Nicole Smith
Welcome to Take Control with Nicole. As business owners we experiencee firsthand the fine line between our personal and business lives. During our conversations, we will look at simple hints and tips to create time, reduce overwhelm, and help you to navigate through your journey to where you want to be. If you’re looking for smarter ways to work, and create space and time freedom in your day, then you’re in the right place. All right, let’s go.

Nicole Smith
Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of Take Control with Nicole. Today I am speaking with the fabulous Jamie Abbott all about public speaking skills. Jamie is an award winning media professional and international keynote speaker and has spent two decades in the industry working as a radio and TV journalist, political media advisor, Managing Director of her own public speaking immediate training company and a communication adviser for the Royal Australian Air Force. In 2011, Jamie was deployed to Afghanistan, where she worked as the chief media training in Kabul for six months for headquarters of International Security Assistance Force, that is a mouthful. In this role, she trained over 100 International general officers on how to master media interviews. Since then she has now set up her own presentation skills training company. And Jamie has trained senior executives in media and crisis communication from the corporate, government and community sectors. I’ve got you on board and I’m stumbling all over my words. Well, hello, Jamie, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me. I am so excited to have this conversation with you and explore your background. My goodness. How fabulous is that?

Jaimie Abbott
Oh, thanks, Nicole. Thanks for the intro. I’m really glad to be here. I’m really excited. I listen to your podcast. So it’s an honour to be on here as a guest.

Nicole Smith
Yay, thank you. It’s lovely to have you on board today. Let’s just jump in. I want to hear about all the things, your career sounds just amazing. Where do we start,? Over to you,

Jaimie Abbott
Well, I’m a mum now, I’ve got two little boys who are one and three. So I feel like things are slowing down now as far as my career, although my business has really taken off in the last 12 months. But, uh, yeah, I’ll take you back. So I started out as a journalist, always wanted to be a journalist all through school, and I became one but I remember I got to, went to university in Bathurst in New South Wales at Charles Sturt. And I remember looking around the room and seeing about 80 gorgeous women who all wanted to host Getaway. And so I thought I need to compete against these girls. So I went everywhere. I hardly went out and partied all through uni. I just went and did work experience at Channel Seven, Channel Nine, ABC, Today Tonight, did a little bit of work for today tonight when I was at uni. And then all that work experience paid off. And I started working as a journalist at the age of 20. For 2GB radio in Sydney, 24 hours a day, I was doing 9:30pm to 5:30am shift. But it was an amazing experience for me to not only become a journalist, but just get a real feel for what made news, what was newsworthy. And then I spent three years in Tamworth as a news presenter and covered everything there in the New England area of Northwest New South Wales. Everything from drought to politicians coming and elections, local, state federal elections. And it was fabulous. And I really, as I was a journalist, I remember seeing a lot of people stumble when they would do media interviews, and I thought if I could just jump on the other side and help them and I you know, I would help coach them through because we wanted to make great television. But I thought to myself one day I want to be able to help people to feel more confident, not only on camera, but also on stage. And so I bottled up all these lessons learned. And then as you said, I went to Afghanistan joined the Air Force, and had that media training experience where I set up the very first programme in Kabul, the capital city. I came back after that deployment, and I had a stint at running as a federal candidate for an election. And I’ve run as a federal and state candidate and as you mentioned in my intro, got elected as a local government counsellor, and I was a counsellor for four years, but being a candidate and being a local politician, I’ve had a lot of experience public speaking, jumping up on stage, I’ve made mistakes. They haven’t always been amazing presentations, and I’ve been able to handle tough questions that have come at me I haven’t handled them sometimes but every time had a mistake, I would bottle all those lessons learned up. And then I’ve set up my own presentation company as a result of that. And I show people what they should do and what they shouldn’t do. And I love it. You know, I do the PR thing as well. But the public speaking thing probably makes up about 70% of my business. And I train everyone from really nervous, under confident startups, small business owners, to CEOs of major companies in Australia who are so intelligent and so experienced, but yet get really nervous when it comes to public speaking. And I now have clients all over Australia, who call on me if they’re doing a major presentation, just to coach them through it and make their presentation a lot more engaging.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, presenting and being able to walk up onto a stage or on the other side of a zoom call, or doing a video for your business or organisation being able to be clear and concise is a skill to learn. And one that when you do execute it, well, it just is so impactful for you as the presenter, but also the people that are experiencing it from the other side. So having someone like you is really an essential part of I guess, as you move through your career journey really, isn’t it?

