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What you’ll learn in this episode:
Have you ever had a solution for someone else’s struggle, but you couldn’t seem to get it through to them?
If you could shout it from the rooftops, what would you say?
Joining me today is Michelle Barry Franco. She is a renowned keynote speaker, thought leader, author of Beyond Applause: Making a Meaningful Difference Through Transformational Speaking, and the inventor of The Rooftop Message. She has been instrumental in helping me find my message and my voice.
Today, she’s going to give you ways to find your own voice and message, and to help you stand on the rooftop and help others.
Here’s a glance at this episode:
- Finding clarity is not an outside-in exercise. In order to overcome the clarity barrier, you need to look inside-out.
- Your rooftop message can shift depending on who the people are walking in the streets.
- Lead with your voice and your call to serve others, not with your thoughts.
- “Do I have to call myself an expert?” It doesn’t matter what you call yourself.
- You are not alone.
Mentioned in this episode:
5 Ways to be more captivating and engaging as an online speaker
Work/Connect with me:
Business and Rejuvenation Retreat
[01:05] Jessica: Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to the practical mindset podcast. I’m Jess Miller, I am so excited to have you here. Today, I am joined by a very special person. Her name is Michelle Barry Franco. She is a speaking and thought leader coach, and founder of the Made For This collective – a brilliant group of leaders who are making a powerful difference in our world through their message and their voice. She helps conscious founders and world-changing leaders speak on TEDx stages and at the best conferences in their industry. She is the author of Beyond Applause: Make a Meaningful Difference Through Transformational Speaking. I have had the pleasure of working with Michelle, and I cannot say enough for how she has helped me find my message, find my voice, and come forward to talk about the things that I am so passionate about with others. She is also instrumental in helping me get the Practical Mindset Podcast out on to the airwaves by helping my really refine my message, especially through her work of The Rooftop Message, that when I first met her, I literally said to her, “I have been looking for you.” Maybe some of you have been looking for her too. Take a listen. I think you will find that what she shares is very approachable and is something that you can put into practice right away to change how you talk about your work and get your message out into the world. So, take a listen. Here we go.
[02:38] Jessica: Well, hello, everyone. Welcome to this week’s practical mindset podcast. I am here with the amazing Michelle Berry Franco. We’re so excited to have you here. Welcome to the show.
[02:49] Michelle Barry Franco: Thank you. Thank you. I’m so excited to be here, and that I get to have this conversation with you, Jess.
[02:55] Jessica: Me, too. As you know, I could go on and on and on, and talk about all the work that you do, and all the work that we have done, but I promise our listeners, we will not go on for days and days, but it is going to be a really rich and awesome conversation. For the listeners that are listening, they know that coming up with my message, and really the thing that I’m passionate about in my rooftop message, has been something that I am super passionate about and focused on, and the work that I have done with you to fine-tune that, I think, was really one of the pivotal pieces of taking my business, my brand, and, frankly, my identity and my self-confidence, to the next level. So, of course, I’m so grateful for you, for that. I think there is so much that we can learn from you around thought leadership, creating our rooftop message, and making that be something that’s actually fun and feels amazing, versus all the mind drama, that I know I had and that many listeners who are listening to this probably thinking, “Oh, my gosh, thank you for bringing her on here” because there’s so much anxiety around trying to figure that out, which, I’m sure, you’ve seen. Tell us little bit about what you see in that realm with the people that you work with.
[04:13] Michelle: Oh, my gosh. Well, you’re not alone, and me too, me too, me too. I mean, you know my journey, I know you’ve heard it in various places, but it took me years and many messages and brands, and I’m the kind of person, I know what I think about something by having it out in front of me, so I would create a whole new website with my new messaging or my new brand, and I did this for years. I spent thousands and thousands of dollars, and, hopefully, that doesn’t mess with anyone’s confidence. This is what has built my, I think, passion for this. I really get it. Like, I really understand that feeling of ‘you have something you want to say’, and, in many ways, we can get close, but, for some reason, it can feel elusive. It can feel like this is it, but not quite it. So, that’s what I see a lot out there. It’s like, “I’m pretty sure it’s in this realm”, but you know the places where we get stuck on this – “Well, I could serve anyone with this message”, and when we can’t zero in who we might want to be talking to, it’s a little bit of a dance. That’s part of what helps us get clear on the message. So, I came up with The Rooftop Message exercise process, that, I imagine, we’ll talk about-
[05:35] Jessica: Yeah.
