Want to become a speaker but don't have a Signature Speech? You have a story to tell that you can build a business around? Dionne McGee tells us how!

Dionne McGee is an empowerment author, speaker and coach charged with impacting the lives of women, helping them to not only find their seat at the table, but find purpose, and write their signature speech and create a business from it. Take Your Seat at the Table and Write a Signature Speech

Dionne created the acronym ROAR, which means Relentless, Optimistic, Ambitious and Results Driven and is known as the roaring speaker.

She helps women in the workplace become the leaders they are meant to be and take their seat at the table. Dionne is a leader in diversity and inclusion and helps women find their ROAR.

She also helps women find purpose when they leave corporate and write their signature speech and/or books that they have within them and others need to learn from.

Having her seat, as the only African American woman, at the executive table within the organization she worked for, she advocated for other women and women of color to take their seats at the table. But these efforts were met with resistance and she decided that her work would be more impactful if she left corporate, wrote her book and started speaking.

The Book and The Dream

Dionne was writing her book not even knowing that she was writing a book. She took notes while working in corporate, thriving in sales success, receiving the accolades, but not feeling fulfilled.

As she was asked to speak at conferences, she came to live. Event planners started asking her to continue to speak. The thought of leaving the security of a 9 to 5, bi-weekly pay, etc. hadn’t crossed her mind, but every time she spoke, she became more emotional and people started praising her for her ability to inspire.

Just like so many of us do, Dionne ignored God’s calling to become a professional speaker. Until, he spoke to her in the dream. After the dream where God told her she had done great things on earth, but that she hadn’t become the empowerment speaker that he had called, equipped and created her to be.

When we don’t follow God’s calling, others on earth whose goals, dreams and opportunities will die because they didn’t have the opportunity to hear our signature speech or work with us.

The reality is we will not rest until we accept our calling and act on it.

ROAR came from Dionne’s calling and her need to be relentless, optimistic, ambitious, and results driven to answer it.

We won’t find happiness until we answer our calling.

The Guilt

Women often feel guilting about doing what is fulfilling themselves because they have so many people to serve and do things for, spouses, children, parents, church, etc.

If we follow our calling and do what we are called to do, we will become fulfilled. The more fulfilled we are, the better we can serve others.

It’s time to put the guilt aside and start doing what we are called to do and squeeze in time for ourselves.

Becoming a Speaker

A lot of women are walking around with the stories that they don’t even realize they have in them.

We have to own the story that happened to us that is going to help someone else. This story can become your signature speech and you can build a business around it.

Once the story is identified, points have to be created that will inspire and teach others.

If you have a product or service that you have to offer, you have to speak. If you aren’t speaking, you are missing a large part of your audience.

Identify your target audience and reach out and speak to them.

You know you niche, you know your audience, where are they located. Then start reaching out to the organizations, churches, businesses, etc. that need to hear your message.

At first speeches may be pro bono, but that’s OK because we need practice. If you do speeches pro bono, have a product offering that can be monetized within the speech.

Components of a Signature Speech

• Music
  • Come out to music. What music goes along with the message you want to convey.
  • Music will energize the audience and get them ready for the speech.
• Humor
  • Humor is a must. It’s a heartbeat. A signature message is like an S-Curve. They have to feel different types of emotions. You need to have them stand up, raise their hands, talk back to you, laughter, tears, etc. Think of it as taking the audience on the journey with you. The audience needs to not only hear your journey, they need to feel your journey.
• Speak to the Pain
  • Speak to the pain that the audience is experiencing and solve their problem.

Diversity and Inclusion

When you have said the same thing over and over again, it gets exhausting. A person can only take so much. A race of people can only take so much. And at the end of the day, as a race, African Americans are looking for equality.

Nothing Happens Overnight

The reality the problem of inequal...