How To Use Public Speaking To Build Trust - Pam Obasa
Dec 19, 2022Tom Bailey, founder of Succeed Through Speaking, interviews Pam Obasa.
Pam Obasa is the founder of The Lucrative Lady and Branderry.com. She is a highly sought-after business coach and international speaker specializing in Sales, Sales Systems, and Storytelling for marketing.
Her brand ‘The Lucrative Lady’ focuses on empowering people to create a lucrative lifestyle and business and teaches how anyone can do that no matter their age.
Pam’s unique background as an actress helps her audience to use the power of Storytelling to improve their business, sales process, and conversions.
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Succeed Through Speaking helps Coaches, Consultants, Entrepreneurs and Experts how to amplify their Expert Authority & get their message to market with both confidence and clarity so that they can raise their profile and attract new clients.
Find out more - https://www.succeedthroughspeaking.com/
Listen to the Podcast - https://www.succeedthroughspeaking.com/podcast
Transcript
Tom Bailey 00:07
Hello and welcome to succeed through speaking the place for experts and entrepreneurs who want high value ideas to boost business results. Hello, I'm Tom Bailey. And in today's speaker stories episode against no Pam obasa, who is the founder of the lucrative lady and brand dairy.com. She is a highly sought after business coach and international speaker specializing in sales, sales systems and storytelling for marketing. So you could say the three S's. So Pam, hello, and a very warm welcome to today's episode.
Pam Obasa 00:50
I love my intro. Thank you so much. I love how you deliver at that time. That was pretty awesome.
Tom Bailey 00:54
I'm so glad you did. And just out of interest whereabouts are you in the world right now?
Pam Obasa 00:58
I'm in London, UK.
Tom Bailey 01:00
Awesome. Thank you so much. And I've got a little bit more of an intro. So hopefully this is just as much justice. So I know that your brand, the lucrative lady focuses on empowering people to create a lucrative lifestyle and business no matter what age or background. So I'm going to begin from there today by asking, what role do you think public speaking typically plays in helping both you and your clients to grow their business?
Pam Obasa 01:26
Oh my God, in every, every facet, really, because, you know, we grow our businesses by talking about what we do down to the foundation of your message from the creating your baseline message, and just having that confidence. And we all know time that people buy from people who they know, like and trust. And so when people see you continue communicating and doing public speaking and getting out there and talking boldly and confidently about your business, that's where that trust actually comes in. So I think public speaking is absolutely huge and important, you know, in business in general, but most especially for my audience coaches. Absolutely.
Tom Bailey 02:05
Do you ever find with any of your clients that there's a little bit of apprehension when it comes to going in front of the camera or posting on social media going live? Do you ever get that as feedback from your clients?
Pam Obasa 02:14
All the time? And yes, I have an acting background, but even I get nervous. Because I'm only a human being, you know, and yeah, absolutely. There's apprehension, and it's because of, well, it's a lot of things number one is to tech. Number two, it's what if I freeze? What if I don't know what I'm going to say? Number three, it's you know, it's really looking at the audience and thinking about what are they going to think about me? What's my family gonna think about me, one of my friends going to think about me? Or what if I put out this offer and nobody buys? And it's that voice is what I call the Gremlins, you know, that creates these stories in your head that causes you to begin to second guess yourself, and then you get in your own way. And then of course, a lot of people eventually don't take action or, you know, etc. But yes, absolutely. Get in the way.
Tom Bailey 03:03
Yes, I think what's happened is this, there's two sides to both quite a lot. You've got fear. It's the what ifs? What if something goes wrong? And then you've got the imposter syndrome side? Haven't you that that voice which says, who's going to Who are you to talk about this subject, you know, in front of
Pam Obasa 03:17
you to be an expert? Like what made you the boss and expert? Yeah, absolutely.
Tom Bailey 03:22
And I guess when when those two things come up with your clients, what what do you tend to try and say to reassure them, what what advice would you give them to overcome that?