[05:37] Michelle: -really out of necessity. I was on a call with yet another client. I do a lot of message clarity. So, I’m a public speaking coach and a thought leadership coach. Really, until you know what you want to say, what’s at the heart of it, getting on stage isn’t that effective. It might be fun, and it might feel good, and you can get some great pictures, but if you really want to build a thriving business based on that magnetic nature of leadership, then you’ve got to have clarity on what you’re taking a stand for. I was always trying to figure out ways to help clients know what they wanted to say. So, with this client, we were on a zoom call. I was like, “you know- okay, just imagine,” – it was just in the moment – “you’re in this little town”. We can do the exercise more staged – I mean, not more staged – more completely, if you’d like, because it can be really helpful for people, even though they’re listening to a podcast.
[06:32] Jessica: For sure.
[06:33] Michelle: That’s where The Rooftop Message came from, was really out of those authentic conversations where people couldn’t figure out what they wanted to say.
[06:43] Jessica: Yeah. I remember the first time I heard you say this. Like, “pretend you’re in a small town”, and this idea that you’re taking a stand for something. For me, that just helped clear all of that junk in your head. To your point, you could talk about a gazillion things that are on brand, but it’s not necessarily the core of the thing that you want to stand on a rooftop and take a stand for.
[07:07] Michelle: Yeah.
[07:09] Jessica: Right? And then it can be inconsistent if you’re not clear on it. Yeah. So, I remember the first time I heard you say that. For me, it just really tapped into the passion and the purpose of what I wanted to talk about, and it wasn’t just about talking about something.
[07:25] Michelle: Yeah. I think that’s one of the biggest barriers to people finding clarity, is that a lot of the exercises and ways that we are guided around messaging are very outside-in and that’s not because people are not smart or people who put those together, and they’re not even necessarily that different from the Rooftop Message process, but there’s something about seeing something on a worksheet that says, “what is your message?” I go into my head and then I start thinking, “well, it could be this”, or “it could be this”, or “maybe it’s this”, or “these people last week really liked this one, so maybe I’ll go with this one”, and we’re just going to these exterior places to figure it out, and as I was having this conversation the first time I came up with the Rooftop Message idea, I was like, “how can I have her tap into what rises up in her?”
[08:27] Jessica: Yes. Yeah. So, maybe you can just take the listeners through this a little bit, because, I think, it’s so powerful, and you and I have talked about this so much, in the sense that working with someone who can make things practical and simple, and approachable, it is a gift. I think, as coaches, we always think we’ve got to give more and it needs to be super complicated, and half of that we do on our own. It’s these simple golden nuggets that, I think, move the needle so much for people. So, I think, walking them through this a little bit, is so relevant to this audience, would be super helpful, if you’re willing.
[09:04] Michelle: Yeah, I’d love to. Okay. If you’re driving, don’t close your eyes. If you’re not driving, you can kind of just center into yourself as you drive or save this for when you arrive where you’re going. I really would love for you to get into this scenario. Imagine that you’re in this little town, and in this town, the streets are full of people, and these people are struggling, and they’re turning to each other, and they’re saying, “this is so hard. I’m so tired of this. I feel like I’ve tried everything. When am I going to be able to fix this? Why isn’t it working?”, and you’re standing among them and you’re thinking, “I can totally help them with this” This is the thing that you know you can help them solve, and you try to tell a few people near you, like, “hey, let me help”, but there’s so much chaos everywhere, they can’t hear you. So, you look over to the right and you see this building. Against this building, there’s a ladder, and the ladder leads up to a reasonably flat roof. So, you walk over there and you climb up that ladder, you get to the edge of that roof, you cup your hands around your mouth, and you say, “listen to me, beautiful people. Here is what you need to know to make your lives better.” What would you shout from that rooftop? That’s the first part of the question. Oftentimes, people have something rise up. Sometimes, they’re like, “well, there’s a bunch of stuff I want to shout from the rooftop.” When that happens, and that’s totally fine, it’s all a normal part of this, then it can be helpful to think about who’s on those streets. Let’s say you’re a sleep expert. Well, maybe you have a bunch of exhausted executives on those streets. So, what you shout from that rooftop, it shifts. “Listen to me, beautiful executives. I know that you just want to see your company rising to its full potential, be as successful as you know is possible, but, every day, you’re so exhausted and you’re stuck in all the conflict, and you have no creative ideas because you don’t have enough sleep to regenerate every day.” That’s a massive unique, and very helpful, and that calls the name of those executives. But, if we switch this out: you’re still a sleep expert, but, maybe, you work with parents of infants who aren’t sleeping. Well, suddenly what you’re saying from that rooftop is very different. “Listen to me, beautiful parents. I know that you just want to be loving and caring and soak up every minute like everyone tells you you should do, and you’re so exhausted that you could cry your way through the days. I want you to know that I can help.” So, what you say is quite different from what your expertise might be or, maybe, a general statement like, “hey, sleep is the game-changer in your life.” Now, it’s true for both of them, but that’s not going to call the names of those people.
