Become A Better Communicator With These 3 Daily Exercises

Being a great communicator is paramount to helping you grow your business, but you might not be feeling confident in how you communicate your message and who you are and the value that you put out into the world. And that is why we have Brendon from MasterTalk here today on Cash In On Camera to talk about how you can become not only a better communicator, but a top 1% communicator in your industry. Brendon, so great to have you here on Cash In On Camera. How did you get into this line of work?

Cheryl, the pleasure is absolutely mine. Thanks for having me. And for me, the story started when I was in college. I went to business school. And funny enough, I studied in accounting, which is literally the opposite of what I do today. So I thought I was going to be a numbers guy. And while I'm working towards that degree, I start competing in case competitions. Think of case competitions like professional sports, but for nerds. So other guys my age were playing rugby or football or baseball or basketball. Or some other sport you probably wouldn't see me playing. I did presentations competitively, and that's how I learned how to speak. But then as I got older, I started coaching all the other students in the program so they could win competitions, and I accidentally developed a gift in coaching other people on how to speak. And that's what ultimately led to the YouTube channel MasterTalk, because I felt, you know, no one's sharing this advice for free. To start making videos and here we are today.

We have a lot in common because for me, I fell into communication from a broadcasting perspective almost accidentally as well. When I was 18 years old, they tapped me on the shoulder. I was volunteering for a cable station pulling cables at the time and they tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Hey you, do you want to try hosting this show?" I said, "Sure." I had no idea what I was doing. But I had been doing a bit of modeling and things like that at the time. And so I stepped in front of the camera and lo and behold, I found a gift. I did kind of stumble upon this gift and then continued to enjoy it and pursue it to the point where it led me to a career in broadcasting on a national level. So I can definitely relate to that. Today, we want to dive into the conversation around how to become a better communicator with 3 key exercises that you're going to share with us today. Before we dive into those 3 exercises, though, What is the biggest mistake that you are seeing entrepreneurs and executives— because I know that you work mostly with executives and the people that listen to this show might be executive on a level of, say, a 6-figure or a multiple 6-figure business. But what is the biggest mistake that you're seeing them making?

You'd be surprised to hear, Cheryl, that it's consistency. A lot of people think it's fear around communication. But my counter to that is there's so many things in our life that we've accomplished as business owners, as executives. That involved fear, like interviewing for that first job, trying to sign that first client, leaving our corporate jobs to do our business full-time. We never did any of those things with zero fear. Every success story that we have in our life is attached to some amount of fear, but we don't bring that same analogy in public speaking and communication. We think, oh, you know, because I'm scared a little bit, I shouldn't do this at all. Whereas the trick is to say How do we bring that same level of structure and consistency that we apply in getting clients, that we apply in getting promotions at work, that we need to start applying into our daily habits and practicing communication? So the biggest challenge by far is consistency and structure.

Yes, so true. So let's dive into these exercises. What is the first exercise that we can all start to use to become top 1% communicator?

For sure, Cheryl. And just to set the frame, communication is like juggling 18 balls at the same time. So one of those balls is eye contact, one of those balls is body language, one of those balls is storytelling. And it can get really confusing really fast if we try and juggle all 18. That's why I invented the Easy 3s, because if you just juggle those 3 balls, it builds momentum. Kind of like in fitness, where the first step probably isn't to hire a $50,000 personal trainer, but rather working— walking, rather— 30 minutes a day and eating eating less junk food. So what does that look like in comms? Let's start with ball number 1, which is the random word exercise. Pick a word like soapbox, like painting, like dress, like home, like light bulb, and create random presentations out of thin air. And this serves 2 main purposes for business owners and execs. The first one is it helps us deal with uncertainty. There's so many times we're on a prospecting call, we're at a networking cocktail, And people just say the most random things. They go, hey, like, what did you say such and such? And you go, oh, whoa, I didn't expect them to say that. So the random word exercise helps us think on our feet a lot faster and deal with the oddball conversations that we might have in our careers. And the second reason, and people can write this down if they want, is if you can make sense out of nonsense, you could make sense out of anything. So if you make sense out of avocado toast for 60 seconds, If you go back to your expertise that you do over and over again every week, it's very easy to navigate those conversations and presentations.

Brendan, it reminds me of when I did Toastmasters because they have that exercise around the table where, you know, you pick a random word. I think everyone puts a word on a little piece of paper and then they put it in a jar and you have to pick a word and speak about that. I remember doing that exercise many, many years ago. And I think it really, it does help because now you become a much, much better extemporaneous speaker and being able to speak on your feet. And more importantly, to your point, speak about practically any topic that might come at you from left field or seemingly from left field. So that is a great exercise to do. And what I love about that is that again, it doesn't, it doesn't cost money, right? You can just start to actually do it. In your office, at home, in the shower, in the car. It doesn't matter where you do it, just do it. So it's really great. What's the second one?

