[Quick Tip] Do You Want to Wing it or Bring It as a Speaker? - 297

Think of these quick tip episodes like a cold water swim. In just a few minutes, you can get some amazing benefits to support you on your speaking journey. And bonus, the only thing that's getting wet here is your appetite to try this stuff out. And if you have a question you want me to answer about anything related to speaking, storytelling, pitching, performance, or humour, then DM me on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter @SarahArcher15. Hey, and welcome to episode 297 of The Speaking Club. How you doing? I'm very well. I'm just about to go on holiday. And sod's law, right? I don't know if this happens to you, just as I'm about to go on holiday, I've had a run of people contact me with, with a bleeding neck, in, in my terms. So, they've basically got a talk within the next 3 weeks and they're not ready and so they've reached out and so I wanted to really come on here today and make the case for you preparing your talk in advance, preparing that signature talk in advance so that it's in your back pocket and ready to go and these people, you know, it's great, we're working together, I'm going to get them you know, to the place where it's gonna go well. But I really do think that this is something that you should invest in if you want to use speaking to grow your business or to have a speaking career. You know, it's not something that you should wing, especially if you've got a big opportunity like these people have. And not that they are winging it because they've come, they've reached out, and that's better than just leaving it to, you know, their own devices to do. But anyway, so let me make the case today for you to take the time to invest in creating a talk that is gonna absolutely wow the audience. So, the first thing I wanted to talk about is why do people wing their talk? First of all, I mean, there may be a last-minute opportunity, and that has happened with one of the people that I'm talking about. It's had— they've had a last-minute opportunity, and it's unusual if it's a big speaking gig, it's unusual that it'll be super last minute, but in this case, It was, so there are exceptions and things do come up. The second reason that I think people wing their speaking opportunity is because the bar is so low. There are tons of mediocre speakers out there, and if you've seen them, you might think, well, it's not going to take me long to put something together that's as good as that, but we don't want that. We want you to stand out as a speaker. We want you to wow the audience. So anyway, that's the thing, there's a low bar. Another reason that people do end up winging it is because they are scared to fail, and often these people are extroverts, they're confident speaking one-to-one, but they're scared to fail, and so if they do leave it lastminute.com, then it gives them an excuse for failing. Well, if I'd have put more time into it, if I'd have had more time to put into it, you know, I would have— I had to wing it in the end, and, you know, that's life. But no, it isn't, you know. Get ready, get prepared. And then the other reason that people wing it is if they don't know where to start. Maybe they've got too much content, they've got, you know, if you've got years of experience, or you've got a big book that you want to turn into a talk, then it's going to be tricky. To know exactly how to condense that down into a talk that gets the job done. So that can be another reason, and there might be others. These are the ones that, that sort of came to my mind based on my experience of working with speakers for all the years that I have. Now, here are the problems with winging it, right? So you turn up with a talk that you're not 100% confident in because you've thrown it together last minute, You haven't really had the time to test it out, and so you are stepping onto the stage on the back foot already. And if you do go onto the stage and you give a poor performance, then it will damage your brand as a speaker. Doors will be closing. You'll have missed opportunities, not just for other speaking gigs, But maybe, you know, you've not presented yourself and your thing, your idea, in the best way possible, so doors will shut. Likelihood is that if you've winged it, your ideas aren't sufficiently clear. It's really challenging, you know, you've heard me mention this so many times, as an expert, to see things in the way that we need to, to be able to present them to an audience that is likely at the start of the journey to where you're at. So, you know, that is a problem. Your ideas won't be clear. It also— you won't connect with the audience as powerfully. You won't have had time to get into their shoes, to see the world from their perspective, to understand them intimately and sufficiently for you to connect with them in the way that's gonna get them to shift and move in the direction that you want them to. Also, you won't have a chance to create that wow experience for your audience, and that's gonna be disappointing for you as well as for them. The amount of speakers that say, oh, I kicked myself afterwards because I missed this, I didn't say that, you know, That's an example and a symptom of winging it. So, the possibilities if you take a different approach, right, are these. First of all, you're gonna get a talk that creates opportunities, opportunities for more speaking gigs, opportunities to create raving fans and customers that may turn into super clients in the future. You'll have missed that opportunity if you wing it rather than bring it. So that's the first thing. It's a huge, huge opportunity if you do a great talk to get lots of stuff on the back of it. And if you do take a different approach, if you do plan and prepare your talk, then you'll have the time to iterate your idea and create it in a way and position it in a way that is really easily understood by your audience. You've maybe found a great analogy or metaphor, or you can just explain it in a way that makes it super concrete and relatable for them. You'll have time to test it, to iterate it, to tweak it, and it'll, it'll be so much better as a result. Your audience will feel completely understood. We want you to get to the stage with your talk, if you're bringing it, where your audience goes, oh my goodness, it's like, it's like they're in my head. How did they know I was thinking that? How did they know that's how I felt? That's where we want to get to, and also to be really present with them. And if you're winging your talk, trust me, there is no way that you are going to be feeling present and comfortable and confident and excited to share it. You will be likely nervous, you know, worried about what it's gonna get— you're not gonna— you're gonna be in your head, you're not gonna be on stage present with them, okay? And if you do prepare a talk in advance, and like as I said to these people, I said, look, to create a great signature talk, In my experience working with the people, authors and experts I work with, you're talking about 8 to 12 weeks in a group. One-to-one, it could be quicker, yeah, concentrated. But, you know, giving it the time and the space that it needs to have to be testing and iterating and tweaking and