When you tell a story, it's all about the audience. Today's guest, April Pertuis, spent years in TV news learning how to extract the moment that matters — the line that illuminates a room like, well, light. That word kept following her until it became a mandate through LIGHTbeamers: help women turn lived experience into communication that deeply resonate and moves an audience.

In this conversation, we dig into how she rebuilt her career around that idea and why speaking — keynotes, workshops, the mic in a room full of decision-makers — became her highest-leverage growth engine. April walks through how she wrote a keynote, practiced until it lived in her body, and then turned intention into a tracker that led to 25 talks and ~$100k in back-end revenue in a year.

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⭐️ Love this episode? We'd GREATLY appreciate a 5-star review! ⭐️

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What’s inside this episode

• The counter-intuitive first question great storytellers ask themselves before they write a line and why it changes which story you pick
• A simple gut-check that trims the indulgent details no audience needs — and keeps the right ones that create resonance
• The “scar vs wound” filter for vulnerable stories so your audience feels moved rather than responsible for your emotions
• The four-part speaker engine April built and how to know where your own bottleneck is
• A year of stages, $97,800 in revenue, and what actually drove the dollars on the back end
• How April repackages the same core ideas for different rooms with simple, small tweaks 
• The “speaker flywheel” metaphor that keeps bookings compounding — and when to tap it again to maintain momentum

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Connect with Adriane and Visionaries!

• Let's be friends on the 'gram – @visionariesonline or @adrianegalea
• Connect on Linkedin – with Adriane or Visionaries
• Visit us on the web at visionaries.co
• Come network with us in The Visionaries Collective

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April Adams Pertuis is a Visibility and Media specialist. She is in the business of storytelling. Her philosophy is “everyone has a story” and she’s fascinated with getting to the Core of what that story is. April’s career spans more than 30 years as a journalist, producer, writer, and positive encourager. She is an award-winning video journalist who has worked for CBS Television, HGTV, DIY Network, Food Network, and numerous private industries where she has interviewed thousands of people and crafted their story as a result.

Today, April works with people and brands to help them tell their story in a more authentic way so they can reach more customers, attract new clients, grow their audience, and ultimately tap into their true power. April leads retreats, workshops, and storytelling symposiums throughout the year to take women on a storytelling journey — helping them tap into their authentic voice and learn the power of their words. Her motto is “when we share our stories, we shine our light” — and her goal is to have women share their journey more openly so it may inspire others to do the same.

Connect with April:

• On Instagram
• On LinkedIn
• On Facebook
• On the web at lightbeamers.com
• Get April's FREE story formula guide

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One of the things that I hear so often from business owners is that they want to find clients or make more money in their business using things that are not social media. One of my personal favorite ways of doing that is through speaking. Doesn't even have to be like on a stage. I love speaking on podcasting and doing all the things. So my guest on the podcast today is April per, she's from Light Beamers. She is sharing how she generated almost a hundred thousand dollars in a single year that can all be tracked back to speaking engagements.

And what I will say is that her story is not unique. Like when you understand how to do this well, it's a natural progression from speaking and using your voice. To generating more revenue. But part of what makes April's approach work so well is her understanding of how to use story. One of my favorite things to talk about, and that is a lot of what we talk about in today's episode.

So even if you don't necessarily want to get on live physical stages and speak, understanding how to use story in your business. And in your marketing is such a hugely beneficial skill to have. So I think you're gonna love this episode. I cannot wait to share April's experience and expertise with you, so let's get to it.

Welcome April. I'm super excited to chat on. We're just gonna sort of see where this, this leads us around. Do you have a background in storytelling and speaking? Journalism 

Yeah.

background   and um, I think we have a lot of similarities in what 

Mm-hmm. 

I've done in the past because I have a performing arts background and so I'm excited to see where we go with this and how you've used speaking in your own business as well. but before we get into all that, do you wanna just give us a little background on who you are and what you do? 

Uh, sure. First of all, thank you for having me. Really happy to be here with you. I love the title of your podcast, by the way. Just love the, uh, the name of  it.

thanks.

super  fun. So, um, yes, I'm April Peri and I'm the, the founder of Light Beamers. Uh, as you mentioned, I have a background and storytelling. I've been doing this for a long time.

I'm one of the weirdos who kind of figured out what she wanted to do early in life, and I've kind of stuck with it most of my life, all of my,  all of my adult life really. So, um.   My background is as a journalist and I kind of came up through the ranks as first as a television reporter and anchor. I was a news broadcaster later into television producing and script writing, and um, a lot of video production and all through that. 

Uh, it was really about people's stories. You know, it was  always about creating content that was very storytelling focused. And up until, you know, really about 10 years ago, that's what I did and had done for a real, really long time and had a super successful career and very fulfilling career doing that both in the, in the  broadcasting space as well as the private sector space   and really working with brands and helping them with their digital storytelling and all of that.

And then, uh, it just kind of got to a point where I was like, this is great, and I feel like there's more, there's just more that I could be doing with my knowledge at this point. I knew a lot about people's stories and  how to extract those stories from people, and I  was kind of just got into a space of curiosity, of wondering, well then what would kind of the next level of my own career look like?

Not because I was unhappy or dissatisfied with it, but just felt like I had been doing it a long time and, you know, just, I don't know, kind of, kind  of bored if you will. And, uh,  really went into a state of just prayer about that and, and thinking. And then really this idea of light. Beamers was born at that time, which has e morphed over the last 10 years, and we are celebrating our 10 year business anniversary this year.

And over the course of those 10 years, it's  evolved into a company where we help  women tell their story. We help them, uh, first of all figure out the story and understand it, and then. Learn how to communicate it in, in the way that's going to be most effective for it to reach an audience. Because the story isn't about telling every single detail, and it's also  understanding the point of the story.

The story really isn't  about us at that point. It is about our audience. And so we help them by writing books, uh, getting on stages, doing a lot of speaking, launching podcasts, being guests on podcasts, and really just learning to communicate better, putting storytelling at the forefront of it.  

I love that. I also will return that column. The name Light Beamers is so cool. Where did, where did that come from? 

Yes, thank you. That was also, you know, during that season where I was like, okay, what does it look like to go to the next level? Um, I certainly didn't know the answer to that question at the time, and it was a state of just. Seeking and praying about it and just getting  curious and imagining. And during  that time, which was a window, like maybe 6, 7, 8 months, this was, you know, I'm, I'm kind of thinking about it.

And during that time, there was a real visceral thing that was starting to happen with me. And I was having an experience with the word light. And this  sounds so weird, and I'm telling you, it was weird, but it  really did happen. You know, I would be reading a book and the word light would kind of jump off the page like in 3D or I would be journaling.

I'm an avid journaler and I've always kind of journal and doodle a little bit before I go to bed. I'd be journaling and then, I mean my, it's like my, somebody would take my pen and start writing the word light into my journal,  like, what does this word mean? And then I literally would have  experiences where I would hear people speaking the word light into a room, and then nobody would be in the room.

So I don't know if I was just tripping out or what was happening, but I began to take notice that I was like, maybe someone's trying to send me a message here. So I started really examining that word light. Okay, what is  light, right? I. Well, light is really  two things. It is something that we, we have that illuminates the way we can turn on a light and see into a room, or we can turn on a flashlight and it can illuminate the way.

Um, it is also the opposite of heavy. It is not. Heavy. It is light. It is easy to carry. At  this time, 10 years ago, I was looking at the landscape   of our, of our world, which a big part of that was social media and I, coming from a news background and a, and a storytelling background, I felt like a lot of the stories being shared on social media were the opposite of that, right?

