Why are we all so scared of public speaking? Interview with Steve Bustin

Hey, all, it's Rob here. And welcome to the latest episode of the Agency Accelerator podcast. Now, in this episode, I'm really excited to have my guest, Steve Bustin, with me today talking about everything to do with public speaking. Now, Steve's going to share with us some of the twists and turns of his career and how he eventually arrived at being a public speaker, trainer and a compare. And most importantly, he's going to help us overcome some of the fears that we all have when it comes to public speaking. He's going to talk about what the ideal structure of a talk or a presentation looks like, and he's going to give us some really good tools and tips to help us be confident when it comes to public speaking. So this applies whether you are standing up in front of an audience of 100 people, whether you're running a workshop, whether you're pitching, or whether you're standing up in front of your colleagues in the office, all of the tools and ideas and tips and techniques that Steve is going to share with us today are applicable to you. So come on in and join me for this week's Agency Accelerator.

Accelerate your agency's profitable growth with tools, tips and value added interviews with your host agency owner and coach, Rob DaCosta.

So let's get going with today's podcast. I'm really, really excited to have with us today Steve Buston. Now, Steve is a business communication specialist who works with organizations and individuals who want to engage effectively with their audience through his business, get your voice heard. He works primarily as a keynote speaker, a public speaking coach and a communications consultant. Now, Steve is also currently the National President of the Professional Speaking association in the UK and he was named UK speaker of the Year in 2015. He's also the author of two books, the Authority Guide to Presenting and Public Speaking. Now, I've read that book and shared it with some of my clients, so I can recommend it and also the Authority Guide to PR for small businesses. So welcome aboard, Steve, as a way of introduction, I know that you've evolved your business over time and I also know that my listeners are really interested to learn more about that. So could you just give us a bit of insight into your background and how this evolution came about?

Yeah, of course, Rob. I have to say it's great to be here and thank you for inviting me. So my business has definitely changed and transformed over the years, sometimes by design, and it has to be said, sometimes sort of really just accidentally or just sort of, it's just happened organically. So I'm actually a journalist by background. I started my career in BBC News working across radio, tv, news bulletins. And I then left BBC to move into PR and I worked in house for a couple of years for a.com which then went spectacularly bust, which was a horrible process to go through, but taught me a lot about business. And I then went, well, I suppose I went freelance really. I just set up on my own, taking jobs here and there, some on contract, some on daily rates and that just that suddenly seemed to go well. I really did it to tide myself over while looking for, quote, a proper job. But actually I liked being self employed. I enjoyed the self determination. I enjoyed being able to choose what I did, where I did, when I did it. And I just thought actually I can make a go of this. I had no experience of being in business, it has to be said, and that was probably the bit that I struggled with for a while, was actually learning how to operate as a business. So I ran a PR agency. I ended up taking on a couple of staff. We had a niche in the cosmetics and aesthetics sector, working particularly with cosmetic surgeons, cosmetic dentists, dermatologists. And I had to say I had two members of staff working with me on particularly on one big account that then unfortunately came crashing to a halt when that client stopped paying because they ran into massive financial difficulties. I of course had to carry on paying my staff. So I ended up significantly out of pocket to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds. And that's when I came back to being a one man band. And then really right from quite early on in my career working running the PR business, people started asking me to go in and work with their organization as a trainer, as a coach, particularly around social media. I was a very early adopter of social media and the Internet generally. In fact, I was part of a team of three that introduced the Internet into the BBC newsroom many years ago. So people started saying, would you come in and work with our team, train them on social media? And then it was all could you come in and do some media training? And then would you come to this particular event and speak for us? And then would you come to our conference and speak at this event? And it just started to build. Now the problem was that the two sides of the business, the training and coaching, speaking and the PR weren't compatible. So I would be in a training room all day and I'd have PR clients leaving messages on my phone saying we need this press release by lunchtime, where are you? So it became more and More problematic, I decided it was going to be very much I wanted to move into the speaking and training and coaching and so I actually ended up stopping the PR business. I fired my last client, which was a really interesting experience, but actually quite cathartic and quite healthy. It was the right thing to do. I miss the retainers of those days, but actually I'm much happier doing what I do. I think the trouble then was I did end up going through a phase of trying to be all things to all people and I was doing presentation skills training and I was doing PR training, I was doing media training, I was doing social media training, I was doing trainer trainer work, I was doing all sorts of bits and pieces and actually it wasn't a coherent hole and it was a conversation you and I had some years ago where I remember you said to me very clearly, if you could get up tomorrow and do one thing and the client's going to pay you regardless of what you do, what would you do? And without hesitation I said, presentation skills. And I remember, Rob, you said to me, well, go and do that then. And you were absolutely right. And that really was a turning point in my business because that was when I started doing what I love. So I now work, as you say, as a speaker. So I'm either on stage myself as a speaker. I do a lot of comparing work as well. So I compare an emcee and host events. So I'm either on stage myself or I'm teaching other people how to do it. So I work as a speech coach. I do also coach people who are comparing and hosting and then I do a bit, I do a little bit of media training and some presentation skills, but it's now predominantly either speaking myself or one to one coaching. Particularly now I'm niching into the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector, picking up on the specialism I had with the PR agency and applying that to what I'm doing now. So I do a lot of work with the big pharmaceutical companies, with private hospitals, working with doctors and senior management teams who are presenting on a regular basis and pitching as well. I also do quite a lot of work with agencies in the same way you do coaching them on their pitching skills, helping them to differentiate themselves and all that sort of stuff. So that's a, that's, that's basically, that's 20 years of my career condensed into about four minutes. But yeah, that's how it happened.

