What If It Works? Chief Presentation Strategist Patti Schutte on Self-Sabotage, the Noise Trap & Building a Business One Yes at a Time

SPEAKER_00 0:55

We just have so much data and info coming at us from social. And you should do this and you should do this. And oh, here's this person that tells you you're doing this marketing wrong. And you need to do it this way. You should put that in some sort of, you know, like they used to sift for cold, if you will. And to sit there and figure out what are the nuggets that fall through that make sense for you, that makes sense for your business and your services, is something that I really find challenging sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Salutations, Scooby Leavers, and we are here again with another amazing entrepreneur. Today we're here with Patty. Hey Patty, how are you? I'm great. Hello, hello, and thanks for having me. Absolutely. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day and being the Undiscovered Entrepreneur. Get across the start line. Super appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Thank you. I'm excited to be here and appreciate you for the invite.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Absolutely. Yeah. Hey, hey, you scuba leavers. I got to let you know this was a really scheduling fight between the two of us to actually get this put together for you. But like I always say, if you have to fight for it, it's going to be amazing. So we're going to dive right in here. So, Patty, I'd like to know here right at the very beginning is who you are, what your entrepreneur adventure is, and how you got across the start line in your entrepreneur adventure.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Yeah, who am I? I'm Patty Shooty, who is now a chief presentation strategist. But the journey started off with a mathematics degree because that's what everybody thinks of brilliant presentation people have a math degree. But little did I know that that foundation would take me to the place I am now working with subject matter experts who, when they get on a stage, their subject matter expertise gets a little diminished, or maybe they're nervous, they're fearful, or whatever the case may be. But my journey is unique as many people's are. We were talking ahead of this, and I said that, you know what? I didn't say, oh, I want to be an entrepreneur. It literally found me because I went from getting that math degree to realizing that if my colleagues who I considered smarter than me said the actual test was hard, I wasn't going to take it. What route am I going to go? So I did the teaching route. But I became a really good teacher, and that was a foundation for being an entrepreneur because I learned really quickly hey, if it's not working, you need to make an adjustment. And then I had kids, then I went to direct marketing, and that was an amazing, another layer of entrepreneurial. It was a decision I made, but I have to tell you, I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur. That never once crossed my mind. I was just doing something that felt natural, that was bringing money in while I could still be with my kiddos. Now, I still became the top 2% of that organization. And at that point in time, I wasn't realizing I was becoming a presentation scientist, really, because if somebody held the microphone a certain way, or if they said something a certain way, they got more excitement from the audience or they got more buy-in. And then I did that for 10 years and decided I don't know that I want to do that anymore. What do I do next? I don't know. So I sat down with a friend and she said you should be a corporate trainer in corporate America. I'm like, uh, okay, sounds good. So I put my resume together and I became a role in corporate America, but as a presenter manager. And that was the first time I realized, oh my gosh, I've hit my sweet spot. Because that was very natural. I did that for 15 years. But while I was in that organization, I was touching the presentations all the way from the ideation stage and already proactively thinking about how, as we ideate an idea and we go to sell it, how are we going to talk about it? How are we going to promote it? So I'd work with the marketing team to think about presentations. I work with the sales team and so on and so forth. And then I would hold audition events to say, hey, you want to present for us? You got to go through my audition process. One person actually called me the Simon Cowell of that organization one time. But then what happened one day is because I had done that work, somebody that worked there left, called me one day, thought we were doing a girlfriend catch up and said, Patty, so good to hear from you. Here's the deal. Got a new job. I'm an event manager for this big conference. We've got 200 speakers. They're electrical mechanical engineers. They are brilliant at what they do, but they aren't always so great when they're on the stage. I know what you do. I need your help. And I said, What do you need me to help with? I don't understand. And she literally wrote my first business service for me. She said, You're going to offer webinars and then you're going to give them one-on-one coaching virtually. And then you're going to come on site. And I have to tell you, this was in 2011. Zoom didn't exist. The only thing I had was WebEx. That was it. And I'm like, wait a second. I'm going to train presentation skills virtually. Like I had never done that before. Um, and then she said the magic word. If you choose to do this, this is what we'll pay you. And I was like, I think I'm going to figure this out. And I'm so glad I said yes. And I'm so glad I fast I did that. And fast forward now to 2026, my services have changed, they've evolved, but I just kept saying yes and figuring it out.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

So what are you doing currently now?

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Yeah. So now my services have gone beyond just the conference space because that's what it started. And so now I partner, I still do that, but I've expanded my ex my services now to entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, business startups. And how do I partner with them to make presentations a strategy across their whole organization? Are you giving a networking pitch? Are you giving a sales demo? Do you have any sort of presentation moment? And are you just walking in and winging it? Or are you actually thinking about the strategy of what do we need to happen in this moment to move the decision forward or whatever outcome it is that you have in that presentation moment? I work with you to make sure you protect it and it happens, but you're also confident and you go in knowing what to say and how to deliver it. And if it goes sideways, how can we bring it back around and still at a high probability attain the outcome that you're looking for?