They were not illuminating the way, and they were heavy, they were dark, and I thought, man,   I could do something about that. I  could actually penetrate that. And I, I have a sunny disposition. I've kind of always been the Pollyanna in the group, and I just believe in positivity and I believe in capability, and I believe you know that there's a purpose to any pain or, or challenge that we have.

And so that's where storytelling comes in. And I thought,  man, that's a real space that I could enter  and actually kind of put my flag in the ground and, and teach other people how to share their story with this idea of us becoming light beamers, we can beam this light out and we can lighten the load when we do, when we do that.

So that's really the origin story of the, of the name Light Beamers and what, what it means. 

I love that. I mean, you, you tell stories, so I should have known that you were gonna have a proper story for that, but that's a great story.

Thank you. I mean, it's just true. That's how it evolved.  And

Yeah.

you  know, it wasn't, I don't, I actually don't even take credit for it. I don't even think it was my idea. I really don't, I really do feel that it was, you know, God just saying, look girl, you're asking and I'm telling you what I want you to go do, and this is it, and this is the word, and this is the path.

And you're equipped, you know, you  have skill, you have knowledge, you have talent, you have all the things. You  have education. You just, you you're, but it's gonna require you to do some things that are actually different than what you've been doing and gonna push you into the li uh, your own uncomfortable uncom zone.

And yes, it did all of those things. I had never, I had my own business at the time, but it was  in a space that I felt really equipped  and and comfortable in. This required me to reimagine a new business that I did not know how to do. You know, I, and especially in the online space, I mean, at that point I was on social media connecting with old college friends and sharing pictures of my kids.

And I was not using it   as, as a business tool. I was simply using   it the way that Zuckerberg probably originally created it for, you know, uh, literally it was just, oh, I can connect with people that, um, I've forgotten about. And it was like. The lights got turned on once I started digging in to like, well, okay, if I do do this, how am I gonna do  it and how am I gonna use social media?

I don't really know that much about  social media. And then I really started digging in and I feel like it was like an iron curtain got pulled back and it showed me all these people out there that are building these online businesses. And I was like, oh gosh, I have no idea how to do that. But you know, I dug in and, and started figuring it  out and was a newbie.

Sometimes I still feel like a  newbie, but I was a true newbie in that space. And um, to be honest with you, storytelling did it for me. I was like, well, I don't really know how to do any of that. I don't know how to build an email list. I don't know how to do a Facebook ad. I don't know what a funnel is. I do not know marketing, but I do know storytelling  and I'm used to being visible.

'cause I came from a television  background, so getting in front of a camera was not scary. So I just got on my channels and I started telling stories and I encouraged other women along the way to allow my storytelling to prompt and help them excavate stories that they had inside of them. And from that we  started building community.

So I started first  really before I had anything to monetize, I started building a community that we have to this day, it's the Light Beamers community on Facebook Sim, a simple little, you know, Facebook community that really took off and built my business. But it was really because of storytelling. 

as an anecdote is my word for: 2025

I love that.  Yeah.

you said, you know, there, there's more than one meaning to the word light. Like it's this, but it's also, it's the opposite of heavy. It's the opposite of dark.  It.

Mm-hmm.

that's why I chose it and I was like, oh, I should drop this in.

It's just sort of a fun, fun reaction. My word for the year. Yeah.

Such  a great word.    

Um, I just love it as an intention, 

Yeah.

that that's  what you sort of built your business around, 

Yeah. 

I'm less about like, I want a word of the year and more like, what's my intention in this season? And that's, that's it for me in this season.

I want to feel light, I  want to

Mm-hmm. 

It's

Yeah. And you know, that's what I was desiring at that time, and I still desire it too to this day. But back when Light Beamers was coming to me and the ideas were forming and the seeking was happening and the, and the prayers was like, gosh, like I've got a great career, but sometimes it feels heavy   and sometimes it feels like boring.

And, and,  and I just, you know, there's gotta be an easier way for me to use what I have to make it mean something more than just, I created, created some great digital contents for a business to be able to grow. Yay. But no, really, like, it could have more meaning. And so that was really what I was seeking at the time too.  

I love that. That's, I feel like we could just keep talking about the context of that  work.

Yeah. That.

great  things that could, come up. There's a, that word means a lot to me in a lot of different respects. So we could, I could just keep going. I'm like, well, it's also this and it's also that.

But wanna go back to what you said around, you know, when we tell stories, and I don't know if you said this or not, but even when they're about us, they're not about us. 

Correct. 

It's, it's always about your  audience.

Mm-hmm. 

that's, you know, I was joking earlier with someone where we were talking about, like on your website you have an About me page, ironically, or About Me Page is not actually about  you, it's

It's about them. 

it's actually about your audience.

So just sort of as a kicking off point, like what does that mean to you? How do you start to shape, why are you telling stories 

Yeah. 

about yourself? Not about yourself, about your business through like what you, what you teach in your business, how you help people, but it's about your audience. 

Right? Yeah, great question. And it's really a great way to start when thinking, well, how do I tell my story? You know, which is a question I get all the time. 

Yeah. 

when you make it first about your audience, you have to first, you know, I always say the number one rule of storytelling is to know who you're talking to.

You have to know who your audience is before you can select the appropriate story to tell. So it's not about how to tell the story, that's not the first question you should be asking. The first question you should be asking is, which story do I need to tell and why it's relevant to that particular audience.

You have to  know who that audience is because the  story. Then once you know who the audience is, it's going to inform you as to the correct story to share, because the story is gonna be about them, and the story will be an illustration. Of, you know, a, a problem that they might be facing and how that problem could be solved, or a challenge or a question or a discovery that they're seeking.

And again, it illuminates  the way, that's what the story does. It illuminates the way just like  light. So the, the story is just a channel that you get to use the story to, to really reach that audience and say, here, this is how you do it. Or here, this is what you're looking for here. This is the inspiration you need.

Or here, right? And so when you know who you're talking to, finding that story is so much easier. So that's, you know, really the first part of it. Then, yeah, we gotta get into, okay, well how do we  tell that story in a way that it continues to  be about the audience and not about you? And that is a little bit harder for people because, well, I mean, it is our story, right?

It's our lived experience and it's really easy. To get the story wrong, it's really easy to kinda let the details of the story run away with you and you get in the weeds and now you're just telling the story and the story is all about you. Right? 

Yes.

the  the how to tell the story, the way you're gonna do that and ensure that it, that you do it properly is always to remember who you're talking to, because you can kind of ask yourself, okay, like, do they need to know this detail or is this detail just for me, right?

If the detail's just for you leave it out, that's not part of the story that you need to tell publicly. So there is a real fine art to,  how do you tell a story? Um, and I could  talk a lot longer on that topic, but to, for ease of, um, implementation today, just remember who you're talking to because what's in this for them?

Why do they need to know that? You're only gonna share the parts of the story that they can see themselves in so that they are now attracted to you and they're buying into what you have to say. That's really important.  

Yeah, this, so you started by saying like, first of all, which story are you telling? you, I, this is kind of a two-parter because I wanna talk about like, what do you mean when you say that? Is it, are you talking about, like, I talk about you've got origin stories, you've got conversion stories, you've got case studies that are client stories to like, which type of story or like, which story from a part of your life are you telling about, you know, the time  that you learned how to ride a bike and you're now relating that to  something in your business somehow.

