Ep 114 Transcript: The Hidden Power of Storytelling in Sales Partnerships and Hiring with Tre Balchowsky

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.

Shauna Lynn Simon (01:50.094)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is Tre Balchowsky, a coach who helps founders and entrepreneurs build influence, win trust and close clients or funding by finding their voice and learning to tell their story clearly. Her clients have closed an incredible $142 million in funding. She's helped deliver 17 TED and TEDx talks and her work is grounded in the

Very simple belief. Public speaking and storytelling just aren't optional extras for business owners. They are learned skills that make your ideas understandable, memorable, and easier to say yes to. So Tre, welcome to the show.

Tre Balchowsky (02:32.878)

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here today.

Shauna Lynn Simon (02:35.53)

I'm thrilled to have you. And I know that like some of the people who are listening to this here are probably thinking, but I don't want to be a speaker. And so before we lose those people from our audience, I just want to be really clear here. Like I understand that for most of my "Accidental CEOs" speaking isn't about becoming an influencer. I mean, for some of you it might be on your radar, but I know it's important for "Accidental CEOs", for all entrepreneurs, for everyone listening to this podcast to reduce the energy costs that we exude in terms of

selling and leading. I think that that's probably the number one thing that people are constantly coming to me about is how do I get more sales? And so we're going to be talking about how do you speaking strategically without adding pressure workload? Because I also know that everyone who's listening, you got enough on your plate already. So we're going to make this nice and easy. But if you're looking to get on stage, we got you covered. If you're looking to get on podcasts, we've got you covered. But if you're just looking to use this

as a part of your marketing and your strategy, stay with us, because I can promise you this is gonna be super relevant. Wouldn't you say so, Tre?

Tre Balchowsky (03:40.302)

Absolutely and remember that stages don't need to be giant TED stages, right? They can be 25 people in a room that are a referral partners audience to you or a podcast. Stage is think about it anytime that you are speaking in a way that you can connect really well with an audience that isn't yours that is out there and ready to receive your message.

Shauna Lynn Simon (04:05.911)

I love that reframe.

Tre Balchowsky (04:07.222)

You know, like lots of people come to me and they're like, I'm terrified to get on stage. And I'm like, really? You're terrified of like talking to a room full of 25 people? And like, no, no, no, I do that every day. I'm like, cool. Then you're ready to get on stage. Because it's just a reframe of how you're positioning yourself in those rooms.

Shauna Lynn Simon (04:24.12)

Well, I think the other thing is that when you're confident about what you're saying, and this is one of the things that I often go back to my clients on, especially so, for example, one of the big part of my audience is home stagers. And a big thing that home stages are taught from day one is get in front of real estate agents, do presentations in front of real estate agents. And then I hear people saying, but I'm super scared to do it. But here's the thing, you're talking about something that you do every single day. You know this.

like the back of your hand. So if you can apply some of the things we're gonna be talking about today to make it just a little more interesting, a little more intrigued, but we're not gonna be trying to tell you to do something that's completely outside of your wheelhouse. You're still you, your topic is still something you're an expert in. And I think that's something that people get tripped up on is they forget they're an expert sometimes.

Tre Balchowsky (05:12.2)

Yes, lean into that expertise. People forget all the time that they're an expert and they also forget that there's like a gap, right? I understand that I'm really good at storytelling. I understand that I'm a public speaking coach, but I forget how far that gap is to the person I'm speaking to because it's so natural to me. But the person I'm talking to is like, okay, so a talk.

I'm giving a presentation. How do I start? And I'm like, you don't think you have a basis to start with. Let me tell you, you have so much raw material already. You have the stories of your client successes. You have stories of pivots and changes you've made in the way that you do the business, in the way that you advise your clients to do what they're doing. You have stories of your own.

All of these things, all of your expertise is the raw material. And all we're trying to do is put it into a format that is very understandable, that keeps people nodding along, right? You get that little head nod in the audience and you're like, all right, I've got them, I've got them moving people through so that they understand your value. That's really the transition.

Shauna Lynn Simon (06:29.934)

Yeah, and I think people often try to overcomplicate things and again underestimate what they already have in their toolbox. But one thing that you actually said that before we even got into that part of it that I really wanted to kind of circle back to is you talked about how big the gap is between what you know about public speaking and storytelling and what an average person might know.