Jaimie Abbott
Oh, so true. And as you said, it’s so powerful. If you can speak, I’ve seen people walk into a room. And they have not known anything about what the meeting was about. They’ve not known this subject, but because they have amazing public speaking skills, they can command the room and have everyone convinced that they know what they’re talking about. And that you know, they’ve got a great leader there who does but, public speaking really is a useful skill. It’s really interesting. The last couple of weeks, I’ve had these clients, a lot of male clients, and they have all said to me, they’re really experienced, they’re running major companies in Australia. And they’ve all said to me, I used to be better at public speaking when I was a young 20 year old. And now I’ve just developed these nerves all of a sudden, and so actually can come on at any time. And just really lately, the more experienced and more successful career people I’ve had, the more nervous they’re getting at public speaking. So it’s really interesting. As far as my ideal customer avatar goes, you know, I set out to help women. But no joke, Nicole 80% of my clients are male. And probably yeah, more than 50% are running $10 million plus companies. They are, you know, you would not know to look at them that they get so nervous. But behind the scenes, they are rehearsing, they’re putting so much preparation, and they’ve got the butterflies. And that’s why they get someone like me to help them.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, I actually love hearing that. Just for me, it’s, you know, I’ve worked in the global organisations on those smaller businesses being surrounded by business owners, but being able to be in that level, wherever you are, and put your hand up and say I need some assistance here because I know that, you know, empowering myself to get that confidence and to learn those new skills is going to really help me expand overall as well. So that’s amazing to hear. And I love that journey. You know, I kind of when I started, I thought I was going to predominantly help women as well. And I realised that actually what I do is not gender specific is not industry specific. It’s almost like mindset specific. If you’re ready to take action and get organised, then I’m your person, come and talk to me. But yeah, so good. So public speaking sounds like or just presenting sounds like it’s been a part of your world for for a while. Was it naturally always your way? Or is it something that you grew as, as you grew in your journey or career?

Jaimie Abbott
Yeah, interesting question, I’d probably fall into that category of someone who loved it growing up at school, I would do the debating competitions and the mock trials. And I was always jumping up on stage. And I was in a local dance studio at the Donna Young talent school type studio here in Newcastle. And I was always the MC and I loved it. But then as I’ve got more and more successful in my career, I guess I too, I think the stakes are higher. And when you’re a political candidate, same thing, not only the stakes higher for you to get elected, but you sometimes the audience, and it’s probably the one time where the audience is not necessarily on your side. So I think, I always tell my clients that the audience wants you to win. They don’t want you to fail, except when you’re doing a political debate, they may want you to stumble there. And so I think I too have I feel like the stakes are higher. And so yeah, it used to come naturally, I used to love it. But now I put a lot more thought and I rehearse every time I’m doing a media interview or I’m jumping up on stage, even if it’s a small group of clients that I I’m training to, I will rehearse. So yeah, I think to answer the question, absolutely. I love it. But I more importantly love helping other people get rid of those nerves and just be the best presenter they can be.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, I love you mentioned about rehearsing because I’m from a performance background as well. And singing in particular. And I know when you go through that journey, you pick up that piece of music for the first time. And you learn the words and you learn how they’re connected to the notes, and how the music flows all through and how you can be louder and softer or more impactful on different ways. And it’s exactly the same transitioning that over into presenting, when you’re rehearsing, I found the more you know it that it’s more confident and comfortable, you’re not reading off a piece of paper anymore, right? You’re actually saying it, you’re they’re presenting in the moment.

Jaimie Abbott
So true. And it really is like because I’ve singing background as well, we have that in common. Not that I was a professional, I just kind of did it on the side growing up and did talent quest and all that sort of thing. And it is very similar to performing arts, you’re right, if you know your presentation like the back of your hand, that’s where you can start sort of injecting some amazing stories or injecting some pauses or thinking about where you may go faster or slow it down or where your walk around the room, who you might ask questions of in the audience. They’re the things that you can start to use to enhance your presentation. Once you know the material, and you’re not worried about what you’re going to say.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, yeah, that’s so true. Now, I’d love you to share a little bit more about your experience over in Afghanistan working with the the Air Force over there. That must be a very interesting area to work in with all the things that are going on, similar to media obviously, like, but very reactional. Like something’s happened, we need to present about it. What sort of things did you do with the military over there?

