3 Big Takeaways From Hosting The Live 3-Day Signature Talk Accelerator

Holding space for a bunch of brave and bold entrepreneurs for a 3-day live virtual event is no joke.

There were location decisions, tech snafus, bloopers, and more than a few happy tears. Get your notepad ready! My event producer, Krystal Proffitt and I demystify live events so you get a clear idea of what to consider and what to ignore. 

But, beyond the logistical to-do’s, whether you’re hosting a virtual event live, like I did, or are taking the stage for the first (or 25th time) at the end of the day, only one thing truly matters. 

Can you deliver exactly what your audience needs from you? 

If you want to make an impact with your message, it’s your most important job and in this episode I share 3 takeaways to help you make it your top priority. Tune in now!

EPISODE  SHOW NOTES👇

https://heathersager.com/episode220

Chapters

• 0:00 Signature Talk Accelerator
• 5:14 Airbnb Rental With Internet Challenges
• 11:00 Teaching and Facilitating Virtual Events
• 22:16 Energy Management for Live Events
• 30:36 The Importance of Preparation and Authenticity
• 39:29 Authentic Communication and Overcoming Marketing Pressure
• 43:39 Technical Challenges and Adaptation
• 51:00 Successful Live Training Tips

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

When you're true to your message, when you actually be a little bit bolder, you sound a little bit more like you. You a lot of what we did. I'm like stop it with that marketing crap. You're dancing around. What you want to say Like, what do you actually want to say here? That kind of stuff. What I love about that is it is the most empowering moment for someone to finally be like I don't have to sound like that and actually say it like they would say it, and when you see someone say something with conviction because they believe it, you believe it too.

Speaker 1: 0:42

This is the podcast for the entrepreneur who wants to make a big impact, who doesn't shy away from hard work but also wants to enjoy life along the way. Hi, I'm Heather Sager, former executive-turned-entrepreneur, and I've spent the last 20 years working with premium brands on sales, marketing and communication, and I've learned that when you become a magnet with your message, you only need a hint of hustle to achieve your goals. Get ready to be inspired and ignited each week with tangible strategies on sales, speaking, marketing and so much more. This is the Hint of Hustle podcast. Let's go.

Speaker 2: 1:34

Welcome back to the Hint of Hustle podcast. Obviously, I am not Heather, but I'm sitting here with her, and we have just wrapped the three-day event, the Signature Talk Accelerator. And hi, I'm Crystal Prophet. I'm here to interview her and share all the behind the scenes. So, heather, how are you feeling right now?

Speaker 1: 2:00

I'm waiting for you to say Heather, welcome to your show. Yes exactly Okay. So just at the scene for our audio listeners, crystal and I are sitting very close to each other and gazing longingly in each other's eyes, so at the current moment I'm feeling kind of silly.

Speaker 2: 2:17

And after three days you have every right for that.

Speaker 1: 2:21

And we also have one microphone that we're going to pass between us, so I can't talk at the same time as her. So we're really going to put Heather on mute. Today I am feeling. I'm feeling tired. I'm feeling tired and I'm feeling also. So this is going to be a weird word, but calm, we just recapped the accelerator. At the end I did my favorite little activity where I ask everybody about what was their experience, what was their highlight, how were they feeling. And it was so cool to have everyone share one, how proud they were themselves, but two, how much they love the other people in the room. And I just had a moment of like damn, I'm good at this shit, I attract the best people, and it's just when you are doing the thing that you're meant to do, like I just. I know it'll hit him later, but I'm not tired at all right now. I just feel so great.

Speaker 2: 3:11

Oh my gosh, and I like as someone so behind the scenes. We're absolutely going to get into the behind the scenes because I know people that are listening are speaking on stages. They want to speak on stages, they want to do events. We're going to get into behind the scenes of it, but as just someone that was able to watch you. So, for if you haven't heard Heather talk about it, I flew to Bend to be here in person and it's been so incredible to not only watch you in your element but to really see the energy and the fact that y'all is not a show If you didn't know this like it's not a show with Heather of like hey, I'm going to fake it till I make it Like you're whole-assing it, as you like to say, and it was just so much fun, so I, it was a masterclass in a live event and it was just so much fun, so I don't know if you have anything else to follow up on that.

Speaker 1: 4:01

It's okay. So here's the hilarious thing y'all, we booked an Airbnb for this situation after I somehow swindled Crystal and just spending her vacation from Texas to come hang out. You know what is hilarious, crystal? You and I have. You know this, I'm just bringing it away.

Speaker 1: 4:19

We've never met in person. We've been friends now for four years yeah, talk on Boxer. All the time we survived the pandemic together with her friend Mel. We've done many interviews together on each other's shows, but we've never met in person. And so we've talked about having a girls trip for so long, and the fact that this is our girls trip, of you watching me work whilst making sure I pee and you make coffee in the garage because you can have coffee and I am done with my caffeine intake for the day, has been a very hilarious thing. But I am just I'm feeling really grateful that having an assistant to help with this. Last time around the accelerator I ran it out of my office, which was a spare bedroom in our old house, and it was a lot to handle for one person. I still can't believe that happened, but it's it's been really, really fun. I'm excited to share more of the behind the scenes of what the hell just happened over these three days.

Speaker 2: 5:14

Well, and so let's just stay on that for a second. Because you decided to do an Airbnb Once you knew that I was coming, you're like okay, let's see, you know what it could look like at a location that was different from you. But talk about some of the challenges that you face, because I know you shared your internet isn't like always the best. Is there any other things that someone should consider about this? Because one thing I mean we could talk about, james, your husband, was like calling you frantically. I think it was like 30, 45 minutes before we started today, the last day, and what happened? Like unfold that, okay.