[12:20] Jessica: That’s right. Yeah. I think I’ve said this before so many times, definitely, on this podcast: the nuance matters. People being seen and it is cutting through all the noise, and there’s so much noise, is so important because if you just think about that crowd down on the ground, they’re yelling to each other, they’re hustling, they can’t hear you unless it cuts through it – unless it’s really tailored to them. Yeah, that is so much more powerful.
[12:50] Michelle: Yeah. I love that because, really, what we’re often asking ourselves, understandably, is “what do I want to say? What I want to say?”, and, while it’s a meaningful question, and, really, it is, essentially, I would say, the most important question, as far as those of us who are called to serve with our voice in our message. You want it to be the message that matters to you. It’s who they are and what they’re struggling with that matters the most if you want to have an impact. You can craft the most beautifully refined statement about your message or what you believe in, or the stand you take. If you’re talking to the wrong crowd and they, literally, will walk over, turn away, because we’re overwhelmed already. Our brain is always- one of the ways it saves our life every day, as far as our brain is concerned, is, “what can I not pay attention to? What can I actually filter out?”
[13:49] Jessica: Yes.
[13:49] Michelle: Because there’s so much, right?
[13:51] Jessica: Yes, there’s so much. That actually makes me think about this idea, like we’re recording this in October of 2021, we’ve been in the pandemic for a very long time, people have had to think about a lot of things, and, I think, with the turmoil, also because there’s more confusion, I’ll just, say, go out on a limb, there’s more confusion in what we actually want to say. We really get into this place of, right now, when people are struggling and we’re trying to pivot our business, and we’re trying to follow what people actually need in a way that they hear us, “what should I say?” becomes even more important than ever, because people are, to your point, they’re inundated with things to think about and figure out what to do about, and what to say about, and just refining that to the person is so important.
[14:49] Michelle: Yeah, and that’s why audience intimacy – that’s why I use the words very specifically, “audience intimacy”, because I want people to think of it as an ongoing relationship. It’s an ongoing, shifting, dynamic relationship, and it starts with audience analysis, and that’s at the core of it. “Who are they? What do they care about?”, and, of course, the demographics, but so many people stop there. It might just be like, “what can you help them solve?” No. What are they so afraid to say out loud right now, because they’re afraid nobody else feels it? If you name that, and say it out loud for them, they suddenly aren’t alone. You are that beacon light for them. Well, to your point about the pandemic and so many things, right now it’s the pandemic so it’s this is blaringly obvious shift that we need to be checking in on, because one minute, things are looking up and one minute, I’m saying, “hey, it’s spring in the speaking world” three months ago. Then the delta variant hit and we’re like, “oh, I guess it’s winter again”, so we need to continually be staying connected. What are they struggling with right now? Even when we get out of this pandemic, things will shift and change. There’s always stuff going on in your own growth and learning as well as what’s happening with your audience.
