Lorianne Vaughan Speaks Transcript

Women Innovating Networking Growing Scaling – that’s WINGS … I’m Melinda Wittstock, my mission is to help women take flight to soar to the success of our dreams in business and in life– and create and grow businesses in alignment with our passion and purpose.

On this special Mentoring Minisode of Wings of Inspired Business … we talk about why no one should try to “do it all” in business. Many times people focus on learning what they don’t know … or what they have no natural aptitude or interest in … when they should be doubling down on their unique strengths and outsourcing or hiring the rest.

Here with us today to provide her insights and inspiration is

Lorianne Vaughn Speaks.

Lorianne took a leap from the corporate world at age 60 to start her own business – and she’s now in the final proofing stages of a book about what she calls the “good bad and the ugly” of being a startup founder. Lorianne lives up to her name as the “behind the scenes” detail person every speaker or author needs to amplify their message.. She has made it her mission to empower her clients to deliver their message by handling the rest of the details!

Lorianne Vaughan Speaks will be here with her advice in just a moment on our Mentoring Minisode and first a question for you …

And now to the inspiring Lorianne Vaughan Speaks.

Lorianne helps amplify the visibility of Authors, speakers and podcasters … so they can do what they love … SPEAK! … and trust that everything else is taken care of. Lorianne and her team have made it their mission to empower speakers to deliver their message by handling the rest of the details … including buzz creating campaigns on social media.

Before she started her own Virtual Assistance company, Lorianne worked in the corporate world supporting Top 100 Thought Leaders as they built their businesses.

Lorianne is a bestselling author of Voices of the 21st Century – and she’s now hard at work making the final edits to her upcoming book on starting a company at 60. She says it details the good, the bad, and the ugly of building your own company!

 

Melinda Wittstock:         Lorianne welcome to Wings.

Lorianne Speaks:             Thanks so much, Melinda. It’s pleasure to be here.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh, it’s nice to have you, too. And I always love to talk to people who love podcasting as much as I do. What is inspiring you most right now in your life and your business?

Lorianne Speaks:             Well as being someone who started my business late in life, I’m truly embracing the home mentoring aspect of my business in being able to help up and coming speakers and authors and podcasters grow their businesses. So I’m all about the mentoring and being able to help those that are at various different levels actually.

Melinda Wittstock:         Mm-hmm (affirmative), that’s wonderful. Well we all have challenges in our businesses, and with this podcast I always am trying to help women in particular de-stigmatize this, the F word, the failure word, because it’s part of the process, and it’s how we learn, and it’s how we grow and it’s okay, you know?

Lorianne Speaks:             Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:         And so what are some of the challenges you have right now in your business and perhaps some of the challenges you’re finding your clients are having?

Lorianne Speaks:             Well, for my myself being older, technology is always something that not only scares me, but throws me for a loop on occasion. I was so thrilled that my mic and my earpiece worked this morning. So it’s like technology for me, but that’s why just as I tell my clients, no one should be doing it all by themselves. You need to do what you do best, and then hire others to do the other things. And so I do have people on my team that I go to and say, “I need this done or that done.” And so building out the websites and things along that line, although I did it myself to begin with, to make it better, I reached out to the pros.

Melinda Wittstock:         Right. Well isn’t it funny though how sometimes our minds dwell on the things that we’re not very good at when actually we should be really focusing and doubling down on our unique abilities and hiring the rest. It is one of the top mistakes that I see women in particular make in business. The guys don’t tend to do that so much, because they find delegation much easier.

Lorianne Speaks:             Yes. Because I think women in general are the multi-taskers of this world, because we have to be. Men are used to handing things off to other people to do and we’re not as good at that aspect. But 30 years ago Stephen Covey said, “Do what you do best and hire the others to do the rest.”

Melinda Wittstock:         Exactly.

Lorianne Speaks:             And enough solo-preneurs entrepreneurs take that to heart, because you can’t scale if you’re trying to do everything yourself.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. Well it’s a sure and fast way to remain a solo-preneur.

Lorianne Speaks:             Exactly, exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:         So Lorianne tell me a little bit more about your business, because you seem appropriately named. Your surname is perfect for what you do. How are you helping people the most, and what are the challenges that you find that they’re having?