Or you know, like a specific moment that you're telling. And then I love throwing the two part questions at people and hoping you remember what I said is like, what does that mean to you to shape it to the audience that you're speaking with? Like, what does that look like? How are you, are you just asking yourself like, what has their experience been and how do you start to line that up 

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I, I get it. Yeah, that's a great question. 

down with that?

Yeah. 

Yeah. All right, let's start with the first one. 'cause actually, I love this because I think it's really easy for us to spout off things like origin stories and case studies and, you know, conversion stories. And honestly, I don't think people really know what that means to be honest.

Right? 

Yeah. 

So let's just break it down. Let's like, get rid of labels and just say, okay, what are stories? And this is really what we're always trying to help our clients find stories that made you feel something I. Stories that made you feel a certain way. Now let's just go through the gamut of feelings that that could look like.

It could be, you know, stories that made you feel elated, stories that made you feel, uh, disappointed.  Stories that made you feel, um,  enlightened stories that made you feel smart. Stories that made you feel, uh, like an idiot, right? Like, we can go in all these different directions and I imagine just in the short time, I just said a few of those words, yeah, there might have been some things like, oh, I could probably find a story on the one of those really quick, right?

So. I teach storytelling not from, oh, let's find the origin story, or let's find the conversion story. Let's find a  story where there's a lot of feeling behind it,   and let's match those feelings to what you imagine your audience might be feeling. What, what do you think they could relate to? What might they be feeling in this moment?

So I'll give just again, to kind of the two-parter, right? Like, how do, what does this really look like? And I, I, I think I just, I, I attempted to do this yesterday on my, on my channels, because I'm currently writing a book right now. And, um, for anyone that's ever written a book, published a book, thought about writing a  book.

I mean, it's, it's hard, I'm not gonna lie. Like  it's a challenge to, um, sit and make yourself right. The ideas down and to put it together in a way that's packageable product that you could put out into the market. But along with that, part of the challenge is the writing drums up a lot of things. You know, like, especially if you're putting storytelling into your writing, which I hope anyone that writes a book would infuse some storytelling.

Otherwise you've got a really boring book. 

Yes.

Um,  so, you know, I'm, I'm digging deep right now into my own stories and a lot of it is stuff that I'm like, okay, I can use this in the book. And then there's some other stories that are dumping out and I'm remembering that have been really useful for my own recollection. 

And they're not gonna go in the book. They're not,  and, but they're stories. They're like, these were good stories. Like, I, I, they, they deserve the light of day because it probably makes, they made me feel a certain way. They probably make someone else feel a certain way too. So I've kind of been. Piling those away into a other writing folder.

'cause they're not really  going into the book, but I know they could be used somewhere else. And so  over the weekend I decided, you know, I'm just gonna start recording some of these stories and putting them into some reels for social media. But like, let's use them, let's use them in a, in a purposeful way.

Some of those would be stories that probably will never see the light of the day because I can't find  a connection to that particular story  that I have to why my audience would care. What would it, why would it be useful for them? In that case, I choose not to tell that story. Does that mean that I'm not proud?

You know, don't have that story Now I'm not, I'm not discrediting it. I just don't find that it's very helpful and it wouldn't be something I would create content  around. But, um, I, I pulled out a story.   This actually goes into some of the things that I know we'll talk about today around speaking. And I remembered a time when I actually gave a, a public address for the first time in my young career, even though I was in, in  as a news journalist at that time.

And I wasn't, I wasn't  unaccustomed to speaking to the public, but it was the first time that I spoke to the public and I shared a really personal story. And it was when I was 26 years old and my grandmother died and I wrote a piece because my own processing of her grief, '  cause she was a very important person in my life  and my own processing of that grief.

I wrote how, what she meant to me, right? And I. I wrote it for me, it was just selfishly for me and my own processing, but I did share it with my family. 'cause I my that, I  do that with my family. Anytime I write something, I usually share it with  somebody. And, um, I shared it with my family. This was the day before her funeral, and they begged me to share it as part of the eulogy at the funeral one day before the funeral.

And I'm like, okay, I will   part, I think, oh, she can handle it. I'm the  one that's out there on CBS news at the time. So surely I can, I can speak in front of people, which technically I could, I actually knew how to do that part. But this was different because this was emotion, this was feeling, this was a whole lot of grief wrapped up into this.

And, and I was like,  man, I've never done anything like this before. And keep in mind, I'm 26  years old. But, um, I showed up to the funeral and I, I did, I shared the. The poem and, and my thoughts on what she meant and how she impacted us and how I got myself there was remembering that   I didn't, I didn't really care if I did it.

Like  if I, if the poem was great or if people thought I was a good speaker, I didn't really care in that moment. 'cause all I cared about was honoring my grandmother. And I remembered that that's also what the audience cared about. That's why they were there.   They weren't there to hear me speak. They were here to honor, they were there  to honor my grandmother.

So I was able to make a really powerful connection writing this book, remembering this story that like, oh, that was a lesson I learned early on, thank goodness about public speaking, which I do a lot of now and I teach it to other people,  is that, um. Speaking,  public speaking isn't about performance. It's about our willingness to make an impact, and that was a lesson I learned from her, and not really from her, but from the experience of delivering a piece of eulogy at her funeral.

And sharing something so personal to  me, um, and sharing that publicly to an  audience that I knew that we connect with, right? So I took that story and shared it onto my channels because that's a lesson, whether you're doing public speaking or not, it goes back to what I want people to learn about storytelling.

And so I knew that  that would help them see that in a different way. So  that was a piece of storytelling that I could tell, which was a story myself. But I could use that in a really important, purposeful, targeted, specific way because I know who my audience is and I know that they will get that and they will like, oh, that's really helpful.

I'm probably thinking public  speaking is so hard 'cause I'm making it all about me and I'm thinking it's  about performance and I gotta get rid of all my ums and I have to be super polished and perfect and all those things. And you don't have to do any of that to be a great speaker. And so that was a piece of content that I was able to pull using storytelling and how is able to make it connect to the audience.

Does that make sense? 

Totally makes sense. I, you know, it's inter, I have a theater background, which we've, we've talked  about

Yeah. 

Most people listening to this probably know that about me from my Audi audience 

Yeah. 

And you know, it's interesting as you were talking through that, I, my grandma raised me, so I also delivered the eulogy at my grandma's funeral. And knowing that I was going through that, I was like, I wanna make it funny. Like,  I

Mm-hmm.

my  uncle got up there and talked and he couldn't even, he couldn't get through  it.

Yeah, 

else got out there and talked, they couldn't get through it. And I was like, I wanna make it fun. My grandma was not a serious,

so she was funny.

she  is, she's fun.

So like, she would call herself like old ornery, she was from Kentucky and, you know, so like, it was just a fun story. But I also have thought about telling, I'm gonna connect these dots here in a second. Telling a story around. When my grandma died, I was hosting a playwriting festival and she had been in hospice, uh, 20 times before that where you think, it's hospice.

It's the end that that's not actually true.  You can

Mm.

hospice   and leave it and go back. It's more about just comfort  care,

Yeah. 

respite care in a way, which is a different thing. But anyway, you know, so it was sort of, I knew she was not, she turned 90 that week and I, like, I had an obligation.

I had people from all over the world coming for a playwriting festival that I was hosting. at the end of the weekend, was, I, you have no, you're running a playwriting festival. You have no extra time. The end of it, I'm gonna go and in  the middle of the night in between the, it ended, I was  there cleaning up my theater until one or two o'clock in the morning, got home, was gonna get up at eight o'clock in the morning.