So can I just unpack a few of those points? Because I think before we, before we jump into the detail about public Speaking, which is what this theme of this podcast is. I just want to unpack a few things because I think a few things that Steve has just said are really important lessons for us all. So, first of all, that story of how you started your business is really familiar. It's exactly how I started my business. I. I'd sold my agency, I was freelancing for a while, and you kind of grow from there. So sometimes, you know, businesses take a life of their own and you're led by opportunities. So I think that is going to be a really familiar story for a lot of people. A lot of people start out as freelancers. Then they have capacity issues, so they decide to either outsource to more freelancers or bring in their first member of staff. That moment you make that decision to hire that first member of staff is the minute you've decided to switch from being like a solopreneur freelancer to actually growing an agency. So I think that's one. One point that a lot of people will relate to. The second point, I think that you talked about losing that big client and that forced you to sort of restructure what you were doing is a big risk for us all. And in fact, I'm actually recording this while I'm still in Cape Town. And I met with a Cape Town agency the other day, and they work for, I guess, the equivalent of boots in the uk. It's company called Clicks out here. And that is really a huge account for them. And they have the same kind of risk of all eggs in one basket and what happens if they lose that piece of business? So that's definitely something that we all need to be mindful of. We need to work hard to mitigate our risk. And the other thing that I think is really good for you, Steve, that in that decision is about sometimes we need to be brave. And firing that last client and changing your business from the retained PR model to a much more uncertain role in the public speaking space is a really big, brave decision to make. I'm really glad that you made it. And I think a lot of people kind of keep themselves in their comfort zone and don't make those decisions. And just to tie onto that, before I hand back to you, the. Also, what goes with that is that when we do something we love doing and we're passionate about, money always follows that, even if it feels really scary at first. When we chase the money, we never. We never enjoy what we're doing. We never can be as financially successful as when we do something that we Love that we can, you know, sell to people. Money always follows that.

Yeah, completely. And I mean, I say to people, if you get Sunday Night blues, you're in the wrong job. If you find yourself dreading going to work or just doing it with a heavy heart, change. Life is too short to spend your time doing something you're not enjoying. And I mean, it was one of the reasons I got out of pr, because actually I really fell out of love with pr and I was doing it just because it was what I did and it brought money in, but I didn't love it. One of the things I've always said is PR is telling the world about the interesting and exciting things that other people are doing. That's what you're doing when you're in pr. You're not actually necessarily doing something exciting and interesting yourself. You're telling the world about what other people are up to. You also in PR have this problem. Me, you know, you, you know, I'm trying to avoid using a particular phrase here, but you cannot, should we say, you cannot polish something long and brown and smelly because actually, I think you know where that phrase is going. It's, you know, the problem with PR is, you know, you are always only as good as the stories your clients can provide you with. So, yeah, I got to a point where I just, I wasn't enjoying it. It wasn't creative, it wasn't playing to my strengths. I was in far, far happier doing the coaching and training and the speaking work. And so, yeah, I mean, that, that moment when I decided to stop doing PR was a revelation in many ways and was a relief it took. I gave the clients three months notice. So it wasn't an immediate thing, but that first month when I didn't have a retained fee coming into my account was a shock to the system. You know, even now. And that's. Crikey, that's seven or eight years ago now, at least. Um, even now I still miss that. And I do have some clients who actually I do work with on retainer from time to time. Um, but that, yeah, my, my income is, is more variable now. There's no two ways about it.

It's interesting to know, though, that there seems to be a trend at the moment of agencies or clients moving away from the retainer model. That's just a big conversation that I have a lot with my agency clients at the moment that more, more of their customers want to work on a project by project basis. And the retainer model is disappearing a bit. So I kind of feel like even if you were still in the PR world, you might be forced into a similar model to the one that you're on now.

Yeah, absolutely. And I actually think it's healthier now I've come out of that role. I think it's healthier in many ways for both client and agency to be on a, on a project basis with clear parameters, you know, a clear scope. I think when you're on retainer, it's far, far easier for mission creep to start and I think it's far easier for, for agencies to over service and not charter all day working. So actually I think it's a healthy way of doing it. And again, I suspect a lot of agency owners might hear that and go, oh, crikey, no, I need to know that I've got that money coming in every month. I think, yeah, be brave, take that jump, try it with a couple of clients, see how you go. And I think it's actually a much healthier working relationship.