And this is the reminder I want for every single person listening to this, that the things that we take for granted as common knowledge are not, that is expertise and skills to someone else. So I, for example, when it comes to business foundations, is like business 101 stuff is super simple for me. And I might be talking to someone and they're like, so I need to register my business or I need insurance for my business. Are you sure? Even if I'm doing it part-time, like these are

basics to things, but we forget that it's, we accumulated all of this knowledge, all of these experiences over years. Sometimes even if you're, you're fairly new in, what it is that you're doing as an entrepreneur, you've developed experiences already and the people that you are servicing, the people that you are helping, the people that you are speaking to, they are new often to this information. Sure. Some of it might be a repeat, but don't assume that every person who's listening to you,

already knows everything you're going to say. Cause I think that is a misconception that so many people have. So I want to go all jump in.

Tre Balchowsky (08:01.614)

Also, I'm just gonna repeat yourself. It's okay. Repeat knowledge that someone else knows. It's okay. If you're not saying it in a way that's like, well, a story is... a character plus change. And if you don't know that, you're silly. As long as you are just like, hey, this is the knowledge that everybody needs to have. And I want to make sure that people understand.

that stories need change because that's what makes it juicy. That's what makes it tensiony. That's what makes it interesting and makes people want to listen, right? Like the difference between those two things. I can say that same sentence. A story is a, is a character plus juicy change. And I will say that over and over and over and over again. And I don't, no one's insulted that I said that don't feel like because they might know it already. They're going to be insulted. It's all about how you bring it to the table.

Shauna Lynn Simon (08:55.126)

Absolutely.

Tre Balchowsky (08:55.784)

Like, people know all sorts of things and don't take action. Right? We've got

Shauna Lynn Simon (09:02.046)

Just because we know doesn't mean that we're actually going to do anything with it.

Tre Balchowsky (09:05.698)

Yep. Absolutely. I know that I should have vegetables in every single meal. I don't. And so every time that I'm told I need vegetables in every single meal, there's a period of time that I do. And I'm like, yeah, like actually spinach in my omelet in the morning is what's happening. But we get in this place about our own knowledge. We're like, well, someone I've already I've already told my audience that once.

I don't want to hammer it home. I don't want to be too salesy. I don't want to be too pushy. No, no, no. Remember your own self and that you forget things. And also, particularly if we're looking to engage someone, we're looking to get in a client relationship with them. They need to hear things many times so that they're thinking about it in the back of their head. And they're like, you know what? Really? I'm not doing that over and over again. I keep knowing I should do it. I need support.

I need support on doing that, right? And so don't be afraid to repeat yourself. Don't be afraid to say something that somebody already knows. It's okay.

Shauna Lynn Simon (10:09.614)

Don't think of it this way too, if you're listening to the radio, which I know, super old school, but I still do it. I know some other people who do it too. But like, let's say you're listening to the radio, you're driving, you're doing something else while you're listening to it and a commercial comes on, you kind of just catch the tail end of it.

It kind of piques your interest, but you didn't really fully pay attention. The next time the commercial comes on, you catch a little bit more of it. You're still not entirely certain what it is that they're selling or who they are, but you catch a little bit more. The next time that commercial comes in, you're recognizing it. This is familiar. You pay a little more attention. that's they're selling this. Got it. OK. The next time they come in, you're catching the company name. Now, the commercials that will stick with me the most are the ones where they are saying the name of the company multiple times.

If you say the name of your company at the start of the commercial, but you don't repeat it at the end, I forgot who you were because I didn't know at the start of the commercial to pay attention to who you were. Yeah, right. And again, I'm using a commercial as an example. That's not necessarily what we're talking about here. But the point is that you need to repeat yourself, like you said, and not assume that just because you said something once someone remembers it. If you've got kids, when you say something to them, do they always remember what you said? Does it matter if you say to them, but I told you that yesterday?

No. So it's the same thing. And like they've got more of a vested interest when you think about it, whether it's your significant other or your kids or your parents or whatever, there are definitely those frustrating moments of like, I told you, but when I think of the number of things that I have forgotten more so than I have remembered, like someone will say something to me like, I told you that I'm like, sounds familiar, but like it's not fully registered, but if you had told me multiple times, it's nailed in.

