Episode 15 / Ashley Stahl
How To Think Like a TEDx Speaker: Ashley Stahl’s Strategies to Increase Your Impact
This episode is for you if you’ve ever wondered:
Are there strategies for defining and delivering excellent customer service?
How can I adapt and handle individual client needs effectively?
What is a self audit and can I use it to combat imposter syndrome and build confidence?
Is pursuing a TedX talk right for my goals?
What tips can I use when writing and booking a TedX Talk?
About Ashley Stahl
Ashley Stahl is the founder of Wise Whisper Ghostwriting house, where she has helped more than 40 changemakers write their TEDx talks-- and she has gotten 39 of those clients booked on the TEDx stage. As a counterterrorism professional under the Obama Administration turned entrepreneur and international bestselling author of the book called YOU TURN: Get Unstuck, Discover Your Direction, Design Your Dream Career, she's passionate about helping others share authentic wisdom and stories that deeply inspire their audiences. With nearly 9 million views, her TED talk is ranked amongst the top 100 on the Internet, and her show, The You Turn Podcast, is ranked amongst the top 100 mental health shows in the United States. Her most important message is this: don't do what you love, do what you ARE. Visit ashleystahl.com/tedx to learn more about how Ashley and her team can help you write and book your TEDx talk.
“Burnout is what happens when you have poor boundaries and you over give. And over giving happens in business when you, A, can't manage or calculate your time properly, or B, you're giving away your time for free.”
Ashley Stahl
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Lindsey Epperly [00:00:02]:
All right, Ashley, I am so excited to welcome you today to who made you the boss?
Ashley Stahl [00:00:07]:
Thank you for having me.
Lindsey Epperly [00:00:09]:
You know, you and I got to know each other recently, which was such a fun, kind of kismet conversation where I felt like we had so much in common and having now followed you and listened to a lot of the work that you've been doing and kind of seeing how you've really taken the reins of your life even recently. Right. Like, moving across country, starting this amazing new company, but knowing your story and the fact that you've done very similar big leaps of faith in the past. We talked about this show a lot. You know, the whole concept of who made you the boss. The joke is, you made you the boss. And I would love to hear a little bit more about what gave you permission to do so. Right.
Lindsey Epperly [00:00:46]:
Like, what. What inspired you and gave you the confidence to take the reins in each of those scenarios and really become the boss of your own life.
Ashley Stahl [00:00:53]:
Yeah. You know, I grew up with a dad who was an entrepreneur, and he. He was just as helpful as he was not so helpful. And I think that's how it is with parents. You know what I mean? Like, yep, he was helpful in the sense. I mean, he's such a fun creature of a man, but he was helpful in the sense that he was very experimental. So I grew up in a house where, like, you know, there's a lot of, like, Instagram thingies that say, just start. Like, I did not need that message.
Ashley Stahl [00:01:20]:
All I saw was a parent just starting, and he would communicate about starting very lightly, like, oh, just try it. Who cares? You can. If it doesn't work, you just try the next thing. And so I grew up in an environment where if you have an idea, just go see, if you lose a little money, it's. You're learning anyway. You're paying for education. And so he really got me light on my feet with ideas and with trial and error. Um, what I didn't see as much with him.
Ashley Stahl [00:01:49]:
He created a financial firm. When I was a kid, it was the biggest financial firm west of the Mississippi. And he dropped out of college and did this, and he ended up having incredible amounts of wealth and then losing everything, almost claiming bankruptcy when I was around seven. And much of my life was watching him reinvent himself. There was that experimental permission that I saw. And as a kid, you don't see the sad side of it, right? Like, you're not registering that he lost a business, that he. But I did eventually understand his sadness, his stress, what wasn't modeled for me, was sustainable, sustaining. And it's interesting because nobody really talks about that.
Ashley Stahl [00:02:27]:
Like, so many people need the message of just start, which I didn't need, but what the message I needed was don't start so hard that you can't sustain. Like, start softly because I'm a rocket when I want to do something. Yes.
Lindsey Epperly [00:02:46]:
Oh, my God. That resonates so much. My husband jokes that my motto should be, anything worth doing is worth overdoing because I'm the same way.
Ashley Stahl [00:02:55]:
Yeah, that's so funny. Yeah. It's like we could just go balls to the wall. And then it's like I wake up five months later and I feel like I got hit by a bus. It's like, what just happened?
