SPEAKER SLAM – Create MOMENTUM In Your Business And Life With Rina Rovinelli

Howard Brown: 00:00:00

Yeah. Hello, it's Howard Brown is the Shining

Howard Brown: 00:00:06

Brightly show. Oh two, I have a special gift for you today. What

Howard Brown: 00:00:10

an amazing mazing person. I have Rina Rovinelli here. He said,

Howard Brown: 00:00:16

What happens when you bring your coach? Right your teacher, your

Howard Brown: 00:00:21

savant onto your own show. I mean, I just I guess I'm feel so

Howard Brown: 00:00:25

privileged Rina Welcome. How are you today?

Rina Rovinelli: 00:00:28

Thank you. I am amazing. And Howard, you know,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:00:31

I'm a huge fan of yours as well. So I'm happy to be here and

Rina Rovinelli: 00:00:33

excited to do this with you.

Howard Brown: 00:00:35

I appreciate that. Because we're going to get and

Howard Brown: 00:00:38

chop it up here because I've learned so much from you. And I

Howard Brown: 00:00:41

want to talk about that. I want to talk about what you do, and

Howard Brown: 00:00:44

how you change people's lives and how you changed my life. So

Howard Brown: 00:00:47

first, let me tell people about you a little bit. So Rina

Howard Brown: 00:00:50

Rovinelli is the co founder of speaker slam Inc. It's a speaker

Howard Brown: 00:00:53

Development Agency committed to entrepreneurs, speakers,

Howard Brown: 00:00:56

authors, coaches, and it's how to be seen how to build momentum

Howard Brown: 00:01:00

and how to monetize your speaking. You are a speaker

Howard Brown: 00:01:04

coach, who works with speakers to create their signature talk

Howard Brown: 00:01:07

and as created many speaker slam compet competitors into victory

Howard Brown: 00:01:12

and viral success. I would also say that you are a branding

Howard Brown: 00:01:15

coach because you know a lot about that. She is a passionate

Howard Brown: 00:01:18

speaker on her own. The human connection has gone viral on 5

Howard Brown: 00:01:23

million views. You are a top 25 Women of Influence, and a

Howard Brown: 00:01:27

founder of platform a programme that empowers marginalised

Howard Brown: 00:01:30

individuals to claim their voice and shift their narrative. Holy

Howard Brown: 00:01:34

smokes. Well, we got a powerhouse in the house, though

Howard Brown: 00:01:37

I'm excited for that. So Rina, you know what that bio doesn't

Howard Brown: 00:01:41

do justice, but share with my audience a little something that

Howard Brown: 00:01:45

we may not know about yet.

Rina Rovinelli: 00:01:47

Okay, so I'm gonna go way back when I was in

Rina Rovinelli: 00:01:50

grade seven or eight, I had a chance to become a page at the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:01:54

parliament in Queen's Park. That's our parliament building

Rina Rovinelli: 00:01:58

in Canada. And it was a huge honour out of 800 students, I

Rina Rovinelli: 00:02:01

was one of the 20 that had the opportunity. And I got to come

Rina Rovinelli: 00:02:04

to Toronto from a small town and live there and be in the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:02:08

parliament. And it began with my love of politics, and also my

Rina Rovinelli: 00:02:12

love of Toronto in the big city. And so I got a head start when I

Rina Rovinelli: 00:02:16

was a youth to kind of move towards this life.

Howard Brown: 00:02:19

Yeah, yeah. So we write, we have to distinguish

Howard Brown: 00:02:21

that you're from the great up north, Canada. But this is

Howard Brown: 00:02:26

great, because we're going to share you with the USA, which is

Howard Brown: 00:02:28

amazing, amazing. Amazing. Wow, that's a great experience. Well

Howard Brown: 00:02:32

as a young person and all that I forgot to also mention you are a

Howard Brown: 00:02:35

supermom, I love your daughter, and I love you as well. So you

Howard Brown: 00:02:38

do it all. Alright, so let's what? First of all, give me

Howard Brown: 00:02:43

like, how does this ideation How does speaker slim start? I'm

Howard Brown: 00:02:46

always so impressed where people get the that Inkling in their

Howard Brown: 00:02:50

gut to actually start and be an entrepreneur and start something

Howard Brown: 00:02:53

new and meet that unserved need. So start with how you and Dan

Howard Brown: 00:02:57

came together and how this all started to rock and roll.