SPEAKER_02 7:07

Fantastic. That's amazing. What a great story. I love that. I I think the thing that really kind of surprises me most is what you started at with the very beginning with math mathematics. And like this, there's there's nothing really math about what you're doing right now, really technically, except for you know counting money and that kind of thing. But besides that, you know, but you you took one thing and you just kind of used that into your next thing and used that into your next thing, and you didn't stop. You kept saying, Yes, yes, I'm gonna try this. Yes, this sounds good. And so you get to that one, like you said, you might you you said it very simple, the sweet spot, the one thing that you know that this is what you wanted to be and where you wanted to go. And we all call that our zone of genius, right? We ended up being in our zone of genius, and then things took up exponentially. Big words for me today, uh, exponentially off into the next into the next amazing thing, the uh event manager to where you are today, where you're helping people in presentations and making sure that that it's it's going off well. So thank you very much for that. And that was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Well, thank you. Thank you. And that's where that strategist title came in. Because for a while it was speech coach, and then as my as I evolved and the clients that were coming back to me was evolving, I realized what I was doing wasn't the right title. It wasn't sharing enough. The the speech coaching is for sure a component of it, but that strategy piece and how to leverage it and scale it across your organization, is where then I started playing around with my title and realized this is sticking. This is a better description of what I do. So I encourage all the entrepreneurs that are listening to this, no matter where they're at in their journey, is it's a key element to think about as I go talk about my services and as I go talk about my brand and what I'm doing. How am I talking about that? How am I communicating about that? And am I always leaving that moment with a clear next step and that clear call to action? Because all to what I've found when I'm working with people that are newer in the entrepreneurial journey, myself included, by the way, I didn't say, oh, here's what's happening next. Like the contract was over and it was like, okay, I'll just wait for the next one. Or I didn't even realize when I was shaking a hand at a conference, I didn't even hand him a business card. Like I wasn't even thinking about, oh, let's open a conversation and let's let's round out those next steps.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Yeah, it's really important. First of all, I'm gonna touch on title because that's something I don't talk a whole lot about. So I want to make sure I touch in that now. Having a title that's clear, that's concise, that says exactly what you need, what your service does. I find so often that people try to be real like witty or like do a play on words or something like that to stand out, but at the same time, you're confusing people about what you do. Where instead you should say, I am doing this, this is my title, this is what I do. I've actually changed a few of my, I changed my website title, and the thing is I will help you get across the start line. Simple, easy, this is what it does. And it it's it's fun to play on words and things like that, but you if you really want to grow and you want people to understand what you're actually doing, then having it in your title to begin with is a very good first step. And having a clear call to action of what the next step is. Same kind of thing, same kind of problem where we kind of there's a lot of people that want to be witty about it, to change it around or kind of thing. Just tell them, hey, this is the next step that we need to do, and and that's the way it is. So I love how you put how you map that out.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Yeah, yeah. And it's fun what you said about bringing it down, like I help you get across the line. That's where my word called resultations came from, because I was playing around with, I was struggling with trying to get this mindset across. And I knew enough about curriculum design and and how the brain works that if we can come up with a word for something, then we can start to attach meaning to it more. And so one of the things that I say is I help you maximize your results. You stop giving presentations and you start giving resultations. And what's fun is that opens the door for people to go, well, what does that mean? Tell me more. It's it's an it's an automatic conversation starter, too.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Yeah, it's good to be able to find a way to get that door open into conversation, get people's curiosity to peak. It's like, oh, what does that really mean? Or what what is the strange word that everybody's saying or whatever. And it's funny for me, as I was going along, I've been doing this for over four years now, where I kept saying get across a start line over and over again, even though I wasn't really, really meaning to say it. It was just like it was almost like a tagline for me. But then I started like, wait, wait a minute. Now I really dig into it or have the four hurdles of stop, getting across a start line, where uh where the what we do, it's kind of like a race to get to the other end of it. And it seemed to be people seem to be able to relate to it when you have a story that you could put put into that, where people in their head could say, Oh, I see how this works.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Yeah, yeah. And one of the things I work with clients is especially as they're new entrepreneurs, is what's your sales story? What's your what's your narrative? And I have a whole framework and template that we go through, but it helps them say, oh, this is the big change in the world, and this is how I'm playing in that big change, and this is what I'm trying to impact. And these are my services that help that impact. And that serves as a guideline for them. Um, and a lot of times we sometimes discover those types of little catch lines or phrase lines or titles that can help get them clarity because that's something that I think I don't know if that's one of your stops necessarily or not, but I think all this muddled stuff we might have in our mind, well, I could do this and I could do that, and I I could explain it this way, and I could explain it that way. But I have found when I take people through the story narrative process, then that gets them to the point where they're like, okay, this is what I'm offering and this is how I'm communicating about it.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Is there like a step process, maybe like a really quick blip of what that process is that you could share with us by chance?

