The how-to guide for getting started in thought leadership and public speaking with Katy Boos

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Agency Management Institute community, where you’ll learn how to grow and scale your business, attract and retain the best talent, make more money, and keep more of the money you make. The Build a Better Agency Podcast presented by White Label IQ is packed with insights on how small to mid-sized agencies are getting things done. Bringing his 25 years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultant, please welcome your host, Drew McLellan.

Drew McLellan:

Hey, everybody. Drew McLellan here with another episode of Build a Better Agency. If you are a regular listener, welcome back. Thanks for coming back. If this is one of your first episodes or maybe your first episode, glad to have you with us. Goal of this podcast is super simple, just to give you ideas and introduce you to folks who can help you run your agency better, more profitably, so that you have a more scalable, sustainable agency. We try and do that every week, whether it’s me doing a solo cast or I have a great smart guest with me who’s going to help us think a little differently about our business. So, that’s what we have this week is we have a really great guest, and I’ll tell you about her in a minute.

But first, if you are looking for short, sweet, soundbite-sized ideas on how to think about your agency differently as either an agency owner or an agency leader, we have a whole series of videos on our website. So, if you go to the Agency Management Institute website under the Resource tab, you’ll see weekly videos and each one of those videos is three or four minutes long on a variety of topics. It might be staffing, it might be a money issue, it might be biz dev. You can usually tell by the title what topic is or what the ballpark topic is. You can start from the beginning and watch all of them or you can search by topic.

You also can go to the YouTube channel if you would prefer to view them there, but hundreds of videos there, all of them with a unique and fresh tip, no repeats, I promise, of how you can run your business better. So, again, just something we do every week to try and be helpful. If those are useful to you, I encourage you to go check those out. So, with that, let me tell you a little bit about our guest. So, Katy Boos owns an agency out in California, and as she will tell you, what they focus on is getting their clients thought leadership positions specifically by placing them on stages at events and positioning them as podcast guests.

So, again, trade shows, conferences, events like that, and then podcasts. So, what I want to talk to her about is, “How can we as agency owners and leaders leverage that marketing strategy for ourselves and for our client?” Katy is smart and generous, and you are going to enjoy getting to know her while we learn from her. So, without any further ado, let’s welcome her to the show. Katy, welcome to the podcast.

Katy Boos:

Thanks, Drew. I’m so excited to be here.

Drew McLellan:

Me, too. I’m glad to have you. So, tell everybody a little bit about your background and how you help clients because we’re going to dig into that this hour. I think it’s going to be super helpful for agencies, agency owners, both for their own agency promotion, but also to think about for their clients. So, give everybody a little sense of how you spend your days.

Katy Boos:

Sure. Well, my background is traditional PR. So, I started out working in PR agencies, ended up working at Apple for about seven years in PR, co-founded another agency, and at that point, really realized that what I enjoyed the most was working with clients on thought leadership. As a result, I ended up spinning off of that agency and about six and a half years ago started Remix Communications. That’s our focus is thought leadership. So, we place our clients as speakers at top events, we place them on podcasts where they’re guests, and then we create complimentary content to go with that.

Drew McLellan:

So for you guys in the vernacular of the sell with authority is your client’s cornerstone or their big piece of content is speaking engagements and podcasts and then you’re making cobblestones off of that cornerstone, right?

Katy Boos:

Correct. Correct, exactly. Yeah.

Drew McLellan:

It’s interesting. I have a lot of agency owners say to me, “Boy, if I can get on a stage, I’m going to walk away with an opportunity to either do a proposal or I’m going to get a new client.” So clearly, that’s a viable venue. I think podcasts today, we have a lot of people who come on our podcast and afterwards are like, “Holy buckets. It’s like the floodgates opened and we got a lot of inquiries about our work and the connections and things like that.” So I’m assuming for your clients, they’re seeing similar results.

Katy Boos:

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, if you think about why does somebody want to speak at an event, people have different reasons and sometimes it’s obviously to promote the company, the company’s messages, that sort of thing, but it can really vary. A lot of our clients use it as a recruiting tool. For example, we work with a lot of large tech companies and it’s hard to find data scientists or cybersecurity professionals.

Drew McLellan:

Sure.

