 that he's loud. I'm not used to talking on a microphone, so this is gonna be interesting. Okay, so I am Sharon, and I'm gonna be presenting this workshop today, and I'm just gonna go ahead and get started. So a great thing about the tech industry is that there is a ton of disruption and innovation. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of that happening on the communications end, and I am, press is guilty as the next m-m-m-m-marketer and communicator of falling into the pride and true the methods to hit my point across. As you can tell, I have a speech impediment. I stutter. And it has made a lot of choices for me in my own life. I chose to be a writer because I was a lot more comfortable with the written word, as opposed to obviously talking to people. I chose to be a freelancer because any time I would go to a job interview, I would become just engulfed with so much anxiety that I would go to a job interview. I wouldn't be able to hit a word out, even my name, as you guys could tell a couple of seconds ago. And I chose a lot of times to be s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s silent, even though I knew I could add value to the conversation. And value is a word that I'm going to be talking about a lot today, and I'm also going to be talking about m-m-m-m-m-m-marketing as well. These are key points, and they are going to make a lot more s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-sance as Time progresses. So, after ten years as a writer, with about eight of them in the s-m-m-m-m-m-m-marketing capacity, capacity, I have learned a couple of things about what companies think they need to do to get their eyes on their brand. They talk a lot about mobile strategy and SEO, hashtags and social impact and of course Facebook and Twitter and also branding. The problem with that word is that a lot of companies have trouble seeing themselves and exposing their flaws as I am doing right now. Think about it. When was the last time when you had an idea for a marketing plan and you scratched it off the list because it exposed a weakness. It probably happens a lot more often than you think especially when you are in an early stage company and you are working with limited means. You stick with what you know. Today I want to challenge you to abandon your strengths and explore the things that you consider to be a weakness. So often we consider weakness and out as the negatives. They walk hand in hand that those feelings aren't necessarily a bad thing. The Italian intellectual and I am probably going to butcher his name. You set that out is creative because it allows for alternative ways to see the world. What if you applied that to your company's brand or even your personal brand? I love to read and one of my favorite authors is Haruki Murakami. He actually uses a form of weakness in his writing. The Atlantic actually wrote about him and talked about how no other writer writes as many bad sentences as he does. If you have read any of his books you will understand that. His writing is compelling because of the storytelling. That is another concept that will be talking a lot more about. The plots take you from supernatural to reality almost in the same paragraph. It is bizarre. It is often written properly or long-winded. But it works. He is marketed himself by using poor sentences to his advantages. Now he is one of the great writers of our time. That is another tip. You can stand out by being unequivocally and imperfectly who you are. Always remember that sometimes your greatest vulnerability can be your most valued asset. Kevin Plank who is the founder of Under Armour, he understands this incredibly well. The first rule of his formula for innovation design is to do one thing really well. That is what he did. For the first five years of Under Armour they only had one product. It was their compression t-shirt. For me in my his-ness it was writing in all forms. I covered editorial and went over to his-ness and then I eventually landed in marketing. That builds credibility. Once you have that under your belt, you can begin to grow from there. For you it could be a voting time to a couple of platforms that you know will work and then disrupting and innovating from there. My personal disruption was doing this. It was speaking. I began speaking about a year ago as a way to break out of my shish-sh-sh-shell. I was terrified to talk to people one on one. I was even more terrified to do anything that compared to what I'm doing now. Once I put myself out there, my biggest fear, my strongest vulnerability and my greatest out, I realized that I was connecting with people in a real way. It's a lot easier to connect with your audience whether it be a larger group like this one or in a one-on-one conversation. If they know that you are a Peleod as well. So the question that I'm going to pose to you today is what's your disruption. What is the one thing that terrifies you, that worries you, that makes you vulnerable? What challenges you to the point of being afraid? That's where your sweet spot is. That is what is going to capture your target audience and then make you stand out. People are probably going to tell you that you need to be the strongest communicator to succeed. But sometimes the truth is that you have to be the most transparent one. All right, so now we're going to get into our first exercise. And I want you guys to pair up. I think there's probably enough people