[16:19] Jessica: Absolutely. That brings up this thought that I had – this concept of thought leadership. Maybe we could talk a little bit about that because, I’ll just speak for myself, one of the things, besides not being able to find the words and frame it in a way that felt good and was actually, to your point, what you said in the beginning, actually what I wanted to be saying. I kept having these ideas like, “this is what I think I want to say” but it would never quite land right. So, working with you and finding those words is, like, oh, my gosh, so invaluable. I think there was another piece of it for me that was around this idea that there are things I want to say and I’m being held back by this thought that calling myself an expert or a leader in this thing – those words were very difficult for me to get my head around. So, this concept of thought leadership – what is my identity as I go out there, then, with this message and have “permission” to talk about it in a way that people are, number one, going to hear, but, more importantly, that they so desperately want to hear it, to your point, where they feel they are not alone, and that’s the thing that no one’s saying. How do you work with people around that thought leadership piece, and talk a little bit about that? Because that was a big piece for me.
[17:40] Michelle: Yeah. Well, first of all, I think you were kind of touching on this in there and I like talking about this, especially right now, this is actually super fresh, new thinking for me or a deeper kind of realization, I’d say, in the last couple of weeks. I, too, have, I don’t know if you said this, but I know other people feel this way, I’ve kind of struggled with this term “thought leadership”. I mean, you were saying about being an expert or being a leader and, for me, I think the struggle that I have had with it, I got over the first one, which was, “who am I to call myself a thought leader?”, which, we could have a whole conversation about that, but I got over that one, and then I just started to feel like, because of the associations out in the world, it’s such a patriarchal term. I, too, wish we had another term for it, and I don’t just mean that because they already sort of took it and owned it, and now people think you have to have this thought leadership label bestowed upon you. That is how they’ll talk about it. I think that’s why we’re subconsciously struggling with it at first. “Yeah, I kind of want to be recognized as a leader but is that (whatever we call negative about that), pompous, arrogant, whatever”. Here’s the other thing – I’m not, and most of the people that I work with, I’m not leading, actually, with my thoughts. I’m leading with something deeper than that. My thoughts and my ideas support that. There’s just a part of me that wants to recognize, if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, “okay, I mean, maybe it’s thought leadership, but that doesn’t feel quite right” like it’s that but there’s something more, there often is. That calling that we feel to serve with our voice and to serve with this particular message, or iterations of it, because it often does shift overtime, that is what we’re leading with, and I don’t know what we call that yet.
[19:51] Jessica: Yeah. I love that.
[19:53] Michelle: Yeah, it’s really new. Now, to sort of go to that whole broader topic area of stepping into leadership. I love thinking about leadership in a fresh way. You can’t be a leader if people aren’t learning from you and growing near you and growing through that connection and relationship. You don’t get to just be a leader because you say you are. You do tell yourself, “I want to. I will step into leadership.” That we do, and then we, I don’t know if earn is the right word, but sort of, through our service, it begins to happen. People want to be in your world because you’re sharing things that solve their problems and keep them inspired and motivated. Why would you not want to listen to the Practical Mindset Podcast? It’s so energizing and has so many practical tips, but, also, your absolute, internally driven, positive perspective on what’s possible is inspiring. People want to be around it. That’s why you’re a leader. If we stay connected to that, our ideas are what help those people connect with it. That’s what it is. Then we create talks or write articles because we’re helping them solve specific things that they’re struggling with.
[21:21] Jessica: Totally. I love that so much. I think it touches on this idea that there’s this intrinsic nature to step up. I’ll just speak for myself, and I wonder if you see this with your clients, but we’re called to talk about it. We are called, from this deep inner place, to sort of get on this platform and share, and I laugh when I say this, because there was such a part of me that, I mean, I’ve been thinking about doing a podcast for a very long time, and I think even when you and I started working together, I was like, “I have been looking for you.” I have, forever. So, there’s this piece of me that’s so drawn to get out there and say it and then there’s this piece of me that’s terrified and “what the hell am I doing? I cannot believe I’m committing to do this every week. I must be crazy.” So, there is that lens. There is that part of us that, when we stay focused on that deeper meaning that propels us forward, that we find the ways to talk about it that makes sense, we find the platforms and the ways to package it, and it just allows us to touch more people, and then really refine that in a way that really does put us in that leadership place and we really do become an expert because we’re marinating and thinking about it, and living and breathing it so much all the time.
