In this episode of the One Small Change Podcast, host Yvonne McCoy sits down with event strategist and speaking coach Cari Brunton, who shares her inspiring story of transforming her business during the pandemic. Cari opens up about the rocky transition from live events to virtual webinars, the valuable lessons learned from initial failures, and how embracing authenticity became the cornerstone of her success. Listeners will get actionable insights on connecting with the right audience, leveraging their unique energy, and why focusing on speaking as a marketing strategy can accelerate business growth. This episode is packed with tips on showing up consistently, finding the right communities, and crafting workshops that sell—not just entertain.

Guest Bio

Cari Brunton is an event strategist and speaking coach with a deep background in nonprofit fundraising, public speaking, and marketing. After shifting her business from live event planning to virtual webinars during the pandemic, Cari’s passion is helping entrepreneurs find their voice, embrace their authentic selves, and turn speaking opportunities into clients. Her approach blends practical sales psychology with real-world experience, guiding clients to connect, engage, and thrive in today’s dynamic business landscape.

Chapters:

00:00 "Exploring Transformation with Yvonne McCoy"

03:23 Early Public Speaking Journey

09:46 Mastering Persuasive Sales Speaking

11:11 Discovering Unique Coaching Strengths

14:24 "90s Gaming Nostalgia: Cruisin' USA"

17:31 "Effective Office Hours Strategy"

21:46 Entrepreneurship: Value of Community

23:27 Prioritize Tasks by Energy Levels

29:07 "Podcast Growth and Impact Journey"

30:28 Embrace Change, Embrace Uncertainty

Quote from the Guest:

“If you don’t like your marketing, stop doing it. Find something you do like. There’s so many tactics out there, guys. Find the ones you like. Stick with them. Your business will go further.”

Links:

7 Questions to Ask Before Accepting a Speaking Gig

https://redbucketevents.com/yvonne/

Welcome to the One Small Change. And as always, I am

thrilled that you're on this journey with me of exploration and transformation.

And I'm your host, Yvonne McCoy and I bring almost 30

years, I can't believe I'm saying that, 30 years of entrepreneurial

experience. I have a passion for discovering growth through the power

of seemingly small change. So I am glad that you're joining me.

This week we are talking with Cari Brunton and, and she's

going to show what the change and share her

story with us that had a change in her business

and why she does what she does and why

she's so good at it. Cari, thank you for

coming. Thank you for spending time with us. Thank you so much for having

me today, Yvonne. So I, you know, one of the things for me for

the podcast is to let other people experience, experience

what, you know, other people have gone through in their business and

see that they can make a small change in their business and expose them

to people from all different kinds of businesses so they can get

ideas. So tell us what your, you know, what happened that

made you change and I'm assuming that this is your business more than

anything else. And you know how it

snowballed and built momentum. Yeah.

So I decided to host my first webinar in

2020 because of the

pandemic. And what happened was I had, up until that point

I had, was only working on live events. I opened my business

for live event planning. That was the focus, that was all of it.

And I live in Canada and So March of

2020 we shut down everything.

And for those of you who don't know, Canada had very strict lockdowns

across the country. And then some provinces were allowed to set their

own things, just like some of the states were. But we were

on very harsh lockdown for a long time, for

nearly two years. And so live

events were gone, bye, gone out the door.

And I had to do something because my business

just came to a screeching halt. I, I have to

tell you, I experienced the same thing. I was working with

female executive directors of non profits and

it's like their funding dried up overnight. They couldn't bring

people in to provide services. And you know,

on Monday I had a business and on Friday I didn't.

Absolutely. I, I actually mainly had non profit clients

at the time because I have a extensive background raising

and they were just like, wait,

like we don't know. So yeah,

so my contracts just kind of went and I was

crying on the couch because

how do you deal with that? Right. And so fortunately,

I started getting asked about webinars

and marketing webinars specifically. And so I watched a couple

and I was like, I should do. I should, I should, I should do this.

I'm gonna do this. And it just

sparked a total explosion in my business that I'm so grateful

for. And I started speaking

when I was four years old. There was a program through my school that you

could do public speaking as an extracurricular type of thing. You memorized

a poem and you went and you presented and you got out of school for

a day. It was all wonderful. It's all benefits. Right?

