Eric Siu argues that unscripted talks without slides consistently outperform polished presentations. He analyzed his HubSpot conference talk using Gemini and found audiences engage more when speakers are themselves and avoid over-preparing, though technical content may still need visuals.
I just came in with a ton of energy and then I did some screen shares going back and forth and then everyone in the chat's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone's going crazy, right? Because Granola was recording that, I took that transcript. I also took a transcript of us just riffing on this, right? Like 120 minutes or so. And then I compared it to me talking at a conference, like the HubSpot conference, okay? And I was like, okay, you are the best, you know, speaker in the world, evaluate me. It's like by far when I'm just no slides, no preparation, it's way better. Right? And it's like, but the problem is the content that you present is technical. So you still need to have some slides, but do it differently. Because when it watched me speak at the HubSpot one, this is, I'm using Gemini here by the way, 'cause Gemini can see the YouTube, right? It's like, I can tell that you're getting held back by the slides. And so I'm not saying this style's for everyone. I'm just saying you have to understand what style works for you. And then once your style comes out, that's going to become higher quality content, at least for videos.
Yeah, I agree with that. I think people should just be themselves and not try to prepare too much. You know, when I go and speak, a lot of people have asked me over the years, hey, You've done a decent job speaking. We like hearing you. What's your secret? And I'm like, I'm not really speaking at the audience. I'm just having a conversation. Like, what do you mean? I'm like, I just go up and I just talk. I don't prepare. If you want more insights like this on AI, marketing, and business, follow to learn more.