She died in between. That is a moment for me that, um. When I talk, like I've done a lot with operations work and agency work and what, like, is work important enough to miss big parts of your life? And I felt like that is my moment of you  can't get that

Remembering that. 

Yeah. You can't get that back. 

Yeah.

And it  takes to connect the dots of like, where I'm going with this is one of the things that when I teach acting, you cannot pass your feelings off onto your audience. You cannot put the emotional burden

on  them. 

of your story. Whether it's, you know, actors just tell stories. That's  all they're

Mm-hmm. 

If it's your story, if it's a story on stage from an actor, whatever it is, you cannot place the emotional burden of processing it them. And that's. Just what you were talking about with, you know, my grandma and I wrote this poem and I got up and delivered it as eulogy, and I was going, I want, how do you process through that, especially in that moment, especially at 26 

Oh no.

you're  going back and telling it again as a, as an adult  and

Yeah.

a lot  of life and between that and having a lot of space and emotional distance and, and, and Ann, and still having her be such an important person to you. Like where, where do you start to navigate, first of all, do you look at storytelling the same way of like, how do you navigate the emotional side  of

Yes. 

and not placing, you know, not, not processing it through your audience and the story that you're telling, but still being able to tell it in a way that's very impactful where they will feel something that's not too heavy? 

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Such a good question because that's a real issue that a lot of people have to navigate, and especially if you're gonna tell a decent story, hopefully it's something that has something you feel something around. 

Mm-hmm. Hmm. 

And so, you know, we could tell funny stories and happy stories, and those are probably easier.

Even if we get into a laughing fit or something, it's okay. But it's different when we run the risk of being overcome ourselves with emotions. And then. Leaving the audience to feel like they've gotta, they've gotta hold that with you. And that's a big responsibility. And to your point, we should never do that.

So one thing, and I, and  I, going back to my example of being 26   and giving the eulogy, I will say that was not my best performance in that regard because I wasn't able to truly do that. I mean, I was able, I think in looking back, I was able to do it, um, to the best that I could at 26 years old and really not navigating personal storytelling to this degree.

This was really the first time I'd done anything like that. Um.

it's  also why they were there, like when  you

But I, but again, I exactly, I knew if, if there was ever an appropriate time to cry while you're giving a public talk, it would probably be at a funeral. So it was okay. It was okay. And it wasn't a responsibility or burden that was being put on them in that case.

I didn't have language about any of this back then. And to your point, it is, that is why this story just, just came up again. It's not  that I have forgotten that I've given that. I mean, I've used that about  speaking. I've talked, told about, you know, I've spoken at funerals before. I've talked about that.

But when I was writing the book and the story came up again, this was the first time I was able to go. Looking back, you know, 30 years and go, oh wow. Look at what I learned at that experience. It's something I've  talked about over the years, but I wasn't able to attribute,   when did I first experience that?

When did I first get the fact that speaking wasn't about me? It wasn't about my performance. Nobody could have cared less, whether I did a good job or not. They cared about what I communicated. Now it's nice if you do a good job, and we certainly want to, but it's really not the most important thing.   It really is about what we're communicating and how we're  using that to connect.

The audience to ourselves and to the moment and to the experience that we're all in the middle of. Right. So, I mean, I have perspective on it now. Did I, could I have told the story I just told you today? 20, uh, 26? Oh hell no. I just blubber my way through that and got through it. But I  learned a lot. I learned a lot in that experience and now  I can really see how experiencing that for the first time did teach it to me.

You know, so there is, uh, the, the piece around the emotional part is, um, I, I think it's important, and I, this is not my quote. I've heard Glennon Doyle say this, and I'm sure others have said it, so I don't know really who to give it to, but is that we don't tell  the story from the wound. We tell  it from the scar.

Right? Meaning we do need to give ourselves some time to heal and process through our stories before they become. Offerings that we can give other people. You actually do need to look at that story as a gift. And you don't need to give a messy gift, right? Like unwrapped with a, you know, like the tag still  on it.

We really wanna process through   the story and as I describe storytelling, there's a piece of the story where there's the other side, right? And you really need to be on the other side of that story like I am now and I can look back 30 years and go, oh, there it was. That was the lesson that I learned. I could not have told you this story 20 when I was 26, 'cause I had no idea  what lesson I was learning, but now I do, right?

So I  am telling the story today from the scar. Is it still tender? Do I still miss my grandmother? Am I just like so filled with emotion even now? Yes. But I can tell it in a very empowered way because I've gotten to the other side of that story and I can, I, I know that there's impact and reason why I would wanna share this with an audience and it has nothing to do with me. 

Yeah, I could continue down that road because I think that's so interesting. But for the purposes. The purposes of, of what we're here for in indulging emotional, emotional storytelling. Um, I wanna talk more about the how you view speaking, because you've had some pretty incredible results from speaking arguably because you know how to tell stories well, um, from stage and it's such a great way to connect with people 

Mm-hmm. 

like you're al being in the room.

If you've not been to in-person business events and connected with your colleagues in person in that way, like it, there's truly

Well,  first of all, do that,   

Do that. Yeah,  do

right? If you have not done that, do that. Yeah.

To sort of tee this up, you've added almost a hundred thousand dollars of revenue within a, a year, I think through speaking.

And you've done that through, what? 25 you did, you wound up doing 25 talks in a about a year. Is that cor am I  getting the

Yeah,

of  this Correct. Correctly. 

Yes you are. It goes back to, so, okay, fast forward, right? All these years later and now at Light Beamers and growing my business and all the thing, and figuring out all the things that I've had to figure out, like I mentioned before, the email marketing and my funnels and Facebook ads and all of those things are still just honestly just not a lot of fun, to be honest with you.

I just don't enjoy that part of it, but we do it 'cause that's what we do as business owners and,  um, they really just got to a point in my career and in my,  in my business, where it's like we have a lot of options when it comes to marketing our business. Right. And a lot of 'em are stuff that I do and have in place, but I really don't want to spend a whole lot of time, I don't wanna become the expert in that.

And I've looked at what my career has looked like, and again, speaking has been a big part of  it. Um, over the years, I've done a lot of speaking.   Um, and I'm, I'm comfortable with speaking, but when I started building my business, I didn't realize how important speaking would become. And I about, you know, halfway through, you know, 5, 6, 7 years in, I had had some more experiences of getting invited to come speak, come into this Facebook group and lead a workshop.

Come tell your story, come  be on a podcast. Right? There were a lot of examples where I was out there  speaking and occasionally even get invited to like a real speaking engagement, you know? Um, but I was at a space where, um, even though I was comfortable with speaking, and even though I knew how to do it, I wasn't purposeful with it, I wasn't seeking it out.

I was literally just sitting back and waiting for things to fall into my lap.   And if someone invited me to come speak, I'd be like, sure,  I'll come speak. But I wasn't, I knew again, I was just kind of up against an upper limit and I knew like, okay, April, every time you go speak some pretty cool stuff happens.

Why aren't you doing more of that? You can spend your time figuring out email marketing or building a funnel or you could go talk and you're really good at it. Like you love people. I love meeting,  like to your point, I love going in to events and meeting new people and  all those things. So if I had a moment where I could be the ones speaking, I should, I should seek more of those out instead of just waiting for them to come to me.

So this was actually about three years ago when this happened, and it's really informed everything that I've done in the last three years. So the story that you're referencing, um. I, I made, I decide, I, I kind of made a deal with myself.  I'm like, okay, I'm gonna get serious about speaking.  I'm gonna be more intentional about it.

