Mosaic Business Mastery

The Power of Voice: Revolutionizing Your Business Through Speaking

• Laura Wagenknecht • Season 3 • Episode 3

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Every single day, you use your voice to pitch your business, connect with clients, and drive growth. It is your most potent—and most FREE—marketing tool.

But what if I told you the traditional systems for getting your voice heard, whether on a stage or in a sales call, are often designed to keep you on the bench, waiting for scraps?

That's why I am SO incredibly excited for you to meet my next guest on the Mosaic Business Mastery podcast, the phenomenal Antonette. She is a powerhouse speaker agent who is literally revolutionizing the industry with a new model. Fueled by an unbelievably powerful personal story of surviving late-stage cancer as a teen, she has made it her life's mission to get deserving, "hidden-gem" voices heard.

This conversation is a masterclass for ANY entrepreneur. We dive into why your voice is your most effective way to grow your business (even if you have zero advertising dollars!), how to turn your expertise into your biggest revenue driver, and why the audience is always more important than the platform.

This episode is pure fire. 🔥 You don't want to miss it.

Set your alarms! ⏰ The full interview drops this Tuesday, July 29th, at 5:00 a.m. wherever you get your podcasts.

#MosaicBusinessMastery #PublicSpeaking #Entrepreneurship #YourVoiceIsYourPower #WomenInBusiness #BIPOCinBusiness #FemaleFounders #BusinessGrowth #NewPodcast #MarketingTips #SalesStrategy

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Speaker 1:

Just like a mosaic is made up of a bunch of broken tile pieces that create a beautiful hole, your business is a tapestry of interconnected business parts and on the Mosaic Life we'll explore those parts of a business, from marketing and finance to mindset and innovation. I'm your host, laura Wagner-Kanesh, and together we'll discover how to arrange those pieces to create a thriving and fulfilling business. I want to thank you for tuning into the show and to reach me. Contact Laura at MosaicBusinessConsultingcom.

Speaker 1:

I am thrilled thrilled to have today on our show Antoniette Rose, and I can just not say enough about her. It was really fortuitous to meet her. She's fantastic and she's a dynamic, sought after speaker agent. Not the speaker just by itself, but the agent who is literally revolutionizing the health, well-being and optimal performance industry. With a passion for empowering speakers to make a lasting impact, she has developed a groundbreaking system for success that is changing the game for speakers and producers alike.

Speaker 1:

As a cancer survivor and I'm very curious to hear more about that who relied on integrative therapies in her youth, antoniette is on a mission to ensure that people have access to the best solutions for their health and wellbeing. Countless lives have been positively impacted by the speakers Antoniette has worked with, many of whom have gone from speaking for little to nothing to making speaking a major part of their revenue model, and I really have my fingers crossed on that one. So Antoniette's impressive track record includes founding and producing the Texas Natural Wellness Expos, which are huge, serving as the PR manager for the Holistic Lifestyle Conference and Expo, and molding successful and profitable speakers from hidden gems to recognized names in their industry. Her unparalleled expertise and unwavering commitment to excellence have made her a sought-after figure in the well-being and optimum performance speakers and producers community. Her mission is to ensure that everyone has access to the best solutions for their health and well-being, and she is unwavering in her dedication to this cause. So welcome to the show, antoniette. It is so good to have you here.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for inviting me to Mosaic Life. I love what you are doing on this show and beyond. Thank you for having me, Laura.

Speaker 1:

Oh, thanks. I am just so excited. So I am kind of wondering. At first, I'm saddened to hear that you had to get past cancer, but perhaps you could take us a little bit on that journey with you and let us understand how that changed your life or impacted you show in itself.

Speaker 2:

As a very young preteen to teen, I was diagnosed with late stage, which had eaten away my pelvic area. So they had basically sent me home. It had been caught too late. I had been in and out of foster homes so shortly after losing our father to a drunk driver Shortly after losing our father to a drunk driver my mom had all of us to take care of and just needed to get things back together before she could have us. So we were in and out of foster homes and I just wanted our family back. So I was in pain for a long time. I just didn't want in your young mind, I didn't want anything to come between just us all coming back together.

