Hi there and welcome to the Everyday Entrepreneur podcast where I, Caitlin Fritz help you reach your entrepreneurial potential. Together we can build your dream social impact business so that you can leave a legacy beyond your nine-to-five. Hello, hello, and welcome to this episode of Everyday Entrepreneurship. I'm your host, Caitlin Fritz. I'm an award winning entrepreneur, enterprise educator, and business coach who supported 700 plus founders from every continent, except Antarctica. So I have seen businesses of various shapes, sizes, products, services, and everything in between. Here at Everyday Entrepreneurship, we peel back the truth and some tried and true lessons of what it's like building an impact led business. And I'm here to celebrate you, cheer you on, and give you the most practical advice I can. In today's episode, I'm actually going to step back for a minute and share a story. Um, because over the past couple of weeks, I've been reconnecting with people on LinkedIn, in real life, and a common question I got asked. was how did you get into working with universities, speaking, teaching, coaching? How did this all come to be? And I think there's some value into in that story and I wanted to share it with you and then some lessons and practical tips if you want to do more work when it comes to speaking and teaching and coaching. In your entrepreneurship or consultancy venture. So let's turn back the clock to 2018. I was a new founder. Um, a foreign female founder. In a country I had only lived in for 7 8 months when I started and co founded our business Museumio. But one thing I recognized coming from my background is that I really always loved. Speaking. I, don't get me wrong, there's definitely times in growing up in 8th grade I shook like an absolute leaf, wanted to throw up, have the stage fright, um, but I've always loved being able to communicate. And I feel like as an American, uh, we're quite confident and vocal. So as a founder, I recognized, okay, I can leverage my voice for our business. And that led to volunteering on any and every panel event we could get on pitching in front of stages. Now there's a previous episode where I talk about pitching, and pitching was a journey for me. Once again, there was definitely a time I passed out in front of a room of people, but practice, practice, practice, and really building kind of like a stage persona allowed me to move past that. And as a founder, I was kind of getting the reputation of being the pitching person and um, you know, oh, you're on. this podcast, or you're on stages, and I just said yes to a lot of things. And that led me to the pandemic. Um, during the pandemic, times are really hard, point blank, we can all probably look back and recognize that. So to earn some additional income, as well as being a founder, I took a job at my university, specifically their entrepreneurship hub to support other entrepreneurs, building and growing their business. And For me, being with other entrepreneurs allowed me to Empathize with them and work with them and guide them as someone who was only a few steps ahead of them on this crazy roller coaster journey. And throughout that time, I was asked to, you know, deliver a workshop on pitching or deliver a conversation, fireside chat, uh, moderating a panel. And I kind of like earned my stripes. in the field of being an educator, coaching, and speaking by volunteering and doing all of these things that were required of this job and really volunteering and saying yes to everything and anything, anytime I could. get my practice, like practice my craft. Anytime I could get feedback, whether that was a women's founder group, um, an entrepreneurship extracurricular event, a panel event, guesting on a podcast, I would just throw my hand up. And by doing that, I really expanded my network and started getting referrals to work with other universities and other entrepreneurship hubs. And, by working with other universities, I recognized, and it was honestly a conversation with my mentor as well, that, um, people pay for you to come and speak and guest lecture, coach, come into their entrepreneurship hub. And that was exciting because I love, love, love. Being in a room with excited entrepreneurs, budding entrepreneurs, people in the space, and connecting with them. I guess I'm a little more extroverted than I give myself credit for. And that's when I started offering and designing, hey, you know, I'm more than just the pitch girl. Don't get me wrong, I love pitching. I will give anyone advice for pitching. I am all about Being able to communicate your business in the clearest way possible. My goal is to launch a whole e course on pitching. So, you know, if that's something you're interested in, let me know. But I also had other experiences and stories to tell. And that's when I recognized in making a, um, kind of a menu of topics that I could speak about, or talk about, or teach to these various entrepreneurs. And that's really how it started. I wish it was more glamorous, um, but it really was going back to my roots, which was my own university, and showing up almost over delivering and being open to try to speak really anywhere I could. So when it comes to other entrepreneurs, especially people who want to get into speaking and educating, um, for all my consultancy individuals out there who want to go into corporates and give a lunch and learn, or to universities