Speaker 1: 5:50

So this morning I get a phone call from my husband. They're taking the kids to school and he's freaking out. He's worried about us because the power went out at our house in North Bend and he arrived to the school to drop the kids off and the school's power was out and so he's thinking oh my gosh, not the last day, I hope not you. Thank goodness, our part of Ben. We were in midtown or old town, I don't know, I'm still learning. I just moved here. I'm just, I don't know all the cool hip neighborhoods, but we're in a cool neighborhood right now. But no, we were fine. But y'all working from home also, I evidently, when I'm tired, I say I try to do crystal and say y'all. I said y'all 73 times in the final session today. That is my tell. You know when my brain is fried, I will just go to these clutch phrases. Side note Y'all do that too. There's another y'all, y'all do that. We have this thing where when we get into what I'm going to call lazy or tired speak, we do fall back to crutch words. So evidently I am part Texan, but when we so when we moved to Bend, we're renting a house. I've talked about this on the show before in little farm country. So in North Bend we have like two and a half acres. We have like a septic tank, which I learned what a septic tank is Like. We're. We're outside of the city, we have internet right and we're renting our house People rent it from.

Speaker 1: 7:10

I was very specific around. I run a lot of zoom meetings, I do a lot of video, I have a lot of bandwidth. How's the internet? And they're like it's great, like I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that, and they're like it's great, like the what's so awesome Christian who owns the house. She actually is in this online coaching space, so it was so fun. We were like, oh my gosh, another human being that does similar things. So she did zoom meetings and podcasts and never had an issue.

Speaker 1: 7:33

Well, for some reason I have issues. We moved in the house and the first week they the internet company turned off our internet and I was trying to show up on calls and couldn't, and then we finally got internet. It crapped out all the time. Part of it was probably because everybody was home for summer, but I had to start rethinking things and it was never a problem my face before, because back in Portland I had business internet running into our house with really high upload and download speeds, which I didn't even know there was a difference until I learned about internet needs as an online marketer but that it's been very stressful this summer of needing to show up for client calls or guest trainings. Hell, my internet almost crapped out when I did my.

Speaker 1: 8:15

I was on the panel for Amy Porterfields membership a couple months ago. I was so terrified and then I was fine, but the poor presenter right after me, her internet Kerplunked and she got dropped off right in the middle of her talk. I was so worried that was gonna happen. So after all of those internet disasters this summer, I knew very early on quite frankly, I knew this movie in the band when I was planning the accelerator that I had planned to rent a production studio Like I want this to be high quality, not just to look good, but I want the video stuff to be great. I would like to have a video team because I want to repurpose these and use these beyond just the replays I'm looking at. How can I create this as a piece of content that people can consume a lot more on their own and not Just in the live experience. So I knew it was gonna be an investment.

Speaker 1: 9:00

But once we went through the launch, everything shook out with the numbers. It just didn't make sense to hire like a big team for it. So when you said you've come, I'm like perfect, you are the team, you will be the producer and the camera lady and the audio person and help me learn how to use E cam. And I should probably buy a nicer microphone. And I had a wishlist, as you know. That grew so it. But it just all started with. I needed more reliable internet, so I was going to rent a room at my co-working space. I've started using, and when you said you'd come, you need a place to sleep and I didn't want to make that be my kids on my couch or my kids pull out bed. So Airbnb sounded like a great idea. It was just kind of a crapshoot of hope that the internet was gonna work.

Speaker 2: 9:47

Well, and like you brought up like so many pieces, because I know your listeners, they are dealing with you know lawn care services or dogs barking or all the things. So I just I love that you can humanize, like the struggle is real when it comes to producing content and Actually doing things, and I'm so glad you brought up you know, like memberships and summits and speaking in all these like really big Stages, because I know that your people are going after these really big stages and so we just want to normalize, like this happens to everybody. So you, you are real, you are totally normal if you've experienced any of these things. But I want to switch gears and talk about you know what you did in the signature talk accelerator, this event, because there's gonna be people listening that are like, well, what is that? You know? How do I learn more about it?

Speaker 2: 10:37

Because I took your program speak up to level up in 2019, 2020 it's been a few years now and, like surprise, I'm one of Heather success stories. If you haven't heard this story before, I'm gonna brag a little bit because it's braggadocious on both of us. But I've been able to speak on stages and Do some really awesome things with the material that you teach. But I'm curious, having seen what you've done and you know you put on this virtual event, were you teaching this for the very first time in this capacity? Was it different? Did you tweak things? Because I know your audience wants to know all the things.

Speaker 1: 11:16

So it's so funny that we all think we are recreating the wheel and doing new things and what was really cool going through the content this accelerator is the container was not new because I did this for the first time Back in April. At that point it was brand new. Teaching live even that container was not new for me. I've been live facilitating programs and multi-day seminars for 15 years, so it was not new to me. So it wasn't new. To lead a group live through a training and facilitate it live. That like teaching, live coaching live all of that. I have a lot of experience doing it virtually. That was. That was a new thing. To hold space in a zoom room for three days which spoiler. I hadn't shared this publicly. But the last time I run the accelerator I was six weeks pregnant and I ran the accelerator high energy and then literally three days later, I started getting horrible morning sickness. I was just so frigging grateful that that wasn't the case now, running at the end of my pregnancy Very new set of challenges. The container wasn't new, the content wasn't new.

Speaker 1: 12:20

But what I find is the more that I teach this, the more that I solidify Exactly what is a priority that gets people one into action and two gets them to do Something with like to completion. So, for example and I think a lot of people struggle with this is when you have a lot of ideas and a lot of experience, give a lot, you can teach people and there's a lot of information that you want to share. And what I've gotten really good at over the years is really understand the difference between just teaching to share knowledge and teaching to drive action, and that's part of what I actually taught this group how to do is how to make that shift. But I'm always thinking about is okay with this piece of content that I'm teaching, how is that going to move them forward, not just cram their brain with ooh, that's, that's nice, that's great, I know more. I'm so glad I have all this brand of knowledge, or even a strategic knowledge. So one of the things that I did really intentionally on this specific group is I did not have Worksheets, I did not have resources. I had two Google Docs and they were very beautiful. I worked hard on those and then also found a lot of typos live in the moment. This is what happens sometimes, people. But these Google Docs were active working documents that when I would teach. We would then pause for them to complete the next milestone, and it all built upon each other.

Speaker 1: 13:45

What was wild to me was watching this group, and I'm sure those who are in the room would attest to this. It was three days, six sessions over three days. We did morning, afternoon and the whole first half of the training. There were a lot of activities. There were a lot of it look assignments on one of these Google Docs.

