033 Lessons Learned From Places You Are Not Supposed To Be
Learn how to make the most out of any event or training, even when it’s not the right fit for you.
Topics Discussed This Episode:
0:00-4:00 Introduction and the importance of attending events and trainings, even when they may not seem like the perfect fit.
4:00-8:00 Story about attending an Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) event and realizing it was pitched to a larger audience.
8:00-12:00 Tips on how to pivot your thinking during an event and observe the speaker's style, the room setup, and audience engagement.
12:00-16:00 How to take valuable notes, reflect on them later, and continuously improve your business from lessons learned at events.
This episode emphasizes the idea that even when attending a training or event that doesn’t match your expectations, there’s always something valuable to gain. The host shares her experience attending an EOS event aimed at larger companies and how, despite the mismatch, she was able to apply insights into her own business. By being open-minded and shifting her focus, she identified ways to improve her presentations, interactions with clients, and event management techniques.
Listeners are encouraged to adopt a similar mindset when attending events—whether virtual or in-person. Rather than dismissing an event that doesn’t meet initial expectations, the podcast advocates for observing the presenter’s methods, the audience's reactions, and the overall atmosphere to glean valuable lessons. By consistently reflecting on notes after events and incorporating small learnings into their business, listeners can ensure they’re always progressing. The call to action is to review notes from past events and see how they can be used to improve different aspects of their business, from marketing to client engagement.
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0:06
Lessons learned from places you're not supposed to be. Stay tuned for this episode of the video coach, video confidence coach cast, where we're going to discuss how to get the best out of events or trainings that you are attending that may not have be the right fit, and you find that out when you're actually in the event. So as you can probably imagine, today's story is going to so the story that I'm going to discuss is for an event that I attended this week, and I will give you a couple of pointers that I use for a couple of events that I go to. The first thing that I want to stretch out to for a lot of business owners, is if you are taking the time to attend trainings, to develop your knowledge, to complete and to consistently evolve your knowledge in the areas of business or in the areas of work that you do, I commend you. You are taking the time and energy to grow yourself and your business, and you are taking that time to do so. So I commend you for doing so I'm going to tell you that now, because there are so many business owners that I come across where and this is usually a default response of, I am too busy. I am too busy. I am too busy when, if they took the time to, you know, go into maybe an even a half hour training of, hey, here's how to organize your calendar so you actually have time to breathe and not burning yourself out. That would be a good investment of your time. You can then action that into your business, and you're no longer, oh, I'm always busy. I'm always busy. I'm always busy because you, you're actually taking that time to regenerate and replenish yourself. And I'm not talking purely on people who provide services for their work. This is also people who provide products as well. I have a couple of clients who are artists and who sell, who do both products and services. So they, for example, they would sell their art and versions of their art. When I say versions, I'm talking, you know, prints as well as jewelry, as well as Canvas and other other aspects of their art on things. And then there's also services. So say, for example, they may provide workshops, or they might provide tutorials or online courses. You know those type of service, type of work, for example, like that is a very broad generalization there. But what I mean by bringing this up to you is that you can always be busy, sure, but when that comes the detriment of your own business and as your or as your own self, it comes into the detriment of you and the way that you work, then that's not a great sign for you, and it's a bit of a stress that things are too overwhelming for you. So say, for example, you may be making the most money that you ever have in your life, but you're not following up your leads. You're not actually fulfilling the best. You're not giving the best that you can to serve the clients that you already have, and people are feeling cheapened by the experience, and they're not going to come back to you, and you're going to have to work even harder to get the new people, because word will get out, and then just a developing cycle, and all you can see like that. Now, of course, I am not a business coach. I am a marketing coach. Comes with the territory of video confidence coach. And I am saying this to you as one business owner to another, as opposed to someone who's recommending that you take on my coaching. Because there one thing that I do find very interesting when talking to business people or seasoned business people, is that they have a tendency of thinking that marketing is a separate side to your business, that you as the leader in your business, you as the founder of your business, don't need to think about marketing. Now I'm not just saying this because I am a marketing coach, but I'm going to say this now that marketing is a very fundamental part of your business. Any activity that you are doing that is promoting the work that you are doing to people outside of your direct contacts, as in, like your leads. Is marketing. If you are attending networking events, you are marketing. If you are dropping in flyers you know in local neighborhoods that you work in, you are marketing. All of these activities fall under marketing because you are telling people what you do. You are providing the solution to their problem, your marketing, and, of course, other aspects of your business, like operations, finance, your staff, if