The Art of Presenting for the Faint Hearted #45

After all, all art is experience. Hello and welcome to The Company Doctor. If your mouth goes dry and your knees start a-knocking every time you're required to do some public speaking, stay tuned. This episode, Gary has some incredibly useful insights and top tips for those who struggle with giving presentations at work or public speeches more generally, from simple attitude shifts to fantastic storytelling techniques. Prepare to captivate your audience and feel relaxed as you do so, as we explore the art of presenting for the faint-hearted.

Gary, hello. Geez, George, it's been such a long time. We've had lots of really good guests and then I've missed you. We haven't really had this opportunity for a while.

And what better day than Valentine's Day to record this and we get to spend some time together finally.

It's so romantic, right? Maybe a little glass of wine.

Sure, why not? I'm excited about this one. It's a biggie, the topic we're covering today, and it's one which I think is going to be hugely useful to a lot of people. So why don't you tell us what it's all about?

There's no pressure there, is there? And we'll talk about it in a minute. And this one is The Art of Presenting for the Faint-Hearted. The reason that that's the title is that there's lots of people that are confident about presenting, but I would say most people aren't. And in fact, I was thinking about this Do you ever come across Eddie Izzard's little sketch, Cake or Death? Have you ever come across that?

Yeah, yeah.

So those of you who haven't heard it, I'm sorry, but you should go and look, search on Google. It's amazingly funny. I think with public speaking, it's not cake or death, it's presenting or death.

Nice.

There's a fear of public speaking. It's something like more people are scared of public speaking above death, above spiders, and above heights, or all three. Whoa, can you imagine that? Maybe we should go like somewhere really high holding some spiders and presenting at the same time.

What do you think? The ultimate phobia smasher. Yeah, I like that.

But I'm not belittling it because it is, it generally is a big deal to people and we've had a lot of requests to do this. So yeah, here we are. This is it.

This is it. Let's, let's dive on in.

Let's dive on in. And I've got very comprehensive notes, but the only thing is I didn't send them to you.

Great.

Yeah. I sent you the brief version. I think you kind of, you didn't like my notes last time because there were too, there was too many of them. So I've kind of cut them back for you.

These were good. I enjoyed these. They gave me a flavor, but without giving me the real sustenance.

Pretty much like that. So here's my, before we get started, here's, I'm just going to throw this in there. It's kind of a random thing to say, but no one ever complains about a speech being too short. Just going to throw that in there. We'll come back to that later. Okay. So do you remember when we did the The facilitation episode, we talked about the guide on the side.

Yes. Oh yeah, I loved it.

Yeah, well, this is not that. Oh, this is the sage on the stage.

This is it. Oh, okay. Yes. This is what— yeah, you're the sage on the stage. You're flying solo.

You're flying solo. You're the sage on the stage. So when you're facilitating, you're the guide on the side. But this one, absolutely between the eyes, sage on the stage. Great.

That's exciting. I think that's probably more exciting and for that reason more terrifying.

Well, yeah, along with spiders and heights.

But being the sage on the stage, you know, it's only you up there. When you're the guide on the side, you can really rely on people. You can ask leading questions and let people sort of ramble on. But when you're up there alone, it's a scary thing.

It's tough. Well, so that's a great lead-in, actually. I mean, it's as if we planned it, right? But the first topic is about getting inside your head. I mean, I don't really want to get inside your head, to be honest, but getting inside one's head. No one wants that. But here's— I'm going to make a comment to see your thoughts about this. I think that most presentations are dull, boring, and instantly forgettable. Forgettable? What are your thoughts?

I think I've seen— I think it's— well, I've definitely seen way more boring and forgettable presentations than I've seen outstanding and memorable ones.

Yeah, exactly. In fact, I was talking to some people today that that were not that far out of university, and we were talking about, you know, their tutors and lecturers. And one of the things that they were telling me was that the lecturers that were engaging and, you know, a bit more interesting made learning much easier, and versus the people that, even if they were good at their subject and they weren't, they weren't engaged, didn't work so well. Yeah, there's a bit of a thing there. But what has this got to do with getting inside your head? I guess you're thinking. I am thinking about it. Well, you are, and it's good that you are. So here's where I'm going with this. So the issue that people have, you talked about it before about being solo, is when we're having a normal conversation like you and I, we're kind of having a normal conversation. We are recording a podcast, but we're having a kind of, yeah, a Gary to George kind of conversation. Yeah. If someone's having a fireside chat or you're just talking to someone normally, which most people do, No one really gets that nervous, do they? No one gets nervous about that.