Lindsey Epperly [00:03:05]:
Whoa.
Ashley Stahl [00:03:06]:
I just pulled a million dollar company out of my ass is what happened.
Lindsey Epperly [00:03:10]:
Well, what you're really describing then, is burnout, right?
Ashley Stahl [00:03:13]:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Lindsey Epperly [00:03:15]:
What did those moments look like for you? How did you get yourself out?
Ashley Stahl [00:03:18]:
I have been so boundaried about my time, and it has been my saving grace because, you know, and I think anyone who's listening, if you're a coach, you have a coaching practice. It's so easy to want to be accommodating, and we do. Right. And I've actually thought a lot about what does good customer service mean? I recently had a client who wanted, like, a check in call. He wanted like an hour checking call, but before he asked for it, he had shared that. He was so impressed with what we were doing for him, so he just wanted some handholding, for lack of a more diplomatic term, you know? And I really just didn't have the bandwidth for it. It wasn't in our paperwork. And this sent me into this customer service thing of what does it mean to be excellent? And I realized that in, like, the hospitality space, it might mean something that's industry specific.
Ashley Stahl [00:04:11]:
Right. So in the travel space, that probably means giving people free things that they didn't even know they would get, like the bottle of wine in the hotel room, the free meal, the free dessert, whatever. But in the services space and where I am with what I'm doing, I've really reflected and I've decided it's not about giving my customers things that I didn't agree to give them, like an hour checking call to coach them. It's about giving them what I said I would give them in spades, like excellence. I think we live in a world right now where people are kind of desensitized, where entrepreneurs are worth, are not worth used to spending money on things that are not worth their money, spending money on services and being a little disappointed when they get them. I have really gotten clear for myself it's not about burning myself out by offering things that I didn't agree to offer, because I think that's where burnout is. You can structure your life if you're clear on what you're offering, right? Like, I know in my business, this is our offer, and I can structure my calendar around that. But the things that get me in the cracks of my calendar are the things that are not on tap, right.
Ashley Stahl [00:05:21]:
That I suddenly start doing. So I have become so committed to being the best. So we write and we book TEDx talks right now, we place people for TEDx. And I have committed to delivering the best speech somebody has ever possibly imagined themselves being able to give. And lately, we closed out six TEDx talks last week. The tears in the client's eyes, the delight that they had. And we write their speech over two months. In four Zoom calls, we pull everything out of them.
Ashley Stahl [00:05:57]:
And to feel like in four calls, I was able to help my team pull magic out of them. And they always say, I want it to sound like me. And I always say, well, we want it to sound way better than you. We love you, but we want it better than you. And so for us to be able to write talks that they can walk away thinking, oh, wow, you get what you pay for. We paid for excellence, and we got excellence. To me, that is customer service. So I think every business needs to make that decision.
Ashley Stahl [00:06:26]:
But I think that's really tied into burnout, because burnout is what happens when you have poor boundaries and you over give. And over giving happens in business when you, a, can't manage or calculate your time properly, or b, you're giving away your time for free. And so I've gotten really clear about that.
Lindsey Epperly [00:06:43]:
That is so helpful. And I really want to dive into the conversation around TEDx because you have so much cool experience with it, and I have so many questions just, you know, asking for a friend myself. And before we do that, though, everything you just said, I'm going like, praise hands over here. Because really and truly, the travel agent industry is a service based industry. And as is coaching, as is many of the listeners that we have out there who I think heard that, what you just said, it resonated with this idea of, yeah, actually, I do get to define what customer service is.
Ashley Stahl [00:07:15]:
That's the.
Lindsey Epperly [00:07:15]:
That's the catch of it. All right. The funny part is that we get to make the definition of what customer service is for each of our businesses. But what I'm really curious about is, how do you craft that? No. When you go back to the client, right, when they ask for that, and it's something outside of that scope, you're like, I do this brilliantly, but the answer is no, I'm not going to spend an additional hour because that's not right. Like, what? How did you do that? How'd you navigate that?
