amazing connector of people.

Tim McDonald
Yes, she is. I’ve I’ve known her ever since I lived in New York and in through our mutual connection, who’s a past guest Shri, at one of his social media weekends, so great to have all these dots connected. But for those of you just joining us, if you haven’t watched the show before really what this is about is it’s a, it’s a journey of what it takes to become a speaker, how people got involved in becoming, you know, a speaker. But not only that, it’s not about what they necessarily share on stage, but about what they’ve learned since they’ve gotten on stage and how it’s turned into a business for them. And so really, it’s for anybody, you know, maybe thinking about getting into speaking in the early stages of their speaking career, or maybe somebody who’s anywhere on their speaking career and just wants to, you know, really amp it up and be able to learn from each other because that’s what I’m a big believer in, is being able to share and learn from others. So with that being said, Kelly, what I would really like to start off with is just Can you tell us your story of how you got started in speaking?

Kelly Hoey
Well, I mean, so and this is such a great idea for a show and for people to share their insights. So I do a lot of public speaking and asked to speak because of the book, but I was doing speaking beforehand. We should talk about that part of it as well, Tim, in terms of the necessity of maybe getting a lot of speaking going before you embark on something like writing a book. Um, but some of my speaking went way back because of my earlier careers. I was in the legal field. And then in professional services, I was a manager professional development for a global law firm. And I was putting together a lot of panels and Well, sometimes the moderators I thought just sucked. The people I was getting, so I was like, I could do a better job than this. So that was really an entree point for me. And that really got me back into speaking because I had an experience when I was in Law School with public speaking that horrified me shattered my nerves. And if I’d had a choice to do speaking public speaking ever again, I would based on that experience, I would never have done it. So I got back into speaking because of panels and things I was putting together because of the job I was in. And then when I moved into other roles, you know, I was sort of being sought out to speak, or moderate because people saw what I did. I then was putting together a lot of panels and conversations together when I had a startup accelerator bringing together for sort of educational and informational that led to a speak creating a speaker series with Apple it’s called meet the innovators which I did used to do down at the Apple store in Soho in New York City. So that you know, there was that created a whole lot of opportunity there. And then, you know, I’m gonna say kind of with my book, you know, that that coming out into that was sort of all these steps, sort of this long history and maybe that plays into what some of your other guests have shared, you know, kind of getting on the speaker’s journey and turning it into a vocation is a long term investment. And probably the amount of work I was doing back, you know, back in the day, as we would say, when I think about when I was this manager, professional development back in 2004, the amount of work I was putting into creating opportunities to speak because I was creating panels. You know, even now that I’m represented by a speaker’s bureau, um, you know, I’m still putting in the same amount of work. I’m having to create content, I have to create my own opportunities. So why don’t I pause there, you might have some questions based on the multitudes of things, but it’s been a long journey. And I don’t know if I ever expected to have a career where I said, Hey, I’m a professional speaker, but that’s where it is evolved to. Oh, you’re on mute. Tim. We got on mute. Yeah. Oh, did it again Tim, go out there I go.

Tim McDonald
We’re too quick trying to mute each other, unmute each other. Oh, no, my landscapers are out in front. I forgot I did that because I usually don’t mute. There’s so much there and I just really wanted to start with something that you said that so resonates with me how panels suck.

Kelly Hoey
Sometimes panels don’t suck, but how they’re moderated sucks.

Tim McDonald
Well, that was one of my early experiences too when I was in Chicago. So I’m so curious. You know, because I can I’m gonna jump into some other stuff.

Kelly Hoey
But I’m so curious with you being responsible, because I know it’s not the panelists that usually suck. It’s the moderators job usually to make it interesting, right?

Tim McDonald
And so, so what did you do to actually make it interesting on a panel?

Kelly Hoey
Well, I was I used to think about like, what, when was when did I find it interesting. You know, and and and I think part of the moderators job is to get out of the way, because it’s not about them. And I think about that, like, why is someone paid? Or why is someone taking their time to show up to listen to what panel and so they’re not there to listen to people recite off their bios for 20 minutes of a 40 minute panel. They’re there to get to the nuts and bolts. And so I was really sort of focused on right, you know, how can I give the short summary? How can we have this conversational? I mean, show my age, I used to love the Merv Griffin show. I think Merv Griffin was you know, everyone talks about Oprah and she’s a magnificent interviewer. But Merv Griffin light was unbelievable. In terms of how he moderated and engaged in conversations, and so I sort of think about how can I get people to talk? And how do I get out of the way so that the, the being the moderator is is not either. I’m asking questions which people could read the answer to if they actually looked at the speaker’s bio, what a waste of time that is, and how you make it about the panel and and in terms of delivering information that the audience is there to hear. So that’s why that’s why I think about it in terms of being a moderator and having it conversational having it engage. Not having something that’s so I’m okay date myself. Age wise again, remember the dating game and it was always like bachelor number one, Bachelor number two, and like sometimes you see moderators and they’ll do that. Okay, and now one of us answer the same question and like really, like this doesn’t need to be a ping pong. game or, you know, pass the, you know, hot potato like with the question, how can we how can we get something that’s a value? So I always sort of thought about that when I was started moderating.