I'm not nervous now, for example.

You should be. You should be, because I'm asking some really tough questions. No, but exactly, no one gets nervous. But then if I said to you, and I think you're a confident presenter, but if I said to someone, right, just take this conversation we're having, and I'd just like you to present that to even a small number of people, all of a sudden the nerves, the butterflies start building in our stomach. Why is that? Yeah. What is going on?

That's a question, by the way. Well, I don't know. I wish I did know, and I'm hoping you're about to say it.

Well, I'm going to help. There's not an easy answer to it. But I think that one of the things is that people care, which is always good, and they're scared about making a mistake or people thinking that they're stupid or they don't know their topic. So there's a kind of a fear of that. But again, if we go back to one-to-one, people aren't scared about that. They don't care about making a fool of themselves and make a joke, right?

Yeah.

What I wanted to help people do that are listening is that one of the ways of getting confidence is to remember that normally you're presenting something that you understand. You know your topic. Now, I appreciate there's times where you don't, you get given something to present, but in most cases, you know your topic. And therefore, I want you to reframe your mind. If you were speaking to someone that you knew, how would you discuss it with them? You wouldn't have notes. Would Or you might have some notes to remind yourself, like a little checklist of things you want to cover. You definitely wouldn't write it out. Yeah. So, you know, I think that the key thing is to reframe your mind. Obviously, be well rested, looking at your best, be energized. Don't have an eye on the lash the night before if it's an important presentation. But here's an idea anyway to get your head in the right place. I'd like you to be able to create a theme. Because the theme is a memory aid.

Yeah.

I think the biggest issue for people is like, will I lose my place? So I know where I'm going. So, and by the way, the audience feel the same way when you're— when they're not sure where you're going. Oh, what's happening? Yeah, they feel for you. So create a theme because it's a memory aid and it helps you through the presentation, and it also provides the audience with a thread because both— everyone's nervous if someone else is nervous.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And then people can pay attention when they know where you're going. Because again, back to the beginning, most presentations are boring, dull, instantly forgettable. It's a bit rude, to be honest. But that's because, you know, people are wanging on like I'm doing right now, and they don't know where you're going. And before you know it, they're like, "Can I go yet?" Switching onto another podcast. "Can I go to another podcast?" So yeah, the way to give you confidence is to think about fireside chat, know your topic, and create a theme that you're comfortable with. We do this quite a lot on the podcast, don't we? We give a little theme, train tracks and all sorts of things. Yeah, yeah.

But also a good framework. We often, we have a formula. And I think if you know that formula, as you say, even if you go slightly off course, it sort of helps you recenter yourself. And a question for you, Gary, actually on that. If you do find yourself wanging on and talking yourself into a corner, and then suddenly you're like, oh God, where the hell was I going with this? What's a good— and you may cover this, I'm not sure, later on— but if you're not going to, what's a good sort of fallback? Because like you say, if the crowd notice— or the crowd, or the small group of people, or whatever— if they notice that you're suddenly panicked and you've lost your way, then they feel nervous, and it's a giant room of uncomfortable people. But if you can— is there something to fall back on and say, oh, you know, I've actually completely lost my train of thought there? Is that just a confidence thing, or is there a trick?

Oh, wow, that's a good question. Well, I think the first thing is, if you feel you're wanging on like I am right now, then you've got to stop, Because it's not going to help if you carry on wanging on. So definitely don't wag on too much. And people like it when you're a normal person. So again, it depends on the environment. We're going to talk about that in a minute and who you're speaking to. But you know, I wouldn't necessarily say I lost my way. You just say, oh, let's get back on track. So really where I want to go is this. So, but I will cover it a bit later.

Yeah.

I think the main thing, the reason for having a theme is you don't need to worry about forgetting what you say. And that is the biggest anxiety for people. They're worried about what to say and therefore they write it out. So we're going to come back to that. The second thing is the secret to turbocharging your confidence, which again will help you with having less anxiety, is preparation. So I'm going to give you a formula. Great. Everyone that's listening. Yeah, I know, it's very nice of me. There's two sides to the preparation. One is the pre-prep, if you like, and the other one is the delivery. So there's preparation and delivery. There's both sides to think about. And there's three words I'm going to give you: connect, hear, and act. Both for preparation and delivery. So if you can kind of get in your head, you just need to kind of prepare yourself to connect, hear, and act before you present. And then I'm going to cover what you do when you are presenting. So they're my two bits I'm going to cover with people today. You with me so far?

