MBA979 How I Prepare for a Public Speech

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Hey oh. Welcome to the $100 MBA show your 10 minute business school every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online over at 100mba.net. If you're just getting started and you want to make sure that the business or product that you're offering is something that people want, they actually want to buy, then you got to check out our five Steps to Idea Validation course. This is a seven part video course with a workbook and it's totally free. To Enroll, just go to 100mba.net in today's episode you will learn how I prepare for a public speech. I I've been officially working on my public speaking for the last six years and that doesn't count all the years that I had to get over my stage fright and speaking in public when I was a teacher and a teacher trainer and all that kind of stuff. So I'm not even counting that. I'm talking about actually formally preparing myself and getting trained to speak on stage for conferences, for keynotes, things like that. And I learned a whole lot along the way, not only through the training and the coaching I got, but also just through experiences by bombing. Really by bombing on stage? Yes, you can bomb on stage as a public speaker at a conference and that was kind of motivation for me to get much better. So I want to share with you all the insights I learned and I have to say 95% of my success on stage comes down to my preparation. So I want to show you my game plan, how I prepare. So when it's time to step on the stage. When it's time for the conference, I'm so confident I'm ready to go, I can't help but deliver a great performance. Yes, I call it a performance because, hey, you want people to enjoy the actual time you're on stage. They want to learn, of course, but you want to make sure that they're wowed and that they love it. So I'm going to go through all the strategies I go through to prepare for a public speech. Whether you're going to use these strategies at presenting, at work conference, or even just a one on one sales pitch, let's get into it. Let's get down to business. All right, step one. My first step when I prepare for a public speech is my mindset. And this is something I have to renew every single time I prepare for my next speech. I'm doing this now actually because I'm preparing for a talk I'm giving at Running Remote, a conference that I'll be speaking at that I've mentioned. And so step one for me is mindset. I gotta get my mind right. And my advice is, the more you see your public speech as a performance, the better. This took me a while to get over why? Because I spent 13 years teaching and for me it was just like information is king. You gotta make sure they know the information. You gotta give them everything you got. And I thought more is better, and that is not true. Think of the best public speeches you've seen, whether it's a TED talk on YouTube, whether it's at the last conference you went to, whether it's just somebody you admire at work. It wasn't a lecture. It was entertaining, it was fun, it was enjoyable. Just to watch. A great public speaker is great to watch, regardless if you're into the topic or not. I should preface this episode with the fact that a lot of what I've learned about mindset when it comes to public speaking, as well as the skills I have gained through coaching and through courses, have come from Michael and Amy Port at Heroic Public speaking. Got to give them a shout out. They've taught me so much. But by having the right mindset, you go in saying, I got to wow this crowd, I got to make sure that they enjoy this performance, this actual time on stage. Yes, I want them to learn, I want them to remember my speech, but I want them to have an impactful experience. I want to unpack them. And when you're just trying to cram down numbers and information, hard to unpack. Them, it's better for you to focus on one or two pieces of information and really drive it home through your performance. Now, I want to be clear. You don't have to do any kind of dancing or magic tricks. That's optional. If you want to do that, go ahead. But the point here is, is that you just see it as a way to delight the audience. You're putting the audience first. Now, once we got that out of the way, I need some information about my slot, my session, so I can start preparing. I need to know how long I have. How. How many minutes do I have on stage? Is it 20 minutes? Is it 60 minutes? Is it 30 minutes? What is it? Is that including Q and A time, or are we going to have Q and A afterwards? I need to know how many hard minutes I have before Q and A. Why? Because my first step after knowing this information is going to be writing a script, and we'll talk about that in a second. But I need to know how much time I have. That's number one. Number two, I need to know a little bit about the space I'm going to be in. What's the stage like? Is this a small room? A big room? Am I elevated on a stage or am I on ground level? Like a workshop style? Will there be access to audio? Visual? Like, can I use a PowerPoint? Will I like to use a PowerPoint? Will there be audio? If I'm showing a video or something like that, or using music, all this information is important to know beforehand because you want to prepare for everything. You want to make sure that you don't incorporate music or slides. If you don't have that option, imagine showing up to the venue and be like, oh, man, I. I'm relying on my PowerPoint slides to supplement my actual speech. There's no PowerPoint. There's no screen. You're stuck. You're in a jam, right? So you need to make sure you know what you have. I know this sounds a little bit particular, but it could help if they can send you some pictures of the venue. If you're in a hotel, this is gonna be super simple. The hotel must have pictures of the actual conference venue, and you can probably find it on your own if you did a Google search. But if you can't and you reach out to the organizers of the conference or the actual event, you could say, hey, I'd love some pictures of the stage or the room that I'm going to be in just so I can get comfortable and prepare properly. It's really Important to actually visualize yourself on stage before you get on stage. And in fact, if you get to the event early, I would actually go early in the morning or late at night into the venue, get on