Tim McDonald
No. Well, thank you. And I just wanted to start with that question because it was like, I think so many people can use that information and hopefully implement it when they, when we all get back to being in person and actually doing this in live situations.

Kelly Hoey
And one of the funniest ones I remember was, it was the, it’s when Jeff Pulver had 140 character conference, and it was like, you know, really fast short and remember that there was this one panel, and I think they had like, 15 minutes. I mean, I mean, I remember Gary Vaynerchuk I had to do a keynote. He had like, eight minutes like Jeff had, like 140 characters at the hundred 40 character conference, right like it was, it was fabulous format. And I remember Jeff coming on stage and the moderator for this one panel. That looks really interesting. thing you haven’t really looked at and understood the format and stuff. And Jeff basically came up and said, Well, Your time’s up. And all the panelists had done was talking about their bios, they hadn’t even gotten to the meat and potatoes of the panel. And so I was like, lesson learned here. Like, what is someone coming for? Not something they could read. They’re here for answers.

Tim McDonald
Now, that’s, that’s great. And I have a long history with Jeff Pulver too. And it’s 140 conferences and breakfasts and everything else. I when I lived in Chicago, and I got to see him and actually speak in Detroit, actually. So, yeah, no, it’s it’s a great format. And I got to miss those days. That it because it was a challenge. So my next question is really, you know, something that you brought up, that I’m kind of curious about is, how did you know when it was the time for you to start organizing these panels to actually being the one on stage.

Kelly Hoey
yeah, I think at some point you put, you put your hand up, and you say that you’re the experts. And I was lucky because I belong to a professional association. And then at work, I could put together panels and I could, you know, insert myself in there. And then other people would see me and say, Hey, could you come and do this. And then when I was the first president of a global business network for women that at the time was known as 85 broads. It was sold and it’s now known as elevate, but when it was 85 broads, I’m in those situations, putting myself forward as the president and being the one who was the, you know, I’m gonna say the master of ceremonies at a conference or being asked then I was being asked to speak because I was the president of that global business network for women. But I was really Glad I had the training round of the other stuff, you know, like, it’s good to say yes to a lot of things initially so that you can, I’m gonna say find the venue or find the medium find the format that works that works best for you. Um, and then also kind of get the you know, the mistakes and the flubs and the whatever else, you know, kind of out of the way.

Tim McDonald
Yeah, and you know, you you also said something that that really struck home with me is so many people think there’s like this easy button, right? This you know, as soon as I get here, and I press this, it’s going to be all downhill, right? It’s going to be easy sailing. So you mentioned you know, you’re represented by a speaker’s bureau. But even though they help you you still are responsible for doing everything can you go into what that means and and how it you know, how you interact with the speaker’s bureau? How you do your own thing?

Kelly Hoey
Yeah, so I was gonna say if you want an easy button, go to staples and ask them for the easy button. Okay? Like, seriously, go and order your like off Amazon or go to staples get your easy button because that’s the only place you get the easy button. Um, I mean it’s always outbound marketing in terms of you know, when I think about it, sort of in hindsight, some of the panels I was putting together and putting myself as the moderator that’s outbound marketing right like I’m creating those things your blog post podcast, that’s all outbound marketing doing you know, getting quoted the media, all that kind of stuff. So I’m, I’m represented by Penguin Random House, a speaker’s bureau Penguin Random House is also my publisher, and I’m exclusively represented by them, because they actually do some outbound, you know, marketing for me, um, and for the speakers that they are exclusively representing. Um, but for the most part, you know, speakers bureaus, it’s, it’s What’s you know coming in? Right? Like who is interface just so you represent so and so or I’d like to. So you, as a speaker have to continually make yourself relevant and keep yourself top of mind so that people find you. So I’ve got a speaking gig coming up next week went and came through Penguin Random House. But initially, the person of the company that recommended me to speak, met me at or picked up my book and heard me speak at the watermark conference for women in Silicon Valley. And that would have been back in 2017, maybe 2000? Yes, 2017 or early 2018. Also, you it’s constant. And so if you think or if people think to themselves I’ll get a speaker’s bureau and then No, no, no, you you still have to do the work. So like it’s, I keep my speaker’s bureau notified if I’m quoted in the media, I keep them notified of things so that he’s that may give them an the little bit of information they need that they could reach out to someone that you know, maybe it’s an organization, a professional organization or something like that to say, Hey, have you thought about these speakers, or they’ll do sort of targeted mailings every once in a while, but that’s part of me keeping them informed and doing the work and I don’t think people you know, kind of realize that, that amount of it.