[22:50] Michelle: Yeah. That’s why I try, because a lot of people have said to me over the years, of course, “well, I don’t know. Am I expert enough? Do I have to call myself an expert?” I’m kind of like, it doesn’t matter what you call yourself, but it does matter that we see deeply and with confidence the way that we help, because it’s from that place that we can have the conviction that allows people to relax and trust us. This is in every kind of communication. Everywhere, from standing on a live stage to doing a podcast, when we show up from that place of knowing that what we have to say is going to help, people get trust and relaxed, otherwise we’re always out there. So, many of us are hyper-vigilant about what we take in, because there’s a lot of information that is misinformation now. Always like, “should I be listening to this? Should I not be listening to this?” So, it is a great gift when we help them feel confident and relax.
[24:01] Jessica: Yes. I feel like now, more than ever, people need that grounded certainty. They need you to believe in yourself and what you’re saying so they can do it for themselves – they can trust you and they can find that voice for themselves. I think what you said about pulling it through all different mediums is, I mean, you could touch people in so many ways with your message.
[24:24] Michelle: Yeah. That’s exactly right. I mean, there are. It’s writing, speaking on podcasts, you can do Facebook lives, you can do Facebook lives in other peoples’ groups, you can do Instagram lives – name all the different lives – videos that you upload onto YouTube. So, there are really so many ways and I think you sort of touched on this idea of fear or the anxiety that it’s scary. It can be scary to do this, and the one thing, besides things like belly breathing and knowing that what I’m saying matters to me, but really the biggest thing that helps me with that is not thinking about myself. My mantra is “it’s not about you.” All the time, I think it’s about me, again, of course, “oh, my God, I said the stupidest thing on that podcast” or “why did I, whatever, why did I post that on social?” and then I just go, “you know what? It’s just not about you”, and that’s the best news in the whole world.
[25:28] Jessica: Yes. I think we’re all guilty of this. We are, and I don’t need to tell you this, but public speaking or speaking in general, is terrifying for a lot of people. I do agree that when you keep the end-user, that listener, that client, that person out there who you know needs to hear it in your heart, somehow you find the words. It just comes so much more easily and eloquently, somehow, even if you trip through, it’s somehow exactly what you’re supposed to say. I think it’s so cool. I tend to like that better when people are just sort of talking from the heart versus scripting something or reading something. It just is more approachable.
[26:14] Michelle: Well, there’s research to support that you’re not alone, that we don’t want slick presenters. We want humanity. We want a person to be prepared. We want to trust them, we want them to have confidence so that we don’t have to continually look up everything they’re saying to make sure it’s accurate. We want all that, but when it’s too perfect, it’s just not as engaging. We don’t feel as connected.
[26:42] Jessica: Ooh, that’s it. It’s the connection.
[26:45] Michelle: Humanity.
[26:46] Jessica: Yes, exactly. You know, I remember, back when I started my business and I was trying to think about what I wanted to say, and one of the mediums was social media, and I was really wracking my brain about, “is this going to be on brand? Am I going to say the right thing?” All the stuff. Finally, I remember sitting down with someone who was the head of an agency, and she just said, “nobody wants to feel like they’re in a marketing funnel, Jess.” Just flat-out. That was her job, like she was there to insult me. She’s like, “that’s not what you want to be doing” and I thought “yeah, there really is this stepping into who you are and just speaking from the heart”. However, I think, going back to your work, the way you help people frame it up so that you can do that in a way that brings people through your journey and brings them through different points, that, for me, was a big hurdle, and I know that there’s a lot of people listening to this call who are creatives and their brains are kind of all over the place, and they just want to talk, and having a structure where people can go from beginning to end and do that in an easy way, I think that’s really important, and the work that you do with people around that. Maybe you could talk about that a little bit, about how, if you’re someone who’s brain is kind of going everywhere, what’s one small thing that you can do to sort of reign it in and structure it?