Jaimie Abbott
Yeah, great question. I was embedded as part of headquarters, ISAF, which as you said, was the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul. And we had people there from all these different countries. In fact, over the six months I was there I trained general officers, so one stars and above. So brigadier generals in the Air Force in Australia, we call it Air Commodore rank, that kind of rank and above from 17 different countries. And how I got started was I went over there to work as a PR Public Relations Officer. And we were doing these international press conferences every week. And we were struggling to get our message across. So we had a lack of spokespersons who wanted to front the media, and the Taliban at the time, they had their own media team, they had their own spokesperson. And anytime there was a situation in Afghanistan, they had a spokesperson who would speak to the media, and we didn’t. So headquarters, ISAF weren’t fronting the media. And so the admiral, the US Navy admiral that I was working for there, said we need to set up a media training package. And so he and I got together and we mapped out this 2 hour one on one package, which I then delivered two to three times a day in this little TV studio that we had there. And sometimes we would use interpreters for non English speaking spokespersons. And it was interesting, because I did that every single day for six months. And then a couple of months into it. We had people putting up their hands, do the press conferences from all these different countries because they felt more confident. I would practice firing questions at them. All sorts of questions, tough questions, left field questions, irrelevant questions. So they were then prepared for any question that would come their way. And every Monday we would do these massive press conferences where all the Afghan Media would turn up as well as international media. And there were some times 100, more lined up wanting to do this, these press conferences, and we had spokespersons, we could roll out and tell the real story about what some of the good work we were doing over there at the time. And so that was an incredible experience. And I’m really proud of that experience and I understand that they use my media training package for years to come after I left Afghanistan. So that was quite nice. And in the end, I actually became a media spokesperson myself. So I was able to sort of adopt the same procedures and techniques that I was teaching people how to feel more confident and how to handle any question and how to get our message across that I was then like many other people offered up as a media spokesperson as well.

Nicole Smith
How wonderful it’s down to the process really, isn’t it? So what are the key steps that we can replicate across each of the trainings that you you conducted? That must be a I don’t know if I could do it the media front. Maybe with your training, I could, who knows, you know,

Jaimie Abbott
You could, you could. I mean, and media training is so similar. So people say I want some media training, I’ll often bundle it up into the same public speaking training that I deliver to them, because a lot of the same concepts apply. Thinking about our news values or our speech values, what’s going to make an interesting presentation, what’s going to make the news and then I’ve got a little checklist we go through. And that includes things such as conflict, impacts, is what I’m going to say, going to have an impact on people’s lives? Is there a novelty factor, how current or prominent is this, those types of little checklists, and then also how they can get back to their key messages. So really refining our key messages to just the top three generally, because whether you’re doing a media interview, or if you’re doing a presentation on stage, people aren’t going to remember 10 messages. So it’s important that we prioritise them to really what’s our number one takeaway, and then what’s our two and three, because anything more than that isn’t going to make the news and also isn’t going to be, people aren’t going to remember anything more than that. So it’s really refining our messages, and teaching people how they are there, not necessarily to answer the questions, they’re there to get the key message out there. And it’s a bit of a skill and a bit of practice involved. But people can really master that technique.

Nicole Smith
The magic number of three, right? Like that appears so often in the in the business space, in the corporate space, it’s that three key messages. What are they and how can you clearly articulate them across and I love that keep flowing back through. I see a conversation as, oh a presentation, you know, you can take it off here. But as long as you come back into that anchor of that point that you’re really trying to articulate across to your community or your audience. That’s really powerful when you can hone in that skill. So fun. So tell me about your business, and how you support your clients that come to you that are looking to improve their conversation, their presentation skills.

