Ep. 147 Seven Steps to Be Unforgettable

Hey there, Mark Brown. You and I have been working with Patricia Fripp and we're working on a new book, brand new book coming out. Deliver Unforgettable presentations.

Yes, sir.

And we've got a seven step process and thought it'd be fun and cool and insightful if we shared the seven step process, the highlights of it, so at least people would get to know there's a process to follow.

Yeah, and I agree with you. I can't wait to share this and hopefully they'll have an idea when they listen to this that they too can be effective if they have a process.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcast with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation AHAs? Let's dive right in.

All right, Mark, one of the things that I learned along the way is there's, there's a process, there's a 101 process, and then there's a world class process for almost every everything. And if we think about it, a high school athlete prepares differently from an Olympic athlete.

Yep.

A high school coach coaches differently than an Olympic coach. And I think that was one of the biggest AHAs. And of course you know the story, Mark. I sat there back in 2001 in the audience at the Toastmasters convention and Patricia Fripp was the keynote speaker. And me as a visual learner, she put up her speech model. And I finally got it that having each piece of the speech work together for one outcome like that was a game changer. I just thought the old adage in the speaking world, tell a story, make a point, tell a story, make a point, tell a story, make a point. Which isn't bad, but it just doesn't go deep enough.

And what to me was also interesting was that you were already a keynote speaker when you were competing that year. And you know your process well. Part of your process was to prepare, take one of your stories out of your speech and put a beginning and ending, but improve it and then put it back in your keynote. Whether you choose to believe it or not, that was part of the process you put together for enhancing the speech. When you saw Fripps, modeling was like, aha. Now that's a model. I can sink my teeth into. And as you and I both know, as we share in our workshops all the time, I show copies of my keynotes, five, six, seven of them, all using that process. And when you mentioned process and sports, I can remember playing high school football, what we call soccer here in North America, and how our coach had a process he went through, starting with tryouts in June for a season beginning in September, and how athletes do train with a process. I recall our first push ups was six push ups. At first you do six. But it took us through a process to gain strength. We didn't have barbells and dumbbells. Nobody called us Chester for big chests when we were in high school. But I look at the process we went through and by September we were conditioned in Jamaica to be able to function and play high intensity for 120 minutes in 90 degree heat Fahrenheit. When we began, we couldn't do that. But he took us through a process of conditioning that was always effective and it got us ready for game day. And what we have to share today is a process to help any presenter be ready for game day and to be unforgettable.

And this is the meat of the book. So the book is coming out. You can check out deliverunforgettablepresentations.com and check out the book when you listen to this. It may or may not be out yet, depending on when you listen, but we hope to have it out in the middle of the summer of 2022. But here's some highlights and I just thought even just understanding there's a process to follow. So Mark, let's just dive in.

Yes, sir.

Let's let people know here's the process. And we definitely have to have Patricia on once we come closer to getting this off the ground because you and I both learned from Patricia Fripp, CSP CPAE Cavett Award winner, our hero. She helped me become a better presenter and a better business person and a better person. So a lot of this comes with her permission. So step one, finding your content. Step one, finding your content. I think a lot of people don't go deep enough into their own stories. Mark, you and I in stagetime University, we do once a week a live coaching call with our members and we do a story dig. And what blows me away is every single time. And if you go back and listen to some of the other podcasts we've had, I think we did one with. What was her name? I'll think of her name. No, we did one with the woman Love Knots. Here oh, Vegas.

I know her name escapes you right now.

Well, think of it. And anyway, she is awesome. But we did a story dig with her. So it's going into your life. And every time we do it, Mark, just the coaching questions that are asked to kind of dig into the recesses and the little caverns in your brain, always, always there's a moment where you and I, or whoever you're coaching with or Mike Davis goes, that's gold. But even me, when I was working with you and you were asking me, hey, you know, for this speech, we need another failure from your life. Do you have any other failures? And I kind of casually was like, well, I used to do this joke about Subway. And when I told you the joke, you pulled a Darren, you were like, what?

That's it.

That's awesome. But to me, I was too close. So step one is really finding and collecting your content. If you've listened to us before, we talk about a story file. But growing your story file is a forever process. But the more content you have to choose from, the easier, faster, and better it is to create an unforgettable presentation.

