If you’ve been doing something and you’re very good at it, do you still have room to improve? I just found I sure did!

While I’m confident and have achieved demonstrated results in matchmaking, you always have to be thinking in business, what’s the next growth step?

EO: Surround yourself with people at or ahead of you.

You grow when you surround yourself with people at or ahead of you in business and life. In October 2011, I attended EO Alchemy in Los Angeles (Entrepreneurs’ Organization) with keynote speeches by John Paul DeJoria, co-founder of Patron Spirits and John Paul Mithcell; Magic Johnson; one of my favorite TED Talks speakers, Simon Sinek (Start with Why) and Sam Horn, author of POP!

Want to become the spokesperson for your brand? Join Toastmasters.

It was keynote and brand strategy breakout session speaker Sasha Strauss of Innovation Protocol who gave me the two specific ideas I felt I needed to implement soonest. In addition to his branding agency, he teaches brand strategy as a Professor at USC. He pointed out you become a much better expert on your topic when you teach it and get asked questions by your students. He also highly recommended joining the public speaking organization, Toastmasters.

I came back to Arizona, revisited the Chats Toastmasters Scottsdale Chapter that very week (I’d gone back in May when a member invited me) and joined.

Since then, I’ve participated in minor functionary roles, like Grammarian and Invocation, given my Icebreaker and this last Monday, delivered a required 30 second commercial about my company as part of the annual Career Day.

The video is on this personal domain because there’s no way this poor sound quality 30 second commercial should be on my professional matchmaking website. But I thought friends who helped me shop for the spy outfit and come up with ideas for the first draft of the commercial would enjoy seeing it, along with other friends.

Like the Icebreaker I gave last week, they both sounded better in front of the mirror at home than when I was timed and knew we would be clapped off if we went over, in this case, at 31 seconds.

Like veteran actors and news anchors, I’m calling this video a part of “my early work.”

Showtime! I hope you enjoy my first video taped SPIES commercial. Watch what happens.

Becoming a Spokesperson for your Brand: Arizona Matchmaker Roseann Higgins on Toastmasters Career Day with a very SPIES 30 Second Commercial –>

The laughter is when the “Ah Counter” dings me for a blooper. I regrouped instantly and sped up what was left in the commercial to cram it in what was left in the 30 seconds. I know it’ll be hard to hear the video. I don’t have a mike on and it’s being filmed on an iPhone from the back row. Learning how to project my voice and practicing projecting is a skill set on the horizon.

Trying out new gestures in a speech.

I tried four new body gestures. I didn’t think of raising my finger for “one in a million” until I practiced in front of the mirror, and only after I got the words committed to memory. Then I tried out lowering my glasses when I said, “on the lookout.” Then, tipping the brim of my hat at “President.” Lastly, I thought of how secret agents or the FBI show credentials and searched out a black leather wallet and put the SPIES cards in it and practiced taking them out of my right pocket at the very end with the words “give me a call personally. I’m Roseann Higgins, at SPIES.”

I was so excited when I went to bed after about 20 run-throughs in costume. With each practice run, I reminded myself of how Anthony Hopkins rehearses his lines around 200 times. It’s worked well for him. Why not us, too? My friend Kenna Powell shared this tip with me and I appreciate it! It inspired me to keep doing just one more until I felt I had the material secure in my head before I went to sleep.

Winning the Justin Award: for enthusiasm, energy and excitement. (Not talent, yet. J )

As the meeting ended and we received Mentor’s Minute solid speaking tips from our Chapter Mentor and Hall of Fame Speaker, Joel Weldon, he announced this week’s “Justin Award” was for the first time going to a “spy” or someone who “spies.” It was a blur.

“The “Justin Award” is a trophy which is given each week to the CHATS member who best expresses the qualities of enthusiasm, energy, excitement and sheer joy that Justin Freeman brought to our CHATS meetings.  Its purpose is to help all of us bring these qualities to each meeting, and then single out just one individual, who for that one meeting, was “a Justin.””

I wonder if this is the same Justin Freeman I knew who raised money for Cystic Fibrosis and had 100 big career goals listed in this 3-ring binder he carried with him when he was around 30. Small world?