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah, and it's actually based on something that's it's a little bit older, but it's called the best sales pitch ever given by Andy Raskin, if you're familiar with it. And so what I give that article to my clients, I tell them to read it, and that's something we could, you know, maybe link or something if we wanted to. But then what I've done is I've created a template that or a blueprint that helps them work through that. So we say, I so I start out, what is the big change in the world that is affecting what your product is? So I sometimes I work with real estate agents and I say, you know, you could go many different directions, but you know, what is what is the big change and what do you want to talk about in terms of the change in the real estate for as an example? So it's a change that affects everybody. It doesn't have to do with your products, it's just a change that affects the world. And then from there, that change, there's gonna be people that are winners or there's gonna be people that are not. But what I think the article doesn't dive in deep enough if it it touches on it. But what does that feel like when you aren't winning in this big change? Because people a lot of times say what it is, you know, like, oh, they didn't get a good interest rate, or oh, they didn't go to a good load officer if I go back to the real estate agent um example. But when I'm working with clients, I say, but what does that feel like? How can I how can I emotionally attach to that loser land, if you will? And then how can I emotionally attach when I'm winning and then I'm thriving in whatever this big relevant change is? And then in that big relevant change, we tease that promised land. So it's it's kind of in the sales, we talk about what's the end goal, what's the end result? Not necessarily how we're gonna get there, but what does that look like? And so it's that next step of defining the winners, the losers, what's that promised land look like? And then how do you get to that promised land? And it's not your services of your products. He talks about how you talk about them and serve them up as magical gifts. And so I help people transition to talk about their products in a gift type of language instead of here's something you can buy, here's something you can buy, here's something you can buy. We just we frame it differently. And then there's testimonials or evidence to support each of those gifts. Now, if you're new, sometimes you don't have that. So we got to get creative around saying, well, I'm offering this service, but I have years of experience doing this, or whatever the case may be. So that's a rough framework. Um, but it has worked over and over and over and over again. So I keep going back to it. And it doesn't matter the industry or the entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Fantastic. Thank you for that step-by-step. Uh, that's gonna be really great for a lot of the new entrepreneurs to to look at and think about. But I think the thing that kind of sticks out most, and I think we touch on that one the most, is what it feels like. Understanding the the emotions that's behind what you're actually doing, positive and negative, because both of them are going to be there. You have to be ready for both, not just a positive, think everything's gonna be sunshine and rainbows, as it were, but there's gonna be feelings too. But we got to understand that that's not feelings for us to stop. That's feelings for us to analyze and see what steps we need to take to get to the good stuff. Let's not use that as a stopping, let's not use that as a hurdle, like we like talking about in my podcast. Let's use that as a guide to where we need to go for the next step.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Yeah, one of the things I started doing a few years back is I started when somebody would say, Well, Patty, I think I need presentation help. I would say, Well, what's happening? And then they would describe the situation. You know, maybe they weren't, they didn't feel like they had good enough executive presence. I hear executive presence often. You know, I got to talk to people and I want executive presence. I'll say, okay, when you have it, what does it feel like? When you don't have it, what does that feel like? And I will take the words right out of their mouth, and then I will use those words when I'm communicating to others. Because when we can take what our clients say to us or our prospects say to us, and then embed that into our presentations, our websites, our blogs, that has a tendency to resonate more as we share our sales story, our sales narrative in all these different spaces.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Understanding the language that people are using, even if it's right down to their specific language, the one person that's in front of you, and actually listening, which is a which is a skill in itself, but actually listening to what their language is and the words they're using, that way they understand that number one, that you're listening to them, because you're basically in a way repeating it back to what they're saying, but then coordinate that with what you're trying to do with them or help them with or serve them with. They will resonate with it more because they realize that you're talking their same language. So it's really important to understand that. So thank you, Patty. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you bet. So I know you have some stops that you like to talk about when you're working. And I don't know, should we go through some of those stops? Because I as a presentation person, I almost think presentations can solve anything. Now that's not true. But fear, I know, is a big one of yours. We don't have to jump to that one necessarily. But uh one thing I was excited about being on your podcast is how those kind of intersect each other.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Yeah. Um, actually, you beat me to my next question. Thank you, Patty. I really appreciate that. Here's a transition, ladies and gentlemen. That's okay. Yeah. But I I you've talked to new entrepreneurs all the time. I mean, like you said before. So I'd like to know number one, what do you think stops most entrepreneurs from getting across the start line? And if you want to resonate that into the four hurdles of stop, imposter, such a perfectionism, failure, and fear, please feel free to do so. But I'm curious about what your experience is with new entrepreneurs and and their stopping points.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Yeah, I think I'm gonna ask answer that in two ways. I'm gonna answer first of all is myself. Um, because again, I didn't decide to become an entrepreneur the way I am now and running a full business with thousands of clients over the years since starting in 2011. What could have potentially stopped me and did pull me back at times, and then what I see in in clients that I'm working with today. For myself, one of the biggest things I struggled with is I didn't start this, I'm not good enough. I'm good enough for that one certain situation. Just what my my friend called me about. Um, and I it actually took a pandemic and me losing every contract I had to realize wait a second, look at the data, look at the numbers. What is it telling you? You've done this work, you've worked with many people, you have been asked back every single year. You've gone through my girlfriend, left that organization and another event manager came on, that person left, and another person came on, and you were always on the budget. You were always there. And I had to really get out of my own head a little bit and to get creative and to say, well, how could I potentially bring these services to entrepreneurs, to subject matter experts that aren't within an organization, but maybe they just want help themselves. How can I diversify my services? And then look at myself and say, you've been doing this work for a long time, you live and breathe presentations, you have to remember other people don't. And what may be 101 or what may be below 101 to you is probably not to them. And believing that the service that I have to bring to the world and my voice and my passion has a place to monetize and really thrive. And so I had I always talk, you know, depending on the size of your head, it's four inches, six inches, whatever, but I call it your inches between your left ear and your right ear is sometimes what we need to struggle, we struggle with the most. And I do see that with the people we work with today, or that I work with today. But I think one of the things that I see is there's more mass confusion. And what I mean by that is we just have so much data and info coming at us from social, and you should do this and you should do this. And oh, here's this person that tells you you're doing this marketing wrong and you need to do it this way. And it's all coming at you. And to put that in some sort of, you know, like they used to sift for gold, if you will, and to sit there and figure out what are the nuggets that fall through that make sense for you, that makes sense for your business and your services, is something that they really find challenging sometimes. And so what's unique is a lot of times they'll sit down and they'll say, Oh, Patty, I need help making a sales presentation. And through my clarify phase, that's part of that work, they realize that a byproduct is just clarification, period, on who they are, what they are, what they want to do, and what they don't want to do. And so that's something that I find that is really holding people back. Is just the noise that they that they hear a lot. And one other big one sometimes that I hear from a fear perspective is definitely what I talked about before. It's kind of that imposter, like I I can't do this, this isn't for me, whatever. But the other thing, just because I live in the world of speaking, most people will be like, death and speaking, right? Is really having the courage to do the sales process. That it it to some, it feels like public speaking. It feels like I'm putting myself out there in a way that's too uncomfortable. And so they almost self-sabotage without paying attention that they're self-sabotaging in their sales process. They literally talked the person out of the sale. If I listen to a sales call sometimes, or I listen back to their presentation, I said, You just diminished your value right here. Do you hear it? And so that's something that we work through too, which is a form of fear.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