Ashley Stahl [00:07:40]:
Well, first of all, I think learning your contract and learning your process as a business is huge. So at the beginning of writing and booking TEDx talks, our contract was vague because we didn't know what, we didn't know about what we would need to get this done. As I learned, I learned, okay, we don't need six Zoom calls. We need four. We. We need to bill an hourly rate if they need any edits beyond a certain point, which, by the way, not one client has needed that hourly rate. So we shortened the time, we got more focused, and nobody's needed the extra time. But having something like that.
Ashley Stahl [00:08:18]:
So I've been able to say, ah, I feel really sticky because I really want to help you, but my bandwidth doesn't permit. We have an hourly rate that our team can execute on for you if you want this done. Um, some clients, I think, you know, we're. We're up against people's mental health. We're up against people's personal development all the time. I learned that a lot when it comes to hiring, hiring talent like we are, as entrepreneurs, constantly facing where people are at in their mental well being and what their bandwidth is and their capacity is to regulate themselves and handle day to day work. I had a trial with a chief of staff, and she was a great woman, but also a very emotional personality type. And I just thought, okay, an emotional personality type is not going to do well managing a large team because there's a lot of emotions going on there.
Ashley Stahl [00:09:13]:
Um, and so to me, that was an issue of either a, her being clear on what her career path really should be like. Are you really a chief of staff if you become a very emotional person, and the role of a chief of staff is to manage a lot of people's emotions, or is that personal development? That's for her to find out, I think. I'm always doing this work on myself. Um, but I'm constantly having to navigate other people's personal development, or lack thereof, in the business world. So, you know, having really tight contracts, really clear on what you're agreeing to do really clear on what you're offering. If you're moving too fast and you're not slowing down on your contracts, you're doing yourself a disservice because you might be moving fast on the front end. But let me tell you, nothing starts to slow down quite like an unhappy client. Where now you need to look at the contract and figure out the exit clause and figure out, you know, and then they're threatening you and is there defamation? You know, people talk about your comfort zone and entrepreneurship and how, and I think that as a society, we think a lot about how comfort zone means the things we're going to go do, right? Like, I'm going to go pitch myself for that opportunity, or, you know, the guy that's newly dating is going to go ask the girl out at the grocery store.
Ashley Stahl [00:10:28]:
Like, that's getting out of the comfort zone. But what people don't talk about with entrepreneurship is comfort. Getting out of your comfort zone isn't necessarily doing things. It's about facing things, receiving things. Right. So I think as entrepreneurs, nobody really says, oh, like people say, you're gonna get out of your comfort zone. This is gonna be really hard. But they don't explain why.
Ashley Stahl [00:10:48]:
And I think that what I've nailed down is why is that you're constantly facing things that are incredibly uncomfortable. And a lot of it has to do with your own self development, but a lot of it has to do with other people and what chapter they're in of their own growth. And so you're going to have people who are litigious and they have no grounds to be that way. Right. Like a bajillion years ago into my corporate, my entrepreneurial career, I paid $50,000 for like, a YouTube soundbite that I really liked, that I put in my course portal, and the musical artist attorney found it and said, you can't be using our music on your portal. So it's like, that cost me $50 to $100,000. So the things we face, the personalities, the emails, the. The problems, the requests, more than ever, we need to put practices in place in our day to day life to keep ourselves well.
Ashley Stahl [00:11:42]:
And it's even more true for somebody who's in charge of hundreds of TEDx talks. Like our team has written hundreds of TEDx talks. Our Booker has booked over 1200 TEDx talks, placed more than 1200 people at a TEDx event. So, you know, we're good at what we do, but in order for me to stay good, I need to stay regulated, because nothing kills your piece quite like being distracted by someone else's agenda.
Lindsey Epperly [00:12:10]:
Yeah, well, and everything you just said, too, the topic that we talk so much on, who made you the boss is imposter syndrome. And that just kind of kept coming up in the back of my head of like, that sounds a lot like imposter syndrome. That sounds like. And especially when it comes to the point you just made about as entrepreneurs, you know what? We have this extra burden of responsibility and because we are always trying new things. And to your point, the new thing is often solving the new problem. But what do you do in those moments? Or do you have these moments, right, where you've got this new problem? You're like, I feel so out of my depth on this one.
Ashley Stahl [00:12:44]:
Right?
Lindsey Epperly [00:12:44]:
Like, no one's ever taught me how to fix this particular lawsuit threat or this particular personnel issue or whatever it is. As an entrepreneur, how do you step into essentially your power in the face of that type of imposter syndrome?