Yes, I agree completely. And we talk about mining your life to find the treasure contained therein. I will share one other experience. Darren, from a coaching call we had several weeks ago. One of our clients brought this story. She wanted to really enhance the story. And there was a secondary character in the story. And I said, well, tell me about this particular person. And she spoke for a while and then we went, ah, this is really about her. She is the hero. She's the guru in the story, even though you may think she's only a peripheral character. And I only say that for one reason, the process of mining your life for your stories. It's helpful if you are willing, if you give yourself permission, as Darren says, go a little deeper, examine all the characters. You may find someone there who you think is peripheral, off to the side, who may be much more critical. And Darren, you're right. I've seen this happen again and again and again on coaching calls where the focus is on person A, when person Q is really the primal person, or experience Z, when it's actually experience number 17. Point being, give yourself permission to mine your life and find the best content, the best stories to help you deliver your unforgettable presentation.

Yeah, by the way, look it up while we were talking here. Maria Romano, one of our episodes. She's awesome. And like, when you realize in your life there's so much content. Now, the obvious things about our Story of why we started, our founder story, or our origin story, some people call it the story about why we got into business and how we help people. Well, this is important, imperative, but what else? If you're going to be unforgettable, you've got to go deeper. And there's some seemingly insignificant stories in your mind that are gold to your listener. But again, going back to our seven step process, step number one is find your content, explore the treasure trove in your life and uncover shareworthy experiences and expertise you never knew you even had. And mark, you know my little phrase, if you shortcut the process, you shortcut the result.

Oh, definitely, definitely.

So you got to go deeper. We're just giving you the steps, but you truly got to go deeper into each one of them.

Martin, there's one more thought about that too. When you said, you know, to uncover, share worthy experiences and expertise, you said earlier, we're often too close to it. No, the old saying is you can't see the forest for the trees. One of my lines is, one man's mundane is another man's magnificent. So very often it may seem mundane to us, but I love when people go through this process of trying to find their content. And someone said, wait, wait, wait, what did you say? Yeah, it was a 13th time. Wait, wait, the 13th time you just. You're telling me this now? What? And they go, oh, yeah, well, you know, I got it. So I didn't really think about it. Exactly, exactly. So pause for a second. Friendship. I didn't really think much about it could be one of your enemies to finding your content. I didn't really think it was a big deal. What may be nothing to you may be a big deal to not only someone else, it could be a big deal to your entire audience. So one more time, give yourself permission to dig a little deeper and uncover some of that hidden treasure. Darren.

Yeah. Let's go right over to step number two. Another step that people kind of gloss over. And look, if you don't get step one right, and most importantly, most importantly, step two right, you can waste, I don't even know what the word inordinate amount of time. Yes, that word there. But step two is clarity, clarity, clarity. Getting clear. Learn how to get crystal clear from the start so you can develop sticky, high impact presentations. We can't emphasize this one enough. And here's the problem. We all think it's clear enough. And one of our little tests is, let's just say if you're a toastmaster and you're Working on part of your presentation, or even if you're already a paid professional speaker, do a zoom, private zoom with some of your friends, some of your fans, some of your colleagues, and give them your presentation and then ask them, what is the message? And if you don't get 70% of the people saying almost word for word what your message is, then the problem is you skipped over step two like we told you not to.

It is not clear. Yeah, I thought it was about this. No, it wasn't about that. Well, it's not clear. It may sound cheesy to say clarity, clarity, clarity, but we repeat that word because it is so important. Because if you're not clear, your audience will not get the message.

Yeah, it's simple to say. It's hard to do, really hard to do. You need feedback, you need another iteration, you need resolve to evolve constantly. Keep getting it clearer, clearer, clearer. And that's why sometimes you see an amazing, unforgettable presenter. We think, wow. But what we didn't see was the work it took to get it to be that clear. All right, moving along. Step three, structure this. Now we've got to take your content wrapped in your clear message, and we've got to add it to a structure. And this is for the so number one, it gives you confidence. It gives your audience clarity so they can stay with you. They know clearly what step you're on when you're teaching, delivering your step, your process, your acronym, your three points, whatever it is.