Katy Boos:

So if they can be at an event and get in front of those people, all of a sudden, the people in the audience are like, “Oh, I want to work for that company. They’ve got it all going on. They’re thought leaders.” So those are a couple of reasons.

Drew McLellan:

That’s an interesting take is it’s not just about getting new clients, but it’s also about attracting talent.

Katy Boos:

Exactly. People can have personal motivations too for wanting to speak. So, it might be their own personal brand. They might be looking to get a promotion. Maybe they’re thinking of writing a book or they have written a book and they want to get out there. So, there’s that. Networking with other people at events, including people who might be on your panel, for example, that can be a great thing. Then we also see the benefit of speaking in terms of ending up with some really interesting content that you can leverage. If you have a talk, why not promote that before, during, and after the session in bite-sized pieces? So yeah, there’s just a ton of reasons why people want to speak.

Drew McLellan:

Well, and I would also think sticking on the employment thing for a minute, it’s also a great retention tool. Everybody wants the CEO of their company or some high ranking official in their company to speak at cool events or to be somebody who is a high ranking official and gets to speak at cool events. I mean, that would make me want to stay at the company that presents me with that opportunity.

Katy Boos:

Absolutely. It gives you that credibility in the industry that you are on stage at this big event.

Drew McLellan:

Well, is it always big events? Does it have to be that or is it about the right event?

Katy Boos:

That’s such a good question. We talk about that a lot. Sometimes it can be those smaller events. If it’s exactly the right fit target people that you’re trying to reach, those smaller and mid-sized events can be great.

Drew McLellan:

Well, and a lot of times, they’re more intimate, so you get more interaction with the audience, they feel more likely to approach you, things like that.

Katy Boos:

Yeah, absolutely. It’s not always about the number of people in the audience. If you have 25 people in the audience that sounds, “Oh, my gosh. Was this worth my time?”, well, maybe if it was 25 perfect people. But on that note, one thing that we really look at is, “How can we go beyond the room?” So you’ve got the 25 people in their seats, what about the 2,500 people who are just like those people who couldn’t go to that event? How do you reach them? So, that’s where I think the power of leveraging that opportunity for social media and for other types of content is really, really important.

Drew McLellan:

As part of your work, when you’re placing a speaker, are you also negotiating with whoever that presenting organization is to help them find more opportunities? For example, hey, Drew’s going to speak at your event, but he’d also like to write an article for your newsletter. Is that part of your job when you are representing a client to look for, as you say, what beyond the room can the organization even give you?

Katy Boos:

Yeah, yes, for sure. We look for opportunities like that with the organization. We always like to work with PR agencies. When we have that opportunity to collaborate with the people who are doing media relations for our clients, we love to collaborate with them. Part of that is because we have that relationship with the conference, we’ll negotiate and try to get the list of preregistered press, for example, who are attending. So, when we can get that, we can share that with the PR agency who then can set up one-on-one press interviews at the event. So, that’s another example of going beyond the room.

Drew McLellan:

On behalf of your clients, how do you evaluate who should speak? So is it always the CEO? So for an agency owner, oftentimes, they’re the thought leader. So, is it whoever is the public facing thought leader or is it something… I have a lot of agency owners say, “I’ll write a book, I’ll write blog posts, but for the love of God, do not ask me to be on stage in front of people. I just can’t do it.” So how do you help clients determine who’s the right person to put on that stage or on that podcast?

Katy Boos:

Some people do not want to get on stage, period. So, we have to really respect that. Some people are afraid but willing to try it. In those cases, one approach that we like to take is let’s ease them in. Let’s do some panels, for example. Panels are much lower lift. You can sit with a number of people. You don’t have to create a formal presentation, just have a few messages that you want to share, and you get to meet some cool people and go to a good event. So, that’s a great way to ease somebody into speaking. In general, what happens is those people who really want to speak, they make that known. We find that out in the process of working with the company, but we also really look at the topics.

So, for example, I mentioned data science that it’s hard to hire data scientists right now. Well, maybe you have a VP of technology or CTO that really can speak to that, and they’re somebody that is willing to get out there. So, that’s what we look at is, “Who’s got the good topics, who’s willing to speak, who can with some coaching get out there and be in front of people?”