Speaker 1: 14:01

But they still had the question of okay, but I don't actually have anything structured in a talk. It was all. It was like when you're cooking and you get really excited around the holidays and you pull everything out of the pantry in the fridge and you get ready to make cookies, but then you have that oh crap moment and realize that you don't have any butter and then you have everything out of the counter and you're like what the hell am I gonna do with this shit? Or you don't know how to cook and you think you're gonna learn how to cook by impressing someone. So you pull out a Julia child book, start pulling all these ingredients and you still don't know what the hell you're gonna do with. That's how the they fell.

Speaker 1: 14:34

At the midway point I knew how it was all to come together. But that was the point of the fills facilitator that I really had to go All right, do they believe that they're actually going to make this happen? The whole promise was they would have their talk outline Done in three days. That's a big ask.

Speaker 1: 14:51

So what was different about this time is I was really really clear. I had stripped some content back that I had previously taught. I added in a few things that I hadn't taught live, all with the attention of making sure the deliverable. At the end they had their talk done and last time we didn't finish it. They didn't have their outline done. We we almost got it done, but they had to have a little follow-up training to do it. But this time they slayed and that was just a really cool thing to see. But Sensoring it down by how they're going to take action and how this is really gonna translate into a deliverable for them that they can use, that's really been a shift in my training over the last few years and it's been pretty cool to see.

Speaker 2: 15:31

Yeah, oh, my gosh, and I just, I feel so, just blessed to watch the breakthroughs that people had. There were, you know, so much laughter, so many tears, like, so much, like, oh, heather, I want you to give me the tough love, but be gentle and don't be too hard. You know, it was like I could see it on their faces. Because if you're not, if you've never joined, you know you've never been part of one of Heather's programs or you've never been part of a cohort like this, where it's Direct coaching, like it's like raise your hand, you got a question, raise your hand.

Speaker 2: 16:02

We're not playing this like, oh, you know, just, let's, let's give you a fluffy idea, as you said, what's your problem? You know, let's, let's talk it through, let's actually make it happen. And it's someone that's spoken on so many stages and having tough love coach from Heather. I know that you can't just think about things or just write it all out. You actually have to speak it. You actually have to say your ideas out loud, get the ideas out of your head and Say them in front of people to actually make it work. So if you had to sum up in like a single sentence to describe how you're feeling about this cohort. What would you say I?

Speaker 1: 16:40

Don't do anything in a sentence, crystal. This is why I'm terrible at reels or any kind of short-form marketing. I have a podcast because I'm a long form. I'm long form. I can't even get clips out of this damn thing because there's just so much to say. This cohort bold, bold and brave, usually in my sessions, so I love to freak people out and just give them a little spice of what's coming, so I adopted the coaching name. I did not name myself, oh, side note. Okay, I like to create nicknames for people and I've been known to create nicknames for myself. Years ago, though, I got a really great nickname from one of the guys on my training team back in corporate.

Speaker 1: 17:24

We went bowling, which, as I shared today in the accelerator. I am, randomly, a very talented bowler. What I didn't share was I'm so good at bowling. I joined a bowling league in college which really was just an extra-curriculum activity. It was an actual league, I don't know. We went on Sundays and got pictures of beer, and what I learned is I'm really good at the first game, but after that I suck. So I have one shot.

Speaker 1: 17:46

Anyways, I took my team as a team building activity years ago to bowling for a fun activity. Nobody knew I was good at bowling. I forgot I was good at bowling. I bowled a turkey which, if you don't know bowling a turkey has three strikes in a row, which what I find evidently is a normal adult human. When they go bowling they're excited if they break a hundred, which I never not break a hundred, sorry to brag, but not sorry. So I bowled a turkey and my team's like staring, like what the hell? Somebody screams. Carl, who's one of my trainers, he's amazing. He started screaming Sagerbomb and that came from people in my training sessions I don't remember who had yelled at years ago, but that was my nickname, was Sagerbomb. So for years at my old company, at events, people would scream Sagerbomb across the room. I don't necessarily know if it was a compliment or if it spoke to my I don't know grandiose personality on stage, but I was Sagerbomb. That was my nickname. So fast forward. Nobody knows me as that in this online marketing space, apparently now until this moment. But this group and the last cohort I went through, they nicknamed me. They nicknamed my alter ego, spicy Heather, and that was hilarious because I'm like oh, but the most funny is they like it Y'all. I've been Spicy Heather on you on the podcast before.

Speaker 1: 19:11

I can't, I can't, not, I can't not push when I see that somebody has a big goal and wants to go further but they're not seen like what they need to do differently or they're not. They're not hearing the tough love they need to hear. I know they would do that for their clients but they're not getting it themselves. I will be the person to say the thing. I will be the person to tell you you have broccoli in your teeth. I will be the person to tell you you have a book or hanging out of your nose. I will do it with love, like all those things. I will be that person because I want people to be successful and I surround myself with amazing people. So that was a really, really long way to answer your question of how would I sum up this cohort, this group. They embraced the spicy coaching. They actually asked for it.

Speaker 1: 19:57

I've never had a group where I haven't had to call on people.

Speaker 1: 20:01

I was warned them on day one. I tell them look, everyone's going to participate. Either you raise your hand or I will find you. I have a tracker and an attendance sheet, like I'm an 11th grade math teacher. I am here, I am keeping track of who speaks and who doesn't, and so what's hilarious is, by the end of the second morning people are raising their hand going okay, I haven't spoken yet, like I know she's going to call on me. I did not have to call on anyone. Every person in this group volunteered every time I asked and they showed up with big questions that they knew I was going to push them on, like they weren't willing to just do the easy route. They wanted to choose the hard route so that they can actually build the skill and get better, and that was pretty cool. So I have mad respect for this group because they were there for the beat in the best way. It was really. It was fun. It was fun to experience with them because the growth was incredible.

Speaker 2: 20:50

Yeah, and I mean, like I said, I got to witness so many just breakthrough moments and aha moments and people saying like, oh, this makes sense now, whether it was happening in order or out of order. Like I thought that that was so beautiful about the way that you taught because, like you said, you knew the journey that you were taking them on and you, I feel like, if I had to sum up how you were as a coach and as a facilitator in doing this, is you had so much belief in them, like you were believing in them when they weren't believing in themselves. Like you knew, like you have to send you. You have that. You may not see it right now or you may not be able to articulate exactly how it's going to come out of you, but I see this in you and I know that you're going to make it happen.