You know what? In retrospect, smartest thing I could have done,

I, I think I was just excited to talk. So

I'm still just excited to talk, to be honest with you. But.

So I'm extremely comfortable with public speaking. I was like, okay, I have a huge

marketing background. Public speaking. I totally got this.

So I get on stage, I've got 40 people in the room. Which

for anybody wondering for your first webinar is a.

It is, right? Because the marketing side. The marketing side, I have. Right. So I

had 40 people in the room. I got up, speak,

you know, I let it all flow out. People are nodding, people are

laughing. People are, you know, people are clapping afterwards. People are telling me, you did

such a great job. What a great webinar. That was amazing.

Nobody bought a thing.

I felt so stupid. Open mouth,

insert shoe. I was so certain this was going to be totally

easy for me. Like, you know, it was going to be this next thing to

breathing for me. Right. And nobody bought a thing.

I was so embarrassed,

just not because I had made like huge public claims of. I'm going to sell

all the things, you know, but just I had been so sure that I

had this and smack in the face, no, you don't.

I just interject this because please do.

You know, one of the things that I have trouble with is,

I mean, and I've been paying attention to how many people go, I really

had a good time at your workshop. And I. And I've been saying

to myself, not enough pain. I am not.

They're having too good a time. I'm entertaining. It's not enough

pain. So I can understand

why that happened to you. I love, I love that. That's,

that's the thought. I would encourage you to get out of that mentality.

Well, you know, it's not enough decision making information.

Okay, okay. But this is the shift I want. You to make on that one.

But, but yes, I understand and, and because

as. As glad as I am when people have a great time and are

entertained when I talk, at the end of. The day, I want you to buy

stuff. Well, I had somebody who stayed afterwards

and said, I want to give you a couple of tips. And

after a minute I had to say to myself, you have to. You have to

be careful who you listen to. Right? Yes. And she was

in the entertainment business and she wanted to make it more entertaining.

And I was like, I see where you're coming from, but that

is not what I'm about. So that's not the right advice

for me. But anyway, it's just funny that you should say that. Sorry.

No, no, no. It's. You know what? Entertainment is great. Like, I don't. You never

want to be the boring speaker, right? The speaker who don't. Who love people

sleep. And when you make people laugh or you make people metaphorically

cry, if you make people literally cry, you'd be really impressed. But

I don't see that very often. Uh, but if you're

making them laugh, making them cry, they are more likely to buy from you.

So those are great. But it's not about the because you're entertaining, it's

about because you're connecting. Right. And those are different things.

Yes, but we're still amused and engaged when we're connecting. But

we're not. It's not necessarily. You know, I'm watching my favorite TV show with a

bowl of popcorn, so. So the point that you made that I

think is really important and what I talk about is

when you are your. When you are you. Right.

People spend a lot of time workshopping their

workshops, you know, and, you know, what's the time and what's

of this and what's that and stuff. And what they forget is the most

important ingredient is themselves. You

know, how do you do it and come across as yourself? Because

people are buying you. Yes, it's the first thing we buy.

That's the first thing we really buy, is you. Your services are great,

but before you actually start providing that, we're buying you.

And I always say that in your webinars and your workshops, Arch and your speaking.

Are. Are people test driving you like you're a car?

Don't act like a Ferrari if you're a Jeep.

There's nothing wrong with being a Jeep. Do you know how many people are out

there right now driving Jeeps? Right.

There's nothing wrong, but just be who you are. I like to think of myself

as like a 1950s, like cherry red Sports car, you know, all the curves

and, and the zip. But

if I'm going to be a car, I'm going to be a hot car. But

so, but, but that's, that is such an important thing, is you got to be

new and there's nothing wrong with you. And the

more you let you out of the box, the more people like you, the more

they connect with you, the more they want to buy from you. All

right, So I think that the caveat,

but the good caveat is the people that are

right for you want to buy from you. And those

people will recognize your value and will be willing to

pay you more for what you do. And so you don't have,

you know, you aren't caught in that cycle of undercharging or saying, should I put

a discount on this or should I do. You know, and, and, and the

other part is you do your best work

with the people who, who

naturally connect with you. Yeah.