And I actually just did a podcast episode on this recently talking all about visibility and how you need to repeat yourself. So I want to, let's circle way back to the start here, because one of things that you talk about is public speaking and storytelling are what you call mission critical. They're not a nice to have. What's the real cost of a business owner who avoids this?

Tre Balchowsky (12:04.707)

Check.

Tre Balchowsky (12:11.814)

Oh man, okay, so first let's start storytelling. If you aren't telling stories, you aren't closing deals. And there are three deals that I think about for most entrepreneurs. There's the one that most people think of, which is closing the sale. You need to tell a story that allows the potential client to imagine their new future while working with you.

You need to tell a story that they can put themselves into a new spot and understand how they're going to get there or understand how enticing that is. That's story number one and close number one. Close number two, partners. All of those partnerships that you want to go out and have the referral partnerships, the vendor relationships, the collaborations, all of those things. Again, you need to be able to tell a story that shows that

you have a vision that you understand or that you've done this work before. You need to be able to tell the story of collaborations that went well in the past. That's close number two. Close number three is I hope you're starting to think about your hires. How are you hiring people? And that involves a story of telling them how they're going to be a part of the team, how they're going to be part of your vision, how that world is going to be shaped up and the impact that they're going to be able to have. Particularly if you're bringing on

a higher power hire, someone that's really gonna be your go-to, your second person. That person needs to understand the world that you're building together and how they fit into it. And so that's storytelling. If you're not storytelling on those three levels, you're dead in the water. You might be able to get a couple of sales through referrals. You might be able to get a couple of sales because people already truly understand the pain point.

but you've got to paint that new vision and also paint that you understand those pain points, both for the client and for the collaborator, the partners, and even for the new hire. So that's storytelling. Now let's talk public speaking. I'm going to take a roll back and say public speaking is more than getting on really big stages. Public speaking, I'm starting to call it like public and private speaking. Public speaking is exactly what I'm doing today. I'm getting on a podcast.

Tre Balchowsky (14:33.966)

And I'm getting my message out to more than one person, right? I'm talking to you, but I'm actually talking to all of your listeners. Absolutely. Public speaking is also, as you were saying, giving presentations to a bunch of real estate agents. That's public speaking. Public speaking is also getting in front of a networking group, getting in front of a conference, getting in front of a hyper-specific audience that you know is going to resonate with your message and

where you're able to explain a pain point that they've been dealing with, but haven't even put words to, that is all public speaking. People often like, I've got splashy accolades where like, I help people with all of these TED and TEDx talks. That's what people think of when they think of public speaking. And yes, that is a high stakes, high pressure public speaking example. And there's so much more that's involved in that.

And so if you're not picking up the mic, whether it is the podcast mic or the mic on stage, if you're not standing on those small, medium and large stages, you're missing this huge opportunity to connect one-on-one in a way that's actually connecting one to many. And frankly, right now, like, let's talk about the other places that you're marketing. It used to be that if you were a strong writer, go and write a natural marketing.

It used to be that if you were really good at engaging on social media, jump on social media and that's where you're marketing. But those markets are super saturated and the messaging is just so noisy there. And with AI, it is becoming so much more noisy. Here's the deal. You cannot drag a computer on stage and have AI give a talk for you.

Shauna Lynn Simon (16:16.216)

Mm-hmm.

Shauna Lynn Simon (16:21.826)

Right.

Tre Balchowsky (16:23.936)

And so these spaces aren't as littered. It's full of people that are strong opting in, both from the people getting on the stage and the people showing up. People aren't showing up to those stages, to the audiences, because they happen to be scrolling on Instagram and are bored that day. They're showing up because they're interested. They've opted in to what you're talking about. Some of these small audiences are the most high converting audiences out there.

Right? Absolutely. Get in front of 25 people that are your ideal customer, paint them a picture of the pain that they have and show them how you can fix it, how you can get them to this new world vision of themselves or of their business. And they're signing up with you. So there's a huge missed opportunity if you don't do it.

Shauna Lynn Simon (17:15.15)

That's going to convert way better than a viral reel that you might have that people found interesting, but didn't necessarily mean that they were your ideal client, that were ready to buy, that wanted to work with you. You said so many incredible things there. I want to dig in a little bit further into a few of those things, but we're going to do that as soon as we come back from this quick break.

