Skip to main content

Two Benefits From Having A Signature Story

By Leadership

There are two reasons why signature stories are some of the most powerful tools you can have in business. The other day I was on a podcast, and the host and I were talking about storytelling. We first started talking about communication, and then the host asked me to tell a story that illustrated the power of storytelling. 

So, I shared a story about when I was eight years old and learned how to ride a bicycle for the first time and went down a Hill. I shared the intense drama of going down this hill, coming up to an intersection, and as I was telling the story, I could see the face of this podcast host begin to shift. We’re doing this on video, and I could see the smile start to come across his face. I could see his eyebrows start to go up. When I began to tell parts of the story where the drama was starting to build, and the tension was beginning to develop, and I saw all these changes taking place in him as I was telling this story. 

Now that’s one of the great things about storytelling. Storytelling allows you to relate to people; it will enable you to create emotional shifts in the energy and what is happening in the space of this particular moment. More so than just chucking information at them or giving them data or relaying facts. Storytelling helps to pull people into whatever you are sharing with them. So I wanted to share two reasons why storytelling, especially signature stories, is critical, especially for business. 

#1

A signature story reminds people of possibilities when you share a challenge or something that was broken or something you’ve overcome. When people hear this and know we’re going towards a win, they know we’re going towards a hero story. If they’re already emotionally invested in the story, they will begin to see the hope. They will start to see the possibility. They’ll start to see the inspiration because you, yourself, as a storyteller, are passionate about it, and it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve told it. It begins to show and point them towards possibility because of the way you’re sharing the story.

#2

Signature stories identify a core value for your audience. What are your core values? What are the things that you believe in? What is your personality like? What, what are the things that you’re willing to die for? As I’m telling this story about me riding my bicycle down this hill, heading towards this intersection, and looking around for a space to have a safe landing, the core value that I’m sharing with my audience at this point is one of adventure. I’m sharing a core value of being willing to take risks, not listening to some of the ideas others have that may be stuck in a specific place. I’m sharing a core value of being willing and able to adjust on the fly. And so the story allows audiences to see the characteristics and the value in me. As you think about how you can connect with people, how you can emotionally relate to your audience, consider finding and digging and discovering your own signature story. It’s going to make a real difference in your business and how your audiences and customers relate to you. 

You can also find this post on https://robertkennedy3.medium.com/two-benefits-from-having-a-signature-story-e7064f44955c.

For more tips on communication, leadership, and motivation, visit my YouTube channel on https://www.youtube.com/robertkennedy3.

The 6 Stories You Can Tell To Influence

By Blog, Communication, Leadership

Let’s talk, stories. Stories are critical and they make a big difference in any speech, in any conversation. But did you know the type of story you tell can make a huge difference in the outcome of your conversation or in the response of your audience? So what am I talking about? What are the types of stories that you can tell? 

I want to share with you six different types of stories you can tell that will make a difference for your audience. You don’t want to just tell any kind of story, because the story is an opportunity for you to build trust with your audience, for them to get to know you better. It’s also an opportunity for them to see themselves in anything you’re presenting. There’s a story that you tell in specific situations which can really make a difference.

#1 Introduction Story 

Who are you? What makes you special? What makes you credible? What are the different types of things you have experienced? Your audience wants to like you, they want to know you. They want to trust you. So tell them about the time you tripped, tell them about where you’re from, tell them about a funny story or tell them about an embarrassing thing that once happened to you. Although you have the mic and you’re the one in the front of the room, you still don’t want to appear removed from your audience. So tell them who you are, introduce yourself to them. 

#2 The sales story 

A sales is a story you can use when it’s time to sell or really influence the group.This type of story is called a why I came story. Why are you in the room? What did you bring? What is your reason for standing in front of them at that very moment? Is there something you have that can solve the very problem your audience is facing right at this specific time, make sure they know this as soon as possible, the longer it takes for you to tell them why you’re there, the more suspicious they’ll become. Especially if they’re in a situation where they’re expecting to be sold. 

#3 Value story 

This story you can use when you talk about characteristics you really find important, heart centered values you hold dear, this kind of story is especially important for leaders. When you really want to have your organization understand the values, the core values that are important to you and see if there’s alignment with values they hold importantly themselves.

#4 Lesson story 

A lesson story is where there’s a moral and you want to use this when you’re trying to change a specific behavior. If you’re trying to make a certain point, for example, if I’m dealing with my kids, I really want to share a lesson story when there’s something I want them to do differently. I’ll go back into my own history. I’ll share a story about when I did something wrong and then I’ll share the lesson for why I’m telling them that story type. 