to do this in pairs. And I want you to talk about an area in your professional life that you consider a weakness. And to give you some examples of that, it could be like talking to a toss about something. It could be trying to connect with a co-worker or it could be trying to explain a technical concept to a non-technical person. And then after you've talked about that, also talk about a time when that weakness kind of overcame you and caught the test of you. So you're going to do this in pairs. Preferably with a person that you don't already know. So you may have to travel around the room a little bit in order to make this work. So I'll give you guys like 10 minutes. All right, so we're going to wrap this up. Just this exercise. Okay, so how did it go? Talking about a thing that you don't consider to be positive. How did it feel? Go ahead. You know, I found that conversation to be a lot less shallow than most of my conversations. Really? A little more deep because like you said, it kind of helps you open up a little bit. But I'm sure it helps you relate to someone else who is also weak in areas. And Matt here pointed out, you know, in the tech industry, we all tend to feel somewhat inadequate in some and not many areas. So I thought that was great. Who needs church? Anyone else? Yeah, we're kind of joking. It's like, oh, that's quite nice, right. It's like, you know, if I got something that's just terrible, right, you know, it's not like, oh, very wrong or whatever. But it definitely was like, oh, it's actually not real. Yeah, they're real. Like, have a real conversation with someone. Yeah, it's crazy. Well, that's awesome. I mean, that's a really good job. I mean, I don't know if I would be able to do this exercise after being in a workshop for 10 minutes, and I'm presenting the workshop. So lucky me. But yeah, that's, oh, go ahead. Yeah, well, that's actually a good segue into the next part. And hopefully you'll be able to talk to your team easier about anything after this. That's the goal, how to talk to humans. So, yeah. Before I go on, does anybody else have anything that they wanted to add? We're all friends here now. So good, good. Okay. So the first thing that you guys have to know about communicating with other people is that everybody is exactly like you, right? Like everybody wants to be liked. Even right now, I, like, I want you guys to think I am awesome, that I'm interesting, and that I'm funny, and that I'm the coolest person here. Like, yeah, like that's just who we are as people. Our brains are wired to connect. We, it's how we've gotten this far in, in evolution is the through group, egg, so if you go back to the exercise, as you were talking about the thing that made you vulnerable, you, even at that moment, probably attempted to present it in a way that still kind of puts you in a positive light. What you're forgetting in your own insecurity is that the other person has the exact same need as you. As you were opening yourself up to them, they too, needed you to like them as well. And I understand this very well because of stuttering. As I'm struggling to get words out, even right now, I tend to feel like I am in a position of weakness here. All of you guys actually hold all of the power, you know? Like, all of you guys could just decide, like, okay, I'm over this, and all of you guys are just going to walk out and leave, and I feel like, okay, well, I'm up here, and you guys can choose, like, by Sharon, and that would be kind of the end of that. And in situations like this one, where there is a communications power and talents, our insecurities about how we communicate with each other always kind of come to the surface. An example of this would be when you are talking to an angry investor. They have given you hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you're lucky, they've given you millions of dollars, and they have to have these answers immediately about how you are spending their money. So what types of physical reactions do we have anytime we feel like we are in a situation like that? I can give you an example. I was running late this morning, and I immediately started us, swearing, which I know is a very attractive thing to think about right now, but yeah, like, we get hot, and a lot of us tend to speed up our speech, or we have problems articulating ourselves. We have these reactions because we perceive the other person as holding all of the power. But again, you have to always come back to the fact that the other person, and it doesn't matter the role that they play, they still have that basic need for you to like them, because that's who we are at our roots. We are people who have to be accepted by everyone else. So when you do have moments like that, just remember that everyone in every social situation is a little bit vulnerable because our basic human instinct is always going to kick in. Okay, so now that we know that the other person is exactly like us, we need to know how to use this to our advantage. So there are two types of communicators. There are the intelligent and formers, and the social relators. Again, they both want the same thing, but how they go about it is completely different, and one of the ways is always going to trump the other way. All right, so I'm going to begin with the intelligent and former. This is a person who is going to try to show you how awesome they are trying to impress you. An example of this, and I don't want