Drew McLellan:

How do you help a client? So if I’m an agency owner, how do I determine what I know that is of value to an audience? And then how do I match what I know that is of value with the right podcast or event? So two-part question, I guess. For number one, most people know a little or a lot about a lot of things. How do I narrow the focus to find something that’s really a nugget of value? And then two, how do I match that with the right venue?

Katy Boos:

A narrowed focus is often the best way to go. If you go pitch an idea-

Drew McLellan:

That makes me happy when you say that, right?

Katy Boos:

I know, niche down. Absolutely, but it’s so funny. It’s like people will pitch ideas to conferences and say like, “Oh, what’s happening with AI?” That’s a huge topic. It’s way too broad, right? So what if you said, “What’s happening with AI and public relations?” and really took a slice of it? You could even go down from there. So, I think that’s one thing is to really consider how narrow and specific can you go and still have enough to speak about, and then is it something provocative? Sometimes that can be a way to get in the door as well. We like to meet with our clients and we have these story mining sessions, where we brainstorm with them, we ask them lots of questions, and we come up with these angles that maybe they hadn’t thought of.

So, it can be something that maybe it’s more of a personal angle, maybe it’s something that the company’s doing around DEI, for example, that they hadn’t really thought of talking about, but it’s something that we know that conference organizers are interested in. So, I’d say that that’s like the first part of your question. Then the second part is, “How do you find those events that are the right fit?” It’s really important to think about who do you want in those seats, right? So who are the people that you want to be talking to? And then it’s really a matter of digging. If you don’t already know the event landscape, it’s digging, “Where do those people go? What events do they attend?” and trying to narrow the focus that way.

One tip I would give to people is if you are curious about an event, you want to know the demographics, it’s not obvious, go down and look at the sponsorship opportunities. Typically, there will be a sponsorship packet that you can get, and that’s where you get all that meat about gender, title, roles, companies, regions. Are they global or not? So that will tell you who will be there. So, that’s one way to do it. The other thing that’s really important is to look at past agendas and look at who spoke. Is that company on par with your company? Really important is to look at the titles. If it’s all VPs speaking and you’re a director, that’s going to be tough.

Drew McLellan:

A tough sell.

Katy Boos:

A really tough sell. So, you’ve got to really see, “Do you belong there? Does your topic belong? Does your title belong?”, that sort of thing.

Drew McLellan:

So with COVID, we went through two, three years where everything was virtual and painful. Now, I think the trend is live events are back with a vengeance and people want to attend them, but are you finding that are the conferences more or less choosy about their speakers? Is there more or less opportunity? And then I want to talk about podcasts too. I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that there are opportunities other than live events, but right now, for live events, conferences, trade shows, things like that, are there fewer of them? Are the conference planners easier to deal with, harder to deal with? Are they more desperate for great speakers? Are more and more people catching on that this is a great strategy, so it’s harder to get somebody placed?

Katy Boos:

It’s an interesting question. We love to have relationships with conference organizers, and so we’re speaking to them all the time. In some cases, we’re really contributing a lot of great content to them and helping them.

Drew McLellan:

Sure.

Katy Boos:

That’s how we view it, is that we’re helping them by bringing content that they’re interested in. In terms of the events themselves, I do think it’s becoming more competitive. In a couple cases, it was interesting. I did see where some events, they were on hold because of COVID, and so as a result, they were looking for more sponsored speaking sessions where before they were earned speaking sessions. So, hopefully, that’s a trend that we won’t see continuing, but I do understand that they’re trying to make up for lost time during those COVID years when they had to cancel the events.

Drew McLellan:

It’s interesting. With the Summit, our policy is no one can buy a speaking spot. It’s fascinating to me how we get approached by people that’s what they’re looking for. They’re looking to buy a speaking spot. Our rule is absolute that’s just not the point of the conference for us, but clearly, it is a trend that’s happening in the industry because we get hit up for it all the time. We’re a small conference.

Katy Boos:

Right. That’s interesting. I always look at it as when you see presented by X, Y, Z company, it pretty immediately takes away a chunk of credibility. You know that someone paid for that session and you know that at some level you will be sold to. So, with earned sessions, hopefully, you’re not feeling that way at all. In fact, we coach our clients. My rule of thumb is you can mention your company one time in your talk, and it should be by way of example. You shouldn’t be up there continually talking about your company. Really, there’s such a credibility that comes with the association of getting on that stage.