#5 Vision story

This is where you have big ideas, big dreams, and you really want to point people in a specific direction. This is your GPS type of story. This type of story is used when I’m starting something new. When I need to inspire a team, when I need to mobilize people to move in a specific direction of vision. A vision story is really the type of story that helps the point, the needle point, the rudder point, to point people in the direction you want everybody to head at the same time. 

#6 Inspiration story

A story of inspiration, these are really stories about when a challenge has been conquered. When you want to show a new way to do something, you really want to begin to utilize inspiration stories. When you have something really big you want to accomplish, you want a group of people to accomplish, you want to motivate them towards this and you want to show them the difference. You want to show them the obstacles and the challenges that have been overcome. You want to inspire them to move forward with this story you’re telling them. 

For more tips on communication, leadership, and motivation, visit my YouTube channel on https://www.youtube.com/robertkennedy3.

You can also find this post on https://robertkennedy3.medium.com/the-6-stories-you-can-tell-to-influence-d5e178cada11

Present with confidence on your livestream

5 Tips To Present With Confidence on Your Livestreams

By Leadership

How come some people just appear really charismatic, likeable confident – just really good on video or live stream? Let me share my 5 Tips To Present With Confidence on Your Livestreams.

1: Be clear about the one takeaway for your audience

Before you get started with your video or livestream, you need to have an idea of where you want to take your audience. You need to give your audience one big takeaway that they would be able to remember from your livestream days or weeks after it has aired.

2: Have a framework to know where you will start and end

You need to have a framework that you can use to take you from the beginning through the middle until the end of your video. This prevents you from rambling and allows you to take your audience on a well-planned journey where your confidence will shine through.

If you want a simple framework that you can use, check out my E.A.S.E. framework and easily create a talk that connects in less than 5 minutes.

3: Warm up and ENERGY UP

Before doing a livestream or a presentation, do activities that help you warm up and drive your energy up for your audience.

In the same way that athletes warm up before starting the competition in order to get their muscles to loosen up before the big event, you also need to have your own warm up routine. You can do facial and lip exercises, power posing – anything to get ourselves in the place where we are able to deliver something of value and with energy to our audience.

Now, to energy up, I listen to music that really drives me and pumps me up. I choose the music that allows me to get my energy up so that I then transmit that energy to the audience.

4: Have a strong opening

You only have a few seconds to get your audience’s interest and hook them in your presentation. What is the thing that you’re going to do to get that interest and keep it quickly?

If you want to know how I do it, check out this video on how you can crush the openings of your speeches/presentations. It’s a simple technique that I use and if you try it out, I guarantee you that it’s going to have a different impact on your audience.

5: Know your call to action

What is the one thing that you want your audience to do at the end of your livestream video? Know your call to action. Never end one of your videos without having a next step or a call to action for your audience.

Follow these five tips and it’s going to up level that confidence that you have in delivering your content, video, or your live stream.

For more tips on communication, leadership, and motivation, visit my YouTube channel on https://www.youtube.com/robertkennedy3.

S2Ep99 - S2 Value Bombs Part 2

The RK3 Show: Season 2 Value Bombs Part 2

By Podcast

In Case You Missed It

On to Season 2 we go! In Episode 98 we started our journey through Part 1 of Season 2 Value Bombs that were shared by a few of my amazing guests in The RK3 Show. Listen to the episode and hear Merril Hoge, David Villa, Anton Gunn, and Alicia Dunams.

SWAG TIME! Send in your 20-second voice message or an email about The RK3 Show and you might win T-shirts, some merch, sweet prizes!

Send your 20-second voice message through https://robertkennedy3.com/voicemail. Leave me a message and I’ll air it on or before our final episode.

If you still want to send me a message but you’d prefer to do it via email instead, send me a note at podcast(at)robertkennedy3.com. I look forward to seeing you in my inbox!

What’s In Store For You

We are one episode away from the penultimate episode of this show – Episode 100! I remember recording these episodes. I remember the moments spent with these people and I remember just the energy in the joy that we had as we went through these episodes together.

In this episode, we have 4 more valuable tips from our Season 2 guests. Let’s listen to Part 2 of The RK3 Show Season 2 Value Bombs!

  • [03:23] S2 Ep68: Let’s get the 401 from 2019 Toastmasters World Champion Aaron Beverly on what distinguishes a storyteller from a speaker?
  • [05:16] S2 Ep67: Former WNBA player Lisa Willis shares how her accomplishments were treated based on her gender.
  • [08:28] S2 Ep83 : Kelly Swanson a comedic motivational speaker provides her insight on what is it like to be seen as somebody who is funny and are your required to be funny all the time?
  • [10:36] S2 Ep82 : Andy Henriquez, the founder of the Master Storyteller Academy gives us his thoughts on whether or not we can LEARN how to be a good storyteller.