Speaker 2: 21:35

So I'm curious from the standpoint of you know, teaching this content and having different variations, like different formats of how you've taught. You know, whether it's from a stage or it's on the podcast or it's in a cohort. What is the thing that really fires you up to know that you I mean this was a three day event Like, how did you kind of take care of yourself to make that happen, like amp up yourself or get ready, prepare? I mean, I saw how you had 200, how many slides did you have? You had so much information that you taught Like I'm just I'm blown away in how much you prepared for this. So I'm curious what are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 1: 22:16

First of all, there are 280 slides, but let me just say that, with a disclaimer in Canva. Canva doesn't have animations and I'm very big at orchestrating concepts, so many of those slides were duplications. To unpack frameworks, I had a 5 million frameworks to help people understand and put things into action and it also included the kickoff training. So I keep all of my slides related to the signature talk accelerator in one cohesive deck and that's why, if I need to jump around or if I need to, if I need to revisit something, instead of looking for all these different files, I don't have like module one separate from module two. I have one fricking deck.

Speaker 1: 22:54

Some people, that might give you anxiety, but it's just how my brain works for sure. So this question around energy it's always fascinating to me because I have always had a lot of energy surrounding live events. So, side note for y'all, while listening to podcast, we have an incredible interview with my friend, ann Emery, who is also pregnant. Well, now she's not anymore because she just gave birth to her twin babies, but we did an episode around maintaining energy, specifically around pregnancy. But it was also, it holds true, around all of my experience with live events. So that's a great one to go back and listen to, but for me I it's how I'm wired. Live events energize me. I know that's not the case for anyone and this is why I don't really love making blanket recommendations, of saying you'll be very easy for me to be a marketer and be like I'm going to teach you how running a three-day live cohort is the absolute best way for you to bring life back into your dead program. Side note if you want to take that, I would be happy to put together a workshop for you, but I would not make that statement because here's the thing not everyone I would actually say very few people could do what I just did over three days.

Speaker 1: 24:09

I mean, this is a skill that I have been grooming and cultivating and mastering over the last 20 years. I am very, very good Not just at teaching live. I am an exceptional facilitator, and that's what I taught, I facilitated and I coached my ass off of the last three days, and that is a unique skill. It's a skill that I have acquired and I've perfected over the last 20 years and I continually still refine, I'm still taking classes and learning different ways to do things more effectively. As I just said, I just changed up some things because of that. But where was I going with this? See brain? Where was I going with this? Oh, but no, the teaching stuff.

Speaker 2: 24:48

What were we talking about? We were talking about facilitating and how you prepared.

Speaker 1: 24:52

Oh, ok, that's where we're going now. This is where we're getting the 6 o'clock PM brain. After a three-day accelerator, my brain is decelerating. So preparing OK. So what's fascinating with this is I. So I prepared a lot, but I would tell you I prepared a lot for the last four years to make this week light and easy. So for me, yes, I prepared. I went through the decks I'm not even going to sugarcoat it. I was up every night before the next day running through the decks, thinking through my stories, perfecting those pieces.

Speaker 1: 25:27

Now, in a perfect world, I would have done that work weeks ago, but this is not a perfect world. I am very, very pregnant. I have two boys that just started a brand new school on a very different schedule. I had internet crapage out all summer, so we got really behind on work. We just had a very big launch with a lot of components. It's just the stars don't always align in the perfect plan. So I think we're probably going to talk about this. I'm always thinking about there's the ideal plan, and then there's the backup plan, and then there's 17 backup plans to the backup plan, to the backup plan.

Speaker 1: 26:04

So I went into this knowing a month ago I already knew what all the curriculum would be. I had already worked with my friend Emily, who's been on the show Y'all have noticed. She was my business partner with the Speaker Co. She creates presentations. She helped me. I had her go through and help me put together the structure of my facilitator guide, based off what I did in Elastice Accelerator. So I hired out the tell me exactly what I did when I did it, like those little pieces. So I had already had the wireframe of the types of activities I wanted to run and just the pacing, and so I had that to work through. So I already knew what all the content was, because I had done it before. But I also had a list of slight changes I wanted to make, but I hadn't made them yet. So preparation was obviously getting ready for the week. There was a lot of tech stuff. There's a lot of communication that has to happen when you're hosting 30 people in time zones all over the world with pre-work, homework, different calendars, all these things. So preparation-wise I prioritized making sure my team was ready, making sure the people were prepped and ready. But in terms of me being ready, I knew that I could handle my final prep in the 11th hour because I know it so well. So for me it was more about getting in the zone and getting present to okay, what's the story that needs to come out of me tomorrow? And let me read through.

Speaker 1: 27:24

One other thing I'll just share real quick is one thing that I do on my team on these kinds of events is we run daily surveys for events. So I pre-survey all of my attendees and ask them very intentional questions so I can get to know their learning style, I get to know where they're at in relation to topic. I get to know some of their psychology. They might not realize that's what I'm doing, but I find out more about my audience, and I used to do this back in the day with all of my corporate trainings. I would read over the attendee list, I would read over their business stats and I'd find out more about them, and then I would get present to okay, what does this group need for me? Where do I need to lean a little bit more because of what they said in these questions? Where do I can skip over a little bit? And so that's what I did every night before I was up very late, I was looking over those survey results. I was looking over the list, I was looking over their comments and questions that were coming up and then I was recalibrating. All right, what am I gonna bring to the energy on the second day? And honestly, I haven't been tired at all. Even with the nights I didn't have much sleep. Even with me not being able to drink a lot of coffee, I'd be able to show up, but that's because it's a muscle that I've trained over the years that I can show up, live and do that it.

Speaker 1: 28:34

This was not my first rodeo. Yee-haw. Y'all Really hit the Texas for ya. So I never would I recommend that to someone else, but it worked for me and I know that about myself. So that's how I kept my energy up. Is I just aligned to what I know works for me? And I anticipated yeah, sure, an ideal it would have been done, but I know what my backup plans are and I knew what my like oh crap, I'm in trouble. Moment would be. I never allowed myself to get to that point where I was so like, oh crap, I can't handle this, or I'm so late, I can't prepare, even when it's right before session starts.