Drew McLellan:

That’s right.

Katy Boos:

Being part of the agenda and being part of all the event promotion and then your own promotion that you really shouldn’t weave that in too much into the fabric of your talk.

Drew McLellan:

Agreed. I mean, that’s part of our expectation too, is for us, sponsorship and speaking as church and state, they’re completely separate and the speakers are there to educate and help and no selling from the stage. We’ve been fortunate that our speakers have been great about that, but I’ve also been to conferences where it feels like the last 15 minutes is a sales pitch.

Katy Boos:

That’s the worst.

Drew McLellan:

I think you actually undo all the credibility that you were given by being on that stage. There’s a sense of almost desperation that comes from that, right?

Katy Boos:

100%.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Katy Boos:

Absolutely.

Drew McLellan:

So in your conversations, because you have these relationships with all these conference organizers, you have a really interesting insight into what gets them excited about a speaker. What gets them whooped up and like, “Oh, my gosh. We have to have this person”? What are they looking for from us as we present ourselves as potential speakers?

Katy Boos:

One thing that a lot of organizers we work with love is when we can bring them a session on a silver platter, and it might be a few top executives on a specific topic that is a little different. So, for example, last year at South by Southwest, we had pitched our clients, which were Adobe and Stitch Fix, and then we wanted to round out that session. So, we invited two other companies that weren’t our clients, LinkedIn and Microsoft, because we knew that that would make just this killer panel. The session was all very high ranking women talking about how to build an inclusive tech culture. So, we got the placement.

Drew McLellan:

Of course, you did.

Katy Boos:

It was amazing. It was standing room only. You might ask yourself, “Well, couldn’t have Adobe done it on their own or couldn’t have Stitch Fix done it on their own?” Maybe, but this made for such a powerful session. Then the extra bonus was all four of those people were promoting it before, during, and after. So, the reach of that particular session, it was standing room only at South by, that’s great, but we really went beyond the room with that session.

Drew McLellan:

Well, and I think, to your point, an interesting side benefit to that is your two clients met two other powerful influential women in their field, and I’m now thinking as their employer, their network just got stronger and better. We got associated. Our companies got associated with LinkedIn and Microsoft. So, again, that whole idea of recruitment and retention of employees, that’s beautiful. I mean, I think a lot of people don’t think about building a panel around what they do.

I’ve seen some agencies who’ve tried to get speaking gigs where they wanted to do a case study and they presented it with a client. That seemed to be something the conference folks really liked too, was when the client and the agency both told their sides of the story around the work and what happened as the result of the work. So, again, building a panel as opposed to a solo speaker.

Katy Boos:

You bring up such a good point, Drew. We do that a lot. You or your agency or your company, you might be small and not necessarily well-known in the scheme of things, but maybe your customer is really well-known and has a great story and maybe they would love to speak at that conference. So, if you can put together a session that is that fireside chat, that is amazing. We’re doing that right now. We have a smaller client. I don’t want to give the impression, we only work with huge companies, but we have a smaller client that by themselves, they would not get a session at this huge conference that we’re pitching.

So, what we’ve done is we’ve paired them with someone who’s on their advisory board who’s a nationally known expert, and that all of a sudden becomes a really impactful pitch. So, think about, “Do you have customers, partners, maybe you have VCs who would be willing to go on stage with you?” and think about it that way, think beyond you on stage. What are things that would make it really interesting?

Drew McLellan:

So I want to take a quick break and then I want to talk about two things. One, how does all of this differ when you’re pitching yourself to be on a podcast and how do you think about that a little differently? Two, how do we package ourselves? How do we look conference or podcast ready? What do we have to have as agency owners or leaders for ourselves and/or for our clients to really say, “Look, we are going to be a good guest”? Because I have to say both as a podcast host and the conference, I am mindful of I don’t want to waste the hour talking to somebody if they’re not going to be a good podcast guest. I sure as heck don’t want to put somebody on a stage if they’re not going to rock it for our audience.

So, again, little old us, pretty particular. So, I can’t even imagine how the big boys and girls play in terms of that. So, let’s take a quick break and then come back and we’ll talk about, “How does this twist for podcasts and then what do we have to do to earn the credibility to be considered for some of these opportunities?” So we’ll be back in a second and we’ll have Katy help us with those things as well. We’ll be right back.