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:00

So I'm an entrepreneur at heart, but I

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:01

actually met my business partner in Toastmasters. And we were

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:04

both passionate about kind of stealing the show being centre

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:07

stage in the class and we became instant friends. And he was in a

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:12

programme called landmark at the time, where they had to do a

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:14

special community project. And he asked so many people to

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:17

partner with him on this and people are busy. And people said

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:20

no. And he finally came to me and I said, Listen, we're gonna

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:23

have 12 people in the library. But if you're okay with that,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:26

I'm okay with that. Let's try. And so we decided we're going to

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:29

create an event, we started going to all kinds of different

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:32

speaking events, seeing what was out there. And Dan turned to me

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:35

in the middle of winning, he said, We should do a

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:37

competition. And I said, Oh, my God, Speaker slam. And we both

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:42

love to compete, it was a natural fit. And we started and

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:46

from the day, we opened the door, people flooded in, we've

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:50

had sold out crowds, it's been a huge hit. We never had to do

Rina Rovinelli: 00:03:52

that to all people in the library. But it's been magical.

Howard Brown: 00:03:57

So you've evolved though, because, you know, it's

Howard Brown: 00:04:02

people, one of the greatest fears I looked this up is

Howard Brown: 00:04:06

actually speaking, public speaking is one of the top fears

Howard Brown: 00:04:09

that actually people have, so you are serving a major need,

Howard Brown: 00:04:13

but a lot of people want to learn this skill. Okay. And it's

Howard Brown: 00:04:16

a learned skill. I definitely know that. And so, you start

Howard Brown: 00:04:21

with the small kind of classes, right? That are people that are

Howard Brown: 00:04:25

just learning, right? You know, they're not experts in any way.

Howard Brown: 00:04:28

But they come in and they, you know, whatever level they are,

Howard Brown: 00:04:30

and they come in, and they basically you have a formula and

Howard Brown: 00:04:33

a process that you take them through, right?

Rina Rovinelli: 00:04:36

Yes, so we run the emerging speaker programme

Rina Rovinelli: 00:04:38

for new speakers. But very quickly, we learned that our

Rina Rovinelli: 00:04:42

competition was so much about the actual skill of speaking

Rina Rovinelli: 00:04:46

that you might learn it another speaking programme, it was the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:04:49

power of storytelling. And the interesting thing is that the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:04:53

story is the great equaliser. You can be a paid professional

Rina Rovinelli: 00:04:56

speaker, you can be someone shaking in your boots, but if

Rina Rovinelli: 00:04:59

you have them As powerful inspirational story, you can

Rina Rovinelli: 00:05:02

move parts. And we saw all kinds of people winning people that

Rina Rovinelli: 00:05:07

you wouldn't have thought could have won, but they were winning

Rina Rovinelli: 00:05:09

because they had that ability to impact with the story. So

Rina Rovinelli: 00:05:12

quickly, we saw this. And we started to focus on

Rina Rovinelli: 00:05:16

storytelling. And we brought that through our programme.

Howard Brown: 00:05:19

I want to tell you the other thing that that

Howard Brown: 00:05:22

because, you know, I'm also, you know, a client and a customer

Howard Brown: 00:05:25

and in your community, the one thing that I noticed was the

Howard Brown: 00:05:29

warmth and the welcoming of the people into the community. I

Howard Brown: 00:05:33

just joined you in last September. And I just felt so

Howard Brown: 00:05:37

welcome. You know, your cohorts are small and manageable, you

Howard Brown: 00:05:41

know, under 12 people, and everyone seems like they get

Howard Brown: 00:05:45

like a real customised approach to what they're doing to meet

Howard Brown: 00:05:49

their needs and where they're at. And I've not seen a

Howard Brown: 00:05:53

programme like that there's lots of speaker programmes out there

Howard Brown: 00:05:55

that will charge you a lot of money. And so I am grateful for

Howard Brown: 00:05:59

that opportunity. So you've seen a lot of people come through,

Howard Brown: 00:06:03

and what some of the top lessons that in watching speakers kind

Howard Brown: 00:06:08

of get get processed, mature and can come through.

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:12

So in the beginning, I think for us, when

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:15

they I just want to address something you just said

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:17

actually, okay, so important. When we started speaker slam,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:20

we'd have these 10 amazing speakers share their story,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:24

heart centred, mission driven people, and they would bring up

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:28

their audience and our audience would fall in love. And then

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:30

they would join, and then they would share and then other

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:33

people would join. So our community slowly developed by

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:36

word of mouth, so that everybody that came was the same energy.