Pam Obasa 03:32
I think there's a lot of inner work to be done. First of all, before you go out, there are two people, I remember, you know, some of the things that I did, and they're gonna sound very silly. But some of the things that I did when I was first, trying to build my confidence to speak in front of an audience speak in front of the camera, I would literally walk up and down my studio, I'm in my studio right now, and walk up and down and just just remind myself who I am. And I will say, Pam, you're amazing. And was so good at what you do. And when you open your mouth, people believe in you, people. People want to follow you people want to buy from you, Pam, do you know how good you are. And I truly believe, Tom, that it's very important to be your own biggest fan, because the world is full of a lot of negativity, a lot of critics a lot of things that can and will come against you. So one of the things that I get my clients to do at the beginning is definitely start to believe in yourself, start to rewrite the stories in your own head, and just start to change the script for your own self. And then once you change that script, you've got to feel the fear and do it anyway. Right? So even if it means 321 Go Live do that. Right? Even if you're going to go live in a private Facebook group, which again, I did at the beginning I did it no private group, you know, to to get over that fear. But that didn't actually help me, Tom. And the reason that didn't help me. All right, rather, I didn't find that it was helpful is because it was still another form of excuse. Yeah, it was like I'm not quite ready to go out there yet, but I can't wait to go out there, in my own private group, nobody can see me, which really means that I'm not really going out there. And it wasn't until I felt the fear. And I was, you know, and I said to myself, Pam, you know, if you do this, the ground isn't going to open as swallow you up. Right? Nothing is going to disappear, you're not going to all of a sudden, lose a few years of your life or whatever, nothing. And you focus on what you stand to gain the amazingness that could come out of it, as opposed to focusing on the various things that could go wrong. And these are the things that helped me. And these are the things that I try to make sure that I'm reminding others when they are faced with fears themselves.
Tom Bailey 05:40
Yeah, I love that. And I guess you know, what, what you did, in essence is built your own comfort comfort zone, within within that Facebook group. And I think we all say that confidence comes from competence. So just getting out there and doing it stretching your comfort zone, little by little, you don't have to be an international keynote speaker on day one. But yeah, just just keep pushing yourself getting comfortable with being uncomfortable in and really build from there. Absolutely. So So you mentioned as well, you've got the acting background. So it may be that you don't necessarily directly resonate with someone who said they've got a fear of speaking or they're shy or introverted. And however, you know, what advice would you give as an as sort of an acting background to somebody who is introverted and shy? And maybe not quite as comfortable in the spotlight?
Pam Obasa 06:27
Do you know what that you are? Right? I did, you know, come out of drama school and performing. And I did come out with some level of confidence. But the truth of the matter is that when you're an actress or an actor, you practice being other people. Yeah. So there's a big difference. So I trained at drama school for three years, and I learned how to master a script, how does how to be somebody else, but I was never taught how to be myself. Understand. Right? So coming out in business, and now, it wasn't going to be a script, there was no costume. There was no, there wasn't there was no there was no makeup about and there wasn't you know, it was going to be just me, it was a scary, because I had a lot of undoing to do, and loving of me to do before I was going to confident enough to come up. So what I would say to somebody who is really struggling with just finding their own feet and finding their own voice online, it's start little by little, you know, pick your poison. If you like, there are so many ways to show up online. So many ways to shop for your brand. Pick what is the thing that works for you the most? What platform are you drawn to the most? Or what type of communication? Are you drawn to the most? Are you drawn into communicating in very small chunks? Or are you a talker I'm an actual talk I like I do like to talk, you know is that is that your thing and find a couple of people find you know, your spouse, your a family member, a friend, and just start practicing, perhaps you know, talking about you know, your iHelp speech, your what some people would call elevator speech, just start saying that and get comfortable with that get confident and just build your confidence little by little, and then start opening up to a wider audience and but eventually you're going to have to go deep in the waters and just go out there. And, and the funny thing time is when we think that we're going to go live and hundreds of people are going to be watching sometimes it's your mom and your dog and that's okay, right? No, it's not it's not as big as people think. So oftentimes you do it and you go, Oh my god, is that it? Is that all that I was afraid of? All this time? You know? So you're better off just just go for it. Manage everything that comes out of it. You know, afterwards?
Tom Bailey 08:46
Yes, say yes. And figure the rest out later. There's a couple of things that I resonate with then. So I'm a recovering shy person, you know, a recovering introvert and I think when I started I made a couple of big mistakes one watching all these amazing public speakers and thinking how could I be like them and really comparing myself to them and number two actually paid for a voice coach to try and change my accent because I thought that this accent and I can't be a public speaker because I need to sound like somebody from London for example. And I guess they will make mistakes because really like you said then it's it's actually about being yourself and being authentic and you cannot create a know like and trust factor necessarily if you pretending to be somebody else. That's really important point you made.