Hey, I know you want to get right back to the show, but I want to remind you that the 2023-2024 Salary and Benefit Survey actually is out now with brand new data from over 1,000 agencies of how they’re paying their team members, what kind of benefits they’re including in their packages. You can find that on the AMI website under Resources, and it’s just 99 bucks. So, if that’s helpful to you, go grab it and use it in your planning, in your conversations with team members as you’re building out career paths, and things like that. It’s super helpful to see what everybody else is doing, what everybody else is paying. It’s broken down by geography and also by agency size. So, hopefully, that would be super helpful to you. All right. Let’s get back to the show.

All right. We are back with Katy Boos and we are talking about how to get ourselves on stages, whether that is literally a conference or trade show stage or I want to turn the tables a little bit and talk a little bit about podcasts now and then we’ll talk again about how do we make sure that from the perspective of the buyer, if you will, even if we’re not getting paid, that we are ready to step on that stage. So, how does what we’ve talked about so far, how does it change for podcasts? Again, that’s a viable place now where you can be in front of an amazing audience, oftentimes a much bigger audience than at a conference or a trade show.

Katy Boos:

It’s so complimentary and there’s so much overlap, right? So it’s similar to events where get inside the head of the event organizer. Similar with podcasts, get inside the head of the podcaster. What kind of guest do they have? What are the typical topics? Your audience knows all about this. That’s what we all do for a living, right? Know your audience and how do you sell to them? So what we’ll do is create a one sheet, which is basically an overview of that person, why they would be a good guest.

Here’s some topics that they can talk about. Here’s some other podcasts they’ve been on. Have they written a book? Include that, news articles about them, their socials, all of that so that everything in one page snapshot is ready to go. For speaking, it’s a little bit different where we’ll have the topic, the speaking abstract. It’s maybe a paragraph. We like to have takeaways so you know exactly what the audience will walk away with after this session and then the bio of the person that we’re proposing.

Drew McLellan:

Okay. Do you include quotes from other podcast hosts or quotes from other conference organizers?

Katy Boos:

We haven’t really done that. You could certainly, but I think your history and your background speaks for itself in some regard. But honestly, I think it comes down to the topics. What are the topics that you’re bringing and are they compelling and interesting? Are you someone credible to speak about those topics?

Drew McLellan:

Do you have the same kind of relationships with podcasts and podcast hosts that you do with conference leaders or do you approach podcasts differently when you’re trying to place clients on them?

Katy Boos:

We do have relationships with them, and that’s obviously so great when you can say, “Hey, Susie, we’ve got this person that we know would be great for you,” but we can’t possibly know every podcast. I mean, especially now, but we can’t know them all. So, what we use is we’ve got some good tools that we’ll tap into. We really want to focus on the top podcasts. It’s easy to all of a sudden realize like, “Oh, well, that podcast reached 25 people. That really is not worth my time.” So finding those top podcasts and then understanding what is it that they want to hear from you and pitch them accordingly.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Because I know you do this for corporate clients, like you mentioned big corporate clients, but I know you also have smaller clients, authors, business owners, things like that. You talked a little bit about yes, we have the speech, we have the podcast interview. How are you then helping your clients automatize that to create a bunch of content that puts the spotlight on the fact that they were at the conference or they did speak on podcasts? Is it just social posts? What would you recommend to agency owners for themselves or their clients? What are the parts and pieces of this? I suspect it’s a much bigger ecosystem than just getting somebody on a stage or getting them in front of a microphone?

Katy Boos:

Exactly, yeah. You have such a great opportunity when you have a talk, right? When you’ve prepared something, you’re ready to go, think about ways that you can leverage that. So, we love blog posts, we love LinkedIn, we love all the socials that you’re on.

Drew McLellan:

Sure.

Katy Boos:

But think of it twofold. You’re an individual, but you’re also a company. So, can you both leverage that? We have had clients do some advertising and very targeted around a session at a major event. So, trying to get more people to attend that session. So, there’s a number of ways that you can do that, leverage the content, including newsletters, but social’s probably the number one thing that we’re seeing.

