Rebecca Saunders  00:15

Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Rebecca Saunders show. I am super excited to bring on today's guest, Jaimie Abbott, Jaimie and I met in the glorious space of Hawaii last year at a wonderful mastermind retreat that both of us were part of. And she is the queen of all things public speaking and public relations related. Jaimie, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming on.

Jaimie Abbott  00:58

Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Rebecca Saunders  01:01

I'm never going to do your intro justice because you are the queen of what this is right public speaking introductions, nailing messaging. Tell us a little bit about you and what got you into why are you here today.

Jaimie Abbott  01:13

So I have a background in journalism. So I started out in TV and radio was a news presenter for Channel Seven local news, prime TV in Tamworth, the country music capital of Australia. And I worked in Sydney, Metro radio stations had a great career in the media, I then got a little bit involved in politics and worked for a local member of parliament before I joined the Air Force. And I'm still in the Air Force Reserves in Australia. So in the military, and I went to Afghanistan in 2011, and spent six months there, where I set up the very first media training package came back from Afghanistan, how to run it politics myself, I've now run for all three levels of government, so local, state and federal. And during that time, I made lots of mistakes. Sometimes I would master my message other times, I wouldn't. And every time I would do a public speaking appearance, whether it be on camera to a journalist or in front of a large audience, I would always bottle up those lessons learned. And I thought I'm going to teach people what not to do, and how to really feel more confident and appear confident on stage and master your messages. I've been in business for 10 years, actually. And I've been involved in and out of politics that whole time. I love what I do. I teach people how to master their public speaking, I also teach them how to do their own public relations. And in the last 12 months, I've really niched into an area where I teach people how to get paid a lot to actually speak on stage and how to forge a paid speaking career.

Rebecca Saunders  02:56

I love that so much. There are so many levels to what you do. And your background is so diverse. I'm background in journalism myself, but not never been on TV, radio, that sort of space. What made you divert off into the army? Was it a breaker in a in a career space now where you just tried something different? What was the calling?

Jaimie Abbott  03:15

Well, it's Air Force, just to clarify that. I'm definitely not an army person, I'm Air Force. And I grew up in my hometown of Newcastle where we had a local Royal Australian Air Force Base. And I would see all the aircraft fly over all the time, and it was just genuinely curious about it. And I worked for this politician in 2007. And we were going through an election year at the time. And I thought, Oh, I was supplied, I think an ad popped up on my Facebook feed or something like that, to join the Royal Australian Air Force Reserves. And I thought I'll just do it. Why not? I took about six months, I thought I would get reelected the government I was working for at the time, and I would be in the Air Force Reserves on the side didn't quite work out that way. We didn't win the election that year. And instead, I then went full time into the Air Force for many, many years. I was a bit like, what do they call it a square peg in a round hole? You know, I wasn't sort of that regimented person. So I had to learn very quickly. It was sink or swim. Really, I had this specialist skill, having been a journalist and worked in PR. Yeah. And it just kind of made the job my own. And I've had the best years of my life in the military, bringing that journalism flavour to it to know what journalists needed from the military and how we could communicate our message.

Rebecca Saunders  04:38

So in terms of you mentioned at the beginning, as part of your intro, you know, there are things that people definitely do that they shouldn't be doing and you know, maybe a repeating offenders in terms of things that they shouldn't be doing. What are the key things I mean, I know that my listeners and viewers have watched me and understood camera confidence, right? So I've teach how to do the camera company. Don't try to maintain your eyeline. And that's where we've been through historically in my business, but never so much the what was speaking about, I do a lot of scripting with my clients. So off the cuff stuff, you know, speaking on stage radio interviews, whatever it could be, where do people fall down the most?

