Ep. 153 How To Be An Unforgettable Panelist

Mark, last week we talked about being the moderator when you are asked to moderate a panel. If you haven't heard that, please go back and check that out. This week, we thought we would dive into, hey, we want you to be a panelist.

Listen, I know what it's like. It can be fun, it can be scary. But we have some ideas for you to make your panelist experience unforgettable.

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, so you get the call. Mark Brown, we want you to be a panelist. You've got that coming up. When we record this, it will be after the fact, once people listen to this. But what's the first thing that goes through your mind, Mark, when you get invited to be a panelist?

Well, I tell you, I asked, well, who's going to be on the panel and what are we talking about? In other words, why me for this group and with whom? I don't say that to be judgmental or to say, no, I don't want to talk to them. But I need clarity as a panelist of my role and my responsibility. This is very different from me being asked to deliver a keynote at an event where I know I will be the center of attention. In this particular case, I'm now part of a team, and I want to know who my team members are. I want to know our game plan and what the objective may be. The last time I was on a panel, it was for an event in South Africa. It was a live event, and I was the hybrid attendee right here in Georgia just a few weeks ago. And it was really interesting because the request came months in advance. We paused there. Thankfully, the organizers contacted me months in advance. So we had a series of preparatory conversations, zoom meetings. So I knew who the other panelists was going to be, what was the objective behind it, and I also knew what perspective they wanted from me based on my experience and my expertise. Now, I will tell you this. I have not found myself in a situation where I said, I don't think that panel is for me yet. But it can be very, very. It can be exciting. It can be A nice ego stroke to be asked to be on a panel. One word of caution. Search your own heart. And if you believe in your heart you are not the best individual for that, it might be wise for you to say, not now. I don't think I'm a good fit. And I've done that before as well myself. Only on one occasion. But you want to find out who the team is, what's the idea behind it, what's the objective and am I going to be a good fit? It's the first question I ask myself.

Yeah, great. Question mark. Question mark.

Boom. I like that. Question mark. Okay.

I got invited to be on a panel for Toastmasters for the convention about speech writing this year. And so like you, same similar questions. Who else is on the panel? What's the intent? You gotta get clear. Because if you're an expert, if you're a speaker, you could do the whole hour. That's not the point of a panel. But what is our responsibility is to narrow down. What is our unique perspective and what do we really. Almost like Patricia Fripp says, if you didn't have a whole hour, but you only had one sentence, what would it be? And bam. That's just such great wisdom to get us to go deeper. And right now literally have some cheat notes if you can. Maybe the opening comment, like we said last week. What's the opening comment that you will have setting up your credibility and your perspective. So understand that's part of the opening comments. It's not just to say hi and be polite. It's to set up your credibility, set up your perspective. So then we want to hear more from you. This is a great opportunity. But Mark, like you said, sometimes you got to say no. I was invited to be on the panel that you're going to be on. I had to say no. Cause I realized I had so much going on launching my new book that it would be one more thing and I could wing it. I could. I've been doing this for 30 years, I could wing it. It's not the best thing for the audience and for the co panelists and for the event, for Darren to be winging it. Yes, I could. And then I, you know, Catholic guilt, growing up, I would feel guilty. So that would kind of show up on my Persona. You say Mark, you bring you to your presentation. So I wouldn't have been all there. So I declined. Not because I didn't think I could, because it wasn't the right timing for me, which would not serve the organization, not serve my Co panelists and not serve my moderator. So I politely declined on that one. The toastmasters one is on writing. So now just what we're saying. What's that? Clarity. What's more, my perspective on writing that I can bring that's going to be different from everybody else's and write down two or three or four bullet points that I want to get across. Yeah. We could talk about the whole hour, every one of the panelists. It's not about us. We've got to remember that our goal is to bring our perspective about this topic on this day.

Yes. And what's important there is to understand. What I did was I had a conversation with the organizer. Well, look, we have these other panelists, and I know one is strong there, the other is strong there. What if I took on this piece of the topic? That's great because that way we get three different people who have three different niche areas they can discuss. We're going to put it all together, have some conversation. But we know we're going to direct these questions initially to you about this. And the cool thing is we have to be humble enough, put our ego aside and know that, yes, we may be the expert on this topic. We are well known for the last 30 years. So of course, yes, I've done that. That's nice. But when they ask another panelist, they may give a different perspective that in some ways may be slightly contrary to your own. But are you willing to have a decent conversation about that? Because you could learn from them and they can learn from you. But it's important upfront to understand who is on the team, who am I playing with, and how can we play in such a way that we could, quote, unquote, win the game? So as a panelist, you want to ask the key question, who's going to be with me? What's your intent? What's your objective? And how can I make this a win for the entire audience and everyone who's in that room?

Yeah, Mark, I'm just grab my dictionary. I'm looking up humble, mild, docile, meek, unassuming. Yeah, sometimes we need a refresher. You know what I'm saying?

