Ep. 212 Are You Ready For The Opportunity?

Hey there, Mark Brown. Are you ready? Seriously, are you ready? And were you ever taught that along the way? And I'm curious, who taught you to be ready? And what is the benefit of being ready? Because it's huge. It's bigger than you think.

You know what the question is? Are you ready for the opportunity? Let's find out. That's not 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 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 for some powerful presentation. Ahas. Let's dive right in.

Mark, I gotta tell you, when they first told me, I didn't believe them. I didn't believe that I would get the opportunity. It just. I just. I didn't believe it. And here's what we're saying. The day will come. The day will come when you get an opportunity and don't let it pass you by. It's huge. I remember for me, it was back in the early days of stand up or. Mark, I don't want to give it away just yet. If you're listening to the podcast, we're not that easy. Mark, what do you think?

Well, you know what? Opportunities come our way all the time. And there have been times when someone gets an opportunity and they say, well, I'm not perfect. I don't think I should do it. And they don't. But life delivers to us various opportunities at various times. And some of us, it's kind of funny, we have the opportunity to make an impression on someone we like and somebody else gets it. We've heard the stories of, you know, middle school. You like this girl or this person?

Check. Yes.

And you're afraid. Yeah. Sometimes you send your buddy, like, hey, go tell her. Ask her if she wants to go. And then your buddy walks over and says, now she doesn't. And tomorrow your buddy and the girl down the street.

That's a great metaphor, Mark, because it is.

It happens.

If you're not taking that opportunity, owning it, if you're not owning the opportunity when it comes your way, it's there in an instant. It's in an instant.

Or.

And then it's gone. It's in an instant. So you got to identify it, you got to jump on it, and as you said, you got to own it.

Quickly identify the opportunity. That's right. You got to jump on it. I love that. Jump on it. Own it, own it.

You got to own the stage. You got to own the opportunity. A couple of O's there, and here's what we're saying. I remember early on when my comedy mentors, before I was a speaker, they said they the day is gonna come in the comedy world. There's an opening act, a middle act and a headliner, right? And the day is gonna come when the headliner doesn't show up, when their car breaks down, when there's an emergency in their family, when they just didn't write down the right date. They double booked themselves. You don't know. And as I was growing and I was a middle act, I was just at the beginning of my middle act stage thought, you know what? That opportunity's never gonna come to me. And that's okay. I'll work on my material, I'll grow my material. And then it happened the day that the headliner didn't show up, and it was just a little, let's just say, off Broadway show, you know, the back of a bowling alley in western Massachusetts, not a huge show. But when the headliner doesn't show up and you own the comedy club and you book it, you don't have time to bring in someone else. You have to go with who's there, who's on the premise, who can handle it. And you might not even be awesome, but if you're the best option, you might not be awesome, but if you're the best option for that opportunity. Here you go. And I remember panicking, but I had no choice. And I also remember the advice from Vinnie who said, never turn down stage time. And you might not be fully prepared, but we've got to be prepared because that doesn't come across our table too often.