Jaimie Abbott  05:17

Yeah, so I think not planning, you cannot rehearse too much. Even the most experienced CEOs, general managers still rehearse every time they're getting up on stage, or even a staff meeting, they'll still rehearse. And so I think it's a matter of planning and workshopping, or what's the worst thing that could happen. And quite often, when we get to the root of where people are nervous, it's often they're scared about the questions that they may be asked. And so we'll plan for our left field, freaky nasty questions that we don't want to be asked, and we will have a response prepared for that. The other thing is people don't speak to their audience, I don't think, Who am I trying to reach? What am I trying to get them to think feel? Or do? And therefore what are the key words or phrases I need to say to make that happen? A lot of people just are too worried about I just want to get through it without stumbling rather than thinking well, what am I here to share? What do I want the audience to be inspired by be educated by be motivated? Those kinds of things about really thinking about your purpose, because it's not a you and I were chatting backstage, and I was saying it's not a matter of just speaking for the sake of it. It's speaking because you have something to share, to change someone's life to make their job easier, or to inform them to reassure them to raise a perception about something. It's always with a purpose. And I think people get too hung up on, or what if they don't like me? Or what if they're judging me? Rather than thinking beyond that? That is what have I got to share? Two things there. You

Rebecca Saunders  06:57

know, people always gonna judge you. Newsflash, you are the biggest judge of yourself, right? Would you agree with that we judge ourselves so much, when actually the public and people watching us are more in awe that we've done the thing that they aren't quite yet comfortable in doing?

Jaimie Abbott  07:11

Absolutely, yeah, that's so true. And at the end of the day, not everyone's going to like you. And I certainly know this more perhaps, than the average person coming from politics. You know, I've worked I've, I've stood up there and the audience has been 90% against me because of the political party I was representing. But I think beyond that, I go to an event, if there's 100, I spoke at an event recently, there was 100, women there 100 out of 100, and not going to love me, there might be a couple there who don't gel with me, they what I'm saying is that doesn't resonate with them, you're never going to please everyone. And I think as a speaker, you need to focus on the majority who have come there to learn something from you. And the audience is generally on your side. They don't want you to stumble, they don't want you to lose your train of thought, you're uncomfortable and make you feel bad. When you're sitting in the audience and someone's stumbling. No one wants that for you. They might want it in a political sense, but they don't want it generally when you're speaking. And I think it's really important to remember that we do judge ourselves more than anyone else. No one's there thinking or how many times does she say are more or her She's moving her hands too much. They're coming there to take a piece of what you're sharing and thinking about how that's going to impact their own life.

Rebecca Saunders  08:35

That's your that's the thing, right? And then in terms of stepping up on stage, stepping into anything and doing that, it is one of those pieces where we judge ourselves the most people about a rooting for us to succeed, that most people sit in the stages. I was having a conversation with someone the other day, who asked, you know, I've got this speech coming up, I don't know how to do it. You know, what, what do I do with this? And obviously, I'm not as qualified for you in this space. But my conversation to her was very much around being natural, be human, you know, speak from the heart. You've got your purpose there. And it was that case of what if people are judging me and so she that was the biggest stumbling block of someone. So what are your top tips of getting over that?

Jaimie Abbott  09:16

It's really rehearsing. That's just my number one tip in life. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, probably master your one takeaway. So you really focused on that. If you think what's the one takeaway, I want people to leave the room and remember, because they're not going to remember anything more than maximum three messages anyway. Right? So really focusing on that, and thinking if I was that audience member sitting there, what do I want to think feel or do and really making it about the audience? If you do that is going to keep showing up and keep sharing your pearls of wisdom, which people are going to take so much from I think too often we fail focus on all that, like me, what are they going to think? You just can't get bogged down with that. I know it's easy to say that and actually, sidenote, the last couple of weeks, I have never had so much criticism, directly and indirectly, because I've been doing a lot of Instagram lives, a lot of reels, using filters, not using filters showing cleavage not showing cleavage. I cannot believe the amount of comments that I have had either side note, oh, my husband thinks you are showing too much boob? Or my husband thinks you're using too much filters? Or do you look a bit tired today? Or are more cleavage or have you lost weight? Where do you get your Botox from? 