Jaimie Abbott
Yeah, so I set it up in 2013, purely as a media training business, and then kind of got pulled back into PR because of the demand. So writing press releases, writing blogs, pitching to the media. And I kind of went down that path for a while. And then but my passion really, and I’m good at that, you know, being a journalist by trade, my background, but my passion really was a public speaking thing. And I saw a business coach, and he actually said to me, you should just focus on public speaking really, and I kind of have it even though I still have my retainer clients to do PR. And I’ve got a lot of courses too, online, I kind of pivoted during COVID to online courses, and that’s public speaking and PR. But yeah, so day to day I basically about three times a week, we’ll train someone one on one, whether it’s via zoom, or I go down to Sydney, or I’ll travel elsewhere in the country. And I’ll do a session usually in about three hours one on one with someone and it’s pretty intense, you know, we go through all these tips and tricks, and then we’ll do some practical stuff, or I’ll watch them get up and do the elevator pitch, as I call it, you know, their little 60 seconds spie, their who, what, when, where, why, and how. And then I give them feedback. And then all my sessions. And I feel like this has kind of been one of the reasons I have been really successful is all of my sessions have included in them a complimentary follow up rehearsal, which can be used anytime, 12 months after the session. Now, it’s really interesting Nicole, only about 50% of people to or maybe even less than that, take me up on that offer. Some people like the fact that I that I’m there if they need it, and they might do a presentation and then send me their video. And I’ll give them some feedback, or they will use me. I had a doctor contact me last night and he did a session in sort of 10 months ago now. And he wants to do a follow up rehearsal via zoom. So I kind of offer that. And it really has helped me be successful because people think that’s quite a good value. And, yeah, a couple of times a week, I’ll be doing rehearsals or watching someone’s presentation. And I love that some people will often use two as well. And I, I don’t really charge them for that either. Because I think you know, you might use two and the next person might use none. At the end of the day. It’s about you becoming the best public speaker you can be and then you refer me and that’s how it has kind of worked. And then I sell on my online course as well which I set up in midway through 2021. Just because we were all in lockdown in New South Wales. And, you know, I thought I need to kind of pivot here and I went down the online course creation roots and that’s sort of making up about half of my business now as well.

Nicole Smith
That’s wonderful. And I think having those different avenues in my business as well, I’ve got one to one but also the group membership that I’ve got the members lounge there, having those different entry points to be able to gain the skills that really we all need. If we’re starting out in business, and we have low budget, or if we’re the CEO of a global international, whatever it might be, or, you know, commander in the Air Force, whatever, at whatever level these skills that you can support your clients and your community, they’re going to be long lasting, as well, at whatever stage you acquire them. Right? Like, can you just keep developing them as you go?

Jaimie Abbott
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s interesting, because I see some business coaches, sometimes I’m always investing in coaches, and a lot of them will say to me, you should just focus on your ideal customer avatar, and that is the higher end the top 1% in their industry, who are happy to pay top level for that one on one coaching. And yes, sure, I could go down that route. But that’s not sort of core to my beliefs, I want to help as many people as possible, I’ve developed these skills, over 20 years of experience being in front of the camera, behind the camera, as a trainer off to the side of the stage, as someone in the spotlight on stage, why not try and help as many people as possible. And not everyone has the budget to be able to get me into their business, one on one and the online courses, and I’ve got a little PR Academy membership as well, a low cost one. And that’s me being able to help as many people as possible. And I think you should have multiple sources of income. And for me, it’s worked. So obviously, I’ve got my ideal customer up here. But at the same time, the online courses, the low value ticket items can also help someone who has a small budget as well, and it is helping people.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, I’m very similar. I want to be able to empower many people to discover the power of investing in the foundations of their businesses so that as they grow and scale and whatever building big means for them, they’ve got the support to support them upwards the same as what you do with your clients, whatever. They’re the foundations of those skills, if they decide they’re going to go on to become a keynote speaker or start a podcast or, you know, journey through that career and be the spokesperson for the company. They’ve got those things already there that are ingrained as just part of their human beingness. Human beingness. That’s a new word.

Jaimie Abbott
I like it. I like it.

Nicole Smith
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Nicole Smith
So just say I don’t like presenting at the moment, which I do like presenting. So it’s not me, another person over here, no idea how to do it, super nervous. I know it’s something I have to do as my business and my job or in my business. Where do we start? Like how do we, do you have any tips that we can somebody might be listening on the other side of the podcast today? Where can they start with their, improving their confidence in public speaking?