Well, listen, the truth is, let us be honest here. When you reach a certain level of expertise, whatever your field may be, and for Darren and Mason speaking, it's not difficult for our egos to talk to us during this 30 years. I mean, to be honest here, I shouldn't say what I'm going to say anyway. It'll sound like a brag, but We, Darren won the ToastMasters world title 21 years ago. I won it 27 years ago. We still get asked to present virtually and live in other parts of the world. You get Darren, you went to Brazil earlier this year. Right. And we go to these locations, and there are people who want our autographs. They want a photo with us, and they pour this adoration and adulation on us. And it's easy for, well, I'm a world champion of who's going to love me. But that is not the perspective to bring generally anywhere, really. I mean, but certainly it's not to a panel, because it isn't all about you here. It's really about. It's a mindset is, okay, how can I share what I have well, but also help to elevate my fellow panelists so we all give great value to the audience. That mindset alone can really give the audience an unique, forgettable experience.

Yeah, we really need to be there for the good of the organization, for the good of this presentation, being the panel. And we need that reminder that it's not all about us. Last week, I said, it's not about us. It's about the event. It's about the presentation. When you're the moderator, you've got to be that ebb and flow, that improv. Now, when you're the panelist, Mark, you know one of my favorite Boston statements, One of the hardest things to do is shut up, shut up, shut up. We have to take the reins that we're used of as the keynote speaker. We're used to being in charge when it's our time. Here's a time when we have to hold back on the reins and we have to honor the moderator. We can't speak over them. We can't speak over other panelists. Even if. Even if we know they're wrong. We can politely say, that is one perspective. Here's my perspective. So instead of saying, no, you're wrong, we can offer maybe from their world, they're right in their mind. So we have to edify our other panelists. We don't have to say they're great or they're awesome if we don't honestly think it. But our goal there is to share our perspective, to add to the whole session. So now you're going from a keynoter to a team member, and you've got to honor that, because guess what? If you're really good and you edify other people and you bring a fresh perspective, you can set yourself. It's marketing. It's marketing. You're the one that other people are going to want to learn more from. And we've got to remember that, that we can't force our opinion and we have to especially edify the moderator even if they maybe have less experience than us.

That's correct. And I recommend asking the moderator a question akin to this. It's simply this. When they contact you and they should, and if the moderator is, the moderator is fairly inexperienced and they don't contact you once you agree, you know, you have a, have that first conversation, I ask, and my wife told me this last week, she said you always ask the same question to anybody who calls you. I always ask, how can I best serve you?

Great question.

How can I best serve. I mean, you can use your own variation.

My shoes need polishing.

Mark. Hey, I gotta. What do I got here? I have my, my cloth was here earlier. Ah, here it is, my cloth. Here it is. I continue to shoot right here. Okay. On my screen. But seriously, when you ask how can I serve immediately what you're doing is letting the moderator know my ego is going to be in check because they're going to be concerned about that. Darren talked about this last week. They're going to be concerned about the egos of the high powered people on the panel because they chose you because of your expertise and perhaps your reputation as well. But when you say how can I serve to make this a very good event, what you're actually doing is putting the moderator's heart at ease, giving them a level of confidence while having that before rapport in that conversation we talked about last week. So now the shoes on the other foot and think how can I serve? Which also means you need to prepare your opening remarks in such a way that it will meet the 32nd or 1 minute limit you know you're going to get from the moderator. Right. You don't want to start giving your whole speech now. You have to understand, Darren says, I'm part of a team. I'm going to do my piece. I'm going to share this part and then be quiet, shut up. Everybody will speak. And I also want to recommend a visual here. If you strongly disagree with somebody's perspective, don't tell your face. Okay? I mean we can laugh at this. We said last week, do we want. We're going to ask a moderator to make it fun for us. Well, you may disagree, but if you start shaking your head and getting all huffy that just you're the petulant like a spoiled child. You don't want to do that. Right. You wait for an opportunity, as Darren says, to offer a different perspective, but not just to be in a huff and say, how can you dare disagree with me? Check your ego at the door. You know what? Check your ego on the plane. If you're going to fly to the place, don't even bring it with you. We can laugh about this, but it can really. A poor attitude can cause a program to go south very, very quickly. We want to make it unforgettable for the right reasons.

Yes. And last week we suggested, if you are the moderator, to please, please, please ask people for one or two questions that can help set them up. That if the moderator asked these questions, it would give the panelist an opportunity to deliver a story, to deliver a unique perspective so their best content. So now when we're the panelist, the moderator hopefully will ask you. But even if they don't, give them a couple questions because then it makes their job easier, they might be new to being a panelist, so they might know, they might not have listened to this podcast.

There you go.

You know, bless these children, these naive children who have not listened. Just kidding. Jk, jk, jk. So at least come up with a couple questions that you can hand the moderator. You're making their job easier, but you're also setting yourself up to deliver your best content.