Yeah, sounds good. I'm interested to hear how those play out.

Here's the thing, right? This is the biggest thing for me, George. Who the hell is your audience? Let's start there. In the preparation, forget anything else for a minute, forget the topic even for a second. You know what your topic is, but who's the audience? The most important thing is to know who your audience are. And connected to that, what do you want them to do or act or change or react to as a result of your presentation? If you start with that, then your presentation should be linked to that. Whereas most people kind of write a presentation and they kind of forget to being in context to the people that are there.

So it's a question of what do you want them to be walking away with?

Or do you want them to know something? Do you want them to change something? Do you want them to take some kind of action? Why are you present? Why are you present? Let's start there, right? Why are you presenting? Yeah. Who are the people you're presenting to? Because you obviously need to adapt to the people you're presenting to. And I appreciate you might have a mixed audience. And then what do you want them to do as a result? I think that That will give you confidence because it means that you can provide your presentation in context to those people.

Yeah, I mean, that's a skill in itself as well, isn't it? Knowing how to adapt your presentation to a specific audience. Because even if you know the audience, you might not know what it is that makes them tick, although presumably you would have been asked to present because you do know.

Yeah, I guess so. I mean, there's some obvious things. Are they a senior audience? Are they technical? Are they subject matter experts in that field? Are they your team? No. So there's some kind of themes. Obviously, you're not going to know what everyone thinks, and there's some other ways to find out. But that piece is really important because context is important. And sometimes people have been on a course to learn how to present, and they say this thing, which really makes me cringe.

Should I just say it?

Sure. This is what they say. They say, tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them.

Sorry, what?

You're going to do what? Please. 'Whoever's listening, please don't tell people what you're going to tell them. Please don't do that.' Yeah. That's why some presentations are dull, boring, and instantly forgettable.

That's as criminal as reading what's on a slide. Yes. In my book.

Maybe even more so. Is that rude?

No, I don't think so. I think it may have once been the way things were done. You know, it was like an accepted way of presenting.

It's structure.

I think it's structure and it's boring.

Yeah, so we're going to give you— so, so our replacement for that is to create a theme. That's your memory aid.

Don't—

this was a crutch to help people. And, you know, basically what we're gonna, what we're gonna do is that the first, probably most important thing when you're going to present, and it's part of your— this is part of your planning, because we're trying to connect with people, is plan what you're going to say in the first 2 minutes. Plan it now. Not now, this minute. Plan it before. So because as part of the connect, if you want to connect to the audience, because you need Now you know who they are, you know what you want them to do as a result. And so now, you know, get your first 2 minutes sorted out because once you've got that, you're going to be relaxed into it. So, but plan it, bearing in mind the audience are there. Yeah. And then anecdotes are a secret weapon to help you. So basically, do you know what anecdote is?

Yeah, it's like a story.

Yeah. So what type of story?

Uh, one with a, with a moral or a message.

Yeah. Or something amusing or interesting about a real thing and a real person. So think in terms of that. So when you're doing a preparation in order to connect, think of anecdotes where I've given examples before about throwing bread at the pigeons. I remember networking rather than putting your hand out. That's an anecdote as an example. So think in terms of some of those anecdotes. And prepare your material to people and the preference of the audience as you're doing it, so you don't kind of go too technical for some or too senior for others. And then another rule would be on the Connect, less is more in terms of content. So more pictures and text. Yeah. Maybe whatever number of slides you felt you were going to have, just reduce it by half. Here's my tip, one slide for every 2 minutes, no more.

One slide every 2 minutes. Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, you know, you looked up when you think, you look up. Yeah, that's cool, right? So let's connect. So the— this is the preparation part of connect right now. The preparation part of hearing is— and this will help people, give them the structure. So back to that, those themes. Map out 3 high-level messages that you want to convey with an anecdote, metaphor, or some kind of key question, and a visual for each. Okay, so we need to do is map out the 3 high-level messages that you want to convey with an anecdote, a metaphor, or some kind of key question with a visual for each. That's your structure.

And an anecdote for each one as well. So yeah, okay.