you have any, are very all important pieces of the pie. But when it comes to focus and attention, marketing usually has a tendency of being put on a very, very low run when, for example, things get busy, and then you have a tendency of just dropping the focus from marketing, when, instead of it being a consistent machine that runs in, that runs in the background, of course, this takes time to set up, but once that starts going in the background, you can regularly and consistently not have to worry about more. Marketing yourself to a ridiculous degree because, oh no, I've run out of clients. I've run out of money. Oh crap, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start losing money now. Okay, okay, I need to start marketing now. That is hopefully not what you're doing, but if it's, if it's happening for you now, that is okay. That is fine. It's not something you want to see. It's not a feeling or situation you want to be in again regarding your business. So in that case, we're going to start changing that. And you can start changing that by going to training events, going to online courses, or even just online webinars from people that you may have met or maybe come across, either in your LinkedIn feeds or anything like that. And I highly recommend, if you are part of any chambers or any councils or any unions that you check out what offers that they have in regards to training events, maybe even free because you are a member, or other events that are at a severely lower cost because of that membership situation. I know for a fact that with my local chamber, the Geelong Chamber of Commerce I attend, I want to say, realistically, they run. Say, out of every five events I'm attending at least two to three, mainly because I want to get my most out of my membership, but I also want to take this as an opportunity to low and to grow and develop my skills and also network at the same time. That's also another positive when going to these types of events be in person or virtual. And you can also use this opportunity to, you know, learn more things about your local community that you can then use to better market yourself. Make changes in your business to maybe provide a service to a not forgotten part of your target audience, but maybe less thought about part of your community, and they definitely need your services. Boom, done. You found that out through attending a training course. So the story that I want to get through in today, and I'm probably dapped on a little bit too much already, haven't even got to the story yet. Zoe of today's podcast, I attended an Entrepreneurial Operating Systems event, which is a worldwide company, and they seem to run these regular events and also fireside chats with various people, important people throughout communities. And I attended event where the fireside chat was with Jeremy, the CEO of the chamber of the I attend. So I went to this event not knowing an entire not knowing a lot about EOS worldwide or whatever they're called Mr. Worldwide. People I attended it mainly in the headspace of, hey, there's a lot of people that are attending this event that I know that I want to connect with. I'm also in town where this event is taking place. I feel confident enough that I can go to this event and get something out of it. Let's attend. So I didn't even do that much research, to be honest, on EOS and the background. I just knew that it would be about leadership. And of course, when it comes to marketing and being an authority in a space, being an authority in the space, leadership comes intact. So I went anyway, and as I was sitting there, and I was networking with other people, and some people that I already knew, and arguably most people in the room I already knew. So I made sure to be aligned with people that I didn't know, and rekindle my connections with the people that I did know. When we sat down to speak, I was going through the booklet, and I was listening to the speaker, Chris, who did a great job. Hats off. It was very clear that this event was very much pitched at people who had minimum 20 staff or running very large companies, and this event was aimed at the Leadership Team of those companies.
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That is not me. So when that kind of, when that Penny kind of dropped for me, I thought, Oh, crap, I'm going to be here for an hour and a half and I'm not going to learn anything. Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger. Like, I, you know, fought a windstorm to get here. Oh, I've networked, which is great. But like, there's a networking like, you know, there's the 10 minutes of networking before an event and after event. 20 like 20 minutes worth of networking is not going to be worth sitting down and having all these really big words being shoved at me. And even though I have never been in a leadership position of a very large company, I have been in leadership positions throughout my life, and it was nice to actually feel it was actually nice to sit through this presentation and have Chris actually break things down to a very reasonable level where the knowledge and stuff that, even though there was a fair bit of rhetoric and fair bit of knowledge based stuff that I already knew, to be honest, it was nice a good reminder to be able to utilize that. In my marketing, but also to utilize that in my own business operations. Because when I do work with my personal assistants, I need to be able to convey things to them. So to have an idea of like, okay, what exactly do I expect of them to be able to write that down some really basic things like that. And this got me thing. This event got me thinking about how I seem to have me personally, I seem to have a very interesting knack of being able to get anything out of any event I attend. Because when I've spoken to other small business owners, their mentality is a little bit on the blinker side, when you know, when you have a horse and they have the blinkers these things on the side of their eyes to be able to allow them to focus on what's in front of them. A lot of business owners when attending the event or attending events or going to trainings, and if they don't immediately get what they sought when they came to the event, for if they don't