And I'm actually going to, I had a client at the time who had her own little challenge that she was doing with herself. She had hired me to help her write a new keynote talk, and we were working on that, but she was already out there speaking, you know, she wasn't, this was not new to her. And so she's like, well, I'm doing 50 talks in 50 weeks.

And I was like, oh my gosh. Like, how are you  doing that? And so she was kind of filling me in on what that looked like  and how some of them, she was creating the opportunities for herself. And then others, she was looking and seeking those out. But she had this goal, she's like, 50 talks, 50 weeks. She had a tracker.

She showed me all the things. And I'm like, you know what? That is genius because I, I mean, if you went and did 50 talks in 50 weeks, you would blow up your business in a good way. 

That's a

I'm like,  it's a lot. And so I was like, okay. Lot. I'm, I'm, I'm all for the go for the gusto, but I thought, okay, what if I did half that?

What if I did 25 talks in 25 weeks?  And so that felt a little bit, I could try that one on for  size and not feel suffocated. So I'm like, okay, that one's doable for me. And it's a good challenge. I'm gonna try that. It's gonna help me with my goal of being more intentional, going out there and looking for the opportunities instead of waiting for them to come to me. 

And I can really focus on  speaking as a mechanism to grow my business. I wasn't even necessarily seeking paid speaking engagements at this time. If they came, sure. Uh, you know, absolutely I'll negotiate. We'll get those opportunities and I'll, I'll  get paid. And those are great. But it wasn't my sole  focus.

My sole focus was let's get 25 talks in 25 weeks. Well, I'm pretty much starting at ground zero because I had no talks on my calendar, and again, I didn't have anything in motion that was gonna allow those talks to come in.  So I actually had to hit the grindstone and work  on what I call building my speaker flywheel.

You know, I had to get that flywheel moving. It was at a standstill. So I had to do a lot of intentional work around making ask and. Building out some speaker assets that will allow me  to promote myself in a better way to, I had   years and years and years worth of video of me speaking, but I had no demo reel.

I didn't ever put it together. So I'm like, I should probably do that. So I got really intentional about all the things that we, you know, if you're gonna be a speaker, those are things that are super helpful.   So I worked that  next. What I thought would be 25 weeks was versus roughly six months. Right. Um, and it, I did not hit my goal in 25 weeks, so I kept going, right?

Like, well, I've gotta get to 25 talks. And  so I did hit that goal in a year. It  took me about a year to get that flywheel going, and I make enough asks to be able to get the opportunities to speak. And in my case, because I'm a podcaster, I've had my own podcast for a long time and I was already out there, you know, being on shows like yours.

I mean,  that's kind of a regular routine of mine. I did, in  my case, I did not count podcast as one of my 25 talks. They had to be more than that. That was just my, um, criteria with my clients. I tell them like, Hey, if you're not already getting on podcast,  let podcasts count. I mean, you get to make  your own rules.

What this sounds like right. So, um, but like my client with her 50 talks in 50 weeks, I loved how she was tracking it, so I kind of stole a play out of her playbook, and I built my own tracker   so that I could really see what was working, what wasn't  working. But most importantly, I tracked the dollars. So anytime that even if I was going to speak for free, I could literally track and see, well, that was a person that I met at that speaking engagement, or as a result of  that speaking engagement.

And then that led to a follow-up  conversation or that led to an introduction. And that introduction, that person became a client or whatever it was, right? It led to money, not every time, but anytime that it did, I just wrote it down on my tracker. Thought that was kind of an  important metric to track. So I was tracking it   and I had my head down.

I was just focused on getting these 25 talks and I, I knew it was, I mean, my business was, it was humming, some things were happening, but it really wasn't until I kind of got to the end of the year and I  was like, okay, it's time to. You know, we, we should  do some data collection and we should actually look at this.

So I sat down, literally, you know, started adding it up. It was in an Excel spreadsheet, so like, do the formula, make math be math, and it adds up a total, and it was  $97,800 that I had added  in my revenue that year directly as a result of doing more speaking. And I went, oh my gosh, I actually did the, I I actually got my, I don't trust in like, yeah, I'm not a math person, I'm not an Excel  spreadsheet person.

I literally got out my calculator and had to plug the  numbers in again. 'cause I wanted to make sure that I had done the formula right in the spreadsheet. 'cause I don't really know how to do that stuff. I literally had to do it twice and I'm like, that's a lot of money. You know, like that's a, that's a business all by itself.

All by itself. 

I was like, oh my gosh, this is what everyone should be doing. You know, because I mean, number one, it's a perfect platform for storytellers, right? To your point, like, I'm comfortable telling stories and I enjoy that part. And so if, you know, we have stories to tell, which we all do, and we're willing to get out there and look for the opportunities and stand in front of a room, and maybe you need some practice and you need some  coaching around that, we can support you on that.

But ultimately, if you're  willing to do that, it's a, it's a, it's a very effective tool for growing your business. And I have now been doing that for the last three years. I continue to keep a tracker. And I now have launched a program that's called the Speakeasy, that is that program, like, it's basically everything that I did in that year, which was designed  to do in six months.

I, I documented   everything that I did, and I, and I'll just share you, there's, there's really four main components of it. Number one, I built a talk, like there was a time where, again, people would invite, invite me to speak and I'd be like, sure, I'll come speak. But to be honest with you, I would show up and I would wing it.

Because I'm good at winging it. I'm a, I'm, I'm a, I'm very, I'm a extemporaneous speaker. I can do that.   And there was a part of me that was like,  April, you're not challenging yourself. Like you really need to write a proper keynote. You need to be prepared with it, and you need to start seeking those stages 'cause you're not even seeking those right now.

And I'd had a couple of experiences being a keynote speaker, which at that time, of course I did prepare a talk, but I didn't really have one written in that moment that I could just, if somebody asked me tomorrow to show up, I could show up, right? 

Yeah.

So  I thought preparation is really the mark of a professional and I am not prepared in this moment.

So I'm not a professional. So number one, we have to write a keynote talk. Whether you have one on your calendar to, to deliver, you have a booking or not, you should be prepared with one. And you should really put your ideas and your your thought leadership down  on paper into that keynote talk.  And I had not done that.

So that was step one. That's what I did. And then the second thing was I practiced that sucker like. Like I had a talk that weekend. I practiced it and practiced it and practiced it to where I was so good at delivering that talk. I was truly ready. The most, the biggest  reason why people aren't out there seeking, and I know 'cause  this, I was that girl.

The reason why I wasn't out there seeking opportunities to to speak is because I wasn't ready. I'm like, well, I don't have a talk ready. I haven't practiced that talk. I don't wanna go find those opportunities because I don't have that thing in place. So we're out there. People always ask me, how do you find more speaking engagements?

And I'm like,  anytime someone asks me that question, I tell them, you're asking the wrong  question. You need to be asking are you prepared? And are you ready? And if you can say yes, then we can talk about how to find speaking engagements. 'cause they're out there. Finding speaking engagements is actually the easiest thing in the world to do.

It will take some focus and some dedication and some work, but they're out there, they're not. They're not mysterious. They are available. 

Mm-hmm. 

So getting the talk written and getting the talk, um, practiced and prepared and feeling really good in my body. Like I knew this talk. I knew I could deliver it. I was excited about it.

Once I got excited about it, guess what I did? I  started booking and speaking engagements. I started looking and  finding the opportunities to speak. So I started adding the 25 talks to my tracker. I started with one and then two, and then three. And I just kept going and I just was relentless. I am not stopping this until I get to 25, 'cause I wanna, it's an experiment.

I wanna see what happens. 