Yeah, I agree with you entirely. And you know, a common conversation I have with clients all the time is about value pricing and value selling and, you know, not selling time and how to manage over servicing and how to deal with clients who forget what they agreed at the beginning of the retainer and six months later want something else or unhappy when you don't deliver that something else, even though it's not included in the fee. So there's a whole. There's a whole different podcast there that we can unpack around that. I think. I just, I think it's episode nine of my podcast. I spoke about my month in South Africa and what I learned. And one of the things that I really learned is the value of being present. Because I think when you're in the sunshine, when you're in a different environment, you are much more present. So I completely and wholeheartedly agree with you about this thing. If anybody's got something like blues, they should change their job and do something that makes them happier. Because when we are doing something that we love doing, time goes much quicker, flies by because we're much more present. We're not daydreaming, wishing we were somewhere else. Again, a topic for a different podcast, but I think worth bringing up because it's obviously something that you've gone through. Let's move on to today's theme, which is all about public speaking and just a huge, hugely important topic. Again, I mean, I'm no expert on this stuff, but it is a conversation I have a lot with people, especially where you have an agency where the owners or the senior staff are trying to bring in their next tier of managers to get more involved in standing up and speaking at events or on a stage or even just pitching. People are super scared about doing it. I know that. You know, there's this story that goes around that some people say that public speaking is the second most scary thing after death. Why do you think that? Why do you think that is? You've obviously overcome that fear. So why do you think that is?

It's a tricky one. I mean, interestingly, I actually. I have a T shirt that I bought at a speaking conference last year which says, your worst nightmare is how I earn a living. And it's true. You know, there are people go, how on earth can you make a living out of what you're doing? A lot of people are terrified of it. And when you dig into it and start asking, what is it that you're so scared of? For most people, they're scared of making a fool of themselves. It's that simple. You know, nobody died through public speaking. It's not a. You know, it's not something that's got a danger of death attached to it, quite frankly. So a lot of people are just scared of making fool in front of people. There's also then, I think, a lot of pressure put on people, particularly within an agency context, that if you deliver this pitch particularly, and we don't win the work, somehow you're at fault. And that is so not the case. It's one of the things I've worked with a lot of agencies to overcome that, you know, there's sometimes a culture of blame attached to whoever does the pitching. And that really has to stop because, you know, again, the person who's pitching can only be as good as the material they've been given. So let's get that out there right away. You have to avoid that culture of blame. But I think, yeah, it is about looking. People are scared of looking forward, particularly in front of their peers, particularly if they're speaking in front of their boss. And yet it's got to a point now where presenting is an essential business skill. It's not something that you can avoid. Now, a lot of particularly senior job interview processes include a presentation, so, you know, you have to do it. I'd also say within an agency, you have to have a number of people who can do it, partly because every pitch is different and you might well need to play to different people's strengths within your team. It's also because you need an Understudy. I know too many businesses and agencies where it's always the managing director who will go out and pitch or it's always the head creative director, if that person's off sick, who goes instead. You've got to have an undertaker, you've got to have a team of people who can all step up and do this. So there is, I think you have to have now a culture that public speaking and presenting is seen as a valuable skill that everybody needs to develop. And interestingly, actually, I've just been working with an agency up in Manchester who are now talking about bringing me and I'm going to be their in house speech coach as a. I mean, obviously under my own brand. But they have recognized that it's a really important part of their business, not just in terms of going out and pitching for new work, but presenting to clients, presenting to existing clients, doing monthly meetings and that sort of stuff, but also the opportunity to promote the business by speaking at conferences and all that sort of stuff. And it's interesting, it's lovely to work with an agency who have really seen the strengths of that and understood that this is a skill that their team needs and that the whole team needs it. So they know that at the drop of a hat, if a client suddenly says, we need to hear from somebody tomorrow or you get a piece of potential work comes in and you know the pitch is tomorrow you've got your pick of the best people to go and deliver that presentation.

Yeah, that's fantastic. It's really interesting. I always say that in the agency world, we train our staff to be technically competent or whatever it is they do. So they might be learning how to use a software package, they might go on a writing course, they might go on a graphic design course. But what we don't teach our staff as they progress in their career is we don't spend enough time giving them leadership and management skills. And I think I can now add to that. We don't. Part of that development of people is being able to stand up and talk.

Yeah.

And I think it's really, I think it's really interesting that in smaller agencies where you've got a very strong owner manager who is definitely still the figurehead for the agency, they are definitely the person that goes out and does the pitching. They know they're very knowing people, so they want to jump in and, you know, say what? Say their piece. So they don't always make space for other people to contribute as well. I remember sitting in a PR pitch with a client of Mine. So I was kind of one of the people sitting on the other side of the table and this agency came into pitch and it was that classic thing where it was a. It was the guy who was the owner of the agency and there was a bunch of much younger people and those people could not get a word in edgeways. He was very knowledgeable, very articulate, but of course you knew damn well that he wouldn't be the person that worked on that account. So he wasn't giving any space for these other people to build any kind of empathy and credibility with the client. And of course they didn't win the business. And I think that is a sort of classic thing as well. So I think we, when agencies are developing their team, they can't just give them those technical skills. They've got to give them the skills to be great leaders. Which means, you know, the leadership and management skills. But it also means the ability to stand up, I always say, like the ability to walk in a room and have that air of confidence and be able to communicate accordingly, which is. So I think it's fantastic that you've got a client that is recognizing this and is bringing you in to actually support the development of that skill within the team.