Speaker 2:

Shortly after getting reunited with my family, we were clothes shopping for school, and the way we did it, because of our income level at that time, was we would go to thrift stores and then we would go to a laundromat. At that time was we would go to thrift stores and then we would go to a laundromat, and so before we could really try on our clothes, we'd have to get them washed, and then I was just excited about trying my new clothes on. So I went into the little bathroom at the laundromat as they were coming out of the dryer, and this particular bathroom had just one of those little pedestal sinks and a little mirror above. I was tiny, so in order to see my clothes they had this kind of trash can that you could kind of step on. So I stepped up onto the trash can to see myself. As I was coming down, I felt a snap and could barely walk out of the bathroom.

Speaker 2:

So of course my mom gathered up all of us kids and our items and took me just direct to an emergency room and that led on a two-year journey where I was in and out of hospitals mostly in, but the hospital before even making it to the hospital that wound up saving me. They basically said shaming my mom. Basically, how could you let this go this long? She has obviously been in a lot of pain.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 2:

Anyhow, you just need to go home and have the best final days that you can with her. And have the best final days that you can with her. Thankfully, this doctor at this little country hospital had the insight to kind of put the word out. Of course I was too young to really know how all that went, but a team of university doctors heard about this young girl being sent home and petitioned for me to try some experimental things. So I went to this university hospital, which became it was hundreds of miles away from my home. My mom was busy raising the other children, so I was pretty much there alone for almost a year straight and then on and off. So the kids in that children's ward obviously became my family during that time.

Speaker 2:

The lucky children whose cancers and leukemia. This children's ward had all kinds of children children with kidney issues, anorexia but there was a good number of children with leukemia or cancer. Number of children with leukemia or cancer Something that struck me, even as a young girl, is me being the unlucky one. Right, we all come in looking like regular kids and I stayed that way, although I was bedridden for quite a while and then in a wheelchair, but I stayed looking like a kid, like a normal kid. Soon after the others, who were getting more of the mainstream treatments, they became unrecognizable swollen, some of them with lesions and breakouts and their gums and losing all the things that are just very, very hard to witness. They came in happy and playful and then pretty soon they could barely lift their heads.

Speaker 2:

It was just very difficult to comprehend at that age. What I wound up I'm going to try to condense this, but what I wound up realizing is that I got to leave that hospital, feel the sun on my face again and see the rest of my life, whereas some of the lucky kids and I say that because that's how it was kind of presented to me I was, there wasn't a lot of chance for me, there was more chance for them didn't get to leave that hospital, at least not, you know, not in a way where they could see the rest of their lives. They, they, went on to the next level. Wherever. Wherever we go, I remember thinking obviously I didn't know the politics of it all at that age but why weren't their parents told that maybe there were some other things they could try first, right before going that route? As I left that hospital for the last time, it was very vivid to me, at least the last major time where I was there for a long stretch I remember thinking I want to be their faces, I want to be their voices. I didn't know how that was going to look, but as I stepped into the rest of my life, that never left me. So I went on to the rest of my life.

Speaker 2:

When it came time for college, I took business management, computer information systems and PR and marketing single major, double minor, but I still didn't know what I was exactly going to do with it and just fast forward through a whole bunch of journeys. I wound up again. I opened a B&B and I opened up the doors to my bed and breakfast a time or two a month to bring in people who would come and speak on different alternatives. When I first started out on this journey in the speaking space, it was all about well-being. It has since very much expanded in breadth. Now I work with speakers of all genres. Now I work with speakers of all genres.