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:41

So you'd come to an event with two 300 people and they will be

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:44

hugging. They will be connecting, they will be

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:46

cheering for each other. It's been beautiful from the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:50

beginning, because we had that organic growth. And you'll see

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:52

sometimes other other speaking businesses, they're kind of like

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:55

doing Facebook ads, and they're just kind of getting anyone they

Rina Rovinelli: 00:06:58

can. But because we grew from each other, like word of mouth,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:02

it has this beautiful energy. Okay, so to your question,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:05

though, some of the lessons I've really learned is that, you

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:10

know, the, like I said, the people that embrace the power of

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:12

their story, are the most powerful, but it's the people

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:17

that don't really stay in the adversity, but that really move

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:20

into the victory. Because we all have these adversity stories,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:23

we've all been through a tonne. And we can all share those

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:26

problems. And a lot of times we want to share them because we

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:28

want validation, we want we want our page that purpose, we want

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:32

to be able to acknowledge that we've been through something and

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:33

survived. And if we stay too long in the pain without coming

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:37

out with the the lessons, the inspiration, the hope, the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:40

resilience, it can bring people down. But the speakers that

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:43

bring people back up are the ones that tend to be most

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:45

successful. And, and that's the first thing. And then the second

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:49

thing, the people that are most successful in our programme, are

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:52

the people that are just driven, they're just and how you're one

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:55

of those people, they are just driven with this burning desire

Rina Rovinelli: 00:07:59

to make an impact. And you know, to have their pain, have a

Rina Rovinelli: 00:08:02

purpose, to have meant something and to be able to transform

Rina Rovinelli: 00:08:05

other people's lives because of it. And then they are just

Rina Rovinelli: 00:08:09

propelled forward. And so we see them, they don't stop at a

Rina Rovinelli: 00:08:11

competition, they get pressed they, they launch, you know,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:08:14

movements, they write books they get they get older, they go on

Rina Rovinelli: 00:08:17

stages, because they want their message to mean something. And I

Rina Rovinelli: 00:08:21

love watching that, and I love watching you.

Howard Brown: 00:08:23

Well. So I have to tell you, what you just talked

Howard Brown: 00:08:26

about was coaching. You talked about mentorship, and you

Howard Brown: 00:08:31

actually talked about accountability. And I have to

Howard Brown: 00:08:34

tell you, I've gotten all three of those things for you. You've

Howard Brown: 00:08:36

called me out when I haven't been able to do it or get

Howard Brown: 00:08:40

through, but you've also been one of my biggest fans and

Howard Brown: 00:08:42

cheerleaders. When I do and we've worked hard at at my

Howard Brown: 00:08:47

brand, and and being able to stay in the lane and have sub

Howard Brown: 00:08:51

brands as well to be able to be you know, have some within some

Howard Brown: 00:08:55

some value and not just one area but in others. And I've put the

Howard Brown: 00:09:00

work in and I continue to put the work in and one of the

Howard Brown: 00:09:03

things that I realised because I remember talking to you, I said

Howard Brown: 00:09:07

listen, I've spoken my whole life, I'm in sales. I said I'm a

Howard Brown: 00:09:11

good speaker and you said something to me. It's stuck with

Howard Brown: 00:09:13

me. You said Howard, I'm gonna make you a great speaker. And

Howard Brown: 00:09:17

the way that you made me a great speaker was you didn't change

Howard Brown: 00:09:19

me. You up levelled me, you refined and polished what I

Howard Brown: 00:09:24

already had in me and it's just so beautiful. But then you took

Howard Brown: 00:09:27

me to the extra level because you actually added the brand

Howard Brown: 00:09:31

component. I want you to speak about that because I have to

Howard Brown: 00:09:34

tell you, you're right, the speaking part is really a much

Howard Brown: 00:09:37

smaller part of the brand perception and so you've really

Howard Brown: 00:09:41

now focused on building people's brand and helping them define

Howard Brown: 00:09:44

their brand and I think it's brilliant.

Rina Rovinelli: 00:09:46

So I say the speaking business is 80% brand

Rina Rovinelli: 00:09:49

20% speaking because the people that are booking you don't even

Rina Rovinelli: 00:09:53

really know if you're a great speaker they're booking you

Rina Rovinelli: 00:09:55

based on your brand what they can see your video your lunch.