What's really interesting for me with this team is that they brought me in initially just to coach the somebody in their organization who was going to compare a client facing conference that suddenly then turned into a job where they wanted me to go in and work with about 10 of their team members who were all speaking at this conference. I then was pulled in the day before the conference to rehearse them through the entire thing. We ran the entire thing through several times and then I was there on the day to critique. I took lots of notes and then I had one to one Skype calls with each of them afterwards to feedback to them, to work out. And now they've come back and said, okay, we want this to become an ongoing program. Now we've identified who are the strong speakers who need more help, how we can push the strong speakers. And that's the thing, if you've got someone who's a strong speaker, that doesn't mean that they don't need some sort of improvement, should we say there are still ways that they can be improved and new ways of trying things. So I think it's interesting that there are now companies realising that as you say, the ability to walk into a room and speak with confidence, to represent the brand, to represent the agency in a way that is confident, creative and Engaging is vital. And if you've got team members who can't do it, you. You've got a problem.

Right, so let's, let's just play that one through a bit. So I'm account director and I'm being promoted to an associate director in an agency. And I'm really competent in many things. I'm a great leader, I do great client work, I'm good at strategy. But I avoid putting myself in an, in front of an audience and I'm being told that that's holding me back in my career. So they brought Steve in to support me. What would. And I talked to you about having that fear of making a fool of myself, fear of standing up in front of people. And what happens if. What would be the sort of first few bits of advice you would give me or the first few things you would do to help me overcome some of that negative talk that's going on?

The first thing I do with virtually every client I work with is I get them to present to me off the cuff on something they're passionate about, something that is completely unrelated to the business. And just to talk to me, even just for 60 seconds or maybe two or three minutes. Because that's what we've got to find is their passion. Because you've got to have passion for whatever topic it is you're presenting on. And if you haven't got passion for it, how on earth are your client expected to have passion for it? So that first thing I'll do is get them to present because one of the things we need to do is to see how they come across. And we can, you know, straight away, you can normally see where the issues lie. And it's so often it's things they've been told in the past, oh, I know I speak too fast or I know I say umm, an er a lot or I know I fidget a lot or I know or I know I'm really monotone. And so often they're not. It's just somebody at some point has told them that and that has just become their narrative. So a lot of my time is spent breaking that down. And sometimes, yes, you do need to work on things like vocal variation, you might need to work on their animation, you might need to work on their ability to engage with an audience. But so often actually it is breaking down those, as you say, the negative thought patterns, the things they've learned, the things they've been told to start to find the presenter. And what I always do is work with people to find their personal presentation style. We all present differently and you have to work out how you present, how you come across and hone that. I mean, I have had people come to me saying, you know, can you teach me how to speak like you on stage? And I'm like, no, I can't. I can teach you how to speak like you, quite frankly, why would I produce lots of mini me's who can speak like me? I don't need the competition, you know.

Such a good point, though, because we need to be authentic, don't we? And we need to be authentic to ourselves. And if we're not, then we come across as fake and people see through that, even if we're articulate.

Yeah. I mean, you know, and I hope when people come in going, oh, can you teach me how to speak like Richard Branson or Gary Vee or whoever? And I'm like, oh, really? Let's find how you speak. Let's work with that. Let's do something more interesting. Don't try and copy somebody else.

Yeah, So I think it's interesting. It's a quick story here that I'm sure will resonate with you and is relevant to what you just said, is that I was running a workshop years ago for a company and I. The. I split the group into two groups and they had to go away and do a bit of work and then someone had to come back and present. And the only rule about the presentation was that it couldn't be the senior people in the group. It has to be a more junior person, so that they got some practice at standing up in front of their peers, which, as you said, is one of the scariest things. And this. This person stood up and she said, before I start, I just want to say I'm not very good at public speaking. So I was like, whoa, whoa. I was like, whoa, time out. And we spent the next 15 minutes talking about that, why that was a really bad thing to say. And you know what? When she finally. And when she finally did do her bit, she was perfectly fine. But of course, as I explained to her, when you start off by saying something like that, what's the audience looking for? They're looking for every piece of evidence to support her assertion that she isn't very good there. So, yeah, and when she finally did her speech, of course she was perfectly fine. But, you know, by standing up and saying, I'm not good at speaking, the whole audience is looking for evidence to support that assertion, which wasn't the case. So I think a lot of the time, I guess you have to change that internal dialogue that people have about their experience of speaking. And like you say, it could be based on one bit of feedback they had many years ago.

