Ep. 178 Is Your Presentation Good Enough?

Here we go, Mark. We are Now Live version 1.2.

1.1, 1, 0.1, something like that. Yeah.

This is our second live stream, and if you're listening to this podcast, you may be seeing the live stream. You may be seeing. Anyway, we don't sometimes, Mark, we. Last week we talked about version 1.0, and this is version 1.1. You could call it 2.0, I guess, but sometimes 2.0 isn't as good as 1.0.

That's true.

But congratulations, you're human and it's normal. But today we're gonna be covering. Is my presentation good enough? Good question. Is it good enough?

I don't know.

But.

Anyone can give a presentation few deliver. Unforgettable present. 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.

Foreign. Hey there, Mark Brown. Thanks for joining me. How are you today?

So far, so blessed, my friend. Eager to get this podcast going live. Interesting. We've got a few viewers already so far on LinkedIn. We'll see what happens.

All right, well, hey, if you're watching this, please drop a comment and we'll keep an eye on those as we go. If you're watching the podcast, recorded version, we can't answer your questions. We got nothing. But you can join us on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on YouTube, live, Mark's profile, my profile for future reference. But is your presentation good enough, Mark? What bubbles up for you when. When we ask that question?

Well, you know, one of the first thoughts that comes to mind is the fact that we prepare a presentation and we tell stories we like, we believe we've got good content, and we have a level of confidence in what we have. And sometimes what we see is as good maybe to someone who's qualified to understand the difference. Which is one of the. Why one of my recommendations upfront is if you think it's good enough, test it. Not just with the cat, the parakeet, and your neighbor next door, but test it with a knowledgeable audience, particularly those who are familiar with your subject matter. So one of my first thoughts is, as good as I think it may be, I do need to test, and you told me even the best speakers and comedians will test their material. First.

Hey, Mark, by the way, Alexand is here.

Yes.

Said he's glad to be live. Welcome, Alexander.

Just saw you two minutes ago, my friend.

Excellent. And JB is here. Hey, jb, thanks for joining us. Please, you got some questions, pop it in the chat or some comments. We will share the appropriate ones. But thanks for being here live. Mark, you know, when I came up with this idea, I know that I've been guilty of this in the past, and we've talked about it before. When I came to you with version 1.0 of my contest speech, I thought, you know, this is great. This is my best work ever. Well, it might have been my best work ever, but the problem, I believe, is ego. Ego gets in the way because it's, wow, my presentation is good enough. I don't have to work on it. Well, it depends, number one, how you define good enough. And I have two concepts that I want to talk about. Mark, we'll go wherever you want to go as well. But one, it's never good enough. You're never done. The problem is, we think it's done. And I see a lot of presenters who are good, who have energy, who have enthusiasm. Why do I know this? Because I was that guy in 2001. I was animated, I was passionate, but I wasn't saying anything that the audience could absorb, process, and help transform them, help inspire them. So what I was saying, in my mind, sometimes confidence is our enemy because it gets in the way, that, hey, you should have confidence. And as Ed Tate, our buddy world champion, says, at some point, you've got to freeze the design, right? You've got to freeze the design that. Okay, guess what? It's showtime. You're starting in five minutes. Okay, now you got to get your game show on. You've added some things, you've tweaked some things. That's good. It's going to be better than it was last time. But if we have that mindset, well, you know, I got a speech. I have a speech for NSA Las Vegas tomorrow, and it's 17 minutes to your dream. And I've done it before, it's a shorter version. I only have 40 minutes. So today and tomorrow, I got to sit down at my slides and say, you know, it's good. It's really good because I've been honing it for a year and a half. However, it's not good enough. We got to get to the point where it's showtime and this is the version I need to go with. But we should never say, well, I've done this before. It's good enough. And Mark, all honesty. I've seen a lot of celebrity speakers do this, where there's celebrities and they're there because of their name and they help get butts and seats. But it drives me crazy because they have this opportunity to influence, because of their notoriety, because of their influence, however, their presentation. Yeah, it could be good enough. But what if you had the mindset that it wasn't good enough, that there's still something I could do? Every time I run through my slides, Mark, I always make a tweak or two. I always make a tweak or two. And then of course, there's that idea in the moment that I'm like, ooh, that was good. I need to add that next time. So in my opinion, it's not good enough is a bad mindset. Is it good as it can be? As it could be? I know Alexand, we worked with him on his contest speech, by the way, number two in the world last year. Loved it and had one of the most amazing creative, interactive ideas that would have been a game changer. It just wasn't legal. That's a whole other story.

Not.