Ashley Stahl [00:12:59]:
There's this thing that I developed for job seekers. So I got my start in my career, national security. There were like no women there. So, I mean, there were a few, but that made me start a career coaching business and leave Obama administration. And during that, I created online courses for job seekers and became an expert in webinar writing and all this stuff. And I did this thing in one of my job hunt courses called the truth test. And job seekers feel imposter syndrome, too. So when it comes to writing their resume, I would always tell them, like, your resume is not a place for you to regurgitate everything you've ever done.
Ashley Stahl [00:13:35]:
It's a marketing document. You are marketing yourself. Put what's relevant. And so I was telling people would put what's relevant and they would feel like an imposter. And so I'd say, well, you need to do a truth test. Were you at x company from this month to this month? Yes. Was your job title this? Well, no, but what I was really doing was that, okay, well, then you can reframe your job title, right? Like, if you were a marketing coordinator, but you were running events, you could put marketing coordinator, comma, events. Were you marketing coordinator, comma, doing events? Yes.
Ashley Stahl [00:14:08]:
So it was like doing a truth test with everything. If they didn't fully manage something, but they co manage something that passed the truth test. So I was constantly helping people, um, be honest about their words and not be, you know, manipulative with their words or dishonest. Um, you know, for me, I felt a lot of imposter syndrome when I started my business with TEDx around booking TEDx talks because we're a higher end service. I take a lot of pride in what we're doing. I'm sure there's people out there that write, and they whip this kind of business up. We take it really, really seriously. We all identify as artists.
Ashley Stahl [00:14:47]:
A lot of our writers have sold movies and sold screenplays and written New York Times bestselling books. So we are at a standard for ourselves that is very high. And with that, it's easy to get imposter syndrome on my end, because we're charging high end rates. We want to, because we do high end things. And our writers are one piece of the puzzle. The other piece of it is the bookers. Right? Having people book, when I just started, I could not believe, because there's so many people coming in saying, wow, you guys book the TEDx talk. That's such a project for us to get that done.
Ashley Stahl [00:15:21]:
Like, that's so wonderful. You do that. You write it and you book it. But the reality is we are, there are many of us in businesses where we have to rely on other people to get things done in order to be an integrity with what we are offering and charging for. And that's a really hard feeling. I think it's especially hard in industries like PR, because there's no slam dunk guarantee, right? Like, publicists will just pitch and pitch and pitch their clients for tv coverage without knowing if the client is actually going to get coverage. So I think in my case with TEDx, it's like the bookers is very that, right. Like, we are doing a numbers game.
Ashley Stahl [00:15:58]:
We have some methods. Our bookers have been around the block for a decade, so they, you know, have Rolodex of people we have relationships with, and we have 100% success so far, minus one person out of 40 who we couldn't get booked. So we have such a good booking rate, but obviously, being at the mercy of a process to get the result has brought up imposter syndrome for me. And to be honest, sometimes the answer is self development, sometimes the answer is slowing down and letting yourself have a proof of concept. Um, and so for me, it was about slowing down my business, not signing clients as fast, until I saw that we were able to book 40 TEDx talks in a row, minus one who had a thick italian accent, loved her, but the curator said they couldn't understand her English, so we ended up having her go do a speech in Italian at home. But point being, that's pretty much 100% that gave me. The removal of the imposter syndrome was like, we've done this too many times. Sometimes you need to charge less, show yourself what you can do, and not be so hungry and so speedy that you are out of integrity.
Ashley Stahl [00:17:14]:
The other times, it's not about the outside. It's about the inside and whether it means doing a little truth test with yourself, et cetera, et cetera.
Lindsey Epperly [00:17:23]:
Yeah, that's all really, really helpful, especially just getting those reps in. That does help you eventually overcome that feeling of imposter syndrome. And I'm curious, when you're talking about the truth test, because let's rewind even further back. The reason you even got into this new business with TEDx is because you had an incredible, incredible. You've done two TEDx talks, right? But your second one went viral. I mean, you're in the top 80. It's gotten 9 million views at this point. I mean, it's amazing, and it's a beautiful talk.