Speaker 2:

However, during those early days that's how it was, and we grew out of my B&B, which was about a 650 square foot space. So I rented a little community center. We grew out of that and then I started renting whole convention centers and it turned out to be a very huge event in a pretty small town. People would come from all over the world, as far as from Italy who we were talking a bit about, italy a moment ago who either attend or speak at these events. I did that for quite a number of years.

Speaker 2:

But my goal was that when people needed solutions, people needed solutions. They had answers. In those early days we didn't have the access to information as easily as we do now, but also just that space where it didn't feel like a gamble anymore. You just were able to find all of your solution possibilities, lay them out on the table and choose what was best for you, whether it was allopathic or alternative or a blend of both. That was really my earliest mission and I did that for many years.

Speaker 2:

But then I got to the place where that wasn't enough. My stages, as big as they were, weren't enough. So I wound down producing and became an agent, opened an agency. When I first started the agency, I did it in the model that I was familiar with because I worked with a lot of agents wanting to get speakers on my stages. So I knew the commission-based model of agencies. But I also saw the major flaws in that model.

Speaker 2:

But for the first three years that's the model I followed, hating it every minute, and wound up developing a model that puts the speaker in the driver's seat and I realized the power of voice, not just in the well-being space but far beyond right. It is the fastest and most effective way to grow your career. If you're an entrepreneur, your business and it can become the most beautiful career just on its own. Fabulous, you know, speaker life. However, I also saw it's a lot of flipping work, and so I put together a way to be able to have kind of the best of all worlds, utilizing agents, agencies and bureaus, but also really making sure that you're out there getting pitched hundreds of times per month, because really that's the only way to make it. And so I realized a lot of these beautiful hidden gem voices. These critical hidden gem voices were not the celebrities on stages, but they were those people boots on the ground, right Doing the thing in these little corners of the world and they would get on a stage.

Speaker 2:

if they happened to land one, they would pour the whole pot of pasta on everybody's heads Because as a speaker, you're just naturally heart-centered. You want to give everything you can give. I was seeing the flaws in how all of that worked. I also saw that these hidden gem voices, the emerging voices, were being turned away by agencies, because most agencies will only take you if you can prove that you already have your branding down, you already have your messaging down and you have already have a track record of earning a certain dollar amount. Usually that begins on the bottom edge 10,000 per talk. On the upper edge, 25,000 per talk, and those $10,000 speakers sat on the bench a lot waiting for the scraps. So I developed a model that would serve them, along with those more advanced speakers who are just were at a kind of a ceiling and they want that. They wanted to bust through.

Speaker 2:

But all of that, to say it's been driven by the desire to make sure that your voice could get out there. When it comes to business, there is no better way. If you don't have one advertising dollar, you have your voice. It is the most effective way to grow a business and the most rewarding business, if that's the direction you want to take your voice, where that's the major part of your revenue and business model. But I think that the idea is that, hey, I'm fabulous, I'm, you know, maybe I work with high achieving people doctors, former pro athletes, ceos of companies who are experts in their space and they've spoken in the line of their business, but they hadn't really made it a major part of their personal model and so it's just kind of like that heart before the horse. Like you can't, yeah, go ahead, you go ahead.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I was just kind of wondering about one thing, like you were talking about the speaking, and I was saying, thinking to myself, does it matter if it's speaking on a Zoom call? Does it matter if it's speaking on a Zoom call or, you know, in virtual space versus speaking on stage? Do you either help the person expand their business Will both help expand their business? What's the thought there?

Speaker 2:

Two-edged sword it can. I don't think that the platform matters as the audience so it can be a total bust, whether it's on location or virtual. To me it's all live. You and I are connecting in a live way with each other and with your audience, even though we are not in a situation where we can give a hug or a handshake. But there's a lot of speakers out there who might say I won't speak for free, it's just not worth my time. Well right, it's not worth your time if you're in front of the wrong people.