Yeah.

the  fourth thing that I did was I learned how to monetize it. Right Now, does that mean I got a speaking fee for every talk that I gave? No, I, I would love that, but that's not the truth. The truth is, I didn't monetize on the front end every single talk, but I just shared with you, I monetized on the back end.

I was very, very clear with every talk that I gave, if, if I should  say yes or no to that opportunity, I was seeking out the ones that  I knew would be profitable on the backend. I knew I would be speaking to an audience that had, that needed what I had. I knew that I could go in and share my thought leadership and my expertise in, in my stories, my vulnerable, real stories in such a way that would draw people to me, that would naturally lead to the conversations that they, that it did in.

Lead to, right? Which was the follow up calls, the referrals, the appointments,  the, let me introduce you to so and sos. That's  what led to $97,800. A few of those sprinkled in, there were some speaking fees, but a majority of it was monetizing it on the backend. And so now that's what I teach in the program because I needed it.

And I think everyone el, a lot of other people need it because, uh, I don't really know of any business program that like is really teaching us this aspect of it, you know, that Sure. We know speaking is super important. We can see  the Tony Robbins and the Brene Browns out there, but  they're doing it as a profession.

Right. I really wanted to show people to add speaking as a marketing vehicle to your business. 'cause that's what it did for me. And it, it literally blew the doors off my business and continues to, and it put me into doubling my income essentially. And it continues to help me grow my income every single year.

And now of course, you know, it's fun to get to teach this and help other people do the same. 

It is very fun to teach, speaking in that  way.

Yeah,

have   so many questions off of

yeah, yeah. Go for it.  

Okay. So first of all, when you were building the talk, that was one of the questions I was gonna ask initially that you sort of already answered was, did you give the same talk 25 times? 

no, no, no. And to be fair, not all of these talks were not, all of these talks were keynotes. Right. But I wanted to be able to go after those keynote opportunities, and I knew I wasn't going after them because I didn't have a proper keynote built. So, um, 

you just very quickly, like what's the difference between a 

yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. A keynote talk is, I want you to imagine you're at a, a bigger event. It doesn't have to be big in terms of number of people, but just like an event where there is like a headline or there's, there's, there's speakers there that you know you're gonna learn from. And it's not a workshop, it's not a breakout session, it's not a masterclass.

It's not. Any of those, it probably doesn't have a workbook. You know, it's not  any of those things. It's not a business presentation.  All of those are valid speaking opportunities, and a lot of my $97,800 came from those as well. So it was definitely a mixed bag of more workshops, presentations, and keynotes.

The workshops and presentations, man, I already had that in the bag. I was already successfully delivering those and doing those and, and, and getting asked to speak, but I still wasn't going out and trying to find as many of those as  I could. So I was looking for more of those  along with pushing myself to look for more of the keynote talks.

So the keynote talk was a talk that. You know, I built to be around between 30 and 45 minutes long because depending on then what the actual opportunity is, I have been asked to deliver talks that are an hour long and I've been asked to deliver 90 minute talks. I've also been, so from my 30 to 45 minute talk, I could, I already had the base so I could add a  little bit more.

When I needed to fill more time.  Uh, on the opposite end of that, if I have a 30 minute talk and they've, and they've given you 20 minutes to speak, you can trim a few things and still fit that talk into the time, time, time requirements, right? So, uh, a keynote talk is going to be pretty structured and it's going to have some, some, some talking points that allow you, that allow the audience to, because again, why are, why are we doing this?

It's all about the audience. So definitely something  the audience can take away from you. You wanna leave your  audience leaving a keynote talk going, wow, that was so good. That talk was so amazing, really got me thinking, you know, really, I, I love how she said this or that. Like, you wanna build those things in there so that.

Ideally that's the, the reaction that they have. They're walking away feeling like they've really learned something new or got new insight or have a takeaway that they hadn't thought about before. And so we wanna build a talk that's very strategic and does that at the same  time. We, in my world, we wanna build  a talk that's very storytelling focused.

Um, I didn't wanna memorize a talk and I didn't wanna feel like I was giving a TEDx talk where I was, you know, like I have to fit, I have to stand on a red dot, and I'm not, I love TEDx so I'm not knocking that. But I just, in this case, I wanted to explore, like sharing more of my story and letting the story be the thing that I could use to teach the audience the things I wanted them to te to teach and be the  framework that I use so that I don't have to memorize  the talk.

'cause memorizing a talk scared the. Pee outta me and it still does that. I actually don't wanna do that. I just don't feel like it feels organic. And what if I, you know, there's all these what ifs and I feel like that's what stops a lot of people from embracing public speaking because they have a view of what they think public speaking is, and they think you have to memorize and they think you have to stand on a red dot, and they, they think, you think it has to be this really tight thing and it doesn't.

And  so it's really just a beautiful opportunity to go  and serve your face off to an audience and use it as a huge connection point and a power play to be able to bring that audience to you. And we're gonna do that through storytelling for sure. So it's very structured. It's you, you understand that it, you're not there.

Like it's not a workshop, it's not a a session. It's literally you're on the stage, you have your thoughts, you have your ideas, and you're delivering it to them in a way that can have a dramatic impact. 

Yeah. How often are you stories? Recycling your talking points, recycling, you know, if you have like a framework that you sort of work out, work out of how much of the talk, like even if it's not the same talk, how much of it is recycled versus new content or crafted based on audience that you're specifically addressing? 

Yeah, I think that. Because I am generally speaking to similar audiences. I don't have vast difference. Now, I, I have a talk coming up that is not my normal audience, and I'll tell you about that one in a minute. But just in general, I am usually  speaking to like entrepreneurs,   like you do service-based entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, leaders.

Uh, sometimes in the corporate space, I really don't seek that out as much, although I'm, I'm open, you know, I'm definitely open to it and I have, but, um, people that are in this, in like sales and things like that, so. With that   I can recycle a lot because it's kind of  the same stuff that I need to share in many different ways.

And so I might change up the story a little bit. I might change up a particular te teaching point that's gonna be really specific to their industry. If I know I'm speaking to a mixed crowd of men and women versus just women, I might change up the  story, um, or change the key, the key  talking point. But I do have kind of a rotation now of like three or four talks that I can, I can deliver and that I can use over and over again, which is the idea.

'cause like you're not really gonna spend a ton of time writing new talks. I mean, that's not the idea of this right. 

Yeah. 

But you wanna get some that are in your back pocket that you can use and then tweak accordingly. Now, I do have this talk coming up that is an audience that I am building a brand new talk for, and it is not an audience that I normally speak to.

And I am going back to my college, and I am speaking, I was part of a sorority and I'm speaking, um,  the, the National Chain Sorority has the, it's  their 130th anniversary this year. And so my, uh, chapter of the sorority is doing a huge reunion, um, gathering, and it's a. It's a two, two and a half day event.

It's one keynote speaker and I'm it, uh, and I am speaking to women that are not my ideal audience at all. Now, some of them would be, but  that's not the point of the, of why they've asked me there.   Obviously they've asked me there, 'cause I'm an alumni. They are, you know, they follow my work. They, they thought for, you know, that I could speak on, um, the stories of, of our chapter.

And so I'm building a talk that is very geared towards that. I will probably never give that talk again. You know, it's very unlikely. And so every once in a while you're gonna have one of those pop up. Uh,  but obviously that's a, a huge passion project of mine.   And it has a lot of reasons why I said yes, I was super honored.

Um, it's probably not a talk that I will necessarily recycle verbatim, but even with that, because I have all these other talks, I am gonna be able to pull things that are gonna make building that talk a lot easier. You know, you're starting from scratch, but you're never, always starting from scratch. 