Alright, welcome back to the Real Women Real Business Podcast where we were speaking with Tre about speaking essentially, but we're redefining what that looks like. We're talking about storytelling and public speaking. We're kind of redefining what it looks like.

There were so many things that you said before the break. Let's go back to the storytelling element of things. Because I think that, like, I'll admit, I am someone who tells a lot of stories without even intentionally telling a lot of stories. And I have acknowledged that if I could be more intentional about it, it could be incredibly powerful. And it's not to say that I'm not already closing deals, whatever that looks like the way that I'm doing it, but I don't do it with the same sort of intention.

For me, a big part of it is little analogies that will come to me kind of in the moment. I'm pretty good at relating things back to like a real life scenario that people understand. But if you make me sit down to try to come up with one of those things, I'm going to struggle with it. But everything that you were saying about in terms of like when you're talking to potential clients and customers, when you're talking to partners and when you're talking to your team.

Shauna Lynn Simon (19:37.166)

I think those last two, I think we all know that we need to, whether it's storytelling or we just know that we need to be able to connect in a better way with our clients. But I think we often forget about how valuable that is for partners, for our team members. Like one of the things that I teach my clients is if you're not sharing your vision with your team, which is also a story, like they don't know what the roadmap is. Like they don't know where we're headed. They just blindly got in the car with you, but that's a little unsettling.

And if they're just blindly getting in the car with you, they're basically just going to be driving with what's in front of them. They're not looking any further than that. And partners, my gosh, I can't tell you how many times I've been approached by people who have said like, we should team up, we should collaborate. like, great, what does that look like to you? And it's crickets. And that leaves me every time, like, well, now I have to think about it? Like, I don't know, you're the one who said you wanted to collaborate. And like, now you just put all this work on me.

Tre Balchowsky (20:23.328)

Yeah.

Shauna Lynn Simon (20:33.678)

One the number one rules when it comes to communicating with your clients is to take the work away from them. Make it as easy as possible for them to say yes. The same goes for your team members, not just in when you initially hire them, but in everyday tasks. Make it easy for them to say yes to helping you. Make it easy for your partners to say yes. So I love the way that you're framing the storytelling with that. Now you mentioned earlier that storytelling was a character plus change. So

Tre Balchowsky (21:00.046)

Change.

Shauna Lynn Simon (21:03.554)

How does someone get started with like, am I supposed to sit down and think of every story that I have to tell? how?

Tre Balchowsky (21:10.198)

No, okay, okay.

Shauna Lynn Simon (21:11.788)

How do we make this not overwhelming?

Tre Balchowsky (21:13.486)

First of all, stories are everywhere. You experience this all the time and people who have stories to tell, it's not because they lead a wildly more interesting life than anybody else. It's that they take note. And so I want you to have somewhere a notepad, whether it's on your phone, in your computer, a physical notepad. I'm a real physical person. I always have a notepad with me.

Shauna Lynn Simon (21:17.155)

Yes.

Tre Balchowsky (21:43.608)

However, it works for you. I want you to jot these little moments down and you don't need to say much, right? So for example, I'm out hiking one day and let's be honest. I'm like huffing and puffing and dying on this trail because I'm out on land that my husband's biking club upkeep. So it's like meant for mountain bikers and these, bikers come hauling down the trail and it is a bike first park. So I jump off the trail.

Shauna Lynn Simon (22:04.792)

Sure.

Tre Balchowsky (22:12.086)

and take a much needed break, a break I wouldn't have given myself otherwise. And as they fly by gleeful and just be like, yeah, what a great day to ride, man. I am catching my breath and I notice this crazy looking eerily white flower? Plant? And I get down on my hands and knees as I want to do in the forest and look at it and examine it. I take a bunch of pictures. It looks unlike anything else I've ever seen.

I go home, I open up my book of flowers, and it turns out that it's an extremely rare orchid. Okay, I use that story to talk about how stories are everywhere, to talk about how we find them when we slow up to notice them, to talk about how opportunities for rare, unique things are there if we take a moment to pause. I use that core story for all manner of things.

And the only reason that I have it is that I took the moment to note it down. was after I found that it was this extremely rare orchid. It's an albino orchid that is super interesting. It only grows in the redwoods. It flowers for like three days. It's really unique. Once I realized how unique it was, I jotted that down. was like, that's a cool story. If you want to sit and harvest stories, if you're like, okay, I have no stories that I can think of.