Jaimie Abbott  10:45

So it's been a bit of a mind challenge for me, I'm not new to this, I've spent 20 years in the public eye, right, I was reading the news in a small town, big fish in a small sea at the age of 21. I'm not new to this, but I've never experienced so many comments about my appearance in the last month. But I've tried to it's been really great kind of lesson learned. I've pushed it all aside, I thought no matter how I show up, someone's not going to like how my hair looks today, or how my apparent Botox was today, or my boobs are showing enough or not. And you just got to show up. And I can really understand why a lot of people don't show up when people are so judgmental about that. But at the end of the day, I've been on a launch of my PR club membership, I've got 31 members going into it. And that's because I have showed up. It's because I've constantly put out that content, regardless of how I look, I put a filter on to make me look good. And I don't have to put my makeup on, I can put a filter on it looks like I've got a full face of makeup that makes me show up and share my message. I'm going to keep doing it. And so it's a real challenge to just block out any perceived criticism, whether it be with good intentions or not. And think what do I have to say? And what am I here to give? And to really just focus on that?

Rebecca Saunders  12:02

No, I can't believe you had so many random and also negative comments. That's something that people are scared of putting themselves forward and you do have to put those blinkers on and keep showing up. But we started off speaking about speaking as in from a stage right? We've rehearsed we've got ourselves ready, we have practised, we are in the zone, we are ready. But social media content is arguably a completely different beast. Right? It's shorter, it's different. You know, are you are you practising and preparing everything? I think if I'm listening to it, yes, I know that I want to rehearse my speeches and my presentation so that if I dropped the ball in it, I just need to let look at the slide. And I can remember exactly where I am. And away we go. Again, not the same thing. When I'm doing a Facebook Live Insta Live real, any of the things I'm never posted like planner, do you do it differently? Or you you still sort of plan everything out a bit more rigorously?

Jaimie Abbott  12:55

Great question. I do it differently, I just literally get the topic and roll with it. But perhaps in the beginning, it's so funny. 12 months ago, I had spoken on stages with 1000s of people in the audience. But you put a camera in front of my face to go live on Instagram and I was shaking at the knees. So it's a mental thing. And I just say whatever it takes to get you to show up whether you need to edit it and look down at each point and edit it. So you're looking at the camera, whether you need to use a teleprompter, I can just go with the flow. Now. I don't care if I say arm or arm because it's just a matter of getting the content out there. Whatever it takes to make you feel comfortable to show up, do it. But show up. That's, that's the key here. I'd see so many professionals, entrepreneurs, who are doing incredible things in their space and no one knows about it. You know, you don't even need to be the best at what you do. You just need to be the most well known and showing up and getting rid of that I had a client's before I came on the show today. She's doing incredible things and she's afraid to show up because of what people are going to think What about her clients? What are they going to think? I just think if we worry all the time about what anyone's going to think whether we stumbled our words because we aren't polished, whatever it is, if we worry too much, we'll never show up and that's a big waste to not putting our message out there.

Rebecca Saunders  14:21

I wholeheartedly agree with that. I mean I've been showing up consistently as you know, for my business for the last decade as of you and I still have the post it note on my desk that goes this is your reminder to show up today. You know like even if you don't want to what are the little hacks that you can do? You've shared that your does your Instagram filter mine you know if you're not feeling it put something together. Mine is getting dressed head to toe like I can't do it in half active wear at the bottom and glammed up on the top. I gotta go all the way in. Otherwise I'm not really in the headspace. So it depends on what works for you right as to how you want to show up. And I think it's interesting in today's space of social media you You know, we are showing up consistently whether we've done our makeup or not whether we're in, you know, clothing that shows a lot or it doesn't, we're consistently showing up. But that wouldn't necessarily be the same on stage that would it? Would you still have your onstage presence different?

Jaimie Abbott  15:14

Absolutely. It's completely different. I think there's a lot more that goes into the preparation and rehearsing when you're on stage. But still troubleshooting for those things that could go wrong. And losing your train of thought or getting stuck in a hole on the stage and tripping over those types of things will happen on stage, they won't happen in social media. And so a lot more rehearsing, using things that are going to jog your memory in case you do forget your line. So having the slides up there, having some nodes that are elected, knowing what makes you feel comfortable, because you can't just hit blah, I won't edit that I won't record that or play that part. You're on stage. You can't. There's no second chance everyone, all eyes are on you. As you do more speaking gigs, learn and document what makes you feel comfortable. So for example, Rebecca, you might love talking to 500 people, whereas I love talking to five people. 