And then you've got— there's your structure with limited words but with pictures. Yeah. And then here's another tip, you know, rule number 2. So number 1 is don't tell them what you're going to tell them. Rule number 2 then this might annoy people. Don't write out in full what you're going to say, please. Please don't do that. Yeah. Your personality disappears on the page if you do that. Definitely. If you're trying to read it. Do you agree with that?

Yeah, massively. And I've just, you know, I've been on the receiving end of people doing that and you can tell straight away firstly. And as you say, there's no personality in it and people don't write like they talk. So it suddenly comes across like someone reading an audiobook as opposed to—

I am reading this to you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It becomes really dry really quickly. So I totally agree with that.

And here's the challenge. So people are listening, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, well, yes, but if I don't do that, I might not know what to say. And then sometimes you make a decision to do that, to read everything you've written, and then if you come off piste a bit, you don't have to get back on it. Yeah. Ever been in that situation before?

Yes, I have.

Yes, pretty scary stuff. So my tip to you is don't— maybe write it all out before and then create bullets out of it so you've got the kind of themes You've got the kind of story in there, the route that you want to take, but don't on the day read it unless you're on teleprompter. But I don't think you're going to be on teleprompter, and even that's not great.

What about memorizing it? People with amazing memories sometimes will write it all out and memorize it. Not ideal.

Well, listen, there's different people listening to this. Some people are very skilled and advanced and experienced. That's for the real experience. As this is for the faint-hearted, I wouldn't recommend it. Don't try and memorize it. You know what? It's just going to cause you angst you don't need to have. If you're an advanced, then maybe you want to do it, but why cause you? We're trying to reduce your anxiety, not increase it. I can't even remember what I had for breakfast, never mind what I'm going to say, to be honest. What did I have for breakfast? I don't remember. So what you're really looking to do is craft your presentation like a story. And the story has a start, middle, and an end. So you've got a theme, you're creating your presentation like a story, the start, middle, and end. You've mapped out 3 high-level messages that you want to convey with anecdote and a visual for each. You with me so far?

Yep.

That's the here part, because now I'm going to do that in context to my audience. And then on the preparation side of acting, I need to research some of the challenges that you mentioned this earlier. How do you connect and engage with people? Yeah. Well, you kind of, again, if you know your audience, then You need to do a bit of research about what's important to them, what their issues might be, or things that are interesting to them, or things that are going on out there that are relevant to them, I guess.

Yeah.

And that helps you help the audience to tell them what they need to do differently as a result of your presentation.

Because it's in the framework of something which they understand and relate to.

Exactly, because you're preparing what you want them to do as a result of your presentation. How do you want— this is the act part. How do you want them to act? So, you've got to be clear about what that is.

Yeah, this is good. I was going to say, and you may come on to cover this, but in terms of the preparation as well, are you someone who would go through it a number of times before the actual presentation itself?

Yeah, we will talk about it. Absolutely, you should rehearse. And, you know, like we've done with the interview techniques, it's not any different. It's like, rehearse what you're going to say, how you're going to feel about it, the way you feel you're going to come across. Yeah, if you rehearse it out loud on your own, because it looks a bit weird if you're not, then you'll get into the mode and you'll be much more confident. So definitely do that. But we're not coming to that, we're going to come to that bit in the delivery. So this is all about the preparation.

I would say I'd add as well, as someone who did used to read off a script, essentially, that is very comforting to do that, but it isn't It isn't the best way of doing it. And although it may seem easier, it's definitely not the best way of doing it. As a former reader of scripts and things like that—

George Floyd outside the House of Commons, News of 10.

Yeah, that was my former life. No, but I can see why people do it. And once you do it without that crutch once, you'll realize that actually it's so much better and more freeing because your personality comes alive. And, you know, talking to people who are memorable and, you know, you were talking about university, former university students with amazing lecturers. I had a history teacher when I was about 11 who was— I still remember him. He was absolutely fantastic. And he brought what was at the time a fairly dry subject to life. And he was so animated and he just— it was just excellent. And people like that really stick with you. They do.

And that's what it's all about. Just be a normal person. By the way, you don't have to be funny all the time. People worry about being humorous. It obviously helps. But you don't need to be funny. I mean, I'm only funny on a Wednesday, to be honest. Mm-hmm.

I can vouch for that.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, so that's— this is all about the preparation. And, and then the last part I want to cover with you is the— we used to call Showtime, but I call it get your game face on.

Nice.

So again, on— so on the preparation, we've got connect here, act.