Shauna Lynn Simon (23:32.45)

Mm-hmm.

Tre Balchowsky (23:38.616)

Sit and think of the last time you were surprised, the last time you were scared, the first time you went to a foreign country, the first time you met your partner, the first time your kid said something interesting, your very first client, your hardest client, your worst client, your best client. Think of these types of things like last, first, best, worst are great ways to start and just start jotting them down. Now I don't want you to put too much

energy into them at that point. Then it's about looking at the stories and saying, or looking at these ideas and saying, what is the story here? And this is where understanding this definition of character plus, and I say, you know, juicy change, but it can just be change. And in fact, I have taken this from George Saunders, who is an amazing writer and teacher of storytelling. And who's the character in this? The character in the story I told you about the Orchid is me.

The change that happened was the slowdown and was the aha moment of this thing I would have missed being really rare. And it changed who I was in terms of how I hike. actually take time to look at flowers now. And I'm now the person that's like dropping my pack off to crawl under a bush to look at something. Right. That's the change that happened. So when you're talking about client stories, great. Who are they? That's the protagonist.

What was the change that happened? What's that transformation you offered them? When you're talking about stories of, you know, something that happened with your kid, again, what is that transformation? What's the change? And those are the two things that you're going to start to just pull out. And those two things, if that's all you do, you're going to become a better storyteller. When you start recognizing the character and the change.

And that most of the time, I mean, the orchid story, I'm the character. Most of the time when you're an entrepreneur, when you're a founder, when you're out there, you're not the character. Right. You're a side character. You're a helper in the character, but the character is the company that you're helping, the individual that you're working with. Maybe it is a team. Maybe it's a project, right? A project can be a character.

Tre Balchowsky (25:58.882)

but it's probably not you as the main character. And then what was that change? What shifted? How did it start one way and move to another? Just knowing that, if you know nothing else about storytelling, that's gonna increase how you tell a story. It's gonna move it from a list of facts, this happened and then this happened and then this happened, to this happened and then something changed and it became like this, right?

Shauna Lynn Simon (26:24.12)

Right.

You know, it's funny because I think, you as you're telling that story, I'm realizing that I'm definitely using storytelling, think, more than I even acknowledge. I, and I have what I call my content bank. So I have a bank where I'm just capturing ideas and they're like little one liners of the overall, here's what happened. Here's the lesson that I pulled from that or something. And then I'll develop it more at a later date. But these come up, like I try to use them as timely as possible. So I recently shared, for example,

I had hung up some shelves for my cat, for my cats, like a window shelf for them. And so I was talking about how, you know, I kind of start off like, I'm actually the handiest person in my family. I'm not super proud of that. I'm more embarrassed for my family, but it is a fact. And I'm pretty comfortable with power tools and have been for a long time. But when I'm hanging up these shelves there, it's really intricate where I'm hanging them up. And I want to make sure like the substrate's a little bit different than...

what I normally deal with. So I've got an idea as to how I'm going to approach it and then I'm going to Google it and figure out kind of some of the next steps. And then I also had a conversation with ChatGPT to confirm a couple more things. And I kind of related that to like how we do business sometimes. There are times where all of that's going to work for me. And there are other times where I'm like, and I'm going to call the contractor and to do this one. Like I've got my limits. There's other times where I might just call a friend to come and support me with it. Like I could just use a second person to bounce ideas off of troubleshoot as we go, hold things for me.

And so it talks about sort of the different ways that sometimes we try to do things on our own and all of those things have places. There is a place for where you're just going to go to YouTube and see what it says. Use ChatGPT as a tool, draw on your own experiences and knowledge where you're to call in a friend or a colleague and then when you're to go to more professional support. And so I was relating this, course, to hiring a business coach. Right. And this is something that like, I mean, I spent

Tre Balchowsky (28:14.024)

Yep, exactly.

Shauna Lynn Simon (28:18.552)

quite a bit of time installing these shelves. had a little bit of time to think about it, but it was, came pretty naturally. think once you train your mind to recognize it, because I'll admit, I don't think I realized that I was already doing what you're talking about. Like that capture the story, have a character, have a change. What was the lesson? What did I learn here? What does this mean? How does this change things going forward? Like, I don't think I really fully process that. I just thought it'd be a cool thing that people might appreciate.