[28:17] Michelle: Well, the first thing is, go back and listen to the rooftop message exercise. Really, really do it. Put yourself in that situation, let yourself feel what you’re feeling with those people, ask yourself a question about ‘who are those people on the streets and what are they struggling with most? What are they afraid that others will find out that they’re thinking or saying?’ Because, again, that’s really where the riches are. What is it this that you want to say from that rooftop and what is it those people are struggling with? The first thing we do is to create a stand. “I take a stand for…” Here’s a little formula that they can play with. Do all that first stuff first and then try to fill in these blanks – “I take a stand for…” and then “who?” Who was on those streets that we were just talking about? “That they can…” and then the next thing you right after “can” is “have what they want”, whatever it is. This is not, and I’m going to just warn you that, in that line, a lot of times people put their solution, because, often, if you’re a coach or consultant, you’ve got this expertise on the other side, so “that they can have an amazing relationship with their teenager while still holding boundaries” – that’s what they want. If that’s what they want, even if or when, and then, what are their greatest perceived obstacles? Even if or when they feel like they’ve tried everything to be close to their teenager, do that and hang it next to you in your work area, because you’re going to tell yourself tomorrow or the next day, or even later that day, like, “I don’t know what I want to say”. We all do it. Me, too. So, if you just hang in there and you’ll read it and you’ll be like, “oh, my gosh, yes. Yeah, I do know that my stand is.” That’s what I would say is a good cornerstone for all the other thought leadership that you’ll build, and then build everything around that. You know who you’re taking a stand for, you know what they want, you know what they think the obstacles are.
[30:38] Jessica: Yeah. It makes me think of when you and I- so, I had come up with my message, just like you talked about, for everybody listening to this, I really implore you to do this exercise, don’t just listen to her say it and then like go out and do your thing and think, “I don’t know what to say.” You’re going to think that. Just do it – do the exercise. The other thing was that you helped me so much, from that point, flush out the other things that I wanted to say, and I was sitting there, like, I’m sure, many people are who are type A, listening right now, I was in front of my computer, like a very good sort of soldier trying to write my thing, and you’re like, “oh, no, no, no”, and you talked about this idea of changing your scenery, changing your position, and and that was mind-blowing for me and I don’t think I’ve talked about on the podcast, but for everyone, I was sitting in front of my computer trying to write my podcast and struggling to do that in that way, and figuring out, through Michelle’s prompting, that I needed to do that while I was moving. I would come up with all these great ideas when I was walking, and she’s like, “why don’t you just write your podcast on your walk?” So, talk a little bit about that, Michelle. You have your method of doing that for yourself and it’s kind of similar to mine but talk about that because I thought that was ground-breaking and it changed everything about my podcast, never mind everything else.
[32:11] Michelle: I’m so happy about that, too, because now your podcast is here and it’s so good. So, I have ADHD, I’m a speaker, I know what I think by saying it out loud. I have lots of clients who love to sit down and write, like it’s one of their favorite things, and I have mad respect for it, and I tried to be that person, actually. A lot of people I respect write amazing books and all this stuff, so I thought, “well, you have to sit down and write, don’t you?” Well, it turns out you don’t. Not exactly, anyway. There are some elements where you get to the computer and might fix it up or whatever. So, what I learned to do, I just call it “go on a walk and talk”, and I put my headset in, and I turn on my voice memo app on my phone. You can do this a lot of ways. You can use Otter.ai, and it will automatically transcribe. For some reason, I still do sort of old school-ish where I record it and then I upload it to rev.com, and then they give me the transcript, and then that’s how I do it, my ideas are so much clearer and they come out so much more easily if I’m moving and I’m just talking, and people just think I’m on the phone. I mean, I’m on the phone anyway, what do they know? Does anybody talk on the phone anymore?
[33:37] Jessica: They’re like “there’s Michelle walking around the neighborhood talking to herself again.” But it works. It totally works.
[33:47] Michelle: That’s how I’ve written my books, and, again, there’s always a point where the way I talk in the way I write is different. There’s still edgy stuff. I’m not saying this fixes everything, but it gets it out of me and into a new form that I can shape much more easily.