Tim McDonald
Right, right. And you, you know, you mentioned early and you just kind of brought it up again, that they are your publisher. So how does the book play into your business?

Kelly Hoey
Well, I mean, the book kind of is, is an element of credibility, in the sense of why is she the expert on this topic? And it’s because she wrote the book, you know, kind of thing. You know, Penguin Random House, Panda Penguin Random House is the publisher. So that adds another layer of kind of authority for me about what I you know, what I do and what I talk about, but doing all that public speaking, I talked about for like speaking at conferences, even if it was, you know, back when I was in professional development and all sorts of things that semi related to my book that all that public speaking and most of that was vast majority it would have been, it would have been all unpaid at that point.

All of that was really important in terms of getting a publisher to pick my book up. Because that’s the other piece on this, you know, you got to do the body of work as a speaker to be taken seriously, as a professional speaker. You got to do all that speaking to because in terms of getting my book deal, the publisher needed to see that I could market a book. And so it was really interesting in my remember this in the book proposal, it said, you know, the marketing and the things that I had done like I had a Twitter account and you know, I was active on but you know, all that kind of stuff. One of the things that said I did a lot of public speaking and one of the publishing houses that was my literary agent was pitching my book to came back and said, That’s nice that you said you she does a lot of public speaking, prove it. And I had to send them to you years a list of all the speaking engagements over the prior two years. topics, audience size, topic, location, audience size, because they were like, don’t tell us that you know, you’re going to do public speaking to sell a book. Prove that you’ve already worked that marketing muscle So, some of this thing in terms of doing public speaking, I never knew it was going to lead to writing a book. I was part of it was just doing my job. Oh, yeah. And then it was just kind of fun. But you may do a lot of public speaking and it may provide the marketing fuel for another project. And it may or may not lead into a paid career.

Tim McDonald
So I’m, I’m just curious, because I was imagining this, how I would receive that same feedback about providing two years of history is speaking. How did that make you feel? And how did you respond to that?

Kelly Hoey
Well, I’ll keep it clean. I was like, you want to see you know what you want two years? I’ll give you three and and it was like, You want me to prove it to you all prove it to you, buddy, right. Like, here we go. And it was ended up being a very detailed long document and it’s sort of Like, okay, and so now when I coach people who are interested in writing books, and they’re thinking about, right, how do I get a book published and you know, in the nonfiction space, I’m like, you know, start documenting all your public speaking, and and have that in a spreadsheet or in some kind of a document and put that as part of your like book proposal so that they know that, you know, this is not an afterthought, that you have done the work. And it was one of those things sort of in hindsight, Tim, when I think about my own career, that I could look back and say, Oh, this is Oh, right. You know, I started blogging and started exercising that muscle to write and I done this public speaking and I done all and then all of a sudden these pieces all came together in terms of what I’m doing now. But you know, if I look back at the time, that was not some master plan, and I didn’t know I had to do all these things, but they all came in handy.

Tim McDonald
So I know like almost every speaker right has, you know, that I’ve read or, you know, watch their webinars, you know, when they’re coaching other speakers Oh, he says that you need to have a speaker reel, and a speaker website. Right. And so what you were just talking about really reminded me of that, even though you weren’t at that point when you probably had all that stuff. And so I’m just kind of curious, you know, do you find value and did you have or did you have to go back and kind of recreate all the documented history, and I didn’t even know if they needed video or not, but you because you didn’t mention that but How valuable is that when you’re just starting to, you know, even if you’re not getting paid to be able to start pulling together and collecting.