Darren. That is true. It does not come across our table too often. And I have had two specific instances that had to be ready. And it reminds me of an old story I heard in church as a kid. Now, please, I'm not trying to preach to anybody, but a story is appropriate about a traveling preacher. In the old days, they had these, what they call circuit riding preachers. They go all through different towns over a course a couple of weeks, and they preach at all these different places. And of course, they don't belong to local church. They come to deliver the message. They can preach as hard as they want and then they leave and they go someplace else. And this young preacher came to this little Town. And he's in the Sunday morning and he's preaching up a storm when he hears, you all got to be ready, y', all, are we ready? Are you going? Are you going to heaven? You're going to go to hell. And he was. What do you call old schools? Hellfire, Brimstone. One little old lady about eight rows back, she was not moving. She was sitting there like nothing was going on. People getting excited, they're getting involved, getting, you know, and they're responding to his message. And she's just sitting there cool and calm as ever. And he's giving it everything he has at the very end of the service. And preachers often go to the front door and shake hands before they leave. And she walks up to him and he says, ma', am, I got to ask you a question. I was preaching everything I got. I looked at you. Everybody was so involved and you just didn't move something. I said, why were you not responsive? He says, young man, you're preaching about getting ready. I don't have to get ready. I keep ready. Oh, I don't have to get ready. I keep ready. Boom. And when I heard that, it had an impact on me. And like you, I never thought about it either. But as most of our listeners and viewers know, we grew up in the Toastmasters world. And Toastmasters has an annual convention, has been doing it for many, many years. And I've been to. I've only missed three of the last 30 conventions. And one particular year I was at the convention as an attendee. I had won the world title a few years earlier. And I got a telephone call in my room at the convention. Young man named David Cull was on staff at Toastmasters. He said, mark, I need a favor. So what do you mean? He says, well, listen, our speaker for tomorrow's opening session and the breakout could not make it. I know you were here and I made the assumption you were ready. Do you per chance, have anything you could do for an hour tomorrow morning for this opening breakout session? What would you do? My first thought is, yes, I am ready. I had, quote unquote, a back pocket presentation. Not so much a speech, but a workshop style speech. But it was back in the early or mid-1990s, I guess, late 1990s. We didn't have airdropping materials and files and stuff. I had old school projection screen, had to create overhead. Oh, thank you. The overhead projector. I had to, you know, find an email I had and created and send the email to them and they would find the Foils to print it on there, to put it on the overhead for me. But they did it. I did negotiate a nicer room, but that's a different point. I did. I got a nicer room, you know, bigger room. Whatever you need, we'll do it for you. It's tomorrow morning. And the following morning, I went. I think I presented to three or four hundred people that day. It went very, very well. It was very well received. And David and Toastmasters were very appreciative of me being there, being available, but also ready for the opportunity to serve when it came. And I had never thought about it before. I had heard the phrase have a back pocket speech ready. And I didn't really think much about that. And in these days, if you know your material and you have something that's ready when someone needs it, it may just be the time for you as a presenter, to deliver what you have. Now, being ready for an opportunity may not always be to present a speech. It could be to deliver a vote of thanks. It could be to give a toast at a wedding, or it could be to appear on a panel at an event. But if you are available and ready, you never know when it may come. The question is, are you ready for the opportunity?

Yeah, Mark, I didn't have 45 minutes of material back in the day. I was at about 30 and pushing it. And it wasn't all, you know, 20 minutes of good, good comedy, 10 minutes of questionable comedy or still working. Didn't have the other 15 minutes. But what I did, because I had a background in improv, is I worked the crowd. I talked to the crowd and used that time. Here's the coolest part. When you're put on the spot in the instant, the event planner is in a very vulnerable place and they don't care if you make a little mistake or two. You showed up, you delivered, you saved their butt. So you don't have to be amazing. Now, of course you want to bring your best, but you have to be ready. And I'm going to say, instead of that back pocket speech, I want to say, have that front pocket keynote ready to go and have a quick conversation with the event planner. I've got this, this, and this. Here are three options that would work. What works best, because they may have that subject that they need covered because it's not covered elsewhere in the conference. You don't want to be doing other people's material that you're not comfortable and familiar with. And guess what? The audience will understand. So if you need to Right after your opener, if you have to have a disclaimer or something saying, hey, look, here's what happened. I'm going to do my best. I'm going to deliver that. Sales by numbers is not my expertise, but I'm going to make this worth your time. I'm going to make this valuable. And that way they get it. It's taken off the out of their heads that, hey, wait, what? This was supposed to happen. So sometimes the introducer will probably say that most likely, but you've got to be ready to kind of fill in the gap. Why is this person here? They weren't on the agenda again, the MC will probably take care of that, but. But you gotta be ready that you may have to too, and explain the situation. And people are understanding. They know flights get canceled, especially these days, and that's what happened to us, Mark. And that's why we're even talking about this. I did a TikTok video about just that happening where you were slated to do a panel with a couple other world champions. And there were only two other world champions on the premise. It was Verity Price and me. And two world champions couldn't make it in. One, one of them went virtual Ramona Smith. The other one, their flight was canceled, but they were still trying to get to the event. So they were in an airport or on a plane. So thank you to building relationships. Make no mistakes. I didn't think relationship marketing mattered. I really didn't early in my career. Now I see it's critical and you don't have to know everything, but you got to be that person that in the instant boom. Here's an idea. Any convention or conference you attend, find the event planner and say, hey, by the way, if anybody doesn't show up, I'm here. Give them your contact number. If they'll take it, you might just get an opportunity because they might not know you or they might not know your expertise. And it may open the door that if you get this opportunity to fill in even for a breakout and they love you and the audience loves you, well, that might just set you up for a keynote next year. So you're serving them. And now if you fill in a void that they had, you've got their attention. So now it's a matter of get yourself booked for next year or be the keynote next year. You just understand we're telling you this opportunity will come. But you also want to make sure you're letting the event planners know whenever you're there, because that's our responsibility. They may or may not know you in this situation. I was sponsoring the Toastmasters convention, so they knew I was there. I made myself present and as soon as I saw the opportunity. But Mark, you had already kind of thrown the idea out there and Verity and I, who weren't planning on being part of that event, all of a sudden we got upgraded. But we were ready and we got the notes. And this was the night before, by the way. This was the night before. So I got the questions from Rochelle Rice, who was the moderator to think through to have the stories ready, but most importantly, to just be in the moment. And it was so much fun. I can't wait to get the video of that.