Not legal in the contest, but not. Anyway, I don't want to get us off track. And Mike Forester has popped in. He said, good afternoon. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. Well, Mike, thanks for being here. I appreciate that. And Alexand says sometimes good enough for you may not be good enough for your audience.

Ooh, good point. I do want to address Alexandre's comment, but I want to go back to one point you made earlier. Ego can get in the way. And sometimes, and this may happen with groups like Toastmasters and even with the Global Speakers Federation or National speaker association or caps, whatever, whatever national group you belong to, it can happen where your peers respect and value what you do so much that they help to. We are here to pump you up. And they do just that. They blow your head up so you realize how good you are. Darren, at one point I've heard you declare, you're like, I'm the king of my club. They can't teach me anything. Because you. They tell you how good you are. And there is value in being. Being elevated. There's value in being encouraged, but is a fine line to being encouraged and simply being. Having your ego blown up. And sometimes that leads to other consequences. There are people who go to the Toastmasters Conference, for example, or they compete and they do not win a trophy. And they're not only disappointed, they're upset. They're angry. How dare these judges not give me the first place trophy? Or how dare these individuals not realize the value I bring. I'm good. How do you know? Well, all my friends tell me so now I may be stepping on someone's toes. And those who are attending live, please feel free to comment on this or even later. But think about that. Sometimes what we think is good is a result of us being elevated by those who love us. But sometimes the advice we must hear is not only from those who love us, but those who care about us enough to let others us know. You may not be as good as you think you are at this time, but you can be better and you're good enough. Goes back to what Alexandra says. What is good enough for you may not be good enough for your audience. So please consider this. Sometimes the ego is not your own doing. It's those who love you, but they do you a disservice by elevating you too high and too quickly. I'll leave that right there.

Well, I don't even think it's too high or too quickly because it's how we process what they say. So it should add to our confidence, but it should not lead to overconfidence that how good could it be? So if we can go from it's good enough to how good could it be? If I had one of my qualified coaches look at it, if I gave it to one more club, like a Toastmaster Club, if I gave it to my NSA conference, those of you who are in nsa, the National Speakers association, if we can go from good enough to how good could it be, Mark? If we can go from how good could it be? And if you remember, Mark, we talk about this, which I think I picked up from you right now in front of me next to my camera, I said, like, it's the last time, which I learned from you that if you could deliver it like it's the last time, every time you and I or everyone, every time you and I are in front of an audience, whether it's zoom teams live, every time we're in front of an audience, someone in your audience is hurting. Someone needs your message. And Mark, as you say, you have a story to tell and someone needs to hear it. Well, if you deliver it like it's good enough versus you deliver it like this, I want you to get it. And we feel that intention. That's not good enough. Good enough is saying the words, but the intention needs to come through, and that can be a game changer. Just in the delivery, even if your words aren't perfect, even if it is only version 2.0. But each time, as you know, I say, mark, there's no such thing as a practice audience. They're real, live people. Even like, Mark, you talked about delivering your speech to your daughter and your wife and they gave you a good idea that. That ended up getting you. Okay? So they're funnier than you. They got you.

They know that. Yeah. I'm only funny looking. That's it.

So got you a 13 second laugh.

Yeah.

So I think if we, like you said to me, put your nephew in my situation in the fourth row and deliver it like it's your last time. And I ask you, as you're listening to us or watching us, if you knew it was the last conversation with one of your kids, would it be different? If you knew it was the last conversation with one of your parents, would it be different? I think if you think about that, it would be. There'd be a little more intensity to it. And that's what we're saying too, that someone in the audience needs to hear. They need to hear your best. So good enough. Look, this is again, the unforgettable presentations podcast. This is not the better than average presentation podcast. So because of that, we're asking you to commit. We're asking you a couple episodes before. We talked about the critical decision. We're asking you decide. Decide to be all in. Because. Good enough.

Yeah.

You might be good enough.

Yeah.

But are you gonna sell more books? Are you gonna get more bookings? Is someone gonna walk away because they felt your intention? So, Mark, I'm sure you have a comment on that. And then we have one from jb. Go ahead.