Absolutely. I mean, I often say to people, what's the worst that can happen? As I said, nobody dies from public speaking. What's the worst that can happen? You end up looking foolish and it's like, well, how would you end up looking foolish? And then people start saying, well, it's oh, if I don't know what I'm talking about. And it's like, you know this stuff inside out. Of course you know what you're talking about. You've just got to be able to put it across properly. And I think one of the big issues is that a lot of agencies won't give people rehearsal time for presentations and pitches. You know, and like the deck's being put together at midnight, the night before and they suddenly get, they go into a presentation or a pitch and this is the first time they've said it out loud. It's in front of the client.

Crazy.

And you think an actor would never go on stage without rehearsing, a lawyer would never stand up in, in, in a court of law without rehearsing their arguments. Why on earth would you stand up in a presentational pitch without rehearsing? And that a lot of the time is cultural. It's, it's not just, you know, so it's not just that people don't want to, but it's the culture is, oh, we'll do it last minute, we'll throw it together or else even worse, we'll just pull together somebody else's deck and give it to you and you have to go and present it.

I'll give you a real example of this because it happened a couple of months ago. I was with, doing some one to one coaching with someone. And she is exactly in the journey that we've described of stepping up, having to do more public speaking and pitching. And she was going in to present a yearly plan for a client, but the md, who's very good but slightly disorganized, hadn't given her feedback. And she finally gave her feedback half an hour before the presentation. And the feedback meant she had changed a load of the slides. And I think what she forgot was that she might be able to wing it, the md, but the more junior person will not. And of course that made it, she was starting on a negative playing field before she even got going.

And I do think there is a problem and it's interesting you use the phrase wing it. Nobody should ever wing it. You know, this is a professional presentation. Nobody should be winging it. But just to go back to what you said just now about the woman who was putting herself down by apologizing, it's really common, people starting a presentation with an apology and it just sets you off on the back foot. It puts you off on a negative. I was actually, I was speaking at an event last night in St. Albans and one of the other speakers in his introduction at the compare read, actually apologize for being very highly qualified with Google. And I said to him afterwards, why on earth would you do that? Because he then came on to talk about websites and SEO and all this stuff and it's like you immediately shot your credibility by apologizing this. Be proud of it. It's what means that we want to listen to you. And I. You know, it is really common. People will start with an apology and they'll start on the back, on the back foot. And it's. Yeah, it's such a shame. You have to start confidently. The opening minute of a presentation is the most important minute. The close runner up is the final minute.

So on that note, can you just give us a kind of a shape of what a great presentation would look like in terms of structure?

I mean, the old cliche of having a beginning, a middle and an end is true. Most presentations do need an opening section, a middle section which is all your content, and then a closing section. But the opening and closing do serve specific purposes. The opening has to set a tone and it also has to grab the audience. It also has to tell them why this is relevant to them and a lot of people. The most boring opening is you'll have a slide with the title of today's talk or pitch your name as the presenter, today's date, a Twitter handle and a logo. And it's just dull. And it looks like every other presentation you've ever seen. And it's like, why would you set out to make your presentation look generic? It's like using stock shots. Why would you use generic photos to make your presentation look generic? I just, I don't get that at all. So an opening has to grab people and that might be with a story, it might be with a starting statistic, it might be with. It might be with humor, if that's appropriate. Depending who the client is and what your, your brand style is. It might be with an image, it might be with a video, something that grabs an audience, sets a tone and gets you off on the right foot, you then go into your content and your content does need structure within it. And I would say on the whole, structure your content around three main arguments. It's very rare for any audience to be able to remember more than three arguments. But then when you come to your closing, your closing needs to achieve three things. It needs to have a recap or a summary of your main points. It needs to have a call to action. What do I want you, the audience, to do as a result of what I've just told you? And if you can't come up with a call to action, I would question whether you should give the presentation at all. And third thing the closing needs to do is it needs to leave a strong final impression. And again, that might be an image, might be a video, might be a story, might be statistic, whatever, but don't just peter out. I see too many people and it's like, click, click. Here's the last time. Oh. Oh, yeah, that was it. Thanks.

Yeah, I'm running out of time. I better kind of get off the stage. Yeah.

Or even worse. Yes, I'm running out of time. I'm going to flick through the last few slides. Oh, no, you don't actually need to see these. That's just awful. So you've got to think there's that opening and closing. And it's one of the things I spend a lot of my time doing when I'm working with clients, particularly agencies, is helping them to come up with strong opening, strong closings to their pitches and presentations, partly because it will help them to differentiate themselves if everybody else comes in. And it is such a cliche now that you know if you're pitching, you start with your credentials. This is who we are. And it's like, okay, that's what everybody else is doing. Are you like everybody else? And I think it's one of the biggest problems facing a lot of agencies is differentiating themselves from their competitors. Because if you are, for instance, a digital marketing agency, you have pretty much the same tools at your disposal as every other digital marketing agency. If you're a PR agency, you have the same set of journalist contacts and media outlets that every other PR agency has. You don't suddenly have a whole new set of influencers that nobody else has access to. So differentiation is a real issue. And in the pitch situation, the presentation can be a great way to differentiate yourself. And I sometimes post some quite challenging questions to people. Do you need slides? Some of the best presentations and pictures I've ever seen have not used slides, they might use props, they might use hand drawn images. But there are other ways of doing things that can make you stand out. Just by the style and the creativity.

