On Tuesday, my 16-year-old daughter Amanda and I found ourselves in a hotel suite decked out with everything a girl could desire – delicious pink and white candies, fresh fruit, probiotic skin treatments, racks of designer clothes and professionals offering mani/pedis, massages, hair styling and facials. By 9AM, a band of successful, inspirational and supportive women from ARF RE!Think 2016 began streaming in to chat, network and share in the fun.
We could only be at Shelley Zalis’s The Girls’ Lounge. And today I was their “Confidence Coach.”
I got the call a few weeks ago. It was Shelley on my voicemail. “Hi Audrey! Shelley Zalis calling. You are a rock star! We want to start talking about how we can incorporate your app LikeSo, and you, in what we do. Big kisses! Hope you are great. Time to get rolling!”
Shelley Zalis, the founder of The Girls’ Lounge is a force of nature – a woman among women. An energetic, passionate and brilliant leader who knows just how to get your hopes high, your dreams big and your heart going. Her hashtag says it all, #confidenceisbeautiful.
My first engagement with Shelley was as a contributor to her pocketbook, Lessons from The Girls’ Lounge, my “10 Tips to Say It Like You Mean It!” published within. Now, with my just-launched mobile app, LikeSo in the App Store (#4 overall three days post launch!), Shelley offered a wonderful opportunity to share my passion – an app designed to be your “Personal Speech Coach,” and to help us all speak articulately, confidently and without the “like, ya know” syndrome.
We all want to speak in a way that inspires others to listen. Powerfully, persuasively, and without the filler words that can weaken our speech, water down our meaning and distract our listeners. As women, we still face inequality in the workplace. We don’t need any other obstacles in our way. LikeSo was designed as a private and fun way for everyone (men too!) to practice and improve their “speech fitness” and to capture all of those “likes,” “ya knows” “sos,” “totallys,” “whatevers,” etc.
Using voice recognition software, LikeSo provides a real-time analysis of your speech fitness. LikeSo calculates a score – your percent articulate – based on the number of filler words divided by the total words spoken, and also measures pacing for the fast and slow talker.
Amanda and I had a great time demo-ing LikeSo for women from Toyota, Tivo Research, IPG MediaBrands, Gilly’s Organics, Wake Aspen, Ozobot, HerAgenda, Girl Scouts, etc. We met a Broadway producer (for Lupita Nyong’o’s Eclipsed), a commercial actor, a few brilliant lawyers and consultants and an inspirational speaker. We cheered and pumped our hands in the air along with the founder and creator of Private Packs when she got the highest score of the day, 99% Articulate!
As the “likes,” “ya knows,” “justs” and “sos” (my own ubiquitous verbal crutch) tumbled out, we were thrilled by all of the use cases immediately declared. Two gorgeous college seniors with their own start-up (Spack) related how they and all their friends were in the midst of angst-ridden job and business school interviews. A Girl’s Lounge marketer told us about her anxiety around giving the toast at her sister’s wedding. A presentation trainer told us she was just about to assign a 1 minute and 5 minute presentation to her students. In all cases, they agreed that LikeSo would help!
After all the demos were done and the scores calculated, Amanda and I tabulated up the results. So, how did The Girls’ Lounge score? How articulate is this extraordinary group of women?
95% Articulate, that’s how!
#SayItLikeSo!
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