How Leaders Can Communicate with Confidence and Impact with Eva Daniels

Caleb Stevens (00:01)
Well, Eva, welcome to the Community Bank Podcast. Thanks so much for joining us. How are you?

Eva Daniel (00:06)
Good, thanks so much for having me, Caleb, this is so fun.

Caleb Stevens (00:09)
It is a lot of fun and it’s funny every now and again we’ll bring on a guest that I met really through LinkedIn because I enjoyed following them so much and got so much value from their content and their material and you are a perfect example of somebody who you’ve built quite the following on LinkedIn and all your resources that you put out ⁓ specifically for public speakers and for executives I found so compelling and helpful and so I guess just as a little kind of

Give us a quick sketch of what you do. Tell us about yourself, the Speak Shop. I think I’ve followed you for probably two years now, but we just recently connected last year. ⁓ tell us about yourself.

Eva Daniel (00:46)
Yeah,

absolutely. Well, I am the founder and owner of the Speak Shop. I help individuals and teams develop and deliver compelling speeches. So I do a lot of content development. That’s really my specialty. I’m really passionate that you enter into every single room, whether that’s a meeting or a stage. I love helping my clients clarify what they’re trying to say and give the speech that only they can give, that is really baked in their thought leadership.

and their own authority and their own expertise and their own stories. And so I do a lot of work with individuals, also do public speaking workshops through my company, The Speak Shop. Before that, I was a speechwriter for Dave Ramsey and his team of speakers here in the Nashville area. And then before that, I was a radio podcast producer for about 15 years. So been in the communications industry for about 20 years now, and I absolutely love it. I love helping people just feel more confident with.

both what they’re saying and how they’re saying it and how they’re showing up in rooms.

Caleb Stevens (01:48)
Well, when it comes to confidence, you would hear, or least when I was younger, I’d always hear, public speaking is the number one fear for most people. There’s the joke. I forgot. I’m going to butcher it, but it’s something like people would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy at a funeral.

Eva Daniel (02:02)
Exactly.

Yes, a famous that’s a famous clip by Jerry Seinfeld, which is hilarious.

Caleb Stevens (02:07)
Okay,

yeah, yeah. Is that still the case? You know, assume you speak with people and work with people that maybe don’t have that much of a fear of it, if they’re reaching out to you to get better at it, but as you talk to just people in the general community, is that still like the number one fear that you see?

Eva Daniel (02:24)
Well, I think you pinpointed it really well there. tend to work with high performing individuals who have risen to levels of, you know, C-suite executive leadership and or I work with a lot of professional speakers who overall really enjoy, um, enjoy speaking. They’ve been able to reframe those nerves. We all face nerves and sometimes you might not think that you’ve struggled with public speaking anxiety, but then suddenly maybe you’re asked to speak at an industry event where there’s a thousand of your peers instead of say the normal 2030 of your team. And so those nerves.

definitely can flare back up. I would say, though, that the greatest speakers have figured out practical ways to calm those nerves, and because, again, we all face them at one point or another. If you don’t, more than likely, you’re not getting out there enough and speaking enough. But they do come up, but there are practical things you can do, which is the good news.

Caleb Stevens (03:16)
So about, I don’t know, nine or ten years ago, I remember getting breakfast with the head of a pretty good size ⁓ PR firm, and I reached out to this person because I had recently heard him speak at a company. And one of the things I asked him over breakfast is I said, do you speak often? How often, you know, do you speak? That talk you gave was really, really good. And his reply was, well, I’m a business owner. I’m not a public speaker. He sort of…

not shied away from it a little bit, but really emphasized his role as I’m a CEO and a business owner. I’m not on the speaking circuit per se, and yet he had a keynote that I thought was very compelling, even though his full-time day job is running a company not giving speeches. I guess I kind of give you that analogy or that story to kind of tee up the question of…

Do you think every executive should have a keynote? Because I think that’s a common thing you might hear is, well, why do I need a keynote or why do I need to talk? I’m running a business day to day. And certainly, I communicate throughout the day. And we have team off sites and gatherings where I’m giving speeches at times. But I’m not a speaker, per se. What would you say to that?

Eva Daniel (04:28)
I would push back and challenge and say that I believe every professional should have a signature speech that they can give at the drop of a hat. By signature speech, just think of this as a speech that’s really kind of the umbrella to who you are, that represents your story, your expertise, your thought leadership. And here’s why. You never know when an opportunity might arise for you to represent your company and yourself well. Now, a lot of people listening don’t want to be professional speakers exactly as you just said.