Speaker 2:

It is highly worth your time. If you've defined the right audiences, you've made sure that that audience has 50% or more of your perfect fit people we call them PFPs. Your next best engagement is going to come from that current engagement and that's how you really launch into the career. So people ask me this all the time. It's an excellent question. Platforming does not matter as much as who's on the other side of that platform.

Speaker 1:

Okay, great, I appreciate you sharing. Thank you. Yeah, I thought that excellent, excellent point, but you were expressing information about speakers and getting to the stage and things like that, so I didn't want to interrupt. I apologize, I was just. You was just wondering about that one thing, so, please, Sure you bet.

Speaker 2:

I think that the thought process is if I am a proven expert, I've proven my process and I have some clout behind me, right, I have some authority in this space and I've put together a bang and talk, right, I just get an agent or get on a couple of bureaus and it's all good, I'm going to be booked. It doesn't work that way, just as if you and it's sad to me to see how many speakers really believe that's how it works and I understand why but there's a lot of voices out there that then fizzle out. They don't get out there. They try it and they're like ah, I guess I'm not in demand or I guess I'm not hitting it right.

Speaker 2:

It is like starting any other business. Whether you're buying a franchise, opening a brick and mortar, you have to lay the foundation, build up the walls, open the doors, staff it right, treat it like a business. So, anyone willing to put in that elbow work and treat it like a business, you will have that fabulous speaker life, but it will not be in a snap, especially post 2020. There's a lot of people who exited the corporate world and became either a consultant or speaker. Right, the competition, especially for those engagements, $10,000 and above is fierce. So you need to make yourself, position yourself, obviously as authority and authority, but also get super visible and get pitched hundreds of times per month.

Speaker 2:

No one agent or agency, no bureau is going to do that. You're going to sit on a shelf with a lot of other really great speakers and just hope for the scraps. So, yes, it needs to be part of the overall strategy to really break in, but there also needs to be put some elbow grease needs to go along with it, or hire a company like ours to make sure that that engine gets running right and in the right direction and keeps running. It never slows down If you take August off to go on a cruise with your family. That engine still needs to be running because in December, six months later, you're going to feel like why isn't my calendar filled Right? Where did my engagements go?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I had one of my mentors who said, basically, if you stop, you have to start all over again, and it doesn't matter when you stop, it just matters that you did stop, and then you have to start from ground zero. You're absolutely right, and you know, when you were talking about that, I was thinking about some of these business owners and entrepreneurs that are listening and thinking. They, too, are speaking, but not necessarily a formal speech, right, they might be speaking to give the pitch for their business, or they might be speaking to introduce people to their business and what it does, and things like that, and we all get nervous about speaking in front of others. So what are some ideas that you have for us? Lay people, if you will, that may need some assistance in that arena of speaking.

Speaker 2:

One of the first things that I would tell you actually doesn't come from me. It comes from one of the guests on my podcast last year, Nick Lavery, and if any of your guests want to reach out to me, I'll make sure they get that guide and video, or we can also put it in the description. But essentially what Nick said is just brilliant. So he was a Green Beret who was seriously injured, lost his legs in the line of duty and could no longer serve at that capacity, but high ranking. When I say high ranking, I don't know what his rank was, but he was a highly valued member of his service. He had never spoken, he was a soldier. He was not a speaker, but his fire-ups said, well, not a speaker, but his fire-ups said, well, let's go speak, go start speaking. And he had no idea how to go about that. So he developed a system that I now utilize with my clients and will forever give him the credit for because it's brilliant. I think that old adage how do you eat an elephant One bite at a time. This is the approach that he took and I'll share it just in condensed form, but if you want the actual guide, I'm happy to give that it's something we work with our clients on. So essentially, let's start at the beginning, which has to do more with my methodology than Nick's, but essentially your signature talk.