Lindsey Epperly [00:17:54]:
I'm going to link to it in the show notes, too. You did such a wonderful job with it because you tell the story. It's so gripping at the very beginning, and you're just brought completely into what your family experienced.
Ashley Stahl [00:18:04]:
There was a kidnapping scam.
Lindsey Epperly [00:18:06]:
And because, to your point, you previously worked in national security, you had this. There was a lot of validity to this scam. And listeners, you just got to go click on the show notes and check out the actual YouTube video. But I want to talk about the whole concept behind that was that you created a u turn. Y o U. And then that became your book, and that became your podcast. But in it, you even talk about the whole idea of a self audit, which sounds a lot like this truth telling.
Ashley Stahl [00:18:34]:
Yeah, that's interesting. I never thought about a self audit in that way, but it is somewhat of a self audit in a different way. I originally thought self audit was, like, one of the most important questions I ask in that TEDx talk is, what do you know that you wish you didn't know? I get that from women who run with wolves. There's some version of that question that Estes asks. And so I think the self audit is being deeply honest with yourself about what is not working, because it's so painful sometimes when something's not working that we delay the explosion of what it's gonna look like by avoiding it versus saying, I need to handle this now. And so the what do you know that you wish you didn't know? It could be about your personal life, your relationship. Could be about your business. It could be about somebody you hired.
Ashley Stahl [00:19:22]:
Whatever it is, just be honest. I think that's the self audit. But I love what you're saying about for imposter syndrome, doing a self audit. Like, what? And, you know, even with my TEDx stuff, right? It's like, who am I to be doing this? You know, I'm an author. I have two viral TeDx talks. But I was always that girl before I did that stuff. Do you know what I mean? And the girl that I was before I wrote the book, I was always a good writer. I always knew that, you know, I've always been more of like a shell, you know, Silverstein than a Sheryl Sandberg.
Ashley Stahl [00:19:53]:
Like, I think I mentioned that to you at one point. It's like, I. I used to read Shel Silverstein under a tree when I was seven. I'd burn through his poetry books. I always wanted to be a poet. And my book u turn, it actually, it's called y o u turn. It actually opens up with me at my preschool graduation. They told the kids, like, say who you wanted to be when you grow up.
Ashley Stahl [00:20:13]:
And I said, I want to be a poet and I want to be a mom. And it's interesting having a writing business the way that I do now, but I already knew that. And sometimes what your career really is is showing the world that you can do what you say you're going to do and being able to escalate in what you're offering because you have the credibility in the outside world to do so. But we have to never forget that who we are at our core was already the person that could do all these things. And we didn't need the illusion and the image to prove it for ourselves. Like, sometimes I think to myself, it took all 37 years of my life to have this business where we're writing and booking TEDx talks. And we have this agency. And all these clients that are, a third of them are doctors, psychiatrists, stem cell researchers.
Ashley Stahl [00:21:04]:
Some of them have written New York Times bestselling books. A third of our clients are executives in corporate. A third are miscellaneous. It's like there's so many different people coming in. And I imagine the girl at 25 that knew she was a good writer wouldn't have felt like she deserved these very high net worth, high impact people to be writing for them, especially once we've written New York Times bestselling books. It's like, who am I to be their writer for this TEDx? They only show up to four meetings. I write the whole thing with my team. But I think that goes back to what I was saying, where imposter syndrome is a blend of the inner and the outer game, right? Like, the outer game is the credibility and the output and proof of concept.
Ashley Stahl [00:21:45]:
The inner game is like, really seeing what you can do, really questioning your beliefs, remembering who you've always been, what your core skill set is. My book, u turn is the message is, don't do what you love, do what you are. And the whole book is about not following your passion, but figuring out your zone of genius. And I think when you're really in your zone of genius, it makes imposter syndrome a little bit quieter. But obviously, every time you climb upwards, it's new level, new devil. It's like, okay, I'm comfortable with my price point being here, but now due to overhead, it needs to be there. Oh, I feel so sticky about that. Right? So it's like, we always have these new levels, and my wish for anyone is to know who they are beyond the business services and offerings that they have and what that zone of genius is that they have to offer.