But if somebody were to tap your shoulder and say, can you come speak at the local Rotary? Can you come and speak to my men’s group? Can you do this? I don’t want you to say no because you don’t have something prepared. I want you to have the confidence to walk and say, well, sure. That’s not saying you need to start making a living speaking and you’re going to start applying to all these conferences. But on a personal level, I can honestly say that speaking has dramatically

grown my career. I had an experience several years ago when I was still at Ramsey Solutions and I felt a little tap on my shoulder and it was one of the creative directors at the company and he said, hey, we just had a speaker cancel for Friday. Would you like to give a speech on speaking to the 250 person team creative team? I didn’t have a speech. And so for the next day and a half, I was like every spare moment between meetings and work and everything else, cramming and writing the speech, which

I ended up being really proud of, ended up delivering a lot of times and I ended up actually seeing that kind of explode my reputation within the company, opened so many doors. And so I just say that to sometimes it’s easy to not recognize the impact that communication is having on your career, especially once you’ve risen up to that level of maybe even being CEO or your high level leadership position within your company, how much greater and how much more could you be if your communication was better?

And you might not even know how strong of a communicator you are or how much it’s holding your back ⁓ without some feedback, some self-awareness, some other things. But so to answer your question, yes, I believe everyone should consider having a speech they can give at the drop of a hat. Does that mean you need to become a professional speaker? No. ⁓ But I also want you to be able to represent your company.

Caleb Stevens (06:28)
Hmm.

Eva Daniel (06:45)
your brand well and so maybe you should consider becoming a little bit more of an outward facing CEO and showing up at industry events. You’re more than likely already going to be going to the conference anyway. Why not throw your name in the hat and maybe do a speech at an upcoming conference or event. Not just saying you get one because you want to do one but just saying that like you I want you to show up the best possible way because it’s not only just representing your personal career it’s how you’re representing your company to other people.

Caleb Stevens (07:15)
And it’s interesting, one of the best salesmen that I’ve ever met, not an executive, not a CEO, just an individual contributor, one of the best salesmen I ever met built his business by speaking at association events, by industry-specific ⁓ events, and that sort of gave him the perceived credibility and authority. And maybe he had the same level of credentials as somebody else, but because he built a reputation and visibility and a platform, I think that’s what really was the secret sauce.

He also had the heart of a teacher, so people came to him because there was a perceived level of, you’ve got information that I don’t have. so, any thoughts there? I guess not even for executives, but for sales folks who are trying to build credibility.

Eva Daniel (07:55)
Yeah, I mean, it

is a great way to increase your credibility, grow your career opportunities, grow your business, grow your career opportunities, becoming known for something. I feel that we live in a world right now, you know, so saturated. It feels like every day there’s some new AI tool we’re supposed to be using and, so saturated with so much. But what hasn’t changed is the ability to connect with other people through communication. And I mean,

Truly our greatest brand distinctive, personal brand distinctive is our ability to be human and connect with other people through communication. So whether you’re stage and I am putting that in air quotes because sometimes the stages that we’re showing up on is just how are you showing up to Zoom calls? How are you showing up online? How are you showing up in meetings that you’re attending? I want to make sure that you’re putting your best foot forward that represents who you are.

in the best way, know, like your best, the best version, most authentic version of yourself in the rooms you show up.

Caleb Stevens (08:59)
know, John Maxwell wrote the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, and law number one is the law of the lid, and he talks about how your leadership is a lid on your growth, on your organization’s growth. I might even apply that to communication and speaking. Your ability to communicate can often be a lid on your growth. You may have all the qualities needed to grow in your career, but if you can’t communicate clearly and with a compelling message, that may be an inhibitor as well.

Eva Daniel (09:03)
Great, but.

And it’s also just how you’re communicating to your team and the team that you’re leading. So that’s also just a really key piece as well. Like you set the tone, you’re setting the tone for how your entire team communicates with you.

Caleb Stevens (09:40)
Yeah, well, I know you and I are both big fans of Donald Miller and I talk about him a lot on the show and he often says, if you can get a Donald Miller, we would pay money for that. That would be incredible. But he’s famous for saying, you know, people don’t buy the best products, they buy the products that are communicated the clearest and your competitor can have an inferior product. But if they’re a better communicator about that product, there’s a good chance they’re going to beat you because your prospect or your customer will never know you had a better product.

Eva Daniel (09:45)
You should have him as a guest. should have him.

You

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and it also shows up, like I am really passionate about helping my clients obviously show up better on stages, but also translates to, you mentioned earlier, we connected on LinkedIn. That’s how we know each other was through LinkedIn, but even just stepping forward and sharing some of your thought leadership, because it’s just about you, it’s about serving other people.

what has happened in your past, your experience that you can, you know, shape into messages, whether that’s a social media post or a speech that you can help other people in their career.