And because they. That you're starting to build that whole trust thing,

and you share things in common, you know, that you can relate

to with each other. Yeah, absolutely. And you

know what? It's. It's all a little things. Like, did you know that if you

have a pet and they walk on screen while you're speaking digitally,

other people in the room with pets are almost two times more likely to buy

from you? That makes sense. It's just, it's an

instant bonding thing. It's, hey, they're a pet owner.

Their life is like my life. They're gonna get me. Yeah. You know, it's just.

It's one of the. We look for those connections. And so it's really important

to drop those while you're speaking. And I'm very pleased to tell you that after

that first bomb in the face of my webinars, I,

I have turned it around. I did a lot of training, a lot of expertise,

and I learned a lot of things that so many people don't know about

sales psychology, about speaking to sell, about the

difference between creating a talk that leads people to make decisions

rather than just applaud and say, hey, that was great. Bye now.

Right. And because to me, and I realized

that so many people were in that mindset that I was. That those things should

just be instinctual. It should be natural, it should be easy. You just get up

and talk and go. And so

those are the people I want to help. And I realized that they need my

help. And so I'm here for you, and I'm here to show you that you

can be you, you can relax, you can let whatever kind of car you are

out of the garage and people are going to

want to drive with you. All right? I have friends who, if I say,

hey, I'm going to the middle of nowhere and it's going to be really

fun. I have friends who are going to say, I don't get, I don't know

what you're doing, but let's go. Right. And then I have people who like

have, in my life who have just essentially hated me for exactly

who I am. And while I personally like to think it's because they're very repressed,

I am more of a free flowing kind of person. It doesn't

matter. Right. That's on them. Well, here, here's the

thing that I think is that I've experienced

is, you know, I had, I had a client who was kind of my

wingman on a workshop, and after the workshop she said to

me, I don't know

how to tell you this, but the person that did that

workshop is not the coach I love working with.

Yeah, because I had, you know, workshopped this thing to death. I

mean, I had the timing down and I had the, you know, the exercise

up in there. And so that was really a wake up call for me.

And so one of the things that I think is so important

is to kind of figure out what your unique powers are. What are

the things that you're really good at that somebody else,

you know, would not be able to help them as easily. And,

and, and really trying to put that into my marketing and what

I do. And so one of the words for me is energetic.

So it's really been interesting to me that the people that I've been

talking to in the last couple of months are saying things like,

I love your energy. I mean, you make me feel like I can, you

know, get things done. Which means people are

self selecting out that don't love my energy,

which is good because that, that disconnect of

having to move so much slower is, takes energy.

You know, I think

what I, what I, a lot of my clients have taught me is that they

get trapped in the mindset of I have to appeal to as many people as

possible so that I have as much potential for sales. And

what I remind them, and I will remind your audience, is that

the people who love you and who love your energy and love you exactly

as you are are willing to pay a lot more money

to spend time with you because they love you and they get all the benefits

of working with You. Can we. Can we talk about that a little bit? Because

I think that is so important. And. And the.

You know, the. The whole. To me, the whole misconception of the

funnel thing, you know, you throw this really big. You know, you throw this

really big net and hope that you get enough people

in there that they'll, you know, kind of come through where it's.

To me, it's much better to throw a more specific net

so that you've got more. Instead of having 100 people with only

maybe two people who are your. Who are your right client, you maybe

have 20 people, but 10 of them are your right

client. So you're not wasting your time, you know, and you're

connecting with the people who are more likely to buy from you.

I find that the more specific you can be about your marketing,

the stronger people respond to it, because

it's. It's like.

It's like the car thing, right? When I mentioned that some people are Jeeps, there

are some people in your audience who went, I love Jeeps. Where are the Jeeps?

I want to go hang out with the Jeeps. And there are. Some people are

like, wait, Cari's a 1950s sports car? Damn, that's specific. She's like,

she's. And she's cherry red, and she's got curves. And. And.