And what's cool is you just said it gives you confidence and your audience what clarity. Going back to step number two. So step number three really helps you to make sure and to solidify step number two. Clarity, clarity, clarity. When you have a structure, a proven structure that works every single time, the beauty of it is that you can apply that structure to not just this powerful, unforgettable presentation, but every single time you craft a new presentation, you modify or tweak something within the framework, within the structure that you have. You're guaranteed it's going to work regardless of your topic, your subject, how you approach it, what message you want to share. If you have a proper structure in place, everything you do in that structure is going to give you results. And I know we talk about this quite a bit in our workshops, but we are using a structure, a model that I use when I write new keynotes, and I have the proof, I have physical documents that I show people. I use that model every single time. It has worked tremendously well for me. But understand when you Have a proven structure in place, your speech will flow beautifully, seamlessly, and you'll convert your speech into an experience the audience will remember. And that will also help you to be unforgettable.

Yeah. And so we're already in step three, and this is now going to step four. This is where people start writing their speech. They missed. They skipped step one, step two, and step three. And they go right to step number four. Step number four.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Step number four is create a strong opening. Now the fun begins. Now the rubber hits the road. But without step one, two and three, again, you shortcut the process. You shortcut your result. If you want to be unforgettable, these are the seven steps that unforgettable presenters take that most people won't. Again, step four, create the strong opening. And as we say, we need to set up our premise. The purpose of the opening is not just to get attention. What if you get attention and it has nothing to do with your point? Well, congratulations. You're unforgettable for the wrong reason. You're the guy who had an amazing opening and they're talking about the opening, but. But they're not talking about themselves or what they can do or the process you gave them.

For years, I have heard the purpose of the opening is to grab their attention right away and get involved. That's only a part of the process, because if you grab their attention, but you can then make a connection that drives them towards the purpose of your speech, then you know your opening is basically the beginning of a journey that your audience will take with you. I frequently tell people, you know, I do a program on shining on stage and online, how to own the stage. And I'll often open with, hey, stop giving speeches. I'll go, what? Yeah, say stop giving speeches, but the opening line will get their attention. However, my premise is everyone can shine on stage. Every presenter can shine on stage and online. That's the premise. Every presenter can shine on stage and online. That's one of my premises. But when I say, stop giving speeches, one, I get your attention with a shocking statement. But two, I'm talking about giving speeches. It is connected to my premise. You can deliver an unforgettable talk and shine on stage. So I'm connecting that opening to the premise of my speech and beginning this journey they take with me. So think about that when you open. It might be a really cool joke, but it has nothing to do with your presentation. You might be heading off in the wrong direction and being unforgettable. As Darren says, for all the wrong reasons, don't just get attention. Make a connection to both the audience and to your premise of your presentation.

So it's not just getting their attention. It's getting their attention while setting up the premise. So it's not a one than the other. It's while, it's during. It's their attention to get them intrigued, to get them to want to hear more, to know what an experience, not a speech. Now you've just given them. Whoa. Okay, that's a new perspective. Step number four, create your opening.

Now.

Step number five. That's what happens when I get new sound effects. Mario.

Step number five, create a compelling clue. Yes. Is that better?

So in the process of creating the speech, we. We want to figure out, okay, how are we going to get their attention and set up the premise? Now, we don't worry about the middle just yet. Now we go right to the closing. And how are we going to reinforce the premise?

Wait, wait, wait, wait. I thought it was good. Go in sequence. You do the opening, then do the body, then do the clothes. Isn't that we're taught in ToastMasters? Darren.

Step five, create a compelling clothes. You got to follow the process, okay? You've got to let go of how you've learned it before. Again, the Olympic athlete, the high school athlete. If you want to be unforgettable, we're not teaching you presentations 101. We're taking you deeper. What we learned from two decades of. We're getting old, Mark. From two decades of coaching people and seeing the mistakes they made. And we see it over and over again. So now the compelling close. This is where we wrap up into a tight little bow. And then we send them on their way. We give them a call to action. But we're reinforcing the premise. So it's. And what's the premise? The premise is the thought or the idea that you're selling. That's step two, Clarity, clarity, clarity. What's the thought or the idea that you're selling once you get clear on that? Now we set it up in step four. Now we close it. We bring it to a close, a compelling close in step number five.