Speaker 2: 29:13

And I love that you lay out so much of the practical tips. Like and you do have so much experience doing this that it is a muscle, it's second nature you could literally do it in your sleep, like, who knows, maybe you are asleep the last like you know like five hours of this and you're just like like running on autopilot, you know, say you're sleeping like we should come up with another. Like I love the metaphors and all the stories that you tell because they just the alliteration is very on point. But I'm sitting here thinking about what I witnessed you do in real time and it was. I want you to talk a little bit about a method, because I know it's not really a method, but I want you to talk about.

Speaker 2: 29:56

You know your stuff so well and you know that there's these key places where you can really unlock something for your audience. You're like I need to tell a story. This is what I'm thinking about. But in the 11th hour you were literally okay, if y'all don't know this, like before she got started on day one, she was like in the bathroom doing her makeup, putting everything on, and she said, oh my God, I've got it, I've got the story. Like where's my paper? Where's this? And I was like what is happening? I don't know. I didn't understand exactly what was going on. I thought she was freaking out about something, so can you fuck us through that?

Speaker 1: 30:31

I thought we were gonna talk about the tech disaster on day one, so I guess we'll get there, okay. So, if you, okay, I have to say this carefully, because I've said so many times don't be a winging at Wanda. Don't come up with shit in the 11th hour and test it on your audience. Don't be trying to create your tack the night before. And here I am, do as I say, not as I do. And so here's the thing you have to earn the right to 11th hour prep. You have to earn the right to tell stories in the fly, and what I mean by that is you have to earn the respect of your audience and the trust of your audience, the trust in yourself that when you do that, you will have the same level of impact. Because the challenge I always give people is look when you like. Lack of preparation shows disrespect for your audience. It's because if you don't have preparation, if you don't have your message more intentional, if you haven't put thought into it, quite frankly, what's going to fly out of your mouth is going to be what you think is cool, but it's not really going to put them in the priority seat. And because I've delivered so many trainings, I mean this was. I was on the road every week in my corporate job delivering trainings to different types of groups. I was constantly training, so I constantly needed to have fresh stories, otherwise I would have gone crazy. I had to get really good at, on the fly, taking a story and making it practically relevant to any teaching topic. I developed a skill I now call it my ABC method for storytelling that I teach my clients. I have this really specific skill that I can connect any story to pretty much any teaching point. So what I do is I have a set of skills that allow me to seemingly be off the cuff, to seemingly be prepping the 11th hour, to seemingly being scatterbrained, putting on my fake eyelashes in the bathroom, running around for a Sharpie For someone else observing it'd be easy to be like whoa. She's like whoa a little out there, a little fly by the seat of a pants, maybe put some pants on. I think I did have pants on, but I'm pretty confident I have my shirt open and my belly out, which is needed to breathe. But so it's the it's. It's not 11th hour, because the technical skill is there, but it's like adding in what the component is. So what happened for me on day one is okay. You're all probably going to think I'm wild for this.

Speaker 1: 32:57

I had all the content planned. All the content was planned, but I always save the message that I share in my opening for workshops like this the night before. It always comes to me and I know this about myself, which is why this is part of my process is there's always a message that needs to come out. In fact, a lot of times in the podcast, I don't know what I'm going to say until I go on a walk or be like. This is the thing I need to talk about. That's where I'm at when I'm doing a high stakes webinar, when I'm doing a paid keynote, when I'm doing an event where somebody has booked me to come out. Oh my goodness, I am far more like. I have it all planned out. I know my stories. I know the ones that land I'm talking about when I speak on my own stages. I'm talking about when I'm talking to my own audiences. That's where I play a little bit more. So back when I was leading a lot of trainings, that was my training department, that was my team. I knew the content.

Speaker 1: 33:47

But this morning, not this morning day one morning I was putting on my eyelashes. You're going to laugh, it's so dumb. But I had a moment where I remembered that I just I have a very specific set of eyelashes that I'm wearing. They're called flutter habit. No, I don't have any kind of referral codes. I'm sure I could find one. Give me my $3 if you want to try it, but they're they're like, I guess, semi permanent. I don't know. They're part of this movement that came out of the pandemic when people couldn't go get their eyelashes filled for extensions, where you put them on under your lashes and they stick around for five to seven days.

Speaker 1: 34:21

I used to have lash extensions. I used to have. I used to strip lashes all the time. I love eyelashes. That is my thing. I think it just changes the direction of my face. It makes me feel confident. That is my one beauty thing that I instantly like I don't need to filter, just put on some eyelashes, I'll feel much better.

Speaker 1: 34:41

So as I'm in the bathroom that morning getting ready for day one, I had this moment. I was putting on this little piece of lash. I had this flashback Of the first time I put on these specific lashes. My sister recommended them and she was like. I was like it's hard, like it seems weird to like have it next to your eyes. It's terrifying, I don't know Somehow, putting the strip lash on top of the eyelash was like a protective boundary that felt safe, but stabbing it right under felt very risky. And she's like no, no, no, and my sister's not into makeup. So I'm like, well, she can do it, I can figure this out. I mean, I did pageants y'all. I did pageants Y'all. I was like a pro with eyelashes.

Speaker 1: 35:20

So the first time I put on these eyelashes I have this big idea, right, content creator, I put a little like window sticky tripod. I bought one of those like tripods that stick to your window or a mirror. Put that in my bathroom Sounds weird, but I did put it in there so that way I can do those. Like get ready with Heather lives. I'd always plan to do that. Literally did it one time, I think. So I put it up there and I'm like I'm going to do a video to show them. Look, look at me. I bought these new eyelashes. This is a new thing and I'll tie this into try new things in your business and how it's probably going to be a little awkward and probably going to make fun of myself and probably be whatever, and there'll be this really great lesson that comes out of it, right?

Speaker 1: 36:05

So I turn on the recording and I get the glue on and I pull up the little eyelash together first spot and I stab myself in the back of my eye. I stab myself in the mother fricking eyeball with the glue gooped eyelash and it did not go according to plan and it was the worst burning sensation that I have ever felt my entire life and a stream of fuck bombs fell out of my mouth and I'm on record. I was like talking for a moment, like introduce this concept, and then it was this moment where I get hit me and I'm like am I going to handle this? And like, oh, that was sucky and I couldn't help it. I was like mother, mother, just like a stream, it was something.