Speaker 2:

I think a lot of people believe I don't need a signature talk. I want to be able to know who the audience is and talk about what it is that they want. That's fine, except a confused mind doesn't buy. You do need to have a core brand and when we say signature talk, it's more like a signature container for your signature brand. You have one talk from which your posts, your promotions and the various talks that you give all stem from. And it's the same talk, different focus, so that one talk can be very. It's the same talk, different focus, so that one talk can be very a hundred other talks. So in doing that, in order to seamlessly be able to shift in focus, you really have to have it down so good, so naturally, that you could give it.

Speaker 2:

If you're called today to have a talk tomorrow right, Somebody had laryngitis and you're invited to step into that person's space for a keynote or a corporate training engagement, and essentially this is what it is, Of course, have a talk that flows and portion control. I just wrote a LinkedIn newsletter about portion control. It's called Keynoter's Edge. It's on LinkedIn. It's free. I just wrote a whole article about this so I won't go into it, but it is essential because I'm very Italian, so you know my family would make these amazing meals and then as a little girl, you know they would heap the food onto the plate and you're so excited to eat it, but then it becomes overwhelming, Like how in the heck can I get this all in?

Speaker 2:

And then you're like oh, I just can't do it in this big fight with grandma and grandpa everybody Manga manga. Manga, it's, you know good. Anyhow, the same goes. The same is true for your audience, right? They're just there for a bowl of nourishment. They want to feel transformed, not overwhelmed, when they walk out, and then they'll go looking for that next bowl.

Speaker 2:

So, it's just from the moment you walk onto stage, communicating in very subtle ways, that this is the first step in a journey. So you give them just enough to get that first step in the next step. Step, the first step that leads to the next step.

Speaker 1:

So I think that's really key and especially newer speakers tend to give too much in one talk right and I can see that you know, thinking back to when I taught at universities and stuff, and yeah, you're, you're feeling like they need to know it all.

Speaker 2:

Or you want to give it all right, you want to give because you think maybe that's the only chance that you'll get, but if you're done right, they're going to seek you out. Or if you're in a situation where you get to give them a resource or an invitation to a conversation with you or a workshop you might be doing, then they can get that next bowl of nourishment, but it is a journey. Workshop you might be doing, then they can get that next bowl of nourishment, but it is a journey.

Speaker 1:

And think of your talks as the first step in a journey, not as a one and done Right. I love that thought that you have there. That's just beautiful, because so many times we do think I either sell now, you know, and I get somebody from my quick pitch, or I'm done, you know, when I get somebody from my quick pitch, or I'm done, you know, and the reality is so different Because as we develop those relationships, it's through those relationships that we actually cultivate our brand and develop what we're known for, if you will, like you were talking about. I really appreciate all your sharing, antoniette, and I just really thank you so much for your time, but I am kind of curious if people want to get to know more about you, your business, how can they reach out to you?

Speaker 2:

Sure. So the first thing that they could do is start following my podcast. Of course, I enjoy that and hope to have you as a guest at some point. And that's SpeakPact and pact as in as an impact right. So the goal is to make the greatest impact with the power of our voices possible. So it's SpeakPact P-A-C-T dot com and that's to follow my podcast on your favorite platform. The other way is just if you want to be considered for my roster or just meet with me, that's Speaker Booker. Speaker Booker dot com. Speaker Booker dot com. The other way is LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn, my favorite platform. It's a little harder to say verbally because it's linkedincom forward slash in forward slash. The number one Antoniette A-N-T-O-N-I-E-T-T-E. Antoniette Perfect.

Speaker 1:

Wow, the clarity you have and the articulation you have is just beautiful. I've got to say it's just wonderful, and I really appreciate the conciseness in which you are able to express some of the information that you're sharing with us. And just astounding. So thank you very much for your time and all of your information. It's just fantastic.

Speaker 2:

An honor, Laura.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for having me Well, thank you, and thank you so much for listening to the Mosaic Life with Laura W. Be sure to tune in next week for a conversation with and I'm not sure who at this point, but we'll be talking about a whole bunch of new business ideas, and so I want to thank you once again for listening and have a great rest of your day. Tune in for now.