Yeah. And the cool thing is, I love when you said it reinforces the premise. So the opening sets it up, and the closing reinforces it. There's one key here. You realize the symmetry involved, the way everything is coordinated to work together. So we recommend. Yeah, high school. Beginning, middle, close, open, middle, close. We're talking high tech here. Open. Get it opening first get the closing, know that they're also coordinated. And then you're going to go from there to step number six. Come on, Darren. Bam.

Yeah, different sound. See, I came from a different direction. The first two set you up and thinking you were going to get that, but instead you get. Which is step number six. Making it unique, forgettable, being unpredictable, making your message sticky, telling sticky stories using foundational phrases. This is one of the steps that we added to the FRIPP speech model to be able to go one step higher. How do I make it stick? Stage time. Stage time. Stage time. What is it that gets this? And again, the subtitle of the book, how to be Remembered and Repeated. How to be remembered and repeated. That's step number six, how to be Repeated. Because a lot of times you have people who. You get them excited, but then they have to go tell their boss or the committee at work or their friends or their family or their spouse. How do they actually get our message and then repeat our message? To help other people. To help other people understand, to get other people interested in the process. We've got to take the time. And I love how we do this. Now Mark is literally sitting back and how do we. How do we make it sticky, Mark?

Yeah, I mean, well, yeah, how do we make it sticky? It could be, as you said, certain words, phrases. And I love when you can even coin your own phrase, create your own phrase, or have your own Darwinisms, just ways that are memorable. People all over the world now, they hear stage time, stage time, stage time. They know it's Darren Lacroix because it's a sticky phrase that's rememberable. And I'll just toss one more thought in regarding that, Darren. Stage time, stage time, Stage time. It is six words, but they're all monosyllabic, they're all one syllable, they're all easy to write, easy to say and easy to remember. You don't need to wax eloquent or be excessively verbose to explain to the world how erudite you may be and highly educated you are. If you want them to remember it, make it easy enough for them to remember it and to repeat it to reinforce your message. Because here's the cool part. When we make our presentations unforgettable, when we are remembered and repeated, people are sharing our messages with their world. Which means even though your influence may seem local, your impact can be global. I'll say it again. Your influence may be local, but your impact may be global. How? Because you are not only remembered, you are repeated. And part of that process is to insert words, phrases, witticisms, Darwinisms, Marxisms. People are going to remember. One of mine is activate your forgettery. What does that mean? People hear it, I explain it, I use it. And they go, oh yeah, your forgetter isn't working. So think about ways you can make it unforgettable in your own unique way. That also comes from choosing the best stories at the best times for the best message you want to deliver. And that comes from being selective about that as well.

Darren, nice. Well said, Mark.

Local and global. You like that, don't you? Being local and global. Not being erudite or too overly verbose and loquacious. I know too many big words. I'm sorry.

Number seven, own the stage. Anyone can take the stage. Anyone can stand in front of an audience. Anyone can deliver a presentation. In the corporate world, they do this all the time. However, people often are rolling their eyes looking at their watch. Barbara's presenting again. Oh, Barbara's presenting. Oh, this is gonna be boring. Let's see how many lines of text on every slide.

And if your name is Barbara, it's not about you. Okay, he pulled that one out of the air, so please don't be offended by that. Yes, that was unintentional. So, yes, use Mark next time. Derek, come on.

So step number seven is own the stage. Now. It's internalizing. You created this new presentation, but it's internalizing. It's preparing like a pro. It's making it be communicated in an authentic way so that it becomes sticky. This is again another step that I kind of glossed over because at the beginning, or Even up until 2001, I've been a presenter for nine years and I was very forgettable. Well, I was like a train wreck. I was animated, I was passionate. You know, I developed that confidence, but I wasn't saying anything sticky and I wasn't saying anything that was remembered or repeated. Oh, wow, he has confidence. That's about me. We want them walking away about them. How our presentation, how our process, how our insights have impacted their life. We get this golden opportunity for 45 minutes, for 90 minutes, maybe an all day workshop to truly, this might be the only time you get to impact that audience. So now how does apropos. How does a pro apropos? How does a pro, a true world class pro, prepare? What do they do? And we talk about that internalizing. By the way, you might check out our past.

