When Dannella Burnett was nine years old, she liked to watch Julia Child on television.
“I just loved the way she took ingredients and had such a love for bringing that together. She always had a vision for what she was putting on the plate,” she said.
Burnett went on to earn her degrees in culinary and food service management and has been in the hospitality and events industry her entire career, but when the recession hit in 2008, her husband was working in the construction industry and lost his job. At that point, Burnett decided it was time to stop working for other people and set out on her own.
“I launched my catering business from the kitchen of my church,” she said. “When I started, it was more personal events, weddings and reunions, and that led to corporate and non-profit events, fundraisers and working with municipalities. I’ve done events of just 10 or 15 people and as many as 250,000 people.”
In 2014, her company did a lot of events for coaching and consulting experts and as she grew and evolved as a business owner, so did the type of events she did.
“Most of our clients today are speakers, coaches and authors. They want to influence a group of people to help them grow their business or lose weight,” she said. “It could be health coaches or business coaches, but they have a message that they want to get out there and they really want to make an impact on the people they need to serve. So they have events to grow their business. to find prospects, to find the people they need to serve.”
On the speakers’ side, Burnett uses a six-step process to help her clients get on more stages. She also provides spoken leads, as well as guidelines and tips to gain more visibility – something that is extremely important these days.
“Before 2020, we were talking about podiums and it was the podium you stepped on,” said Burnett. “At an event, at someone else’s event, as a keynote, as part of a multi-speaker event. And when 2020 happened, it really moved along the entire speaking and event industry and virtually brought it into the mix. And that’s why, there are more opportunities now than ever before. Now we have podcasts, radio and TV that are stages, as well as social media, such as Clubhouse and Audio Social. These are really speaking or visibility opportunities. So there are so many more opportunities, but make sure that those opportunities align with a speaker and get them in front of the right audience, that can be a bit of a challenge.”
Over the years, Burnett’s recipe for success has helped her clients make millions. She sat down with Jessica Aboc to share her six-step process and how to participate in her upcoming three-day event called Visibility.
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.