Yeah.

And now on the Showtime, game face, we've got Connect, Hear, Act as well.

That's handy. Easy to remember.

Easy to remember.

That said, I am writing it down.

C-H-A, probably not as easy as it could have been. Maybe we should have changed our acronyms like CIA or something.

Cha! That's the noise I make when I'm about to do a presentation. Cha!

Can't wait to see your next one. That's how you remember it. Yeah. So basically what I want to cover now is get— and this is delivery, right? So get your game face on. Let's start with connect. So the first, now we're in delivering our presentation, we've done all the preparation, we've got a theme, we've got the 3 things we want people to know, we've got our anecdotes, we're kind of in a good shape, we've rehearsed it a few times so we know where we're going, we've not written it out, but we've boiled it down so we know where we are. And the pictures help anyway, because if you've got the right pictures, that tells the story. And keep thinking about, if I'm sitting on, having a beer with someone or face to face with someone, and I was explaining the stuff I'm about to explain, I could do that without notes.

I can do that.

Yeah.

So don't worry. Well, I was going to ask, when you're thinking of your theme, should you make it something personal to you or something that you can relate to as well so that you feel a bit more confident and comfortable within that realm? Because if someone was to ask me about, you know, talk to me for 20 minutes about the music of Bill Evans, I could probably, I could do that quite comfortably and happily.

Great. I mean, I don't know who the hell Bill Evans is, but it's fantastic.

Well, so glad you asked. Have you got 20 minutes?

Not right now, but I'm recording a podcast right now, but I'd love to hear more about it later. But no, you're right, George. Yeah, you're right. And I think, you know, it's important to make it whatever's comfortable for you, relieves your anxiety, and therefore makes you more normal. You just relax into it, you know, just— it's just like you're speaking to friends. Yeah, that's all it is. And also, people don't know what you've got, so you don't have to go through— religiously go through slides. I'm going to talk about that. So the connect part of getting your game face on is the starting point for me is always to focus on getting immediate attention. You kind of need to tell a story, maybe be controversial. Yeah, if you're that way inclined, entertain. But something unexpected to get started, that's, you know, it's a hook, it's an anchor, it's something. And again, you're gonna, you're gonna plan that in your first 2 minutes when you're doing your, your prep anyway. Yeah. And then here's something that really works. If you do this too much, you look like a village idiot, but smile. Just smile. I can transmit a smile. Don't do it on the train, you get arrested. I can transmit a smile to someone, they smile back.

Yeah.

You've got to connect with the audience. You should make eye contact, and we'll talk about that in a minute. But the first thing is smile and never apologize. Have you ever listened to someone presenting? They go, hey, I'm the person stopping you having your lunch or whatever it is.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or I'm after lunch, so I have to keep you awake or whatever people say.

So yeah, don't apologize.

Yeah. Rule number 3, please don't apologize. Be confident, smile, but never apologize. And then, you know, under the heading for us on ditch dull presentations, a bit rude, we're being rude again. Get the audience engaged. Yeah. What do you think the best way to get the audience engaged, George? You're a super pro at this.

Asking questions.

Absolutely. Ask. People think, well, if I'm presenting, I can't ask questions. Yes, you can. Yeah. Even if it's a big group, get people to put their hands up. Put your hand up if it's the first time here, put your hand up if blah, blah, blah.

If you've never heard of Bill Evans.

If you've never heard of Bill Evans, exactly. If you've got his album. Yeah. Is he music? Yeah.

And that's about making them feel comfortable as well. It's about making sure that, because you know, that what we were talking about earlier, if you've just got a room full of nervous people, then that's no good for anyone. But if you come in and you make the audience or the group feel at ease, then everyone's in a much better frame of mind.

Definitely. And one way to do that, you know, asking questions is open with a killer question. You know, that's, it's a great way to start to ask them. And also it makes you relax because as people are answering and saying things, you can be thinking about what you're doing next. Yeah. So, ah, open with a killer question, which is again, you're going to do in your planning phase. You're not making up as you go along. You've got it, you're ready, and you're confident because you know it's coming. Great. So yeah, you've got to get the audience engaged. That's really your job. And the other thing, just to make people feel more comfortable, You've gotta be on time when you're presenting, because people, you know, you're trying to, the way that you get the audience to like you is to finish early, to be honest.

Yeah, absolutely.