stage, get comfortable and see what it looks like looking at the crowd, looking at those chairs from that vantage point. You want to understand how it's going to feel before you get on there. Why? Because if it's the first time you're on that stage and you're kind of like, oh, I didn't realize. This is what it feels like. You're going to take some time to adjust. It's going to take you a while to get into the groove. You want to hit the, you know, the ground running as soon as you get on stage and really deliver a great performance. So these are some kind of housekeeping things I like to kind of iron out before I get started. So once I know all that information, I know what I'm dealing with, I can start writing a script. And yes, I write a complete script of the full amount of time that I'm on the actual stage. So if I'm on stage for 20 minutes, the script goes for 20 minutes. And after it's all written out and edited, I rehearse it and make sure it's 20 minutes. I time myself several times, like over a dozen times. Why do I script it? Because you want to make sure you're delivering the right way. You know your content, you know your stuff very well, you're the expert. But do you know how to deliver it properly? And the delivery is often a lot more important than the actual information because if the delivery's flat, then no one's gonna receive the information. So I actually write it like I'm writing a blog post. But I highlight certain areas. I highlight any kind of, you know, quips or, you know, jokes I make. I actually write down in the script when I transition from one slide to another. So I know when to click that button. Rehearsing, it's there and I can have that muscle memory built beforehand before I get on stage. And by writing it all out, I get to kind of weed out what's unnecessary and edited. It really cut out the fat. If you look at any onstage performance, the best TED talks, you better believe it's scripted. Every word that came out of their mouth, they wrote it down. If you look at any stand up comedian, his or her set is going to be 100% scripted. They don't just say these jokes off the top of their head. They write down these Jokes. And they build the whole set months in advance, sometimes years. So if you want to be a top performer on stage, then you got a script. It's actually a really good relief. Why? Because it kind of gives you boundaries. It's like, this is what I gotta say. All I gotta do is just rehearse this over and over. Memorize a script. Memorize when I transition from one slide to another, if I'm using slides. And yes, there's people that give public speeches with no slides. And that's it. I'm good to go. You're gonna feel so confident because you know what to say. You're not winging it. Scripting is my number one preparation tip. You have to script. Once I script, I like to edit, clean up the fat like I talked about. And then I like to just do a table read, which means I'm just sitting down and I'm reading the words aloud. I'm actually trying to say them, as I would say on stage. I'm not moving around yet. I'm not on my feet. I'm just doing a table read. Because sometimes when you read things out loud, you're like, this doesn't sound natural, or I wouldn't say this. Let me reword this in a way that feels better to me or in a way I can remember. Once I do my table read, and it's kind of clean and edited, you know, by this time, I probably have, you know, seven or eight versions. I'm on my eighth version of the script. That's totally okay. At this point when it's kind of tight, I get on my feet and I have my laptop in front of me. I know exactly what my script is. And I go through my script and I kind of look at my script to remind myself what it is. Because I don't have it fully memorized yet. I just want to see how I feel delivering this on my feet. And again, moving around the space. Remember in the beginning we talked about knowing the space, knowing the stage. I kind of imagine what the stage is like, whether it's moving my furniture around in my living room and kind of knowing the space, the size of the space for the stages. X amount of, you know, feet or centimeters or whatever metric system. At this point, I get on my feet and I actually deliver the speech with my script, with my laptop open, as if I was on stage. I don't have my script fully memorized yet. That's why I have my laptop open. Just kind of glance over and know where I'm at and I go through the whole speech as if I was on stage. I'll move furniture around in my living room and kind of have an estimate of how big the stage is and try to estimate I could do the same in my own space. At home. I get a feeling of, you know, how far up I'm on stage, how far behind, and I start doing what's called blocking. Blocking is knowing where you're going to go during your speech. Where are you on stage? You shouldn't be just, you know, pacing back and forth like a caged lion. That's extremely distracting. You should know exactly what your movements are on stage according to your script. So one of the great techniques that I use that I learned from Michael Port is having a place to go for every point I'm making. So say, for example, in my speech, I'm making three points. So I have a spot that I'm going to go to every time I speak about that point, a spot on stage. And that's kind of like the way I can remember where to go. You got to have some sort of direction. You got to tell yourself where to go, or you're just going to be pacing up and down. And there's nothing wrong with standing where you are. Just like in ted, where they stand on the red dot. Just stand where you are for a moment and talk to the crowd and deliver your speech. Look at them in the eye. That's another tip I used to not look at people. And it's really important to do that because people don't feel the eye contact. They feel like you're disconnected with them. Look them in the eye. Allow some time to let the words settle in. And once you made that point and you deliver that part of the speech, you're going to move and transition to the next point. And that's when you move your body, you see how you're moving along with the speech. I do this in my rehearsal, so I remember where to go when you get on stage. There's some nerves. Of course, it's natural. It's the real thing. People are in front of you, so you got to have a plan of action. So blocking is a great way to do that. So once I've