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The Art of Powerful Public Speaking with Rachel Axelrod of Axelrod Consulting Chicago 7-13-26
00:18:18
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- [00:01]
A
When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there's no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place. So nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickgrainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [00:30]
B
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business. In the Becker Private Equity podcast, we're thrilled today to feature a brilliant entrepreneur. In fact, Rachel Axelrod is being featured as our Entrepreneur of the Month. Rachel is herself a speaker coach, an event producer, an attorney. She's the founder and CEO of Axelrod Consulting. She he's literally a brilliant, brilliant person and we're thrilled to visit with her today. Rachel, can you take a moment and introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background and what led you into coaching people on speaking? Such a needed thing. Tell us a bit about yourself.
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A
Thank you Scott. Thank you for having me. It's such a fun thing to do on a freezing day in Chicago. So thank you for having me on your podcast. So yeah, I'm a recovering attorney actually. So, so it was not the most linear trajectory into being a speaking coach, but actually kind of makes sense. So I started off at Schiff Hardin, one of the oldest law firms actually in Chicago. It's now called Arent Fox because as you know, all the law firms in Chicago and across the country have merged and changed names. But it was Schiff Hardin, it's now Aaron Fox. And I practiced law there for about two years doing mostly products liability work. And, and then I spent eight years at muchellist, which is a mid sized law firm where I personally practiced commercial litigation and was there for eight fantastic years. And so as a trial lawyer obviously we are speaking in public. We are often in front of juries and judges and clients and making presentations. So there was always a part of the DNA of what I did during the legal years. But it wasn't until I Co founded TedxChicago in 2016 that I really started to get interested in the speaker coaching world. So I was the executive producer and co founder with a wonderful person called Jessica Lederhausen, one of my dear friends to this day. And she and I Co founded TedxChicago and we produced shows in 2017, 2018 and 2019. During those years we, we ran the whole show and managed everything. We actually had speaker coaches that we hired during those years. But we were very actively involved in making sure that the speakers were supported and they understood how to give a good talk, how to give a good TED Talk. So that was my internship in a way into speaker coaching because we had some fabulous speaker coaches that, that showed me what to do and what not to do. And then how I ended up pivoting into speaker coaching was actually during COVID You remember that time when we all sat around in our pajamas and didn't leave the house? Well, a lot of my former speakers from the TEDxChicago years had to still give presentations on Zooms and on Zooms and other seeking engagements. They were all hybrid. Obviously everything was not in person. And so they asked me frankly as a favor if I would coach them and teach them some of the magic behind TED Talks and help them give their presentations. And I fell in love with doing that. So at first it started off doing it for friends and family and then eventually I realized I was really, really good at it from my legal years and from my TEDx Chicago years. So in 2019 I started my own business, launched Axelrod Consulting and started coaching speakers from there.
- [04:19]
B
Fascinating. And take a moment on. I happen to be a lawyer by background, so familiar with Schiff Hardin and much elist and first first class top tier law firms, a tremendous background and then founding TedX in Chicago. Simply remarkable when you start to work with speakers are the things that you think about when you first work with a speaker as to goodness, that person does this really well, he or she does this really well, and other things that you could immediately see where they need some improvement. And are there things that you see right off the bat? This person could do this better, but they're great at this. How do you sort of help people to mold their speaking style to become better communicators? And how do you sort of look at where they're at today and how do you make them improve or help them to get the tools to improve?
- [05:14]
A
Well, at this point in my career I've coached around 100 clients. So I have a nice sample size and everyone's different. Most of my clients are C suite exacts entrepreneurs, thought leaders, business leaders. So they're all very experienced throughout the smart, dynamic, incredible people. But you're right, everyone comes to the table with different talents and different strengths. So my initial question to them is always, who? Tell me about the speaking engagement. How many people are in the room? Are you being paid or asked to give something? Are the people that are in the audience, your colleagues, or is this the general public or some combination of that? I need to know all about the speaking engagement first before we can kind of go to the second step. Because it's really important to consider who you are talking to when you are giving a good talk. It's all about the audience. So that is the number one consideration before we even get to the content and some of the fine tuning. But once we understand the breadth of the speaking engagement and who's in the audience and what it entails and what they're supposed to talk about and really get an understanding for the universe of what this engagement is, then yes. I mean, I look at the individual person and understand their talents and their strengths, their weaknesses. Sometimes my clients have recorded videos that I can find on YouTube or that they have in their personal library. So I can see a sample of what they are good at and what they need to work on. But oftentimes they don't have any videos of them giving, you know, doing public speaking. So that's something that comes out in the coaching. But the number one thing that everyone can improve on is making sure they tell stories. And, you know, some of your listeners might be like, we know, storytelling TED Talks. It does go hand in hand. And there's a reason why TED talks are so incredible and are so timeless. And that's why everyone still watches them. I think they're in the millions of TED talks now on Ted.com. and one of the things that's so magical about a TED Talk is that most talks use storytelling to support the ideas behind them. So when I'm coaching my clients, I always go to let's talk about the stories. Sometimes we come up with a theme from the stories. Sometimes the stories lend themselves to a theme and we can kind of backdoor it or front door it, it doesn't matter. But storytelling is always the foundation for any good talk.