And for those of you who really want to date yourselves with me, there was

a Cruisin World USA video game in the. In the

1990s where they had. They had an orca car, which is the thing that actually

comes to mind. But, you know, and that

made other people go, but those people are

instantly more excited and more passionate, and that

means they're more likely to take action because

they're more engaged and they're more connected. And

at the end of the day, you're gonna just have more fun with those people.

Yes. You get to be more of yourself. You get to be more relaxed,

and you get to create an environment that you're excited to be in.

And your coaching environments and your program environments really need

to be somewhere that you want to be, because otherwise

your business is no fun, and it's going to drag you into the dirt. You're

gonna get burned out and look around going, I don't know what's wrong with me.

Well, you know, answer is, you don't like your own program.

Things I always say to people is, just be yourself. Don't feel like

you have to put yourself on a pedestal. Because if you try to put yourself

on a pedestal, you're Going to get knocked off. I mean, you know,

and, you know, so I'm like, I don't have all the answers, but,

you know, we'll find the answers together. Right?

Absolutely. Is constantly changing. And my

strong suit is to help you to implement and

talking about implementation. Let's talk a

little bit about. So you talked about going to doing more

virtual things and doing your workshop. Did you decide that you

wanted to do your workshop, like, on a regular basis for

consistency or. It took me a long

time to find what I wanted, like, like through

speaking. And for a while it was regular

webinars. For a while it was a rotating series. For a while I

was only doing summit speaking. And so

it's rotated a lot. I now do have a

fairly regular workshop. I try to do it every other month, actually

introducing a new one coming up soon. So I'm excited about that.

But I do, I do

very much speak regularly. The locations change. The.

The certain methodologies change a tiny bit.

But speaking is something that I'm very consistent about because

that's the thing where I'm seeing all of my clients come from, and it's

what I'm teaching my clients to do. So they love that. They love that I

do it. It's a nice full circle piece. And I agree with

you. And, and so for me, part of it is

speaking is a strategy. There are lots of tactics

about how you can speak, right. So you can,

for instance, do a. I do a monthly workshop

and I also do. This year I decided to really jump out even

more and try to do at least one summit a month, something like that. And

I do some podcasts. But what I tell people, and I, I want to hear

your side of this is that it's really important to show

up consistently, you know, so that people know where to find

you. So if you, you know, one of the things that I suggest for my

clients is to do like an office hours.

They can do like twice a month. It's like two hours

that, you know you're going to be somewhere. You know, you invite people to come

if nobody shows up, and I guarantee that nobody probably will for the

first two, you're working on a camera, so you're working to

make it better. Right? But what happens is

they know where to find you, that these two times of

the month, this is where you're going to be. And so

most people, it, you know that that old thing about it takes

people 12 contacts or something like that, and you have to be on, you

know, and so the first couple, the first month, they probably are not going to

find you. Right? But what they do, whether

it is two people, I mean, when I did it, I don't think I ever

had more than eight people show up, which was fine because I got a

chance to talk to everybody. And the times that I had one or two, I

actually probably turned at least one of them into a sale. So

it's a, it's a great way to start and start

consistency and then you can add other pieces to it and still

stay consistent. So I don't know how you, what your, what

your point of view is on that. So

consistency is really important. I, I don't think you necessarily

have to be doing the same thing consistently to be considered

consistent. If I like to say, to speak

consistently doesn't mean that you are only speak. You know, that you are at

a, a summit of some kind every week. It might mean some weeks you're at

summits and some weeks you're on podcasts, and some weeks you are,

you know, at networking meetings as the guest speaker.

It might mean that some weeks you're doing lives. And

so I think there needs to be a consistency to it there,

that you are frequently doing visibility tasks. I

don't think it needs to consistently be the exact same thing. However,

the one strategy I have come to absolutely love

is hosting a regular workshop. So like I said, mine is every other month.

And what I do then is when I speak at summits and on networking

groups and things like that as a gift, because you are often

asked to give a gift as a speaker. My

gift is a free or $1 ticket to my workshop,

which is one of my key ways of filling it. And then we

actually get to do a little bit of work together. We dive in and

actually do a few things. So you get more of a sample of my coaching.

And that way it's, it creates

a filling system. Right? It's a way for you to fill up. But you are

still being that consistent person. You're still being,

showing up regularly. You're still offering yourself visibility options.