Drew McLellan:

Sure. As somebody is listening to us and they’re thinking about how to begin to do this, so what I heard you say was a speaker or a podcast guest one sheet. I’ve got to have that. Is it important that I have video of me on a stage that they can watch me speak, they know that I’m not going to fumble my words or that I have a presence on the stage, or does that not matter? What are the tools that I need to have in place before I start offering myself up as a guest, either at a trade show, conference, or podcast?

Katy Boos:

Video is great and it’s increasingly important. So, I’m glad you brought that up. I was invited to be on the selection committee for South by Southwest for last year, and I basically went through hundreds of proposals that in most cases did not compete with mine. I wasn’t evaluating my own.

Drew McLellan:

Sure, of course.

Katy Boos:

But I got to go through hundreds of proposals and one of the things that South by asks for is a video of you talking about your topic.

Drew McLellan:

So not a video of me on stage, a video of me talking about what I want to talk about.

Katy Boos:

Right.

Drew McLellan:

Interesting.

Katy Boos:

Right. So, it could be you on stage, but for a lot of people, it can just be set up your iPhone and tell them why you think this is a great topic. Some people skipped that part. Some people included a video that was completely not relevant. Some people included a video that was not compelling. Others put together like a Zoom call and had all the panelists on there talking about why that would make a great panel, which was such a great idea. So, you could really see what worked and what didn’t.

So, I definitely encourage video. If the event is asking for it, if there’s an opportunity to offer it, do it and try to customize it. That can really help you. Then in terms of other things, if you do have video of you speaking on stage and it’s good, use it. If you have video of you in a panel, that’s fine. It just shows that you’ve been out there.

Drew McLellan:

So is part of what I might ask for if I’m going to be at a trade show or a conference, the ability to videotape it or to get a copy of their videotape? How does somebody go about getting copies of that thing?

Katy Boos:

Yeah, you have to ask the conference because they all vary. Some events will let you, but you have to fill out all kinds of release forms. They’ll tell you exactly where you can place your camera, all of that. Others, it’s not a problem. Others will freely give you the video from the session. I would say by and large, most events though, for the track sessions, i.e., not the keynotes, they’re not videoing. So, it can be hard to get. So, plan ahead if that’s something that you want to do and check with the organizer if you can either film it yourself or hire one of their people to do it.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Okay. What are the mistakes we make as we pitch ourselves to podcasts and conferences? Where do you see people stubbing their toe or what are the mistakes or foibles that A, show that we are amateurs at this and B, are going to get us a no?

Katy Boos:

Overly selling yourself or your product is, I would say, mistake number one. If you just think about, “Oh, I’ve got to sell more of this product or service,” oof, conference organizers can see through that in a heartbeat. So, that’s number one. Number two is missing who the audience is. So, if you go in with an extremely technical angle and the audience is not technical at all, that’s such a miss. If you aren’t on par with the level of speakers, both in terms, as I mentioned, title and the type of company, that’s a miss. So, those are a few of the things that come top of mind.

Drew McLellan:

Well, and the sad thing is you had their ear for a minute and you lost the opportunity, right? Because you made one of those mistakes.

Katy Boos:

That’s right. I think that’s where when you do have a successful session at a conference, you are friends with that conference organizer then for life. You go back. They know that you’ll bring something of value to them. So, just think of them doing their job and what is it that they’re trying to do? They’re really trying to put together a great event that people want to go to. I mean you know that better than anybody, Drew, because you do a great event.

Drew McLellan:

But there is so much pressure about who you put on the stage, because at the end of the day, all the other stuff is great, good food, great venue, blah, blah, blah. But boy, if the speakers don’t deliver and they don’t deliver great value, you’re dead in the water for the next year. So, the pressure is real from the organizer’s point of view. I feel that very deeply as we’re putting together our speaker lineup every year.

Katy Boos:

Yeah, definitely. One other thing I would recommend is really think about what trends are happening in your industry right now and try to be really forward looking. So, one event that we work with, NFTs were all over that event one year. Then guess what? The next year, not so much. They had moved on and they were onto a different trend around psychedelics. So, you just don’t know, but you need to really be thinking about what is happening. Right now, I think we’re at a point where, for example, like ChatGPT, maybe people are starting to get a little tired of that. So, what is your new angle?

