Ep. 173 Review & Renew!

Mark, I gotta give this presentation again. I've been doing this for years.

I know the feeling, buddy.

But I love my audience. I love my stories. I do care.

Yeah, I know, I know. I spoke with kids audiences for, oh, my gosh, almost 20 years, giving the same speech 150 times a year. I know the feeling. And after a while, the truth is, Darren, it can get a little bit stale if you're not careful. So I suggest to take a look at that speech you're doing over and over again, review it and renew it.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the unforgettable presentations podcasts 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, review it and renew it sometimes, whether it's a story or presentation. And we did an episode in the past called your makeover, you know, doing a makeover for a story, a story makeover. So this is a little different. But hey, if you like this podcast, you might want to check out that episode too. Mark, do you remember the episode number on that one?

Yeah, that was episode 94, your story makeover that was released. Wow. Back in June of 2021, about a year and a half ago. Episode 94, your story makeover, is how you can remake your story. But as you heard before, it's not a stomach story. Right, Darren?

The whole presentation. Cause maybe there's a story that you used to tell that could renew the whole presentation. And Mark, I love what Craig Valentine calls it, the bounce method. You take one new story, one new idea, you throw it in the dryer, and it refreshes the whole presentation. You get excited to test, quote, unquote, this new story. Maybe it's a new infograph. Maybe there's an infographic you have that looks a little dated because it was from 10 years ago, that maybe the principle is fine, the idea is fine, but maybe it just needs an upgrade of a look. It needs to be renewed. I know the Patricia Fripp speech model is exactly the same, yet we've done two or three iterations to kind of upgrade it with how an image looks better today than it did yesterday, than it did 10 or 20 years ago. I know the original version was just black and white, very Simple. And the model hasn't changed, but it's been renewed. So it doesn't look old, it looks fresh. So if it's a presentation you give over and over again, you, you, you, you will get more excited if you just bring in one new element. We encourage you to consider restructuring the whole idea because now you've learned a lot since you originally created, or at least we hope you do. Especially if you've been learning listening to this podcast. We hope you have some ideas and some new wisdom that we're passing along through our experience. But whether it's the whole presentation, consider it. Or maybe an infographic. Look at your slides, look at your stories. Is there another story that you either forgot about or a new story that happened to you because you were listening to our Thanksgiving Day episode? You.

Nicely done. I like that. Good.

Check that out. Episode 170, Thanksgiving brainstorming. But seriously, maybe there's a new story that I just love, Craig's idea that can refresh the whole presentation. And now you get excited because you know the presentation. So it's not like you have to relearn the whole presentation. You just have this new element. I remember my standup comedy days. If I had a new joke, I'd insert it in the middle in case it didn't work. I knew I could bring the audience back, but I would get so excited about that set just to see how the new version or the new element helped the whole presentation. If we're not doing this on a semi regular basis, I think we're truly boring ourselves, not making the impact we could. And we're definitely not as unforgettable as we could be.

Yeah. And you have to be careful because, you know, we were kind of being a little bit corny with, oh, man, I gotta give this talk again. But I was not kidding. I gave the same presentation to youth audiences over 150 times a year for years. And it could easily become stale. But I look back, so I have actually reviewed this. The first time I spoke in a school, Darren, was in the fall of 1995, I think 27 years ago, or 94. My son's elementary school, long time ago. And I go back and see how I built that presentation. I began to change things and put new stories in, but I knew for the young people, I had to make references that were important to them. But over the years I have reviewed that because my next presentation of this youth audience program will be a week from this recording. Right. Early December. Right. That's been 27 years I no longer talk about I love you, you love me. Born in a purple dinosaur.

But you do it so well.

Who won't know when I say Tinky Winky, Lala and Po, Dipsy and Po. Who were they? They were Teletubbies. When I first began doing the program back in the mid-90s, barn, the purple dinosaur and Teletubbies became a thing. It was even Stevens on the Disney Channel. All of these. I've gone to spongebob. I've had to evolve, but I had to review and renew not just my stories, but even my references.

Yeah, great point.