immediately get what they want out of it, they immediately disregard the entire event or training for example, and I'm going to tell you now that's a bit of a worry, because when people are standing at the front of these events or providing these virtual trainings, I'm going to tell you now that it takes a lot of balls, it takes a lot of chutzpah to be able to stand in Front and present something to a group of people, especially a group of strangers. You may not know this and say, for example, they may have done the same presentation 50 times over, but every time they present something new, it is unique for them, and it takes a lot to be able to stand there in front and present something to you. So when you're there, learning, giving them the courtesy of providing eye contact, writing down notes or not just staring at your phone like typing notes. I know for a fact that I like to type notes on my phone because I consistently I'm able to recall notes that I type in my phone better than I do when I type it down. And to do so, my apologies for those watching. My hair is giving up a little bit today. Back on track. Zoe providing that respect to the person who's presenting. And say, for example, you may not agree with everything that the presenter is saying. I know that I came across that a little bit this week, but that is also okay. You're allowed to have your opinions, but providing some respect, especially to an event that you have attended, that you have agreed to attend to, you know, you've signed the I you know, you gotta bought a ticket to the event, or you signed up for a ticket for the event. You know, provide the courtesy of, you know, giving respect to the presenter. But as I was sitting in their event. And as I was mentioning and retort retorted, retorting to myself in my head about how I'm able to get something out of each event I attend, I was eagerly listening and watching the presentation as it unfolded, and being able to actively see something within the presentation, within the room, within the presenter, within the stance, within the energy that's created in the room, and then write that down for my own events, for my own future events. And you may not be the type of person who's going to run workshops or who's going to run trainings of any kind, there's a good chance you will be, because once you get to a level of authority in your space, you want to be able to teach other people to do the same. But if that may not be the space where you're heading right now in your business, you may just be working on your service and your product, to be able to watch someone do their thing, to be able to present and learn from them, and even if it is to learn not what to do from them, write that down, review it later on, and action it in your own business is going to be way more impactful than just sitting there as if you're back in primary school at the back of the class, zonked out of your mind because you're absolutely bored. Hopefully, as a business owner, you are an adult, and you are there to learn, to grow, to adapt your business. And there's been plenty of times where I've attended events and it has not been what's on the tin. It hasn't been what was described to me or what was pitched to me. I attend the event, and it's like, Ah, great. I'm glad I wasted that time, but I then look at my notes and realize that I've taken the opportunity to do these they do these things. So say, for example, if you're attending event now, I want to stress the event that I attended this week with Entrepreneurial Operating Systems was a great event, like I learned a lot, and I'm even pitching that into my own business. I'm working with my peers at pas at the moment, like I'm already impacting a lot of these things that I learned from the event, even though it was very much pitched at companies with 20 people. I digress. So not saying this about the EOS event, I'm saying this about events where you attend and say, for example, my rule of thumb is, if I'm halfway through an event and I haven't written a note or I haven't written anything down, then that is a huge red flag. That is no no. No, no, no. And if you're in a virtual event, or if you're in a of, say, for example, you're on Zoom, or you're on teams or something like that, and you have the option to leave if it gets to the halfway point and you haven't taken any notes, say goodbye, make an excuse if you feel like you need to, and leave. That is, to be honest, that is what I do in my events, or events that I attend. And say, for example, if you're attending one of my events, either a virtual workshop or an in person workshop, and if you're halfway through and you haven't gotten anything out of it, put your hand up. Let me know. Say, Zoe, I haven't gotten anything out of this. You know, answer the question about that. I do my best as a presenter to make sure that everyone walks away with at least one simple action to do next to help grow their marketing and their business. But it's also okay if that's not sitting with you, and if that's not working for you, that is okay. I would love for you to have the confidence and hopefully know me well enough through my marketing efforts to be able to say, hey, Zoe, I, you know, I'm not getting what I need out of this. Here is a question for you that I would like an answer to. And I would, you know, I'm going to respect you for asking that question, and I'm going to answer you because you took that time and that confidence to be able to reach out and say, Hey, I'm not getting what I need out of this answer this particular question. Because I know for a fact from running events, honestly for the past, what are we up to now? I've been running events for at least 13 years at this point, that if it's halfway through and no one and someone is not getting what they need out of it, then I've done I've done a disservice. I've done the wrong thing. And to be able to hear that and be able to see that and have knowledge from that is going to be more invaluable to everyone in the room, as well as myself as the presenter. I digress. So back on track. Zoe, I have my notes in front of me, and I continue to ignore them because, of course we do. Zoe, but if you're in an event and say, for example, you can't leave because maybe you're in