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:00

Each your position in the marketplace, the cleverness of

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:03

your title, they're booking on that brand. And so for a lot of

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:06

people with speaking they come in they they have this burning

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:09

desire to, to keep speaking and often to get paid to speak. And

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:14

they want to speak about everything, every story,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:16

everything, they can speak on anything, they've been through

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:18

100 things. And it's a challenge to get people to focus on a lane

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:22

to focus on a very specific niche, but to build their brand

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:26

around it and like everything's in alignment. So like one of the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:29

things I love about you, here you are mister shining brightly,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:31

your backdrops shining brightly, that the gold shining brightly

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:35

bug, you got the sunglass, like you're you live the brand, when

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:38

I can think of you I can think of that brand. And when people

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:41

start to see that with any speaker, when they have a

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:44

conference coming up, or they have an event coming up, they

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:47

don't want the wishy washy person or the mediocre person or

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:50

the average person, they want the shining star in the in the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:54

industry in the lane that they're dealing with. So if you

Rina Rovinelli: 00:10:57

can create that around yourself, it just elevates you in the eyes

Rina Rovinelli: 00:11:01

of the event organiser and gets you to the front of the line.

Howard Brown: 00:11:04

Right. And again, we've we've had these

Howard Brown: 00:11:06

discussions, but you know, I have now my my mantra is that I

Howard Brown: 00:11:10

motivate I educate and I inspire. And that's that's kind

Howard Brown: 00:11:14

of what I'm here to do. And that's my goal. And I've been

Howard Brown: 00:11:18

it's been great. And also the other thing that I love the

Howard Brown: 00:11:20

cheerleading part of you because you always say keep hustling,

Howard Brown: 00:11:24

keep hustling, you keep pushing me forward. And I have to tell

Howard Brown: 00:11:28

you, I've been on 58 podcasts as a guest since the book came out.

Howard Brown: 00:11:33

And it's pretty amazing, right? But what happens then is that

Howard Brown: 00:11:36

they make me the star, and they push me out to their networks,

Howard Brown: 00:11:40

and people have to have confidence in you to push you

Howard Brown: 00:11:42

out to their networks. And I really liked that. But so this

Howard Brown: 00:11:46

has been a seven year journey. I mean, tell me some of the high

Howard Brown: 00:11:50

points and the low points. Where are you at because every

Howard Brown: 00:11:52

entrepreneur goes through the the wall that they gotta climb.

Howard Brown: 00:11:55

So what have you and Dan faced,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:11:57

you know, we've had a lot of high points,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:11:59

because each of that was amazing. And we I remember, we

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:02

got to this point where we had a grand slam, and we had 600

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:05

people. And I had convinced Dan that we were going to waltz out.

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:10

So you have to imagine this hack theatre. And like, I'm a tall,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:14

ample woman and Danzel littler guy. So you can imagine the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:17

picture of us waltzing out onto stage, and then we broke into

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:21

hip hop dancing, I'll never let down because he plays that video

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:24

clip everywhere. But I've seen it. It was magical, when when

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:28

the Black Eyed Peas hit it just the crowd erupted. And it was

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:32

just, it was such a highlight that we filled this venue that

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:35

it was just was so beautiful. I think for Danna, we both quit

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:39

our jobs at one point a few years ago to go all in on

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:43

speaker sound that was a highlight our speakers

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:46

successes, we've had some mind blowing success stories. So

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:49

that's been a highlight. And I mean, we've had a couple low

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:52

moments. And I think the biggest low and it's everybody can

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:55

relate to this was that how COVID really affected things

Rina Rovinelli: 00:12:59

because we're in the industry that was fully in person, our

Rina Rovinelli: 00:13:03

events were live, our training programmes were live, we didn't

Rina Rovinelli: 00:13:06

do a single thing online. So immediately, we had to adapt.

Rina Rovinelli: 00:13:10

And you know, it's interesting, because when you have the energy

Rina Rovinelli: 00:13:13

of a crowd, and a speaker wants to be on stage in front of

Rina Rovinelli: 00:13:17

people, and to have to quickly pivot to sort of create online

Rina Rovinelli: 00:13:20

competitions or online training, it was a dark period. In the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:13:24

beginning, it was a little bit sad. But the beautiful part of

Rina Rovinelli: 00:13:28

it is over the year, we've been able to reach people across the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:13:32

states all over the world, actually people in Australia and

Rina Rovinelli: 00:13:35

our programmes in Europe and Africa, we would have never ever

Rina Rovinelli: 00:13:38

been able to have that reach without this. So, you know, in

Rina Rovinelli: 00:13:42

the darkness, there's light.

Howard Brown: 00:13:43

Yeah, and but you definitely had to pivot to an

Howard Brown: 00:13:46

online strategy, with everything closing down, right and not

Howard Brown: 00:13:50

being able to speak live. And so and you did that. And then also,

Howard Brown: 00:13:54

quite frankly, teaching online on Zoom is actually okay, that

Howard Brown: 00:13:58

works out that actually allows you to expand because you can be

Howard Brown: 00:14:01

from anywhere and sometimes some people are too in the morning

Howard Brown: 00:14:03

taking your class, but that's okay. It's no, it's important.