Lorianne Speaks:             What I find the most relevant is getting on more stages for the speakers, the authors, the podcasters even who want to hit the stage and they’re not quite sure how to go about doing that. After supporting a thought leader for over 15 years, I know the stages and I have research teams that will go out and find where their ideal clients are. It’s not just a directory and you’ve got to figure it out. We do that research to find them the best possible conferences where their ideal clients are.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh, that’s a great, great service, because there’s nothing worse than going and speaking and all of that, and it’s like you’re talking to the wrong audience.

Lorianne Speaks:             Yeah. I’m a big believer in, you don’t need to be paid $5,000 to go do a speech if you’re in the room with 100 people who could use your business. Do it for free, and sell from the stage. It’s a no brainer, really. And it’s a great way to get on more stages, is to be willing to do them, “For free,” if they’re talking to their ideal clients.

Melinda Wittstock:         So very true. So along the way, I mean you, you mentioned that you came into entrepreneurship a little bit later in life, but we learn all kinds of things about entrepreneurship all through our lives, and certainly being a woman in business, whether we’re an executive, or part of a team, or now going out and creating our own businesses. And so what would be the top three go-to pieces of advice that you would give a woman at any stage of her business? A CEO, founder, executive, a woman with a startup, what would be the top three?

Lorianne Speaks:             Exactly. And in this gig economy, it is never too late to do that. But what you really want to do, because this is now going to be your baby, you really need to be passionate about it. If it’s not something you really love to do, I wouldn’t recommend starting your company doing it, because you will spend days that are 20 hour days, and maybe you’re like me, and I like work life balance. From the get go, I had people on my team so that I wasn’t doing the things that I didn’t like to do, but I have embraced the mentoring of helping people grow.

So that’s where I’ve kind of taken my passion as I’ve always been a mentor throughout my life. I was that mom to even my friends back in high school. So be passionate. Find something you’re passionate about to go after. And do you do not have to invest $100,000 in the beautiful office, and everything along that line. I still to this day work from a home office, and love it. But I started off with a laptop, internet connection and my cell phone, that’s it.

Melinda Wittstock:         It’s all you really need.

Lorianne Speaks:             Yeah, it’s all you need. You do not have to go into major debt to start a business.

Melinda Wittstock:         Really, really true. Unless, of course like me, you’re building technology, or something like that. That’s a totally different type of business, right?

Lorianne Speaks:             Yeah, it is. It is. And those of us that are just starting out and depending on what your genre is obviously makes a difference, but your technology can grow as you grow.

Melinda Wittstock:         Absolutely. It’s so, so true. So what would be number two?

Lorianne Speaks:             Number two is know what your superpowers are, and focus on those. I know that I am the detail queen I do not let things fall through cracks, and so that is my superpower, and that’s what I offer my clients so that they can go do the speaking, or write their book or whatever. And they have me to handle all the minutia for them.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh that’s so valuable. There’s so many start up founders in particular who are visionaries, but God, the detail is just [crosstalk 00:08:09].

Lorianne Speaks:             Exactly the devil’s in the detail. Well I guess I’m the devil.

Melinda Wittstock:         Well, that’s wonderful, because there’s a lot of people out there who need exactly that. And again for all the visionaries out there, which is the highest proportion of entrepreneurs are visionary. Gosh, your success is going to depend on having someone like Lorianne who does the details. It’s so, so important, really bears repeating. So what would be number three?

Lorianne Speaks:             Number three would just be, although I say embrace your superpowers, know your weaknesses, and hire those people to handle those weaknesses. So many people just think they can do it all, and that’s all well and good until you can’t. Time management is probably another thing that I really focus in on in my business, because I have, at any given time, 12 to 15 clients that we’re working with. And as I said, I don’t like to let anything slip through a crack. So I’m very much time management, blocking out specific times for each client, so that we are on task and making sure that everything is running smoothly.

Melinda Wittstock:         Fantastic. So Lorianne, how can people find you and work with you?

Lorianne Speaks:             Yeah, well my website is just my initials, LVSConsultingServices.com, and just reach out. On my website, actually on the homepage, and Melinda, don’t roll your eyes at me. On my homepage is a white paper called the top 10 ways to create massive growth in your speaking business, and that can be downloaded without even giving me your email.

Melinda Wittstock:         Wonderful. Lori, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us.

Lorianne Speaks:             My pleasure, my pleasure.