So I don't think you necessarily have to. So if, if it feels good,

that my, my big rule in marketing is this, if it feels good, do it.

Yeah. If it doesn't feel good, pay somebody else to do it or just don't

do it. Those are the two

combinations. Now if it doesn't feel good and you want it, but you,

you really like the idea, go get a coach.

Go get somebody who will show you how to do it and who can either

you Know who can hold your hand, who can walk you through the process. If

speaking sounds fun, call me. If you know, if social

media seems like something that you would have a lot of fun with, go get

a social media coach. There. There's a lot of

room for that. And anybody who doesn't have a coach right now,

you need a coach. I don't care. You need mentors in business. It's the

only way you're going to keep going. I don't know anybody successful in business who

doesn't have a coat, at least, like, multiple coaches on the go kind of

thing. So you need a coach. So if

you're like, I want to do this, but I'm not doing it, or I want

to do this, but it's hard or anything like that, get a coach.

If you're doing it and you're like, I don't want to do this, it's not

getting results and I'm not enjoying myself, just stop doing it.

Yeah. So either. Yeah. Until you can pay somebody else to do

it or just you don't need to do it at all. So if we were

talking about steps to take action, you know, one of the

things you said is get a coat. Absolutely. To help you

to get, you know, and, and, and I add coach and community

because sometimes being an entrepreneur is kind of lonely.

And like I said, I did, I did everything backwards. I have

to admit, it took me a really long time to see the

value of community because I felt like when I joined

a community, I had to be like an expert.

So I was like, crafting whatever it was I was crafting.

But the thing about a community is there's always going to be

somebody ahead of you. There's always going to be somebody behind you. And what

that means is you're going to add value to the people who

are newer than you are. You are going to get value

from people who are ahead of you and sometimes even add

value to the people who are ahead of you because they've forgotten

what it was like when they were starting, you know, or they were coming along.

And so coaches and community, I think, are

absolutely a must. What else?

I would add a caveat that it's join the right community because

you. There are communities that will fill you up and communities that will drain you.

And you need to be in one where you feel comfortable, where you're excited to

go to the meetings, where, you know, I have a group that meets on

Thursdays, and come hell or high water, I'm there because that group

is so Much fun. I get so much out of it. The, the trainings are

amazing, the connections are phenomenal. And then I have groups

that I consistently skip because I'm not seeing

the value and it's not fulfilling to me. So I would, I would,

I would caveat that it's so the right

community. So I think one of the things that we're both, we're saying,

whether it's about community and stuff, is use

your, your energy level as part of the way you

prioritize things. So things that give you

energy, you know, and how much energy you have

is a wonderful way to kind of gauge how you prioritize things.

And, and for instance, I used to always meet my clients in the morning

because I thought that's when I'm the best, right. And then all the tasks

that I had to do that required that I really think and you know, whatever

were in the afternoon and I would be really struggling with them.

And what I found was seeing my clients in

the afternoon actually energized me and so I

just flip flopped it. You know, I do my, my thinking and you know, like

two hours in the morning that I'm doing stuff that I need to do and

do my clients later because, you know, they get me going. So

we're going to prioritize our energy. We're going to get a coach and,

and, and community. What else? We're gonna start to

speak and you get to choose what that looks like. If that looks like

you start with, you know, office hours. If that looks like you have a start

with a webinar, which is actually where I recommend you start because you get to

have more control over webinars and workshops when you're the one hosting

and, and start growing from there. It is the fastest way to grow

your audience. It is the easiest way to bring in enough

clients to fill a group program. I cannot recommend speaking

enough. It's fun even. I have

several clients who are introverts who, you know, were very nervous about getting

started speaking and now they love it. And it's their favorite way of marketing their

business because they, it's when you're doing it really

well, it really feels like you're just going out and hanging out with a

bunch of your ideal clients. Yeah. So that

brings us to your free gift. So tell us about that. Yeah.

So today I have for you all, it's the seven questions to ask before

accepting a speaking gig. Now, when you're starting out and you're first

speaking, if you want to accept every possible speaking gig that comes your way to

get in the practice. Go for it. However, since we

are being very intentional about how we use our time and energy,

these are the questions I want you to ask before you accept speech

gigs. I want you to learn how to

ascertain which gigs are going to give you the most return.