Caleb Stevens (10:43)
Yeah. Okay, so let’s say a CEO or executive comes in and says, hey, Eva, I’m getting a lot of speaking requests, whether it’s internally or externally at Rotary Club and, you know, community related events. And I’ve kind of got this keynote that I’m given. It’s 45 minutes or so, but, you know, I’m really trying to polish it and take it to the next level. As you meet with leaders and coach them, are there common themes that you see when it comes to ways that they could improve or…

ways that you kind of see them struggling or stumbling.

Eva Daniel (11:14)
Absolutely. Well, one, the biggest thing holding most speakers back and most leaders with their messages is they’ve never received clear, specific feedback on their speaking. They get done speaking and maybe it’s like, oh, that was so great. That was so great. Or they get done speaking, know, that was, yeah, I mean, you know, who’s going to tell the CEO like, that wasn’t great.

Caleb Stevens (11:31)
No one wants to offend this CEO by saying, that was so boring, I fell asleep.

Eva Daniel (11:40)
⁓ Or they will maybe it’s like maybe you have a sense or maybe you kind of get some feedback like, that humor just don’t land quite right or that didn’t work. So I always say I’m the professional feedback giver who comes in and gives very specific things, but you don’t need a higher speech coach to tell you some of these things. You can even just pull a few people together and say, hey, I’m trying to work on my speaking. Would you listen to the speech and help me figure out ways to make it stronger?

So a few of the patterns though that I see that are quick fixes that anybody listening can think about their message is, are you really clear on the audience? Who they are, how much they know about you? I love challenging people to run their speech through three questions before they even really start shaping up the content. Or if you already have that speech like you mentioned, asking, OK, what do I want my audience to know? What do I want my audience to feel?

and what do I want them to do when they leave this presentation and get really, really crystal clear on those things. And keep in mind the entire time that you are speaking, the audience is not really thinking of you. They’re thinking about themselves. They’re thinking, what’s in this for me? Why should I care? So you need to be really clear on the front end. What is in this for your audience? Another big thing I see is sometimes because we are so passionate about our topic, I’m guilty of this myself.

that it’s like handing our audience this plate as if you’ve just gone through a buffet line. When I was a kid, I grew up in the rural Midwest, and we’d go to Golden Corral. And if you asked me what was for dinner, it was pasta. To my mommos, fish, in quotes. To my dad, steak, in quotes. Everybody loved that experience saying dinner was something else. You do not want people to walk away from your speech with that same feeling, because you’ve been so, you know, you’re

give them a little of this, you threw them some stories, here’s some quote, here’s some data, here’s some this, here’s where you’ve created this really cluttered plate. Instead, you want to think of your speech as being like a fine dyeing experience where you’ve curated the content, you know, it’s very clear what’s there, it’s nicely presented, there’s not too much, there’s not too little, and it’s really clear. Not everybody will like it, but everybody will walk away knowing exactly what it was about. So it’s very important for you as a speaker to have a clear point.

I can’t tell you how many speeches, I review hundreds of speeches in a year. How many speeches I’ll hear, well, someone will have an amazing open, they have this incredible story, it’s funny, it’s moving, it’s heartfelt, and then it’s like bolted on. It doesn’t tie into anything else in the speech. was a great story, it was entertaining, but it had nothing to do with the topic. ⁓ And so just making sure that not only do you have the point, but the way that you structure your topic, everything else points towards that point.

Caleb Stevens (14:11)
I just wanted to tell a story and make you laugh. but yeah.

Eva Daniel (14:24)
Another big one is storytelling. Stories make our content stick. Research shows we’re six to seven times more likely to remember something if it’s wrapped within a story. And yet so many people are, know, storytelling’s hard. I mean, there’s so many books, so much rhetoric, you you even mentioned Donald Miller, so many brilliant people writing about it. But when it comes to telling our own stories, a lot of it’s just default.

telling people linear list of facts. happened, B happened, C happened. Instead of taking your audience into the moment, giving some feeling words, how you felt when it happened, and maybe even questioning where are you starting your story. I always encourage my clients, consider starting with a cold open. know, start right in the center of the action. If you think of any movie that you like, it starts right in the center and then you’re catching up. Well, there’s no reason why you can’t do that in your speech either. Dive into the center of the story.

recently just saw Project Hail Mary with my son. Have you seen that one yet? So good. So good. I don’t see very many movies. It’s like the first movie I’ve seen. I have four kids, so I don’t get a lot of movies that are not animated. But it was so good. it one of those movies, know, first 30 seconds were right in middle of a scene. And like you’re pulled in because it’s something interesting to start with. So one of the very biggest mistakes leaders make is they get up there, they start speaking, and the beginning of their speech sounds something like, well,

Caleb Stevens (15:22)
It’s on my wife and I’s list, maybe this weekend.

