Search
What Clients Say
“There’s one thing I regret about working with Veronica – not having met her sooner! She had a clear perspective on the challenges I was facing and was quick to offer me the latest tools for my projects.”
— Niki A., Executive Coach
Create Leads with Public Speaking
in Business TipsSCALING:lab Blog
A resource for business owners & entrepreneurs who want to reclaim their time.
Become a SCALING:lab Member and receive the articles + case studies a week before they’re live to the public..
*** Articles are first published to SCALING:lab — sign up to get the first look. ***
What happens when you get on stage? Do your knees knock? Your stomach knot? Do you begin to sweat?
Let’s change the perspective.
What happens when you talk about something you really care about? Maybe your heart races a bit. You smile. You’re engaged with those listening. You gesticulate passionately and modulate your energy according to the emotion you are hoping to evoke.
This seemingly small difference can make massive waves for your business. We are entrepreneurs because we believe in something — it excites us, gets us out of bed in the morning, keeps us going even when building a business seems exhausting.
It was this change in perspective that finally made me comfortable on stage. I used to be in the first group — I couldn’t understand why one would ever put themselves in front of an audience and hope to not fail. I expected to fall flat on my face and look the idiot.
Until I spoke on topics that mattered to me.
Then emerged a woman whom one had to give a time limit. I could talk for hours about anthropology, socioeconomics, and business scaling. I get excited about the potential for business to unlock new wealth for minority groups, and am frustrated when ‘tech bros’ try to gatekeep scaling for startups and pigeonhole it for marketing.
The key to a compelling speech, workshop, or interview that creates leads for your business is in your passion.
The key to a compelling speech, workshop, or interview that creates leads for your business is in your passion. Click To Tweet
Let’s toy with this concept a bit. What is something you’re passionate enough about to throw a party around? For me, it’s any World Cup game that Croatia is competing in. I’ll get out the projector and invite anyone I know, whether or not they’re Croatian, to my home to help cheer the team and celebrate the win (because, seriously, those guys rarely lose).
This is the exact concept I use with my clients to teach them to sell. We change the language from selling to making an invitation.
Think of your business as a party you wish to throw centered around your passion. For most of us, this is not hard to do. Our businesses already are centered around our passion. Easy.
Now, how will you make the invitation? That one simple change shifts my clients away from anxiety and into excitement. I hope it also does that for you.
Yes, getting on stage can 10x and even 100x your efforts to generate leads. It’s a fantastic one-to-many model. But you also must master the craft of inviting people who are as excited as you about your passion to join the party.
This is where I see a lot of speakers flop. They get caught up in the message and forget to make the invitation, then call me when they have an empty party (ie. business). The next time you are stepping on stage or into an interview, I want you to first consider the invitation you’ll make. It will make all the difference.
By the way, May’s workshop inside SCALING:lab is all about pitching, polishing, and presenting a speech or workshop about your business (and how to nail the invitation). If you need support getting started with a speaking career, this workshop is for you! Join us here.
What Clients Say
"There's one thing I regret about working with Veronica - not having met her sooner! She had a clear perspective on the challenges I was facing and was quick to offer me the latest tools for my projects."— Niki A., Executive Coach
True Power Lies in Humility
in PersonalSCALING:lab Blog
A resource for business owners & entrepreneurs who want to reclaim their time.
Become a SCALING:lab Member and receive the articles + case studies a week before they’re live to the public..
*** Articles are first published to SCALING:lab — sign up to get the first look. ***
I am visiting my favorite place in the world, my ancestral home country, Croatia. I believe this place to be my place of power. I feel my best here. I feel whole here. Like my very genetics belong here. Technically, they do.
Yet, nine months ago, this place rendered me so ill and afraid that I lost all confidence. After speaking at a startup conference in Split, I decided to take a writer’s retreat on the island of Brač. Four days, all alone, isolated in the middle of the sea. Little did I know that I had contracted COVID while at the conference.