established all that, I actually go through my speech, I rehearse it over and over with my laptop, with the script, until I don't have to look at the script anymore. And in fact, after maybe four or five times, I close my laptop lid and see if I can remember the script without looking at my laptop. Right? And here I'm trying to remember the lines, remember the delivery, remember what comes next. Now this is actually easier to do without presentation slides. People think that, well, if I have presentation slides I could just read the slide or, or I can just be reminded. You shouldn't be looking at your slides, you should be looking at the crowd. If you're reading your slides, you're not prepared. You should know the slide. So it's a lot harder to remember your lines and know when to switch slides without looking at your screen behind you because the screen is usually behind you, which should be always connected to the audience. So what I like to do if I am using slides is just use visuals and maybe a couple words, a headline so I don't have to worry about anything. I can just click. I know exactly when to click. And again, I put that in the script so I remember when I'm rehearsing, this is when I switch slides, this is when I click that clicker in my hand. Alright, so that's really the bulk of my preparation. I've rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed. Now once I've rehearsed it, I feel good. I like to have somebody in front of me, maybe a few people, a couple of friends and see how they feel about the speech. I do some tweaks. How about my movement on stage? Again, I'm still in my living room here, but it's good to get some feedback. This is not absolutely necessary, but it helps. Now it's a couple days before the event. I might be preparing for my travel. I like to save my presentation, the script as well as any slides. If I'm using slides on Google Drive somewhere in the cloud, it could be Dropbox. So I have it with me all times. I also like to save my slides if I'm using it and my script on my actual phone. Why? Because I like to go through it as I'm traveling, as I'm at the conference. It just allows me to refresh my memory as and feel a lot more confident, more and more confident with my material. So as you can see, there's a lot of preparation I've done before. I get to this point where I actually get on stage and it makes me feel a lot more confident. I can't help but feel confident. You know, I know exactly what I'm saying, how I'm gonna say it. I know my material very well, how to deliver it. I know where I'm going on stage, I know exactly when to click my presentation slides, I know where to look, I know where to stop. I know when to pause. I know when to emphasize. Cause I've gone through it over and over and over again. It's been planned and has been prepared. Preparation is awesome. It's the difference between a microwaved meal and a Thanksgiving dinner. Right? Lifelock, how can I help?

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To wrap up today's lesson, as you can see, it takes a lot of preparation. It takes a lot of time and effort to deliver a decent speech. But I gotta tell you, ever since I've been doing this, I've been really wowing the crowd. I've been really wowing the organizers, and I've gotten a lot of referrals and people wanting me to speak at other conferences because of my performances, because of how I really know how to deliver a great speech. Now, I got a lot ways to go. You know, I still have to improve. But one of the things I learned along the way is that when it comes to public speaking, especially at business conferences, things like that, the bar is not really high. It's actually pretty low. People don't put in this kind of effort. So if you put in this kind of effort, you're going to stand head and shoulders above other people. You're going to stand out. People are going to remember your speech. They're going to be talking about your speech when they fill those feedback forms at the end of the conference, your name is going to be at the top of the list, and that makes a huge difference. Plus, it feels great to know that you've delivered for this audience that have traveled to come to this conference or have really worked hard to buy a ticket for you to deliver something great for them. They really appreciate you. They really realize that, hey, you didn't waste my time. And then when they see that you've delivered such a good speech, they can't help but compare you to other people and say, hey, that was great. I don't know what the other stuff, but that was great. And this stuff that you learn when it comes to public speaking permeates in everything else you do in one on one conversations, in sales, in webinars, in the way you just communicate with other people and your customer. That wraps up today's lesson. If you loved it, let us know in an iTunes rating and review. I read every single review. And by leaving us a review, you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday. On Friday, we make an announcement. We do a random draw with everybody who's left us a review on itunes to win a lifetime membership to one of our programs this week or in this month, actually, we're giving away Easy course, which is our 30 day course on how to build an online course. It's a free $500 course over at EasyCourse Co, where we're giving it away for free to some lucky winner who left us a review. So thank you so much in advance for that. That wraps up today's lesson. But before I go, I want to leave you with this. You get what you put into anything. I know this seems like a lot of work and a lot of preparation and to be quite honest, it takes me about 40 hours of work to prepare for a speech. But boy, do I feel great about putting in that time when I'm on stage. It just feels so much better because I know exactly how, what I'm supposed to be doing. And the feedback you get from the crowd just is so encouraging afterwards. It makes you want to work even harder the next time you are asked to speak. All right, thank you so much for listening. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode where I answer a Q and a Wednesday question. A question from our listener. How do I know my business idea is a good one? We answer that question in tomorrow's episode. So make sure you hit subscribe and I'll check you then. Take care.

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