Eva Daniel (15:47)
You know, Caleb, when Caleb invited me, it was so great to be on this event. And I don’t get down here to Georgia very often. I haven’t said anything. I’ve wasted the beginning. I’ve wasted that first impression. So if you take nothing else away, just really think through, hey, who’s my audience? What’s the point? And how am I starting? Am I starting with a hook and something that’s interesting?

Caleb Stevens (16:13)
And I would imagine that first few minutes is going to be the highest level of attention and energy the audience is going to dedicate to you. And so you’re sort of wasting your opportunity to really hook them in. And it’s like if you don’t, yeah, it feels like it’s going to be harder to recover.

Eva Daniel (16:31)
Yeah, mean, research shows us that you have seven seconds to make a first impression. Some even says one tenth of one seconds. Look, I mean, even if you have a minute, you don’t have long. I mean, every single room you enter, we are literally all speaking to one of the most distracted generations of people that have ever lived. Recently, I read in Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation, we check our phones 186 times a day. So when you enter a room,

you’re already against this incredible barrier. People might be looking at you, but they might be totally mentally distracted. And so you need to do something to grab their attention. And then similarly to that open, your closing really matters and how you close your comments. And I’m even saying a three minute team update, ending on a strong final statement. If you have a really strong open and a really strong close,

you can have kind of a messy middle. I want the whole thing to be amazing, but you can have kind of a messy middle and people won’t remember it because that first and that last impression, that peak end rule is so important when it comes to speeches.

Caleb Stevens (17:33)
Mm-hmm.

And I like your framework too. You said, no, feel and do, right? I’ve often thought, I can think of speeches I’ve heard now where it’s like, in some cases it’s, yeah, I got a lot of good information, but it wasn’t persuasive. I didn’t feel anything. And I can think of other speeches I’ve heard where it’s like, man, that felt so inspiring, but you leave and like the next day it’s like, so what do I do with that?

Eva Daniel (17:40)
Yeah.

Caleb Stevens (18:03)
I felt great in the moment listening to it, but what’s the takeaway? What’s the application? How do I implement whatever it is to help my company? ⁓ So do you see at times leaders maybe falling into one out of those three categories, but maybe not checking all the boxes there?

Eva Daniel (18:21)
Yeah, I think a lot of times, I mean, the biggest ones, I think, especially leaders is do what do you want? What do you want the audience to do with what they’ve heard? So I have a simple, I’ll just kind of describe it really quickly. I have a simple framework that I have my clients use in terms of how they structure their talk. It’s called Spark. It’s an acronym. So start with a story, set up the problem. What problem does your speech solve? Actions? What are your solutions to the problem?

and then resolve. What do you want the audience to resolve to do? Sometimes that’s baked within the action, but a clear call to action of what you want them to do with what they’ve heard. Now they might not choose to do it, but at least they know what that is. Or if you’re going to answer a Q &A, I always say don’t end on a Q &A because you don’t want to give the control of your ending over to a stranger with a mic. if you’re going to resolve questions, do that there as well. And then K is a knockout closing, a memorable closing.

But that biggest, do, what do you want your audience to do with what they’ve heard is one of the biggest. And sometimes what you just want them to do is to be re-inspired by the work and the purpose and why we’re all here. But just being really clear, what’s in it for them? Why should they care? What are they going to do with this? I can’t tell you how many team meetings I’ve left in my career where maybe the presentation was good, maybe it was bad, maybe it fell somewhere in between.

But regardless if it was great or bad, I had no idea what to do with what I’d heard. And so really just punching that and being clear what you want your audience to do with what they’ve heard is important.

Caleb Stevens (19:53)
Well, we actually booked one of your clients at one of our conferences, the Elevate Banking Forum. booked Kevin Scott a little over a year and a half ago.

Eva Daniel (19:59)
that’s so great. Kevin is

amazing. ⁓ You should have him on your podcast. He’s a great speaker. Okay. I’ll see it now. Sorry, Kevin. I haven’t heard them, but I’ll listen to them at post call.

Caleb Stevens (20:05)
We’ve had him on, think, at least twice. Yeah, he’s fantastic. Yeah. He’s

great. And it’s interesting you talk about the Q &A. So he had Q &A towards the end, but not at the very end. Then he ended with a story. And when he did that, I remember sitting in the audience thinking, this is really weird that he’s stopping mid-speech, in mid-speech for Q &A. But it’s not weird because it was bad. It’s just…

I’ve never really seen a speaker do that before, but it made so much more sense when you put it in that context of don’t outsource the ending.

