what's your wow? Kate Delaney

It seems like everyone I meet these days is talking about the NSA - National Speakers Association - so when past president Kristin Arnold invited me to attend the Arizona Chapter meeting this week, I went for it!

Kate Delaney, the Sports Princess, spoke about finding your WOW.  I would boil her message down into these essential elements:

• Use sassy titles that will catch your audience's attention.  Descriptive, boring, academic titles don't work anymore.  People are too busy to figure out what you have to offer, so you must tell them.
• Work on your pitch until it is clear, concise and catchy!  Keep your pitch to a couple of paragraphs and be sure that it says who you are, what you do, and what you have to offer.
• Catch the news cycle with earned, rented and owned content. Kate uses the metaphor of a stadium and says the goal is to get people inside of your stadium where your own media resides.
  • Earned media.  This is media that finds you because of the wonderful (or possibly scandalous) things that you have to offer.  You can catch more earned media by writing and speaking about topics that are timely and newsworthy (i.e. what are you posting for Valentine's Day this year?)
  • Rented media.  These are media bits that you post on other sides and possibly pay to promote, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.  This media catches a large audience, but because you don't own it, it could all vanish if the platform goes away or you lose access.   
  • Owned media.  This is your website, your blog, your podcast.  You want to get as many people in the door of your stadium because here you own the team and you can dazzle people with your talent!

My visual notes of Kate Delaney's talk