to offend anyone. I have done it before, and it's awesome, and it's great, are the people who do crossfit and who absolutely love it. They talk about it incessantly. I have abs. I can run a mile in two minutes. I can live blah, blah, blah, and it's like, that's really great that it's helping you. However, how is this going to help me? How is this going to add any value to my life? How is your love of this one thing going to help me? It's not, right? Right? And that's the problem with this approach. It's a very focused approach to it, and it can hack fire for obvious reasons, but mainly because you aren't valuing the person who is on the receiving end, and that brings us to the social relator, and their goal is to make the other person feel valued, right? They try to learn about other people. They try to support other people, and the bottom line is they listen. I actually read a really great quote about Richard Branson. It was by a person who has spent a lot of time around him, and he says that he always listens a lot more than he talks. When you think about a person who a lot of people consider to be charming and charismatic, I'm sure that the first thing that comes to everyone's mind is how they talk to people, but that's actually not how they're presenting themselves. They actually sell at valuing the listener. They look into your eyes when you speak. They respond to the silent cues that you give them, and they hear what you have to say, and they only interject when they know that they can add value, and we call this empathy. If you want to know the basis of how to talk to another person, empathy is it? I mean, all of you guys have a lot of empathy right now because you are here hearing everything that I have to say, even though I am at times having a really difficult time actually saying it. Now we're going to get into the next exercise. I want you to find another person in the room who you haven't talked to yet, and then I just want you to ask them a couple of questions. It can be about anything. If you want to make it like his-ness-like, then you could ask them about their job or their company. You could also ask them about their favorite part of their job. The goal here is truly to just talk to a new person and keep in mind how you are talking to them and listening to them. I'll give you another eight to 10 minutes, and then we'll come back and we'll talk about it. How did it go? Did you enjoy this? Was this weird? Did anybody have any comments about what they- go ahead. Yeah, well, it's a lot easier when you- we're always telling people about ourselves and we're always giving other people clues about us. If you just kind of take the information that he gives you, and then you can turn that into questions, there's always more things to ask. Yeah, but while I'm digesting the information, I'm not listening to his next thing, and then I'm like, oh, what? Oh, wow. It takes practice. Lots of practice, but I'm sure that you'll get it. That happens to me a lot too, but especially when someone's talking to you, the pressure's on. At least in my mind, it feels like the pressure's on. It's like, what am I going to say? And then you forget what the conversation is, and then the pressure is actually on you to me, and you lost your spot, and then your fear has come into actuality. It's just like, okay. I'm telling you, I'm trying to- for me, it's easy talking about technology or something, because I always have something to add to continue, but it's not though. It's very difficult for me to- Someone talks the worst. Serious. Yeah, well, a thing that I like to do is, I just like to keep asking people questions until I hit on a thing that they are in love with, and then it's a lot easier to have a conversation when the other person feels like 100% comfortable. Therefore, you feel the same way. It's another thing that you guys can spend the next, you know, hair to just practicing, you know. Active listening is harder than talking, but you can do it, I promise. Go ahead. I have a slightly dissenting opinion on this whole thing. Okay. I am not from here, so I'm not a native. I'm not a native English speaker. And when I came here to live with a student five or six years ago, I was much more shy of my native language than I could have. And actually, if I go back to France, I'm not nearly as outspoken in French as I am in English, because of small talk. These French people don't like small talk that much. It's like, I don't know what you're talking about. And to me, the small talk was in supermarkets, in Florida, where I was just like, I have conversations with random people with so many varied backgrounds, and then I'm practicing listening, because I didn't really care about what I was about to say, because I don't know, I had a agenda. So I said that I was waiting, and I said I was kind of freeing to just be like, and or to make them repeat something when I was in school. So I screwed up so much in small talk that I didn't have to put it off with people I actually cared about. You have single-handedly changed my opinion on small talk. But yeah, but that's awesome. And again, it takes a lot of practice to be able to do this on the go, but you guys are all very, very intelligent. So I know you can make this work. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, in the beginning, it is going to be uncomfortable because every conversation kind of has its own wavelength. And so in the beginning, it's going to be weird because you haven't figured out how the talents is going to be and how the flow of the conversation is. And so it is going to be awkward, but the goal is to have the other person feel valued and as long as that happens, then everything is okay. And we're going to talk a little bit more about getting your point across in a couple of minutes. If we have time, then we do. So yeah, go ahead. All right, it's just going to comment. It doesn't always have to be equal. Some people like to talk more and some people don't like to talk to myself. And so considering how much I'm talking up in this talk, you don't believe me, but in a conversation that's typically how it goes, and I like it when the other person carries more of a conversation. Yeah. So that can be okay. Yeah, again, you know, it's a really good point. Go ahead. And that happens. And in your personal life, okay, great. I never have to talk to this person again. Professionally, you have to make a way. So even if it's awkward and even if it's like, I really don't want to talk to this person, you have to even then even more value them because you need them in order to get things done. I was going to give you questions, but I'm like, no, it'll be way more fun for them to come up with their own because it'll be like a real life, you know, thing. So yeah, what kind of questions did you guys ask each other? If you don't mind saying that. What is your passion? Oh, wow. Just out the gate. What is your passion? Let's get real. Yeah, that's a great question. It is because it immediately like has the other person talking about a thing that they are just like, I can talk about this for hours and then they want to talk to you more and they think you're charming because you and that's exactly how you have to play it. You have to make it easy for the other person, especially in a professional way. Like you have to, you know, just make things easy. Anybody else want to share a question? Okay. Yeah, that's a good question. And that can turn into an open-ended one where you guys could talk about a lot of things as a result of that. So yeah, that's a good question too, especially at a place like this. Anyone else? Go ahead. Well, okay. Yeah, good. Another great question. I've actually never asked that question. I'm going to try that one next time. I'm at a networking event. Really? What did you do last night? Hey, there is nothing wrong with like eating Thai food and watching Netflix. That's what I did last night. Go ahead. That are not what? You sort of know who replies. Sorry, I'm so far away. You sort of know who replies? So I can't, I don't answer, ask a question that's just a, oh, yes. Yes, that's perfect. Yeah. Yeah, because those conversations can end really quickly. Are you having a good time? No. Okay. Bye. Like, that's it. I mean, I'll follow it up too. And I talked to my son a lot about what he does at school. So I said, hey, how was school today? Oh, school was good. What was good about it? You sound like my mom. No, but it works. But it works. That's another good one. Yeah. Always ask more questions. Anybody else? I asked what technique do you use to keep on, to keep learning, and to keep learning all different lengths and greatest things about rails and development? Good one. And I think she asked me, what do I like most about rails? Yeah, those sound like great questions. I don't know anything about development. So I'll take your word for it, but that leads to great places. All right. Well, again, like awesome questions. The whole goal, like overall goal is to just have it be a lot easier to build a a relationship very quickly. All right. And so if anybody else has anything to say, no one, cool. We're going to go into the last part, and this will be quick because we only have 20 minutes. So, yeah. Now I want to talk to you guys about just building a relationship and how to shape your own message. All right. So I know that I've talked about vulnerability and I've also talked a lot about marketing. And I know that you guys were probably thinking that this doesn't have anything to do with the workshop. And actually it does because marketing is talking to people. It's about connecting with your ideal audience and talking to them in a way that will compel them to take action. All right. So how do you compel a person to take action? Well, it's all about how you shape your message. All right. And a lot of the founders are pretty good at this on their own and they didn't even know it, right? Because if you talk to a person who has a startup and you ask them how it came to be, they always have a story to tell. It's not just, you know, I had an idea and so I decided to create Twitter. No. It's I was at my house and I had this problem and I was trying to find a solution and there wasn't a solution. And so I went and created it, right? And that way is compelling because it encourages whoever is listening to hang around and hear how the narrative ends, all right? And that's how I want you to view building a relationship. It isn't about trying to sell a person on yourself. But it's about presenting yourself in a compelling way so that people on the on the receiving end will hang around, right? It's about being harming. It's about asking questions. And then at the very end, it's about telling your compelling story. And it could be a lot like mine. That vulnerability has made me stand out for better or for worse. Or it could be