SUBSCRIBE to The RK3 Show On:

RESOURCES

  1. podcast(at)robertkennedy3.com – send your questions and comments;
  2. What’s My Story podcast page – bookmark this page as it will go live in April 2021!
  3. Storyteller’s Growth Lab website;
  4. Robert’s YouTube Channel;
  5. Voice message – hear your voice on-air!
  6. Guide on how to leave a review for The RK3 Show;
  7. The RK3 Show Patreon page (Help us keep this show going and get perks. Be a patron of this show!)
S2Ep98 - S2 Value Bombs Part 1

The RK3 Show: Season 2 Value Bombs Part 1

By Podcast

In Case You Missed It

We completed our trip down memory lane for Season 1 in Episode 97 as we looked back on Part 2 of the Golden Nuggets that were shared in that season of The RK3 Show. Listen to clips from Aurora Gregory, Lois Creamer, Quinn Conyers, and Steve/Pasha Carter in the previous episode.

SWAG TIME! Send in your 20-second voice message or an email about The RK3 Show and you might win T-shirts, some merch, sweet prizes!

Send your 20-second voice message through https://robertkennedy3.com/voicemail. Leave me a message and I’ll air it on or before our final episode.

If you still want to send me a message but you’d prefer to do it via email instead, send me a note at podcast(at)robertkennedy3.com. I look forward to seeing you in my inbox!

What’s In Store For You

Let’s continue down the path of reminiscing about memorable episodes in The RK3 Show. In this episode, we start our journey through Season 2 clips. Let’s listen to Part 1 of The RK3 Show Season 2 Value Bombs!

  • [03:18] S2 Ep52: Merril Hoge tells us that football is the best sport but what, for him, is the best game?
  • [04:53] S2 Ep54: David Villa shares with us how he inspires his team on a daily basis.
  • [07:32] S2 Ep56 : Anton Gunn gives us his insight on how to keep people from simply star chasing and moving to a place of being of service to others?
  • [09:11] S2 Ep65 : We learn from Alicia Dunams how we can become even more effective in communication to inspire engagement with others.

SUBSCRIBE to The RK3 Show On:

RESOURCES

  1. podcast(at)robertkennedy3.com – send your questions and comments;
  2. What’s My Story podcast page – bookmark this page as it will go live in April 2021!
  3. Storyteller’s Growth Lab website;
  4. Robert’s YouTube Channel;
  5. Voice message – hear your voice on-air!
  6. Guide on how to leave a review for The RK3 Show;
  7. The RK3 Show Patreon page (Help us keep this show going and get perks. Be a patron of this show!)
YT Prep Events

5 Things I Do To Prepare For Speaking Gigs And Virtual Events

By Leadership

If you followed my channel for any length of time, then you know that I’m a trainer, speaker, author and storyteller. But how do I do those things when I have speaking events, when I have engagements, when I’ve got gigs, – how do I prep for them? What do I do?

Well in this video, I’m going to share with you FIVE things that I do to prep for any virtual gigs, any speaking engagements that I have. Want to hear about it? Here we go.

Listen, I love doing what I do and I’ve been doing it for a little while. I would say, I’ve been an official speaker for about four, five years or so, maybe a little bit longer than that. But as I learn a little bit more about the industry, I’ve got the set of steps that I go through and I’m learning how to systemize, tweak, and automate so that I’m even more prepped and on top of it for events.

As a matter of fact today, I did this session and the person that hired me was a little bit surprised about how many different things that I did and considered as I put the event together. So I can’t do all of that without a set of steps that I walk through. I can’t do all of that without preparing.

So I’m going to share with you a few things that I do to prepare for those events. But before I do that, I just kind of want to share with you some of the recent things that I’ve done just this week alone. I’ve emceed an event, I’ve done a bunch of trainings, just finished doing some webinars with a buddy, and it’s been really awesome to do that.

So how do I prepare? How do I make sure that I’m on track and that I’m giving the client exactly what they need? Well, let me share with you five things that I do.

#1: Prep Call

Number one is: I have a prep call with the client.

I’ve got a prep with the client and on that call we really discuss:

  • What are the takeaways that we want them to have?
  • Who’s going to be there?
  • Who are the people that are going to be in the audience so that I can speak to the different groups, the different audience members, the different roles that they have – all of the different things that they want.

And I’ve got to know that stuff in advance, so I do that. So that’s number one.

#2: Figure Out The ONE BIG THING/TAKEAWAY

Number two is I figure out the one big thing that I want my audience to know.

I figure out the one big thing that I want my audience to know. I figure that out based on what I get from the person that I spoke with. And that’s that’s the reason that I really have that call with them because I want to find out what success looks like for them.

