How often have you found yourself struggling with the odd time management issue or two when asked to craft a talk?

With the best will in the world, it can be tough to find the substantial amount of time and effort it takes to write, hone, and polish a great talk. After all, most everyone is pressed for time these days.

Plus, when you do finally ‘get to it’, isn’t it interesting how challenging it can be to focus on the jobs at hand without suffering time leaks? And isn’t that frustrating?

If this is ringing any bells for you, you’ll likely enjoy today’s expert interview with business coach, speaker, and founder of Tiny Time Big Results, Yasmin Vorajee when we delve into: how you can achieve more with whatever time is available to you.

How Speakers Can Get More Done With Limited Time Revealed

Listen in as we Discuss:

• 2 Essential time management priorities for speakers
• Why you shouldn’t wait for inspiration
• The power of narrow thinking
• What it takes to conquer overwhelm and get things done
• The folly of betting on clarity arriving if only you’ll wait long enough
• A must answer question when choosing your message
• Why you should think ‘ongoing conversations’ ahead of ‘one off talks’
• And more

Over to You

What are your favourite time management strategies?

And what gets in the way of you getting more done?

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Interview Transcript

Eamonn: Today, we’re talking about how speakers can get more out of their time, and we have the perfect person to speak about this. We have Yasmin Vorajee, and we’re delighted to welcome you.

Yasmin: Thanks very much. I’m delighted to be here.

Eamonn: Yasmin, you are the owner of Tiny Time Big Results, which is a wonderful name, and you help people to figure out how to make more out of their day. When it comes to speakers who want to really do a better job in connecting with their audience and yet knowing that carving out time create a stellar message…

…What are your key messages? What should people know? What should they think about?

Yasmin: I think for me, when I think about even myself as a speaker and the people that I work with, it’s thinking about what are your priorities. What I tend to share with my speaker colleagues is there are two things that you need to be thinking about all the time. Creating content, creating really great content that makes people think, “I need to know more.” And the second thing is building relationships; how do you build relationships to help you network and get your message out there, and secure more speaking engagements. So when you’re thinking about creating great content, there’s no point being a speaker, you stand up and you’ve nothing to say. You’ve got to have something to say.

Eamonn: You really ought to have something to say.

Yasmin: You really do. You need to have something worthwhile to say and something that people will resonate with, that they will want to hear more. And that’s really your job. One of the things that people say was, “I’ve nothing new to say.” I said, “But we all have a different perspective. We all have a unique perspective on life or topic, and it’s about how we share that. But if you don’t make any time to create that content, then you’re just going to be on a losing streak.”

Eamonn: Let me ask you this. You carved out a niche and you speak on that niche. But I’m guessing at the outset that maybe you’ve had a little bit of an evolution.

Yasmin: Absolutely.

Eamonn: If not a revolution in terms of how you’ve chosen the topic that you speak about. Tell me a little bit about what you’ve learned and how that’s helped to shape a better result now for your audiences.

Yasmin: Yeah, absolutely. I started out like probably a lot of people do, is where you’ll just take clients wherever you can get them. I’ll work with anybody and everybody and whatever your problems are, I could solve them.

Eamonn: You’re a Martini. Anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

Yasmin: Exactly.

Eamonn: I mean that from a speaking point of view!

Yasmin: Yeah, absolutely. And so, I really found that that experience didn’t necessarily help me get great results, but it did help me to create the clarity of where I am right now. So I don’t dismiss that at all in that time. I do talk about it as in a fire because I was constantly thinking what’s my niche, what’s my market, who do I really want to share my message with, who do I stand for essentially. So by taking those steps, even though I didn’t know what I was doing, even though it does feel like I was kind of grappling around in the dark, it actually helped me to create a level of clarity. And I think this is something that’s really important. If somebody’s struggling with trying to find their niche or their target market, the very worst thing that you can do is just sit back and say, “I’ll wait for that bolt of inspiration. I’ll wait for that flash of lightning and I’ll know magically.”

Eamonn: You can wait forever and nothing happens.

Yasmin: And nothing happens. You’ve got to put one foot in front of the other and just keep moving forward. That’s a real lesson that I learned, was you create clarity. You don’t find it, you create it.

Eamonn: I like that. That’s very, very good. Very good. That’s a tweetable moment.

Yasmin: That’s a tweetable one, yeah.

Eamonn: And so tell me in terms of finding the balance then in terms of time and in terms of output, what’s your take from that? Because obviously, you’ve gone through quite a few steps here.