that you have an idea that will change how other people do things, right? Just remember, it's all about how you present it to another person, all right? Okay, so we don't really have a whole lot of time left. So after this workshop, after this exercise, you guys can just head out. Or if you wanted to head out early, I understand because we only have about 10 minutes left. But the next thing that I want you to do, either today or tomorrow, is anytime you talk about your company or your hobby or your passion or anything else, I want you to consider how you are for framing it, right? So here's a hypothetical. You have a technical issue that you are trying to explain to a non-technical person. So a way that you could do that is to explain how that technical issue helped another person. And in turn, how helping them could help the person that you are talking to now. Does that make sense? I don't know if I explained that very well. Not really? Okay, so who can I use as an example? Who wants to come up here and explain to me what they do? Just a hobby. All right, come on. You've already been up here once. Lies. Okay, so we've already talked before and you're awesome. So thank you for coming up here. Okay, so what do you do for a living? Oh, and you get a microphone. I am a developer at onsite.com and we do online leasing for apartments. So apartment communities that want to screen their applicants and do background checks, you sign the leases, make everything electronic, get rid of all the paperwork. And I'm a developer there and help make things go. You help make things go. Okay, you have any hobbies that you like? Yes, I should have asked what hobbies do you like? Interesting, unique hobby. I guess nowadays, anyway, I play dance dance revolution a lot. How did you get started doing that? A long time ago, I had a friend who had it at his house and we played and we're terrible. And then one day I went to the arcade and saw how people really danced. And then I was able to copy that and get a little bit better. But then since then, I've been in competitions, one, some of them. But anyway, so I've got a dance arcade set up at my house now and that's my regular exercise. So that's fun. Okay, he's not a fair example for a lot of reasons. One, because he works for a company that is obviously very needed. But two, dance dance revolution, I'm never going to forget that. There's competitions, you guys. I did not know that. Not many anymore. Yeah, so if you were going to tell a person about dance dance revolution, how would you explain it to them? Well, okay. So yeah, maybe everyone doesn't know that game. It's a video game with music and arrows coming up the screen that you're supposed to dance to the beat to on a panel on the floor. Four buttons up, down, left, and right, except I play with all eight two players. So it's more like this. Is that good? That was cute. Yeah. Well, so okay. So how you talked about it, like it was obviously something that you are extremely interested in and extremely involved in. And now as a result, like I didn't know anything about dance dance revolution. I had heard of it, but I didn't really care about it. But now I'm like, okay, this is interesting. And me being the type of person I am, I'm going to go online and find out about these competitions and see the winners. Are you on the internet? Like does your picture and stuff? Not for dance dance. I'm going to YouTube you. I'm nil bus online and I'll be us, but I was just going to say if you want to try dance dance, you might want to try it with I don't wait, what am I saying? I don't know. It might be slightly embarrassing the first time you try it because it's not easy, but it just have fun and don't be shy. They have them at some arcades still. That is very cool. So you actually did tell us a story about you. If you realize it, we talked about how you found it. We talked about how you were bad at it. We talked about how you became good and that you do competitions and that you do eight. Let's say eight or four, four players, eight players. Two players, eight buttons on the floor. Two players, eight buttons on the floor. Yes. And now you've also invited us to play. So this is actually a really good example. So you actually told us everything about this one part of your life in a compelling way. Does that make sense? I just realized you're right. This is being recorded and I am on YouTube. Oh, no. That's all right. That's okay. I'm on YouTube too. It's for a good reason, for a good cause. All in good fun. Yes. So is this a thing that you guys think that is doable sometime? I mean, even right now, if you want to try to do it now for something that you are really interested in and passionate about or just kind of the end of the conference, I want you to be able to just have an entire conversation and then also at the very end to what he just did, which was very brave. And thank you for coming up here. All right. So you can either hang out now and do the workshop. We don't have too much time left or you guys can go. And I just want to say that this was awesome. This was the only time I've ever done a workshop like this. So this was a very nerve-wracking experience. And you guys were really patient and awesome and empathetic. And I hope that you all learned something and that you feel a lot more confident and empowered to go up to a new person and know that you can build a relationship with them pretty quickly. So thank you.