Jaimie Abbott
Well, I think they need to start with a plan and they need to work out what is my aim? Why am I doing this public speaking opportunity? So is it to raise awareness? Is it to reinforce a perception or maybe to reassure clients of something? So you really need to get some clarity on exactly why you’re doing it. And sometimes I have clients who say, oh, I’m doing it because my boss asked me to do it. I’m like, we have to think beyond that. What are you trying to get people to think, feel or do. And once you’ve worked that out, who is your key audience? So is it self-funded retirees because what you’ll say to them might be different to university graduates or to female business owners. And so getting some have real clarity on exactly who your audience is. And once you’ve worked out your aim, and then your audience, you can work out what your messages are going to be. And so your one, two and three messages. So that’s the first start. Now we can start nutting out the presentation on how long you’ve got, and where we’re going to inject some storytelling as well, because people are actually 22 times more likely to remember a fact when it’s tied around a little story. And that could be a transformational story, a connection story, you know, storytelling is really powerful. As far as you being an engaging presenter.

Nicole Smith
It is more engaging, isn’t it with stories? Yeah, you think about like, I’ve got two, two kids, six, and three, and Charlotte, my three year old loves stories. And she remembers them, because we read them and she engages with it. It’s her obviously her the right audience for her. But it’s really, you know, it is powerful. And yeah, I love that. I love storytelling.

Jaimie Abbott
Yeah, absolutely. And some of the best speakers in the world like Brene Brown and Elizabeth Gilbert, they just tell story after story. And so that’s what I would do with a client work out where can we make this inspirational and motivational. You know, what are we trying to do with our audience, you’re there for a purpose and that’s to be engaging, to motivate to inspire really thinking about that purpose. And once we get some clarity on that, everything else can sort of flow, including we rehearse, we get rid of the nerves, we think, how do we want our setup to be? Are we going to use PowerPoint? Are we going to do a live audience? Are they going to be set up in lecture style? Or are the lights going to be dim? Are you going to have a handheld microphone, a lectern, a little lapel microphone or a microphone on the lectern? Do you want a little clicker for your PowerPoint? Do you want PowerPoint? All these things that’s going to make people feel really comfortable. And then we just rehearse, we rehearse and we rehearse, we get it, right? We work out where we’re talking too fast, where we need to slow it down where we need to inject some pauses, where we can inject some storytelling or some questions of the audience to get them engaged, all these sorts of things. And let me tell you, Nicole, anyone can become an amazing public speaker, anyone! You know, some people are better like they’re born with this amazing communication ability. But it can be taught and there’s nobody I can’t teach even the most scared introverts. They can overcome their fear and their nerves of public speaking and become an amazing presenter.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, well, you got a plan. You know, you’ve worked through all of the checklist of your planning and I love you mentioned all the physical things. Like, are we doing PowerPoint? Or are we you know, do we have our diamante crusted handheld microphones? What music are we using? Because that’s another big, you know, the audio. You look at the big conferences, you know, and, and the keynotes that start with the big like, loud music to like, pump the audience up and, like, do you is that something as well? You work with your speakers on to connect?

Jaimie Abbott
Absolutely. Yeah. Everyone needs a diamante crusted microphone.

Nicole Smith
Uh hello, yes.

Jaimie Abbott
I need one of them. Yeah, absolutely. And I think people need to think that it’s not about them. It’s about the audience. And not everyone’s not going to remember what you said. And you might have heard this saying that everyone will remember how you made them feel. And it’s about that takeaway. Well, when they leave, and especially if you’re part of a conference, people don’t remember, you’ve ever got to the end of a conference day, you think I don’t even remember what Nicole was speaking about. So you just want to try and really focus on one takeaway when they leave the room. What’s the one thing they go, okay, I just heard Jaimie Abbott speak and she’s all about a, and then leave them with no choice but to remember that one takeaway, and people need to think it’s really not about them. The audience selfishly is there to get something from you. Whether that be inspiration, motivation, and we need to start thinking about it from the audience’s shoes and what’s in it for them.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, I always have that frame of mine. So when I started business a couple of years ago, and Instagram in particular with the Instagram Stories. Everyone’s like, you’ve got to go and stories, you got to do stories. And at first, even though I come from the performance background, I was nervous. Like, I would record the story, I would edit it, I would delete it. I woud record it about four times. Now I can just pick the phone up, today in particular, there’s, if you will, obviously this is coming out later, but I’ve had a big heavy story day today. I’ve got lots to talk about. So there’s lots it’s easy. I just press the record button, and it happens. But all of it, it’s actually not to do with me. It’s really to provide my audience with some information that they can take away and digest and that would be helpful for them in their journey of business. Language. I’d love to just have a chat about language. This is a journey that I’ve been going on myself over the last sort of 12 months or more, and how powerful it can be? Is that something that you have engaged in with your experience and the use of different words and how they connect in with people, and especially audiences if there’s different things? Do you support your people with that, too?