Amazing. Yeah, self-sabotage happens a lot, a lot more than people think, because they get in their head that they're not good enough or they're not worthy enough or anything like that. And subconsciously, and I get into this a lot too, subconsciously, we don't think we're worthy. So whatever we're telling our brain is what our brains is gonna do. So we self- we even subconsciously self-sabotage ourselves because we're afraid to make we know what'll happen next. And then we that way we have it out. And I for the longest time before I started my podcast, I was very much a self-sabotage guy. I really was. I would only get to a certain amount of love and abundance, and then I would sabotage myself because I didn't want my brain didn't want to go past whatever level that is that was that was there. So we really have to understand where that self-sabotage is happening. Yeah, go back and listen to the present if you have a capability, listen to that presentation. Record yourself doing a presentation, listen back to it, say, Oh, maybe I could have said this a little bit differently that wasn't so self-sabotaging, as it were, and that kind of thing, too. And the noise, all the noise, especially now, with so much going on in the world right now, we have to understand not everything that's fed to us is going to be something we're gonna use. Um, so a mentor of mine named Pat Flynn, he wrote a book called Lean Learning. I actually have it sitting next to me right here, and it talks about how we need to do just in time learning instead of just in case learning. Learn what we need at that particular point instead of learning everything just in case we need to it. That way we we lessen the amount of things that we need to learn for ourselves and actually can use that information to get across the start line or to get across whatever it is that we're going to instead of having to learn, okay, I now need this piece. Well, I might need all this looks good. Oh, this TikTok says I need to do this, or this YouTube video says I need to do that. Suddenly we're bombarded with so many things that you have to do that you don't know what to do anymore because you got so much going on. So just learn about what you need at that particular point, and that will help you along with that just in case learning. So that's amazing. Yeah, lots of noise out there.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

There is, and you know what that's interesting that you know, because I flip that I flip that when we come to the presentation, and I say, you know what kind of noise you're having. We can't bring noise in this presentation moment. In other words, you're guiding this audience, whatever audience you're talking to, is what is the one outcome? Not three, not five, one. What is the one outcome that you want this audience of one, 10, 100, whatever the case may be, or even in a podcast situation like this, what is it that you want the audience to do when you at the end and at the conclusion? And they're motivated to do it, and they clearly can see this is the thing they're being asked to do. And there's no confusion. And so part of that clarify phase in my resultations method is we say, What do you want them to do? And we figure that out and make sure it's the logical next step. So one of the startup companies I work with, they realized as they were getting going and they were getting out the gate that their sales cycle was longer than they realized. And they weren't going in for the sale too soon where they should have been building advocates. So build an advocate, bring that advocate to the table. Get another advocate, bring that advocate to the table. And so we we drew the sales cycle out a little bit longer. And then we didn't do the hard sale as the call to action until a certain part in the sales cycle. And they went from about closing at a 20% rate to closing at an 80% rate. Now the cycle was longer, but they had better results. And so that's a key thing to think about too is what do I want them to do? But is that do make sense in this moment? Those two need to match. But again, it it has to be one.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

Yeah, absolutely. Have one call to action, not three, not five. One call to action. That's that's the sensible next step to take. I love that so much. Don't add to the noise that's out there because now you're just gonna get lost. Every all your messaging, everything is gonna get lost. So and the thing too is when you do stretch it out to where you get just like you said, to where, yeah, it's a few, it's a few more steps, you know, one after the other, but they tend to stick around a little bit longer too, instead of the quick fix, okay, I got what they need, okay, I'm gone. You know, they understand there's a step to the process. Okay, this is the next step. Oh, I'm I'm I want to hear what the next step is gonna be because I wonder how much better that's gonna be for me and my business. And they tend to stick around so there's not so much what's called churn, uh if I'm if I'm saying that right, for your for your business or for your for your company or anything else. So that's very, very important.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, one of the things, and I I keep as I was getting ready for this podcast, I kept thinking back to what was it like when I started? You know, I can't believe that I'm now 15 years into this. It's it I I I feel so blessed, I feel so honored, but I also want people to know I've probably almost given up a hundred times.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

I mean, I don't want people to think, oh, it was easy and you know, she has a unique skill set and whatever. No, uh, there was times that I was like, what am I doing? Like, this is hard. This sales process feels daunting. And even for myself, finding that right sales cadence and my outreach and refining my branding, and refining my branding as my comp as as I have expanded my services and how and as I've expanded my credentials and my certifications and my my professional learning that I've done, and how to communicate that in a way that is finding the right clientele. Because there was a while when I transitioned from the conferences into individuals, I wasn't attracting the right people. It took me a while to say, I need subject matter experts who are not wanting to build a speaker career. I, my bread and butter is working with people that are subject matter experts in something else, but they have to present on occasion and they want to be brilliant when they do. When I refined that and then threw in the word presentation strategist, even before I gave myself that title, then I started getting the right clientele. I started those were the I was happier. I was knew I was getting the right contracts. Um, because the work, the the close rate for me was higher and the work was more enjoyable.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