Kelly Hoey
I mean, I would really say to people, like, just start I mean, if even if you don’t if you don’t ultimately have like, like you’re speaking it doesn’t become your business. Um, it’s really valuable to have because Okay, let’s just take an example the Grace Hopper celebration that big women in tech conference, a lot of the speakers come from, you know, people who are doing their jobs, they just want to share, they’re not looking to have a speaking career. They just want to share their knowledge with their industry peers. When you fill out that application to speak at Grace Hopper, they ask for previous speaking experience. And so rather than sitting there racking your brain trying to think, Oh, God, where did when What have I done, whatever, you know, keeping that document, I also think in a lot of professions, it’s really valuable because during feedback or performance review, you know, someone may want to know how you are raising your profile within the profession. Or someone that may have said to you in a prior years of, you know, performance review, they may have said you need to and you can come back and say look, I’ve done it Right. So, you know, there’s reasons to do that. Because, you know, going back and searching and racking your memory and, and I remember last year when I became a member of the National Speakers Association and I say, you know, they required like, hey, to become a member, a professional member of the NSA, you have to list off, you know, the speaking engagements, the number that you’ve done, and you have to hit a certain number over, you know, a year period, it was like handy to already have a list and not have to, you know, go through calendars and receipts and all that kind of stuff and recreate it So, and, you know, kind of gives you, you know, there’s a moment when you sometimes when you think you haven’t done anything, and then you look at that list and you’re like, whoa, hold on a minute here. I’ve done a lot.

Tim McDonald
No, that’s great. I, you know, you remind me of when I was in one of my careers i was i somebody told me they’re like, you No, does your boss give you an annual review? And I said yes. And they’re like, what I want you to do is I want you to give yourself a monthly review. And even if you don’t share it with anybody, just write it for yourself and have it so that when your annual review comes up, you can share it. And what you just explained was almost exactly that advice. I’ve gotten in that job. So

Kelly Hoey
does it mean it gives you milestones and things? And, you know, it’s also to, um, you know, I’m thinking about a situation in particular, where I’m, you know, having a conversation with it was a career coaching conversation with an executive who was frustrated with not getting sort of the promotional opportunities. And when we started to unpack it, you know, a lot of the speaking and she was someone who was very comfortable speaking a lot of the speaking she was doing was not around the subject it was within her sphere of subject matter. expertise, but it wasn’t the subject matter expertise. And I’m like, here’s where you got to do the shift. I’m glad you’ve got this external profile from your company, but you’re shining the light on the wrong thing. You need to shine it over on this, to get the attention of the executives at your company. And, you know, having sort of that list of her speaking engagements, you know, it just became abundantly clear of the disconnect and it you know, when the light went on for her, so keeping those lists can serve a whole lot of purposes.

Tim McDonald
Oh, yeah, no, and I cannot believe that we are almost done with our this went so fast for me. Um, but, um, you know, one question that I love to ask you before we just kind of wrap up is, you know, looking at where you’re at now, and if you could go back to when you first started, what knowledge would you give your younger self to do something or believe in that you didn’t? No back when you started,

Kelly Hoey
oh, the biggest thing is realizing that you know that you make you make a mistake or your your your, um, that one time where it doesn’t go well doesn’t do is not determinative of your ability as a speaker and I say that because, Tim, when I was in law school, we had to do moot court, you know, like, public argument, you know, moot court prepared to give our, you know, argument in our statement to a, you know, a bunch of lawyers who were acting as judges. And it was a traumatizing experience for me that public speaking experience because of one of the lawyers who was a judge, and she was just cranky boots at everybody, but I took it personally. And I took it personally that I was really lousy at public speaking. I did no public speaking for 14 years. 14 years I returned down opportunity. So if I could go back, I would look at myself back in like 1988 1989. And I’d say, Okay, this was kind of a crappy experience. Move on.

Tim McDonald
I think that is the best piece of advice that we could share to kind of wrap this thing up. Well, thank you so much, Kelly, and thank everybody for listening. But before we go, how can people find you? How can they connect with you online?

Kelly Hoey
Well, I would say a good place where you and I met which is Twitter. I’m @jkhoey. That’s J K H O E Y on Twitter. My website is JKellyHoey.co not .com, .co. And if you go to my website, all my social handles, my email address, my newsletter, all everything I’m up to boom. It’s all there.

Tim McDonald
They’re, well, perfect. And I want to just thank everybody for watching. And if you haven’t watched before, one thing that we do is I am going to actually end our YouTube broadcast. But Kelly agreed to stay on with me and we’re going to ask her one additional question. Now, the way that you can get access to this is you can go over to speaking dot business and sign up for our email list. It doesn’t cost you anything, just join the community sign up for our email list. And we will actually be sending these out on a weekly basis with an exclusive content just for our email subscribers. So thank you for joining us. And thank you, Kelly for being here. I will see you in just a minute.