Pam Obasa 09:28
I really liked what you've just shared, Tom, because that's something that comes up a lot in my line of work in my business where people come in and they've got a specific accent and it's like Pam Dwyer. You know, I've even asked had somebody asked me, Pam, can you help me change my accent? And I'm like, No, I can't help you to do that. And doing that is not going to you know, it's going to cause you more stress. It's very stressful changing your accent. It is becoming a totally different person. And so what I do is I pull up my cards and I started talking about people who are absolutely killing it in their market, whilst they are comfortable in their own skin, whilst they're comfortable in their own accent, and what people need to understand is that there is somebody for everyone, there is an audience waiting for you, right? And there is a huge, you know, there is they are waiting for you just as you are without you having to change anything about yourself and that people are focusing on what can I change? Or what can I remove when these people who are waiting for you already, you know, they will see you and already see you as an expert. So you are actually more ready than you think. I share
Tom Bailey 10:39
and someone else's interest with accents is the audience's ear will quickly tune into your accent. So I guess, you know, for the first maybe minute, just talk a little bit slower pronounce the words a little bit more clearly, if you're conscious of that, but quite quickly, the audience will just tune in, and there'll be with you anyway. So yeah. And thank you so much. So I want to now go into the topic of, I guess, speaking as a business. So being a paid speaker is what I'm talking about here. And this is the transition that a lot of speakers talking about, from doing free talks and just trying to create content and, you know, creating videos to actually somebody's paying you a check to go onstage and speak in front of their audience. So what's that transition like? And, you know, what advice would you give around that?
Pam Obasa 11:26
Oh, man, I love this. This actually makes me a bit emotional. I don't know why. But um, I really like this question, because it's, it's a desire for a lot of people, you know, to not only be able to speak in front of audiences, but to be paid to speak now. When I first started being somebody who came from the acting industry, I was born to be on stage that something just craved for. Under Tom, I really tried to get speaking engagements, and it just wasn't coming and said, You know what I did? I created my own. I, you know, I went to, you know, one day I remember just having my best friend was at work. And I went to meet her at lunch. And I said, Come on, have lunch with me, we went by the river, we sat down. She said, what's going on? I said, I need to speak but nobody is hiring me. And she said, okay, but Pam, you're an actress, let's make this work. She was a, an Events Manager at the time. And she said, I'll help you put the event together, you just have to figure out what you're going to speak. And I said, but in my industry, people don't just speak, they speak and sell and I don't know how to speak. And I don't know how to speak and sell. I said well figure it out, figure that part out, work on, you know, helping you with the event itself. And that was how I started. So I, this is my own journey. I literally went to Chelsea I had a hotel, I had no idea how to market. I have no idea how to bring people I had no idea what to sell how to sell. But I knew that there was power within me. And if I could just pull together my confidence, I could get people to believe in me enough to actually turn up to the event. And at the end of the event I could possibly make an offer. And the point that I'm trying to say is that I feel that in life, we all stand by waiting for opportunities to find us. And whilst it might happen for a lot of people, opportunities do find them. But most of the time, if you spend time waiting, you just spend time are waiting and waiting, waiting and life passes you by and as it's passing you by your confidence is dwindling, you start to second guess yourself. Meanwhile, you could have gone ahead and created the opportunity. So you don't have to create the opportunity by hiring a hotel like I did in Chelsea, no turn on your phone. It's called Facebook Live, Instagram Live, create your own show. Yeah, do your own thing. You know. So my journey or what I always say is, there are many paths, you know, it's just like you're in the Midlands, I'm in London, there are many ways to get to the Midlands, right from any parts. And my mom taught me something. And this helps me to put things into perspective. She said, Pam model fingers are really cool. What that means is that there are many ways to get to where you are the end destination, right? So as long as you're determined to get there, what you want to be thinking about is if nobody gives me the opportunity that I want, how do I create and carve out that opportunity for myself and that was when we actually launched my brand the lucrative ladies so
Tom Bailey 14:19
amazing. I love that and that's just gonna come on to the lucrative lady and I guess lucrative lifestyle type business was was that always the niche the market, you'd identify it or was it different and you've kind of merged along the way and now it's become the lucrative lifestyle lucrative lady.