How to learn who's going to be in the audience, what's going to be expected

of you, all the things so that you know that this giga that

I'm going into, I'm going to get clients. I'm likely to get clients. Or this

gig is probably not a good use of my time, because

one of the reasons that you might not be getting clients right now from your

speaking, if you've already started, is that you're speaking in the wrong places.

Yeah. So I want you to read this and start

asking these questions before you say, yes, I'm gonna be there. And

you know what? That is so important. I mean, I

cannot tell you. Well, when I first started

doing podcast interviews, I was, like, taking everything

that came along, and somebody would say, well, I go, well,

I'm not. I don't really have a program for parents, but I am a

parent, and I can tell you the mistakes I made. Right. So,

you know, I would. I did probably about 25 interviews before I was

like, I'm doing this very wrong. You know, I'm not

talking to who I should be talking to. So I think that is a

great gift. And it also is the gift of.

I don't want to say control, but it's the gift of knowing when you

have clarification that you get to say no,

who do? And I want. I want everybody listening to this to be intentional

about their. About where they're spending their time and energy. And that means

if you're speaking, that means being intentional about where you're speaking.

I will not take a speaking gig of, you know,

in front of 60 accountants. I could. Can I sell to them?

Absolutely. Can I teach them how to speak? Sure. Do I want to? Nope.

It's just, I. I love my accountant. My

accountant is saving my butt. The concept of chat. I am so confused by the

concept of taxes. Like, it's just not for me. But that's okay

because it's for her, and that's what. And so she's there, but in

Texas. For 15 years, just so you know.

So I. I absolutely have love for accountants and bookkeepers. They're just

not going to be my ideal audience. Yeah, I get it.

All right. So I hate to say this but we are running out of time,

so I said it. So

you're here because we had such a good time when we, when we, when we

connected with each other. So the question is, when was the last time you did

something new for the, you know, for the first time?

I try to do new things a lot, actually, just because. For several

reasons. One is I'm fairly certain I have adhd. I'm in the process of getting

tested, so I get bored very easily. So it's like, let's

do all the things I need

to do. And I can think of new things that are coming up that I

will be doing. Like, for instance, next week I'm going to a fire walking seminar.

I'm so excited. I mean, just the fact that you booked

it. Oh, yeah, I'm too. I'm super excited for that.

I have a friend who went and like, he got his head lit on fire

and stuff and he's got pictures. I'm like, oh, I need that. So.

So I'll be doing that next week.

As far as I'm concerned, that counts. I think that's. I think. I

mean, I'm really excited about it. It's going to be fun. So. But

yeah, what we have to do is find out what happens afterwards.

That's what we want to find out about. So anyway, so I

got to put in a little commercial and, you know, as a first step, if

you haven't done this already, please subscribe and share and engage on, you

know, with the podcast on, on social media. And the reason I do

it is it's part of my way of trying to give back to the community,

to introduce you to people that you may not have met and come up with

some things that you can use in your business and kind of fuel your quest

for growth and impact. And so, you know, I want you to

continue to join me on the one small change and embark on a journey

where even the smallest shift can yield monumental transformations.

And if you haven't listened to the first episode, you might want to, to see,

you know, the ideas that I had

behind having this and see some, you know, help you with

your bold vision and innovation. So, Cari, do you have

any last words of wisdom or a favorite saying that you like?

If you don't like your marketing, stop doing it. Find something you do

like. There's so many tactics out there, guys.

Find the ones you like. Stick with them. Your business will go

further. That is perfect. That is

perfect. Thank you.

So remember that change can be simple, but it's not always

easy. And it requires a certain amount of courage, resilience, and a

willingness to step outside your comfort zone. So you have to be willing to get

a little uncomfortable and a little messy sometimes. So I hope you

will continue to join me on the one small change as we try to

see what. What messiness we can get in.

Until the next time, I hope you stay very curious. Cari,

thank you so much for your gift and your time. Thank you for

coming. Thank you so much for having me. This was

great. Bye. Bye.