Jaimie Abbott
Yeah, absolutely. And so when we do that plan, when we work out what we’re trying to do, who we’re trying to aim it to, we work out some just some key words that we’re going to like, put into our presentation and really focus on and then we’ll weave those words through the presentation. But generally, when it comes to language, one of the common problems people have is they overcomplicate the language. And I have this discussion almost every day with my clients. You know, I have a doctor client, and he’ll be speaking to a medical conference. And he’ll say, well, everyone in the audience knows what these big words are, or the acronyms mean. And I’ll say to him, Well, first of all, no, you don’t know that there could be someone there who’s new to the industry and doesn’t. But secondly, everyone is so like, distracted these days, our attention span is getting shorter and shorter. That’s why videos a couple of years ago, were the ideal length was was three minutes. And now it’s 30 seconds, because we just our attention span is not there. And at a conference or even at a business event or business chamber event, people aren’t going to be 100% focused on you, they are on their phone, they’re looking across at the audience as to who they know, they’re thinking about their day, what they’re doing that evening, what they’re doing on the weekend. And if you can keep your language simple, you’re going to be able to have the best chance of resonating with your audience. And I think too often people will use the Latin version of words. So they’ll say coherent when all they need to say is clear. You know, though, they’ll say things like recover, when they can just say get better. So I think it’s just we need to simplify words, if we’re talking to a young child, because that’s going to give you the best chance of your message resonating with the audience. And it’s a very common mistake people make is putting in to big a word, all those acronyms or the industry jargon, and losing their audience, because even if they need to think for five seconds, oh, what’s that acronym again? Oh, that’s right. You’ve lost them. Yeah. So you want to try and just keep it simple, stupid as that kiss that kiss acronym came easy acronyms. Now keep it simple, stupid. Yeah. So I think that’s really important with any sort of public speaking opportunity.

Nicole Smith
And you’re already on the stage. They know you’re there. Because you’re seen as the expert in the topic, whatever that topic is. So you don’t need to show your smart like, No, we know, you know, your things. I love that. My background is being the middle person between the business and the IT developers, you know, in custom solutions, and tech language can be like reading another language, you know, and being able to translate that through to different audiences as well, which is what you mentioned, knowing who your audience is. So I speak one way when I’m explaining it to the business side, and then a different way when I’m speaking to the tech people, because they understand it at a different level. So that’s a really good point to keep in front of mind, not just public speaking. But in general, when you’re dealing with humans, is understanding who your audience is. And also communication styles. Is that a key thing as well, understanding who you’re actually, I guess, speaking to if you’re one on one, for instance, like are you a short and sharp communicator? Or do you like all the information or?

Jaimie Abbott
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And people learn differently, as you know, they like to see something on the screen with a PowerPoint because they’ll learn better visually, other people like to do that sort of the action, or the people will just like to hear it as well. So I think it’s a matter of working out who’s going to be in your audience. What are they likely, what do they, try and put yourself in their shoes, really. But I think generally, if I’m doing a presentation to a large auditorium of people, I want to try and have as many visual aids as I can, because if I just get up there and stand and talk, not everyone is going to take in the information as well as if I do have a presentation behind me with some pictures, to be able to cater for those visual learners, and then also the doers. So I do try and do some practical activities when I’m doing a public speaking keynote, for example, I’ll get everyone to have a go at picking a situation where they’re working out who their audience is, what they’re trying to get them to think, feel or do. Therefore, what are the words they need to say, and I’ll give them a few minutes to do that. And people learn quite often a lot better that way.

Nicole Smith
In that practical application.

Jaimie Abbott
Absolutely.

Nicole Smith
Amazing. Thank you so much. This has been Wonderful. Is there anything else that you think we should know, if we’re, whatever stage we’re in on our journey?