Eva Daniel (20:37)
When I tell all,

I was gonna say, I tell all of my speakers do that because I mean, and I’m sure anyone listening has experienced this where you hear a dynamic speaker and then the Q &A is just kind of like, sometimes Q &A is amazing. Sometimes it’s not. And as a speaker, you always want to own your ending because you have no control over the last question asker. Let’s say though you are in a situation where like it really is the expected that you are ending on Q &A. It’s not necessarily.

it doesn’t feel like it’s as much of a choice. You can still own your ending by framing the last question you with somebody had asked. So you’ve been taking questions and then you say, you know, in closing, people often ask me during these Q &A is blah, blah, blah. So you set yourself up and then you still come back with a strong close that you’ve kind of pre-planned because again, you always wanna own your ending and own your beginning.

Caleb Stevens (21:17)
Yeah.

Yeah, well, that’s really good. And then in preparation for this discussion, I made my own list of what I’ll just, just, the heading is bad speaking, like where I kind of see speeches go wrong. I’d love for you maybe just to riff on a few of these. Let me read the whole list and then if there’s anything to stand out to you. One is that they just read their slides. I see that all the time. And these are high level executives and this is often internal stuff. So maybe they’re just not thinking that it’s necessary to be a little more polished and prep because it’s not an external audience, but

Eva Daniel (21:39)
you

Okay, I can’t wait. This is fun.

Caleb Stevens (21:58)
reading their slides, no stories or illustrations, you’re not bringing to life your content. ⁓ They just sort of look like they don’t want to be there, maybe because they’re nervous or just because they, you know, they feel like it’s a chore. ⁓ There’s no persuasion, you know, like, that’s one thing to tell me information, but how do you make me care? How do you really persuade, persuade me in a compelling way? Lots of uhs and pauses,

Eva Daniel (22:18)
Mm-hmm.

Caleb Stevens (22:25)
subconsciously even. It’s just filler, filler, ⁓ A week ending, you know, it’s like, okay, well, thanks for having me. And it’s just sort of like we end on a dud. ⁓ Or even trying too hard to not mess up. You can almost feel like it’s, they’re trying too hard maybe. Or ⁓ almost like they’re so nervous that they don’t want to make a mistake that they can’t just kind of let loose. yeah.

Eva Daniel (22:48)
It’s almost like they’re

over prepared and read even if they’re not reading.

Caleb Stevens (22:53)
Yeah, I guess the, you know, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, the golden rule. I kind of think about that in terms of speaking. Provide a speech unto others as you would like to hear, a speech that you would enjoy and find compelling and persuasive. And how do you put yourself, to your point earlier, put yourself in the audience’s shoes and how do you serve the audience? I don’t know, any of my amateur bad speaking tips you want to riff on there?

Eva Daniel (23:17)
Oh, I mean, you had so many good ones. And then I guess I’d kind of loop it within the no stories. Another one that’s a pet peeve of mine is no humor, no humor. know, life, I mean, in any given day, if you reflect on any given day, I mean, sometimes we have just truly horrible days that there was really no joy in them. But most of our life and most of our days, you know, it’s kind of a blend of good moments and bad moments. A lot of speakers, a lot of times we just all take ourselves way too seriously. One of the…

Caleb Stevens (23:27)
Hmm.

Eva Daniel (23:45)
best books I have read in the last few years is Humor Seriously. Have you read this one? So it was written by a couple Princeton professors and it’s all about humor in the workplace. Why do we use humor? Why do we not use humor? How do we use humor within our own style? What’s your humor style? It’s a great book. It’s not on public speaking. It’s just on humor. But a big one, yeah, new stories like there’s or their stories are just so serious or their whole presentation is serious. And humor is not jokes. I mean, some of the worst public

Caleb Stevens (23:50)
I am not, no.

Eva Daniel (24:15)
Truly like the worst public speaking advice of all time is like, think of your audience as naked and start with the joke. No, do not do any of those things ever. They’re not helpful. But humor and having levity. So I always like to think of humor as lightness. It’s not necessarily jokes. Unless you’re a comedian, we’re not trying to get tears streaming down our audience’s face. But levity, lightness. And a lot of times it’s just self-awareness as a speaker.

If you’re speaking and like one time, I still remember this because I was hearing a speaker and he was in the middle of speaking and it was in one of these buildings where there’s a lot of construction going on in the building next door, you big cranes picking up steel beams. I mean, it was loud and distracting. These these big windows. And so he paused in the middle and he goes, well, if only my three year old son were here to see that he would be living his best life. And then he went on. But it was this awareness and everybody laughed. was awareness of the speaker that he was in the room with us.

I’ve been in other rooms, you know, where the carpet is so wild in the hotel. mean, I think we’ve all been in that hotel where it’s like, you’re like, what were they thinking of this carpet? Where it’s like, gosh, that was such a great opportunity for the speaker to just make an acknowledgement of saying something like, wow, this carpet reminds me of my grandma’s house. You know, some level, but just the self awareness of being in the moment and having fun with your content. I mean, you were mentioning that a second ago of just kind of like almost trying too hard, getting so intense. But I want you to enjoy.