And I got to tell you, there are some emails that I get from some of my colleagues. I'm on a lot of my colleagues mailing lists and I enjoy being on people's mailing lists. I am that weird person who actually enjoys, if I signed up for your mailing list, I want to be there. And I love reading the different emails and there are some where I'm like, that so didn't land the way that it should have. And like, I wish that you could have like done a little bit better on that, but there are some where I'm like, this story has got me. I have no idea where you're taking me on this journey, but I can't wait to see where it leads to.

inevitably, it usually leads to some sort of call to action, some sort of sales twist. And it could be just a simple, here's a freebie kind of thing. Or other times it might be like an actual paid product. But I appreciate when someone pulls me in with them on that story. And it is a bit of an art to getting from that bank that we have of stories and turn it into something that actually sells things. How does someone start?

So they've got the bank now. How do they start training their mind to turn that into something that's actually going to relate to their clients?

Tre Balchowsky (29:51.682)

Yes, okay. So there's, I'm so glad you asked this question because I think so many people block themselves because they say, well, I don't know how to tell a story and, or I don't know how to get on stage. And so they block themselves from doing it. And here's the deal is that you have all of the raw material that you need, as I was saying earlier, and all it is is understanding the raw material, getting a connection point.

into how does this connect to my client? How does this connect to an aha moment I need them to have? How does this connect to a journey that they're on? And then connecting that to a marketing pillar of yours, most likely in this case, right? For our entrepreneurs, connecting it to a marketing pillar that you have and then framing the whole thing up into either a newsletter or into a talk is what I'm often focused on.

or into a broader story that will be a story plus the aha moment for a podcast, all of these things. And I actually have a really great 45 minute session that I'm offering to your audience for free. That's called a "Story Finder". And we do exactly that. You bring a story and we're going to tease out that core. The thing that you didn't know is there. We're going to tease out the core. We're going to tease out how it connects to a marketing pillar. And we might even find the right stage to put it on. And that's.

the journey that you need to start doing in order to move from these little snippets that might be a great Instagram post, a great LinkedIn post to something that is a little deeper, that's a little bit more connective, that's going to really draw that audience in, get them to see something in a way that you need them to see it, and then hopefully help them convert with you.

Shauna Lynn Simon (31:38.414)

And I would say like that is such a generous offer. would say anyone who's listening to this go and book that call because this goes back to my power tool story literally of like you could do it yourself. You can try to do it yourself. But if you have this opportunity to get on a 45 minute call with Tre and have her help you like pull it out that has so much value because I know like even for myself, you know people will I attend a lot of networking things. I love meeting new contacts. This is where a lot of my success partners have come from throw a lot of

podcast guests have come from and I'll show up at these networking things and I'll give a very brief elevator speech about who I am, who I work with, how I work. And inevitably I get told that I have one of the best elevator speeches. And the reason is that my messaging is pretty on point. The reason my messaging is as on point as it is, is because I have continued to refine it and it's not something I did by myself. I worked with someone who helped pull it out of me. Actually, I should say I worked with multiple someones.

but probably the most critical. had it like 80 % of the way there. And then Deb Mitchell, who's been on this show, she's a copywriter for creative entrepreneurs. And I worked with her and she just sat there and asked me a bunch of questions and all this stuff was already inside me, but I didn't have the words for it. So if you can work with someone to find those words, that has so much value. if I can plug this any harder, I mean, my goodness, I will, like seriously, but like, if you haven't booked the call yet, I don't know what you're waiting for. the link. So the link is.

Tre Balchowsky (33:07.054)

So it's bit.ly/RWRBstory.

Shauna Lynn Simon (33:13.248)

As in Real Women Real Business story, RWRB story, which I think is incredible because I think that's, like I said, it kind of goes back to the whole girl with power tools here. And if you can bring in an expert to help you with that, I think that that's such a key, key critical thing to be able to pull out of there.