Howard Brown: 00:14:07

But you've kind of gotten through that. And now we're back

Howard Brown: 00:14:11

to speaking in person. And I got to drive up to Toronto for

Howard Brown: 00:14:15

momentum. And it's just such a, what a great feeling because

Howard Brown: 00:14:19

it's so warm and embracing and to be able to deliver the

Howard Brown: 00:14:23

message with the shiny lights and the camera going. And the

Howard Brown: 00:14:26

other thing that you said to me and this is really important,

Howard Brown: 00:14:30

you know, you have to actually be prepared and packaged up in

Howard Brown: 00:14:34

order to be hired. Okay, professional event planners,

Howard Brown: 00:14:38

okay, are not looking for you unless you're packaged up. And

Howard Brown: 00:14:42

what that meant to me was working really hard on what's

Howard Brown: 00:14:45

called the one speech speaker sheet that was in brand. And

Howard Brown: 00:14:48

then I needed a highlight reel, a sizzle reel, and I needed

Howard Brown: 00:14:52

stage time. I needed stage time they need to actually see who

Howard Brown: 00:14:55

they're hiring. And if they're if they want to spend money on

Howard Brown: 00:14:58

bringing you in to meet they're already Chances need. And so I

Howard Brown: 00:15:01

was grateful that I had won a pitch competition for you. And I

Howard Brown: 00:15:05

got to be paid to come up to Toronto. I've been on TV, I've

Howard Brown: 00:15:08

been on pharmaceutical website. And again, I'm building those

Howard Brown: 00:15:12

assets. And it's really incredible. And I've had your

Howard Brown: 00:15:17

support 150% along the way. And I can tell you that most people

Howard Brown: 00:15:20

from your community will say that as well. So what's the

Howard Brown: 00:15:24

secret sauce? How are you able to do this? Okay, because I'm

Howard Brown: 00:15:29

living the moment right now. I'm, you know, I'm still, you

Howard Brown: 00:15:31

know, nine months into your programme, but but I'm getting

Howard Brown: 00:15:34

there. And I'm going to climb in the mountain. And you're right

Howard Brown: 00:15:36

there with me along the way. But there must be a secret sauce.

Howard Brown: 00:15:39

Right?

Rina Rovinelli: 00:15:40

Well, so the interesting thing is just

Rina Rovinelli: 00:15:42

starting back with what you said about getting packaged up, which

Rina Rovinelli: 00:15:44

is so important is that, as the momento conference was the first

Rina Rovinelli: 00:15:49

time we actually paid speakers, because we've always had people

Rina Rovinelli: 00:15:52

compete on our stage. So I really got to look through the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:15:54

different lens of someone who books speakers. And as I would

Rina Rovinelli: 00:15:58

look through each person, I would quickly click to watch

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:00

their video, I want to see them on stage, I want to see if

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:03

they're powerful, I want to look at how professional their

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:05

marketing is. And if they have nothing, I know that they're not

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:08

up to par. And so there's just a couple little tweaks just show

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:11

an event planner, you're worth hiring you're you're worth

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:14

taking a risk on, but the choosing people and that's an

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:18

art as well as recognising their, their their special

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:22

sauce, right, their uniqueness. And I talk about this all the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:26

time. And you know, that's I speak about this in our

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:27

programme all the time is that all things considered, there are

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:31

many great speakers. There are many great keynotes, there's

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:34

lots of great marketing, like they're across the board. It's

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:37

very competitive. And what sets you apart is having that special

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:41

sauce, that uniqueness. You know, when you go to McDonald's,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:44

you don't order a hamburger, you order the Big Mac, right, like

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:46

you order the one with the special sauce, because it's the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:49

special one. And so when you see people who are starting to get

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:52

into speaking, it's something where they have to put that

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:54

effort into create something around themselves, whether it's

Rina Rovinelli: 00:16:58

aligning with the charity, or having something kind of

Rina Rovinelli: 00:17:01

gimmicky that people can think of when they think of them, and

Rina Rovinelli: 00:17:05

thinking of someone in our programme that wears red,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:17:08

sparkly boots from the Wizard of Oz. Yeah. And I think about Mike

Rina Rovinelli: 00:17:12

Sherman, he did this paddles that movement where people

Rina Rovinelli: 00:17:14

around the world would hold paddles above their head for him

Rina Rovinelli: 00:17:17

and supportive and it's just creating something special about

Rina Rovinelli: 00:17:20

you that you can just stand a little bit further ahead of

Rina Rovinelli: 00:17:24

other people.