I was frightfully ill on an island alone, two hours’ travel by both bus and ferry from medical help. I ran out of ibuprofen on the first day of the illness, and had no one to make the trek to the single drug store was down a mountain and across the bay. I self isolated without any medicine or method for taking my temperature, no way to measure the fever chills or know if I was in the danger zone. I just knew that I was very very ill. My writer’s retreat had turned to nightmare.
It confused me. Frightened me. Had my place of power turned against me? Was my instinct completely off? My fever broke after five days, and five days later I dragged my still weak body to the airport and flew back to Berlin. For a while, I didn’t want to ever return to Croatia. A sour taste was left in my mind when I thought of the place of my ancestors. I mourned for what I thought of as home. I was heartbroken.
Now visiting again, I am faced with the experience and wonder about the meaning of power at its core. If this is the place of power for me, then could that power also mean that this is the place that presses me to evolve? I didn’t know it then, but that scary week on that beautiful island in the middle of the sea, without help or resources, turned out to be the catalyst for a chain reaction that showed my then existence in stark contrast against my dreams. I began noticing my own limiting beliefs and the ways I was holding myself back. I need new resources, new plans, and to regenerate who I was in order to match who I wanted to be.
Evolution is hard. It means letting go of old identities and what once felt safe. Braving that transformation takes power and bravery. Maybe a place of power is a place of alignment and reflection, like a magnet beneath carbon shavings, pulling them inward to make a more sustainable shape. Maybe this place taps into what I have within, and when it doesn’t match what is without, it pushes and pries, amplifies and grows those new, uncomfortable parts.
Evolution is hard. It means letting go of old identities and what once felt safe. Click To Tweet
True power is about humility. Power does not lord energy over others, but taps into one’s true energy with raw humility. Reviewing one’s life, reviewing one’s dreams, and truly recognizing where the path has diverged. True power comes when one is willing to tear down old walls in order to find something new, no matter how frightening that may seem.
If, when you look in the mirror, you don’t feel powerful, then being in your place of power will ultimately shove you off the cliff of whatever is keeping you powerless. For some their place of power is meditation. For others it’s the yoga mat. Still others, like me, it is a place. Ultimately, one must be open and ready for what might seem like catastrophe when old beliefs fall away in order to accept the call to become something more. Yes, true power lies in humility. Croatia is simply my mirror. What’s yours?
What Clients Say
"There's one thing I regret about working with Veronica - not having met her sooner! She had a clear perspective on the challenges I was facing and was quick to offer me the latest tools for my projects."— Niki A., Executive Coach
My Former Company Passes the Decade Mark
in PersonalSCALING:lab Blog
A resource for business owners & entrepreneurs who want to reclaim their time.
Become a SCALING:lab Member and receive the articles + case studies a week before they’re live to the public..
*** Articles are first published to SCALING:lab — sign up to get the first look. ***
One morning, a decade ago, I got the call that I had been laid off. While the event wasn’t much of a surprise, the timing was. December 3, 2012. Right before Christmas. The company I worked for had been bought out and things weren’t going well. I suppose they wanted a clean slate for the new year.
I sat in my living room staring at my computer, letting the reality sink in. I was no longer employed. That was scary, but it was also a bit exciting. I’d been playing around on WordPress, building websites for friends and colleagues, just to see if I could do it. If I liked it. And, really, just in case.
My partner sat by me, silent, letting me process. Finally, I turned to him and said, “Well, I guess I’m a full-time web designer, now.”
That was the birth of GreenCup Digital.
The company went through many iterations over its lifetime. At first, it was just me. Then, after a dark night of the soul and severe burnout, I learned to scale and adopted a team, some of whom are still with the company today. Five years into its life, I realized I was ready to move on. I found an incredible fellow woman in tech to take over, and it is to her credit that GreenCup is thriving today. Yes, I laid the foundation, but it took an artist to take what I’d developed and 10x it. And that’s just what Joanna has done.
Congratulations to the amazing team at GreenCup. I’m wildly impressed and proud of all of you.
What Clients Say
"There's one thing I regret about working with Veronica - not having met her sooner! She had a clear perspective on the challenges I was facing and was quick to offer me the latest tools for my projects."— Niki A., Executive Coach