Well, that gets closer into your zone of genius. That's why. It's it's it's getting that time you're putting in to find where your zone of genius is gonna be and how to get the word of the zone of genius for the people that need to hear it, that need to be in that spot. We have to find those people. They're not gonna come up to you. You have to find them and you're in your own way and your transition and everything else and how that works out. And we've all most of us all have gotten to the point where we've almost given up. I I now I've uh I've rebranded once, which was hard for me to do, and it was almost to a giving up point there, but instead of giving up, I just changed a few things to see what would happen. But let's not be the gold miner that sells off the product one shovel away before the gold, right? We we want to keep going, even though it's a bad spot, and we're all gonna come into that. It's it's part of the process, it's going to happen. Don't think it's not gonna happen, because it's going to happen. You're gonna get really close to giving up, but instead of giving up, say, I'm gonna give one more shovel, I'm gonna give it one more chance, I'm gonna see what's gonna happen next. That's one of my things I love saying is I want to see what's happening next. And see what happens. Maybe you make the pivot that actually works, maybe you don't, but at least you tried and gave it a shot and don't have that regret of just throwing your hands up in the air and saying, Okay, I'm done, and not knowing what could have happened if you kept going.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Yeah. One of the images I put into my head, and this was years ago, rather than the shovel, I said around the corner. I said, What if that next turn around the corner? And it was always the left. I don't know why it was the left, but in my mind, it was always left. That was my that was it. That was the solution I was looking for. That was my next level. Like it's just around the corner. And what if I stop one step before I turn that corner? And and so for me, that was just a powerful vision to remind myself what's that next turn I need to make, or what's that slight adjustment that I need to look at and just try again and and try again.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

The what if that always comes up in a lot of my conversations. The but you know, it's funny, the people I talk to, the first thing they say, what if negative? What if negative, you know? And it comes up over and over again. That's always the first thing people thought think about when they hear that what if. What if this bad thing happens? We need to change that. The first thing we need to think about, what if this positive thing happens? What if it does work? You never know for sure until you get going, until you get across the start line or whatever line it is in your point, and you understand that what if, oh, it did work. You know, let's be positive about that what if, not negative about that what if.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Yeah, yeah. I had a coach, a mentor, that said it this way. He said, What is your wildest, wildest idea? And I sat there and I sat there, I said that my approach to presentations, my resultation method would be a common term across corporate America. And people would just know, are you trained on this? Are you trained on this? Are you trained on this? That it would be that well known. And then the next question said, So why aren't you doing it? And I'm like, that's a great thing. Am I and it was really more about am I doing the right moves myself as an entrepreneur to go to make that come to fruition, what would it take? What might that look like? And get curious, not negative, like you were just saying, but to get curious and to say, well, what if that could come to fruition? What could I do now with where I'm at right now? And so one of the moves I made in 2025 is I connected with a PR firm and I started working with a PR firm. Because I'm like, you know what? If I'm gonna start getting this word out and getting this method out and start thinking about presentations as a business strategy, and not just when you're standing on a keynote or just in the sales cycle, perhaps, but all these presentation moments that you have throughout your day, then I need to start getting the word out more. And how can I do that? And it's been a great move. It has been a tremendous move. And what I'm seeing as results is I'm hearing people say back to me what they've read. They're like, Patty, I reached out to you because this really resonated with me. And so I'm looking at it as a five to ten year process, but I so appreciate and what I would encourage the listeners to think about is if you get that thing in your mind, just like you're saying, entertain it, marinate it in a little while. Like just sit yourself in it and go, ooh, what if I did do that? What would that feel like? What would that look like? How would that change my life? How would that change my family's life? You know, it's a lot of times why we're doing this entrepreneur thing is not just about us and for us, we're doing it for freedom or autonomy or or something like that. But what difference could I really make for the people who need what I have to bring? And a lot of times then when we sit in that, then we can't let ourselves start to go to that self-sabotage and that negative talk. And it's like, no, nope, I'm not gonna go there. I'm gonna just feel it, I'm gonna marinate in it, then I'm gonna walk away. And then what I like to do is say, okay, now that I've sat in it, write down three things I could potentially do. Don't overcomplicate it, don't overthink about it. But what's three things I could potentially do to move towards that? Um, has been something helpful in my entrepreneur journey.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

Yeah, because you're you're fresh in it and you're just coming out of like, okay, now what can I do? You know, what would it look like if it were easy? You know, that's one of the things I like to think about too. And if you could think about it that way, it's like, okay, well, then this is accomplishable. We can make these things happen because this is as what it would be if it was easy. Okay, good. Step, step, step, step. Let's see which one of those steps we can accomplish. But getting getting your voice out there, getting your your ideas out there out on paper, don't keep them up here because you're gonna forget about them. I guarantee it. I forget about my ideas all the time. A lot of times I catch myself going, What did I just say? So instead of just trying to keep them in your head, put them out there because once you put it from from uh pen to paper, it's out in the universe. Now it's gotta happen, right? Yeah. So um, quick question on this. You talked about how you hired a PR firm, which is great, but a lot of new entrepreneurs can't afford to do quite that. So let's take the take that. And if we are a new entrepreneur, how can we kind of do our own kind of PR?

