Our graduates have:
Become trusted leaders, advocates, and activists
Created international movements & nonprofits
Secured speaking representation
Quit the 9-5 to start their own company
Featured in prestigious publications like People and Forbes
Conquer the Red Dot®: Case Studies
Peder Tellefsdal
Communication & PR Consultant
TEDxArendal: “How to seek forgiveness when relationships are on the line”
Views: 1,700,000
When Peder first came to us, he had just been rejected by his dream conference TEDxArendal.
As soon as we saw his script and application, it was no surprise why: Peder had something really important to say, but it was buried underneath a mess of anecdotes and statistics that served him more than the audience.
Most problematic, his script lacked a clear through-line.
In just two months we rebuilt his application by starting over with our core messaging process. His newly developed Big Idea?
“To practice the art of asking for forgiveness when relationships are on the line.”
He then informally pitched the revamped idea to the lead organizer, who immediately accepted him for the following year’s conference.
We then built a new script from scratch, which Peder meticulously rehearsed over 200 times and delivered flawlessly.
It has since been viewed 1,700,000 times and was the 5th most watched new TEDx talk in the world (Dec 2022).
Since then, Peder has built a professional speaking and thought leadership career off the back of his talk.
Peder documented his entire journey to the Red Dot in great detail in a blog post on his own website. Read it here.
Jane Epstein
Survivor & Advocate
TEDxBocaRaton: “Giving Voice to Sibling Sexual Abuse”
Views: 600,000
No organizer in America is going to put a talk about this topic on their stage.
That was my first thought after meeting Jane.
My second thought was, This story deserves the biggest of stages.
Jane Epstein is a survivor of childhood sibling sexual abuse (SSA), a situation that is, unfortunately, much more prevalent than we’d like to believe.
At first we thought Jane’s talk was going to surrender how you think people who are hurting need to heal, in order to become a truly supportive presence.
But Jane isn’t a researcher or an expert, and wasn’t claiming to be. So we decided that the Big Idea of her talk was actually driving new research:
“To build awareness about sibling sexual abuse so that we can demand the research and education required to make things better.”
On one of the coldest days in the history of Boca Raton, Florida, Jane stepped on stage at an outdoor amphitheater and delivered her talk was grace.
It has since been viewed 600,000 times and started to achieve its precise goal.
Jane’s story was picked up by People Magazine in a hard copy multi-page spread, and on the ‘cover’ of the online publication. She and her non-profit 5Waves co-founders have been invited to meet with policy makers in Washington, DC.
And recently she and her story were featured in a landmark piece on SSA in The Times.
David Horne
Financial Advisor, Founder
TEDxPCL: “The Fight for Fairer Funding”
Views: 3,000,000
David is a seasoned career financial advisor which includes a decade-long stint as CFO.
But when he was given the opportunity to share a Big Idea at TEDxPCL, he didn’t want to talk about his work, or his proprietary Add Then Multiply system.
Instead, he wanted to spread awareness about inequality in funding.
“Brian, did you know that in one study, more funding went to men named ‘David’ than to all women?”
He was shocked. I was shocked. Women were not.
That discovery became the thread of the talk, inspiring lines like,
“ ‘Pick a David, any David’ should not be the criteria on which funding is allocated.”
His Big Idea?
“To level the playing field for women and under-represented entrepreneurs in securing funding, in order to create more opportunities for everyone and provide better returns for all investors.”
After TEDx talk dropped, David established Funding Focus, a B1G1 Business For Good organization whose mission is to, you guessed it, level the playing field for women and underrepresented entrepreneurs.
In just 2 years they’ve reached over 1000 entrepreneurs and investors in 27 countries on 6 continents.
Christie Lindor
CEO, Tessi Consulting
TEDxZaragoza: “Why great people leave good jobs”
Views: 250,000
When Christie approached me she was still working for a consulting firm with dreams of quitting the 9-5 and building something for herself.
Her book, The MECE Muse, had attracted praise from some of the top names in the business.
She’d been invited to speak at TEDxZaragoza in Spain on the topic of her most popular blog post, “People do not quit companies, managers, or leaders – they quit organizational cultures.”
The trick was turning a corporate-sounding blog post about “organizational culture” into a conversational talk that would make the average worker browsing YouTube stop and listen.
I pushed Christie over and over to eliminate any specialized language, and to explain concepts like she would a friend over coffee.
Her talk has since been viewed 250,000 times.
Christie leveraged her new status as a thought leader to quit the 9-5 and found Tessi Consulting, a boutique consultancy whose mission is to create equitable and inclusive workplace cultures that are authentic, impactful, and sustainable.
Cait Scudder
CEO, Business Coach for Women
TEDxOneonta: “Rising is a Risk: Do It Anyway”
Views: 300,000
When Cait first came to me she was running a successful 6-figure coaching business. Just a few years earlier she’d quit the 9-5 as a teacher and ran off to Bali in search of meaning.
She found her calling as a coach (and her future husband), but when it came time to tell her story at TEDxOneonta, she was lost.
Cait had a million stories, but when I pressed her on the ONE big idea she wanted to impart, she couldn’t quite express it.
With less than 3 months until the big day, we spent just 6 ultra-focused sessions clarifying until she could confidently state her Idea Worth Sharing in one sentence:
“Women need to risk disappointing others in order to become who they truly are.”
It has 285,000 views and counting.
We designed the talk not to go viral, but to speak precisely to her ideal client’s values and beliefs.
And boy did it reach the right people.
Just 10 months later she’d leveraged her newfound clarity to transform her 6-figure business into a 7-figure global empire.
She’s now a mom of 2, working less hours while creating more value for women entrepreneurs the world-over than ever before.
Watch this Playlist of Conquer the Red Dot® Clients Delivering Their Big Idea
TAKE THE SCORECARD
Are you ready to step on the Red Dot?
Take the Road to the Red Dot™ scorecard and discover how likely your Big Idea is to be selected by a TED-style conference organizer.
After completing the assessment, you’ll receive an overall score for Red Dot Readiness - how likely we believe a speaker selection committee will accept your Big Idea - and individual scores for each section, accompanied by an insightful evaluation.
This feedback is tailored to guide you in refining your application before hitting 'send.'