Well, I actually. You said more books, more bookings, more consultancies. I view those from a business standpoint. We view it as booking more business. Or if we also view it as opportunities to change more lives. It may sound kind of cheesy, but when you present to an audience, if all you do is give us facts and stats to send me a PowerPoint deck, and I can read that, right? If all I can do is read deck and get data, what do I need you for? You come with your experience, your personality. You come with your knowledge and your wisdom. You come with your mistakes. You bring everything you have to a presentation. And if you give that, if you give that with the best of your ability, then it's not a booking and getting a more cash in your bank account or a bank transfer. It's look at the people I can help transform, build their business, and build a reputation of somebody who literally gives value to every audience. That's a win all around. I do want to address JB's comment about good enough, meaning minimum standards versus exceeding standards versus entry point for getting it written versus question mark. And I have to tread carefully here because good enough doesn't always mean I'm doing it to a minimum standard. I was at great risk for having a good enough mentality because I was delivering a presentation to youth audiences that I was giving at my highest level of activity over 150 times a year for over a decade. I did some really rough mathematics. And I estimate I have spoken to over a million young people alone, ages 12 to 18 across North America and the Middle east with a particular presentation. I was giving it three times a day, four days a week for six, eight, ten weeks in a row. And somebody once asked me one time, how do you not get tired of it? So I wasn't giving minimum standards, but it was good enough. Why? It was working every day. I was getting, you know, between 500 and 1,000 kids in a room at one time. It was delivering. Kids were being moved, schools were being transformed, school cultures were changing. It was definitely good. But I ran the risk of doing it over and over and over again to the point where I just go do it. The words flow out of me very easily. How I had. What helped me to avoid the good enough mindset was this thought. And please consider this. Every time I gave the presentation the same one, three days, three days, three times in the same day, four days in a row on the road, every time I gave a presentation, I realized I would never get that audience in that room under that circumstance, on that day with this particular message ever again. Every audience was new, every audience needed it. And I tried to make the next one better. Matter of fact, one month ago in December, recording in January of 2023, right now in December 22nd, I went to a school in California and I was going to do two of the assemblies back to back for two separate groups. Prepared, planned, prayed, ready to go, rehearsed, good to go. And the first program went really well. But within my own heart and spirit, I think I missed something. I haven't done this for a while. It was good. It was even good enough, but it wasn't my best. And I can guarantee you, or I can darren tee you, the second program, same program, second half of the school. I can guarantee you the second was better because I assessed my first presentation on that day, as good as it was. And for me, there is no minimum standard. It was a matter of me really wanting to make it even better for that second audience. As far as exceeding standards is concerned, jb, I'm not sure what you mean by that, but my goal is, how can I make it better the next time I do it? That's the idea. How can I make it better? How can I? How can I do it? Darren, you always ask, how can I say it better in fewer words? How can I improve on what I already have? And what can I learn? Even from a program I gave a half an hour ago? What can I learn? And tweak for the next group coming in the door in 45 minutes? I believe if I maintain that mindset, I'm continually striving to be better. Because for me, perfection is a dream, but improvement is a reality. Ooh, I like that.

So eloquent. Mark Brown, I like that. It's your turn this week.

I just made that up, my friend.

Beautiful. It is beautiful. And just one more thing on this comment. So, JB, thank you for following us and watching this on LinkedIn. We appreciate this.

We appreciate that. Thank you.

This is kind of new to us, so we love the interaction. So a couple things. One is, we're saying, let's just say you got a last minute presentation tomorrow, you're filling in for somebody. Well, you only have 24 hours or so to work on it. But if you choose to say, well, I've done this presentation before and it's good enough, that's what we're trying to caution, that good enough mindset. And then you're like, I've done it before, I can do it again. But if you're not taking the time to. And you go watch Netflix, you know, for a couple hours now, it's one thing if, oh, somebody puts you on the spot and you're at a convention or a conference and they know you're a speaker and someone didn't show up, well, you don't have time to prepare. It's okay, let's go. But if you get 24 hours, you obviously have life to live. You have family, you have responsibilities. But if you have that time, what we're saying is, what could you do to make it a little better and deliver it with that mindset like it's your last time? That's what we're saying. So if you have time to prepare, go through your slides again. Walk through it. You know, I'm so amazed. Ed Tate is probably one of the best I know at this, he'll literally go through the whole presentation the night before at the hotel if he's doing a keynote somewhere and he does even more than I do. But what we're trying to do is just caution you that just because you've given the presentation before and if you do this for a living, we highly recommend like we had Michelle Villanobis on one of our podcasts. She's a freaking million dollar speaker and she came to us, she was open to the idea of coaching and we changed her stories. Literally. They were great, they were good enough. However, she had the mindset, hey, you know what, let me take a look at those signature stories. So if you have a signature story and you're a professional speaker and you've been delivering it for years, I encourage you, I nudge you, I challenge you to have a qualified coach, whoever that is, even one of your speaker buddies listen to it and give it feedback on how to make it better. Because we've never had anyone Mark, we have a coaching camp, get coach to speak coming up in a couple of weeks. We've never had anyone come to us and say, boom, you're done, it's good enough. We've never had anyone say it's good enough. And we've had like Michelle, we've had people from around the world that we've coached on our podcast or in our boot camps and never have we had one that was good enough. Now could it work if they delivered that as is? Absolutely. But let's get let go of that mindset. And Alexand, if you haven't seen his speech, it's on YouTube. Number two, last year, freaking brilliant. A L E X A N D R E Last name Matt. M A T T E. Look him up for the world championship speech. Amazing. Loved it. And I'm willing to say that even his practice, practice speeches, he inspired people to look back at tradition, traditions from their family. He got you to think so even in those quote unquote practice speeches. But what I loved is he was a sponge, as we say, making it better and better and better.