Absolutely. It, it almost feels like you've heard this before, which you have in Toastmasters, especially the point about the shower. And the reason I mentioned that specifically, Cheryl, is so many people make an excuse not to do it. They go, oh, you know, uh, they'll do everything. They'll go, oh, well, I don't have a jar like Cheryl's talking about. I don't have pieces of paper to put in jar. Forget about that. Like, literally, you're in the shower, nobody's bothering you, not doing any work, shampoo bottle, soap, and you just create random presentations. But what's cool about this exercise, Cheryl, is it's not about doing it perfectly. Most people aren't even willing to do it 100 times in their life. Not every week, not every month, not every year, 100 times in their life. And if you do this 5 times a day for 3 weeks, you'll hit 100 times. It's just most people aren't willing to invest 5 minutes every single day to do it and get those results. I encourage all of you to take action. Let's go to ball number 2. Ball number 2 is the question drill. We get asked questions all the time in our life, Cheryl, at work, at school, on sales calls, prospecting calls, when an employee asks us a question. And most of us are never ready for the questions that life has in store for us. I'll give you an example with me. When I started guessing on podcasts, I definitely wasn't as clear and succinct as I am today. I remember some guy asked me, hey, Brendan, where does the fear of communication come from? And I looked at the guy and I said, uh, I don't know, man. Los Angeles, you tell me. Like, I don't know the fear comes from. So I didn't do a great job navigating that question. So how did I fix this show? Every single day for 5 minutes, I answered one question that I thought the world would ask me about my expertise, my products, or my services. But if you do that once a day for a year, Cheryl, you'll have answered 365 questions about your expertise, and you'll be bulletproof in any conversation you jump into.

This is brilliant. It ties perfectly back into what you said about consistency. In both of those first two exercises, the key here is to commit yourself and be consistent with it. And you're right, to, to answer 365 questions about what you might and likely be asked about is something that prepares you for that. It's not even just an if, it's a when. People are going to ask you if you're out there speaking. And I'm a big proponent of speaking on podcasts and summits and all places that you can be. If you have a YouTube channel and so do I, you're making videos, you're speaking about your subject matter expertise. You can predictably, you know, it's with predictability that you know that people are going to ask you about these questions. But yet, people come unprepared. So, I think the question drill is an easy one to do. If you commit, if you commit, and that's really the key question. So brilliant, brilliant, love it. What is the third one?

Absolutely, Cheryl. And number 3 is so simple that nobody does, and I'm sure you talk about this all the time on your podcast. I'll add an extra layer to it, which is of course the video message. Pick 3 people every single day that you really love in your life. It could be a family member, it could be a client, it could even be a prospect. And just send them each a 20-second video message just telling them how much you appreciate having them in your life. Just nothing crazy. And the only rule for me is you're not allowed to retake the video. That's the only rule to the process. So that way it forces you to do it. The extra layer they'll add on top, because I'm sure everyone's already heard this on the podcast, is a quote that I always love to share. And this ties really well into the video message, which is, if we communicate 20% better than our competition, we will stand out 100% of the time. So what do I mean by this? If you're an accountant listening to this and you send video messages to your clients, you're probably the only one who does that. And that's really the key. It's not about comparing yourself, the person who's listening to this podcast, to me or Cheryl, because I'm sure me and Cheryl probably send a million video messages a week. But it's more about saying, the people that I'm competing with in my industry or in my career, if I'm in a manufacturing plant, if I'm doing coaching, but not a lot of coaches send that many video messages. That's how we stand out. And I'll tell you what my layer is, which is I have a Google Calendar that tells me when it's my client's birthday. And I do this religiously. When it's their client's— my client's birthday, I take a stupid birthday hat that I have there on my couch, I put it on my head, and I go, guess whose birthday it is? And I go, it's yours. I hope you have an amazing day. And nobody's sending them a birthday video message as funky as me, so I stand out.

It's brilliant. Simple, but yet smart and actionable, and which I love. And yes, we have talked about this on Cash In On Camera about the importance of video, but it bears mentioning again that sending a video message, using the capability of your iPhone or your whatever phone or device that you're using to really maximize the multi the multidimensionality or the different features of your phone with audio, video. We send text messages all the time, but audio and video are great ways to be able to stand out from other people, especially in your industry. As you said, like an accountant, I guarantee you're absolutely right. If you're sending video messages, no one else of your competition is likely doing that. You are immediately standing out. And in a world right now where everyone is very concerned with standing out, and then we get questions all the time, maybe we both get these questions of how do I stand out in the marketplace? That's a great solution to be able to do that.