SPEAKER_00 37:37

Yeah, so you know, keep in mind, I just I started in 2011 when I picked up that phone call from a girlfriend. I didn't hire her until 2025. So, I mean, there's a lot of years in between there. And so one of the things that I do think I did a really good job at from the very get-go is every time I worked with someone, I said I would ask the question at the end of every single call. And then so my process is we have a series of sessions, but we have an end goal. Like, what is the what is the presentation strategy outcome that we're trying to move overall? And then we work together till we hit that. So I do have a guarantee in my services, and we have an audit and an accountability session at the end. And so we really at that last one, I say, What were you expecting working with me to be like? When we first started on that very first session, what were you expecting it to be like? And I would listen and I would take notes. I would even record now, kind of AI, you can record it, couldn't do it back then, but I would take notes. And then I would say, now that you've gone through the process, was it what you were expecting, or better or worse? 99% of the time, it's Patty, you have exceeded. Like you should have charged twice as amount for your services. And I'd say, why? And then I would get their permission to say, Can I write a testimonial and can I write a success story based on what you shared with me? I'll write it for you. You just need to bless it. And then they'd be like, Yeah, yeah, that'd be great. Now, I didn't do as good a job with the success story. I did really good job with the testimonials, but I didn't do a as good a job as I'm doing now of actually writing that success story in terms of this is what they thought and this was the actual outcome and talk about how it exceeded their expectations. But then I leveraged those as much as possible in blogs and newsletters and everything else. But then, of course, I asked the magical question that says, Who do you know that would benefit from this? Who do you know that would be five people? And I would requote back what they said to me that you know they were stuck here, but they really want to be here. Whatever those, whatever that difference is, and then I would remind them, and I always did, I still have it to this day, that is never changed, that if they become a client of mine in a certain dollar amount or higher, then you can either have an Amazon gift card at 10% that, or it's 10% back in services with me for the future, and I'll just hold it for you whenever you're ready. And I'll even just remind you here's what you've got in the bank with me for services in the future. And that is how I kept things going because honestly, I when I started this business, I had three young kids, all boys, incredibly athletic, and I was still working the full-time job the first number of years because I didn't just say, Oh, I'm gonna start a business and walk away from corporate America. I was doing all of it. Um, and but I believed there was something there that someday, if I wanted to, I could say, this is now the full-time path. And I did get there. But in the meantime, that's what I was doing in absence of any sort of PR, is I was leveraging people and leveraging what they were telling me and putting that out in the world.

SPEAKER_02 41:05

And that goes right back into language that we talked about earlier, because that way you're repeating back exactly what they say so that they understand that you you're listening to them and they understand what's going on. Do not be afraid to ask for referrals. I gotta tell you, you got to do it. And it's it's rough sometimes, especially when you're first getting started. Now I'm a former car salesman. Okay, I sold cars for 16 years, okay. Long time. I hated asking for referrals, but I think I left so much on the table not asking for referrals that now that I'm back doing this, you gotta, you gotta ask for referrals. Get over that fear, false evidence appearing real, F-E-A-R, and ask for the referrals because they're gonna be the ones that say, hey, I referred you to this guy. Oh yeah, yeah, you told me about him. Yeah, they're really good. They're gonna talk, trust me, if they're gonna refer somebody, they're gonna tell that person they referred them, referred, and they're gonna talk about you. And it's gonna, you know, if you did what you said you were gonna do, it's gonna be in the positive. And it's just gonna be better to be able to make that person a client if they have somebody to talk to and said there was something positive that happened.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

Yeah, yeah. And that's one thing when I work with people too, is one perk is we I do say, okay, in your presentation moment, what are you delivering? Like what's the in thing that you're selling? And I work with people to say when you give that in thing, whether it's a service, a product, whatever the case may be, is that gonna exceed expectations or not? Because at the end of it, if you're gonna be an entrepreneur, you gotta have a dang good product. You know? And and I'm not saying people don't have a product, but there is an opportunity. Like for me, I'll just use myself as an example. My products weren't diversified enough. I had everything in one bucket. And when that bucket went away, I was scrambling. And so that was something I had to learn. And so now I've learned from that to go, okay, I've got these services churning. What is potentially next that I could put out and continue to create verticals and and all of that, like as you go, as you grow in in your organization? But definitely there's something key because I can tell when I'm working with somebody on their sales narrative and and they they're they they don't have a strong enough product. And sometimes I'll I'll stop back and I say, Well, you know what? I think you're struggling a little bit with your product on this, this, and this. Is there a way to fix that really quick? How could how could we potentially look at your service and your products? And maybe we just need to talk about it a little bit different, or maybe there's an opportunity for to do a little tweak or something on that, which is something that kind of just is a byproduct that that pops up as as we're going through it. But it is something to be a to be an entrepreneur for a long time, you've got a wonderful product.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Awesome. That's great. Know your product, know that it's the right product. And then if you're not sure about it, ask. Maybe there's some maybe a different perspective on it would be beneficial for you so you could ask those right questions. So that's amazing. I'm going to transition here just a little bit because this is one of my favorite questions. I want to make sure I ask you because you do you're doing this so awesome. So thank you so much, Patty. But I'm sure you've been on a couple podcasts before and you've they've always asked you, you know, what's your biggest pitfall? What's your biggest hurdle? Blah, blah, blah, blah. You hear that all the time. But I like to put a little bit of a twist on that. So, what is the biggest hurdle that you've had that you're proud of? In other words, this pitfall happened, but I'm glad this pitfall happened because this positive thing came out of that pitfall. Anything like that ever happened to you, Patty?