Yeah, that's fine. I love what you said about, you know, you're tweaking. 'cause I, I mean, I think that's smart to say, especially if you have a goal of like, I wanna give 25 talks. I. 

Yeah, 

25 completely different

that'd be crazy.

talk. You'd be,

Yeah.  I built like one workshop that I wanted to deliver on repeat. I did a couple of, um, master classes that I could interchange in between, depending on the audience. I have those, I still have those, right? I can deliver those anytime. So I have those built. And so the thing, the same was true for the keynotes.

Well, I also need to have keynotes ready to go, so I went and built those as well. Yeah. 

Here's a more nuanced question around that specifically. How much did you change the title, if at all, based on the specific event or audience? Or did did the title change at  all or

Yeah,

did the  way you pitch it was,

think the, the way I think the way you pitch it is always a little different again, because you have to be so focused on who you're talking to and you want to, you know, position that pitch and that talk in a way that, you know, they're gonna hopefully say yes. But the actual talk title I don't really think matters, to be honest. 

I think it matters in the pitching. I think it matters  in the promoting of it and like it's gotta get their attention and all those things. But once I get those talks, could I use the same title over and over again? Sure. Absolutely. And I'm sure, I know I have because it's really at that point more about the meat of the talk and how that's going to be more tailored to the audience and less about whether or not I changed the title or not. 

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Yeah,

I wanna go back to where you dropped a term I've never heard before, and I'm interested when you said speaker flywheel. 

Oh, okay.

What is? What is what? That sounds delightful.

Oh,   yeah. Okay.  Well,

amusement park ride. 

right. Yeah. You know, if you think about, oh, like a hamster wheel, you know, the flywheel, like it's a, the, if you get on the hamster gets on the wheel and standing at, at zero miles per hour, you've gotta start walking on it. The hamster's gotta push it to get it going, but eventually, once.

The hamster does that enough times the flywheel just  starts running and it doesn't need the feet,   you know, pushing on it any longer. So that, take that image and think about when you first and go embark on, like, okay, I'm gonna be more intentional with my speaking and I'm gonna, I'm gonna get myself out there.

I have to go get on the flywheel, and I've gotta go press my feet forward, right? I've gotta go make some ask,   I've gotta go get some bookings. I've gotta build that talk,  I've gotta practice it. All those things are part of that flywheel. It's not just the speaking engagements, because again, you're not even gonna go ask for the speaking engagements unless you feel ready.

So we gotta get you ready. So that's part of a speaker flywheel. Um, and, and then now like what happens with our, with our, myself and my clients is like, once you've done that and you've got, you've been making  enough ask and you've been putting enough stuff out there,  eventually you can let your foot off the gas.

And it's kind of like cruise control now. It won't stay like that forever. Because eventually you're going to deliver all the speaking engagements that were part of that flywheel's action. So what's important is once we get the speaker flywheel up and running is we, we  have a system, and this is what we do in speakeasy.

We have a  system in place that allows you to come back in every once in a while and just give it a few taps, right? We're gonna give it a few taps and make sure it continues to hum. So I do this by using my tracker. I look at my tracker and I go, okay, great. I've got, I've got some stuff going. This is great, right?

But I then also need to make myself a note, okay. In about  another month it's gonna be a good time to come in  and hit it again. I need to like spend a couple of days doing some, some generation, you know, speaker generation and things like that. I now do this as part of my regular routine. I'm doing that.

Kind of on a, on a weekly to two weekly basis every two week basis as I'm going in and like, ooh, let me go send something here. Ooh, let me touch out to this  person. Here's the other really cool about having a tracker.   Now I've been tracking for three years. Well, it gets, so the flywheel gets so much easier because now I'm going back to places that I haven't spoken to in a couple years and I'm like, Hey, remember me?

That was such a fun thing we did. You wanna do that again? You know, or, Hey, what do you got going on? You want me to come speak again? Now I've got, I've got  relationships with people that are making that flywheel run  a lot easier. But in the beginning, if you don't, if you're starting from ground zero, and that's where I was 'cause I was just sitting around waiting for people to come to me, you have to get that flywheel going.

And so we really focus on helping you do that because, um, I mean, ultimately it gets to be a, it gets to run with a lot of a, not a lot less effort. 

Yeah, but the talk comes first.

I find I, that's my opinion. I, you know, other people might do it differently. I just, I, I, I don't know that I would put the hustle into it if I felt uncomfortable not knowing what I would be talking about.

You know, I don't really know how you sell something you haven't created. 

Yeah. I think, I mean, I, I agree with you on that. I think it needs to be at least a part of the way fleshed out.

Yeah,

word for word, 

right, right. Exactly. 

Yeah. I want to be, I feel like I could just keep talking about this and want to be respectful of time. I would love to know sort of to. Wrap this up. If you look back on that wild time of your life where you did, I mean, 25 talks in a, in a in,

That's  a lot. It  was a.

did not  meet your goal, that's still kind of extraordinary. 

Yeah. Well, and that's important for people to hear. You know, I did set this goal of 25 talks in 25 weeks. I did not hit that goal. I did not get that done in 25 weeks. It took me 50 plus weeks to get that done. But you know what? It still had the same effect. 

Yeah. 

you know, I don't recommend 25 talks in 25 years.

I do recommend, like, let's focus on it and get it into a, a, a period of time where you're actually going to benefit from the ROI of that. But I also wanna be real that, like, to get this off the ground, it took me a minute, you know, it really did. It took me a minute. 

I am gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause my question that I was going to ask real quick to say, how much were you traveling in the space of year to do those 25? How local were the 

Um, a lot of it was online. There was some local. A lot of it was online. There was some local, there was one big talk that I did that was paid, that was with, uh, our local Chamber of commerce. And I got to do, uh, uh, it was for their women's event,  you know, for 350 women. And I was a closing  keynote speaker.

There were two keynote speakers that day, and I was one of them. And that was a phenomenal, I'm like, this is so awesome. And it's in my backyard. And it was the talk that I had built. It was like I was ready. And it was a talk I asked for. I went and pitched to myself for that. 

Yeah.

Uh, so that  was great. Um, others were, you know, I did a little bit of traveling.

Um, but that's fun. You know, like when you're doing something that you now are really excited about, the travel, you know, you still get to say yes or no. You get to kind of dictate if you're gonna do that or not. I. 

Yeah. Okay. That's, that seems much more manageable, like, that's so much travel.

Yeah.

a, I would

And  again, I wanna remind everybody, these were not all keynotes. Some of this was workshops, some of this were masterclasses, and those are, those are really readily available online. 

So going back to having, having done that, having done 25 talks in the space of a year, what would you say your biggest takeaways from that experience would be? 

Um, gosh, there's a lot. Let me narrow it down. 

I was gonna give you a number, like if you had to pick the top, let's say top three. 

Yeah. Well, my number one takeaway from that experience is that speaking really works. I mean, speaking is a, is a workhorse for you in your business. I. It will require you to work it. Um, it's just not press a button and let it go. It's not like a Facebook ad. You can just turn it on and let it do its thing.

It's not like that. Um, it really is something you're going to have to work, and as I've just described, you're gonna have  to get it off the ground. But I, to me, that was a fun  challenge. To me, it was purposeful and I was intentional and I was doing it for a personal challenge. I wanted to push myself to be a better speaker than what I had been prior.