Exactly. And the build to your point, I mean, you pretty much covered it, Cheryl, really well, which is it doesn't take that much to stand out. There's one point you mentioned earlier that I really wanna jump in on, which is it doesn't cost you anything. To do any of these strategies. And yet 95% of people listening to this episode will not do all 3 of those exercises consistently. And that's really the magic— is the biggest takeaway, frankly, is are we booking 15 minutes in our calendar every single day to do those 3 exercises? You spend 5 minutes doing the random word exercise 5 times in the shower, wherever you want to do it— kids, with family members, just alone. One question a day keeps the doctor, or at least me, away. You write one question a day, you answer it. Or better, if you're— if you don't even want to write your own questions, ask your clients for those questions. Ask your stakeholders, your friends for questions, and just load yourself up on them. Or me, I'm practicing it right now. You're asking me questions, I'm answering. That's the question drill. And number 3 is video messages. Just pick 3 people. In my case, it's, it's client birthdays, but for you, it's listening. It's just 3 people you really admire in your life, and you just send video messages to them. And that's it. You do this for 30 days straight, and you'll definitely be in that top 1 to 5 percent category.

I agree. I would love for you to share with us, aside from communication and being out there and speaking like you are today, but what is something that you have found that's really working to help you market yourself, maybe personally, or helping you to market your YouTube channel or MasterTalk and your company in general?

Yeah, absolutely, Cheryl. I'll, I'll give you the most important strategy in our business. That if you implement, you'll definitely grow your business, especially if you have a service-based one. So what you do is in our free training, the change, the twist is we get people who attend the free training to refer other people to the free training. So a lot of people, what they do is they run ads or they'll make a post about it on social media. But what we do, it's very different, is because we don't pitch on the training, I go back to the people who never buy from us, by the way, They don't even jump on a strategy call. I just go back to them and I go, how was the free training? They go, wow, it was epic. And I go, can you invite your friends? And we've gotten hundreds of leads a month for free, zero acquisition costs, like zero, zero dollars. And that's how we've grown the business purely through word of mouth.

That's a great idea. Do you mind if I steal it?

You can totally steal it.

Absolutely. I think it makes a lot of sense. We recently had a great workshop and a lot of people came and loved it. And I think that that would be a good thing to execute now would be to say, hey, you know, are the people that— and people have said, you know, I would love to send more people, but do it in a more formal way is what I'm hearing you say. So that's fantastic. How do people reach out to you if they want to learn more about MasterTalk and the work and the help that you provide?

For sure, Cheryl. Such a great pleasure to be on the show. Thanks for having me. So two ways to keep in touch. The first one that's on the screen is rockstarcommunicator.com, where we do a free workshop on communication that I alluded to earlier, and you could just register for that and enjoy, enjoy the training. There's 8-year-olds who come to that call. There's billion-dollar CEOs who come to that call. Literally everyone's invited. So you could just reserve a spot there, and that's always free. And the second way to keep in touch is our YouTube channel. So you can just type MasterTalk in one word on YouTube. You'll have access to hundreds of free videos on how to speak.

I am subscribed. I love YouTube. I'm, I'm always you know, talking about the, the virtues and the advantages of YouTube. So really glad to have a fellow YouTuber on the channel today. So thank you, and on the podcast. So thank you so much, Brendan. This has been fun. I appreciate you coming on the show and sharing these tips. And these are actionable, these are free. The key now for you who are watching the video or listening to the audio is committing yourself to it. You know what the action steps are, and also this great strategy of using referrals for maybe workshop that you're doing or a training that you're doing. These have all been really actionable and very smart indeed. So thank you so much, Brendan, for coming on and sharing that with us today.

My pleasure, Cheryl. Thanks for having me.

You're welcome. And then for those of you who are watching the video right now and want to connect with me or better understand what it is that I'm up to, I'm doing speaking engagements. I'm holding workshops and trainings and things of that nature. On the video, you can scan the QR code that's on your screen. If you are listening to the audio, Certainly you can find me on social media @CherylPlouffe, and you'll find my signature card there with all of the latest places and resources that we are providing to help you grow your business. Thank you so much for listening and watching Cashing On Camera today. And thank you, Brendan, for being here as a guest.

It's my pleasure.