rehearsing and all of that good stuff, you're looking at Around three months, and so that's just you know to get it on its feet. Never mind making it super super fluent and natural. So that's something to bear in mind. And if you you know if you give yourself the space and time to do that, to have that signature talk or you know whatever talk it is in your back pocket, you are just going to feel in a completely different space when you step on that stage, and you will likely. Create a talk that the audience is going to remember and it's going to create opportunities for you. You know, you want to be unreasonably excited to share your talk. That's where we want to get you to. Okay, so what are the principles of bringing it? Well, basically, first of all, you've got to understand the job that your talk needs to do for you and for your audience. Now, this is— you want to take people to a certain place And there may be a strategy, you know, an intention for you, but also for your audience. So you need to understand what you want your talk to do for you and for them. You need to grab their attention right out of the gate. If you don't do that, if you don't grab them, you'll lose them. They'll be talking to their mate, on their phone, answering emails, uh, whatever. So you've gotta design your talk to grab their attention out of the gate. Again, if you're a long-term listener or watcher of the show, then you'll, you'll know I've said this many, many times before. Okay, you also in your talk, if you've got a talk that brings it, you will be showing, you won't be telling. You will be creating opportunities, probably through stories, for your audience to see things for themselves, to have those epiphanies, to go, ah, I never thought of it that way. I— that is possible for me. They were right back where I am and look at what's happened. So to create the opportunity for them to see it for themselves. Your content will speak to everyone in the audience. We're looking at content that is how-to-think content as well as how-to-do content. Most organisations will ask you for practical tips and tools that people can put into place straight away. That's all good, but you also need to create the content for the higher-level people in the organization of how to think, how to see things differently. And one of the ways that you can do that is proactively raising and dealing with doubts and limiting beliefs that will come up for people when you show them the new opportunity. And I'll be talking about that more in an episode in the future. Also, you've got to share where they need to go next and what might come up for them. We want to make people aware of the, the next steps, but also some of the obstacles that might get in their way, that might stop them, slow them down. So we've got to do that. That's a really important part because you don't want them leaving there thinking they've got all the answers and not knowing what might come up for them that they've got to tackle. If they want to get to the end of the journey like you did, or like the organization you worked for did. And then amazingly, if you do it right, if you bring it, you will leave them wanting more. That's super important. They won't— you know, you want to get to the point where they don't want you to get off the stage, and that's why you're likely to get booked again. So those are the things that I want you to bear in mind. That are the principles of creating a talk that brings it rather than wings it. We don't want dense PowerPoint slides. We want big ideas, images. If you're going to use slides, you don't need to. You can create images with your body. And we want a talk that is engaging, educational, transformational, and gets your audience into action and, you know, gets you what you want as a speaker. Which is more gigs, more business, more book sales, and also to feel that absolute euphoria of having delivered a talk that moved people, you know. So there you have it. So my takeaways for you are, if you haven't started thinking about your talk but you want to get into speaking, don't leave Leave it. Basically, what do they say? There's that saying, when's the best time to plant a tree? 10 years ago. What's the second best time? Today. Start thinking about the talk that you want to give to your audience and what they need from you. Start building that talk now so that when an opportunity presents itself, you are in the best place to say yes. Because that's the other thing, if you haven't got a talk ready, chances are when opportunities come up, you'll say no because you you wanna do a great job. But if you've got the talk ready in advance, if you've put the effort in, if you've invested the time and energy, the thinking, the passion, the purpose to create this amazing talk, you will be absolutely not only saying yes, but looking for opportunities to get on stage and share that message with the people who need to hear it. Cool. Well, that's all that I wanted to share with you today in this quick tip episode. I hope that you found it useful. People watching on YouTube, people listening on to Apple Podcasts or Spotify, Amazon Music, wherever you are, podcast apps, hope you found it useful. If you did, come and let me know. You'll find me on LinkedIn, Instagram @SarahArcher15, and if you want to have a question answered in another Quick Tip episode, Then reach out to me and let me know. So, thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. Really appreciate it. If you're a regular subscriber, um, then do leave a comment below if you're watching the YouTube channel, or leave a rating or review wherever you're listening to the show. Really appreciate it. And really, you know, really grateful that you took the time and chose this, uh, podcast to listen to. watch to move your speaking forward. So until next time, I've only got one thing left to say, is the usual thing, you know what's coming. Don't forget to go out, grab your life by the nuts, and get cracking. Bye-bye. It's a nightmare. You're an expert with so much to say, but now that you've been booked to speak, you're struggling to know exactly what to talk about. You want a talk that engages the audience and wins you new clients without you losing your personality or anyone feeling pitched to. But what happens when you sit down to create that talk is that you end up staring at a blank page for ages, or worse, surrounded by hundreds of sticky notes with content that you could include. With so much material, you just don't know where to start or finish. Don't worry, because many experts like you face exactly the same challenge, and that's why I created the Blank Page to Stage Guide. In just 50 minutes, this breakthrough resource is going to help you identify the big idea of your message, make it relatable for the audience that you're speaking to, and convey it all in a way that gets the audience inspired and on board with your idea. And it works even if you have tons of material or your subject feels less than exciting. If you want to cut through swathes of content and get a talk that you're excited to share, your audience loves, and wins you new clients, then grab your Blank Page to Stage guide from saraharcher.co.uk/newguide-tsc. Oh, I forgot to say, it's completely free. Enjoy!