Secrets of Great Public Speakers: Constant Improvement

00:01 So, folks, we're in the homestretch here.

00:04 We've come a long way together.

00:06 I think I hope you've improved a great deal as a speaker, but I do want you to realize this is a lifelong process.

00:14 One of the real secrets of great speakers is that they're always trying to improve, and sometimes it's just that much.

00:22 One of the secrets of great speakers is that they use every single speech they ever give as a focus group, a little practice for their next speech. They're always asking people, What did you like about this speech? When someone comes up afterwards and says, Hey, good job, good speech.

00:38 They don't just say thanks.

00:40 They say, What do you remember? What stood out? What stories did you like? And they use that.

00:46 It's valuable focus group research to make the next speech a little bit better. And sometimes it's virtually the same speech.

00:54 Ronald Reagan gave many of the same elements of his speech from 1964 to 1980.

01:03 Different versions of it again and again and again.

01:05 Until it improved.

01:06 Refine got better and better and better.

01:09 Al Gore gave his Inconvenient Truth speech.

01:13 Many hundreds, if not thousands, of times before it was turned into a movie and became a huge, huge success.

01:20 So always try to learn from your speeches.

01:23 The other thing I want you to do is to try to challenge yourself.

01:28 A lot of times we pigeonhole ourselves.

01:30 We say, Well, I'm okay speaking to 100 people, but I can ever speak to a huge trade association of 500 or 1000 people.

01:39 I can speak down here, but I can't be up on it.

01:41 We put all these little constraints on ourselves.

01:44 Here's the secret.

01:47 If you can have even one conversation with one person, you have all the skills you need to speak to any size group, anywhere, in any format.

01:58 Now, I don't mean on any topic.

01:59 You have to know something about your topic, but you can adapt to any type of environment.

02:06 PowerPoint stage 1000 people on TV Webinar down in a classroom.

02:16 So all of these things are relatively minor changes.

02:20 As long as you still have good ideas, good insights, stories, and you've prepared and practice on video.

02:30 I mean, those are really the big key things you can speak in any situation.

02:33 I would advise you constantly look for new opportunities to speak, to stretch you, to test yourself.

02:41 For many people, it's simply the size of the audience.

02:44 And my clients tell me all the time, T.J., I'm comfortable in front of small audiences. I get really nervous, uncomfortable in front of larger audiences.

02:53 Well, I speak to large audiences regularly, and you won't be as uncomfortable and everything is relative.

03:00 I had a client I was working with recently running for political office, and he said to me, T.J., I'm very comfortable speaking to small groups, but I get nervous in front of large groups.

03:13 I said, Everyone says that you're completely normal.

03:17 That's the most normal feeling in the world to have.

03:20 But then he said something a little different.

03:22 He said, yes, T.J., I'm very comfortable speaking to small groups of 5000 people.

03:27 But when I speak to large groups of 100,000 people, I get nervous and uncomfortable.

03:32 Well, that's a little different.

03:33 He happened to be running to head up the government in the largest democracy of the world with more than a billion people in it.

03:41 So the scale of the audiences were different.

03:47 But the basic feeling was the same, this sense that I'm okay here, but not here.

03:53 The reality is you speak the same way these days with microphones, with technology, with speakers.

04:01 You're not had. You don't have to project and yell to people 1000 feet away now.

04:08 Maybe 100 years ago, no speakers, no microphones.

04:12 You're on the stump. You would literally have to stand on the stump and speak and yell so that farmers in the cornfield could hear you.

04:19 But for the most part, that's not the case.

04:22 Even at low budget operations schools, nonprofit organizations, if you're speaking to more than 100 people, a microphone and a speaker can be brought in typically.

04:33 So I do want you to challenge yourself.

04:35 If you've never given a PowerPoint presentation, don't turn down the opportunity just because you don't like PowerPoint, or you're not comfortable with it. Have someone help you come up with PowerPoint slides and do that. If you've never given an after dinner speech, something a little entertainment flair that may take you out of your comfort zone of pure business.

04:59 Do that. Perhaps you really feel comfortable in many, many ways, many different venues, and you still want to expand yourself. Try doing stand-up comedy.

05:10 That's the ultimate in public speaking challenges because in stand-up comedy, your audience is expecting you to make them laugh every 5 to 10 seconds.

05:22 And if you don't do it, their attitude is, I'm not happy with you.

05:27 So I have tremendous respect for stand-up comedians.

05:31 So try, even if you bomb, it's still a good experience.

05:35 If nothing else, it'll make your regular speaking experiences seem like a piece of cake because the expectations are so different. If you're speaking to a normal business audience, to a group of investors, clients, customers, the only thing they're thinking about is, Oh my God, I just hope TJ doesn't bore us to death.

05:58 So if you can deliver something that isn't boring, most audiences are really happy. And that's the beauty of at least attempting standup comedy in that if you bomb, going back to regular speaking engagements are going to seem really easy in comparison.