Howard Brown: 00:17:25

You have to stand out. So why do I have this, you

Howard Brown: 00:17:29

know, bright yellow background? Because I want to stand out

Howard Brown: 00:17:32

Yeah, and people remember, they remember you, I think it takes

Howard Brown: 00:17:35

like seven times before they actually really remember you. So

Howard Brown: 00:17:39

you know, I am the Mr. shining brightly guy, and I stick to it.

Howard Brown: 00:17:42

And I stay in brand. And I want to tell you that I changed my

Howard Brown: 00:17:46

Facebook and my LinkedIn and is all kind of in brand now. And I

Howard Brown: 00:17:49

want to thank you for that. So who would be the ideal person to

Howard Brown: 00:17:54

consider, you know, coming up to Speaker slam and getting

Howard Brown: 00:17:58

involved and getting inside the programme.

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:01

So Dan, and I really structured our programme

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:04

where we see people who are emerging speakers who might want

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:07

to come in. And on the other end, we call them kind of

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:09

platinum speakers. They're paid professionals. And we have

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:12

services for both whether it's creating speaker reels or

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:15

creating intro programmes. But our target demographic, the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:19

ideal person that we love to work with, and who benefits from

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:22

us, is someone we call a momentum speaker. And they are

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:25

people that are already good speakers, they already have a

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:29

message, they already have a story. They want to get paid,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:32

maybe they're just starting to get paid, or they want to and

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:36

they're they're ready to go because our whole programme is

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:39

around building momentum. You know, getting the pieces getting

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:42

on stage, getting the brand new and getting the photos, getting

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:44

the action around them. And it's those people that are just

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:47

there, they're good, they're good, and they're ready to be

Rina Rovinelli: 00:18:49

great. Those are ideal are ideal people.

Howard Brown: 00:18:53

I want to tell you, it's a very special skill

Howard Brown: 00:18:55

that you're you're offering to people, because we as you know,

Howard Brown: 00:18:59

I do a tonne of work in the cancer world. And we want people

Howard Brown: 00:19:01

to learn to use their voice. Okay, one because I think it's

Howard Brown: 00:19:07

healing, too. It helps them build their confidence. And to

Howard Brown: 00:19:12

those stories need to be told and heard. And I tell my story

Howard Brown: 00:19:16

very proudly. Okay, and you came up with this, as you know, you

Howard Brown: 00:19:19

know, two time cancer survivor 30 years apart, right? I

Howard Brown: 00:19:23

unfortunately, that was a deck of cards I got dealt, but I can

Howard Brown: 00:19:27

deliver a very powerful keynote on how to get back up again,

Howard Brown: 00:19:30

because life throws you lots of curveballs. And we all have to

Howard Brown: 00:19:34

get back up again. And that's our job. And so really, really

Howard Brown: 00:19:38

important on that. So what's the future of speakers slam? What's

Howard Brown: 00:19:42

What's What do you think is coming up? I think you're

Howard Brown: 00:19:44

evolving, you're growing with

Rina Rovinelli: 00:19:46

solving. So our big thing right now that we're

Rina Rovinelli: 00:19:49

really excited about is like over the past year, I've had

Rina Rovinelli: 00:19:51

lots of people reach out to me for speakers, and we've gotten

Rina Rovinelli: 00:19:55

what I love is getting new speakers entry level speaking

Rina Rovinelli: 00:19:59

gigs to get them start Did you know because you can, you can

Rina Rovinelli: 00:20:01

speak for free for a while, and then you need that $500 That

Rina Rovinelli: 00:20:06

$1,000, that $2,000 gig to start going to really build a speaking

Rina Rovinelli: 00:20:10

business. So we want to create a little mini speaker Bureau,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:20:13

we're working on an experiential training programme, we want to

Rina Rovinelli: 00:20:16

bring it to corporate to get people not just listening to a

Rina Rovinelli: 00:20:19

keynote speaker, but doing activities engaging like dealing

Rina Rovinelli: 00:20:22

with like values and empathy and connection and storytelling

Rina Rovinelli: 00:20:25

within the workplace. And we want to have the people coming

Rina Rovinelli: 00:20:28

to our programme actually go out and facilitate this programme.

Rina Rovinelli: 00:20:31

And that, to me is going to be like the full circle, right?

Rina Rovinelli: 00:20:34

It's like, it's being able to take all the storytelling in the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:20:37

branding, and finally have our speaker getting paid and

Rina Rovinelli: 00:20:40

working, and bringing the same inspiration and storytelling

Rina Rovinelli: 00:20:44

into a corporate environment. So I'm really excited about that.