And some people are so obsessed with going through all their slides that they just keep going. They don't read the room. Mm-hmm. So if you run out of time and keep your eye on time, just ditch slides. No one knows. No one knows what you're presenting. Mm-hmm. Just go, I don't need that, or whatever. Ditch slides. No one will know. But always be on time because you've got to read the room. And then the important thing is eye contact. If you're not reading notes, then you can look forward at people, can't you?

Yeah, yeah.

You can smile, you can have eye contact with people. And the other thing, a bit of a tip here is to modulate your voice, to modulate your voice and its tone. And here's an example for people that speak fast. When you speak fast, your pitch goes up. Up. When I speak fast, I go higher, right? And when I slow down, I go deeper. And do you know what the perfect pitch is that has the most attention in the audience?

Anyone know?

I don't know. No, it's right in the middle, right? It's right in the middle. So if you're finding you're getting a little bit high-pitched, someone might be treading on your foot, to be honest, but just slow down. If you slow down, you get deeper. So slower is deeper, faster is higher. And I suppose you want to modulate, but you don't want to go from squeaky to Barry White. It's never a good look. Okay, so that's the connect part. So you're going to connect by asking questions, you're going to look people in the eye, and you're going to modulate your voice and just keep smiling and asking questions. Obviously, you've got to present your material as well.

Yeah.

While I'm there, I'll show you this. And then on the hear part, What you want to do is you've got to read the room. So focus on the reactions of the audience, not the slides, and that will really help you. You'll see if they're nodding or if they're sleeping or on their phones. And yeah, to say, don't be on this campaign to, to read every slide, but just keep asking questions and you'll keep going. And then for the act part, what we want to do is we want to give you the secret to acting. Do you want to know what the secret is? I do. Storytelling tactics. That's the secret right there, George.

Ah. Be a master storyteller.

Be a master storyteller. So, you know, obviously your starting point is to research the challenges. We mentioned this already, the audience. So it gives you a kind of framework for the story. But do you remember when you were a kid? I mean, it's, yeah, it's less of a long time than it is for me.

Vaguely.

Whenever you tell a kid a story, it's always the dragon. There was a wicked evil dragon.

Remember that?

Yeah, yeah. And that's why Disney films scare kids, right? Is this evil dragon. But there's the White Knight. The White Knight— what does the White Knight do? The savior. The White Knight comes in and he slays the wicked dragon. I mean, these days it's probably more brutal than that in some of the movies I've seen. And then what, what is— what happens after that? There's a happy ever after. Yeah, that's it. That's the flow of a story to kids. Yeah, there was a wicked dragon, hero came in, The hero comes in and then there's a happy ever after.

Yeah.

I mean, not all your stories need to be like that because sometimes there's not a happy ending, right?

But that general theme of, or that technique of having a problem, having something that solves it, and then having the happiness forever.

Exactly. So I've got 3 ideas for story tactics that I'm going to rattle through really quickly. The first one, based on the dragon, I call the Dragon and the City. Okay. This is, yeah, you like this one?

Yeah.

You didn't know about this, did you?

No, no, this is new to me.

This is about how you get people excited, right? This is getting people excited framework. The Dragon and the City. Are you ready for this framework? Yeah. So, you know, maybe it's a project. Explain your project as if it's an epic adventure. Get people excited about your plan of action. There's a dragon outside the city walls. Your world is no longer safe. What should you do? Can you escape and find a safer place to live? Could you defend? Should you defend the city and strengthen the city walls? Or should you attack George, take on the dragon before he gets stronger? Each option has risks and rewards, just like a project.

Nice, I'm hooked, I'm in.

You're in, right?

Yeah.

And you know, so for the city, you know, what is good and valuable in the status quo? What's wrong? What's wasteful? Who's in charge? The dragon, where's the threat coming from? How has it got this bad? Is there an opportunity here? To escape, where would you go, what would you do, who would you take with you, you know, for the defend, is it worth defending the old city or should we strengthen our walls, and for the attack, what's your best line of attack, what's your chances of winning, what's the reward if you do. Great, right, that's my first one. Yeah, Storyteller Tactics number 2 is what I call the 3 is the magic number, and this is, this is a tactic for helping us remember, right, so For example, choose the most important part of your story and then use— we use this all the time in our podcast— use these tricks to fix them. Yeah. Three Little Pigs, Three Wise Men, Three Wishes. Everything's in threes, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Because none of us, particularly men, can hold more than three things in our head. Have you ever been shopping and had more than three things on the shopping list?