- [08:03]
B
Question to that, is there a difference between speaking in person and zoom? And I know there must be, but is there different coaching that goes into speaking in person versus on zoom or on video?
- [08:17]
A
I mean, not really. I personally love a live audience. I think that speakers can give their energy and feel their energy to an audience. And it's a lot easier when you're looking at real human beings in the face. And believe me, as AI ends up infiltrating our world, I think this is going to be more and more important to have live events and people speaking in real life, irl. But the same principles work on a zoom. It's Just you don't feel the energy of the audience when you're giving a talk on zoom, right? You've got boxes in front of you. Maybe there's six boxes, maybe there's 400, maybe there's thousands of boxes. But you don't know these people. You might recognize a couple faces. It just doesn't have that same umph to it, that same energy and connection. So I'm personally not a huge fan of giving big talks online. Of course, if my client is asked to do that, or we can make it happen. But in that case, yes, it's still the same questions. Who are on the zoom? Right? Who is in the audience? How old are they? What do they know? What don't they know? All of the things I talked about earlier, so that's still important. And the same thing with storytelling and all the other components and lessons that I work with my clients about. It's translatable to both on zoom and in person. I just think that the energy of a live audience is. Is something that you absolutely cannot replicate on a zoom.
- [09:51]
B
And your point is so well taken. Then this world of artificial intelligence and information overload, that in person experience is just more and more valued. That real connection is so much more valued. I couldn't agree with you and your take on that more. Could not agree more. Rachel, take a moment on particular work with clients. Tell us a story about working with a client where you felt like you had particular impact. You don't have to mention names, but where you feel like you really can make an impact for somebody, where it really is helpful to have the kind of coaching that you can offer.
- [10:26]
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Well, I have so many examples of this, and I end up becoming really close with all of my clients because even if you're an experienced public speaker, it still takes a lot of time and energy. And there's always some anxiety involved when you're getting up on stage in front of a group of people. So I really do end up becoming really close with my clients, which is a wonderful thing. But as you alluded to earlier, different clients come to the table with different issues. And one of my clients had dyslexia, so he had some issues with reading notes or reading slides. And so we came up with some techniques that would help him. And it really centered on the storytelling because that was something he knew really, really well. But. But we had to work with him so that there was no written word involved either in his slides or his notes, so he could be free from them and be able to tell his stories. And connect with the audience. And he's. I've worked with him on several occasions and he's incredible and always connects to the audience. And we absolutely over overcame his issue with dyslexia. I had another client who had crippling stage fright, and he was actually so far into his career and was asked on multiple occasions and he had to say no or kind of avoid it or kick the can down the road and felt so uncomfortable about saying yes to giving a talk because he had such bad stage fright. So I put him in touch with a breathing coach who helped him with some meditation skills and some breathing skills and sort of got down to the bottom of the stage fright. And so that was a huge accomplishment. I felt like I really address that issue for this individual. But also we worked on a really incredible talk for this person. It was someone in the real estate industry who felt that his stories weren't all that interesting and felt like he didn't really have that much to say. But we crafted his stories in a way with a lot of details and in a way that he himself was surprised at how interesting once we framed it right, his own stories had become. They just needed a little tweaking, a little judging, if you will, and they really came alive with details and just, just changing the framing of it. So those are two examples of clients that I've worked with recently that I'm really proud of, overcoming their specific issues.