And for that point, Darren, I'll be honest here. If you want to transcend good enough, gotta be coachable, you know, and we have, we hopefully we have proven that even as experienced as we are, we also get coached. I found the value of myself being coached myself by someone who is qualified to coach me. And even the coaches use coaches. Matter of fact, if you're new to our podcast, go back a couple of weeks, you will See where I submitted myself to coaching on a brand new story I gave, I told for the first time, pretty much live on a coaching call. But the point is if we are coachable, we can transcend good enough because we. Darren said, you don't know what you don't know. And when you're a coach, you realize I never thought of that. That really does make it better. It really does make. And Darren and I are thrilled when we go to, we go to a corporate event, we're coaching people and they come on and they submit themselves to life coaching. At our coaching events, we've had people come on the stage spontaneously and get quotes. We did a program for the National Speakers association convention, a 90 minute deep dive on stagecraft and coaching. And we were just blessed to see so many people volunteer on the spot in front of their peers. We have people who are CSPs and so on volunteer to come and get coached because they were, they were open to the idea. As good as this opening is, as the story is, I can make it better. I think of Manley Feinberg as well, who came to our boat camp and he's just knocking out of the park wherever he goes. But we have to all be willing to accept coaching and be coachable. It can transform the results that we get.

Yeah. And as Alexand says, every audience is new and needs you. They don't only need your very best. And if we're given that privilege, that opportunity, they deserve it. And every audience is new, every audience has different issues, has different challenges and we need to connect to that. We need to find out more about that. Even if it's a Toastmaster audience or an NSA audience. Well, they're NSA in a certain city. What's top of mind in the news in that city that weekend? If there's a Toastmaster club, what's going on in that country or in that city. And if they're diverse. Okay, well let's find out about some of the people. So when we do high paid keynote speeches, you know, Mark, I love to do the research. Why? Because I have a presentation that is good enough. But it's my responsibility to connect my content to their world. So I may have different examples in my story file that it would be better for this audience, you know that that childhood story about my grandfather taking me to get my first checking account. Well, if I'm speaking to a banking organization or association, they see that all the time. They see, you know, young kids come in or something. But it then would be more relatable to back up one of my key points. But now it makes a better bridge.

Yeah, if.

If you have the mindset, which, look, I've been guilty of it myself before, but that's why we're doing this, because Mark and I have made the mistakes, and we don't want you to make the mistakes that if you think it's good enough, it is good enough. But good enough isn't going to bring you more business, isn't going to bring you more bookings, isn't going to bring you more followers. It just isn't. So we've got to have that constant sponge attitude. Be a sponge, Mark.

And that comes down to planning, proper planning and preparation. The preparation piece. Well, look, I have rehearsed it several times. I know it cold. I can do that. But don't miss what Darren said. Preparation may mean customizing for the audience you're going to face on that particular day. And we often talk to our clients about building a story folder because, as Darren just said, sometimes particular stories are more appropriate for particular audiences. I may have a program for high school students that works really, really well for student leaders, but if I get called upon to speak at a sports banquet, I am more likely to bring out my sports stories. And Darren knows a few of my sports stories from when I was in high school. So even though I'm generations older, I can share common experiences through my sports stories that directly relate to their experience as student athletes as well. So you choose the appropriate material as part of the preparation. I can. Look, I have told this story in the past on previous podcasts of being asked to speak in a Middle Eastern country. Back in the early 2000s, I was one of two keynote speakers. An opening and closing keynote were both from North America. And I remember when the event was over, having dinner with one of the conference organizers, and he was being very candid with me. He says, listen, you both. Private conversation, you know, you both did a good job. But I'm going to be honest, Mark, I liked yours better, and I'll tell you why. He said, it was clear to me. The other speaker who came had his material down pat. He knew what his topic was, and he delivered the material. But it came across as good as it was as a canned speech. What you did was you took our theme, you gave a speech in line with our theme, and it was obvious to us you prepared and customized your presentation to make sure it was meaningful to us. So while the other speaker was certainly good, he was very good. We were good, certainly good enough. But the conference organizer was able to acknowledge the difference between, between proper planning and preparation and customization to meet that audience's specific needs. So the truth is, my presentation may be good enough on its face, but to go the extra mile. And Darren, you go, you interview people, you talk with them, you have conversations. What that does is it elevates your presentation and content from being good and good enough to being unforgettable. And here's a cool part. Darren, I have never told you this, but as recently as I'm going to say two months ago, someone reminded me that they were in the audience that day when I gave that presentation and they told me snippets of what I said to them in 2001. Like what? Because that was realizing as good I am. I don't say this to blow my own horn. Please do not misunderstand, friends. Please do not. I'm telling you that I'm getting reminded of the result of the work I put in to go from good enough to truly trying to be unforgettable for their benefit. And if they remember what you say and the point you make, that's the goal. It's because you have served them your audience well. Food for thought.