Caleb Stevens (25:27)
Yeah.

Eva Daniel (25:39)
being out there, even if you don’t necessarily enjoy speaking, you don’t have to love it, but like work to make it where it’s, especially if it’s a part of your job where it’s a little bit more enjoyable. You mentioned the reading the slides. I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve worked with that create their slide deck first. And I think, no, you aren’t even clear on what your content is. How do you even know that needs to be a slide? Once something’s a slide, it’s like this mental thing that we need to spend extra time there or talk about it longer.

cluttered slides having way too much content where they’re not clear and legible from the back or the font or the color. I am a big fan of clean, crisp slides that aren’t too data heavy, aren’t too number heavy because it’s hard for your audience to process. And then you touched on the filler words. Filler words can be very distracting. So can filler gestures. I had a client who would wear three quarter length blazers.

And it’s just this constant pulling, pulling at her blazer at the elbows, pulling, pulling, pulling. All of those little things can be really distracting to your audience. ⁓ So I definitely agree. I like your list. I think that’s quite a good list. I would just add those other couple ones in there as well.

Caleb Stevens (26:52)
I may add one more and I’d love to get your philosophy on this because I hear varying perspectives and I think if done well it’s not a requirement but for me personally I kind of like an outline 1 2 3 or 1 2 3 4 like a clear sort of overarching roadmap. What’s your take on speakers having key points not having key points should you tee them all up on the front end and then go through them or should you unveil them one by one should you have none what’s your take on that.

Eva Daniel (27:20)
⁓ I can’t believe I didn’t think this in my list because you should always give near the top a preview to your talk. This is one of those great pieces of advice from, you know, the high school speech class. Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them. I frame it that in every single audience is Susan from accounting and Susan from accounting likes life to flow in a logical linear way. She likes A to happen, then B happened to C happened.

Caleb Stevens (27:34)
Right.

Eva Daniel (27:47)
She doesn’t love surprises. She likes to know where we’re going. Wild night for Susan is going to her favorite restaurant, we’re ordering something new. And I’m a big idea person. I love big ideas. I can go with a journey on you, but in every single audience is Susan from accounting. And some people think more logically, more linear. So it is kind to near the top say, hey, today I’m going to talk about the three things that we need to do. Today I’m going to talk about the problem facing our industry and our five step plan to solve it. And then.

go through the order that you said you’re going to go through. how much, you know, there’s a lot of nuances in terms of, you know, do you preview all of them and then go one by one? you, you know, that sometimes often gets down to how much time you have to speak, what the environment is, you know, do you unpack them one by one at the beginning and then recap? That is kind of a little bit nuanced based on where you’re speaking, how you’re speaking, what the topic is. But you absolutely definitely want to give your audience a roadmap of where you’re going. And then

You want to stick to that roadmap and stay on target with it.

Caleb Stevens (28:50)
Well, that’s even helpful at the level of just running a meeting with several people on it. A habit that I’ve tried to build into my own work life past year or two is at the start of a meeting, especially if there’s a lot of folks on it, say, and if I’m leading it. The goal of this meeting is yada, yada, yada. That way everybody knows what we’re trying to accomplish on this meeting in this timeframe, and I’m not here to waste your time, so let’s jump into it.

We’ve all been on meetings where we’re kind of like, this could have been an email. Why are we here? We’re rambling. We’re getting nothing done. So it sounds like there’s even applicability below there.

Eva Daniel (29:23)
Yes, framing, framing,

exactly doing that framing and the meeting of you even if it’s a zoom meeting and just a little framing, hey, today, we’re going to talk about the problem, the solution, what we’re gonna do about it. Or today, we’re gonna look at the Q3 reports. It’s not good news, but I have some ideas of what we’re gonna do. I want you to be thinking of yours. Just a little bit of that framing ahead of time can really make a difference. Because again, that’s what that way people know where they’re going. It’s also true for one on ones. If you’re doing a one on one with one of your, you know,

team members of having some level of structure instead of just showing up and like, well, we’re going to talk, you know, having a level of, okay, we’re going to talk about the latest when you’ve had a challenger facing and, and what you’re going to be working on next or whatever, you know, you can frame it any way that’s applicable to you and your unique team, but having a little bit of that framing, giving a little preview of where your content is going. It’s, it keeps you on track as a speaker and actually really can help you eliminate a lot of those filler words, those filler phrases, as well as

giving that grace to your audience to let them know where we’re going as well.

Caleb Stevens (30:24)
Yeah. And I would think too, creating the art of creating a keynote, especially in conjunction with a coach like yourself, that’s got to be so clarifying just from a thinking standpoint. And as you create a keynote, you may realize, wow, I haven’t even distilled my own thoughts on this material yet. Kind like what you were saying, if you jump straight to just dumping a lot of information on a slide deck, you’re not really doing the hard work of filtering down what’s the essential components of this.