Howard Brown: 00:20:48

Rina, I just, I think you you've even we've

Howard Brown: 00:20:52

discussed this, the magic of storytelling, it changes lives,

Howard Brown: 00:20:57

it changes lives, the impact. I mean, I have to tell you that

Howard Brown: 00:21:00

when I've watched some of the competitions live and online, I

Howard Brown: 00:21:03

mean, I am sometimes brought to tears, sometimes I am just

Howard Brown: 00:21:06

jumping for joy, the I mean, it is emotional at times. So that's

Howard Brown: 00:21:12

that's what the community is all about. And it's really, really

Howard Brown: 00:21:16

is heart centred, and I want to just tell people out there that

Howard Brown: 00:21:20

get started. Now, there's no reason to wait because it's not

Howard Brown: 00:21:24

intimidating, you meet people where they're at. And that's

Howard Brown: 00:21:27

beautiful. Because some people it's just not, they want you to

Howard Brown: 00:21:30

actually just run on the speed train, you gotta go on your own

Howard Brown: 00:21:33

course in your own past. So some people are on this speed train

Howard Brown: 00:21:36

like me, but not everyone has to be. And again, it is great to

Howard Brown: 00:21:40

connect to people from all over the world. It's really cool that

Howard Brown: 00:21:44

you do that. It's an international business that what

Howard Brown: 00:21:46

you're doing and things like that, wow.

Rina Rovinelli: 00:21:49

However, what we love to do is merge. You know,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:21:53

the power of storytelling, when you get into corporate corporate

Rina Rovinelli: 00:21:55

has traditionally been a very kind of cold place where you're

Rina Rovinelli: 00:21:58

you're teaching, you know, you're giving these takeaways,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:22:01

you're educating an audience. And you don't want to be messy,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:22:04

you don't want to be super emotional, but being able to,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:22:07

you know, carefully bring in storytelling to connect with an

Rina Rovinelli: 00:22:10

audience. It just elevates presentation. So I love seeing

Rina Rovinelli: 00:22:14

speakers bring their humanity into corporate.

Howard Brown: 00:22:16

So I have to tell you, you're right. But what I

Howard Brown: 00:22:19

do, though, it's okay to actually show a little

Howard Brown: 00:22:22

vulnerability, because you're human, and that's relational.

Howard Brown: 00:22:25

And people do that. I speak corporate, I speak to

Howard Brown: 00:22:27

pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies,

Howard Brown: 00:22:29

therapeutics, companies, hospitals, med schools, their

Howard Brown: 00:22:32

corporate, but I actually tell it, and there's some emotion and

Howard Brown: 00:22:37

some, you know, part of me that I'm sharing that's, that's

Howard Brown: 00:22:40

vulnerable. It still can be corporate, because I actually my

Howard Brown: 00:22:43

second lane, which I don't do as much right now, because I'm more

Howard Brown: 00:22:46

in demand on lane one, but entrepreneurship, leadership

Howard Brown: 00:22:49

mentorship, interface, stuff, that all happens. And I have

Howard Brown: 00:22:54

that as my my other things, but you got to go where the shiny

Howard Brown: 00:22:57

latest is bringing you right now as well. So I love the fact that

Howard Brown: 00:23:01

the possibility of you actually being able to get people there

Howard Brown: 00:23:05

their first second or third paid gig, because you have to build

Howard Brown: 00:23:08

on that. Okay, usually don't go up to become a $25,000 speaker,

Howard Brown: 00:23:14

one day out of the program, you need to build to that. And and

Howard Brown: 00:23:17

that's okay. That's it's a process to that. And I'm working

Howard Brown: 00:23:20

towards that. And it's amazing that way. What didn't we cover?

Rina Rovinelli: 00:23:25

Oh, we covered a lot. You know, I do want to go

Rina Rovinelli: 00:23:29

back to our inspirational speaking competitions. Yeah.

Rina Rovinelli: 00:23:32

They're really the heart of what we do. And I know we have a

Rina Rovinelli: 00:23:34

couple left this season. And my business partner really handles

Rina Rovinelli: 00:23:37

that. I love that moment when someone competes on stage, and

Rina Rovinelli: 00:23:41

has this like, transformative moment. And Dan is all about

Rina Rovinelli: 00:23:45

building the brand, who's been getting our last month's winner

Rina Rovinelli: 00:23:48

on on all kinds of news, TVs, all kinds of pocket, just all

Rina Rovinelli: 00:23:51

kinds of press, just blowing up her library, which is amazing.