Yasmin: Absolutely. And when I sat in my business, I had an 18-month-old son running around. And in the time that I’ve had my business, I’ve had another baby. And so, my tiny time has really shrunk even more. And so, that really helped me, in terms of the niching aspect, was to understand what is it that I want to be working on, and then just focus on that. I heard a great quote today where they said, “We can do anything but not everything.” And that’s something that I really took to heart. Actually today I thought, “Yeah, that’s a great message.” Again, because when you focus on one thing, and you say, “This is what I’m going to work towards,” I can then do my business in the morning. I can spend the afternoon with my children, feeding them, and do all the fun stuff. And I can really build my business through doing that. But if I try to do everything, I would just never get to the end of to-do list.

Eamonn: And that actually is one of the great challenges. So if we think specifically now about people who want to do more speaking, and I’m not just talking about professional speakers, but anybody who wants to do more speaking…

…All of us have so many things happening in our lives that we can be subject to overwhelm. So, what are your thoughts about the best way to get ahead of that curve rather than chasing it?

Yasmin: I think for me, it’s about making decisions automatic, and what I mean by that … let me clarify that. Not all decisions. But making those daily decisions, put them on autopilot. So, what am I going to wear? What am I going to feed my children today? At the beginning of every week, I have a menu for the week, I go into the shopping, so I have everything in, and then I know what I’m going to be cooking. So I won’t be sitting thinking, “What am I going to cook today?” And that’s an automatic decision. I’m actually taking that stress away.

Eamonn: Job done.

Yasmin: Job done. What are the kids going to wear? Is the laundry done? Thankfully, my husband does all the laundry in our house. Yeah, it’s great. So, it’s about putting some of those decisions on autopilot so that you can free your mind up to do the other things. And then, also taking that to the next level in your business. Things like social media posting and sharing your content. Get somebody to do that for you, because then that frees you up to create the content that will attract people to you.

Eamonn: Absolutely. I want to round back then to something that you talked about it earlier on, the power of focus, but really perhaps is more about getting to greater clarity in what you’re trying to do. In your view, what are the biggest obstacles or challenges we face when it comes to creating more clarity and losing the stuff?

Yasmin: I think what really stands in our way around creating that clarity is firstly, that belief that it will come as a bolt of inspiration, that you will get that flash of lightning. And that somebody will just come in and say, “Yasmin, this is what you need to do.” I think that is the biggest myth, because with the people that I’ve worked with, it’s like they’re still waiting. And I say, “Well, go and do something. Put something out there.” And this is something that I’ve learned from some of my marketing mentors is keep putting stuff out there. Test it. If it doesn’t work, then great. You know what doesn’t work and find something else. And that really is the key in business. When I get people to think about what they really want to do, in terms of their niche, I ask them three questions: What is it that you love to do? What are you really good at? What are you great at? And don’t be shy. Don’t be modest and humble. Say what it is that you’re really great at. And then, how do you solve a problem? That’s the thing that is the money maker.

Eamonn: Yes.

Yasmin: Because you can be the greatest …

Eamonn: And are you solving a problem?

Yasmin: Exactly, yeah. Are you telling somebody that they have a problem but they don’t really know that they have a problem, because that’s not going to get you the money either. So you can have something that you love to do, something that you’re really great at and you just do that and make no money. That’s a hobby. But when you can bring that third element in and actually make money from it, because you’re solving a very real need, that’s when your business hits that sweet spot.

Eamonn: Wonderful. Well, that’s been really interesting. But I find round out with one last question. If you think about all of the experiences you’ve had so far as a speaker, both as a beginning speaker, intermediate, and now becoming more advanced speaker, what is the one thing that you realize now that you wish you’d known at the outset?

Yasmin: Actually, this is something that I learned at the recent Mega convention in London.

Eamonn: And again, explain that that is at the Professional Speaking Association though it’s a Mega Conference, so you might know that.

Yasmin: And one of the things I really took to home was when we speak, it’s not the one off. It’s about creating that relationship with our audience. It’s creating our relationship with the person who has booked us. And it’s about creating an ongoing dialogue because it’s never just that one engagement. It’s about either whether it’s about people joining my community in Tiny Time Big Results, or whether it’s about the conference event organize this thing, or I think that message could be really good for this group. And so it’s thinking about our speaking career as an ongoing engagement and relationship.

Eamonn: Absolutely, starting a bigger and longer lasting conversation.

Yasmin: Exactly.

Eamonn: Yasmin, I knew this would be a great conversation. Thank you so much for joining me.

Yasmin: You’re very welcome.

Eamonn: Thank you for watching today. And you have been listening to Eamonn O’Brien. This is the Reluctant Speakers Club. Until the next time. Happy speaking.