Lindsey Epperly [00:22:36]:
That's so powerful. I share, and actually a recent solo cast, and I'll link to this, the story of when I first got into the luxury travel industry. It reminded me so much of what you were just talking about. When it comes to now, you're working with ultra high net worth individuals who have phds to their name and probably very intimidating conversations. I remember being a 19 year old and going to the St. Regis Bora Bora for a site inspection and staying at this hotel that had just hosted Nicole Kidman. And here I am in the four course dinner that night, not even knowing what fork to use and going, oh, my God, I wish I didn't know that. I don't know what fork to use.
Lindsey Epperly [00:23:18]:
It's an interesting question, and I hope.
Ashley Stahl [00:23:20]:
The listeners take that away.
Lindsey Epperly [00:23:21]:
That question of what? What do you wish you didn't know? That's how you put it, right?
Ashley Stahl [00:23:26]:
What do you know that you wish you didn't know?
Lindsey Epperly [00:23:29]:
You know that you wish you didn't know?
Ashley Stahl [00:23:30]:
Some people know that. Like, I think a lot of people don't go to the doctor when they know something's wrong.
Lindsey Epperly [00:23:36]:
Yeah.
Ashley Stahl [00:23:37]:
Um, I think it's interesting. This is so weird. But, like, my dog, you know, you saw my big german shepherd. He started to have bad breath, like, six weeks ago, and it was just a thought. I'm like, God, he has such bad breath. So gross. Like, what's going on with him? And then my boyfriend just saw a little growth next to his tooth.
Lindsey Epperly [00:23:58]:
Yeah.
Ashley Stahl [00:23:59]:
And so I'm taking him to get it removed this weekend to get it checked out. But that's such a little example of, like, a little whisper company is called Wise Whisper because we believe in intuition and the power of that. So there's a little wise whisper to me, right. Like, this breast smells different. I've been with this dog for four years. Like, what changed? And I didn't grab onto the whisper because it wasn't high stakes enough in my head. Right. But some people know things about, you know, they have a business partner they need to part ways with.
Ashley Stahl [00:24:29]:
They have an employee that they really need to let go of, and it's not working out and it's not serving them. And so I think knowing what you know is very inconvenient and taking leadership around the things that are actually going to change. But I think courage is where, like, innovation happens, you know, and unless you have the courage to know what you know, you're never going to innovate and create to the extent that you truly can.
Lindsey Epperly [00:25:00]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I love that wise whisper. I mean, that's your intuition.
Ashley Stahl [00:25:04]:
Right.
Lindsey Epperly [00:25:04]:
It's all about tapping in to what you really know.
Ashley Stahl [00:25:09]:
Yeah.
Lindsey Epperly [00:25:11]:
I want to talk for just a couple of minutes about what you tangibly do to help people with TEDx, because I think our listeners, I'm sure there's someone out there that's listening. I know myself. I feel this. This is why we were first connected, wants to do a TEDx talk at some time in their life, you know, and to be able to work with someone like yourself who has been there, done it, and now is doing it professionally for others. What does that process look like? Tell us a little bit more about that.
Ashley Stahl [00:25:35]:
Yeah, we takes so much pride in being a shortcut for the long cut people. There's so many people who work so hard in their career, and if we're honest, you know, the TEDx process is quite lofty, like writing the talk feels overwhelming for people. Getting it booked feels opaque and confusing for people. Um, so in four Zoom calls, we get your talk written for you, and we also get it booked for you. And we make your PowerPoint deck, we make your bio, and we give you title suggestions that are SEO and research backed and optimize for virality. So over four Zoom calls, we brainstorm your idea. It's really interesting when people think about TEDx, and one thing I'll offer to everybody is this is, I think there's a lot of TEDx coaches that think about TEDx, like what is your one big idea? And I actually think that really stunts entrepreneurs from brainstorming to the extent that they can. Because if you're thinking too much about what is your one thing you're not thinking about, where are you original? Original as a thinker, like what is the most original advice you have? What is the most original take you have on something? I think that's the better question than what is your one message worth spreading? I'm sure you could take your big take on something and turn it into a message worth spreading.
