202. Building Your Thought Leadership in the Speaking Industry with Danielle Tucker
Using Your Genius
Getting involved in the speaking industry is one way to build your thought leadership and support yourself or your business. You can use your voice, your genius, and your context and perspective to develop as a thought leader in a way that is beneficial and impactful, and get paid.
But that journey isn’t the same for everyone. There is more work that needs to be done to make the speaking industry more equitable.
Danielle Tucker joins Erica for a conversation about the speaking industry, building thought leadership, and how people of color can be more visible and get paid well for what they do.
Listen on your favorite podcast player or keep reading to learn:
Where more accountability and responsibility are needed to bring equity to the speaking industry
Why making change in the industry requires collaboration between speakers of color and allies in positions of influence
How to build your visibility in ways that feel good and support your goals
What it means to be a thought leader in a beneficial and impactful way
Intentionally Broadcast Your Brilliance
Danielle Tucker is the Founder of Expansive Thought Leadership Coaching, as well as Professional Speaker Websites.com, a marketing agency dedicated to strategically designing luxury brands and websites for thought-leading entrepreneurs and speakers to strategically grow their thought leadership, raise their speaking fees, and get booked and paid to speak.
As the strategist of choice for experts featured in ABC, FOX, Entrepreneur, and Speakers Magazine, to name a few, Danielle's simple and refreshing approach to growing your thought leadership, will empower you to intentionally broadcast your brilliance and get booked and paid to speak!
Equity and Accountability
On the Pause on the Play® podcast, Danielle Tucker (she/her) says that she believes that equity in the speaking industry is possible for people of color, but that there is a lot of work that needs to be done to achieve that.
“The work that needs to be done is very deep and I think it requires a lot of accountability, a lot of responsibility on a number of different sides.”
She says that in her experience working with speakers who are seeking to elevate their brands and get more bookings and better-paying bookings, she has had a lot of people of color come to her specifically because they wanted to work with someone “who understood how the speaking industry would work for people of color.”
Because of that, she dug into doing research on how the journeys of people of color differ from white speakers in the industry and found that a lot of white speakers had “unpolished brands, unoptimized websites, yet their portfolio was loaded with tons of company logos and places that they’ve spoken and audiences that they’ve spoken to.”
She witnessed Black speakers who were equally, or even overly, qualified not getting the same opportunities. And, “I really started to consider, where does the responsibility lie?”
She says that responsibility and accountability comes down to event organizers and hosts and people who vet speakers making sure that they are creating an equitable space for people of color.
And she says, “I believe that responsibility also lies on the speaker of stepping into their authority as that thought-leading expert, of positioning themselves as professional, doing the work to be visible…to do the work to position yourself and show why you should have a seat at the table, and…creating more spaces to empower other people to have those opportunities as well.”
Erica adds that event organizers have a responsibility to go deeper than the obvious choices from their networks or initial search results if they want to work towards creating equity for speakers.
And she agrees with Danielle that “there’s a certain amount of deprogramming and owning your own genius that has to happen for us. And that’s one, it’s safe to be visible. Two, I deserve to be [visible] and I deserve to be paid for that visibility…You have to own how much you have to bring, to really move into that energy and put that out there as much as you possibly can.”
Danielle agrees and says that “being a speaker of color within the industry can feel very weighty, it can feel scary. There’s a lot of emotional things to overcome, there’s a lot of mindset things to overcome.”
She says the most successful speakers she has worked with have committed to using their voices and being visible, regardless of rejections.
“The stubbornness to be visible and continue to use your voice in a really intentional way is the momentum that is starting to help shift things and is helping to challenge more people, more organizations to really reconsider how they’ve been doing things.”
Changing the Industry is a Collaborative Effort
For people who are ready to make that commitment to getting their voice out there and making change in the speaking industry, Danielle says it may start with creating your own opportunities, through hosting events, starting a podcast, or even something as simple as going live on social media.
“Shaking things up is really about having this unwavering commitment to be visible and make those opportunities, even in the midst of a situation that may not have been crafted to be favorable, but still committing to putting your genius out there in order to create a different narrative.”
She says taking ownership of your voice is only one piece of the puzzle, though, and speakers of color need allies within the industry to push forward with in order to make change on a larger scale.
Allies need to work on making sure “that these voices are being heard, that these people are being featured, that their messages and their stories are being shared in order to really help create even more momentum within the speaking industry.”
Erica says, “there is that place of us having to own what we can do, but none of us do anything on our own…these are collaborative efforts.”
She says that allies need to use their platforms and privileges to bring attention to people who may not have the same level of access, and they need to build relationships with people who will expand their networks.
Danielle agrees and says that relationship-building is vital, because there are reports showing that as much as 83% of speaking opportunities come through referrals. She adds that podcasting has also been shown to be an effective tool for relationship-building for speakers.
“What I would say for any speakers of color who are looking to build more of those relationships intentionally in order to book more speaking opportunities would be, look and see what type of a relationship you want to build, and even maybe consider podcasting conversations with audiences that need to hear your message and need to hear your voice, and can possibly give that cross-pollination into audiences that may not be as accustomed to hearing voices from people of color.”
Erica adds that organizers overly relying on referrals certainly contributes to the echo chamber effect in the speaking industry. “There has to be this intentionality to get out of these bubbles and be in conversation with other people.”
Building Your Visibility
Danielle says that the process of being visible is different for everyone.
“There are different ways to leverage speaking in order to grow your thought leadership and also to grow your business,” so it’s important to consider what your goals are.
When it comes to your comfort level, you could build confidence in speaking through podcasting before getting on video or pursuing live events. She says it’s important to remember that you don’t have to be everywhere at once.
“You can be visible through sharing your perspective, like sharing a written perspective, speaking up on a thread…that you are a qualified expert to share an insight on, and really encouraging people to think and ask questions, just being visible in that way, by making a touchpoint in that way.”
She continues, “You can use your voice, build your thought leadership, and still make an impact and get your point across without having to be on all the time.”
Erica agrees and adds, “you just need to be visible by the person that is making the decisions or has influence in the space where the decisions are made…Every time that you are a part of a conversation or you make a comment on something or you simply are sharing your opinions, your take, the thing that is yours inherently, whenever and wherever possible, you never know who’s paying attention.”
On Thought Leadership
Erica asks Danielle to give her definition of thought leadership in the context of the speaking industry.
Danielle says that first, thought leadership is not using your voice or your message to be manipulative or harmful.
“Thought leadership is using your intellectual property, your message, the story that you have, the things that you have to say to put out there into the world, and doing it in an intentional way that gets people thinking differently and gets them really considering how can they make a positive change within their environment, their sphere of influence, wherever they are in the world. Using your message, your thoughts, and your voice to shift their perspective on how they can leave the world a better place than how it may have been five minutes ago.”
She says that she often refers to her clients as thought-leading entrepreneurs, because they may not think of themselves as speakers, but they do know they’re someone with a message to share.
It’s “really just being intentional to share your message in a way that’s going to make an impact, shift beliefs, and leave a positive change in the world.”
Make Yourself Available
Danielle suggests taking action towards being a speaker or thought-leading entrepreneur starts with drafting a clear vision of where it is you want to go.
“You have to let the world know that you’re available for it…[and] getting clear on how you can start having conversations with people and letting them know that you are available to speak and to share your message with their audience.”
Ready to dive deeper?
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