an in person event, and it would be rude for you to leave and or maybe you're there to maybe support someone, or maybe you're there to support a fellow business owner that you said, Yeah, I'll attend your event, or, you know, I'll attend your training. Or you know you're there to support someone again, you don't want to leave, you don't want to be mean. So what can you do? Well, you can pivot your thinking and think about these, follow these following topics that may help you alleviate that sense of dread when attending an event. So what you can do is, instead of thinking about the topic of the event, so say, for example, it may be something that you're not completely interested in yourself, or it may be something that maybe they're talking about, 101 and you're on, like, 305 like, there's a bit of a disconnect on the knowledge that they're teaching that is okay. What you can do is look at the presence of the speaker, see how they move, see how they act, see how they talk. Is there anything that you can pick up of what they're doing that you can then implement into your own marketing, into your own trainings, into your own work that you're doing, how you present yourself at a networking event, how you present yourself in your day to day life, how you present yourself to clients and to potential customers. What can you take from them? That is from what you can see from other people in the room that is holding their attention. For example, you can also take notes from the presentation. Is there something about the presentation, the style, the colorings, the way that things are laid out, that is really holding someone else's attention in the room? Okay? Write that down. Write what notes, if there's something useful on the presentation, to say, for example, I learnt from a workshop, I
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want to say, about 10 to 12 years ago, honestly, that I was watching a presentation which had these little color codes in the bottom right hand side of the presentation slides that determined, hey, you know, we're going to go through these next five sections. These all have different colors. You'll be able to tell what section we're up to by the color that's on the bottom of the screen and the little circles to the bottom right hand side. And I took that note, wrote it down, and then action did in all my future presentations. So again, if you've ever attended an event by me, usually a online presentation, because in person, I usually like to do away with the presentation slides. If that is a possibility. Again, you can see those colors. I've made it my own. I've jiggy with it over the past 10 years, over top, over the past 12 to 10 years, as you could probably imagine. But I use this on every presentation that I make, because it works. It keeps people engaged, and people don't need to ask, Oh, where are we up to? Zoe, oh, I can, you know, I'm losing interest in whatever we're talking about. Okay, I can see that, you know, the color has changed at the bottom of the screen. We're immediately moving on to the next presentation, or the next stage of the presentation. Cool, awesome. I can hold on to this. Zoe, i. While you're also there, look at the room presence. Are you seeing a lot of people on their phones? Are you seeing a lot of people like actively looking at the speaker and engaging? How are they holding themselves? Are they like looking at the speaker and then looking off to the side? Are they, you know, sniggering in the back? Was a little bit of that on Wednesday, which was interesting. You know, two fully grown men sniggering at the back, you know, Jinky, you know, elbowing each other, which is very interesting to see, to be honest. Um, again, what, uh, what can you get from the people in the room? And then, what about the room itself? If you're in an in person event, what can you see around the room that is making it more welcoming and inviting to have a presentation in is there something that you can install, or something that you can do within your own in person shop or in person setup? Or, for example, maybe they have like these, really, you know, small like mints or something on the table. And you think, Oh, this would work really well for my, you know, consultations that I have at cafes. I'll make sure to I'll write that down, action, review it later on, and action it to be able to incorporate that in how I talk to people. Because with the work that I do, some people get nervous, and to be able to have something that they can chew on or they can focus on, will help them. For example, I don't know when you start opening your mind or start instead of closing it off or turning on those blinders and slowly, slowly, like focusing your vision to the point where you're bored, to be able to open up those shutters and be able to see okay, this presentation may not be for me. Okay. What can I learn from this? Write it down. What can I review later on, I honestly give myself 24 to 48 hours when reviewing notes to be able to look back and see okay. You know, I wrote maybe I wrote down a note thinking that, Oh, I should run weekly presentations and Zoe, I don't think you have the energy for that. Let's scratch that idea off. Again. I review that like 24 to 48 hours later, that might be something that you might need to do as well. But again, what can you get from the room? And if worse comes to worse, and I go into highly doubt this, but if you are in Be it a virtual or in person presentation about a topic that you are semi interested in, and it is going horribly. What are they doing wrong? And what can you do better? Write that down. There has been a few presentations that I have been in, you know, over the past couple of years that have not gone well for the presenter or the speaker, and again, I do my best to be there, be present, be smiling, be supportive, but also write this stuff down like I write my notes down saying, Hey, don't put people into a box. Don't force people to do something when they're not comfortable to you know, one thing that I noticed from a presentation that I saw, I think it was last year, where it was clear that they were talking at level like 304 when everyone in the room, except for me, because again, I was there to support, not exactly to