06:16 And if you do get a few laughs, it will give you a tremendous boost in confidence to your speaking.

06:22 Now, I'm not suggesting that you try to be a stand-up comedian in front of your board of directors when talking about subpar quarterly results , but an occasional little sprinkle of humor in any presentation you give most of the time is appreciated now if you're announcing a huge disaster involving injuries and deaths.

06:46 No, that's not the time to do it.

06:49 But for many, many business presentations, if you can just sprinkle a little bit of humor throughout, it's going to make people a lot less likely to sort of, oh, what is this guy going to finish here? It's going to make them less likely to reach into their pocket and start checking email.

07:10 So that's why practicing with stand-up comedy, even if it's just with friends, even if it's just for the open mic night on a monday night can help you, but it doesn't have to be that perhaps it's being the master of ceremonies for a local civic group handing out awards.

07:28 That's a different type of presenting.

07:31 Perhaps it is being the head of a panel discussion, being a moderator at a major trade association.

07:38 Maybe you're comfortable when you have the stage yourself, but if you have to be the moderator and there's for people who are more well known, more well respected than you are, that might be intimidating.

07:50 Every speaking opportunity you have is a little bit different.

07:53 Being a panelist seated is different from being the keynote speaker standing, and yet it's still the same.

08:02 A lot of people make the mistake of saying, Oh, I'm just on a panel, that's no big deal.

08:07 So they don't prepare.

08:08 They have a few handwritten notes on a napkin, and they start off by with, well, you know, I wasn't really sure what to prepare here and blah, blah, blah, my way over here. And they're wasting time talking about their preparation.

08:21 What they should be doing is saying something interesting for the audience.

08:27 Any time you're speaking, whether you're the moderator, whether you're the panelist who's been given 3 minutes, whether you're the keynote speaker, and you've been given 2 hours. Any time you're speaking, you need to be in the moment because your audience members are listening to you.

08:45 They're judging. Right now.

08:47 Should I pay attention to this person? They're interesting and useful, or this person is boring, not useful.

08:54 Let me not pay attention and tune out.

08:56 So keep that in mind.

08:59 There's no such thing as a little speech or just a panel discussion or Oh, it's only a four-minute speech.

09:06 Every single speech you give, every single presentation, every talk, every PowerPoint is an opportunity to communicate messages and burnish your reputation for leadership and communication skills.

09:21 So let's sum up here.

09:22 I've given you an awful lot of tips and tricks and tactics, and don't hold the lectern and be sure to move and hold eye contact for a full thought. You can ignore all that stuff, frankly, if you do just a handful of basics, for starters.

09:41 You've got to really figure out what are you trying to do with this speech? What do you want your audience to do? And then you've got to factor in what are the handful of key ideas that are going to make them do that? And when I say a handful, I mean literally a handful, not five.

09:57 Big themes with seven sub points underneath each one.

10:02 Five ideas.

10:03 You've got to limit yourself to five ideas, and then you've got to come up with a story for each one.

10:11 Case Study.

10:12 A compelling example involving you having a conversation with a real customer, a real client, a real colleague about a real problem in a real place, and how you felt you need this story.

10:26 Next, you need a cheat sheet.

10:29 You need to have your notes on a single sheet of paper, preferably a half a sheet of paper, so that you don't have to put pressure on your memory not to memorize stuff.

10:40 You can have a single sheet of notes, or if you're like, I am, I have one page of notes, but I have three identical copies that I place around the room. A little bonus tip for you.

10:52 The next tip is practice on video until you love it, because you're a pretty good judge of speaking. You've watched boring speakers, boring presenters, boring professors, boring CEOs your whole life.

11:08 You know, what you don't like and the stuff you don't like is pretty close to what other people don't like.

11:15 So if you practice your speech, and you see stuff you don't like, get rid of it.

11:18 Don't subject your audience to it.

11:22 It's so simple.

11:23 It sounds simple.

11:24 I know you're tired of me repeating it, but people still do it all the time.

11:30 They tell me T.J. I hate when people do boring data dumps.

11:32 They get up, and they give a boring data dump, and then they look at their own speech.

11:37 Gosh, I did a boring data dump.

11:38 Isn't that all? Well, yeah, it is.

11:40 Whose fault is that? Why are you surprised? You're the one who created it, and you're the one who delivered it.

11:47 So you're not going to do that anymore.

11:49 Practice your speech on video and that's not enough. You got to keep practicing until you love it.

11:58 That's really the final tip.

12:00 You can ignore everything else, but if you practice your speech until you're at the point where you can look at the video, and you say, Wow, I love it at that point, you can't do any better.

12:16 At that point, there's no need for more practice.

12:19 At that point.

12:20 Your hands are not going to be shaking.

12:22 You're not going to be wondering about this and that.

12:25 You're going to be relaxed, you're going to be confident, you're going to be confident that you're going to give a great presentation because you will.