How would you feel if you had to demo software only a few months old in front of more than 1,100 industry experts and veterans? Nervous, right?
That was my feeling leading up to my first of two speeches for Freightwaves Transparency19 conference. After spending months of fine-tuning a custom interface that will help transportation and logistics companies solidify their online marketing, it was time to debut the software and pair a speech to go along with it. There may have been tears during this process. More than a few times.
During the timed 7-minute speech on stage, you’re faced with a timer to both explain how your software works to the audience and to put on a show-and-tell of the product at the same time. When the timer is up, the stage lights go off and your mic is cut. Therefore you have to pay attention to a few different variables and hope you don’t screw anything up in the process.
Inspired by a talk from Gary Vaynerchuk on the first day of the conference, I made a couple changes to my speech just a few hours before I was set to take the stage. Check out how I did below:
I was TERRIFIED the mic cut before I got my booth number in but after watching the video, the mic cut as I was thanking the audience. Which totally counts as a win in my book.
For the second speech opportunity, I participated in a panel alongside Allison Robinson, CEO of The Mom Project, Ellen Voie, President of Women in Trucking, and FreightWaves Chief Marketing Officer Lisa McGinty to talk about the importance of gender/minority diversity in the workplace.
Coming from a sports and gaming background, I’m fairly used to the bias that exists in male-dominated industries. But it was also a great opportunity to bring men to the table to discuss how positive steps can be achieved in the future.
Check out The Female Factor Panel panel discussion below:
It’s rare that a company gets the opportunity to speak twice at the same event and I give all the credit to the incredible staff at Freighwaves. I’ve never been to a conference where multiple staff members know you by name and genuinely want you to be successful. Plus, their conferences are hella fun with a relaxed environment and top-notch networking. They didn’t pay me to say that, btw.
If you’re interested in attending a future FreightWaves conference, check out their website periodically as they add more information for the MarketWaves19 conference happening in November. Marketwaves18 was my first experience at a Freightwaves conference that solidified my desire to attend ALL of their future events.
As far as Digital Dispatch is concerned, speaking on stage was just the first step. Our aim is to be the top marketing and web services provider to the transportation industry and that means more improvements, integrations of new features, and educational content all coming your way. *Dramatic stay-tuned music starts to play*