Tre Balchowsky (33:30.712)

We're to start pattern recognizing, right? One of the great things about this session is that there's nothing genius that I do. What I do is I listen extremely intensely to you and I ask a bunch of questions that pull from different angles in a way that your brain isn't going to do for yourself without having heard me do it. And a lot of my clients, after they work with me, they say, I have a little tray that sits in the back of my brain that says,

Say that again, what are you trying to say here? Which is a saying I say all the time. Someone says four sentences and I'm like, what are you trying to say here? And then they get it a little bit more distilled and we'll get to the core of something. They have a little tray with them and through a session like this, you're gonna start to see, you're already gonna start to see that pattern recognition show up for you, right? And that's a lot of what you need.

is a little bit of pattern recognition, a little bit of pattern recognition so that you see stories starting to pop out of you. A little bit of pattern recognition where you start to see what that story can become, right? What the aha moment is, how it relates to your work. A little bit of pattern recognition when you realize that the things that you already do are public speaking. And so you could take it one step further, one step harder on that hardness knob.

and get a lot of value by doing that without changing a whole lot of what you're doing already.

Shauna Lynn Simon (34:59.828)

Mm-hmm. And I also wanted to just hone in on one other small.

Small big point that you mentioned earlier was talking about relating it to one of your marketing pillars. And if you don't have marketing pillars, this is gonna be more challenging. So if you are that entrepreneur, we've talked about this previously about niching things down and really focusing on what your core offerings are. It doesn't mean you can't have other offerings, but you should have a couple of specific lanes that you are usually promoting. Like the specific core services you're usually promoting, the value, the benefit driven,

element of things. And if you don't have those, if you don't get clear on those, that will make this exercise a lot harder as well. And it doesn't mean that you eliminate everything else necessarily, but having those core ideas, those core elements is going to make this a lot easier. And I think that that's one of the challenges. I know that sometimes clients have a like, but I can do all these things. But if we could just

identify which marketing pillar, like you said, this is going to align with, I think that is absolutely critical too. Yeah.

Tre Balchowsky (36:05.908)

Absolutely. Knowing your through thread, understanding like, and this is something like, look, I'm also an entrepreneur. I struggle with this. have a million shiny objects I'm chasing around. And ultimately I have like three products that I offer all of the time. And yes, do I do other things? Yes. Am I brainstorming crazy workshops for the summer? Yeah, of course. That doesn't mean that I'm not consistently talking about public speaking.

pitching and communication in general as my box, right? And so what is that for you? And then how do these stories relate into it? And how do you show up on stage in order to rally around those things and bring people back to them?

Shauna Lynn Simon (36:52.462)

And having all of this just makes all of your marketing a thousand times easier. instead of sitting there and thinking, what am I going to post on social today? You know, it's going to be along these themes. I got these stories already. also, you know, you can repurpose everything that talk that you're going to do in front of people can also be repurposed into a social media post and an email campaign and a podcast episode. I can literally turn a two line social media post into a full podcast episode here. I've done it numerous times.

Tre Balchowsky (37:21.742)

should be feeding themselves, right? Absolutely. And that's why I think, you know, one of the things that your whole podcast is all about is how do you do it with less stress and less work? Public speaking isn't an add-on, right? I don't want you to think about, God, now I have to think of talks. First of all, you've already got them, you just don't know. So come find me, I'll find you the talks that you already have, right? Secondly, each one of those talks, if you're in front of a good audience, it's likely getting recorded.

Shauna Lynn Simon (37:23.982)

Thanks.

Tre Balchowsky (37:51.586)

Right? Yeah. Get that recording back, splice it, dice it. If it's not getting recorded, use some sort of AI note taking. I love Granola personally, AI note taking app. Throw your phone next to you, click go, record what happens when you get on stage, because also your script and what happens live are going to be different. They should be different. Please have them be different. Respond to that audience, right? Like be in the feedback loop with them. Take all of that.

And look at it and be like, wait, I see a bunch of LinkedIn posts here. I see my next two newsletter articles. I see in fact, two new talks with loops that happened in this that need to be explained more deeply. This isn't just a, I'm going to go and put a bunch of effort in to give a talk and then let it go away. Also, if you put a bunch of effort in to write a talk, which if you want to write that talk, call me, we'll work together on it.

You want to put a bunch of effort into doing a talk that you feel really proud of. Please don't give it once. Please give it over and over and over again. Please bob and weave with it, lens it for this audience and that audience, grow it with you. But like keep that same core talk going because you put a lot of energy into it and it supports you and your clients and what you're wanting to do. So use it a bunch.

invest in it once and then reap that ROI for a very long time, right? And so it's not an add on it is like a foundational piece that's going to help you grow all of these other things. And it's truly such a high ROI that it's it's kind of silly not to do it.