One of my biggest moments in that presentation, Darren, was when I talked about Beauty and the Beast, the cartoon version, 1990s, and watching with my family, I used to get the biggest laugh when I said I had a daddy moment right there. I did the unthinkable. I stopped the movie and I grabbed my VCR remote control. What? And I pressed rewind and I went. And the audience loved it. But in. In the 21st century, if I say VCR remote control, I get like, what's a VCR? I say rewind. They say rewind. When you rewinding and the sound is lost on many audience members, that sound is lost on them. It was great. It was wonderful when it worked. Until it didn't. So, yes, you want to refresh your stories, but you want to look at your references, the role play you have, the conversations, because sometimes they can become outdated and they need to be refreshed and renewed. But you will not know to renew until you review. So it is your images, it is your stories, it is your references. What worked then may not work now. So you have to be aware of what's happening around you today and what would be better references as you review so you're better equipped to renew. And it's two steps. It's one thing to review and say, ah, it worked out. It always worked. Why wouldn't it? But there may be a time you do need to actually take a step and renew it. Right. But review every aspect of your presentation, not your stories, slides, and references. Because you want to make sure you give your audience the best in the moment.

Yeah. And it's asking the question, how can I? How can I? How could I? How could I upgrade my infographic? Just asking the question is going to tap into that creative side of your brain, whether you're creative or whether you're not. And even if you're not a creative person, what if you took your infographic and put it out there on fiverr 10 bucks and give a designer a shot at it. Give them your brand colors, but use creative people who this is what they do. If they have a design eye and you have a very simple, they could upgrade it simply for a very inexpensive fee. And now it's renewed. But now you look like you're current. We can't look like we're old. Past dated, by the way, even if you have copyright on it. What's the copyright say? Copyright 1995. Well, you might want to just put Copyright 19952022 just so the 2022's in there so people know it's been renewed. It's sad. I've even talked to Jennifer Lear, speaker agent that books both of us and she's awesome. And she was talking about things like that, that sometimes event planners who are looking at your demo reel. This is crazy, but on the lectern where you are speaking, you know you're speaking and there just happens to be a lectern next to you or something and it says Hyatt regency or Marriott 2022 or 1995 convention. And even though your material, what you're saying is just relevant. If the event planner sees that, literally she's told me, they will ask her, do they have anything more current. It could be the same exact material. The year in a demo video is irrelevant. It's the story's good and it works and da, da. But the event planner sees the year on the lectern and so maybe you have to renew your demo video as well to get rid of those references or just blur it out. I know, I know, sorry, we're all.

Going to go through that. And it's funny, I was guilty of this. It wasn't arrogance, it was my position for a long time. Hey, I'm a speaker, I speak. I don't need flashy bells and whistles and PowerPoint. And I was very successful in a gymnasium with 873 kids for an hour in the summertime. Me, a little table, a chair, a bottle of water for 45 minutes. I was killing it. But I realized it's time to kind of enhance what you have. I began to use PowerPoint slides, boring PowerPoint slides with some text on it like Times Roman, italic, you know. Yes, I was guilty. But then I began to realize, no, I need to renew that I began to understand. Thank you, Darren Lacroix. The power of the visual and not so many words. So I put a picture of a news article up there, right? I put a picture, an Image of my family or what me as a kid, when I was 11 years old, black and white picture with high water pants, floppy ears and buck teeth. And the kids laughed at me, which was great. I wanted them to. I realized the image supported the message more powerfully. And I had to come to terms with the fact that I could, I could use, selectively use visuals to enhance a presentation and not stand my ground. I am a speaker, therefore I speak. I don't need that now, truth be told, Darren, you and I know there are individuals who tell you I don't need PowerPoint slides. You got me. And that's fine. I had to also, in reviewing, realize who's my audience. Look at the 13 year old kids, their world is media driven. If I can't give them a similar experience, I hate to say, but it's true. They literally change the channel right there because to them I want more piece of media. I had to use that well. So I had to review how I approach that and renew it. And I'm still being asked to deliver it to this day, for which I am grateful. So again, it's also just how you deliver your material. Your approach to it did what work 10, 15 years ago? Is that still going to work today? You know, it's really interesting now. Are you, are you considered being a bit more interactive with your audience? Because of how we interact with media these days, media responds to us, respond to media. Would it be helpful to consider doing something more interactive? You may not be the master of illustration like Darren Lacroix, but is there something you can do even using a mentimeter tool to engage the audience in poll taking? In your presentations, do you review what you deliver and how you deliver and is there room to renew portions of either to be that much more unforgettable on the stage, we're issuing a challenge to ourselves, but also to you, to consider what needs to be reviewed and what can you renew. Back to Darren's question. How can I make this even better so I can be truly unforgettable?