You show you're a man after my own heart. Really. Because this is a topic that I talk a lot about clients. And I always say if you're really brave, go into a presentation or a pitch without a deck at all, get a whiteboard and a pen and engage the audience straight away. Because this isn't about you, it's about them. So. And you don't always know who the audience is going to be in a pitch. So go find out, ask them questions and then be willing to go off piece because you know your subject matter so well and you believe in your offering and your ideas that you're willing to go off piste in order to serve the audience. So I think really brave companies would have the courage to do that rather than go, I'm here, I'm here to sell ABC PR and I'm going to tell you how great we are and I'm going to share with you some great testimonials and case studies.

Yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn. Yeah, exactly. Because you have to think about it. If somebody's trying to hire a PR agency and they've called in, you know, three or four agencies to pitch, it's actually really dull to watch because everybody does the same thing if you can stand out by doing something different. So I've seen it. I mean, for instance, I've seen one agency who don't take in slides. They take in a roll of paper which they roll down the middle of the board table. They ask everybody to clear their laptops and mugs and things off the table. They roll it out down the table and everything is pre drawn on there. And agencies and so the clients love it and they're all like, can we keep that? Can we keep that? And this agency are like, well, if you hire us, of course we'll give it to you. And it just makes them stand out. Because I think the other problem here is that so many agencies want to say we're creative. Now I have a real bugbear with the word creative, a bit like this, with the word passionate as well. If you have to tell me you're creative, you're not. If you have to come in and say we're a really creative agency, we have lots of creative ideas. Sorry, that's not a creative at all. That's the opposite of creative. You're doing the same as everybody Else. So come in and be creative. Right from the moment you walk in the room, do something completely different. Surprise them, show your creativity. And they say, the same is true of passion. I hear people saying, oh, yeah, we are passionate about our clients. Show me an agency that's not passionate about their clients.

Or they probably deliver it like this. We are really passionate about our clients.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So if you have to tell me that you're passionate or you have to tell me that you're creative, by definition, you are not. I should be able to tell that you're creative from what you're wearing, the way you talk, what you do, the way you walk into the room, the whole thing. That's how you put across your creativity or your passion. If you have to point it out, there's a problem.

Super annoying, isn't it? I sometimes sit with people who do the opposite and they say, I'm not very creative. I say, well, what does that mean? And I asked them what it means, and they don't really know what it means.

It means I don't have a bean bag in the office. And I think that's what people. Some people do think that's what creativity means. It's having a funky office. All this stuff. To me, it's thinking differently.

Let me ask you a question. And I've got a couple of kind of personal questions to me, because it's happened to me, if I'm honest, with full disclosure. So what happens if you're doing a workshop or a presentation and you can see people in the audience yawning or. Or falling asleep? Because I know I've done that where I run quite a few workshops, and sometimes you see people starting to doze off and you. And of course your first reaction is, oh, my God, I'm really boring. What do I need to do? And. And you know, it's about them more than it's about me. But how do you. Have you ever had that? How would you recommend dealing with that?

I will normally check in with them and just say, okay, I'm sensing the energies dropping in the room. First thing I'll do is I'll ask, is this relevant? Is this pertinent? Or has anybody got any questions about this? Because it may well be that something I said a few minutes ago, they didn't understand. And actually, I've now lost my thread and they are starting to switch off. So, yeah, I will often then just go. I'll just go into Q and A. Right? Okay, that's enough talking from me. Let's hear from you. What do you think about this? What are your questions about this? And I will just throw it to Q and A. And I have done that in a keynote situation. I mean, I've been in big rooms and just sometimes it does happen where what you're saying clearly isn't hitting home, it's not resonating. And actually most event organisers would much rather you went straight to a Q and A. Right? Okay, enough from me. Let's hear from you. What are your questions about this topic? What are your biggest challenges? And start an interactive session. And actually that will often turn into a much, much more useful session for the audience because they're driving the content, they're asking the questions that they need answers to rather than just waiting to see whether I happen to mention the answer to that question in my, in my talk. And actually it can be an interesting way to set out to present or to pitch is to do a non linear presentation. And one of the so nonlinear presentation is one that doesn't necessarily have to go on a journey from A to Z via, you know, B, C, D. So for example, you cannot do a nonlinear presentation with slides. Slides by definition are linear. So because you're stuck in them, it's very hard to jump around within your slide presentation. But one thing I will do sometimes is I will go in with a deck of cards, literally I'll just use blank postcards and I'll just have a word or a phrase on the card and I'll go out into the audience or I'll go to the room, sat around a board table and I'll ask people to pick a card, read the question or the phrase on the card and then I will talk about that and then I'll go to the next person, say, right, pick a card, they'll pick one and I'll then talk about whatever topic is on that card. And it's actually much freer. It feels like the audience, they love it because they feel like they're asking the questions. It feels very interactive. Now in actual fact, I know exactly what's on all those cards. I know exactly what I'm going to say to each of those cards. So you know, I can prepare it. The one thing you have to be aware of with that style of presentation is you cannot have one card that is dependent on another card having appeared first, if that makes sense. Because you can't go, as I was saying earlier on that topic because of course that topic may not have come up yet, that card may not have been picked so each point has to be standalone. That's not something for inexperienced presenter to try. But it's one of the things I often do if I'm working with experienced presenters particularly. People are getting a bit bored with constantly pitching and constantly presenting their creds and things. It's one of the things I will do is to challenge them to find a non linear way of presenting, just to mix it up for them.