Speaker 1: 36:46

And then I started crying and then I couldn't recover and I don't know, like the I was not looking at the camera or even caring about the camera anymore. The thing helped the whole time. It was a disaster. I'm sorry I poked myself with my eye, but then I recovered and I was like I can do this, I can do this. Yeah, I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it at all because I kept. I was doing this thing where I would do it, but I couldn't get it to stick and I started getting so frustrated. But in my brain I'm like I'm trying to do a video. I can't show that I'm frustrated. I'm trying to demonstrate that it's okay to do new things. But I was getting so mad and this whole experience took me, I swear, 43 minutes and I have the video. I will never be sharing the video. I have that as eventually I will like when I'm ready. I need that wound to heal and we'll come back to it.

Speaker 1: 37:34

Anyways, I'm in the bathroom morning of day one the accelerator and I just thought back of how funny it was that first moment and how I literally put these lashes on in four minutes and it instantly. I'm always seeing the connections. I know my people come in the accelerator. I knew what they were going to face. Here's the funny thing.

Speaker 1: 37:55

Everybody tries to tell you their course is going to make things easy. They're going to make it simple. It's going to be so easy. Look at my formulas. You're going to have everything you need. And I'm really real with my clients. I'm going to tell them work your brain. You're going to get real pissed at me because you're going to want this to be easy. But coming up with messaging and learning how to speak in a more dynamic way, I'm going to teach you tips and tactics but you have to do the damn push ups and you're going to hate it because you're going to sound like an idiot. You're going to question your own competence. You're going to be like why am I even do this? I can't even make words happen. They get frustrated. But I know on the other side of that frustration, magic happens and that pride of holy shit, I did this and it sounded as good as I wanted it to, or even better, and then all the good stuff comes. But they have to break through that like muddy part. So I stayed in my bathroom. I'm like damn eyelashes. I lived it, I lived it.

Speaker 1: 38:46

So my opening story became about my experience with my eyelashes, and it wasn't. I didn't even tell that part of the story I just shared with you. I actually talked about just my experience overall of being very comfortable with eyelashes and then getting frustrated when I tried a new way of doing eyelashes and sucked. But the whole purpose of it is. I knew the direction I wanted to take it. I knew the shared experience I was about to have with my audience and I knew it was all women in the group.

Speaker 1: 39:12

So I mean eyelashes. It's easy to talk about something that we have a common bond on, but it was easy for me to come up with that because it was real in the moment. I had just experienced it. That morning I had my own personal like oh, how cool it is to be good at something now which is so stupid because it's eyelashes right. But talking about something lighthearted and then connecting it to something that's going to be a little harder, that is a really good communication strategy to get buy in, especially early on, because it makes it feel more lighthearted. And then we really had to reiterate that that would be happening a lot over the three days, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:46

And I mean, when you're talking about like the hard things, like I was, I've been an athlete my whole life and I can tell you that the coaches that I had where we won games, they weren't the nicest ones, okay, they weren't the ones that were like, sure, you're doing great, just keep going. They were the ones that like, oh, you thought that was good, oh no, you have 10 more laps to go. Like you thought you were done, you got to get down, you got to do the burpees. Now, like you're just as soon as you're getting tired, we have like 45 more minutes left.

Speaker 2: 40:15

So I can tell you like, as someone that has worked with Heather and seen all the things that you do, it is just so empowering that you don't just say, oh, it's going to be super hard and I'm just going to turn around and leave you. You're like, no, I'm here. I'm here for all the hard stuff, because I'm the one that's going to push you, because it is uncomfortable when you get to that point where you're like I want to stand out. I don't want to just be the next marketer that's giving the fluffy ideas. I want to get out of this box and the cookie cutter messages that everybody has, and you do such an incredible job of pushing people.

Speaker 1: 40:51

You know that they have so much more to give, so I'm just giving you compliments at this point of the day, so yeah that makes me think of something that's really interesting is, I think a lot of times people have this really unique thing that they want to share with the world, but they have been taught or have learned that they need to put marketing buzz on it. And there's this trend I'm sure you've noticed. Even listening has noticed everyone starts sounding a little bit the same. Oh yeah, everyone's using the same buzzwords, everybody's talking about chat, gpt, like even the content gets morphed. And what happens is, I think, is you start early on with this idea of I have this experience or I have a story of something I want to share with people. But then the more you learn about what it takes to monetize your message or do something kind of online, what you start doing is you start packing up this like coding I don't know what another way phrase to say that but like the shield around you, you start insulating it and you start thinking that you have to morph into someone different. You have to morph your language, you have to put your experience and training and all your ideas like into a container or into a box to make it work in the model. And what I think is beautiful is what people get stuck on is yes, there are communication models that help you sell, there are more effective ways to sell your products and programs, like yes, those models and stuff exist, but at the heart of it is, you can't dampen out the shit that you really want to say, and the way that you could say it more authentically is the whole idea that people like from safety, of not getting pushed back or being talked about.

Speaker 1: 42:33

People just kind of try to make it sound pretty, and part of what we did, and part of where the tough love comes in, is when you're true to your message, when you actually be a little bit bolder, you sound a little bit more like you. You a lot of what we did. I'm like stop it with that marketing crap. You're dancing around. What you want to say Like, what do you actually want to say here? That kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 42:53

What I love about that is it is the most empowering moment for someone to finally be like I don't have to sound like that and actually say it like they would say it, and when you see someone say something with conviction because they believe it, you believe it too, and so that was probably the coolest thing that I noticed is you could physically see it in the body language, when you would shake someone right, give them that tough love piece, but when they would get so fresh and just say it like they needed to say it and it was like that right there. That is the message you need to share here in this section. So that's cool. So I think that's just. The big takeaway is like, how often do we try to make stuff sound pretty or try to make it sound trendy? Screw that Just sound like you.

Speaker 2: 43:38

Yeah, oh, my gosh. Well, this has been incredible, and I am again. I am so inspired by everybody that was in the accelerator, all the stories that I heard. It was so awesome, but we have to wrap up with a story. We need a good blooper story, a good behind the scenes, something that you're just like I still can't believe that happened and we pulled it off and we did it. So what is that for you?