Yeah, if you're not renewing, if you're not reviewing, you're missing unforgettable. It's in your grasp. The cool part is your presentation works. Now it's ego. Yeah, it's good enough, but do you want to be good enough or do you want to be unforgettable? And so for those of you listening who've done the same presentation, just one slide, one change, one infographic, one like Mark, you said like mentimeter. One way to engage the audience that reinforces, but makes a point. Unforgettable. When Mark shows that picture of him, bucktooth. Those kids relate now. They relate. They're closer. They're one step closer to Mark. So now they're going to be more apt to listen to his message, take home his message and act on his message. It's a challenge.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a challenge. But you know what, what we're required to do, Darren, I believe if we invest the time and say, okay, what is my bread and butter right now? I give these two of these free talks. What can I do in these talks to enhance how I deliver them or change something in my content to really make it engaging? I use a confession. Okay? I'm in the process now of renewing how I project myself to the world. And I've been doing talks on leadership for a long time. I gave a talk on leadership called 8 Ways Leaders Get Things Done. I delivered that presentation, it must have been 1996, at an event in New York. Okay. And that has evolved from Eight Ways Leaders Get Things Done. Now it's seven Strategies Every leader must know. Right? That changed a little bit. And I've done that corporate level as well for PMI and so on, the Product Management Institute and others. But I've also approached leadership from a different perspective recently, and I've shifted it. I've changed it. I gave this new version of my talk on leadership to a supervisor symposium for a large company right here in North America, virtually recently. And in that presentation, I began to include interaction, virtually interaction in a powerful, meaningful way. I realized it was a game changer. I say this not to brag, okay, but please understand, reviewing my offering, customizing it, and renewing it in this way. I got a. I got a message back from the organizer who I had spoken with about it, and I wanted to get his thoughts on the presentation. And he sent me a short text, which I'm going to just read for you. What he said in his text that I think would be important. He said, thank you, Mark. Thank you so much for your presentation today. It was everything and more that we could have asked for. Incredibly inspiring. Now, I say that not to brag. I say that to point out my process of reviewing, renewing, enhancing, and inserting some new processes led to that result. Do not make any mistakes. I work my tail off to deliver this product to this particular audience to get that kind of response. But it shows that by reviewing and renewing and making the enhancements, I now have a product I believe is very Very marketable. It's very uniquely mine. And I believe the future is bright for this new approach. So as good as the old programs have been, is it worth your while to sit down for a couple of hours and review your presentation and ask yourself, how can I enhance this? How can I renew this? How can I stand out from the crowd? How can I be different? How can I be more unforgett about? I believe it's worth your time and effort to invest it, invest that time and to look, seriously, look at what you have right now, even if you only have one presentation that you know works, what can I do differently to renew it to meet the needs of the marketplace? And one way to do that, particularly if you're touring pro, is to look at what the market is asking for. That you may have. You may have it. But if you change the way you deliver it, it could be a game changer for you and for your clients and for your prospect.

Look at the point you're trying to make and ask yourself, how can I make this better? How can I make it unforgettable? And a couple of examples. Now, these may seem logical to you listening here, but to me at the time, it was a stretch. It was a risk. I had told Mark my district level speech was a story of my first time on stage. Well, it was a toastmaster contest, forcing me to work on it. Well, I talked about that story and then I got the feedback. Like, people didn't really believe me that I was that bad. And so I started thinking about it. How do I review it and renew it? Though back then I might not have used those words. Same principle. How can I prove it to them? And so that question got me to think, got me to realize, oh, I have a video clip of it now. That is commonplace, but without that question. And people talk about how powerful that was and how relatable that was. Well, if I never asked myself that question, that wouldn't. What's now considered commonplace, the telling people that they got to record themselves, that I recorded myself every time, like I told them, and nobody wants to listen to themselves. So I created that joke. So when I tell the audience, raise your hand if you want to look good on stage. And everyone raises their hand, let it go.

It's not about you.

And then I say about record yourself each time, and I can see the visual emotion being elicited on their faces. And I say, I know what you're thinking. Oh, I don't want to listen to myself. I hate to listen. Oh, well, guess what we had to listen. You should be duct taped to a chair and forced to listen. So that gets a laugh. It makes a point. But I then show people the famous picture, customized picture of my closet. I of videotapes of speeches I've given. I've gone back and studied. It's a closet full. Because I say, look, you can want the trophy all you want, but are you willing to do the work that I did? I got the trophy. I get paid because of the work that I did. Reviewing and renewing constantly.

And the line, you've mentioned that you've seen people who are jealous of your trophy, but you don't know anybody who was jealous of your closet.

