With over 25 years experience within the event industry Little Details, LLC is launching its Motivational Speaking service. With my diverse background that includes successfully creating and launching an event planning company, working within the energy sector in business development and teaching for seven years, my service is unique. When I create my speaking topic outline, I integrate all of my diverse experiences to create a different and fresh perspective. I am extremely passionate about helping others achieve their goals. I also have a high-energy presence that I bring to any speaking engagement opportunity.
I recently had the amazing opportunity to speak to 83 students at Maui Job Corps. “Job Corps is a no-cost education and career technical training program administered by the U.S. Department of Labor that helps young people ages 16 to 24 improve the quality of their lives through career technical and academic training.” Maui Job Corp is an outstanding program that invites the public to come and share their career and, or vocation to encourage the students within their program. Knowing about Maui’s Job Corps mission statement encouraged me to reach out to them to inquire about a speaking engagement. The timing of me reaching out to them was perfect as they were looking to book their first guest speaker of 2018. My experience as a guest speaker was a true success. There are three important keys to why this speaking engagement was a huge success:
First, I remained true to what has made my event planning business a success; I took the time to listen to my client. In this case I listened to the director explain their program and did my own research of Maui’s Job Corp program. Thus, I wanted to design a speech that would connect with all of the students and hopefully impact them as they prepare for their future.
Second, I utilized my teaching background and created a fun, interactive speaking outline. The speaking outline included: Welcome, Opening Question, Ice Breaker, My journey into event planning (including education), Day in my life as an Event Planner, Universal words of wisdom and an ending raffle. For the Ice Breaker, I wanted it to be fun and interactive, thus I created ten statements. Each statement was a characteristic of a good event planner. I asked the students to stand and listen to the statements. As I read the statement, I instructed each person to assess if the characteristic applied to him or her. If it was not a characteristic they were asked to take a seat. This simple Ice Breaker proved to connect me with the students as they quickly not only personally assessed his or herself, but also provided feedback to their fellow classmates. Numerous times, I would hear someone refer back to a time when the student still standing did something contradictory to what they were standing up for and then would quickly sit down. It was so fun for me to see their reaction to this exercise and observe their interaction with each other.
Third, I remained true to my personality. Maui Job Corps provided me with a 30 minute window of time to discuss my event planning business. Since I knew I would need to engage my audience as soon as possible, I spoke to my passion. During the segment where I discussed my journey, I explained to them how I discovered my passion for event planning. I explained how I leveraged that passion to take a hobby and transform it into a business. I also took the time to explain how all of my previous professional vocation’s that included a teacher and business development enhanced my success. Through out my presentation, I used my everyday vernacular and high-energy vibe to also show them who I was as a person.
Allow me to assist you to make your next company workshop or event memorable! Here is what the Maui Job Corp had to say about my recent speaking engagement:
“Maui Job Corps trainees and staff had the privilege of having Mrs. LaTasha Baldwin as our guest speaker during our Social Development gathering on Wednesday, January 10th, 2018. This experience was a great way to start the new year. Our Social Development gatherings are focused on exposing Maui Job Crops trainees to different careers by inviting community members to come and share their story. Mrs. Baldwin did not just share her journey in finding her career path but took the initiative to reach out to Maui Job Corps to give back to the community. Mrs. Baldwin engaged our trainees by introducing the skills necessary to become an event organizer. She also discussed “life” as an event organizer. LaTasha Baldwin had such a great impact on our trainees that the following day during Culinary Arts class they researched how their career is related to event organizers. Mahalo Nui Loa LaTasha for sharing your story as it has positively influenced Maui Job Corps trainees in expanding their curiosity and motivation.”
-Maria