I think that's really great and I think it kind of ties us right back to something that we said earlier on in this podcast, which is about being brave. And I think if you know your subject matter inside out, then you can be completely willing to go where the energy in the room takes you or taking that nonlinear approach. I think I'm going to try that in the next workshop that I do. That's a great idea. We just need to sort of wrap this up shortly. So I wanted to ask you if you were giving, if you wanted to give the audience of the agency accelerator podcast three tips or three tricks about improving their public speaking. Let's say someone's got to go and stand up in front of an audience of 30 people and do a half an hour presentation on digital marketing, for example. What three tips or tricks would you give tell them in terms of preparing or the delivery of the of that presentation.

First of all, I would say set some objectives for yourself, but also for your audience. So starting point is what do I want to get out of this presentation? Now if it's a pitch, it may well be that what you want is to win the work. But also maybe I want to impress my boss or I want to get promotion or I want to put across how creative our agency is. You can have a number of different objectives, but you also have to set objectives for your audience. And this is the bit that most people miss. Stop and think, if I were sat in that room waiting for me to stand up and speak, what would be going through my mind? What do I want out of it? And very high on most audiences lists of priorities is to not be bored. They want to be engaged. They want to understand why this is relevant to them. Now they may also want to know why you're absolutely. But you know, they've got to, you've got to think about what's in this for the audience. And that's the step that I say most people forget. So that to me is the key is absolutely the keystone of a good presentation is setting objectives for yourself and for your audience. And once you've written your presentation you can then look at those objectives and think, if I present what I've just written, will I meet my objectives? Will my audience meet their objectives? Yes or no? And then you can. You can adjust accordingly if you need to.

I guess that implies you sometimes need to do some research on your audience, because sometimes we don't know exactly the types of people that are going to be in the audience. So we probably don't need to ask the. The organizer or get a sense of who those people are so that we can set objectives for them completely.

I mean, even if you're going into a small meeting or a pitch, ask in advance who's going to be in the room. Go and look them up on LinkedIn, go and look them up on Facebook, on Twitter, find out a bit about them, and you can then tweak your talk occasionally. I worked with one agency who were pitching for a piece of work, and they discovered that one of the people in the room was a really keen cyclist. And this is because his Twitter feed is all about cycling. So they put in lots of cycling references. Not avert, but they were just talking about pedaling and chains and braking and all this stuff. And this guy got it and loved it because they were speaking his language. Now, the business was nothing about cycling, but by connecting with this guy, he really warmed to it. And they got the business because they had done some research. They were fun and creative with it. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't overdone, just a really subtle way of connecting with somebody in the room. So, yeah, you do need to do it. So I think so, yeah. Top tip, first of all. Yeah. Is know what you want out of it and understand your audience and what they want out of it. I think second, top tip would be to rehearse. And I mentioned this already, but you need to practice, and you need to practice out loud. There's a tendency if we, you know, we might be looking through our slides thinking, oh, yeah, I'm going to say this, I'm going to. And then I need to talk about that. Yep, fine. No, actually, get your slides up on the screen in presentation mode and deliver it to a room. Deliver it to some colleagues if you can, to get them to critique it, or if nothing else, prop your phone up and video yourself doing it and then watch it back. And I will say up front, nobody likes watching themselves on camera. Nobody. But it is the best way to understand how you come across to your audience, because suddenly you're seeing yourself from the audience's point of view. And that's where you'll spot the little verbal tics, the physical tics, the things that would irritate you as an audience member. And then you can start to iron them out. But it should be familiar in your mouth when you start talking things. But I would say don't learn a script. My adage is, know what you want to say, but don't know your words.

That's a good point because I wanted to ask you what your view on, you know, having cards or having an auto cue or just having bullet points. So I guess you would be a fan of like knowing your talking points but don't know exactly how you're going to deliver those talking points.