My closet have closet.

I've seen those. I remember at one point you wanted to review speeches and you compile your own world champions composite video cassette of was it now your library of past world champions to learn what they did. But that was part of you. Actually, you're right. You didn't think of it as reviewing and renewing, but you were using material from your routine. You were enhancing it, putting it into the speech contest speech to make the speech better. But you were always trying to find ways to make it better. To renew it. To renew it. To renew it. And I dare say we can get easily accustomed to doing something well, we bypass the opportunity to be exceptional. I'll say it again, we get so accustomed to doing something well, we bypass the opportunity for being exceptional. I actually challenged a client one time. I gave a keynote in Dallas, Texas for this particular organization. And on their website they say that they are the best at what they do. And I said to them, that's your problem. Opening line. CEO is right there. CFO said, that's your problem right there. Since we are the best. Because you think you are the best, you don't give yourself room to improve. I'm opening with this and you're paying me to get in your face, right? I'm opening with this. But you know, they gave me, gave me a video review when I was done. They gave me a positive video review when I was done right there on site. But my point being, it's easy when we do so well to not want to review and say how can I make it better? But if we review and find two or three different areas in our presentation, in our story, in the way we show up in the world. It's like right now I'm looking at my website, I talk to. We all know Ford Sakes is the business guru who is unashamed to kick you in the pants if he needs to in terms of helping you. And we love Ford, he's very direct. But I have all that in. I have some work to do on my own site. I'm in the middle of actually doing copy right now. Well, not now when we're talking on a podcast, but I was doing. That file is already open on my computer, on my other laptop, because I realized I have to renew the image I project to the world. I wonder how many of us who are out there giving these talks beyond the Toastmasters, if you're a minister, if you're a speaker, if you're a business leader, how many of us have a photograph on our website or in our material that's 15, 20 years old? Yikes. I'm going to leave that right there, okay? Because true, truth be told, no, listen, not Darren. I saw a post, a friend of mine on LinkedIn post that she was going to pick up a speaker for an event and could not find him anywhere. In the airport. He checked the photograph. She had got his brochure. We got his bio, and she couldn't find him. When the person approached her and says, are you Joan? She says, yes. Well, I'm Frank. She goes, oh, oh, Frank, good. Good to meet you. Please come this way. And she took a picture of him now and a picture of him on the brochure. And I'm not surprised. She could not tell who he was. That is an extreme example. I know. But here's the question. The big picture is this. How are you? Are you going to review and renew how you show up? Are you going to review and renew the image people have of you? Your photographs that they have of you on your site, are they old, dated photographs? Do you not look good? I mean, there's so much to consider here. How do you show up? So it's not just your stories or your slides. Yes, they are included. What we're asking you to do, friends, and we have several of our listeners who are pastors. You know, I know it's easy to go and put a sermon you gave two years ago, that's easy. But can you renew that sermon, breathe life into it and make it even more applicable to life in the world now? Because the world as it was, as it is now, is nowhere near what the world was five or ten years ago. Yes, your material is still valid, but how can you renew it so it speaks more deeper to the hearts of people who are living in the world today? And that isn't about religion or faith or pathway. It's about life. It's about your material, your experience, the knowledge, the wisdom, the expertise you are bringing to the world as a presenter. It won't be unforgettable. Maybe it's time to review what you have, renew it, breathe new life into it and share that with a world that so desperately needs to hear from you. Wow.

The passionate Mark Brown.

Look out. Woo.

And look. We'll leave you with this. This is a challenge. We're challenging you to go back. Your website, your presentation, your infographics, your stories, all of it. It will be a little bit of work, but you will be unforgettable. You'll be more likely to be booked. You'll be more likely to help the audience you're in front of. Because now your references have been reviewed and renewed. And we promise you six now what you do now will be commonplace. Six months from now though now it's reviewed and renewed. Mark Brown, take us almost home.

I am so thankful because I am also now challenged to review and renew because that to me is a huge step for all of us toward becoming not good, not great, but unforgettable.

And I'm gonna encourage you to share this. Here's a way you can share this with a friend who needs renewing. They know it. But it's a polite way that if you share this episode that you're telling them, you're nudging them kindly, with grace. But we're gonna be the bad guys. We're gonna be the ones who tell them. You don't have to. So share this message. Just tell them not to list to the end this part right here. But please subscribe. Share this with a friend. We don't get paid for this. We love what we get to do to serve you, to serve your audience. So you're unforgettable and you'll impact lives. See you next week.

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