Nice. So what we're trying to do is remind you. And we all need reminders. Sometimes as professional speakers, we remind people of our subject or highlights from our subject that they know. But we're professional reminders. Well, we're reminders, reminding the reminders that we can't have that good enough mindset. We've got to think, how good could it be if I did this, if I got a coach, if I customized it? If, if, if, if, if, if, if. So if we have that mindset, it will be better. Just because you're asking better questions, is it good enough?

Yeah. Meh.

And it could be great. And by the way, there's different levels of good enough. There are world class speakers that are good enough. But we're trying to even challenge the good, the world class speakers. How good could it be if you got a coach? If you got a new coach? You know, when I work with Mark, but when I'm working on new content, I'll run it by Mark, I'll run it by Maureen Zappala, I'll run it by Mike Davis. Why? Because they each see things a little differently, but all of them make it better than had. I just had the good enough attitude. Mark Brown.

You know, Darren, real quickly you talked about going to different coaches and I mentioned customizing earlier. Earlier in our discussion, Alexandra Posted sometimes good enough for you may not be good enough for your audience. And we kind of touched on briefly. But as I began to look at it again and read it again, I thought to myself, it may not be good enough for your audience. So how will we know if it's good enough for our audience unless we find a way to know our audience? And what may be good enough for your audience? Could it be better for our audience if we put a time in to find out where they are, where they are as an organization? What's their circumstances? What are they dealing with? What are their emotions right now? Is there a loss? Is there a gain? Is there a company sale? What's going on with the organization? Because very often we tend. I'm being really honest here, we tend to be thankful for the opportunity to give this speech on this topic. But if we shift our thinking slightly, and I hope this is gold for someone to go beyond I'm delivering a talk on this particular subject to I'm delivering a talk on this particular subject to this specific audience. Having identified their need, then the value that we have with our subject material and our subject matter and material becomes magnified and more meaningful because we deliver it with an understanding of how it impacts that particular audience. I'll try and simplify that. Let's go beyond delivering a topic to delivering value to the audience. Make it about them and the value they will derive not only upon the content that you deliver, which I think was the error that this particular speaker made. When we traveled abroad so many years ago, they were so focused on delivering their material on this topic, and I was more focused on their conference team, what they're looking for, and delivering my material in a way that would serve them. Again, it's not blowing my own horn. It's teaching a lesson that I learned. When you serve them in the way that it can meet their need, that's more meaningful than showing your knowledge and expertise in a particular subject area. And that'll leave that right there.

Mark, you said magnifying. What was your. What was your keeper phrase there? Magnifying your.

I said. No, I. Oh, just now?

Yeah.

I didn't write it down. I was just talking, man. Magnify your value. Magnify the value of the audience or magnify the meaning. Magnify. Magnify the meaning, I guess, to the audience. Talk about. We can write that down too. Magnify the meaning to your audience.

It might be good enough. But what if you magnify it? And that's what we're Saying it's a mindset thing. We're just reminding you of that. What if you, what if you had that eager new wannabe speaker mindset that, oh, if I could just have this opportunity. And then when you get the opportunity, ooh, it's how good we are on stage that determines if our message perpetuates. Perpetuate. Four syllables, Mark.

Yeah, I'm gonna write it down. Darwin used four syllables on Friday the 13th.

Friday the 13th when we did the live version of this. Mark Brown, how good could you be if you did this, if you did that, how good could you be? As opposed to the mindset of it's good enough. Mark Brown, final thoughts.

My final thoughts is this. We always talk about being going from good to great to unforgettable. So if we think I'm good, maybe good enough, what can I do to be great? And what will it take for me to be unforgettable? We've offered some ideas today, so here's my challenge. Put some of these into practice, find opportunities to take these tips and test them out and see the results you get. And I'm pretty confident you can be unforgettable.

We'll see you next week.

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