- [13:02]
B
And you work with so many people that do so much speaking for a living, whether as C suite executives, as business leaders and more. What causes them to sort of look up and say, I've got to make an improvement here or I want to get better at that? What's sort of the motivator for some people to start to say, I need to work with you. I've been doing this for a long time, but I've got to make some improvements to get a little bit better, connect better with the audience and more. What is that tipping point? And I know there's plenty of people that are not as experienced public speakers, but that have big roles that come to you and need help, but talk to us about the people and sort of the instigation, the motivation to say, I've got to get a little bit better at this. And where does that come from? And how positive is that when somebody sees that need to get a little bit better?
- [13:56]
A
Well, listen, anyone can work on themselves and be better, Even the most polished speakers. And a lot of times the people who hire me are actually very accomplished public speakers. Some are super open about it. And I serve almost like a personal trainer for speaking. And it's like, yeah, of course I have a speaking coach. And other people are a little bit more private about it, which, of course, I respect. But hiring a speaker coach is absolutely not anything you should be embarrassed about or feel private about. But. But I understand it depends on how high stakes the engagement is or your personal comfort level. The thing that happens time and time again with speakers who are very experienced is they sort of feel like they've said the same thing over and over again, sort of said the same lessons, the same stories, and they feel a little bit flat or a little rote, and they want something new to talk about. They need a little help with coming up with something different, new, fresh, and not just rustic on the state, on the same spiel that they've given, you know, three or four times. So sometimes they come to me and they say, here's my talk. I know it. I just need to improve on this, this, this. And of course, we can. We can do that relatively easily. But oftentimes it's people who've said, I've said this, like three or four times. I was on a podcast saying it. I gave it in a boardroom. I gave it in a big conference hall. And a lot of people have heard me say X, Y, and Z. I need something new. Can you help me come up with something new? And that's something that I work with a lot with very experienced speakers.
- [15:41]
B
I think that resonates so well. I mean, I myself do a ton of public speaking. I often speak 10, 12 times a year on the same exact topic. And what you're saying resonates so well because quite frankly, if the speaker himself or herself is sort of bored and has done it enough times, for me, it takes so much coffee to get up to do the same speech again, the same talk, and try to be on and entertaining and interesting. And I could not. What you say resonates so well and so clearly with me. Thank you for that. Take a moment. Rachel, talk to us a little bit. We. You've talked about this a little bit already, but maybe a couple pieces of advice that you could give that maybe the piece of advice you give the most often to speakers who are trying to connect more powerfully with audiences. We're trying to make that deeper connection. And in this world that we're in today with so much zoom, so much artificial intelligence, so much everything, that connectivity is so important. What advice do you give leaders who are trying to connect more powerfully with their audiences.
- [16:43]
A
Okay, well, I have a lot to say here and I could literally give you 10 lessons on what not to do or what to make sure you do. But I will say that the number one thing is don't try to do too much in a talk. Less is more. Keep it simple. There should always be a singular idea with a through line. When clients come to me and they have seven lessons that they want to teach on entrepreneurship and there's three examples each and they have these complicated slides with so much data on it, I absolutely cringe and say like, all right, we got to really pare it down here and make sure that the examples or the stories relate to the lessons, they support them and that you're not trying to do too much. People, we have so much information overload in our world today. And as you know, people have even less of an attention span than ever before. That's why social media is so popular, right? People are scrolling through Instagram or TikTok or even on LinkedIn, scroll, scroll, scroll. You look at something for a minute and then you're bored and you move on. So when speakers are giving either a 10 minute, 15 minute, 20 minute, God forbid, 45 minute talk, but we can talk about that another time. The shorter the better is what I always say. But even no matter whether it's 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 25 minutes, keep it simple. Try not to do too much. Oftentimes I'll tell people, bring me your masterpiece, not your gallery. Don't tell me everything you've ever wanted to express to an audience. Let's stick with one or three things so that the audience can really take it in and absorb it and learn from you.
- [18:27]
B
Thank you so much. I love that. And I cannot even tell you how much. We organize a lot of conferences and we often get speakers that say they want more time. And what I try and tell speakers as much as for everybody that wants more time, our audience wants everybody to have a little bit less time to keep them short and concise and to the point. I think your advice is right on. Rachel Axelrod CEO Founder, Axelrod Consulting Just brilliant to visit with you today on the Becker Business, the Becker Private Equity Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [19:00]
A
Thank you, Scott. It was such a pleasure. When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickgrainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.