Yeah. And the thing is, when you do that, you almost help the moderator to guide the conversation with the thought in mind. What is the objective? What is the intent of the panel discussion? Because you always want to bring everything back to the intent of the discussion. It is easy. And again, this could be an ego thing. It is easy for us to say, ah, now is my chance to drive these five messages home, not the place that's for your keynote or for your workshop. Now is a chance for me to offer a perspective that will help the audience to understand this topic and grow in this topic. And hopefully it'll help for the experience to be transformational. That's the mindset you need to have. The panelists, much of it is less about me. It's funny because last week for the moderator, you said it's more about making it, not about you, Right? Similarly, here, yes, they want your value, they want your perspective, they want your experience, they want your knowledge, but they don't want only your knowledge. It's for you to be part of a team where you can share enough in the moment to be part of a wonderful flowing experience that the audience gets. Bear in mind this also, you may not get to share Everything you know about a topic, I hope that you have to be fine with that. You have to be okay with that. You are part of a team. Give them your best nuggets and then what may happen is, wow, after the program's over. You know, Mark, I heard your take on this and you mentioned this one point. I'd love to find out more about that. Can we get together or, hey, my company would like to do a little deep dive on that. Could you do that for us? And you never know. As Darren says, it could be marketing to set you up to get to give a bigger presentation or to deliver greater detail to another client or to the same client later on down the road. It's not your one chance to dump everything on them. Make it a part of me. Look, it won't be fun. Make it fun. We said last week you can make it fun too. Be part of a team that gives the audience a fun, unforgettable experience.

And there will be people who are on the panel with you or maybe the moderator who shares a different perspective than you. Have fun with it anyway, like, and lead by example. If you can be lighter and fun and honor the fact that they think completely different from you. Perfect. That's the purpose of the panel. And then here's my other last thought answer. In sound bites, they don't want your keynote story that's five minutes long.

Boom.

Do a condensed version of it if it's appropriate. A condensed version, though. The purpose of a panel is to go back and forth between many people not to hear you give two or three pieces of your keynote. It's different. It's a different skill set. It's a different mindset. Please honor that and please honor the moderator.

Yeah, I mean, wow, Darren, that right there is gold. That is so key that we understand. It's a check your ego at the door time. Bring your best material. And the idea of answering in sound bites is really, really, really helpful because you know what? I want to dream for you. Now I'm going to imagine you do the panel and it leads to other opportunities. I'm going to believe you end up on radio or television. And on television, their time is tight. You get a four minute interview. It's a four minute interview. You got to get your key points in because guess what, it'll cut you off and go to the weather. Right. So if you can, if you can. A panel is a good opportunity to even prepare and hone these skills for media appearances as well. And Darren, you've done both. You've been there. So you know what that's like to have to be in the studio on a timeframe to respond to questions from more than one presenter. And, you know, parts of this could be when you are the interviewee, and we may even drill on that at some point in time. When you have you written your book or you've done your presentation, you come into town and they want to put you on the morning news show or what will that be about? We might just do a podcast on that piece as well.

Sounds good. Yeah. If you go on YouTube and you search Darren Lacroix Morning Blend, you'll see I was on Las Vegas, ABC's channel, talking about my book launch and the prep that I got from one of the hosts. Her name is J.J. snyder. She's like, I know you've probably done this before, but I need to remind you, we need you to answer in 30 seconds. Like, you've got to have short, specific answers. And I know that. But A, I needed the reminder. And B, if you watch the interview, you'll see one or two times that I answered and I kept going and she kind of had to jump in, or you see her leaning in and then lean back because she saw that I wasn't done yet. So even though I knew it was different, my mindset, my brain has been trained to go on too long. So I'm telling you this because I still make the mistakes. I still have to catch myself. And I had to read her body language. I'm like, oh, I went too long on that one. She was ready to jump in. So you'll see a couple of those moments. But I got back on track and I realized, look, if I can answer it in 15 seconds or 20 seconds, it's a conversation. It's not you delivering a keynote.

And you know what? If you're a toastmaster right now, if you're a toastmaster right now, this is something you could actually practice with your fellow toastmasters or even with your family. Young people probably wouldn't mind interviewing you and, you know, having mom and dad and mom ask a question to Dad. I don't know. Be creative. If you're going to get the opportunity, find a way to prepare yourself in a fun way for the experience you are going to have, but more importantly, for the experience you're going to give. And be mindful of the time restrictions, even when the Q and A you want to give short, specific answers to, hopefully. What will be short, specific questions? Why? Because everyone on the panel should have the opportunity to answer both the moderators questions and audience questions if they're doing a live Q and A in the audience as well. And we mentioned last week as a moderator to ask panelists who have opening and closing remarks. Recommend as a panelist you prepare yourself for the closing remarks. One caveat with closing remarks, you might want to prepare a general thought. But hopefully in the course of the panel discussion, your closing remarks will refer to comments that were made, ideas that were shared, something you gleaned or learned yourself as a result of being on the panel. So don't hard prepare your closing remarks. Show in your closing remarks that you also benefited from the experience as well and you hope the audience did too.

So if you're going to be a panelist, different mindset. If you're going to be a moderator, different mindset, please check out last week's episode. Bottom line is it's not about you. You need to bring your perspective and you need to have fun with it. Mark Brown, take us home.

Well, by the time you get this, I'll have been on my panel discussion and maybe one day I'll tell you how that went. But if you take these ideas to heart and put them into practice when you are called upon, not if when you're called upon to be a panelist, you will give your audience an experience that will be unforgettable. See you next week.

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