Sarah Archer presents PAT, a three-part speaking structure: name the Problem, tell an Anecdote, deliver a Takeaway. She contrasts Edward Everett's two-hour Gettysburg prelude with Lincoln's two-minute speech to show how clarity makes messages stick and keeps audiences engaged.
Rambling is great if you're a walker.
It's not so much a good thing if you're a speaker.
Rambling, if you're prone to it, can cost you your audience's attention, can cost you your authority and credibility, and also the huge opportunities and potential that speaking can bring. And we don't want that for you. So in this show, I'm going to show you a simple 3-step structure that will enable you to stop rambling and get to the point. I'm Sarah Archer, and this is The Speaking Club Podcast, designed to get you to be the highlight of any stage you speak on and win you more clients and gigs. On the day of the Gettysburg Address, Edward Everett was speaking. He was the US's best orator, the best speaker in the country. And he spoke for two hours. Unfortunately, it wasn't one of his good days, and the audience started wandering around the battlefield because they didn't have a clue where he was going, what he was talking about, and what relevance it was to them. Next fella comes, steps up to the plate or microphone. They didn't have microphones in those days. Anyway, he steps up. Maybe they did. He steps onto the stage. This fella is Abraham Lincoln, and he decided that he was only going to speak for 2 minutes. He spoke 272 words, and history has remembered every single one of those 272 words and forgotten the whole 2 hours that Edward Everett spoke for. And after the Gettysburg Address, Edward Everett sent a message to Abraham Lincoln. He said, I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in 2 hours as you did in 2 minutes. To be fair, even that was a bit long-winded. He could have just said, yo bro, you did a great job, wish I could have done as well. Never mind. Anyway, today we are talking about rambling, and the thing about it is like, if you— it's— you've got to hook your audience straight out the gate, and the way to do that is is to show them what's in it for them. The old with them hook. So that's something, if you don't get that right, you'll lose them. If you start rambling, often you can look like a deer lost in the headlights when you realize you've diverted off your thread and no amount of trump dancing can get you back into the good graces of your audience. And even if you fully script what you're gonna say so that you don't ramble, you could end up looking like a robot, and we don't want that. Even though lots of YouTube content is done by robots these days, it doesn't really help you to increase your credibility, authority, or even get booked for speaking gigs again. We don't want it. But if you can get this right, you, if you, you know, if you're able to avoid rambling, you're gonna have more confidence, more excitement when you step on stage. You'll be able to grab your audience's attention super quick. People are gonna stay engaged longer, and you're gonna make your message much more memorable, just like Abraham Lincoln did. And you are gonna get things done much more quickly if you are able to have a structure that keeps you focused but is easy for you to remember. And that's exactly what I wanna give you Right now. So I developed a structure called PAT. You want to be patting your audience. The P stands for problem, the A stands for anecdote, and the T stands for takeaway. It's a very simple thing for you to be able to remember, and I'll just want to break it down for you. So the P for problem, it also stands for pain, because often when we're setting out the problem that our audience has, it can become much more potent if we're able to name the pain underneath as well. So I talked today at the start about rambling as a problem. That's the surface-level problem, and the pain underneath is that you know if you do it that you are losing. Audiences, opportunities, and credibility. So I spoke both to the problem, the surface-level problem, and the pain underneath. A stands for anecdote, and this is a story. If you can first of all name the problem, get people hooked in that have that problem so that they can relate to, you know, they want to listen, you've got them, and then cement the problem with a story, just like I did talking about Everett and Lincoln at the Gettysburg Address, it really makes that problem much more real and concrete. Even if they've experienced it themselves, you can show the impact on someone else. Now, today I found that story. It's not my story. I didn't write the story. That story already existed. So you have a problem and then you go and find a story that can illustrate that problem. Now, it may be there is a story from your life that will absolutely fit that problem. And the other thing that I would say is that, you know, stories can actually fit multiple problem angles. And you'll know this if you've ever watched a film. There are often many different threads that people see in that film. Different angles that you can, you know, talk to. So, for instance, Finding Nemo could be around a father being overprotective. It could be, you know, a son standing up for himself. You know, there's all sorts of different angles one story has, and often you can have a bank of stories that you can angle to these different problems, okay? So, it's not about being, you you know, Shakespeare or, you know, Dickens or J.K. Rowling. It's about finding stories from your life or from the news or from out there. And you have got, reluctantly, you know, I'm reluctant to recommend ChatGPT or Claude or whatever to use carte blanche, but for research on things like this, it can be particularly useful. So, go and find the story that talks to the problem. And then T stands for takeaway. So you're gonna be saying, here's the problem, then cementing it with a story, and then giving your audience the takeaway. That could be the next steps that they do, or like here, I'm giving you a simple 3-step structure that will help you avoid being Edward Everett and being more like Abe Lincoln when you speak. So, that is your 3-step structure, and we want to start patting the audience. Make sure that you understand the problem that they're experiencing and the pain underneath, and you can absolutely hook them 100% more effectively if you reiterate that problem in the way that they express it, that they're thinking about it. Then you share a story that helps them, you know, see it and see, you know, either see a shift depending on what your other story is, or actually cement the problem and see the cost of the problem. And then T is the takeaway.
There you go.
3-step structure, super simple that you can use and keep in your head really easy to avoid rambling, get to the point. Make the most of those opportunities, keep your audience with you, and become a really powerful speaker on social media, on stage. You can have multiple stories in your talk and you're using that, just recycling that structure over and over again, or you do one PAT in a social media post or whatever. Lots of opportunities to use them on podcasts as well, in response to a question. You've got it in your back pocket. Problem, anecdote, takeaway. Hope you enjoyed that tip. If you love the show, do subscribe, leave a comment below if you found this helpful, uh, and rate it. If you're listening to the show on a podcast, you can do that over at ratethispodcast.com/tsc. Uh, thanks so much for paying attention. Hope you found it useful. Until next time.
Bye.
You know what I'm gonna say. 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 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 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!
The Skill That Helps You Connect With Any Audience with Michelle Mills-Porter
What Moderating World Leaders Taught Me About Great Communication with Xenia Wickett