[34:05] Jessica: Yes, and for anyone that’s listening to this who is like me and like Michelle, it sounds like, when people would ask me to talk about something, I would be able to talk about it with no issue and what came out, oftentimes, was, to your point, Michelle, it allowed me to connect with my audience so much easier because I really was speaking from the heart. The problem was that I wanted it to be more thought through because, in that process, I would be forgetting things because I would have just talked about it for the first time, but by you doing what Michelle had advised me to do, when I get all of that out and then I transcribe it, then it’s like the true authentic words and I can then see it on paper and take it to the next level – I can add in some of those things, but it still is my true, how I would say it, authentic piece and it gets me over this hurdle of like, “I don’t know”. A lot of times, I don’t know what to write but I know exactly what to say and as someone who’s compelled to speak, oftentimes we know what to say but we don’t necessarily always know what to write, and this just got it over that next hurdle and it made it so much easier for me to fine-tune it actually make it so much better, because I wasn’t fighting this hurdle and it kind of just came from deep within.
[35:25] Michelle: Yeah, and for me, a lot of times, because I know what I think by saying it out loud, I’m often thinking, I have tangents I go on. If that were the original podcast episode that I was recording, or whatever, I’d just be everywhere while I’m exploring what I want to say. So, when I go do this and I see the transcription, I can go like, “I’m not going to go down that path, I’m not going to go down that path”, and I can strip it down, and, for me, what I do is strip it down to another outline and then I can speak from that outline pretty effectively.
[36:00] Jessica: Yes, and I think that’s a really good point. Yeah, there’s so much of it I subtract. Now, I look “Okay, this is going nowhere”, get rid of that piece, and then you can just really finesse it to be what you want, which is awesome, too, and then you walk away feeling, I think, amazing, because sometimes it’s that first step that is so hard, but once you get over it, then it’s really free flowing and it feels really good.
[36:30] Michelle: Yeah, you don’t have that blank page issue, which, for some of us, is actually a huge barrier. I know many people don’t like it, but then they can start writing. For me, it would stop me over and over and over again. So, you don’t have that because there’s a bunch of transcription all on the page.
[36:47] Jessica: That’s right and, I mean, now with the technology, to your point, you can be talking and transcribing, or they transcribe it in five minutes, it’s like magic. It’s so awesome. It really is so call. Oh, my gosh. So, Michelle, this has been so amazing. As I mentioned, I owe so much, yes, to this podcast, to you, and to all the work that we’ve done in refining my message, and I tell people about you all the time, so, for the people that are listening, where can they find you? Where are you on the interwebs? Tell us where we can find you.
[37:20] Michelle: Well, first of all, I love working with you so much, so, thank you just like being part of the process. So, you can find me at MichelleBarryFranco.com. Probably the best place to go. If they would like a copy, free copy of my book, I have a digital version available, you can get it on Amazon if you want a hard copy version, but you can get it at MichelleBarryFranco.com/freebook. It’s really a book. This isn’t like an eBook. It’s a full book with a lot of the ideas that we talked about today, including the rooftop message and a full resource page where you can actually access a whole lot of templates and stuff. Anyway, if it sounds helpful to you, you could get a copy there.
[38:09] Jessica: Everyone, go download the book. I have a hard copy. I will put all those links in the show notes so that it’s easy for people to go and get it. Michelle, thank you 1000 times over for being on, for all your wisdom, and for everything. We so appreciate you being on the podcast.
[38:26] Michelle: Thank you, thank you. I had so much fun.
[38:28] Jessica: Yes, and everyone, see you next week.
Wow. What an incredible recording with Michelle Barry Franco. I hope you all take me up on going and checking out Michelle’s links and checking out her book Beyond Applause. It’s excellent. I have read it and I have just consumed so much of her work, that was a game-changer, so, highly recommend that you go and not only check out her links and her book, but also go back to this episode and really put into practice some of the things that she talked about. Going through these simple exercises can be so powerful. I know, sometimes, we think that it has to be these big, sort of cataclysmic things that make shifts in our business and in our life, but I believe it’s actually the opposite. It’s the small, practical things that we can put into place every day that make the biggest impact. To that end, we are all about helping you make a big impact with your business and doing that in simple, practical ways. If you are needing help around your consults and converting people to paying client, please go check out the Consults That Convert workbook. It’s free on my website JessicaMillerCoaching.com. You can just put in your information and click and download it right away and take making consults something that sometimes we have a lot of resistance around, and we think we have to get people to do something and buy something, to something that you actually look forward to and, dare I say, is actually fun.
So, until next week, everyone.
See you then.
