3 Things I Do After a Big Talk

I often get asked what I do to prepare for a talk or how I land a talk. Today, I'm going to talk today about what I do after a big talk. It's maybe not something people talk much about. We usually talk about…

• leading up to a big talk
• how to land a big talk
• how to prepare a big talk
• what to do from the stage
• what to do to boomerang business back to you

But how about what you need to do AFTER a big talk? It’s just as important as the others to your career. Please note: These tips are good for after a big event, project, party, book/product launch and anything else that needed a lot of your energy or time.

Here are the three things I do after a big talk:

#1: Celebrate:

I celebrate that I did a big talk or that I had an event, or I had a book launch or whatever it may be. I celebrate that I've done it. 

How do I celebrate it? I'm going to give you three main things:

1. I write down the things that I did well or I do voice-to-text on my notes. 

• What did I do well? 
• What were my accomplishments? 
• Did I engage with the audience? 
• Did the client give me a really good testimonial?

I write down all the accomplishments that I had. The reason why I want to do this is because we're so quick to forget or we're quick to point out all the things we did wrong.

2. I share online. 

I grab some pictures, I write a caption, and I thank the client. I tag some people who were part of it, and I share how the event went. I wanted to tag them. I wanted to share on social that I worked with them, and so that people know, “Oh, okay, she can speak for that industry. She can speak on that topic, and she can open a conference with high energy and a powerful message.” 

Celebrating publically is super important. This is one of the things I just shared on stage at the LEAP conference for the Vancouver Regional Construction Association (VRCA) and Canadian Construction Women. There is great importance to accomplishments and then sharing our successes with others because a lot of times as women we downplay them or don’t own them at all. (You may have heard me say this before) According to a Business Insider study, also on leanin.org, women and men view success differently. Men attribute their success to their innate qualities and skills. Women attribute their success to hard work, luck, and help from others.

How are we ever going to move forward if we don't actually own and share our successes? That's going to help us to elevate and be promoted and to be asked and called upon for, in my case, more speaking engagements and maybe in your case, being a trainer or something else that is important to you in your life and moving your career forward. 

3. Capturing any positive feedback and images in a folder.

What I did right away was for anyone who shared in their Instagram or Facebook stories or put in their stories, anything about me, then I made sure that I shared it back. Then I also put it in my highlights so that it would be there. 

But then because I was heading on vacation right away, I asked one of my team members, to go online and take screenshots of any positive feedback, any photos of me, and then save them into a folder. The folder is the date and the name of the talk so that I can go back to it and look at what's there - and probably share them later in other ways.

Also making sure we're commenting back on everyone who posted and replied and everyone who posted about my talk, about me, about meeting me, about getting my books, whatever it may be. 

#2: Recharging

Celebrating can also come into the second piece, which is recharging. I'm in Nuevo Vallarta for a week with a friend. Super blessed to be able to be here. I finished the talk on Friday and I flew out on Saturday for a week. 

​That's not normally how I celebrate and recharge after every single talk, but definitely what I do as best I can is I book the day after the talk. I do nothing. Absolutely nothing. 

I see that as my “Recharge Day” because I give a lot of energy to my talks on stage and then after the event talking with audience members. I also show up early to do a tech check. I've practiced all week maybe even before. Plus doing my regular work that I take care of, so I see it as a rest day.

I relax. I sleep in. I hydrate. I eat really good food. If I'm home, I book a massage or I book some other type of restorative session with a practitioner. I take care of myself. Probably I'm doing some celebrating on that day as well, but recharging is so important. 

I've given you a list of lots of different things you can do. Even if you can just give yourself a few hours in the morning or have a slower start to your day, it's really helpful. I get that you might have two, three events in a row or talks in a row or projects in a row. Make sure you book yourself off that weekend, or in the evenings, you book yourself off to have a break. 

#3: Review

I don't know if I'll review this week, but I get the recording of my talk, whether it be the video recording, which is ideal, and I transcribe it, and I review the transcription as well. 

I go over it and review…

• What did I say? 
• What did I do well?
• What did I learn from the whole experience? 

Not just my actual stage time, but what did I learn and what did I do well before, during and after? The weeks leading up to it, the morning of or the day of tech check, then the stage, then after, and also when I was on stage, oftentimes, I'll ad-lib. I'll add something that just comes to me at the moment and I want to capture that for future talks if the audience likes it. I might add in new jokes or new one-liners or a callback, which means referencing something I did before, or I'll have some audience engagement.

There are things that I will change, so that's another question, what will I change? It's funny because for this talk I had a double applause at the end. There was applause like, “Woohoo, great job!” but I hadn't finished. There were another few sentences and then there was another applause. Because at that point, this was now pushing me overtime, I basically ran off the stage. This is an example of something I would change: I'm going to change the closing to make sure it's one powerful close with one powerful eruption of applause, rather than two of them.

Then I'm going to stand on stage, and I'm going to receive the applause and standing ovation. Those are small things that I might change. 

I review the tape and also when I say I transcribe it, the reason is I want to see certain words that are very important to the way I present. Now, the way I do a keynote is different from the way I do a speak-and-offer. However, I still want the audience to have benefits based on certain things that I say.

If you're a client of mine, ask me what those things are. Those are like covert ninja moves that I do from stage. 

I review the recording and I review the transcription. I see how I did with this talk. It was a new talk. It was customized to the audience, and so there were a lot of pieces that were customized. Now what I'll do is I'll go back, and I'll say, “Okay, what pieces are for that audience, and I have to change them for the new audience and what things can carry forward. How can I tighten this up a little bit better? Do I want to say something else? Did this piece not land?”

I'm also going to be listening to the audience's reaction on the video. If I can, because we had multiple cameras, I'm going to be watching their faces to see their response to the different points. If it landed as strongly as I wanted each piece to land or which pieces landed stronger, I'm going to pull info based on what I did. There is quite a bit of analyzing that goes into it, and that's just so I can keep elevating my presentation and my keynote skills.

So for this third step, review the recording and the transcription, what did I do well, what did I learn, and what will I change for next time? 

Wrapping Up

Those are the three phases I go through after I do a big talk. But it's the same after a big event. It's the same after a book launch. It's the same after I lead a program or a training. The list can go on. 

Make sure that after you complete something, you celebrate it because when you celebrate, you're going to get some motivation from it.

Take time to recharge so that you're not burnt out. You want to keep going and doing well afterwards because you probably gave a lot to it. We want to pump you back up again. 

The last thing is to review it. Focus on the good. Grab the learning from both the good and the things you think you can do better on so that you don't wallow in the disappointments of it, that you really pinpoint the good stuff and make sure you carry all of that forward.

I hope that you have had a recent opportunity to be able to now go and apply these three things. If not, put a little note in your calendar for the day after this big event, write down the words celebrate, recharge, and review, and give yourself some time in your calendar. I always book myself off so no one is allowed to book me for a meeting or coaching session the day after a big event, a big party, whatever it may be. 

I hope this was helpful. Let me know in the comments what the best part was. Share this with a friend who makes you think, “Wow, yeah, my friend should do these things. This would be beneficial. I want to see if my friend has done these or these people in my network.” 

P.S. One of the biggest things I did for 2024 was launching the Trailblazer Secrets book. It’s the third book in the Dynamic Women series. We’re now working on the fourth book - the Leadership Secrets. If you want to be one of our collaborative authors, apply here, and we’ll reach out to you. 

Read my other blogs:

1. How to Boost Your Confidence
2. I Kill Myself Trying to Do Both
3. The Change Is Coming