Rina Rovinelli: 00:23:54

And so we have two competitions coming up on the theme of

Rina Rovinelli: 00:23:57

belonging in July, and empowerment in September. And

Rina Rovinelli: 00:24:03

we've had people start coming in from the states we've had, we've

Rina Rovinelli: 00:24:06

had four or five come in each competition. So we're always

Rina Rovinelli: 00:24:09

looking for new people who are really wanting to get their

Rina Rovinelli: 00:24:11

start on our stage. And they can just go to Speaker slam.org and

Rina Rovinelli: 00:24:16

sign up to apply to compete and have a conversation with my

Rina Rovinelli: 00:24:19

partner.

Howard Brown: 00:24:20

Yeah, I know you had body beautiful and then you

Howard Brown: 00:24:23

actually make this very important. It's personal. And

Howard Brown: 00:24:27

it's just amazing. And then they are inspirational. I have to

Howard Brown: 00:24:31

tell you that people want inspiration. There's plenty of

Howard Brown: 00:24:34

negative stuff going on out there as well. So it's really

Howard Brown: 00:24:37

good. And then lat last thing that you you have an intensive

Howard Brown: 00:24:42

coming up as well, but I'm not sure this will air before then

Howard Brown: 00:24:45

but you'll have it again. But what is what's the purpose of

Howard Brown: 00:24:48

that intensive?

Rina Rovinelli: 00:24:49

Yes. So the intensive is really the roadmap

Rina Rovinelli: 00:24:52

to paid speaking you know, a lot of times people come into

Rina Rovinelli: 00:24:54

programmes in their three to six months. And we'd like to offer

Rina Rovinelli: 00:24:57

this intensive and we will be doing it going forward where is

Rina Rovinelli: 00:25:00

it's one day, it's the roadmap, it's everything you need is the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:25:03

checklist, you know, is the pathway and you know, the

Rina Rovinelli: 00:25:06

templates to create the one sheet, the the time to work on

Rina Rovinelli: 00:25:09

the position, the branding the keynote, so you can come away

Rina Rovinelli: 00:25:13

after one day, like, so many steps ahead of where you were on

Rina Rovinelli: 00:25:18

your journey.

Howard Brown: 00:25:19

No, I think that's important. I have to tell you,

Howard Brown: 00:25:21

you take this old PowerPoint dog and made him a Canva guy now. So

Howard Brown: 00:25:25

I'm learning a whole new skill. So all right, so this is this is

Howard Brown: 00:25:28

the time of the show, I'm putting on my sunglasses, you're

Howard Brown: 00:25:30

in the shining, brightly spotlight, tell people how they

Howard Brown: 00:25:33

can get in touch with you. Give me some final comments, and

Howard Brown: 00:25:36

we're gonna wrap.

Rina Rovinelli: 00:25:37

Okay, so the final common I would love to say

Rina Rovinelli: 00:25:39

is that the essence of everything we do is about

Rina Rovinelli: 00:25:42

momentum. I'm such a fan, I use the word all the time and

Rina Rovinelli: 00:25:45

momentum starts with just taking one step upon the next, you

Rina Rovinelli: 00:25:48

know, and all of a sudden, the energy is rolling around you and

Rina Rovinelli: 00:25:51

just opportunities are attracted. So if you are all

Rina Rovinelli: 00:25:54

interested in getting on stage, and getting paid to speak,

Rina Rovinelli: 00:25:58

building your brand, attracting clients by using your voice, we

Rina Rovinelli: 00:26:02

are here for you in many different capacities. And you

Rina Rovinelli: 00:26:05

can find just simply just speaker slam.org Everything you

Rina Rovinelli: 00:26:08

need is there. We have a Facebook group, maybe we'll link

Rina Rovinelli: 00:26:11

it below if you want to join the community. We have the best

Rina Rovinelli: 00:26:14

community in the world, which Howard is a part of. So thank

Rina Rovinelli: 00:26:17

you for having me.

Howard Brown: 00:26:18

Well, you are Shining Brightly Rina. And so

Howard Brown: 00:26:20

Speaker Slam. So what a great show. This is so helpful people

Howard Brown: 00:26:25

are this is amazing. You're you're changing what people's

Howard Brown: 00:26:28

lives and you've changed mine. So of course you can get a hold

Howard Brown: 00:26:31

of me for at shiningbrightly.com The book, my podcast and

Howard Brown: 00:26:36

speaking also my community service with colon cancer, and

Howard Brown: 00:26:41

please come visit me I'll be very interactive. And again,

Howard Brown: 00:26:46

shining brightly just a little bit each day for ourselves, for

Howard Brown: 00:26:49

others in our communities. It actually does make a huge

Howard Brown: 00:26:53

difference of positive change in this world.