Same here. It was well done. That's so true, Darren. And I don't want to miss one important point point that you referred to earlier about the meeting planner. Please know when you make the meeting planner the hero for coming through in a pinch, yes, you will do well. But you make them look good. And when you make the meeting panel look good and you save them, they will remember you. I'm not saying your only goal is to take advantage. I'm saying serve in the best way possible and the blessings will flow as a result. I can say that from personal experience and Darren will verify this. When you make the meeting planner of the hero, you're instantly in their good graces, instantly in their good books. You're giving them a reason to think about you the next time they find themselves meeting someone, especially if you perform well. I do also want to offer one word of caution. I know Darren said have a front pocket speech ready, get the meeting planner and say, I can offer you these particular options. We realize some listeners, slash viewers, are emerging speakers. You don't yet have two or three speeches ready, but you may have one and it's really, really good. And it could be your opportunity to show that one an audience who not only needs to hear it, but could benefit by passing your name on to others who need to hear it as well. So think about the value you give to your audience, but also the value you give to your meeting planner. And don't sweat. I don't have three, Mark. Darren, I don't have three. Don't sweat it. Be so good at one. When you get the opportunity, you will rock the house.

Another quick idea as an exercise. So if you're a keynote or you probably know this because you've seen it happen before, if you're an emerging speaker or done a few keynotes, we're telling you be ready and make it your exercise that every conference or convention you go to, you search out the event planner. Know that they're busy. So know that you got like 30 seconds and they're handling 12 fires at once. But see if you can talk to them personally if it's possible. May or may not be. But if not, find their assistant and just say, hey. Just want to let you know my name is Darren. I'm an expert in presentations and storytelling and motivation. Hey, I'm here attending the conference. I'm thrilled to be here. If you have any challenges where somebody doesn't show up, let me know. I'm happy to jump in and help just by saying that. And they might go, oh, thanks. Don't take it personally, but you planted the seed. And it may or may not germinate that time. However, you just planted the seed. And there will be a time when they. And they may say, oh, thank you. Really appreciate it. You're very kind. The next day they might find out somebody didn't make it. And then like, hey, where's. You know, they may be looking for you all of a sudden. You. You, you know, just know that they're preoccupied. They've got 20 decisions going on in their head at once. They're fighting fires, they're taking care of people, they're figuring out how to fix the heat, how the ac, why the chicken was cold last night. Just don't take it personally, but still make it your. And this is the exercise mark that you do that. And then number two, you say, okay, if somebody didn't show up, which speech would I give? How would I tie my subject to this audience? And think it through and give yourself two or three bullet points. It's a great exercise, and it's going to help condition you to serving. And literally the perfect exercise to get your brain to learn to connect your content to their world.

I love that. And there's something you said just now, Darren. I like the language you used. You said, hey, if someone doesn't show up, I'll be happy to help. That language is also important because you're offering to help them in a difficult situation. You're not saying, hey, they don't show up. I'm a pro at this. You need me, I'll write the house for you. That may come across. That may be interpreted as arrogance, and you may be the best person on the planet to deliver the subject. But please understand. And I can't stress what Darren said enough. We have no idea what pressures Meeting planner staff faces every single day. The complaints that they get. And I got to confess that at Toastmasters, I can't get an inside track. I get to go to convention central and see what happens. Sometimes I'm on their WhatsApp group. It's very interesting to see what they, they've done. And for those who don't know, I serve at Toastmasters convention every year as the vog, the voice of God. So I get to see the inner workings. And I've been to enough events in my career to realize that meeting planners undergo stressors that you don't expect because you don't, you don't live there. When you can alleviate a stress and when you say offer to help in a humble but meaningful way, you have no idea the light you can put in your eyes. Really. You talk about so and so. Now, quite likely when you make the offer, they may say thank you very much, but they also may go online and look you up.

