Meet Shelly Slater of Shelly Slater Strategies in Park Cities

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shelly Slater.

Shelly, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
After anchoring for 10 years for WFAA, I decided to step back to be around for my 3 young boys more. I was always on air at the very time they were free to play. I loved my work life but I struggled to have a balance. Now, I contribute to the TV station but not on a daily basis.

What happened after leaving is people started asking me for advice or help. I realized quickly that the newsroom trained me up in a unique way. Every day, you get ratings to see what people do and don’t like about the product the night before. It’s like getting a daily report card. Over the years, you learn what truly engages people and what turns them off. I now use that skill and the ability to think on my feet fast, just like in breaking news, to help clients build stories into their businesses. Facts are great and they are persuasive, but a story will make someone act. People look at you funny when you say, no… tell me a story. But once they do it, they see it wins business and trust.

Bio:
Nationally recognized journalist, Shelly has twenty years of experience getting to the point. As a news anchor and reporter, she has won multiple Emmy Awards and a National Edward R. Murrow Award, Shelly knows how to engage an audience. Her career has taken her from live breaking news to interviews with everyone from former First Lady Laura Bush to Jimmy Kimmel and Amal Clooney.

Shelly knows the importance of storytelling to convey a message. Non-profits, law firms, police associations, hedge funds, convention speakers, family offices, CEOs, etc. are turning to her to craft their points. Shelly has extensive experience in public speaking and presentation trainings to help both individuals and teams deliver a message that sticks.

Shelly is a native Texan, born and raised in Plano. She and her husband have three young boys. Shelly calls motherhood the most exhausting and rewarding chaos in her life. On a nightly basis, she’s throwing a dance party with her kids before settling in to read at night.

Has it been a smooth road?
Smooth. How funny. No, of course it’s hard. When you walk out of a newsroom after 20 years, you walk into the corporate world you’ve never known. I had never done a PowerPoint. Google docs? We didn’t use that stuff in the newsroom. So, it was almost as if I was frozen in time for 20 years and walked out into a new world. But honestly, that learning curve is also what makes this work. NOT being corporate gives you a different, fresh take on things and that’s been a huge key.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Shelly Slater Strategies story. Tell us more about the business.
I am most proud when people walk away feeling confident. Whether we produce a video for them, train their team up to be executive storytellers or I write a speech for someone, when they feel that nervous excitement, I know, I’ve done my job.

I think what sets me apart is that I didn’t go read a bunch of books to figure this out. I have tried and failed on many occasions in the TV world and each time I grew and learned more. Now, I’m transferring those years of experience to others. I’ve been told by several clients, I don’t go about things like most consultants. I’m not about just talking in circles, I want action and results. In a newsroom, I was used to delivering a product daily under deadlines. I like to add accountability into businesses to move them forward in the way they communicate.

I think one of the coolest moments in my last year and a half was being invited to train the folks at Nike. They put a premium on how they present internally and externally. They are so progressive, it’s infectious. We took the old way of doing things and turned it upside down. It was awesome and the team said, it was one of the most effective team building experiences they’ve had together.

Here is how I shape things for clients to explain:
Before you can influence, inspire or change the behavior of people, you need to tell them a story. Yours. Shelly Slater Strategies can help you narrow your story down to the business-end of a spear. You don’t want to just make a point. You want to be the point.

Once you have a story, our services and techniques will teach you and your team how to tell it, effectively and compellingly. Everything from presentation training to creating video content, we can show you how to build your business.

A story well-told is meaningless unless people hear it. And share it. Our award-winning experience in broadcast news will show you how to make your story stick with people, and how to spread your message out beyond your current networks.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I think the more people put their heads in their phones, the bigger this business will get. Technology is taking away our ability to engage. We text, over talk. We message at work. No one picks up the phone. Thus, the practice to learn to be interesting isn’t there.

I work with a lot of young people, students, who haven’t had to hold a conversation with others to get by. Think about it. You don’t even need to talk to the barista at Starbucks anymore, you just use the mobile app and walk in an out.

So, the game changers in this world are people who can communicate and make their needs clear and concise.

Contact Info:

• Email: shelly@shellyslater.com
• Instagram: @shellyslatertv
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wfaa.shelly.slater/
• Twitter: @wfaashelly

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