Eva Daniel (30:50)
Well, and I spent a lot of time with my clients about developing their signature framework. If you think of any, I mean, you already mentioned, you you mentioned Donald Miller, who’s of course famous for his story brand materials. And you mentioned John Maxwell, 21 laws of leadership. I mentioned I work with Dave Ramsey. He has these seven baby steps. Every single one of us as a professional, we can come up with our unique thought leadership, too. A lot of times what happens when I first start working with a client is

they’ll bring a speech to me that’s just very generic. I I could give the talking points to a more dynamic communicator and they could give it, and that’s a really bad sign because that means they weren’t bringing enough of them to the speech. But figuring out what is my unique system, what is my unique framework towards this, whether it’s just, you even mentioned beforehand that you’re working on a new speech about the five Cs of, is it five Cs of leadership, self leadership?

Caleb Stevens (31:41)
I’m still working out of my mind, but yes, I would like to have a signature keynote on a leadership topic,

Eva Daniel (31:46)
See,

so even but you were saying the five C’s even that is stickier than just being like, well, there’s some ideas I have on leadership. it’s the five C’s I want to lean in and have more. So I mean, it can be steps, it can be a flywheel, it can be linear, it can be grid. The idea here is bringing, know, doing doing the work to figure out like, you are a thought leader. So what is your unique way of doing it? One kind of exercise to have my clients get going that anybody listening can do as well. I call it the hot takes exercise.

Caleb Stevens (31:52)
Mm-hmm. Memorable as portable.

Eva Daniel (32:14)
And so a hot take is just a strongly held opinion that you have about your field or industry. I’ve already shared dozens of mine today and you had some hot takes about my industry as well about the reading slides and no persuasion, all those things. Well, you can do this hot takes exercise with your specific job. So just think about your industry. When you think about your industry, what you do day in and day out in the banking world, what do you love? What do you hate? What drives you crazy? What are some of these strong opinions that you have? Are you a unicorn?

No, there’s going to be other people that think you do how you do. But if you compile 10 of these, you’re going to find like, wow, these are really kind of what makes me unique. So for example, as a speech coach, I’m really passionate. Never end your talk on a Q &A. And here’s why I have these other ones. Well, other speech coaches would agree with me on some of these, but I have yet to meet a speech coach that agrees with me on all of them. so in terms of plus it makes great social media content as well. But in terms of personal branding and thinking of yourself and your own personal brand,

thinking through what makes me unique, what are those opinions, what are those insights, brainstorm them out, figure out, okay, what do I think about this? And then this is one of those things where AI can be helpful is once you get, and I always say, do not outsource your thought leadership to AI, but once you do kind of get clarified around, I think these kind of 10 statements would be good, then that could be a moment to toss it into your favorite AI tool and say, hey, help me figure out a way to say these are really punchy.

Caleb Stevens (33:38)
Yeah.

Eva Daniel (33:38)
⁓

and start kind of being known for something. Because the most quotable people, whether, know, ask not what you can do, you know, what your country, I’m gonna mess it up, ⁓ JFK quotes, ⁓ you know, all of these famous quotes from history are people that have done the work to figure out what is a unique sticky way of saying this concept.

Caleb Stevens (33:47)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah,

in the marketing world we talk about like what’s our clear point of view? And a clear point of view should be not unnecessarily polarizing, ⁓ but you should expect some measure of pushback if you have a clear point of view because you want the people that see what you see to grab a hold of it and become clients of yours because they see what you see and they agree with that point of view.

And if it’s done well, there should be a little bit of an edge to it. Or maybe not everybody, maybe it’s not for everybody because you’re trying to reach somebody that truly is a fit for what you’re trying to accomplish. And so I see a lot of parallel there.

Eva Daniel (34:36)
Exactly. And obviously when you’re working, you know, you’re only going to get so like, you know, it’s not about being controversial for controversial sake. It’s more of just even if these are like not like outwardly posted anywhere in his speech, it’s also just clarify for you and yourselves like, hey, what makes me who I am in my industry?

Caleb Stevens (34:56)
Yeah, that’s really good. Well, Eva, as we wrap up, I’d love to talk just for a minute about your LinkedIn following. You’ve built a of following on LinkedIn. Yeah, well, it’s become more more ubiquitous in the business world. And I think bankers, you know, they’re always trying to find new ways to create value for the customers that they serve, whether it’s individuals or whether it’s other small businesses. And I think one of the best ways you can do that is create valuable content on LinkedIn.

Eva Daniel (35:03)
I can nerd out all day about LinkedIn. love it.