learn, was at like, 102 maybe 103 at best. So I kept finding myself putting my hand up asking really basic questions, because I could see that everyone else in the room was very overwhelmed and confused. So whenever they started spouting jargon, I would put my hand up and say, what does that mean? Or like, I have no problem throwing myself under the bus about seeming stupid or looking dumb, because it's not dumb. I'm asking questions that everyone else in the room would say, would look at me and go and nod and immediately go, yes, I want to know the answer to that question too. Be able to, if you have the ability to control it, try your best again. You're being supportive. Someone is taking the initiative to stand in front of a room or stand in front of the camera and present their knowledge base. Do your best to support, and if you need to, and if you feel inclined, provide feedback afterwards, you know, do a little bit of a sandwich, you know, provide a bit of good feedback, maybe submittally feedback, and then again, follow up with the good feedback. Try your best to be able to give people the support that they need. And again, I recommend 24 to 48 hours, not immediately after let them breathe, let you breathe. Be able to review your notes and give yourself that opportunity and chance to be able to again, you are there to support them, even if that's not exactly what you did when you first signed, first signed up. And I'm going to tell you now that for myself, I do endeavor to grow my knowledge and grow, you know, my connections in my business and the networking that I do, which means that not every single event me. Virtual or in person that I attend is going to be great, and that is okay. That's okay. There's going to be the gamble. Like, I'm not really a gambling person, but I gamble when it comes to attending training events because I want to learn and I want to grow, but I'm not always going to get everything out of it that I intend to, though I do my best to provide space, to support the people who are do it, who are going out on a limb and providing this training, and to be able to take what I can from it, and again, if I can't take what the actual topic that they're talking about, what can I see in the room? What can I see from other people? What can I see from the presentation itself, and what can I see from other people's reactions in the space, and if it's virtual, same thing applies. What can I see from other people who have their cameras on in a virtual setting? What can I see from the chat? Are they regularly, you know, putting in links that they are referring to or sources that they're citing? Are they actively making sure that people are aware of what part of the presentation that they're up to. Are they keeping to time? Are they answering questions as the presentation goes on, so you don't leave people hanging? Or if they made it quite clear, like I do with most of my presentations, that, hey, I'm going to talk for the next 20 minutes, and then we're going to answer questions for the next 40 like, do you know that ahead of time, or is it people like, boom, straight in, we're going to do this, and you're going to do this presentation with me, is that, what's happening? What can you learn? What can you gain from the event? Because even if you aren't supposed to be there, I'm going to tell you now that throughout my small business career of 15 years, so far, over 15 years, I should say I have been in so many places I'm not supposed to be. I'm too young, like I started my business when I was 14. I am too inexperienced, despite the fact that I can answer all their questions.
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I'm a woman. Yes, you'll be surprised how often that still comes up. I have been in so many places that I'm not supposed to be in,
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and that is okay, but I'm going to be there anyway, because I want to grow myself. I want to grow my business. I want to grow my clients. I want to be there to support them, and if that means that I have to learn things to do them better, then I am going to do that. And you can't stop me because you're sexist, racist bigot that wasn't directed at you oil Watchers or listeners, that was directed at some of the people that I've dealt with over the past couple of weeks. But again, rolling back to everything positive, I hope you've taken the lesson from today's podcast, and it is a bit of a Longy today, but I want to give you that opportunity to reflect and think, and maybe take this opportunity to maybe look at a couple of notes, be them written in paper, or maybe in a note taking software of some kind that you can look back and think, Wow. I, you know, maybe I attended an event for the Geelong Small Business festival, or maybe an event that you went to early on this year, and you still haven't reviewed the notes from that. That's okay take the, you know, five minutes to look over your notes, see what you can action in your business now. Doesn't have to be just marketing. Doesn't have to be just, you know, trainer, you know, training or workshop based, it can be anything to do with how you operate your business, how you conduct your finances, how you improve your routine, or how you can make the work that you do for your clients better. Take that opportunity to review notes, and you should be able to do it relatively quickly and easily when you can find the notes. Hope you have a beautiful day, and I hope you enjoyed today's podcast, and I look forward to seeing you on the next one or hearing me on the next one. You decide. Oh, and as a video, confidence coach, as you can probably imagine, I run coaching opportunities. You can check that all out on my website, at VCC, dot training, slash coaching. All right, see ya
The above episode description and transcript were generated with ai.
Who is your host?
Zoë Wood, your Video Confidence Coach connects the dots between personal branding and video marketing. Helping women and non-binary folk in small business, find their way in the world of marketing their passion without the energy drain.
Find out more about how to grow your personal brand with the power of video right here on vcc.training
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