Shauna Lynn Simon (39:26.968)

So.

Shauna Lynn Simon (39:40.322)

Yeah, and this is, I think that's, I think this is actually a perfect way to end this episode as well is just on such a high note of like, this is not an add-on this. it's built into everything that you're doing and it's just going to enhance it. The more intentional that you are about it, the more it can enhance it. I mean, I, yeah, like I don't like doing anything multiple times without like, like if I'm doing it multiple times, I want to do it the same way as many times, as many ways that I've.

Sure, I like new things, don't get me wrong, but I don't like making things harder for myself. So yes, everything gets tweaked. I've literally never given the same talk, the exact same talk twice, obviously, but I've given the same similar themes all the time. And in fact, if you want to hire me as a speaker, if you want me to create a custom talk, that is going to cost you a lot more than if you grab one of my signature talks, because those are already created. Those have already been curated. They've already been practiced and tested. I'm often...

shiny object as well. I should add this to my next talk or create a whole new content theme for that talk because my brand is also just like everyone else's brand. My brand is also evolving and I'm finding different stories, different language, different narratives and different ways to present that messaging. But ultimately I am repurposing wherever I can. I'm not completely scrapping everything and starting all over. Imagine if you took your website and

You put up a website for a few weeks and then a few weeks later, you're like, all right, cool. Next. And you create a whole new website.

Tre Balchowsky (41:16.93)

Please don't do this.

Shauna Lynn Simon (41:18.414)

This is what not to do. What do you think Google is going to do with you for starters? Right? Like what do think your clients are going to do? What about someone who is accustomed to coming to your page and finding specific information and now you've just moved it? Like you wouldn't do that. So why would we do that with any of our content? It's not just about the signature talk, but any of our content. Why would we continually change it? Should it evolve? Absolutely. It should absolutely evolve.

But should we be completely throwing it out? Not usually. Sometimes. Sometimes there are some things that just need to go in the trash bin. But most of the time it's just a matter of evolving it because there's usually a good core to that. We just need to move it a little bit further forward. Tre, this has been, I feel like we could be talking all day. I just want to do one final plug for this Storyfinder session. So it's a free.

45 minutes "Story Finder" session that you're offering to the audience at bit.ly/RWRBstory We will have that in the show notes that link is in the show notes, of course And this is such a generous offer I think that anyone who's listening to this if you are not taking her up on this I don't know what I don't know what's stopping you in all honesty Unless if you unless you feel like I got that got speaking and storytelling nailed down, which I won't even say that I mean

this call, like I'm kind of considering doing the call myself, so I highly recommend it. So if someone's listening to this today and they're like, okay, you guys just threw a whole lot of information at us and they can take one step, one step today, what would you like or just one takeaway from today's episode? What do really want them to hang on to from this?

Tre Balchowsky (42:51.054)

Yes, we did.

Tre Balchowsky (43:02.67)

I really want you to know that public speaking is not terrifying. It is listed as one of the top fears among people. I want to demystify it. I want you to understand that you're already doing so much of what public speaking is, that you have so much of the raw material that I don't want you to stop yourself from doing this highly impactful, highly ROI activity.

because you don't think that you have it. You have the raw material. You're probably doing the vast majority of what you need to do to get to that first step. And I always talk about public speaking as a continuum from avoidance to deep connection and deep ROI. Let's move you out of avoidance. Take that first step. Jump on my Storyfinder call. Take the first step. Understand what you're doing. And

Don't be afraid of this. This isn't something you should fear. It's really impactful and it's gonna help your business.

Shauna Lynn Simon (44:08.782)

I couldn't have said it any better myself. I love it. Thank you so much, Tre. This has been such an honor. Thank you so much for joining me on the show today.

Tre Balchowsky (44:16.75)

Thank you so much for having me.

Shauna Lynn Simon (44:18.54)

And right, if you're listening to this episode, of course, and what we're seeing is resonating with you, I hope that you will continue to tune in each week and allow us to continue to be a part of your journey. Don't forget to subscribe to us and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, the best way that you can show your support not only for this podcast, because this really does help our podcast, but also for your fellow women entrepreneurs is who do you know who can benefit from today's message? Share this episode with them.

They're going to thank you for it. And of course, I'm always truly grateful to you. Until next time, everyone, keep thriving.