SPEAKER_00 44:42

Oh, well, multiple. Yeah. I I think there's two key if you're like me and it's an entrepreneurial journey and you are doing a full time job while you're building this entrepreneurial thing. One of the pitfalls is it's safer over here. There's a book called The E Myth, which, if people have not read the book, The E Myth, yes, you got it behind you? Yeah, I I highly encourage that. I wish someone would write C Myth. Maybe that's something I need to take on. I don't know. But there's a myth, and I think we're really seeing it now where the safety and things that we may put when I have this job and this position, I was living in that myth that it was safer over here. And it took a new CEO to come in, and all of a sudden, everything I was doing on a regular basis, and my senior level, I was literally talking to the founder of the organization, the CEO, and all of that. Then and the new CEO came in, and all of a sudden I was down four rungs because they brought in all this top level stuff. And I was just like, what just happened? But I think then for those who may be toying around with do I jump in and do this as my only gig? You know, do I do that? For me, that was a huge step. And to trust that I can do it and trust that I was that I was in the right place. I remember sitting at my desk when I first made that decision and just sat there and go, I don't know what to do today. I do I go put my resume out there? Like, I don't know what I'm doing today. But it kind of goes back to what we said before is I just said, well, okay, here's something I can do, and here's something I can do, and here's something I can do. And so that isn't necessarily a crisis, but it was a decision. I was, I was, I was at a point where I had um a choice point. And I got to that point where I had to decide. Another choice point happened actually just two years ago. That choice point was I have had a contract that was taking 120 of my days a year. But what was happening is that was becoming comfort for me. But it was taking away all my time and energy to build the clients that were more in my zone of genius and filled my bucket more. And honestly, even though I had to put more into the sales process, they bought me more revenue. So I had to make a hard decision to say, Do I let that comfort of that knowing that that is coming in every month as incumbent? And then I said, wait a second, why is it just yes or no? Why can't I just renegotiate? And so that's actually what I ended up doing is instead of just saying no, I'm not coming back, I said, hey, and I came to the table with a new option because I'd already had established my work with that organization. And they said, Patty, we can work with that. And then that gave me the freedom to pivot and do other things. But I think really what I'm trying to say is I felt like I came to these situations where the answers were so black and white and I needed to look a little more gray.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

Yeah, that makes perfect sense too. Don't be afraid to negotiate. Sometimes they'll say yes, but you'll never know until you actually take the leap and see if they'll actually say yes. Don't don't be once again, fear false evidence appearing real. Don't be afraid to at least ask because you're not gonna be better off than you are now. Yeah, so why not give it a shot and see if it works? What what what we say? What the what if, right? What if it works?

SPEAKER_01 48:33

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 48:34

Right back to that again. I love how this keeps coming around. I love this. So don't be afraid to renegotiate or check off that third option, see if that third option will work. It doesn't have to be yes, doesn't have to be no. What if you could create your own option and then explore that option and see if it works? Because if it doesn't, okay, I'm back where I am before, but I would have been in the same place anyway. But what if it works? So I love it. That's awesome. That's a great story. Thank you, Patty.

SPEAKER_00 49:03

Yeah, you bet. You bet. I hope people find it helpful.

SPEAKER_02 49:06

I hope so too. I hope so. It's already helped me. I could tell you that. So you already know that most all my entrepreneurs that listen to this are brand new entrepreneurs. So when you come across a brand new entrepreneur, what one good solid piece of advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_00 49:22

Oh well, no, one. You can't do it.

SPEAKER_02 49:27

So one, yes, I know.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

One, which again, it goes back to what I said before. One thing. Solid piece of advice. You are amazing, you can do it, believe in yourself, and trust that the universe will bring it to bring it together for you. That that there's that I think it really comes down to believe that what you're doing is amazing.

SPEAKER_02 49:56

Trust. Trust, solid, solid trust. That you know what you're doing, if you're making movements, you're making processes, things are going, trust it's going to work. Because if you stop doing it, then everything's gonna stop. You you just don't know what's gonna happen next. If you make the if you stop, just like we were saying earlier, if you stop shoveling, you're not gonna hit that main vein of gold. So trust that vein is gold is there, just keep shoveling, right? Just keep going, just keep swimming. That's what Dory says all the time. So just keep going.

unknown 50:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

Well, and I think you know what? Maybe if I could narrow it down this way, it's keep swimming, but I said belief, but it's also curiosity. I think if I could give a word now that I've thought through this for a few more seconds, I I feel that my biggest asset that I brought to my journey was I stayed curious and open to options.

SPEAKER_02 50:53

Curiosity. I love it. That's great. Always be truly curious. Don't just be like a little curious, but be truly curious about the people around you, what the processes are, because that's how you learn. Curiosity will help you learn those things, learn those processes. And that way you can actually accomplish those things. Oh, this does work. I better do more of this. Which, if you didn't ask the question, or if you weren't curious about it, you never would have known. So stay curious about the whole thing too. Trust and curiosity. Love it. All right, so I have our tradition with all my guests. In the next six months, do you have a goal for yourself andor your company?