I wanted to push myself to get different opportunities than the ones that were naturally falling in my lap. I wanted to see how far I could take it. I wanted to see how much I could charge. I wanted to see what would unfold. Um. So those were all really personal growth aspects of the challenge for me,   which was another big takeaway.

It really did  push me to grow in areas that were uncomfortable. And, uh, you always win when you do that, you know? And so that was a big piece of a takeaway as it was a huge personal growth opportunity. And it was, it was, it was lovely. Um, it did require work and it required intention, but I, I eagerly did that and it was something that blew me away.

Like I really did not, I mean, I thought I would add some dollars, sure, but I never imagined  that would be a hundred thousand dollars experiment.   And it was, and it continues to be. And it wasn't a one trick pony. I mean, every time I go speak, these things happen. I have a graphic that I share a lot of times that talks about the domino effect of speaking.

And I can just, you know, kind of give you an image of it. Like if you imagine dominoes right when you go and speak, a lot of dominoes start to fall. And some of these will fall in the favor of adding revenue to your business. And some of them may not look like money  at first, but they can become money down the road.

But  every time you go speak, you're gonna, number one, you're gonna add new followers, new people to your social media. You're gonna, if you do it right, which is, you know, we wanna help you with that. Making sure you have all these pieces in place. But you can add e people to your email list. There's usually always something that I share in a talk that would allow people to get on my email list voluntarily.

And so we can add you your email list. We, you will meet new people. You will develop relationships with those who are bringing you on board.   And again, those are people you'll be able to go back  to year after year, um, or every couple of years and, and get speaking engagements again. Um, you will get direct clients out of it.

I literally have had people come up to me after a talk and hand me their card and say, I want, I wanna book a call with you and I wanna hire you. And I literally have left the building sometimes with people already signed up into our program, not now. I've not gone into it going, oh, I'm gonna go find a bunch of clients.

But just naturally and again, with a strategically put together talk. I mean, I'm  not just, I'm not just up there telling stories for the fun of it. I'm   putting, I've put together a talk in the way that I, I ideally it will become a conversion event. Right. It will move the audience into action. It will make the audience wanna take action with me and with light Beamers.

And so naturally I have that kind of baked into my talk, but that happens, you know? So sometimes it is a direct, wow, I just made extra money from this talk because now I have a new client or I have a, I have a meeting booked, or I got this cool referral.   Or another thing, another domino that can  fall is, oh, you got another talk booked.

I can't tell you how many times I finish a talk. And then someone's like, will you come do that for my audience? Will you come give that talk to my people. I've got an event coming up. I, we want you as a speaker. Like, I didn't even have to ask for that one. Right? So these are the dominoes that start to fall.

And that was another big, big takeaway that, 'cause I could see it all across the board on all the talks that I gave that year and the ones that I continue to do, it happens every time. 

Yeah, that's, I would say every single person I know who uses speaking in their business, even when they were not using it super intentionally, where it just sort of like happened. Like, wow. The doors that had opened. 

that's why I did this because I was that person. Like I was kind of like lazily being a speaker, like, oh sure, I'll go speak, you know? But every time I would, something would happen. I'm like, why am I not doing this more intentionally? Like, 

Yeah.

why  am I banging my head up a wall around trying to figure out how to market my business when I could just go speak?

Like, I dunno, I just like, to me, it just made so much sense. It was literally point A to point B, straight line, easy. You know, don't deter from the, from the path and just do it. 

Yeah. I love that. It's put me on stage. Gimme a microphone. I'm,

Heck  yeah. Yeah. And so much fun. You do. You meet so many great people and you get connected. You build great collaborations. I mean, there's just so many things that come out of it that I. Doors will open that you just cannot imagine. You know, I, I could tell you story after story of just crazy stuff that's happened.

They're like, I don't even know how I got in this room, but here I am, and here we go. You know, it's been, it's been wild. 

That is the beauty of events. it's sort of to wrap all this up, is there anything we've covered, we've gone over the, all over the world with this. Is there anything  that

It's been so fun. I feel like we've talked about everything. It's been so good. 

anything we did not cover that you feel is important 

goodness. You know? 

that we didn't get to?

Yeah.   Well, I'll just try to put a bow in it and I, and I, at the end of the day, really, at the end of the day speaking and we could go like really deep down that hole, but, and I, and I love it clearly, but if it's not speaking right.  

Which hopefully we've made a good case for why you should do it,  but if it's not for you, if speaking isn't the path. What I would say that I hope you get outta this conversation is a realization that your story holds power. That your story has significance. I know there's a lot of people that's like, I don't really know that I have a story, or  I don't really know that my story could be that.

Like, I don't know if that my story  could, you know, be important enough to share. And if that is you, I, I want you to hear me say that I have, I literally, literally, I have interviewed over 10,000 people in my career in the last 30 plus years that I've been doing this work,  and I have never ever, ever,   ever, ever walked away from an interview and meeting someone and help, you know, finding out more about their story and said, under my breath, well, that was a complete waste of my time.

Never

Never everyone has a 

everyone has a story and there is real power and purpose in that story. And that that story has value and merit and weight. And so maybe it's writing in a book one day. Maybe it's sitting down for over coffee and sharing that story with a friend. Maybe it's, um, sharing the story at a support group.

Maybe it's sharing the story inside of a Facebook group with all your entrepreneur friends. Maybe  it is speaking on stage. Maybe it's starting a podcast.  Maybe it's going out and being a guest on a podcast. Maybe it's recording a reel and telling the story of your grandmother like I did yesterday, and putting that on, on your social media.

There's a place for it. And so if nothing else, I want people to hear that. 'cause I, I really know and believe in the power of storytelling, and it can actually be one of the biggest gifts that you could give yourself is to go on the journey of learning to tell your story. 

Oh, I love that. Well, that's a perfect segue into if someone wants help in telling their story and maybe potentially getting on stages for themselves or writing a book or whatever, whatever shape that might take for them based on their energy and their personality and all the things where, where can they find you?

Where, how can you help? 

Yes. Um, well, a couple, well, lots of places, right? I, I'll give the ones I think are the most helpful. Uh, one is, is probably our own podcast, just if you wanted to kind of binge and listen to more of where this came from. Right. There's, uh, lots of episodes on our podcast called The Inside Story with April Perie, and we've been podcasting for four years.

So we've got over 200 episodes that  you can listen to both of other women that are sharing their  story and doing really powerful things for encouragement and inspiration, as well as the solo episodes where we're teaching a little bit more and trying to help you with those things. Um, I mentioned our Light Beamers community on Facebook, which is where all of this started, all those years ago.

We still run that community and we do, uh, prompts in there every week. It's a free community to join. And we do  prompts where we prompt you with storytelling prompts and   we invite you into that community and that safe environment to practice your storytelling with us. It's super fun and it's always really fun to see what other stories people are coming up with and putting into the group.

Um, so that's a great way to do it. And then we have some free resources that we can share with you on our website, light beamers.com. And then just connect with me. I'm,  uh, I'm on, uh, LinkedIn,  Facebook, Instagram. Those are the, my three main channels that I, that I'm really active on. And you can find me at Light Beamers on any of those.

Um, you can email me April Light, light Beamers. I'm really love to just connect with people and start up a conversation, and then if one of those free resources doesn't do the trick, then I could point you in the next direction. Then on our website, of course, we have information about our speakeasy. I. 

Yeah. Amazing. Well, it's, we'll link everything in the show notes too, so that it's, that it's easy. This was, this was fun to talk about. I, I love speaking, I love stories. So this was, this was fun to go all over with you. 

Yeah. Yeah. Super fun. Thanks for having me today.

Absolutely.