Ashley Stahl [00:26:50]:
But the way I see TEDx is like, YouTube is owning the house, right? It's a house party. YouTube owns the house and TEDx is the bouncer at the door. And like, we need to think about what TEDx wants to get a talk written and booked. But we think more about what YouTube is going to like to go viral. And so when we work with somebody on these four Zoom calls, it's really about who are you? What do you want this talk to do for you? And not, I really don't ask what is the one message you want to spread? I don't even think about that. I'm more thinking about where are you original? And I went to graduate school for psychology and I do a body scan when people are talking to me of what are they saying to me that feels like I've never heard it that way before because those are the things that really move people and get their attention. And then from there, in the remaining three meetings, we keep presenting little pieces of drafts that we're writing. The second meeting we have a third of the draft and we show them the ideas we have.
Ashley Stahl [00:27:51]:
And usually that goes really well because we've agreed on a direction. The third meeting we have pretty much a full rough draft. And clients don't realize, like, you know, they see my speech writing team, they see me on the meetings, but what they're not seeing is we're getting together as a huge speech writing squad outside of our client meetings and bouncing ideas off each other. I'm overseeing things so that clients are delighted by the time they show up to Zoom. And they have minimal feedback usually. And then once it's written, we spend up to twelve months getting you booked. So we always tell people, don't do, don't do like a trendy, you know, short term topic, do something. Evergreen.
Ashley Stahl [00:28:33]:
A lot of people come in with books that are, you know, they want a book deal or they already have a book deal or they already have a book out we tell them, like, if it comes out before your book is done, then you're going to get pre orders. If it comes out even before that, you can put in your bio something that indicates you're a forthcoming author to let people know they can look. Because that bio on YouTube, beneath the TEDx talk, is something we write with a lot of intention because it's where people are really optimizing their lead gen. Those 1st 80 words are what viewers are seeing. And then it says read more, which nobody really clicks. So we're very intentional about making sure we don't overstep TEDx's promotional guidelines and also getting people booked. So the booking process is a whole thing, a whole to do. But once the client shows up for four meetings with us and we write their TEDx talk, they are handed off to booking and they don't hear from us until they get booked on stage.
Ashley Stahl [00:29:32]:
And, and then once they get a yes for booking, talks run three to six months out so they have plenty of time to prepare. And, um, and we have speaking coaches for that.
Lindsey Epperly [00:29:42]:
That's amazing. So you've been so generous too, to offer our listeners. Uh, is it a discount code that you're doing?
Ashley Stahl [00:29:50]:
Yeah, yeah. We have our application, um, on ashleystahl.com tedx. Or you can just read a little overview ashleystahl.com Tedx offer. If you email us or apply and let us know that you found us through Lindsay and through this podcast within two months of the air date, we are happy to give you $1,000 off. You just have to let us know you come from Lindsey. So, yeah, that's just my gift to anyone who's thinking about Tedx. Thank you.
Lindsey Epperly [00:30:21]:
Thank you for offering that. I think that there will definitely be people listening that will want to take advantage of that, myself included. So we are thrilled to hear all about what you've accomplished and the gifts that you give to entrepreneurs and how you're able to shortcut for the long cut people, which I can very much appreciate and relate to. Anything else our listeners need to know in terms of connecting with you, following along with the journey, find you on Instagram, all the good stuff.
Ashley Stahl [00:30:47]:
No, I mean, honestly, my book is everywhere books are sold. If people are reflecting on themselves and who they are, that's the book is really about for your career path. But I would say really, I'm just text girl these days, writing and booking these talks for people. So thank you so much for having me.
Lindsey Epperly [00:31:03]:
Thanks for being on, Ashley. Oh, one last question before you go. One that we ask everyone. Yeah. What made you smile today?
Ashley Stahl [00:31:12]:
My dog.
Lindsey Epperly [00:31:13]:
He's so super.
Ashley Stahl [00:31:15]:
He's such a silly boy. Honestly, I feel like animals are just it. Like if you have, if you're thinking about getting one. And we're actually writing a TEDx right now for someone who their message is not about adopting a dog, but fostering a dog because a lot of rescues can take dogs off the euthanasia list if you just. If they just have more fosters, people that are going to take them. And it's such a great way to decide if you want a dog. It's a helpful way to decide if you want a dog. So we're writing a TEDx.
Ashley Stahl [00:31:43]:
Talk about that right now. Um, animals are just it to me.
Lindsey Epperly [00:31:47]:
I love that. Thank you. That made me smile today, too. Meeting Jupiter made me smile today. All right, thanks, Ashley.
Ashley Stahl [00:31:54]:
That's so fun.