Having a tough day with a pee today.

A lot of peas today. Peas are messing.

You up, my friend.

Podcast titled simply don't memorize, a very popular one. And that goes really deep into this step, which is to internalize your content. How do you do that? How do you make it truly yours and own your content? If you want to own the stage, you have to own your content. And you can't be worried about what you're going to say next. It's got to be inside you. And having that intention to help the audience, that owning the stage, owning your content, caring about the audience outcome based on your true experience, that's owning the stage. That's making a lasting impression.

If you find yourself, we need a bit of representation. Trying to remember, what's my next line? Did I properly memorize this section? You're in your head. And as Darren Lacroix wisely says, when you're in your head, your emotions are dead. And speaking is emotional. Storytelling is emotional. Our stories and our experiences connect with our audience's emotions. And if we've lost that connection because we're so busy getting into our heads trying to recall our next line, we are not owning our stage. We're simply occupying space on a physical platform or a virtual screen. When you internalize, and I've often said this, I should be able to wake you or shake you awake at 2:17am Even though I can't find any good reason to be in your bedroom at 2:17am and say, Listen, deliver the presentation and you pop up, chipmunk. Laughter yes, sir. And you pop up and deliver. On a more serious note, when you internalize, you aren't concerned about memorizing. It is so much inside you. Your mindset is now shifted. Your mindset is good. I have worked so hard on this. I am so eager. I can't wait to unleash and to deliver to this audience that which I have prepared so much, so long, so hard. It's inside me, and I have no choice but to deliver it to them. And strangely enough, Darren, I don't talk about this much, but in the summer of 1995, when I was competing in the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking, I can recall being backstage getting wired for my speech. I was speaker number eight of nine. And when speaker number seven was going on, I had gotten wired. I was ready. I had done like 10, 15 pushups, and I was standing backstage. He had finished his talk. There's a minute between each presenter for the judges to mark their ballots. And I'm backstage. There's a little stairway there. I've got one foot on the step. I've got two hands on the railing saying, let me add them, let me add them. I cannot wait to go out there and deliver this presentation I've worked so hard on for them. That kind of mindset, it's inside you and your heart says, my audience deserves the best I have. How can I serve them? That's part of this whole piece of owning the stage. It's not just a physical platform. I'm good here. I've got a power pose and I'm great. That's a physical representation. What's happening inside you, inside your heart, inside your mind. And what do you have to give to your audience? A value to transform their lives. We'll discuss that also in step number seven, owning your stage.

Yeah. Thank you, Marc. So, just to recap, step one is finding your content. Most people don't go deep enough, so you're missing a lot of the gold in your life. Step two, clarity, clarity, clarity. What is your premise? What's that thought or the idea that you're selling? Step number three, the structure. Putting your content in a proven structure. Both Mark and I use the FRIPP presentation model again. You can, you can check that out on Deliver Unforgettable Presentations podcast. Deliver Unforgettable Presentations. Number step four is create the opening. Don't do this in the other order, any other order. A lot of people will then start working on, let's say, point of wisdom 1. We say, no, no, no, no, go to the compelling close, which is step five. Then once you have your structure, we go to step six. Like step back. How do I make it unforgettable? It's a powerful question. A lot of people don't truly take the time to focus on that. When you focus on that, ask better questions, you're going to get better results. And I love Mark. And we do this in our workshop where you and I have a three day workshop where we literally walk people through this whole process. And then of course, step seven we just talked about is owning the stage. Not just being on stage, but owning it. Having that confidence, having that caring that your audience leaves differently than when they found you, when they originally met you. Mark.

Yeah. And this seven step process, we will certainly elaborate on it in the book Deliver Unforgettable Presentations. But we wanted to give you an overview to let you know what works for us, what has worked for us, what we've learned over the last 20 odd years together and individually. Because we want you not just to deliver a speech or to give a talk. We truly believe when you follow this process, you'll go from good to great to unforgettable.

Darren, awesome. We'll see you next week.

Bye.

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