SPEAKER_00 51:33

Oh, that's a okay. I like this one. Yeah, um, I do because I'm now sitting in the place. Remember the coach story I told you where he says, Patty, what are you thinking about? And I, oh my gosh, it's like a little nippy dog at my feet. Ever since he said that to me, I just can't set it down and let it go. And I have learned if you feel it and it comes back and you feel it and it comes back, that it's probably whether you're listening or not, it's trying to communicate to you. And so I made the decision last year. I'm going for it. So I am in these early processes. So, what does the next six months look like for me? The next six months looks like what are the different circles I need to be in to start spreading the idea that presentations truly are a business strategy, and the way we communicate and the way we talk and how we do our investor events or our nonprofit nights or whatever those cases are, is there is actual a systematic process that I have refined over the years. And how am I now bringing this on a larger scale and getting more visibility? So, visibility is a huge strategy for me over the next six months. Is I've the people who I've worked with over the years know me. But one of the um I was working with a gentleman, he he is a con I didn't even know these titles existed. He's the director of corporate content. So his job was to basically be the storyteller of all the corporate communication internally and externally. Well, they were doing an enterprise conference, and the CMO brought me in because we'd worked together in the past, but this was the first time he and I connected. He's like, You mean you can take the content that I'm trying to get people to say and you can teach them how to do it and do it well? I say, Yeah. So we have a really cool synergy. He's opened the door to me to things I've never realized that can give me an opportunity. But it's because I've refined my messaging and I've put it out there to say, this is where I'm going. And to your point earlier, when we write that down and we say it, it just has a way of starting to happen. So my biggest thing is visibility and starting to say out loud that there is going to be one day when resultation is a common word and it's not going to be grammarly keep telling me I've spelled it wrong.

SPEAKER_02 54:04

That'd be a great one you could do that, right? Resultation. Oh, look, it didn't spell check it. Nice. All right. So, Patty, what I'd like to do with you if it's okay, is I actually like to follow up with you in six months.

unknown 54:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 54:17

I'd actually see you know where you are in this whole whole deal and see what changes and what what kind of new things have happened in those six months. So is that okay?

SPEAKER_00 54:26

Absolutely. The accountability is awesome.

SPEAKER_02 54:28

Because you're not just accountable to me, you're accountable to all my school believers.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

Every listener that's listening right now.

SPEAKER_02 54:35

That's right. All right. Patty, this is your time to shine. This is the time where I want you to advertise yourself. How do we get a hold of you? How do we get a hold of your services and all that good stuff? Okay, ready, set, go.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

Go. So if you want presentations to bring you the best results possible, then you want to reach out to me. LinkedIn is a great place to go. Patty Shooty. That is Patty with an I. Shooty S-C-H-U-T-T-E. Like me on LinkedIn. And then also on my website. That's a great place. It's B brilliantpresentationgroup.com, all spelled out. You can chat with me. There's a link right there that takes me right to your calendar takes you right to my calendar. And there's also a place where you can do a free micro course if you would like to sign up for that as well. And one thing is if you book on my calendar, it's not my sales rep, you well get me. And we'll can have a conversation about presentation strategy in your organization.

SPEAKER_02 55:30

Awesome. Do you have um like a link that goes straight to that mini course?

SPEAKER_00 55:35

At the top of my website. Yep. If you go to my homepage, be brilliantpresentation group.com, right at the top, it says free micro course.

SPEAKER_02 55:42

All right, awesome. Patty, this has been an absolute treat. I gotta tell you, this conversation was fantastic. I told you it was gonna be worth the scheduling back and forth that we got on this. But it's been absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time to be on the Undiscovered Entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_00 55:58

Thank you. This was an absolute joy.

SPEAKER_02 56:00

All right. All right, Scuba Leavers, make sure you stay tuned for the wrap-up. Okay, everybody. Thank you. Bye-bye. You had so much, just like a wealth of information for all my School Believers out there. But there's two major things I want to make sure that you caught that I'm gonna go over right now. The noise will never stop coming. The advice, the tactics, the TikToks telling you what you should be doing differently. What we really need to do here when we get information like that is filter out the stuff we don't need. Don't get caught up in all the stuff where we have to do this and have to do that. But take the one golden nugget that you found in whatever it is that you're watching and incorporate it into what you're trying to accomplish. Don't take everything all at once, because more than likely, you're not gonna need all that. You're gonna need just one major piece of the puzzle to be able to fit it into what you're trying to do in your entrepreneur adventure. So don't let all the mumbo jumbo get you down. Don't try to take it everything that everybody's trying to tell you. Take the one piece that you need, and you will succeed. And every time you walk into a presentation, uh sales called networking conversation, without a clear mind, without knowing what your goal is, why you're even there to begin with, you're putting that decision in someone else's hands. The entrepreneur that goes in with the plan and knows exactly who to talk to, when to talk to, is gonna be the one that succeeds. It's the person that knows exactly what's going to happen next. The person that leads the conversation towards one solid, honest ask. Always outperform the one who wings it and hopes the opportunity comes while they're walking around in the room or while they're on the sales call. When you go to these things where you're saying networking or talking to people, always have a plan. Have a goal set for yourself. This is what I'm going to do. This is how many people I'm going to talk to. This is the one major ask I'm going to ask of every person that I come across. That way you know that you're going to get the answer you're looking for. For example, when I went to PodFest this last time, I wanted to talk to podcasters that had podcast networks. So I could be a better podcast network manager. I came away with so much great information because I had the one question that I wanted to make sure I asked. You could do the same thing, Scooba Leaver. You can have that one question that you need answered and go anywhere with it and get that question answered to move on with your entrepreneur adventure. And with that, I'm going to say thank you, Scooby Leaver, for another fantastic episode. I wanted to announce a contest and I'm putting it together for you right now. I'm right in the middle of making it. It's going to be amazing. It's going to help one major Scoobile Leaver out there get across the start line with my help. I'll have more information for you on the next episode. Thank you so much, Scooby Leaver, and I'll see you in two weeks. Bye bye.