Speaker 1: 44:06

Well, I didn't pee my pants, that was a proud accomplishment. Fun fact I told Crystal one of her primary jobs here was to remind me to pee. Here's a pregnancy symptom you didn't ask to know about. I can't tell when I have to pee, I just develop back aches. And so Crystal had to remind me literally every break, go pee. So that was the real. That was the real behind the scenes. Or me using a massage ball or a bouncy ball thing on breaks to try to like relieve my hips. So that was like the behind the scenes that people didn't see. But bloopers, I don't know if we I mean our computer ran out of storage recording.

Speaker 2: 44:45

So that was fun in the last 30 minutes of it saying oh, what I was going to say is the monitor of packing the monitor, bringing the monitor to Airbnb.

Speaker 1: 44:54

Oh, OK, ok, ok. So before the training, she wants me to go there. So Crystal came over to my house on Monday. I picked her up from the airport, we came over, she saw my home studio, she helped me get everything packed into my car and we trucked our way over here. After having some fun with my kids, my kids grew very fond of Crystal and their few hours of getting to know her and in fact asked mommy to leave and Crystal to stay. So that was fun.

Speaker 1: 45:17

So we get over to the Airbnb and Crystal and I started setting up the lights, the camera. I have an external monitor, I have my Mac. Crystal brought her fancy camera from Texas and we each had multiple mics that we were wanting to increase this and be like kind of fancy here with studio quality. We had some big plans, big plans I had planned to test in advance and it just didn't happen. So we get here.

Speaker 1: 45:39

The first thing that happens is we set everything up and this external monitor that I had was my monitor from back in Portland and I haven't used it. It's just gone in the closet in a new place because the space that I'm in has a built-in monitor, so I haven't needed it. So in our rush to pack the 11th hour shit at our old house, I thought I'd put all the cords in my tripod case. I have tripod cases, lighting cases, I have all this stuff that's been in the closet and I haven't looked at it since.

Speaker 1: 46:08

And we get here and unpack everything and I'm like, oh I forgot, the monitor needs a power cord. I have that little dongley thing to attach it to my computer, but there was no power cords. I'm like crap. So luckily I called my husband's. We had James bring it. No, no, no, no, it wasn't happen. Yet we had the boys. So we had my family come over for dinner at the Airbnb in the night we were getting ready, wanted to let the kids see a little bit of behind the scenes. Then I need to kick them out because we had to focus.

Speaker 1: 46:37

Don't touch anything, yeah, don't touch anything, just sit there and eat your pad thai, child. Literally. That's what came out. They were allowed to come for like 30 minutes to have dinner with us and then leave, but that was fun for them. But while we were here, I asked James. I'm like, hey, grab that, plug that in for me. He's my tech guy. And he looks at me and he goes where's the power cord? And I look at him and I'm like I don't fucking know James. I don't know where the power cord is. It's in the case and he's like he's like rolling his eyes, like no, I should have had him pack for us. So we had no power cord. And here we are.

Speaker 1: 47:09

At that point it was like 830 at night before, so James is like I'll bring it in the morning. Well, james has to take our kids to school. They have to be there at 855 and our session was starting at 930. And I fun little fun fact I decide I want to use a new software to do this entire training, called ecam, because I wanted to have more control over it and I've heard so many of my friends talk about how easy it is. I'm like I finally need to become modern and use it and I had every intention of learning how to use it until this moment.

Speaker 1: 47:42

I watched the YouTube video on Sunday night and another one on Monday. But here I was on Monday night with no external monitor and no way to fully test my production system. That was happening the next day and, by the way, none of the microphones would be recognized by the computer or the camera and we couldn't test anything until the monitor works. So James promised he would be here by 910. He was here by 918 To plug it in, to which I'm also thrusting a light kit saying also plug that to in please.

Speaker 1: 48:20

Meanwhile, crystal had spent all morning trying to get the camera hooked up and I'm walking around doing my eyelashes and she's like I got this. And so I finally said I'm gonna tell you if in 20 minutes we do not have a camera worked up, we shall be using my built-in camera on my Mac, and I'm perfectly fine with that. But just so you know, we will pull the plug in 20 minutes, which we did. So we had to not use the camera. We just simplify. We didn't use any of our fancy mics. We used the cheapy lava leader bike that you brought in your little baggie, which was great and James plugged in the computer and we got it all working. We started 10 minutes late. Everyone was very concerned because I was very stern of saying me on time, we're starting on time, and then I was late to the party. But that was the reality. But here's the funny part was I think old me would have been freaking out about that, but I'm just like chill, it was okay. Another day, another tech problem.

Speaker 2: 49:17

Yeah, yeah, I mean like it was. It was like real flop sweat happening like right before. But we made it all work. And actually I wanted to say one last thing too about having the Airbnb. If you're going to do an event like this, it was so awesome to come and set up and utilize all the furniture Like we move things out of different rooms, like there's all kinds I mean, if you're not watching the video, you're only on the audio a Heather will have to share, like we have her plant from her house, we have a bottle from its hint of hustle it's got the sticker on it. We moved chairs, we moved bar stools, we move like actual display things y'all.

Speaker 2: 49:56

I was up on the couch balancing like a high wire act, putting a whiteboard up in the window, because all of a sudden the light was like there was a beam right across Heather's face at like 230 every day and I was like, oh, that's my cue. So do you just have to pivot? Like, just I love that you shared. If this was your very first event, you probably would have just been like oh my god, it's a disaster, all the things. But once you get into it and I think that the thing that you do so well is you just know that the message you have to share is more important than a webcam, then a microphone. Then if there's, you know, a slight, like just line of light going right down your face, that's like the grace of God saying you're doing, you're doing the Lord's work, heather, but I just I. So, again, I'm just in awe of everything you're able to do, and you're a free and rock star and you, you're so awesome. So how do you want to close this out?

Speaker 1: 50:53

Well, first of all, thank you for coming all the way to bend and using your vacation for it, like, let me do a little power tip thing. Okay, so if anyone wants to run like a big live training it's not the multi-thing, but maybe you want to do like your live launch you want to do it somewhere special, right, you want to make it more of an event.