Jaimie Abbott  16:09

I love having the light steam, you like having the lights bright. I like having a clicker. I like having a handheld microphone, you might like a lapel microphone, like a lot of my clients who I feel really vulnerable a lapel microphone, because I've seen them go wrong so many times on stage, and the technicians had to jump up there and adjust it. And they just always I just feel like I can't say anything off stage without people hearing it. Whereas a handheld or full really in control. I like to have a lectern off to the side with my notes in dot points is kind of a safety blanket. In case I was to forget my lines, that you name it, I've done it, I've fallen over I have not handled questions well, and I've had sort of aggressive questions thrown at me, sometimes I've lost my temper, you name it, I've been through it. And the worst thing that can happen is really not that bad. You know, you fall over people have a laugh. You lose your train of thought, and you can say I've completely lost my train of thought I was going to say something, then that I have forgotten if I remember it, we'll come back to it moving on. And so you just taking the audience on that journey with you, they're not feeling uncomfortable within you standing there and just looking like a deer in the headlights. I think preparation is definitely going to help a lot more on stage compared to social media.

Rebecca Saunders  17:25

For me any mistake that you make, as long as you remember that you're human, and you can almost make it a humour point, you know, almost Oh, okay, like you're sharing the journey of fear with the audience, I find that that actually works quite well in my favourite. When we are experts in our field, I'm gonna take speaking on stage kind of off the cards for this topic, because I know that you plan a presentation and you present that hour or half an hour or whatever long you're doing it. But for social media content, PR that we're putting forwards blog content, having to reinvent the wheel or almost like rehash what we're talking about, in a different way, time and time and time again, can be really daunting. And almost I talked about that last Tuesday. So can I really do that again this Tuesday? You know, how do you tackle that? And have you got any special hacks that you can share with us about how to navigate that so you don't feel like you're on repeat? Yeah, it's actually

Jaimie Abbott  18:19

a really great question. I've been being asked that question before. But it's a really relevant question, because I do repurpose content. I think I've just even in the last month done three videos about how to pitch to the media. And a couple of things about it. Firstly, people who are watching that video today, didn't see the video you did on that topic. Last time you did it. Even if there could be a new follower, or someone who's come into your world in your audience who wasn't in there before. But also, as we know, not all your followers on Instagram or Facebook, we're going to see every piece of content you put out there and then are going to watch it or are they going to see it in their feed. 

Jaimie Abbott  18:58

So definitely repurpose, redo even if it's so similar. In fact, I'm even just repurposing my entire videos the moment that I did a year ago, whole new following people won't even remember if even if they did say it as well. And if you are reshooting it but it's the same topic, you often bring a different perspective than you did 12 months ago. You know, you've got a lot more experience in that space, so you will bring a fresh perspective anyway. But failing all that repurposing. Yeah, I've got some followers who are like that. I saw that video before, but I wasn't sure like, yeah, it's the exact same video I posted six months ago. So even those who did see it, don't remember, you know, our attention spans are so short. So yeah, don't feel you have to waste great content and not use it again. People are just so consumed with messages of the moment. Their attention spans are shorter than they ever have been. And so if you are repeating your messages over and over Again, that's a surefire way for it to actually be heard. So I definitely encourage people to do that.

Rebecca Saunders  20:06

I'm so glad you said that point, because two things really hit hard for me when you're speaking through that is, number one, people aren't going to always see your content like we think we are, you know, got to be at the top of the field at the right time for the right people. So I love the fact that you've said we can share the same video time and time again. How many times do you sit and scroll down someone's Instagram account or their Facebook page to see stuff they posted last week? For me? I think that's one of my big, big takeaway from this episode. If you're listening right now is to go, Huh, it's okay. I don't need to create fresh content time and time and time again, like it is, it's okay to just repeat it. Before I sort of wrap up the episode, you've got PR club going on? PR is a very different beast in my eyes, would you say it's different in terms of the way that you talk your messaging, the way that you put something in front of a journalist to get it out into a wider world, obviously doing PR puts you in front of a much bigger audience than your, your current following. So what's the pros and cons of doing that? And is it something that we should all be looking at as business owners to be doing PR or is just social content enough,