I did it this afternoon and failed.

No chance, right? No chance. If I had more than three things, I forget all of them. So what's the most important thing you want people to remember when you finish telling the story? Hint, there's only 3. So these are the 3 things I want to tell you. These are the 3 ideas of storytelling right there.

Nice. And then, well, yeah, we're going to have our 3 takeaways. I see them in a minute as well.

There's the 3 takeaways. Exactly. And then the third of my 3 things is going to confuse you because it's called the 5 Ts. Okay, yeah, yeah, like not G&T's or, uh, Builder's Tea. Builder's Tea, yeah. But the, the 5 Ts are help, help you shape your story if you're on the spot. So if someone asks you, like you did earlier, about give me an example of, and you're on the spot, here's your 5 Ts. T number 1 is timeline, beginning, middle, and end. T number 2 is turning point, your realization, the decision, and the change you're trying to put across. Number 3 is tensions, you know, the anxious moment and the conflict. T number 4 is the temptations. What's the easy way out or the right thing to do? And the last T is the teachable moments. What's the moral to your story? Then you've nailed it. They're my 3 storytelling tactics. What do you think?

I like them a lot, and I think these can be used, as you say, not just, you know, it works for podcasts, it probably works in conversation. If you're someone who struggles with conversation, you can probably use this sort of stuff just for sort of social interactions in a way.

Could you get the next 3 beers for me, please?

Yeah, exactly.

That's great. Yeah, so basically you want to explain, explain, explain at the beginning and the end what exactly you want your audience to do, and then you want to link those actions so the audience know what to do as a result when they leave. Yep. And then you want to find some kind of subtle way to get the audience to commit before they leave. Mm-hmm. And those are some of the ideas to kind of help you do that.

Fantastic. And what about, just quickly, a lot of people like to throw in like a little throwback at the end. So they'll start with something early on and then they'll reference that right at the very end. So something weird mentioned earlier at the beginning of the presentation, which then comes in at the end to sort of round it all off. Is that a good technique or is that a bit hackneyed?

No, I don't think it's hackneyed. I think it's a great technique. I think it's quite advanced because what that means is someone's got to be able to thread it all the way through. If you're confident enough to do it, I think it's a great thing to do. We covered that on the facilitation episode, how we link and thread. And with a good presentation, you should do the same. Great. Because you're the sage on the stage.

Yes, yes, you are.

I think that's a really good thing to do. So let me move to my takeaways.

Yeah.

I've only got 3, George.

That's fine.

There might be 5 dressed up as 3.

They usually are.

They normally are. So number 1, be normal. Be normal. Just think about this is a fireside chat. You're very comfortable talking to people one-on-one. It's no different. Yeah. Some people say imagine people naked. To be honest, don't do that. Put you off your dinner. But ask questions and smile. If you can ask questions and smile and you know your topic, you're going to be normal.

Just quickly, that number 1 is the one that's helped me the absolute most in terms of just imagining you're in a one-on-one conversation or you're with friends explaining something. I just find that hugely helpful.

So, oh great, I thought you were going to say when you take your clothes off in front of the audience. Fair enough. Number 2, think through the lens. Who is the audience? What do you want them to do as a result? What do you want them to change? What action do you want them to take? As a result of your presentation? Who are they? What do you want them to do? If you do that before you put your speech or your presentation together, that gives you the guidelines. And number 3, be a storyteller. The dragon, the white knight, and the happy ever after. Oh yeah, one last tip. It's not number 3 or number 4. Get off 10 minutes before you think you should, and I think you do well.

Great. We haven't done that this time.

We haven't.

That's fine.

But we're worth it.

We are. And there was a lot to get through there, and I think I think that's going to be massively helpful to a lot of people. I particularly like that, as I say, the talking to— talking as if you're talking to friends or to people that you already know on a one-on-one basis. The dragon in the city. This episode's had it all. So thank you very much, Gary, as always.

My pleasure. T-shirts?

I'll think about it. You think about your example and I'll think about the t-shirts and we'll post them on the website. Thanks to you all for listening and we'll see you next time. See you soon. Now you know the fundamental secrets of successful public speaking, why not visit thecompanydoctor.com to become a whiz at everything from networking to multitasking? Have a listen to our wonderful previous episodes and hit the subscribe link to hear future ones. Thanks for listening and see you next time.