Yeah, I was. I'm a fan of cue cards. I quite like cue cards. I would. But if you're going to use them, just have bullet points. Just have a couple of words or a phrase, maybe a statistic, just a prompt. That's. That's the word. They're prompts. You do not have your script in front of you because you will end up reading it and it will sound terrible and you will lose engagement with your audience. So, yeah, I'm a big fan of cuecard. So just, just have a. Yeah, something that prompts you. The thing to remember though is your slides are not your script. It might be the slide prompts you to say something, but it is not your script. The words you are going to say are not on the slides. Just be. Just be really wary of that. So that. So that's my second top tip is. Yeah, make sure you rehearse. Practice, practice, practice. And even if you've presented something regularly, practice it, practice it again, freshen it up, make sure it feels fresh in your mouth. I think my third top tip is be in the moment. There's an all tendency, particularly when presenting for people just to be in their head, almost in their script, and they're not really aware of what's going on. And interestingly, actually, the event I was speaking at last night, one of the other speakers, a phone went off during his talk. And he didn't flinch. He didn't even acknowledge the fact this was happening. And to my mind, because of course, the entire audience, like, oh, whose phone's that? As one poor soul goes scurrying into their bag trying to find their phone switched off. But I always think if something happens, acknowledge it. Be live, be in the moment. So I mean, for instance, if I'm speaking on a stage or an event or even in a meeting, if somebody's phone goes off, I will always just turn around and say, if that's my husband, tell him I'm busy. And it just always gets a laugh. And it acknowledges the fact that the phone's gone off and the audience relax. Because if you haven't acknowledged what's going on in the room, the audience tends to start getting tense because is he aware of that? Does he. Has he noticed? And if you acknowledge it and say it doesn't bother me, it's fine. Be in the moment with it. And one of the things I get, I do with quite a number of my clients, if they're struggling to stay in the moment, is I will encourage them to go and do some improv, because that's all about being in the moment, responding to what's happening and building on it. And if you're. It's a lot of people go, oh, my God, I can't possibly make it up on the spot. Oh, yes, you can. It's great fun. If you go to a decent class, they will teach you how to do it in really, really simple ways. And it's just so much fun. But in terms of being in the moment, it means you can be playful, you can be reactive, you can be playful, you can. You've got the scope to be creative because nothing's going to throw you because you're in the moment.

It kind of. That plays back to what we were talking about earlier, because if you're not in the moment, you're not going to be sensing the energy in the room, whether the audience is engaged, whether you're hitting home, whether you need to go off piece, you're not going to sense any of that because you're just going to be thinking about the next topic that you want to talk about or the next slide in your deck.

Yes, absolutely. And again, that comes from rehearsal. That's why if you rehearse, you practice, you're familiar with it, you can. You can be in the moment. Whereas if you are just panicking because you don't know what you're going to say next, it's very hard to be responsive. So, yeah, it's all sort of. It's actually all part of the same process, really.

Yeah. So listen, those three really, really good tips, and I kind of sense that you and I could probably go on talking hour or two about this, but we unfortunately, to wrap up, so we definitely need to get you back to delve into this topic in a bit more detail because there's a lot more we can uncover. My last question, Steve, that I'M asking all my interview guests, from a business perspective, is that, and this is putting you on the spot a bit, I appreciate. But if, if you could go back in time and give your younger self a bit of business advice as you were starting out in your career, either when you started or PR agency or. Right. But beginning of your career, what advice would you give yourself?

Oh, good question. Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing? I would say I. Actually, what I would say to my younger self is play to your strengths, know what you're good at, don't be scared or don't be ashamed of what you're good at. I've always been somebody who enjoys standing up in front of an audience. You know, I was that kid in assembly at school who wanted to stand up and do things. I was always doing readings at church and all that sort of thing. So I've always, you know, I've always enjoyed it, but it took me a long time to recognize that that was actually a useful, usable, sellable skill. So I would say to my younger self, recognize your strengths and play to those and have more fun. Have fun with it. I'm a big believer that business in particular, if you're running your own business, it needs to be fun. If you're not enjoying it, do something different. You know, we're going back to what we said earlier about Sunday Night Blues. You have to have, there has to be enjoyment, there has to be satisfaction and not just monetary satisfaction. If all you're doing it is to generate money, I think that's a problem. You know, you're not going to get a chance to rerun this career. You might as well enjoy it while you're doing it. So, yeah, play to your strengths and have some more fun. That was what I would, would say to my younger self.

Brilliant. Good advice that we all need to take now. It's never too late to apply that. So listen, Steve, really interesting conversation. I appreciate you coming on today. If people want to find out more about you and what you offer, where should they go? And we'll include all this in your. In the show notes. But where, where should they go to find out more?

I have, I actually have two websites. I have getyourvoiceheard.co.uk which is sort of my site for my speaking and training business. I also have a site aimed particularly at the healthcare industry, which is communications healthcare. You can find me on Twitter. I'm teveinbrighton. Guess where I live. You can find me on LinkedIn or you can just email me. I'm stevetephbustin.com Fantastic.

So I will include all of those links in the show notes. And Steve, I really appreciate you giving up your time today and sharing some really insightful value added tips that I know the listeners to this podcast are going to find really, really helpful.

You're very welcome. It's been lovely to take part.

So there you have it. Hope you found that really, really useful. I'm going to get Steve back on a future podcast because there was a whole area of using public speaking, networking, presenting as a business development tool that we want to dive into more detail. So look out for that podcast in the future and I will see you soon for the next Agency Accelerator podcast.

SA.