Jaimie Abbott
Yeah, look, I think our impromptu speaking is another thing that a lot of people struggle with. And so I’ve got a couple of tips for that. I mean, generally, if you are ever asked to stand up and talk about apples, for example, and they just put you on the spot, you can use this little technique for any subject. And so what it is, it’s so basic, but it’s just the five W’s and the H. The who, what, when, where, why, and how. And that will generally guide you through and it’s the same if I’m writing a press release, I put these elements into it, because that’s what audiences want to know. But let’s just say I say to you, Nicole, talk about apples, you would go through the who, what, when, where, why, and how. So who is it? These are apples. What are they? they’re green, they come in green, and yellow, or green and red. There’s Granny Smith there’s Pink Lady. Why do we eat them? Because they’re really healthy. Where can you get them? You can get them at the supermarket, or you can get them at fruit shops or on the side of the road? And when can we get them? You get them all year round, but they are in certain season at certain times. How can you get them? You can go to the supermarket, or you can order them online. That’s just you know, off the top of my head. But that’s a really basic example of how if you are ever asked to get up and talk about something, run yourself through that little checklist of the who, what, when, where, why, and how. And it will help prompt you to be able to speak off the cuff. And I find that really, really helpful for my clients if they are ever in a meeting. And then someone turns to them and says can you tell us more about your work? And so I think a, you should have an elevator pitch ready to go at any time and b, if it is a subject which you are not prepped or prepared for it all. Go through that little checklist of the five W’s and the H and it will help you get out of get out of jail free is my get a jail free card, but I tell people

Nicole Smith
Oh, I love it. I have to giggle though. My surname Smith and my husband’s mum, we call her Granny Smith. So I loved when you said granny sweet but yeah, it’s always a giggle. But that is amazing. That is a really good method to have front of mind. Because especially if you are in small business, which many of my listeners are, own your own businesses. That’s something that happens on the daily you meet someone new oh, tell me about yourself. And so you do have to you do have that thing prepped. So you can talk about it. But again, practising it, becoming just naturally to roll off the tongue versus duh duh duh, when you first start. That’s normally how it’s, I don’t know. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I do. I’m not sure. And then all of a sudden it clicks in, doesn’t it? And you’re confidently there going? Yeah. Hey, I’m Nicole. My Businesses this and lalala. Yeah, do that hit but yeah, exactly. Ah, amazing. Thank you so much. We’re gonna put those tips in the show notes as well. So if you’re listening, or you’ve listened, either go backwards and have a listen or pop over into the show notes. And you can grab those out of there from to take on your conversation and impromptu journey. Well, thank you so much what we do with all our guests, which you know, because you’re tuned in before is our three questions at the end. Are you happy and ready and raring to go?

Jaimie Abbott
Oh, yes. These are three questions. Impromptu.

Nicole Smith
Well yeah. Yeah. If you haven’t prepped for them yep. The first one is, what is your go-to app that creates ease in your everyday?

Jaimie Abbott
I like Trello.

Nicole Smith
Oh, yes. Very nice. Yes,

Jaimie Abbott
Yeah, I’ve used a few. And I’m just I’ve got a few boards in Trello. And so that’s what I’m big on systems to I’m trying to get better at it, I know this is your area. And for me, I’m just creating a few boards even like my home baseboard, which has got everything from passports to car insurance all in the on the app. And I love it.

Nicole Smith
It’s so good. That’s it, you know, that is an area that people sometimes forget your home, your personal stuff. So we have one in clickup for our personal my husband’s on it. We’ve got the shopping list on there, we’re getting a new puppy in a couple of weeks, all the planning for him is in there. Like everything’s in there. So we both know where to go. And that central hub for business and personal is just, gosh, it saves so much time when you’re looking for that copy of the passport that you need to send in for an application.

Jaimie Abbott
Absolutely. Yeah, I wish I did it years ago actually. I’ve just started.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, so if you’re listening and you don’t have a personal hub that’s your homework for this weekend. I might know the answer to this. But are you an online, paper or hybrid to do lists lover?

Jaimie Abbott
I would normally say hybrid but I’m switching to online now.

Nicole Smith
Fabulous. Yeah. Fabulous. Yeah, it’s a transition, isn’t it? I am hybrid still I do love a bit of paper but I’m all about the online because the efficiencies in the especially in business where you’ve got teams, having that structure is really nice and simple.