Drew McLellan:

Two months ago, everybody was talking about it, right?

Katy Boos:

Yeah, exactly. That’s a challenge, because two months ago, everybody was talking about it, but guess what? We’re pitching events-

Drew McLellan:

Year out.

Katy Boos:

… three, six, nine months out. So, you really need to be forward looking about what’s happening, what you think will be of interest at that point in time.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Yeah, that’s such a good point. I mean, while you want it to be topical and timely, you have to remember you’re kicking out 6, 9, 12 months. So, it can’t just be the flash in the pan for the month.

Katy Boos:

Yeah, most definitely, most definitely.

Drew McLellan:

Well, and again, I can see this is why working with someone like you guys who has the relationships, who already has the trust, who has the ear, but also has the ability to look at a topic or a speaker and go, “Yeah, this is still going to be fresh in six months or nine months.” I think it’s hard for us to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, “Yup, that’s still going to be interesting or that’s interesting at all.” So it’s nice to have that outside perspective, which I’m sure your clients appreciate.

Katy Boos:

Yeah, we love what we do. It’s really funny. We are probably one of your role models for niching down, right?

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, for sure.

Katy Boos:

I have this PR background, but this was the segment that really spoke to me and my team. This is what we really love to do. So, yeah, it’s great. I should mention that thanks to you and the BaBA Summit, we’re working with some agencies who they’ve brought us in because that’s what we do. We don’t do what they do. We don’t do traditional media relations anymore. We don’t do any kind of digital marketing, advertising, anything. So, this is our specialty. So, when we can collaborate with others, that’s what we love to do.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Well, it sounds like even when you’re working with brands directly, you’re helping them collaborate with their peers. So, a lot of your work, it sounds like, is very collaborative and this is a slice of a bigger picture, a bigger marketing plan, and you just come in as the brain surgeon to do your part, and then everybody else comes in with their specialty to do their part.

Katy Boos:

That’s right. Exactly. We stay in our lane and we love what we do.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Hey, this has been great. I’m curious, what do you think the number one thing a speaker can do to cultivate… In most cases, they don’t know these event organizers. I would assume you’re going to recommend that there’s probably three or four conferences that for anybody, once they know their niche, once they know their audience, there’s three or four conferences that they’re going to be their go-tos.

So, how do they begin to cultivate a relationship with those event organizers, even before they’re ready to pitch themselves or their client as a speaker? How do they get to know those people? How do they become valuable to those folks? Should they attend the conference and give feedback? Should they be a sponsor? How do they begin to open the door and create relationship?

Katy Boos:

Yeah, I love that question. I think there’s nothing like attending an event that just shows you everything you need to know. Who are people sitting next to you? Who are the people on stage? What will fly? What won’t? So I think that’s really important. In terms of cultivating that relationship with someone before you’re ready, I have a really perfect example from this week. We have a client that is not quite ready to speak at a specific event, but she knows people who would be amazing moderators for this particular topic.

So, I made the introduction. She’s saying, “I can bring these people to you.” They’re loving that, and let’s stay in touch about next year’s event and having you be a moderator. So, it’s really just thinking about, “What can you do?” AMI talks about that so much, it’s like, “How can we help people? How can we educate? How can we be of assistance to others?” I think that that’s a great example. I just pitched a couple people to an organizer. They’re not my clients. I just know they would be great for that event. So, it’s just that kind of thing.

Drew McLellan:

So you too are cultivating the relationship.

Katy Boos:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Drew McLellan:

The idea of moderating, we haven’t talked about that and we need to wrap up, but I hadn’t thought about that. So, maybe you’re not ready to speak at a big event, but you could moderate a panel or you could be somebody who introduces or you could do something that’s the minor league level of being on stage to prove that you’re reliable, you show up on time, you’re prepared, all of the things that organizers worry about, and then you earn your stripes to get on a stage.

Katy Boos:

Yeah, it’s such a good point. It can also get you on the stage, right? Because if you’re bringing the other people, you wouldn’t in every case and they might have panelists and they might invite you to moderate, but if you can put it together and you’re the moderator, it’s great. I wouldn’t however undersell the value of the moderator. It’s really important that they are organized, thoughtful, that they’re able to lead, they’re able to touch off of questions and not just ask another question. So, yeah, that’s an art.