Caleb Stevens (35:23)
because that’s a great way to build trust and affinity, perhaps before you even ever meet somebody, like in the case of you and I. that’s right. But I already felt like I kind of knew you and knew what you were about and had gotten, had learned a lot from you just from following your content online. any advice to the bankers out there and how they could be strategic with LinkedIn?

Eva Daniel (35:30)
Yeah, we’ve never met in person, but here we are again.

Absolutely. Well, probably like many of your listeners, I had personally been on LinkedIn for 14 years. I had never posted. To me, LinkedIn was a place where resumes went to go and die, or that was a place you went when you were like posting about a job or looking for a job. And so I personally started posting a little over four years ago. And again, I looked over one day and went, wait, when did LinkedIn become this? Like, when did it become this content generating platform? Because my perceptions of how LinkedIn was,

was how it was for a really long time. But I personally have seen just incredible, tremendous growth. I mean, I can honestly say it gave me the confidence to quit my job, start my own business, grow my business. I believe that LinkedIn is one of the best ways to honestly get your thoughts out there professionally, increase your company, your brand, your personal brand, your company brand.

A few, you know, a few quick linked in tips that I always say is, is keeping in mind like who you’re writing for are not really the other people in your field for like, you’re not really, I mean, like for as a speech coach, I don’t run my content to other speech coaches. I’m writing it to aspiring speakers. So kind of being clear of who the voice is to who you’re writing to. And so, you know, kind of figuring out like, okay, am I writing to my ideal customer? Am I writing to, but you’re

probably not writing to your peers as much. But just kind of being a little bit clear on that. When I first started posting on LinkedIn, I actually really liked it because they made you pick five hashtags, and these were like the five things you wrote about. It used to be at the top of your profile. They went away with it a few years ago. But I do think it can be really helpful to think through. I overall write about one thing a thousand different ways. I write about public speaking, and then I’ll scatter in some personal, starting my business, some kid life, some personal posts here or there.

Caleb Stevens (37:21)
Okay.

Eva Daniel (37:37)
But really just making the choice to say, you know what? I’m going to just start posting once a week just my thoughts on my industry, something I’ve been reading. You’re going to a conference, post about it. You read an interesting article, post about it. You had one of those hot takes you came up with, post about it. But just pick something small and realistic of going, I’m going to just post once a week on Monday mornings. There’s a lot of nuances and rules if you want to grow and all the things. But truly, it is one of the best

best ways to grow your professional career and meet amazing people. When I first started posting, I had no idea the friends I would make from the platform, like true friends that I hang out in real life with. Pretty early on, I thought I was getting into LinkedIn. I’d started post, I was kind of getting some traction and I thought I’m gonna do a LinkedIn happy hour meetup for people in Nashville. Anybody’s welcome, it’s not.

like this exclusive, it was just like, OK, let’s do this. And so six of us met up. And then we kept it going for over two years. Schedules changed, and so we don’t do it as consistently now. But just setting up something. Take LinkedIn to real life. The point of social media is to be social. And so the point of posting, the point of networking, the point of is to have that translate over to your real life. So if you’re connecting with people, have coffee with somebody. Meet up with a few people. Grab lunch.

And again, I love it. ⁓ I think it’s such an incredible, it’s been such an incredible platform for me, again, not to just grow a business, but to grow a community of incredible people.

Caleb Stevens (39:14)
Yeah, it does feel like it’s gone from a resume platform to a resource platform in a way. It used to kind of be where you went to get a job, know, you know, network with people from ⁓ a job hunting standpoint, but it does feel now like I go on there just to learn because there’s so many people that I follow that I enjoy hearing from.

Eva Daniel (39:30)
Well, I love

it because unlike other social media platforms, it still has a professional bent. Yes, people post selfies and there’s things like that going on there too. But I learn so much professionally by the content that people share.

Caleb Stevens (39:49)
Yeah, definitely not as much ⁓ political screaming or any of that. Yeah, the stuff you might encounter on other platforms for sure. it’s nice and there’s still a ⁓ fairly professional space out there. ⁓ Eva, this has been great. If folks want to get in touch with you, if they have a keynote of their own or they’re thinking about creating a keynote of their own or maybe they’re just trying to polish up their presentation skills if they’re in the sales world, how can they find you?

Eva Daniel (39:53)
Thanks. LinkedIn is a great place since we’ve been talking about it. can find me Eva Rose Daniel on LinkedIn. also have my website, thespeakshop.com, has more about me and how I work with clients. I also have a ⁓ Speak School, which is a membership site, and I do different cohorts and things throughout the year as well if you want kind of a more group experience. And then I do a lot of one-on-one work with clients as well.

Caleb Stevens (40:37)
Fantastic. Well, thank you for helping elevate the world of leadership with better communication and better speeches, and we appreciate you coming on today.

Eva Daniel (40:44)
Great, thank you so much, Caleb. This has been fun.