Yeah, great point.

And see what you do. They look at your video, they'll see your demo video, they'll see a speech you gave at the local ymca, a video clip, it's. It helps to put it. Put a YouTube channel together, but they'll see you in action. Oh, maybe they can help me. And you never know where it leads. All because you were ready for the opportunity and you approach them in a way with an offer to serve them, not to take over what they're doing. Language can be very, very important here. And I do hope when you, when an opportunity arises, you will take it because as we said, you never know when it may come. And it's funny. I gotta think about one more, Darren, because before we went on air, you talked about a famous, wonderful speaker, another Mark named Mark Sharonbrock. His brand is, you know, nice bike. I first met Mark Sharon brock in the 1990s when he was very, very active in the youth market. He has won several Emmy awards for his work. Hilarious. Great guy hall of Fame speaker. And I was honored to be on the same program with Mark Sharon Brown at a Canadian youth conference. Mark years ago was heavy in the youth market, as was I, and it was being held in a place called Nipowin, Saskatchewan, Canada. And Mark was in Minnesota, don't you know, he had to. And he just couldn't. I got there from New York to Vancouver. I had to go west and come back east to get to Saskatchewan and then get a drive into Nipewin. Mark tried eight ways from Sunday, like Cyril Jr. Dim tried to get a tooth Masters for the convention in Bahamas. He Just could not do it. It was not feasible for me to do it. I was in Nipowin and found out that Mark could not make it and would, you know, they asked me, the other Mark, to fill the slot of Mark Sharon Brock, who's a keynote. Of course, I said yes. I had a second program ready to deliver so they wouldn't get the same thing twice. Who wants to do that? So technically, I was a keynote and a half at the same conference, and they remembered that I said yes and I delivered and I delivered. Is the other piece of ready for the opportunity? Ready means ready with material that's good enough to place in front of the audience. While you always, Darren always says, stage time, stage time, stage time. Sometimes getting ready is going to your Toastmasters Club and delivering a part of your speech and making sure it works. Darren, you are the example to so many of us around the world of using the Toastmasters. I shouldn't say using. Availing yourself of the opportunity Toastmasters gives to take a portion of your presentation, hone it, work on it, improve it. The same things we teach at stage time to our members, member to member, bring a piece, come to our coaching calls, bring a part of your keynote. Let's work on that. Let's work on that story, on that character. And then as you begin to improve the pieces, as Craig Valentine says, you master the pieces to create a masterpiece. I paraphrase that. That's what being ready is all about. So when the opportunity comes, I have put the work in and I can deliver something of value for whoever is in that room, be it three or 300, are you ready for the opportunity? I'm so glad I took it and I became a good friend of Marc Sharonbrock as a result of that. And it's been. It's been a joy. He came on our podcast several episodes ago and we built that relationship. It began when he couldn't do a gig and I was ready to do it for him. And there's something else, Darren, you can talk about this, I guess, a little bit. Within professional speaking circles, sometimes a speaker cannot fulfill a responsibility. And we often say, I know someone who can do it for you, and they'll refer you. I think you've done that or you've been there before yourself, where someone said.

For sure both ways. If somebody calls me for leadership, that's not my lane. I'm happy to refer Ed Tate for that. That's more his lane. So we also shouldn't be taking the wrong subject. We gotta stick to our lane. And Mark going back a little bit, think of it from Mark Scherenbrock's standpoint. He's trying every way he can to get there. He's freaking out internally. And knowing somebody was there and filled the role gives him peace. Now he's gonna wanna know you. Who is this guy who filled my shoes? So it's an opportunity to network at the highest level. I mean, I would be thrilled if I couldn't make it and somebody filled the role. Mike Davis. When Craig Valentine and I were doing a two day workshop, a coaching workshop, and Craig hurt himself playing basketball and he had to get like an emergency operation and he was only able to be there for half of a day and we're like, okay, who of our coaches? Because, Mark, you weren't available. Who of our coaches could we have fill in? And we looked at everybody and we chose Mike Davis. Well, Mike Davis was thrilled because he got the call, send me in, coach. I said, put me in coach number two. I was thrilled that we gave value to the audience. Craig was thrilled because he was covered. So you're going to build your relationship with the planner. You're going to build the relationship with the person whose shoes you filled. And even for those of you who are Toastmasters, I remember because of Vinnie saying, never turn down stage time at a Toastmaster Club. Well, we have three speakers today. Bob couldn't show up. I'm in. I'll talk. What are you going to talk about? I don't know. The rug. Give me a subject. Now, if you have a keynote, work on one of the parts of your keynote.