When I speak, when I share with them my talk, my program, I want to make sure that at the end of this session that they got exactly what they wanted, what they asked for, and so that’s what I do. I figure out what’s the one big thing, what’s the one big takeaway that they have.

#3: Create Slides and Assets

Okay, so the third thing that I do after I figure out the one big thing is, I then create slides and and assets around it. I create slides and assets around that one big thing, that one main idea.

What are the visuals? What are the text? What is the information that I can put together easily and cleanly to most clearly get that point, drive that point home for the audience.

#4: Figure Out Engagement Strategies

And then after I do that, I figure out engagement strategies.

So when I talk about engagement strategies, what am I talking about exactly? I’m talking about what are the connecting points? What are the things that I do to connect with the audience because there’s nothing worse than a speaker or a trainer who just stands there and talks the entire time, right? You want someone that is going to do something that engages, that really is interactive, that allows the people to to be a part of that session.

So what are the times? What are the moments? What are the activities that I have that I can that make either in person or virtual? What are the activities that I have that I can use to really pull the audience into what I’m sharing?

And then, after I figure out those things, I try to –

#5: Figure Out The Tech

I try to figure out the tech. When I’m online, is it going to be zoom? Am I going to be using Prezi video? I’m going to be using PowerPoint? Am I going to be using Keynote? Am I going to be using Microsoft Teams? Am I going to be incorporating polls and different games? Am I going to gamify this? Am I going to use poll everywhere? Am I going to use Kahoot?

I’m listing all of these different things – and I probably need to do a video where we can deep dive into some of these different things – but what are the technologies? What are the platforms? What are the pieces of software that I need to use because, especially if I’m doing some of these events by myself, it takes a lot of coordination to make it happen.

What are the things that I need to do in order to really understand and do the dry runs and the practices to make sure that I don’t have fails during the event. What are my background systems if something goes down? How do I get back up quickly?

Those are five things that I do – and I do a lot more. I’ve got some checklists that i follow, but I think if you really understand the virtual world or you want to be a part of that virtual world, especially as a speaker as a trainer, then these five steps are some really key things that are going to help you move towards that.

That’s all I wanted to share with you on this episode today. Today is day three of the vlogmas – that that’s all I got so join me tomorrow.

Join me tomorrow day four just tune in and make sure that if you haven’t done so yet I’ve shared a couple of videos or little things here, smash that SUBSCRIBE button and hit the notification thingy and you’ll get notified every time.

I’ll see y’all next time, as we do this again.

S2E97 - Season 1 Golden Nuggets Part 2

The RK3 Show: Season 1 Golden Nuggets Part 2

By Podcast

In Case You Missed It

In Episode 96, we started to take a trip down memory lane as we listened to the opening theme of Season 1 as well as looked back on the Golden Nuggets that were shared in that season of The RK3 Show. Listen and reminisce with us as we take the road towards the sunset of The RK3 Show.

SWAG TIME! Send in your 20-second voice message or an email about The RK3 Show and you might win T-shirts, some merch, sweet prizes!

Send your 20-second voice message through https://robertkennedy3.com/voicemail. Leave me a message and I’ll air it on or before our final episode.

If you still want to send me a message but you’d prefer to do it via email instead, send me a note at podcast(at)robertkennedy3.com. I look forward to seeing you in my inbox!

What’s In Store For You

Let’s continue our journey through the golden moments of The RK3 Show Season 1. In this episode, allow me to share Part 2 of the golden nuggets that we were able to talk about in Season 1. Let’s listen to four additional fabulous clips from Season 1!

  • [02:19] S01 Ep49: Aurora Gregory shares what it takes to have your voice heard and chosen as a speaker.
  • [04:12] S01 Ep18: Lois Creamer gives her insight on how you can answer “What is it that you do?” and stand out?
  • [08:11] S01 Ep13: What do you do in order to navigate fear in order to make a difference in the lives of others? Quinn Conyers answers it for us.
  • [10:45] S01 Ep37: Married couple Pasha and Steve Carter share what it takes to be on the same page and communicate in a way that allows people in a relationship to be successful together.

SUBSCRIBE to The RK3 Show On:

RESOURCES

  1. podcast(at)robertkennedy3.com – send your questions and comments;
  2. What’s My Story podcast page – bookmark this page as it will go live in April 2021!
  3. Storyteller’s Growth Lab website;
  4. Robert’s YouTube Channel;
  5. Voice message – hear your voice on-air!
  6. Guide on how to leave a review for The RK3 Show;
  7. The RK3 Show Patreon page (Help us keep this show going and get perks. Be a patron of this show!)
Close Menu

Hire RK3

Kennetik Kommunications
14625 Baltimore Ave #357
Laurel, MD 20707

T: 1-410-575-3657
E: speaking(at)robertkenendy3.com