Pam Obasa 14:37
It was very different. It was very different. The brand name the lucrative lady came from a vision of the life that I hope to have one day. Right. It wasn't something that I had established. When I first came into the coaching space. I was actually in the daycare niche. So I come from a background in the business world Hold where as a family, we have a chain of the nurseries. And so I went in to do their marketing. I knew nothing about marketing. But you know, when your mom says jump, you say how high a culture that I come from, you know, so So my mom needed help. And she said, Pam, can you help me I was like, I don't know how to do marketing mom. And she said, go figure it out. So I learned and I figured out and I managed to grow the business, it was that specific branch. It was, it was, it was failing, right? So within 12 months, it went to around six figures. And because I went, I took it from 12, children to over 60 in a very short space of time. So that gave me a lot of confidence. And I started live streaming. And I started talking about, you know, some of the marketing strategies that I'm doing for these Day Nurseries. And a lot of people started to join this was when when you go live on Facebook, you'd have loads of people joining Not like now when it's like everybody's going live. Yeah. And so many people started to join Tom, and people message me and, and I would say, Do you have a day master? And never go? No, I'm a coach. I know your coach. You mean, you train children with? You know, you teach football? But no, I'm a coach, like I do coaching. I coach adults, I mean, and I remember speaking to my mom, and she said, Pam, I see you doing something amazing for people, and you aren't going to be able to help so many people. But I don't think it's just daycare people. I think it's other people. I know what you mean by other people. And I said, Mom, there are these people approaching me that good coaches. And she said, Why don't you find out if you can help them? And so I had a few calls. And just to understand what is this coaching thing that you're doing? And how can I help you? And I was very honest. And I said, Look, these are the strategies that I'm doing for these nurseries, let's try it in your business. See if it works. And it started to work. And it started to work, it started to work. And then I decided, okay, brilliant, let's, let's create something in this space. Because this was where the demand truly was. And I started to, you know, build the brand. And and, you know, and you know that I thought I would launch with a live event, let's do something on stage. Let's see if that works. Because that's my background, let me put me on stage and etc. And really, that's how the brand, you know, started to really come about,
Tom Bailey 17:06
I love that. One thing that I've heard a lot is your mom sounds like an amazing coach. She should be a coach already. So I'm loving this, you know, I could I could keep speaking to she for hours. And I think a couple of questions just just to kind of wrap things up for me now is. So we talked about people turning their passions into profit. And that sounds like what you do. And so how do people so if someone's passionate about something, or they're expert, and you know, how do you turn that into revenue? At high level, I'm sure that you can speak for hours on that subject, but at a high level,
Pam Obasa 17:44
gotcha. At a high level, how do you turn your passion into profit? The first thing is to discover what is your genius zone. That's the first thing. But that's where a lot of people stop, I go a step further. So let's turn that genius zone into a money making zone. And there's a big difference. The big difference is that where a lot of people come in, and they say, Pam, this is my passion. Or they might say to any other coach, this is my passion. Oftentimes, that's not where their money is. This is where a lot of people fall into the trap of pipe dream type of businesses where it's like I have this big money goal here. But the thing that you want to do to raise, you know, to help all these people to make all of that money, it's not matching up. Right. So what my business specifically does, rather one area of my business, our intensives. What is specific does is it looks at what are these passions, right? So you might bring to to the table. But I'm going to be asking key questions, because there is something there something out there that perhaps, you know, to you, it's so trivial to you, you haven't even thought about, you know, this is something that people want? Well, it's actually this part of my skill set that you know, people are willing to pay for. So what part of my job is is to discover what all of those things are in its entirety, including the ones that you've forgotten about. And then we look at and go, Okay, brilliant. These are your passions. These are your skill set these these are your expertise, this would pick one, this is where your money is and then we create a plan to make that happen.
Tom Bailey 19:15
Right. And I guess that plan involves product, sales, marketing, storytelling, all of the stuff we've already talked about. Exactly. Absolutely. Thank you so much. And okay, great. So I think I'm actually coming to the end of this conversation, unfortunately, because like I said, I could talk for hours on this. My last question is if somebody wants to either book you as a speaker or find out more about you or join one of your programs, where would they go?
Pam Obasa 19:39
Brilliant, many places to find me. I would love you to find me on YouTube. So it's youtube.com forward slash Pam obasa. Please go ahead and subscribe. I think YouTube is one of the best places to really see you know, the entirety of what we do. And of course my website Pamela basler.com. Tom, if it's okay with you, can I share with you a gift that you can give to your audience. Yes, please. That would be wonderful. So I will give that to you. We have a storytelling cheat sheet that I think your audience will really like, especially as they are going into the speaking space and looking for speaking engagements.
Tom Bailey 20:13
I love that. Thanks so much. What I'll do is I'll post a link to YouTube to your website and to that free gift as well, so that our listeners can go and download that straightaway. Wonderful. Awesome. Well, thank you again, so much for your time today. I really appreciate coming along. You've shared such great value with me and of course with our audience as well.
Pam Obasa 20:30
Thank you for having me. I've enjoyed it. It's been very short, too short.