For sure.

But I didn't care what the subject was. I had an opportunity to speak. That's why I go there. Think about this. If you are a Toastmaster and you do a table topic, you've seen people come up and do a table topic when it's a subject they're passionate about and they could go on and on. It's a two minute speech and they do four. Well, I'm just saying add two more minutes and give yourself a couple billet points and you could do a five to seven minute speech. So whether it's a keynote, convention or conference or something as simple as your Toastmaster group, if somebody doesn't show up, fill the slot, fill the void. And that's what remind me, are you ready for the opportunity? So whether it's a Toastmaster Club or a big convention or anywhere in between, take the opportunity. Let people know. If you hear whispers of somebody not being able to be around Find out who's in charge and just let them know, hey, I'm ready and I'm willing. And Mark, you do this better than anybody. Come with the servant's heart.

I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah.

And that is going to build relationships that's going to get you on people's radar screen. Now we have to deliver from a place of humility, from a place of expertise. So getting the opportunity and delivering, that's another show. But we're just saying you got to jump on it, you got to be ready. And there's so many factors involved of people, people that if they knew a week ahead of time during COVID a lot of presenters couldn't come because now they had Covid, they can't show up with COVID Right. But now the event planner has a week to find somebody that's different. And hey, maybe you'll get that opportunity. We're talking about being on site just like we did at the Toastmasters convention. And I was all excited, I was giddy, I was like, ooh, I came.

With so much fun. That was so much fun. I cannot wait to see that video of us on stage. It was. My wife Andrea said it was great. So many compliments I received about having world champions there and Ramona online making us laugh. It was a lot of fun. And our moderator did a very good job of engaging us and allowing us to show our expertise live on stage. It was just a lot of fun. And it made me realize when we talk about being ready, it isn't always for a full blown presentation. You could be asked on short notice to say something at your child's school. It could be a program there. But just be aware. It could be a house of worship. It could be somewhere in the community where you're simply asked to say a few words and you think, well, I'm not really. If you're a toastmaster, you can say a few words. You've done table topics. But as a pro speaker, you could take your presentation. You can't give a 45 minute keynote. They need five or six minutes. Take one of your points and a story around one of those points and just take that chunk, that section with an opening and close on that thing and deliver it and deliver it so well, they're going to want to hear more from you. And you never know. When someone hears you do a good job. You never know. The phone may ring, an email may come. Hey, my friend, my buddy, my partner heard you at so and so. We'd love to hear more from you. How can we engage you? Do you talk about xyz? And it begins a conversation that could lead who knows where. A conversation that will never happen if you're not ready for the opportunity.

Final quick thought. Even when this past weekend, Kelly Swanson, world class storyteller, was speaking at our NSA Las Vegas chapter and she was doing live coaching. Now, they had filled the roles before the volunteers who would go up. But I still took the time to say, okay, if they didn't, what story would I tell? But I honestly wanted coaching. I didn't want to go up there to impress people. It's a coaching workshop. You're not trying to stump Kelly and put her on the spot. But some people would do that. Or I'll show them a story that I've heard. You know, she, she would still probably find an issue with it. But I was thinking, okay, if I had the opportunity, what story would I tell? And there's a new story I'm going to be working on about my dad and my sister that I've never told live before. So I was ready with that just in case. And that's what we mean by are you ready? Whether it's Toastmasters, a convention, a conference, an opportunity to be coached and work in front of the audience. Mark, we gotta keep ready. As that little old lady said, I'm ready.

Don't get ready, keep ready.

All right. Hey, thanks for being a part of this podcast. Please let other people know. And look, if you're looking for a Coach, go to getaspeakingcoach.com check out stagetimeuniversity.com we got an event coming up, Mark and me. Unforgettable Presentations. We're going to walk you through our seven step process process. So love to have you use the discount code POD25. If you would like us to walk you through the process of creating an unforgettable keynote. However, if you get it and it's good, you'll be ready for the opportunity.

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