Jaimie Abbott
Yeah, absolutely.

Nicole Smith
Now final, what would you do if you created more space in your world?

Jaimie Abbott
What would I do if I created more space in my world? You mean more time or

Nicole Smith
Whatever your definition of space means!

Jaimie Abbott
Yeah, more time. I would spend more time with my kids. Yeah, I think as a business owner, and I love my business, but I really got into the marketing thing with the online world the last 12 months, and I will put my child to bed. I’ve got two little boys, as soon as they’re down, you know, by 8pm. I’m on the computer, watching YouTube videos, doing my online course stuff. And if I had more space in my world, when I wasn’t doing that, I probably would be sitting in watching Netflix is my hubby, or yeah just spending more time my kids generally. Yeah, I think that’s what I would do.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, fabulous. When you first start business, or whatever stage is always things to learn. I know, constant learning. And it’s fun, like I’m a serial learner. So if I look to, you know, discover something new, I’m like, oh, how do I do that? Give me all the information. Let’s figure it out and find my way of doing it.

Jaimie Abbott
Oh, yeah. I love online courses, too. I’m always buying online courses and enrolling and some I finish and some I don’t. I think we’ve all been guilty of that, buying an online course, which we’ve never looked at again. But I try and do those in my spare time. I love online courses.

Nicole Smith
I think if you get one thing out of a programme or a course that is a win in my eyes, especially because there’s so much noise out there all the time. Yeah. So learning that 1 point, 1 key thing or three key points. That’s a tick, big tick.

Jaimie Abbott
Yeah, absolutely.

Nicole Smith
Well, thank you so much for joining me, I’d love you to share where everyone else can connect with you.

Jaimie Abbott
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, you can find me on LinkedIn, I’m on LinkedIn a lot. And I love LinkedIn, it’s been really successful for my business, but just my website, jaimieabbott.com, there’s free resources, there’s blogs, there’s a lot of content that I’ve put out there, I’m all about giving out value, value value, you know, a lot of people who will come to me as a client, and they’ll say to me, I’ve been following your blog or your social media posts for years, and I’m finally signing up. So that’s why I love the blogs, because, you know, you think, oh, it’s not going anywhere, you’ve just got to be consistent with it. So yeah, if they go to my website, you’ll, you’ll find a whole heap of resources on at jaimieabbott.com

Nicole Smith
I was, we were talking just before we pressed record, because you’ve also got a podcast. And we were talking about not knowing who you are on the other side of this podcast. So come and say hi to me, because I want to know who you are. But it’s that, you know, people that are they’re just absorbing the information that you’re sharing, and it’s you just never know when it’s their right moment they’ll reach out to, to come and work with you.

Jaimie Abbott
That is so true.

Nicole Smith
Yeah. Tell us about your podcast quickly as well.

Jaimie Abbott
Oh, yeah, sure. So it’s called Perfect PR, we’ve had season one now, which is all dropped. And it’s basically yeah, PR, PR marketing, public speaking tips. I’ve started for season two getting some guests in as well, just so they can share. From a PR perspective, what has been the reason for the success of their business or charity. And yeah, it’s available everywhere, Spotify, Apple, Google, and I think even Amazon now if you just type in Perfect PR, or Jamie Abbott, it’ll come up and it would love some more listeners, because it’s so new. And hopefully, I’ll grow to the success of say your podcast, Nicole in the future.

Nicole Smith
Oh, amazing. We are going to pop all of those links in the show notes. So pop on over and take a listen, go and connect with Jaimie and say hello. Have a look at her resources. Especially if you’re looking to really enhance the way that you confidently can present and connect with people. Jamie is the person you need to connect with.

Jaimie Abbott
Thank you.

Nicole Smith
Fabulous, thank you again so much for joining me today. It’s been such a fabulous conversation. And for everybody who’s listening out there. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and enjoy creating space and time freedom bye now.

Nicole Smith
Well, there we go. Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been such a pleasure having you on board. Have we connected on socials yet? If not, please come on. I ever say hi, I’m on all the platforms @theartisanssolutions. So I’d really look forward to seeing you over there. And if you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to tag me and I’d love it if you could leave a review. And of course share this with others so others can come and join us next time. All right, then everyone have a fabulous rest of the week. And until next time, see you then.