Jaimie Abbott  21:12

absolutely gets a huge way, whether you're getting on into someone else's podcast or whether you are appearing in the media, it's a great way to elevate your audience and access audiences that you never would have been exposed to before. And so if you get even in traditional media, if you get featured on a TV news programme, on the project, or maybe a giant story in the Sydney Morning Herald, just the exposure that brings to people who are reading that newspaper, who didn't have any idea about you before, it's just incredible. And you know, they say that if you get featured in a newspaper, and I'm talking newspapers, even in today's day and age in 2023, where we're still got, you know, all these new media that's coming in and being introduced newspapers still really effective if there's a big story on you. And it might be something I was on the project, actually last year about how I hated working from home. That kind of story gave my name, my business name, my name IDs, so much recognition. And that's they say it's worth three times the amount is if you paid for an ads, if you pay for an ad in a newspaper, and you took out half a page, if you're featured in a story that takes up half a page of a newspaper, they say three times the amount of people are going to see that. 

Jaimie Abbott  22:34

And I probably argue that it's higher than that. But that's what the latest stats show. And same for if you're on the news, three times the amount of people going to see that as opposed to seeing if you had a paid ads in the ad break. So it's a really incredible way of getting free publicity. You really got to start thinking like a journalist and thinking, is this newsworthy? Or how can I make it newsworthy? What's the hook. So if you've got an office opening, for example, and I have have a great example, last year, I did a media release for a client who was opening up a new law firm in Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia, where I live. And if we had just put that press release out to say new law firm opening, it probably wouldn't get the attention of journalists. But when I talked to my client, she said there's actually a really big regional lawyer shortage. In fact, 19 local government areas that council areas in the state of New South Wales have no lawyers at all. And so that's the book. So the angle was regional lawyers shortage inspires local lawyer to set up new practice. And it got great coverage, because it's a newsworthy, dramatic angle. So PR is incredible for leveraging your audience. But you really need to stop thinking like a journalist in order to do it successfully.

Rebecca Saunders  23:55

Yeah, so it's a completely different headspace and one that I myself I'm sort of tinkering with, and learning something new. And I know you've got PR club and you've got founding members, are the doors to that always open? Or is it something that's going to open periodically over the year? No, it's

Jaimie Abbott  24:09

always open. The advantage the sooner you jump in, yes, there's a founding members price. But also, if you're listening to this, when that has passed, I'm sure you're gonna have people listening to your podcasts from you know, way back back. You can jump in anytime and every month is a different topic. So it might be how to get corporate clients, how to master LinkedIn, how to pitch to the media, how to market yourself and promote yourself without social media, how to get on other people's podcasts. But I've really designed PR club for the time poor business owner. So you don't have to rely on doing all this stuff. You're going to get templates and checklists every single month that you can swipe, copy and paste and put into your own business straightaway. And that's a really important element of it. And it's why I have attracted an incredible business as owners who don't have a lot of time because they know they can just go miss the recording, where's the template? Let me put a media release out and using this template and that's definitely a big part of this particular membership.

Rebecca Saunders  25:12

I love that so much. I am one of those time poor but actually no, I'm not time poor. And I'm working hard on boundaries and listening along you'll know that boundaries is a big thing for me. But spending time researching something and doing something myself when I can be part of something and just grab the template. Game Changer. Where can we find you on socials? And where can we find more about the PR cup?

Jaimie Abbott  25:32

Yeah, so Instagram probably is my handle is @jaimieabbot. prclub.com.au is where you can learn more about my membership or I've got a stack of goodies to give away at jaimieabbott.com.

Rebecca Saunders  25:48

Amazing. I love that. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I hope listening you have taken away that it's it's really not as scary as you think it is. And that practice really does make perfection, right? Like even if you know be human. So Jaimie, thank you so much for coming on the show. I cannot wait to put this out into the world. And I really appreciate your time and your wisdom on the topic of sharing your voice to the media.

Jaimie Abbott  26:12

Thanks so much for having me, Rebecca. I really appreciate it.