Drew McLellan:

Well, control the chatty Cathy.

Katy Boos:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan:

Right? Yeah.

Katy Boos:

It’s so true. Sometimes you get the person who won’t stop talking and these other people don’t get to speak. So, yeah, it’s a little bit of an art to be a moderator.

Drew McLellan:

Agreed. Agreed. Hey, this has been great. You gave everybody a lot of really good tangible things to do to take advantage of this. I have always said that I think there’s incredible power in being on a stage, again, whether it’s a podcast or it’s a live event or a virtual event, which we didn’t really have time to talk about, but I think the credibility that is afforded to you when somebody, a host or a conference that you respect, invites you in is really powerful. So, I think you’ve given everybody a lot of tools and tricks to get themselves closer to that. If folks have more questions for you, they have a client they want to talk to you about because maybe you would be a good partner for them, what’s the best way for folks to reach you?

Katy Boos:

Sure. Well, two things. They can email me directly. It’s katy, K-A-T-Y, @remixcommunications.com. We did also put together a landing page with some resources that-

Drew McLellan:

Oh, great.

Katy Boos:

… your listeners might find interesting. We have an eBook on there around tips for landing your dream speaking gig. So, that might be helpful and some other resources. That is at remixcommunications.com/ami.

Drew McLellan:

Perfect. Well, we will put all of that in the show notes as well. So, Katy, thanks for coming on the show and sharing your expertise. I know that you knock it out of the park for your clients, and I think you’ve given everybody some really good tangible things to put into play so that they too can knock it out of the park. So, thank you for sharing your expertise.

Katy Boos:

Thank you, Drew. This has been so fun. I really appreciate it.

Drew McLellan:

Yup. All right. Guys, this wraps up another episode of Build a Better Agency. I will tell you that this is one of those that I hope you are taking some notes. If you have a marketing team at your agency, if you have clients that are thought leaders, if part of your model is helping clients develop their thought leadership, then you got a lot of takeaways to help your clients get on stages, to think about whether or not Katy and her team are a good partner for you, if that’s not something in your bailiwick. But if you want to be on the stage, I think you got a lot of tips and tricks to figure out how to do that. I will also say we don’t really talk about it, but I think there is magic in understanding.

If you want to talk at South by, probably that’s not your first speaking gig, right? So having a plan and a path of speaking at smaller events and earning your credibility and your chops so that you can earn your way up to those. I’m sure Katy and I could have talked about that for a whole hour too, but lots of things for you to put into play. So, don’t passively listen to this one. Grab some to-dos, maybe grab some to-don’ts, some things that you haven’t done or you have been doing that you need to stop doing. Pull together that one sheet like she was talking about, because I will say for a lot of you when I talk to you, one of the most powerful new business tools that you talk about is that third-party endorsement of getting on a podcast or a stage.

Many of you are banging your head a little bit this year with new business. So, maybe this is a strategy that you really need to give some thought to and invest some time in, because for many of you, this has been really a very effective tool for many, many years and I think for many years will be. So, anyway, lots for you to think about.

Before I let you go, two things. One, a huge thank you and shout out to our friends at White Label IQ. As you know, they’re the presenting sponsor. They too are born from an agency. They partner with lots of agencies. They do white label design dev and PPC. They’re building landing pages. They’re building apps. They’re creating tools where different software talk to each other. They’re leveraging AI for their clients. For many agencies, they’re a tech partner that helps them not keep those resources in-house, because you don’t do enough of the work to keep a full-time person busy, but you need to be able to have those answers for your clients. So, check out whitelabeliq.com/ami and you can learn more about them.

As always, I do not want to end the show without thanking you for being here. I love hanging out with you guys. I love getting to talk with people like Katy and bringing their smarts to you. So, I am grateful that you keep coming back. You keep coming back, I’ll keep coming back. That’s the deal. All right, I’ll be back next week with another guest. In the meantime, if you need to track me down, you know I’m [email protected] and I’ll talk to you next week. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 1:

That’s a wrap for this week’s episode of Build a Better Agency. Visit agencymanagementinstitute.com to check out our workshops, coaching and consulting packages, and all the other ways we serve agencies just like yours. Thanks for listening.