Speaker 1: 51:11

I highly recommend I mean renting a spot to do it. Doesn't have to be an Airbnb, but just little quick power tips of a couple things that we did. It wasn't as simple as just booking an Airbnb. Price-wise I think I spent $1,300 on this house for five days. That, in grand scheme of thing, where any production studio would have been easy that for one afternoon. So price-wise it's affordable. But we did do our deal Dylan's to make sure their internet was good and we found out that the router was in the living room and we could hardwire into it.

Speaker 1: 51:40

So just like little things like that is the don't be afraid of. Like, first of all, you don't have to be frickin fancy. We see a lot of these people read these huge production studios and do these big things. Then you think you have to do it. This wall is a word, a townhouse in a suburban neighborhood outside of cool town, bend, right. So it doesn't have to be over complicated. But keep it simple. But just make sure that you test some of those things in advance. But you can do it on the cheap.

Speaker 1: 52:07

Y'all like I know $13 can be like a lot, the grand scheme of business expenses. I mean it's less than my course. So you just I mean you can do these little things like that, so I'm so glad to be do it. I did it. I think it elevated the quality of it. Our attendees loved it and, honestly, it was so nice to be away from my everyday life. I spent the night here, except for last night, spending the night here away from your family. For those of you who build your businesses next to your family, a little space is good, so you don't have to take on their Needs as well. So there's some power tips if you're thinking about running your own live training from somewhere other than your kitchen.

Speaker 2: 52:45

Yeah, so I Think this is it I mean we've had is just again, I'm so freakin excited. So, just so everybody knows, like I'm in the middle of like this came in at the perfect time for me Cuz I'm in the middle of redoing a webinar, so I have more shit to go like, I got a four and a half hour plane ride, actually have two planes tomorrow where I'm just gonna be in like my Google Docs doing all my magic behind the scenes. But if someone's listening to this and they want to know more about all the things, like, are you doing another accelerator? You got a baby on the way. You got lots of big things coming up, so what's? What's next for you, heather Sager?

Speaker 1: 53:24

What's next is we're gonna keep this baby cooking because this accelerator kicked off a cohort. So we have the next six weeks where these people are going to be finishing and taking their outlines to the finish line. So this was just the start of getting their shitty rough draft out so that we can polish it and make it a talk for the stage. So that's my number one priority is to take care of my, my cohort students, my speaker society members. But I love Live facilitation and I think that there's no experience like it. I don't think there's any other educators in the space who do what I do in the way that I do Speaking coaches most that I know of. They work one-on-one or they have online programs with office hours, which is what I used to have. But for me, there's something very magical of that life piece. So I've always known I wanted to integrate live events into my business. Last year I ran the bougie biz retreat in the fall, which was equally exceptional, also in person. That will be part of my future. So what I, what I'm focused on from here on out, is getting this baby ready. But my plan is I know the content of the accelerator to help people get their ideas out. I know I can't be the one doing that all the time, and also coaching with me is not cheap. So I, like I want more people to have the courage to share their message and start showing up messy so they can get better and more effective at selling. But you have to start. So part of what I'm working on right now is we're gonna turn in the core curriculum of the accelerator Into an on-demand course so that you can take it on your own time. You can access it when you have that. Holy crap, they booked me moment or I have a big opportunity. I was a lot of. The frustration of my clients is, when they book a big opportunity, who they gonna call. Well, heather's coaching program isn't open, so what the hell am I gonna do? So I want to make sure that I have resources available to have people help them build an effective talk on demand. But I also know that building on demand without feedback for many people they're gonna be like I want more. So that's why I have the. The course is going to be coming out here this fall. That's one of the things I'm going to birth before this baby comes, and then I have my back in membership.

Speaker 1: 55:32

So the speaker society we do this level of coaching every single month. I coach people on their message, about their talk. I coach them on how to position themselves in their marketing, how to find more stages, how to get booked, and then I teach them how to monetize it, how to sell in the back end, how to be more effective on their webinars, how to get paid to speak as a professional. Those are things that we do every day Not every day, but every month in the speaker society. So that's where my focus is going to go is people coming to the accelerator for the foreseeable future. It's going to be come throughout your own pace, but you're gonna get Heather, except for I'm gonna take a little baby leaf here for a hot minute over the holidays. But you'll get me and you'll get that spicy, love and super effective coaching inside my membership.

Speaker 1: 56:12

So I'll still be providing that experience, but my coaching will be reserved for my society members. And then my plan on as long as this baby is Conducing with it, I want to run more in-person retreats or Facilitated live cohorts like this, but slightly in a different way, to allow people to have that transformational experience In a compact timeframe. I know I have the unique gift that I can do it and have people have a delighted experience Because the results. I need to do more of that, so I definitely see that happening. Is probably gonna be quite a while till I do that, but a live event and definitely a virtual cohort is on the horizon for some point next year.

Speaker 2: 56:50

Yeah, oh my gosh. Well, and I don't know if you're gonna do it here locally and bend, but it's gorgeous here, y'all. Well, I'm here in October. I will be jetting out of here before the snow arrives, because that's not my thing. But yeah, I like I would love to come to something like this in the future. Maybe I'll be the next AV person. I'll be the official producer of the Sega bombs and all the things that Heather has going on. But thank you so much for Just joining me today for this conversation and, you know, because I'm interviewing you.

Speaker 1: 57:21

I don't really know how to end this. So thank you for taking for taking over my podcast, crystal. I'm pretending to be Heather's sake or spicy bomb, all right, friends, I hope you enjoyed that. Behind the scenes, I'm gonna take back over host duties and say thanks, crystal. We'll see you in the next episode, back for our normal solo show happening next week. Bye, friends. Thanks for listening to another episode of the hint of hustle podcast. If you're in the season of hustle, consider this the permission slip. You didn't need to take a beat. Go on a walk, stretch, call a friend, go reheat that coffee for the fourth time and actually drink it. Because those big dreams you're chasing, they require the best version of you. And if those goals Include expanding your audience, establishing your industry credibility and selling your premium price programs, the best way to tackle this is through Speaking. Your voice is your best brand asset and will teach you how to use it as a marketing tool. Head on over to the speaker code calm forward, slash, start and I'll see you there.