or to various councils or government, here are some tips that I would recommend. If this is something you're interested in. one, leverage your networks. So, by showing up, I was able to, one, meet people in person, meet the, um, event coordinator, the program coordinator, all the individuals in the room. My goal is to connect with them afterwards. Whether that was on LinkedIn or through my email list so that I can build on these connections and by leveraging the network I had, so reaching out to basically anywhere I was an alumni, um, any kind of ties I had, I was able to get people Get my foot in the door. And I think leveraging your networks will allow you to get your foot in the door. So what I recommend is, on a piece of paper, just different bubbles of who you are as a person. So, a circle for your professional network, a circle for your community network, a circle for your friends and family network. And write down the names, the people, the emails that might Be able to open those doors for you as a warm introduction or a warm lead. The other thing with leveraging your networks is also being able to manage your network. So it's not just enough to reach out to them, but stay in touch, show them how you offer value. Last week, I did a whole episode on thought leadership. All of those topics, as well as the art of the follow up episode, Everything we talk about there relates to this topic. So be able to follow up, ask them for a testimonial or referral afterwards. See if they can give you a recommendation on LinkedIn. All of these little things will build your credibility. The second lesson and tip I'd recommend is make the most of every opportunity. You are always pitching. That's what I tell all of my students, my clients, you're always pitching. And that applies to us as well. So whether you are speaking or teaching for free at a library pop up or at a paid stage, you need to make the most of that opportunity, meaning you provide the best customer service, the best conversations, the best lessons and talk you can possibly provide. Whether So, honestly, my free talk, I still treat it as a paid talk. I want to over deliver and give every individual some value and practical tips that they can go apply in their own business. And that goes with my third tip, which is come prepared and exceed expectations. Not every lesson, not every teaching event, not every talk is going to be a slam dunk. I know this. I think anyone who has done a panel, a talk, a keynote, a lesson, a workshop, can also say that there are some times where you try something new and it does not land. But the goal is for you to come absolutely prepared, practice your workshop, your talk or your lesson, practice all of the tech, be able to really engage and show up. And like I mentioned, over deliver. If I'm giving a workshop, I'm also giving them some additional worksheets or a PDF, and then some links to podcast episodes or YouTube videos that they should watch afterwards. Really providing value. The fourth lesson and tip I recommend is don't be afraid to ask. I was so hesitant to ask. You know, if certain institutions had guest individuals coming in and talking or coaching or providing workshops, you don't know unless you ask and more often than not, more places from universities, councils, corporates, small businesses, associations, bring in experts like yourself to really be heard. upskill, provide those learnings, those workshops, those coaching, and you don't know unless you ask. And the fifth tip I 100 percent recommend is know when you need to upskill yourself. So, back in 20, 22, 2023, I took a conscious effort to invest in my own speaking, the way I deliver my workshop delivery, and I did that through a program run by Jess Ekstrom, which I 200 percent recommend you check her out. I'm pretty sure she's doing a free speaking boot camp if you're interested. No, I don't get any commission, anything, but I just love her and her business and how she uses her voice. So sometimes We need to invest in ourselves, and that means time and or money. So I've met an entrepreneur who goes to Toastmasters and practices their pitching and their speaking there. I've also met other entrepreneurs who do online courses, in person boot camps, pitch training, which I do offer pitch training if you do want to get some one on one support with your pitching and communication. But there's Basically, a level that I think everyone can get to before they need to get those extra expert pair of eyes in. So, um, those. are my tips. that's a little bit about my journey into educating and speaking. And I'd love to hear your own stories. I would love to know how you are leveraging your voice to not only amplify your business, but also, you know, who you are as a person in your mission. in your venture. So if anything percolated your ears while we were talking, don't worry, all of those links will be in the show notes. And until next time, I would love to check you out or see you online. Don't be a stranger. We're here to support each other. So until next time, this is Everyday Entrepreneurship. Thank you for joining me for this episode of Everyday Entrepreneurship. To stay tuned and most up-to-date, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You can follow me Caitlin Fritz on Instagram. And if you have any questions about building your business with Impact, drop me an email with the link in the show notes.